Dear Darwin

I have been corresponding with MacMillan about Nature, which I find too desultory, & like you, not half full enough in the matter of foreign journals nor indeed of English Societies.¹

I must get Kerner on Tubocytisus, Oliver does not know it—² the worst of such papers is, that it must be a mere guess which form to fix on as the type. May not the supposed 2 old parent like tribes, be two modern varieties?— imagine them destroyed, or not discovered, & would not the whole subject have to be treated from quite another assumed type—? I thought of adding a chapter on this subject to the Australia Essay³ when I wrote it, but could not for the life of me find reasonable evidence of any one species being the earliest—; Something might be done in the case of very old genera like Juglans⁴ which we believe have spread Westward, whence we may assume that the Eastern forms are the oldest, but that is at once met by the facts, that if the genus has been longest in the East it has had as much time to vary there as to spread to the west!—

What a sell for M^lle Royer   serve her right—⁵ how nasty women are when spiteful, & French women perhaps the worst in the world.

I met young Agassiz at Huxleys two nights ago, but I was recovering from a horrid headache & could not enjoy a very pleasant party of Flowers & Maskelynes   Young Agassiz seems a nice fellow & his wife too.⁶

Lyell absolutely declines P.R.S. & we look to Grove: I put it to him last night, & he will accept if offered, but will have no fights with Sabine—⁷ I assured him that it was only in case of Sabines retirement or being called to his maker (in which case I pity the latter for he wont know what to do with him) that the question of a successor would arise.

It is a pity—that Willy cannot get located in N.Z. for I shall not know what to do with him when he returns⁸

I think you will like to see Lady L^s. letter so I enclose it.⁹

Ever yrs affec | J D Hooker

Pray do not C.B. your letters to me— I can’t stand it.— I own CB gratifies me in a service point of view, & it is very useful officially Indeed for clerical correspondence,—but scientifically I rather dislike it.¹⁰

Private.

P.S. Lyell had a long talk with me about K^t.—which he seems greatly to regret my not accepting— I could not tell him, how gladly I “not accepted” nor how much I do not regret it: nor could I make him understand my feelings in the matter.—that I have no wish whatever to be Sir J. at all—but that if this must be some day, the least objectionable way is clearly in the Bath, the Bath being a recognition of public services &c.¹¹ I have no wish even for that, but I quite feel the force of all my friends wishing it, of my public position suiting it, & of keeping up, (what I & my relations do & my children will take a reasonable pride in) the public recognitions won by so many members of my family without Court or aristocratic influence. If I had raised myself wholly unaided, to my scientific position, as Lyell himself, & my father, & Murchison, & Palgrave did, to the positions they attained, then I should have felt that I had earned Knighthood as they did, & might have accepted: but my case is wholly different— my Science I owe to my father, ditto my Kew position. My services have been wholly under Govt. & if I am entitled to any such recognition as Knighthood at all it is one given for services unmistakeably.¹²

As it is, I am in the horns of a dilemma— I could be Knighted for the saying I wished it tomorrow— the declining is interpreted into despising it, in preference to a riband which I am not offered. Lyell & Murchison say—“take the K^t. as a step to K.C.B.”— this would be all very well if I really wanted the K.C.B.! though even then I do not think I could have stooped to any such dodge. Huxley & Lyell are the only persons with whom I have talked over this matter. Huxley quite understands & approves: but then he despises K^ts., which I do not.