My dear Hooker

I thank you much for your most kind letter.² It has pleased me greatly; & Frank desires me to say how grateful he is for the interest which you have shown about him. Frank desired earnestly to accept the office, & we consulted long about him. The sole point which determined him was that he thought that he had not knowledge enough on morphology & systematic botany, especially on the enormous field of the lower forms, to justify him in pretending to judge on the merits of the answers given by any superior students. In this I could not but agree with him. After reading your & Dyers letters, I confess, however, to being somewhat staggered; but it is now too late as the office has been offered to some one else.³ Frank from the first hoped that the office might be hereafter offered again to him, & he thought then that he might accept it.⁴ Another point somewhat influenced me (though F. decided quite for himself) namely that he is a slow & almost too conscientious a worker, & I am very anxious that he sh^d do more original work; but this may have been a mistake on my part. I beg you to thank also Dyer very much for his long letter which has gratified both Frank & me much. I will not answer it separately, as I could only repeat what I have here said:

Farewell my dear & kind old Friends | yours | Charles Darwin