[[1]]
ROYAL GARDENS KEW
May 28/[18]84
My dear old fellow [Brian Houghton Hodgson] *1
I was delighted to get your letter of 25th a minute ago, for I have been scolding
myself for not writing to you & know that I was too late for Florence -- Well I am
indeed glad to know that you are relieved of the Gout & able to enjoy yourself.
Where you write from your letter does not say, & I am wondering whether it may be
from Monte Gennarow[sic ]*2 where Lubbock *3 has taken his bride & where you
would no doubt meet our lively Linnean President. Happily his Gout was checked
before
[[2]] the marriage day, for we expected to see him hobble up on crutches to the altar
as he did in the House to give his support to the Government. Thus you see that
providence disapproved of the former! --What a wonderful thing the finger of
providence is -- if people would only understand it --That's my philosophy, & yours?
Harriet *4 is on the whole better & Dyer *5 derives comfort from a letter from her Great
Aunt Miss Jenyns of Bath, all of 84, that she had months of a similar illness. True,
she never got well! for she has been an invalid all her life, never leaving the house.
No
[[3]] doubt in my mind it is a family disease & the heart is at the bottom of it -palpitations have [one word illeg. crossed out] replaced the Swoons with Harriet -- all
points the same way. Her mother *6 -- her aunt Mrs Barnard, it is incomprehensible
to me that the Doctors cannot see it -- then her Grandfather on her Mother's side
(Henslow) died of Heart complaint.
Dyer himself is poorly but has been wonderfully well all winter.
Symonds *7 has had immense relief from huge doses of Chloral taken daily which
keeps down the spasms which were so rapidly killing him. He has however fainting
fits by day & much discomfort & dropsy the last however decreasing! he goes about
a little when the weather is very fine in a Bath chair.
[[4]] & his spirits are as good as ever -- I never knew such a man for not knocking[?]
under! He reads, writes poetry for Joe *8, & keeps up his warm & generous interest in
every thing. There is in him no trace of the "selfishness of illness" -- Mrs S[ymonds]
always charming, is only pretty well.
Hyacinth *9 is remarkably well always back & forward at "the Camp" as busy as a
bee. The workmen are now finishing up the house -- a horrid bore with Symonds in
it, but it could not be delayed. At the same time this house (Kew) has been repaired
& painted from top to bottom & I am struck to death, but too busy to leave it.
Bentham *10 gets a little better & was taken in an invalid carriage to his Brother in
laws, Sir Harford Brydges *11 in Radnorshire a long
[[5]] & trying journey, but he bore it well. This move of Bentham’s rather surprised
me as Sir Harford is no favourite of his & a very queer fish & B[entham] told me when he
took ill, that he did not want him to have anything to do with his funeral or affairs,
which he left me to deal with. He has no other connections in the world, & only one
relation, a great niece married to a Cavalry officer of distinction in France, to whom
his property will go. She is a very nice person. Poor B[entham] is reduced to a
skeleton & cannot even stand, so I suppose I shall never see him again, he is 84.
I have no news but the very stale one that I am working my very hardest. I have had
to bring out a new Garden Guide (official) including the Arboretum a very laborious
affair, just gave to the printer -- & I have the usual necessary "pot boilers" going, the
Bot[anical] Voyages & a new Edition of my British Flora. The Kew work does not
decrease --
[[6]] The contrast between what the Directorship now is & that when I took it is
enormous & I shall not be sorry to be relieved of my share.
I have given up every idea of going to America, or indeed any where this year. I am
about £1000 to the bad on my bank account & must pull up.
I had to go to the Geograph[ical] Soc[iety] dinner yesterday & met that Mr Graham
who tried the ascent of Kinchin *13 the other day. I found nothing in him.
*12
Yule *14 continues to send me the sheets of his dictionary of Indian &c terms to look over -& I found much curious matter in it, he shows that Musa sapientum has usurped the
a specific name that should have been given to the Jack (Artocarpus integrifolia) that being
the tree under which the Sages sat, & the old descriptions identifying it as such, &
not the Banana.
