[[1]]
Athenaeum Club
Pall Mall
Fe[bruar]y 8 7/[18]81.
My dear Brian [Hodgson] *1
I am haunted with the idea that tomorrow is your birth day, & writing as I am
from London I have no means of verifying the supposition
Be this as it may you will my dear old friend accept my most affectionate &
most heartfelt greetings on the present occasion. I am rejoiced to hear so
good an account of you as your wife
[[2]] sent to mine the other day. Now that dear old Colvile is gone I cling more
than ever to my only remaining Indian chum; & look more wistfully than ever
to the hope of a permanent reunion in the unknown land. God bless you my
dear old friend & Susie *2 & all you love & hold dear. We are jogging on as
usual, except that [William Turner Thiselton--]Dyer's *3 illness rather perturbs
me -- his Doctor is a crook, but & says he must
[[3]] not be out for a week,-- whether true or no Dyer is certainly not well & has
not been so for some months. He has bronchitis which the Dr says has
touched one of his lungs.-- & a cut in the finger made when he was a boy. &
healed ever since, has broken out again! showing that his blood is not in good
order
I hope it will get away before we go, which we have arranged for the end of
the month, if go we can at all! -- I really do not care to go for my own sake but
Hyacinth *4 wants a change & I cannot disappoint
[[4]] the Grays.
Have you seen Padre Symond's*5 novel "Malvern Chase". What I have read of
it is exceedingly good. Wonderfully full of lore as to the manners & customs of
the 12th --15 centuries& put together with considerable skill & great fluency. -I have glanced through Endymion*6 & got on very well with vol[ume]s i & ii but
broke down at III & tossed it aside. The fault of its but best features is (to me)
that it is neither real nor ideal but a jumble of both & you take no interest in
any any figure or fact situation or occurrence.
With much love to Susie
Ever dear fri[en]d y[ou]r Affec[tionate] | JDHooker [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. Susan (Susie) Hodgson née Townshend (1844--1912). Photographer and
second wife of naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801--1894), they married
in 1869 or 1870.
3. Sir William Turner Thiselton--Dyer (1843--1928). British botanist and third
Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He succeeded Joseph Hooker in
the role after serving as his Assistant Director for ten years. He was also
married to Hooker's eldest daughter Harriet.
4. Lady Hyacinth Hooker, née Symonds then Jardine (1842--1921). Joseph
Hooker's second wife, they married in 1876.
5. Reverend William Samuel Symonds (1818--1887). English geologist; father
of Hyacinth Hooker.
6. John Keats, 1818, Endymion: A Poetic Romance.
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