[[1]]
THE CAMP,
SUNNINGDALE.
Fe[bruar]y 5th [18]87
My dear old friend *1
Again your birth--day has passed without the greetings from me that should have
arrived on that very morning. Pray pardon me -- it was not forgetfulness of you, for
we were talking of you at the very time, having received a letter from Lady Mallet *2
asking us to dine with them before they left for the Riviera; & we were saying we
hoped they would see you. You birth day is down in my
[[2]] Diary, but I do not look at it so often as I should, & so my own children's birth
days are as often overshot as not. Well now pray accept my most affectionate
greetings. & hopes to see you back in your usual excellent health & bo uyant
temperament.
Of old friends I have no news. I did write to you on the occasion of Grote's *3 death
-- of which Mrs Stirling informed me; I at once wrote asking to hear when the funeral
would take place, but had no answer. As the weather was very bad I do not doubt
but that the
[[3]] omission was intentional, & to spare my exposing myself to its effects.
We have got through the winter remarkably well, despite the heavy snow, & with very
few colds or coughs.
I have just heard from Darjeeling that they are making pure Sulphate of Quinine *4
there, with great success. Also that the Chinese themselves are trading between
Tibet & D[arjeeling] in increasing numbers.
Harriet [Anne Thiselton--Dyer neé Hooker] has I am sorry to say been very poorly
again; & though better is still far from well is better again better -The Mallets go straight to Grasse & will remain there -- he wants to be perfectly quiet
so I doubt if you will see him. Grant
[[4]] Duff *5 is on his way back from India, now at Rome -- & will go on to the Riviera.
Lady Grant Duff is home, but I have not seen her.
I met Miss North *6 the other night; she is enchanted with her Alderley home &
garden.
We shall be here all the winter, & indeed all summer I suppose too, for I must stick to
my work in these bad times.
Now dear Brian again accept my most affectionate salutations in which Hyacinth
cordially joins & with love from us both to Susie *7.
Ever dear old friend | Your most affe[ctionate] | J D Hooker
ENDNOTES
1. Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801 --1894). 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. Sir Louis Mallet CB PC (1823 -- 1890) was a British civil servant who was an
advocate of free trade and served on the Council of India.
3. Arthur Grote (1814 -- 1886) was an English colonial administrator. A civil servant
in the Bengal Civil Service from 1834 to 1868, on returning to England he became a
prominent member of the Linnean Society and Royal Asiatic Society. He wrote
many papers on Natural History subjects.
4. Quinine sulphate is a natural white crystalline alkaloid derived from Cinchona
bark. It has several medicinal properties and was chiefly used an anti--malarial
treatment until the 1940s.
5. Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff (1829 -- 1906) . Scottish politician,
administrator and author. He served as the Under--Secretary of State for India 1868
-- 1874, Under--Secretary of State for the Colonies 1880 -- 1881 and Governor of
Madras 1881 -- 1886.
6. Marianne North (1830--1890). A prolific English Victorian biologist and botanical
artist, notable for her plant and landscape paintings, her extensive foreign travels,
her writings, her plant discoveries and the creation of her gallery at the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew.
7. Susan (Susie) Hodgson née Townshend (1844--1912). Photographer and second
wife of naturalist Brian Houghton Hodgson (1801--1894), they married in 1869 or
1870.
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