[[7]] I have not seen Grote *15 or any of our common friends lately nor have I been
much in town except to Committees & Councils, of which I am very tired -- but
somebody must do the work. The Gov[ernmen]t have I am sorry to say perpetuated
a super tory[?] job -- & burnt their fingers. Harcourt *16 has recommended to the
Queen a very indifferent man for Regius Professor of Botany at Glasgow before the
vacancy was announced & without consulting the University, or even a single
scientific man! The man is an Irish professor!!! The University refuses to receives
receive the Crown's nominee, & will arrange that there shall be no vacancy for 3 years!
thus checkmating the Gov[ernmen]t.
Smith *17 continues pretty well, but is not the man he was either mentally or bodily, &
that is a perpetual source of anxiety.
[[8]] Now my dear Brian I must shut up, with love to you both & hopes to see you
soon in England safe & well.
You heard no doubt of the death of Aubry Campbell at Aden on his way home -- a
terrible shock to his mother who is however saved the pain of receiving a son who
was I fear a bodily wreck & intemperate too -- here again that blessed providence
comes in with his scales.
Hyacinth is at the Camp & would join in love to you & Susan & kindest regards to
your belongings[?].
Ever dear Brian | Y[ou]r deeply attached | J. D. Hooker[signature]
ENDNOTES
1. Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801--1894). A pioneer naturalist and ethnologist
working in India and Nepal where he was a British civil servant. Joseph Hooker
stayed at Hodgson’s house in Darjeeling periodically during his expedition to India
and the Himalayas, 1847--1851, and named one of his sons after him.
2. Mount Gennaro in the Appenninne mountain range, near Tivoli in Italy.
3. Sir John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury PC FRS DCL LLD (1834 --1913), banker,
Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath. President of the Linnean
Society, 1881--1886.
4. Harriet Anne Hooker (1854--1945), second child, first daughter of Joseph and
Frances Hooker; married William Thiselton--Dyer.
5. Sir William Turner Thiselton--Dyer (28 July 1843--23 December 1928), British
botanist, and the third director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Married Hooker's
eldest daughter, Harriet.
6. Frances Harriet Henslow (1825--1874), Joseph Hooker's first wife.
7. Reverend William Samuel Symonds (1818--1887), English geologist. Father of
Hyacinth, Joseph Hooker's second wife.
8. Joseph Symonds Hooker (1877--1940). First son born to Joseph Hooker and his
second wife, Hyacinth Hooker
9. Hyacinth Hooker née Turner, formerly Symonds (1842--1921). Daughter of Rev
William Samuel Symonds, and widow of Sir William Jardine (1800--1874); second
wife of Joseph Hooker, married 1876.
10. George Bentham (1800--1884) English botanist, author of Handbook of the
British Flora, which was edited by Hooker after his death. Co-authored Genera
Plantarum with Hooker
11. Sir Harford Jones--Brydges, 2nd Baronet (1808--1891). George Bentham
married Jones--Brydges' sister, Sarah.
12. William Woodman Graham (c.1859, fl.1932). British mountaineer.
13. Mount Kanchenjunga. Third highest mountain in the world, located in east Nepal
and Sikkim, the area of the Himalayas explored by Joseph Hooker during his
expedition of 1847-1851.
14. Henry Yule (1820--1899). Co author, with Arthur Coke Burnell, of the Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo--Indian Words and Phrases (1886).
15. Arthur Grote (1814 --1886), English colonial administrator. Previously Chairman
of Revenue Board of Bengal; President of the Royal Agricultural Society of India and
President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Member of the Linnean Society of London
and Royal Asiatic Society.
16. Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt (1827--1904), British
lawyer, journalist and Liberal statesman. Home Secretary, 28 April 1880 – 23 June
1885; Chancellor of the Exchequer,18 August 1892 – 21 June 1895.
17. John Smith (1798--1888). Botanist and first Curator or 'head gardener' of the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, appointed in 1841.
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