[[1]] *1
Bournemouth
Sept[embe]r 27 / [18]86
Dear [Asa] Gray
We are here for a fortnight's change for[?] the 2 youngest children who are however
well enough, & here I have this morning got your welcome letter of the 18th with the
slip reflecting on Vine's *2 queer & mischievous crotchets. I am more & more
absorbed in Indian Botany, have thrown aside all idea of making headway with -- any
desire to keep up with even the heads of chemico--botany, & micro--phytology. I
may content myself with a casual grin at young men calling themselves botanists,
who know nothing of plants but the "innards" of a score or so. The pendulum will spr
swing round or rather back, one day.
I have no copy of Fl[ora]. B[ritish]. I[ndia]. here but look forward with amusement to
seeing what I have said at p[age] 893 -- I often
[[2]] muddle in press what I have written clearly enough on paper -- I look with great
dissatisfaction on Piperaceae, Laurineae & Myristicae, but think I may with different
feelings on Polygoneae & the reforms in Loranthaceae. King *3 has just sent me all
his Machili & I shall do the genus aspect for the supplement, but with fewer changes
than I expected to be compelled to make.
I am now at Phyllanthus, a fearful job, the minuteness of the I[ndian] fl[ora] of the
mass of species (except Bradleia) is a great draw back -- (they are little really
atomic) & good characters are often found in the anthers, which are badly described.
I wish Bentham had kept up Bradleia -- I have not begun it & have an enormous
mass of species, far more than Mueller Arg[oviensis] *4. had, & most different they
are, the styles altering with age & foliage being so treacherous a character. Curiously
enough I have not above 4 or 5 undescribed species of all other sections of
Phyllanthus, & possibly 20 or 30 to add to Bradleias!
[[3]] I am getting King to send me from the Calcutta [Kolkata] Herb[ariu]m the difficult
genera.
The Bentham trust is settled, we get about £7000 -- shall go on with Icones, rapidly I
hope, reducing its price to 4/ a part if possible. "Gen[era] Plant[arium]" is a worry -& has cost me a pretty penny for reprinting Part 1 & making up incomplete copies. If
it sells tolerably I shall have to reprint Part II by the time P[ar]t I is sold off! -- I am
advised to raise the price -- but am averse; the book is costly enough -- I have nearly
printed finished the v ed[ition] of Bentham's Handbook. I have just concluded the new
Ed[ition] of Primer -- I have added a section on Carnivore & movement of plants
p[age] 113 -- (a copy goes to you) & sundry woods cuts & additions elsewhere. The
sale of the Primer has been enormous. So much for my work. I enjoy my freedom
from harness more than ever, though so much poorer, they have given me a shabby
pension for Kew, reducing what was would otherwise have been
[[4]] given on a "special award" because of my Naval Pension[?]! Though this was awarded
for services rendered 5 years before I became Ass[istan]t Director -- In a private firm
a hard name would be given to such practice. Altogether they award me £955 about
£80 over what They say was due. The O[fficer] of W[oods] maintains that £933 was the
minimum due -- so that my "special award" for Kew would be £22.0.0. They treated
Huxley *5 very differently, had they owed him £950 & gave £1200 + 300 from the Civil Fund! -Airy *6 & Owen *7 have also had very different treatment. The fact is that the N new
Se[cretar]y of the Trea[sur]y (Sir R Welby) *8 is a very ignorant & narrow minded
man. The worst of it is, that I have not had 1d of the pension yet, & have had to sell
out investments & part with some Wedgewoods. The latter you will be glad to hear I
did without a pang -- for one piece that I paid £25, I got £40 -- I only sell what I bought
-- I shall have to economize for the next few years & work as I have done (& liked).
Hoping for a better pension we were talking of visiting you in spring & shall not
abandon the idea, if any thing
[[5]] turns up to allow of its being done: but I have had serious diminution of my
investments, which was only to have been expected in these times & Reggie's [Reginald
Hawthorn Hooker] preparations for & going to Cambridge will be a pull -- then there is Joe
[Joseph Symonds Hooker] & Dick [Richard Symonds Hooker] to educate! However I
am well happy & contented, & have been a most fortunate man in family, friends,
launch into life, & opportunities & if my income is not so good as my father's was it is
because I have had such a family to educate & support: otherwise I would have been
wealthy.
The [Thiselton] Dyer's are at last in the old house transformed & (entre nous) spoilt.
They are now in Scotland. [Daniel] Morris [keeper of the herbarium] is in Dyer's old
home, he seems a great success.
[Daniel] Oliver [Assistant Director] plods away, & [John Gilbert] Baker [assistant
keeper of the herbarium] is "semper idem", Reichenbach has turned up at last. I
received him as if he had treated us well, & I had him down at the Camp; but I don't
think "coals of fire" make any impression on him.
