[[1]]
Camp
Ja[nuar]y 24/[18]86
Dear [Asa] Gray,
I have long owed you a letter, & did not want the reminder that the "Neurologys"
received (with thanks) this morning would otherwise have been. The fact is that my
letters to my friends have for now just 3 months been so perfunctorily egoistic that I am
utterly sick of writing about my own affairs, even to them who like yourself are so
warmly interested. Then too good friend that you are you have not bored me for
particulars about the Kew of the future as others have done from various quarters of the globe.
Firstly let me tell you how personally gratified I felt at the presentation of the beautiful
silver vase to you. I did & do indeed rejoice with you & Mrs Gray & "bless my people" in
America, for this fine tribute to you & to Botany. What could be more gratifying?
Absolutely nothing & how beautiful it is -- I long to see it -- Where do you keep it? I
should put it on the table every day. I always long to put all the pretty things we have
into every day[sic] use. I would have Queens wear their crowns all day & embroider
another on their night caps. My pleasure is not in having
[[2]] pretty things, but in seeing them.
Here all is winter, & has been for the extraordinary length of one week, & with 6 inches
of snow (now reduced to 1) people are saying that they never knew such a winter, of
course since they were children, I only wonder that people remember that these days
were shorter last winter than in last summer, so short is memory for ordinary phenomena.
The above is only a putting off of the evil hour of writing about ourselves, I begin from
outside you see, the force is centripetal. Well [William Turner Thiselton-]Dyer is
appointed, & a telegraph from James[?] Morris says he accepts the Ass[istan]t.
Dir[ector]. He is far the best man. I urged the offering it most strongly on L[or]d Iddesleigh,
& further got the C[olonial]. O[ffice]. to write officially asking that his claims to
candidature[?] for the office post should not be overlooked.
Dyer is remarkably well for him, & Harriet fairly: they look askance at the big house & its
expensive upkeep, there is no hurry. Smith has been very ill again. As he will be 60 in
March when a man may claim retirement or a pension of 1/60th of his salary &c for
every year of service, it is arranged that he shall then go. I suppose he will get some
£130 pension. Of my own pension I have heard nothing. I told you that Lord
I[ddesleigh] wrote me a very handsome private letter on my services, & referred to the
matter of my pension being
[[3]] before him. Also that both the I[ndia]. O[ffice]. & the C[olonial].O[ffice]. officially &
voluntary memorialized the Treasury in my favour & asked that my services to their
Dep[artmen]ts should be considered in respect of my pension so we will hope that their
fine words will "butter some parsnips", but I am not sanguine. After what they have
done for Huxley they cannot just cut me down to a minimum service dole.
We have comfortably established Willy [William Henslow Hooker] at Kew, in a little
house in Gloucester Road, I pay his rent & his housekeeping & he keeps a room for us.
Charlie [Charles Paget Hooker] likes Cirencester. Brian [Harvey Hodgson Hooker] has
a temporary part as a payer for a silver mine in N[ew] S[outh] W[ales] a district on the
Murrumbidgee river where he works in an iron 1 room house, in his trousers only (the
heat is terrific) & cooks his own victuals, for £4.10 a week. He grumbles terribly. I
wonder how he would have liked a cabin 6ft by 4 athwartships in the Erebus! either in
the tropics or the ice & this in a ship the shape of a barrel & only 450 tons.
Reggie [Reginald Hawthorn Hooker] is working up for Cambridge at Mr Latouche's &
develops excellent mathematical powers, but does not care for the subject or indeed
any other! He is perfectly teachable however & quick, & promises to try to interest
himself in something. Joey [Joseph Symonds Hooker] reads Robinson Crusoe & the
History of England with me 11/2 hours every day when I am at home, & enjoys both
vastly. Dicky [Richard Symonds Hooker] develops after the manner of babies; his head
shortens visibly.
[[4]] Symonds has been very well for him, but is down now with threatenings of his old
spasms -- he still takes the chloral. Mrs Rothry is much better, but still an invalid. We
are very comfortably housed here -- I have just got my books into place. I find working
here & at the Herb[arium] vastly different from in the study at Kew, I can now
concentrate my attention (I hope I will) & write off the magazine without interruptions of
all sorts: -- indeed I find the withdrawal from the directorship a stupendous relief; &
many regrets notwithstanding, it is sweet to be independent & to be free of that thirst for
power & position which also enable one to carry on official business with some ease & less
friction.
