To J. D. Hooker 16 [March 1858]1
Down Bromley Kent
16th
My dear Hooker
Many thanks for Ledebour & still more for your letter, with its admirable resume of all your objections.2 It is really most kind of you to take so very much trouble, about what seems to you, & probably is, mere vagaries.—
I will earnestly try & be cautious: I will write out my tables & conclusions, & (when well copied out) I hope you will be so kind as to read it. I will then put it by & after some months look at it with fresh eyes.— I will briefly work in all your objections & Watson’s.—3 I labour under a great difficulty from feeling sure that with what very little systematic work I have done, that small genera were more interesting & therefore more attracted my attention.
One of your remarks I do not see the bearing of under your point of view, namely that in monotypic genera, “the variations & variability” are “much more frequently noticed”, than in polytypic genera.— I hardly like to ask, but this is the only one of your arguments, of which I do not see the Bearing; & I certainly shd. be very glad to know.— See P.S.4 I believe I am the slowest, (perhaps the worst) thinker in England; & I now consequently fully admit the full hostility of Urticaceæ,—which I will give in my tables.—5
I will make no remarks on your objections, as I do hope you will read my M.S, which will not cost you much trouble, when fairly copied out.—
From my own experience, I can hardly believe the most sagacious observers, without counting could have predicted whether there were more or fewer recorded varieties in large or small genera: for I found when actually making list, I could never strike a balance in my mind;—a good many varieties occuring together in small or in large genera, always threw me off the balance.—
But no more, except my repeated thanks. | Ever yours | C. Darwin
Ledebour shall be returned soon.—
P.S | I have just thought that your remark about the much variation of monotypic genera was to show me that even in these, the smallest genera, there was much variability.— If this be so, then do not answer; & I will so understand it.—
I strongly suspect that I have never yet sufficiently explained my notions, & that you do not quite understand me; but I will anyhow try to make myself clear in my M.S.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Ledebour, Karl Friedrich von. 1842–53. Flora Rossica sive enumeratio plantarum in totius imperii Rossici provinciis Europaeis, Asiaticis et Americanis hucusque observatarum. 4 vols. Stuttgart. [Vols. 6,7]
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Weddell, Hugh Algernon. 1856. Monographie de la famille des Urticés. Paris.
Summary
Thanks JDH for his objections; will respond by sending fair copy of MS when written.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2242
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 114: 229
- Physical description
- ALS 8pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2242,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2242.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7