The Symonds have, I am sorry to say, left us. He got tired of it, fancied it was too
cold & will winter probably in Cornwall. He is a loss to us & the vicinity & poor Mrs
Symonds regrets it sadly -- Willy [William Henslow Hooker] goes on as usually,
Charlie [Charles Paget Hooker] is happy, & his wife has
[[6]] inaugurated the reproduction of ♂ Hookers of the 4th generation known to you.
Brian [Brian Hodgson Hooker] we suppose is all right, he writes little & seldom.
Reggie is getting into colloquial German with a Professor at Bamberg -- & has just
been travelling in the Salzkammergut, of which he sends admirable descriptions to
Hyacinth [Lady Hyacinth Hooker]. Grace [Grace Ellen Hooker] is working hard at
Paris. Joey grows amazingly & is a very loveable child, & sufficiently gifted.
Dick [Richard Symonds Hooker] thrives, toddles, prattles, & has lost his Chenook[sic]
skull.
Miss Rothey has very much recovered as Mrs Gray will be glad to know.
Ball *9 is in Austria, I heard of him yesterday from Perth on his way to Vienna. He sent me
the sheets of his "Journal of a Naturalist in S[outh] Austria" -- which I find rather dry,
but very interesting -- He says nothing of coming home.
I am so glad to hear of your progress in the Fl[ora] Amer[icae] Bor[eali], & also that
you have had a good holiday. I have always regretted that I could not go with
[[7]] you to visit your relatives & see the homestead of old America -- You must have
enjoyed visiting them & finding so many. How odd it sounds that your nephew
should be at Chico!. I have a very lively recollection of that town, what pleasant
people they all were!
As to old Goldie, I supposed he had died ages ago. The idea of writing Claytonia,
Montia & Spraguea is structurally scientific, but in practice immoral. If one does such
things in Dicots what must we not do in Monocots &Gymnosperms? I have heard
nothing of Waters, Goodal or the Lorings.
Huxley is back from Switzerland (Arolla) in high health & spirits, & working at
Gentiana to evulgate a notion as to the distribution of the sections furthering his
views of the palaeography [paleogeography?] of the Cray--fish -- something is sure
to come of it.
Lubbock *10 has sent me his shorts of his concluding Linnean address, on
[[8]] the relations of embryo to form of seed. I think he is far out of his depth & that his
theorizing is bosh all I can do is to correct gross errors in terminology & the like. I have
assured him that I cannot be answerable for his confounding cotyledons with earliest
leaves. He is such a charming fellow & has taken so kind an interest in my pension
affair, that I would fair set his right if he I could. He employs a young lady artist, quite
ignorant of Botany, to draw plants in germination at the laboratory (Kew), under no
guidance & uses these drawings vicé[?] observation.
[George] Busk[']s death is a great blow to the X *11 & to us all -- it reduces the x to 7 ,
of whom [Thomas Archer] Hirst is miserably ill -- [Herbert] Spencer worse (or
imagines himself so), at Brighton for the winter, [John]Tyndall is much better, still in
Switzerland.
With united love to yourself & Mrs Gray | Ever aff[ectionate]ly yours | J D Hooker
[signature]
ENDNOTES
1. This letter was partially published in Leonard Huxley's biography of Joseph
Hooker: The Life and Letters of J. D. Hooker
2. Sydney Howard Vines (1849--1934), botanist; Sherardian Chair of Botany at
Oxford University,1888 to 1919; President of the Linnean Society of London,1900 to
1904; directed the publication of the Annals of Botany from 1887 to 1899.
3. Sir George King (1840--1909), botanist; appointed superintendent of the Royal
Botanic Garden, Calcutta in 1871, and the first Director of the Botanical Survey of
India from 1890.
4. Johannes Müller Argoviensis was the name used by the Swiss botanist Johann
Müller (1828--1896). He was the monographer of Resedaceae, Apocynaceae and
Euphorbiaceae in A. P. de Candolle's Prodromus and Martius's Flora Brasiliensis.
He was also an authority on lichens.
5. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825--1895), biologist.
6. Sir George Biddell Airy (1801--1892), mathematician and astronomer.
Astronomer Royal, 1835 to 1881.
7. Sir Richard Owen (1804 --1892), biologist. Superintendant of the British Museum
natural history departments.
8. Reginald Earle Welby, 1st Baron Welby (1832--1915), Permanent Secretary to the
Treasury, 1885 to 1894.
9. John Ball (1818--1889) naturalist, Alpine traveller and Irish politician.
10. Sir John Lubbock (1834--1913), Liberal politician, philanthropist, polymath and
scientist.
11. The X club was a dining club of nine men who supported the theories of natural
selection and academic liberalism in late 19th century England.
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