To J. D. Hooker [29 July 1865]1
Down
Saturday.
My dear Hooker
You were a good man to write me so pleasant a letter from Yorkshire.2 I live such a life, I have never heard of Palestine Explo: Fund;3 as you are interested in it, I am sure it must be good, & not merely to map the Temple,4 so I will with pleasure subscribe 3 or 5 guineas (whichever you like) for the 3 years—5 But you must tell me to whom to send money.—
Lyells corrected pages came when I was extra miserable;6 I read them & threw them away & now to my surprise find that I have no clear recollection about them,—only a feeling that I was disgusted with everything in world—7
I was glad to read your article on Glaciers &c in Yorkshire—8 you seem to have been struck with what most deeply impressed me at Glen Roy (wrong as I was on whole subject)9 viz. the marvellous manner in which every detail of surface of land had been preserved for enormous period—10 This makes me a little sceptical whether Ramsay, Jukes &c are not a little overdoing sub-äerial denudation.11 In same Reader there was a striking article on English & foreign men of science; & I think unjust to England, except in pure Physiology; in Biology Owen & R. Brown ought to save us, & in Geology we are most rich.—12
It is curious how we are reading same books— we intend to read Leckie13 & certainly to reread Buckle, which latter I admired greatly before.—14 I am heartily glad you like Lubbock’s book so much.—15 It made me grieve his taking to Politicks, & though I grieve that he has lost his Election,16 yet I suppose now that he is once bitten he will never give up Politicks, & Science is done for. Many men can make fair M.P.s, & how few can work in Science like him.—
I have been reading a pamphlet by Verlot on variation of flowers,17 which seems to me very good, but I doubt whether it would be worth your reading. It was published originally in Journal d’Hort.18 & so perhaps you have seen it. It is very good plan this republishing separately for sake of foreigners buying, & I wish I had tried to get permission of Linn. Soc for my Climbing paper, but it is now too late.—19
Do not forget that you have my paper on Hybridism by Max Wichura.20
I hope you are returned to your work refreshed like a giant by your huge breakfasts— How unlucky you are about contagious complaints with your children.—21
I keep very weak & had much sickness yesterday, but am stronger this morning—
Yours ever affect | C. Darwin
Can you remember how we ever first met; it was in Park St. but what brought us together??22 I have been rereading a few old letters of yours, & my heart is very warm towards you.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bowlby, John. 1990. Charles Darwin: a biography. London: Hutchinson.
Browne, Janet. 1995. Charles Darwin. Voyaging. Volume I of a biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Buckle, Henry Thomas. 1857–61. History of civilization in England. 2 vols. London: John W. Parker & Son.
Challinor, John. 1978. A dictionary of geology. 5th edition. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
‘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–.
EB: The Encyclopædia Britannica. A dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and general information. 11th edition. 29 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1910–11.
Freeman, Richard Broke. 1977. The works of Charles Darwin: an annotated bibliographical handlist. 2d edition. Folkestone, Kent: William Dawson & Sons. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, Shoe String Press.
Geikie, Archibald. 1863. On the phenomena of the glacial drift of Scotland. Glasgow: John Gray.
Gray, Jane Loring, ed. 1893. Letters of Asa Gray. 2 vols. London: Macmillan and Co.
Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1865. Moraines of the Tees Valley. Reader 6: 71.
Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. 1865. History of the rise and influence of the spirit of rationalism in Europe. 2 vols. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green.
LL: The life and letters of Charles Darwin, including an autobiographical chapter. Edited by Francis Darwin. 3 vols. London: John Murray. 1887–8.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
‘Parallel roads of Glen Roy’: Observations on the parallel roads of Glen Roy, and of other parts of Lochaber in Scotland, with an attempt to prove that they are of marine origin. By Charles Darwin. [Read 7 February 1839.] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 129: 39–81. [Shorter publications, pp. 50–88.]
Porter, Duncan M. 1993. On the road to the Origin with Darwin, Hooker, and Gray. Journal of the History of Biology 26: 1–38.
Ramsay, Andrew Crombie. 1865. Sir Charles Lyell and the glacial theory of lake-basins. London: n.p. [Extracted from Philosophical Magazine 29 (1865): 285–98.]
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Verlot, Bernard. 1864. Mémoire sur la production et la fixation des variétés dans les plantes d’ornement. Journal de la Société Impériale et Centrale d’Horticulture 10: 243–56, 305–20, 375–84, 420–32, 468–80, 518–28, 571–6, 624–40.
Verlot, Bernard. 1865. Sur la production et la fixation des variétés dans les plantes d’ornement. Paris: J. B. Baillière.
Wichura, Max Ernst. 1865. Die Bastardbefruchtung im Pflanzenreich erläutert an den Bastarden der Weiden. Breslau: E. Morgenstern.
Summary
Was glad to read JDH’s article on glaciers of Yorkshire ["Moraines of the Tees Valley", Reader 6 (1865): 70].
Reader article [6 (1865): 61–2] about English and foreign men of science is unjust.
Lubbock is now lost to science.
B. Verlot’s pamphlet on variations of flowers [Sur la production et la fixation des variétés dans les plantes d’ornement (1865)] is very good.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4874
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 115: 273
- Physical description
- ALS 8pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4874,” accessed on 18 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4874.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 13