My dear Darwin

Oliver has written what appears to me to be an able review of “Dimorphism” apropos of your Primula paper for the forthcoming No. of the N.H Review.¹ Your account of Viola impregnating direct from the anther is to me novel & most interesting   it is half-way to the structure of Asclepias &c.² I have finished the Cameroons Mt plants, are you ready for the gross results? as to the proportions &c of temperate forms.³

I am daily at Exhibition Jury work except Monday— it is just as well to be slaving there as at Kew, & as amusing.⁴

We are still in domestic perplexity— My wife⁵ is very thin & watery, lacks energy, blood & muscle. & though she does her best honestly & heartily with the children, she lacks energy & method & does not get on.— We have agreed to a plan of housekeeping which will I hope answer better—to get a middle aged cook who will be sort of housekeeper in as far as keeping an absolute control over who comes in & out of the kitchen—⁶ Mrs Darwin is not likely to know of such a person, but perhaps you will kindly mention it to her—quite a plain cook is all we want, who can roast, boil & bake, but she must be beyond the age of flirtation— I can promise her a quiet place, a most indulgent mistress & good wages.— Then we shall return to the Nursery Governess plan—but endeavour to get an older & more practised one than we had before—

I am getting over my dispiriting feelings of annoyance & anxiety. I wish I could add that my wife was better— she complains of palpitation of heart & shortness of breath & she has hardly a perceptible pulse—that she looks very ill every one says. I want above all to take her away, but neither of us can leave home till our household is arranged.

Ever yrs affec | J D Hooker