From J. D. Hooker [15 June 1865]1
Kew
Thursday
Dr Darwin
I am wonderfully taken with Tylor’s book & anxious to know your opinion of it—which seems to me quite exceptionally good.2
I have an admirable note from Huxley about this Lyellian affair, of the demerits of which he seems have a perfect appreciation. I enclose it.3
I have just begun your climbers.4
My wife does not recover fast,5 & still complains of a good deal of pain. We hope to get away to Teesdale on the 26th. the Benthams going with us.6—sleeping at York the first night.
Ever Yrs affec | J D Hooker
[Enclosure]
Jermyn St.
June 12th. 1865
My dear Hooker
I did not reply to your note last week7 as I was in hopes after all that you might have come upon our ploy, which was very successful always excepting your own and Mrs Hooker’s absence which was a great regret to all of us. I trust our not having you with us is no evidence that Mrs Hooker is any worse.
As you say, this Lyello-Lubbockian business is not a pleasing shindy. I have known all about it from the first from Lubbock & have given such advice as I thought would tend most towards a peaceful solution of the difficulty—8 Latterly Lyell has been to me & I have found it very difficult to deal honestly with both sides without betraying the confidence of either or making matters worse
The candle is a very small one & by no means worth the game— and I should have absolutely dissuaded Lubbock from taking any notice of the small plunder that had taken place, if it had not been for that unlucky note in which Lyell (innocently I do believe but very stupidly) expressly affirmed he had got nothing from Lubbock:9 & thereby (as it was obvious somebody had copied from somebody)—threw the onus upon Lubbocks shoulders— This rankled in Lubbocks mind & like all quiet and mild men who do get a grievance he became about twice as ‘wud’10 as Berserks like you & me. It was as much as I could do to get him to write to Lyell for an explanation before coming out with a preface to which what you have seen is milk & water.11 I hoped that Lyell would see he was in a mess & would set the whole affair straight with half a dozen words of frank explanation as he might have done— Instead of that came a long windy affair looking at the whole business from an exclusively Lyellian point of view and really dictating to Lubbock what he should do to get Lyell out of the scrape— Of course the Lubbockian furnace got seven times hotter and it is a mercy nothing worse came of it than what you saw in Lubbocks preface12
I am very glad you backed up my advice to Lyell.13 I must say he has behaved fairly enough since I put my finger into the pie and has done all I asked him to do— Lubbock I hope, will also comply with my (or rather I should say our Tyndall & Busk14 being his advisers with me) advice to cancel his own note & then all trace of a shindy which one will be glad to forget will have been wiped out.15
I don’t mind fighting to the death in a good big row but when A and B are supplying themselves from C’s orchard I don’t think it is very much worthwhile to dispute whether B filled his pockets directly from the trees or indirectly helped himself to the contents of A’s basket— If B has so helped himself he certainly ought to say so like a man: but if I were A, I would not much care whether he did or not
Lyell has been horribly disgusted about it— but I am not sure the discipline may not have opened his eyes to new & useful aspects of nature
Give our kindest regards ⟨to⟩ Mrs Hooker and say how gri⟨eved⟩ we are to hear of her illness
Ever yours faithfully, | T H Huxley
CD annotations16
Footnotes
Bibliography
‘Climbing plants’: On the movements and habits of climbing plants. By Charles Darwin. [Read 2 February 1865.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 9 (1867): 1–118.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Prichard, Iltudus Thomas. 1864. How to manage it: a novel. 3 vols. London: R. Bentley.
Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1865. Researches into the early history of mankind and the development of civilization. London: John Murray.
Summary
Impressed by Tylor’s book [see 4836].
Encloses admirable note from Huxley on Lyell–Lubbock affair.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4855
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 102: 28; Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine Archives (Huxley 2: 131)
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp † encl 6pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4855,” accessed on 18 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4855.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13