This spring Professor Henslow, Mrs. Hooker's father, a botanist of the first rank, and a man extraordinarily beloved by all who came in contact with him, was seized with a mortal illness, and lingered on without hope of recovery through almost the whole of April. Huxley writes:--] Jermyn Street, April 4, 1861. My dear Hooker, I am very much grieved and shocked by your letter. The evening before last I heard from Busk that your father-in-law had been ill, and that you had been to see him, and I meant to have written to you yesterday to inquire, but it was driven out of my head by people coming here. And then I had a sort of unreasonable notion that I should see you at the Linnean Council to-day and hear that all was right again. God knows, I feel for you and your poor wife. Knowing what a great rift the loss of a mere undeveloped child will leave in one's life, I can faintly picture to myself the great and irreparable vacuity in a family circle caused by the vanishing out of it of such a man as Henslow, with great acquirements, and that great calm catholic judgment and sense which always seemed to me more prominent in him than in any man I ever knew. He had intellect to comprehend his highest duty distinctly, and force of character to do it; which of us dare ask for a higher summary of his life than that? For such a man there can be no fear in facing the great unknown, his life has been one long experience of the substantial justice of the laws by which this world is governed, and he will calmly trust to them still as he lays his head down for his long sleep. You know all these things as well as I do, and I know as well as you do that such thoughts do not cure heartache or assuage grief. Such maladies, when men are as old as you and I are, are apt to hang about one a long time, but I find that if they are faced and accepted as part of our fair share of life, a great deal of good is to be got out of them. You will find that too, but in the meanwhile don't go and break yourself down with over wear and tear. The heaviest pull comes after the excitement of a catastrophe of this kind is over. Believe in my affectionate sympathy with you, and that I am, my dear old fellow, yours ever, T.H. Huxley. [And again on the 18th:--] Many thanks for your two letters. It would be sad to hear of life dragging itself out so painfully and slowly, if it were not for what you tell me of the calmness and wisdom with which the poor sufferer uses such strength as is left him. One can express neither wish nor hope in such a case. With such a man what is will be well. All I have to repeat is, don't knock yourself up. I wish to God I could help you in some way or other beyond repeating the parrot cry. If I can, of course you will let me know.