As for Botany, I am working hard at "Fl[ora] Brit[ish] Ind[ia]." but am not yet done with
Litsaea (alias Tetranthera) of which I have utterly failed to make natural groups of -- I
shall have I suppose 60 or 70 India species, & all have to be dissected -- without fruit
they are very hard to limit. I have told you that I can't uphold B's lumpings under Persea
as also of my curious genus with a 1 celled anther (near Eudiandra) I have sent [the]
first half of Part xiii to press, also Bentham[']s British flora -- & I have just returned [the] last
proof of Part 1 of Gen[era]. Plant[arum] -- I never grudged any job more. By the time I
shall be recouped for that I must reprint Part 2, a heavier job. I am still on Council of
R[oyal]. S[ociety]., of which I am heartily tired -- this is my last year I hope. The meeting
at 2 PM. of council
[[5]] and at 4 ½ of Soc[iety]., cuts up the whole day. I am doing my duty on Council of
R[oya]l Geographical which is very exacting if not laborious, as they have much
business & the active part it is now taking in devising means for encouraging the study of
Geography keeps a committee on which I am hard at work. I owe the Soc[iety] a debt; it has
always upheld Kew, & it gave me its Gold Medal. Bryce gave a first rate lecture on the
influence of new trade routes on the commerce & carrying trade of a country -- I take the
Chair on Tuesday when Morris is to lecture on geography apropos of biology. As to the
place of Geography in education[,] I find all sorts of crude & queer notices, with vague
proposals to teach by Magic Lantern Shades, transparencies -- pictures & relief maps. My
notion is I fear unaccepted that Geography teaching should run through the whole course
of education from the nursery to the university & through it -- i.e. that every subject
taught should have its geographical aspects exploited; but that a beginning must be
made with a sound & indeed extensive topography -- Geography is hated at school because of
the drudgery of this topography but so are amo & TURTW [tupto?], & verses of scripture &
Euclid. Much is said of the ignorance of Geography in both sexes at 20--30, but are
they less ignorant of Latin, History, &c &c &c. Of which they have been taught ten times
as much. The point is all teaching is miserably hopeless except to the
[[6]] few who care to learn. I have often wondered what became of all the really
alternative botany that was taught in Edinburgh & Glasgow. Not one student per
session] cared to keep it up. And yet what is more common than to be told "oh if I had
only learnt Botany when I was a boy, how happy I should now be in my walks &c &c
&c?" In fact a love of knowledge for its own sake is very rare indeed, & comparing the
out--turn with the expenditure of time, labour & money, the best school is a miserable
failure. How much worse we should be without them (as schools of life) is another
thing; as schools of knowledge in the best sense, their results are contemptible, from no
want of means & methods, but for the indolence of the human youth’s mind when not stirred
to action by visible advantages within easy reach. There's my sentiments.
Have you read Gladstone & Huxley? It has tickled all sorts of conditions of men.
Huxley you see asks G. to mention any naturalist who regards the Mosiac narrative as
consonant with Geology or cosmic evolution. Well, a mutual friend comes to Huxley,
charged to tell him that he is mistaken in supposing that G. had not written under good
authority, & that he had submitted the mss to a most distinguished naturalist, who had
entirely approved of it. Huxley begged to be told who the authority was &
[[7]] after a little hesitation his communicator said -- Owen! This is just the game that
Owen played the Bishop of Oxford in reference to the Bishop’s article against
Darwinism in the Quarterly which he[,] Owen inspired. Do you remember I had sent Owen
my intro[ductory] essay to Fl[ora] Austral[ia] & he answered me (I have the letter still)
congratulating Botanists that Rob[er]t Brown had found in successor! Or words to that
effect. When the article came out. the only notice of the essay (which was one heading
of the article) was "the pupil is worthy of his matter" -- on which matter he had just thrown
scorn! -- I wonder what biographers will say of Owen -- I see even in America Science
can't speak the whole truth of Agassiz, which brings me back to the first lines of this
letter -- the Neurology. Your Louis Agassiz is charming & searching, full & satisfying.
Eloquent too here & there -- Quite right -- "nil nisi bonum" but I can hardly square the
word "magnanimous" with what you told me of him shortly after his death -- at least not
in both the "literal" & "accepted", meaning in the latter yes, perhaps, but that is not the
fullest meaning.
You call DeCandolle's notice of Boissier charming, I never read one that disappointed
me & all of us at the Herbarium more: it does no justice at all to
[[8]] his scientific spirit, work, or even his laboreous[sic] travels -- but I doubt
DeCandolle's power of appreciating any of them, -- yours for its size is a thousand times
better. And now I have spent a delightful morning with you -- & think of us both looking
out on a snowy landscape from our study windows.
With united love to Mrs Gray | ever aff[ectionatel]y yours J.D. Hooker[signature]
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