My dear Hooker

I have been greatly pleased & interested with every word of your Address in Nature.² You have honoured me greatly by giving to me a whole column & an excellent abstract of what I have done.— The sole criticism which I am inclined to make is that there ought to have been a little more on Zoology & Palæontology of animals.— But I suppose space failed you.—

I think that you will like to hear of a very strange event & bit of good fortune which has happened to me; for I well know how sympathetic you are. A M^r. Anthony Rich, an old gentleman living at Worthing (whose name I had never heard of) wrote to me about a week ago, that he & his old sister are the sole survivors of his family owing to recent deaths. He says with many strong phrases that he thinks that I have done much for science, & that he has long been of opinion that persons situated, like he is, could not do better than leave their property to those who have benefitted mankind.³ He has therefore bequeathed his property (rather above 1100^£ per year) to me after his sister’s & his own death. Is this not a curious event! As he has no natural heirs I have had no hesitation in accepting it for my children’s sake; but of course I told him that I was a rich man, as this might make him change his intentions, but it has not done so.⁴ This is the oddest thing that ever happened to me, or as far as I know any scientific man.

Ever yours affectionately | Ch. Darwin