[[1]]
Fe[bruar]y 3d.1849
Dorjiling *1 [Darjeeling]
Dear Darwin
I left no room in my last for a gossip with you & indeed on reading it over, it appears
an infliction even too severe for an intimate friend.
On my return I received your's of Oct. 6th for which very many thanks. how sorry I
am to hear of your illness; as for me I am in robust health & boisterous spirits -never was so well in my life--& could spare you a little too:--would willingly were
there a means -- You are kind & considerate about my correspondence, & I will only
ask one thing, that you do not destroy those containing facts speculations! or make a note of
those you think may be of future use -- for I am give in some letters (as in the long one
accompanying[sic] this) observations on points the tenor of which I may forget;
though I log all facts I seldom venture to speculate, except in letters to friends & my
spec[ulation]s. are very transient, after we have talked over each at Down they may
all go into the fire -- & before it, if you think proper. I quite forgot to congratulate Lyell
on his K[nighthood]. pray do so warmly & sincerely & Mrs Lyell too who sans doute *3
cares much most about it.
The pamphlets from Hodgson went by the
[[2]] October mail I hope & a yarn about species from me. You will write H[odgson]. a
tiny acknowledgement I am sure. What on earth have Barnacles to do with
ornamental poultry!? except possibly "mediante" the old fable of the geese.
I am vastly amused with your not recognizing the author of the cattle hunt in Ross
Voy[age] I was petted with Ross about the way he was humbugging the [part of mss.
missing, 2 words illeg.] contribution & would not give my name *2 which I should not
tell you of now, were I not lately smashed in the Ath[enaeum]., as I am given to
understand: very deservedly I dare say; for the ath[enaeum]. is a very good reviewer
& the letters in question were never intended for publication. I have this day received
the "letters" but not seen the Ath[enaeum]. the former are puerile & flippant. I fear
between my Father with his broken dislocated arm & my Mother nursing poor Bessy they
were sent to press in a heap. I was alarmed from the moment I heard they had gone
to print. Whoever reads them will I should think see this & at any rate it is so "far a
cry to Loch Awe" that I do not care a rush about the matter, & shall never take the
trouble to enquire about the author of the Review.
For my Father's sake I am very sorry, for he feels it I think deeply, & for his sake I
should like to reestablish my credit -- Now if there
[[3]] be any thing in my letters to yourself or Lyell which, as concerning what at
present ranks as the highest Mt. in the world, the readers of the Ath[enaeum]. would
care to peruse, you would do my Father a great pleasure by extracting it & sending it
to that [one word crossed out, illeg.] the athen[aeum] but do not do it as my suggestion, or
still less as my communication to the Ath[enaeum]. for I scorn to curry favor with any
Periodical whatever, & were it not for the gratification it will give my Father I should
never have wished this you to consider the propriety of this. -- I have had my share
of flattery & undeserved credit -- my position in Scientific society I very much owe to
his deserved esteem & popularity, & I should not & will not growl at my share of kicks
& cuffs. -- Here too I am in the way of establishing a credit for Industry & careful
collection of valuable facts, if I can only stick to my work, & that's the best character
a traveller can bear, who is not blessed with Humboldts powers. -The supplemental males of Barnacles are really wonderful, though the supplemental
males in the Bhothea homes families (a wife may have 10 husbands by Law) have
rather distracted my attention of late from cirripedes & from our old lucubrations.
Do my dear Darwin take a fools advice & drop the battle about perpetuity of names,
you have far better work in hand, right or
[[4]] wrong it is a teazed & teazing point, so closely touching the honor of some, the
pride of many & the conflicting interests of all, that you will get into hot water.
Naturalists are of the genus irritabili, we have associated amongst the exceptions
chiefly: but the swarm of snobs with various qualifications & claims for fame & who seek
fame alone is still very great & by Jove old Darwin they will be down on you like Sikhs if
you do not look out & you will be tormented with letters if nothing else. I see the force
of your arguments--nine tenths of the mineralogists are nobodies, & their minerals
are hardly worth names at all -- as generally pursued it does not rank above "Shell
worship", as Conchology stands -- In connexion with the chemical & other changes
the mother rock has undergone & its relation to Geology, specific mineralogy would be
a charming study -- so Humboldt applied it & in this bearing Henslow views it -- & so
have you to good purpose. As to Chemists their specific names are as hard to keep as
their gasses. if they do not vanish in time they explode on the bursting of their
theories & nomenclatures. If the Quarterly is right, & I hardly can understand it & so I
suppose must be
[[5]] all our time spent in Chemical schooling is thrown away, & I remember nothing
but the bottles of the my old Laboratory likely to prove of use in the new, certainly the
books names & combinations have all gone to be reorganized in space, or
elsewhere. So I never now bother about specific names & do earnestly hope you will
not.
What has come over Falconer I cannot conceive: he has not answered me one of my
many letters this 6 months, & it was only yesterday, Colevile wrote to me, saying that
he felt obliged to relinquish the Presd Chair, that he sent a request to F[alconer]. to
aid him as a Vice & got for answer that he would not, but was about to renew the
(10 months old) discussion about an irregularity (established by long usage,) of in
electing Honorary Members -- A more perfectly gentlemanly man than Colevile
cannot be. The point in question every one has given up & the future elections are as
he knows full well to be carried on selon regle. The point was a most trumpery one
(shewing[sic] of hands instead of balloting) & how Falconer can behave so passes
my comprehension. A few disagreeable mischief making fellows are his
partizans[sic]. With F[alconer]. I have dropped the subject, after speaking my mind
fully & freely; which he took no way amiss, if I may so interpret the most friendly
continuance of a correspondence, which on his part never alludes to the contents of my letters or
answers a question I put him, however important. I find from my Father that he pays
punctual attention to my many troublesome wants requests -- Now he is gone to
Moulmain [Mawlamyine] to report on the Teak Timber & a no--body put in charge of
the garden, as I said his last letter dates more than 6 months ago, I think. I have not
told my Father of all this as it would vex him, & do no good, & except to Lyell, pray do
not allude to it. Everyone says he is spoiled by attention in England & presuming
upon it. I still stick up for him & Colevile has most kindly overlooked his former
rudeness on my representations: but this outburst passes bearing I fear, & without a
word from himself or in his own justification, I have not a leg to stand upon as his
defender. I am deeply grieved about it: for people in India are, as he ought to know,
not to be snubbed in that manner, and a more welcome reception no man received
on my his return from leave.
[[6]] I never thought more of you than amongst the Snowy passes, where the rarified
air affects me at rather low elevations; sometimes I go on retching for hours & what
with headache & its concomitant sensations I doubt if I ever could reach 18000 ft.
perhaps not 16000 -- for at 15000 I was so prostrated that I would not have gone
1000 more to solve the coal mystery. The Headaches do not go off for hours after
returning to Camp & quiet & I sit rocking myself on the ground in my Tent in real
pain, till I fall back asleep, & very hungry I awake. *4
I have heaps more to tell you but have been writing now 4 days uninterruptedly &
very poor stuff it all is
Ever yours affectionately | Jos D Hooker. [signature]
ENDNOTES
1. This address has been added in pencil by Joseph Hooker.
2. "I was petted…name" is written in the page margin at a right angle to the rest of
the text.
3. French, meaning 'without doubt'.
4. The address of the recipient appears here as the letter would originally have been
folded in such a way that it formed its own 'envelope'. The address reads: "via
Southampton | To | Charles Darwin Eqr | Down Bromley | Kent."
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