Dear Darwin

A few lines just to say that we are back—as yesterday—having come round by Stockholm, Upsala, Copenhagen, Hamburgh, Hanover Utrecht, Amsterdam, Hague, Leyden & Rotterdam, inspecting the Bot. Gardens & their museums throughout—¹ I got very tired of it—thought it was excessively interesting—but the constant packing & moving got odious. Such lots of people asked for you— Even at the Hague I found a young Frenchman busy making notes on the Pictures, so I pointed out the Dodo to him & he immediately asked me whether it was alluded to in Darwins last book on Animals & Plants, which he had read.² Miquel we staid 2 days with, in his House—so nice & pleasant: he has 4 very fine daughters such fine pleasant English like girls—³ two of them will visit us in September— M. is quite a convert;—he is a very intelligent man, but in poor health. Œrsted⁴ at Copenhagen also talked heaps about you— he too is a very able man, & good naturalist.

We have good news of Willy, who has been up to near the scene of the late murders in a Govt. steamer with Capt. Haultaine, the Defence Minister—⁵ Hector⁶ is looking out for a settlement for him— he is perfectly well & of course happy— I do hope he will take to a settler’s life— I am so sure it is the only thing that can suit him for the next 5 years— Hector truly says that he is many years younger than his age— Everyone is charmed with his manner & general conduct—

Miquel has been telling me how the Flora of Sumatra & Borneo are identical, & of Java quite different—just as Wallace shows for the Animals.⁷

How I wish I could join you in Wales, but it is impossible   I have a pile of letters that appalls myself, & I am not easily frightened—plus a large unopened box of documents & pamphlets accumulated during my absence   I too sometimes wish myself in a tomb—though I hold that the balance of life is always on the side of enjoyment, & that the bitterness of the bitterest loss is an insufficient measure of the enjoyment we had in the object lost.—

I am always rejoiced when you like Benthams addresses—⁸

I read it all in mss, & modified some very heterodox passages about Insularity & its effects— you have hit—the flaw in the address— Indeed I do wish I could write another Essay on Islands,⁹ & do not give up the hope— I think if Bentham had read Wallace’s volumes he would have been more cautious—but he had no time— he however modified extensively what he had written on the strength of what I told him—that is to say he struck out several passages & put others more guardedly.—

Your offer to aid Andersson is a noble one:—I too have often gazed at the Cocos & Revillagigedos & others more isolated still—there away—¹⁰ if Andersson gets a schooner he could do all.

I am woefulley disappointed to hear of your health— is it the sequelle of your fall that you now suffer from?—¹¹

Now as to Beards, we never forget them & began to count—in Russia, but soon gave it up, as there was no exception to the rule of the Beard Moustachies & Whiskers being paler than the hair, usually ruddier also.¹²

The Copenhagen & Stockholm Prehistoric Museums are perfectly wonderful, we have nothing at all like them for richness of material & admirable instructive arrangement.— The Danish one is en suite with an Ethnographical Museum of the very highest value, extent, & beauty, which is now under rearrangement, & that again graduates into an illustration of Danish Arts & customs, carried down to the present century. The Dutch Ethnographical & Antiquities collections are very far behind hand indeed—in every respect.

I was charmed to find my former visit to Leyden in 1845.! well remembered by Schlegel & the 2 or 3 survivors of the 10–12 naturalists I then knew there—but what an old man it made of me!¹³

Ever yrs affec | J D Hooker