My dear Hooker

What a candid honest fellow you are,—too candid & too honest. I do not believe one man in ten thousand would have thought & said what you say about your own work in your letter.¹ I told Lyell that nothing pleased me more in his work than the conspicuous position in which he very properly placed you.² About dates of your Essay & the Origin, I feared I might be thought to have told untruths, so I mentioned to Lyell that I had asked you (which I think you have forgotten) when I was writing my “historical sketch” the date of publication of your Essay & you wrote to me “December”;³ the Origin was published to world & every copy sold on Nov^r. 24^th, but was finished ie last sheet corrected Oct 1. (& Oct 2^d. I started for Ilkley), but was kept back by Murray for auction-sale; but private copies were distributed a good while before.⁴ But all this is absolutely & wholly immaterial, excepting so far that anyone might think that Lyell has found out that I had misrepresented case.—⁵

I am really sorry for Lyell’s troubles about so many claimants for notice: he has sent me the long P.S. addressed to you about Falconer;⁶ I never heard such nonsense, as that of the monkey case.⁷ Do see Falconer & see whether you can at all influence him, by saying what ill appearance Reclamations always have, & that the future historians of Science alone ought to settle such points.— It is wretched to see men fighting so for a little fame.—

I am so glad that you heartily admire parts of Huxley’s book.⁸ It can be only from brevity with which he treats species-question that he does not notice your great works: I do not remember that he even alludes to the grand subject of Geograph. Distribution.— The greatest blemish in my opinion in Lyell’s work⁹ (which I have said to no one) strikes me as a certain want of originality in the whole.— I have read Owen on Aye-Aye: it is nothing new: it gave me no scope for attacking him, & I had partly composed such a good letter (!);¹⁰ I long to be in the same boat with all (except you) my friends ie at open war; but at same time I rejoice not to be annoyed at public quarrel, & it would annoy me much.

Thanks about Potatoes & Poplars.—¹¹ I was very glad of the Bee-combs; but they did not turn out anything specially interesting; & I am a fool to go on collecting materials for work, when I can clearly see that I shall never publish half my already half-worked out matter.—¹²

Thank you for telling me about your heart-symptoms, which are very like mine; but thank God I have not yet come to have “worms crawling over my heart”!¹³ This is first day I have had an hour’s comfort.— If you can come over here on Sunday, we should indeed be delighted; but I sh^d. doubt it, as it is so far: I would send you back in carriage.—¹⁴

I am heartily glad to hear that you mean to think & write about mundane glacial period apropos to your grand Cameroon case.¹⁵ How I wish I could have published my M.S in full on this subject, as the sketch in Origin does not do it justice.¹⁶ Do not indulge in belief that any one continent could have remained a hot refuge for all tropical productions of world.¹⁷ I have of late come to conclusion that there must have been former Tertiary or Secondary cold periods & migrations.¹⁸

You speak of Reversions in your letter:¹⁹ I have been writing during last fortnight on this subject, i.e., on reversions to particular characters, & have got curious collection of facts & experiments. They have led me to view the whole case rather differently i.e. that the child never inherits from its grandfather or more distant ancestor, but that a crowd of characters lie latent in every living creature & parent.—²⁰

Good Night | my dear old friend | C. Darwin