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Summary
Very pleased with Asa Gray’s letter to JDH [see 2638], which is “rich on Agassiz”.
Transcription
Down. Bromley Kent
Sunday
My dear Hooker
What a splendid, magnificent letter from Asa Gray!f2 I should out of pure vanity rather like to keep first sheet, so do not throw it away.—f3 It is rich about Agassiz.
I mean to come to London on Tuesday evening for the vain purpose of consulting a new Doctor for my stomach;f4 & for the Club on Thursday, where, if I can possibly, attend, I very much hope to see you.f5 What a time it is since I have seen you my dear old friend, & such kind & generous sympathy you have shown me.—
God Bless you | Yours affect | C. Darwin
I tried to come up last Thursday to dine at Athenæum with you Naturalists, but failed.
I hope Lady Hooker goes on favourably.—f6
Is there a cool-greenhouse Goodenia, so that I could get a plant & examine the process of impregnation?f7
A capital clear article in todays Gardener Ch. I suppose by you.—f8
Endorsement: Endorsement: `Jany 60′
Footnotes
- f1
- Dated by the reference to CD’s intention to attend a meeting of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society (see n. 5, below) and to the review of Origin in the Gardeners’ Chronicle (see n. 8, below).
- f2
- See letter from Asa Gray to J. D. Hooker, 5 January 1860.
- f3
- The first sheet of the letter is in DAR 98 (ser. 2): 20–1.
- f4
- There is an entry dated 24 January 1860 in CD’s Account book (Down House MS) that records a payment to `Mr Headland & Physic’. Edward Headland was the leading general physician in London; his address in Portland Place is recorded in CD’s Address book (Down House MS).
- f5
- CD refers to a meeting of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society held on 26 January 1860, at which he was present (Philosophical Club minutes, Royal Society).
- f6
- See letter to J. D. Hooker, 14 [January 1860].
- f7
- CD feared that Goodenia presented a strong case against his doctrine that all organic beings occasionally cross. Auguste de Saint-Hilaire maintained that in Goodenia the pollen is `enclosed in a cup surrounding the stigma & is then hermetically sealed; so that here a cross would appear physically impossible.’ (Natural selection, pp. 63–4, 72).
- f8
- `Natural selection’, the continuation of Hooker’s anonymous review of Origin, appeared in the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 21 January 1860, pp. 45–6.