Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2Darwin, Charles
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Life and Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2
Darwin, Charles
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Naturalists -- Great Britain -- Correspondence
If ever you have any opportunity, as you are so skilful a dissector, I
much wish that you would look to the orifice at the base of the first
pair of cirrhi in cirripedes, and at the curious organ in it, and
discover what its nature is; I suppose I was quite in error, yet I
cannot feel fully satisfied at Krohn's (See vol. ii., pages 138, 187.)
observations. Also if you ever find any species of Scalpellum, pray
look for complemental males; a German author has recently doubted my
observations for no reason except that the facts appeared to him so
strange.
Permit me again to thank you cordially for the pleasure which I have
derived from your work and to express my sincere admiration for your
valuable researches.
Believe me, dear Sir, with sincere respect, Yours very faithfully, CH.
DARWIN.
P.S.--I do not know whether you care at all about plants, but if so,
I should much like to send you my little work on the 'Fertilization of
Orchids,' and I think I have a German copy.
Could you spare me a photograph of yourself? I should much like to
possess one.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, Thursday, 27th [September, 1865].
My dear Hooker,
I had intended writing this morning to thank Mrs. Hooker most sincerely
for her last and several notes about you, and now your own note in your
hand has rejoiced me. To walk between five and six miles is splendid,
with a little patience you must soon be well. I knew you had been very
ill, but I hardly knew how ill, until yesterday, when Bentham (from
the Cranworths (Robert Rolfe, Lord Cranworth, and Lord Chancellor of
England, lived at Holwood, near Down.)) called here, and I was able to
see him for ten minutes. He told me also a little about the last days of
your father (Sir William Hooker; 1785-1865. He took charge of the Royal
Gardens at Kew, in 1840, when they ceased to be the private gardens
of the Royal Family. In doing so, he gave up his professorship at
Glasgow--and with it half of his income. He founded the herbarium and
library, and within ten years he succeeded in making the gardens the
first in the world. It is, thus, not too much to say that the creation
of the establishment at Kew is due to the abilities and self-devotion of
Sir William Hooker. While, for the subsequent development of the gardens
up to their present magnificent condition, the nation must thank Sir
Joseph Hooker, in whom the same qualities are so conspicuous.); I wish
I had known your father better, my impression is confined to his
remarkably cordial, courteous, and frank bearing. I fully concur and
understand what you say about the difference of feeling in the loss of
a father and child. I do not think any one could love a father much
more than I did mine, and I do not believe three or four days ever pass
without my still thinking of him, but his death at eight-four caused me
nothing of that insufferable grief (I may quote here a passage from a
letter of November, 1863. It was written to a friend who had lost his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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