My dear Hooker

I was very glad to get your letter this morning (to which I wrote brief answer), though it contained so melancholy an account of poor dear & honoured Henslow.² How strange & pathetic an account you give of his mental state; & how his kind feelings shine out.³ He truly is a model to keep always before one’s eyes. How I wish his sufferings were closed in the long & tranquil sleep of death. It must be very depressing to you, & I am glad you can read & think on other subjects.—

I quite agree with what you say on Lieut. Hutton’s Review (who he is, I know not):⁴ it struck me as very original: he is one of the very few who see that the change of species cannot be directly proved & that the doctrine must sink or swim according as it groups & explains phenomena. It is really curious how few judge it in this way, which is clearly the right way. I have been much interested by Bentham’s paper in N.H.R;⁵ but it would not of course from familiarity strike you, as it did me. I liked the whole,—all the facts on the nature of close & varying species. Good Heavens to think of the British Botanists turning up their noses & saying that he knows nothing of British plants!⁶ I was, also, pleased at his remarks on classification, because it showed me that I wrote truly on this subject in the Origin.—⁷ I saw Bentham at Linn. Soc^y. & had some talk with him & Lubbock & Edgeworth, Wallich several others.—⁸ I asked Bentham to give us his ideas of species: whether partially with us or dead against us, he would write excellent matter. He made no answer, but his manner made me think he might do so, if urged; so do you attack him.⁹ Everyone was speaking with affection & anxiety of Henslow.—

I dined with Bell at Linn. Club,¹⁰ & liked my dinner: though it must be confessed they are rather a poor set of muffs, & I sat by the muffiest, viz Miers.—¹¹ But dining out is such a novelty to me that I enjoyed it. Bell has a real good heart.— I liked Rolleston’s paper, but I never read anything so obscure & not self-evident as his “cannons”.¹² I had a dim perception of the truth of your profound remark, that he wrote in fear & trembling “of God, man & monkeys”, but I would alter it into God, man, Owen & monkeys.—¹³ Huxley’s letter was truculent & I see that everyone thinks it too truculent;¹⁴ but in simple truth I am become quite demoniacal about Owen, worse than Huxley, & I told Huxley that I sh^d. put myself under his care to be rendered milder.¹⁵ But I mean to try to get more angelic in my feelings; yet I never shall forget his cordial shake of the hand when he was writing as spitefully as he possibly could against me.¹⁶ But I have always thought you have more cause than I to be demoniacally inclined towards him.—¹⁷ Bell told me that Owen says that the Editor mutilated his article in Edinburgh R.¹⁸ & Bell seemed to think it was rendered more spiteful by Editor; perhaps the opposite view is as probable: Oh dear this does not look like becoming more angelic in my temper.

I had splendid long talk with Lyell (you may guess how splendid, for he was many times on his knees with elbows on sofa & rump high in air) on his work in France: he seems to have done capital work in making out age of the celt-bearing beds; but the case gets more & more complicated. All, however, tends to greater & greater antiquity of man. The shingle beds seem to be estuary deposits.—¹⁹

I called on R. Chambers at his very nice house in St John’s wood & had very pleasant half-hour’s talk:²⁰ he is really a capital fellow. He made one good remark & chuckled over it, that the Laymen universally had treated the controversy on the Essays & Review, as a merely professional subject & had not joined in it, but had left it to the Clergy.—²¹

I shall be anxious for your next letter about Henslow.

Farewell with sincere sympathy | My old friend | C. Darwin

P.S. We are very much obliged for London R.²² We like reading much of it, & the science is incomparably better than in Athenæum. You shall not go on very long sending it, as you will be ruined by pennies & trouble. But I am under a horrid spell to the Athenæum & Gardeners Chron, both of which are intolerably dull, but I have taken them in for so many years, that I cannot give them up. The Cottage Gardener for my purpose is now far better than G. Chronicle²³