My dear Hooker

I sh^d. have thanked you before for valuable specimens & 3 notes,² but we have been in a lamentable state; with 3 or 4 or even 6 in bed at a time with virulent influenza. I have been very bad & am much shaken & have done nothing for nearly 3 weeks. The Catasetum has dropped its flowers, alas & alas; & I want to return both plants & the Bolbophyllum.—³ Our carrier will be in London on Thursday morning;⁴ please give me address of the Kew Carrier in a few days’ time: I fear that the plants are not very healthy, though my neighbour’s gardener can grow Orchids well, yet he says he cannot manage these Catasetums:⁵ I hope to God they are not much injured.—

Sometime give me reference to Haast(??) Survey of Middle Is^d of New Zealand??— about Glacial deposits, which interests me much.—⁶

Asa Gray is evidently sore about England: he does not say much; nor do I; but I have hitherto been able to write with some sympathy; now I must be silent; for I look at the people as a nation of unmitigated blackguards.—⁷

I have been interested by what you say about your Willy:⁸ I should expect he would become all right, with all the excellent characters you specify, under advancing years. A child from such ancestry must lose the too great volatility, which seems the sole failing. I was struck years ago by what Arch^bp Whately⁹ told me of a son of very able parents, who was thought for years a dunce & who remained so till full manhood, when he stumbled on his vocation, viz an Australian settler; & then, as W. remarked, he exhibited his inherited genius, for he became Supereminent in this line of life.—

With respect to colours of flowers; I think such an investigation as you propose would certainly be very interesting; though whether worth the labour, I cannot say.—¹⁰ I have been excessively perplexed by opposite statements with respect to shells in deep water;¹¹ & now comes Bates’ case to astound me.¹² He refers truly to my observations on this head at Galapagos Arch. I saw (but had forgotten) that something more than heat is required for development of colour.¹³ Certainly it is an important consideration, (perhaps hardly anything more important,) to try to discover how much of any character stands in direct relation to external conditions; so that assuredly I hope you may undertake this investigation.—

Farewell— I am out of Spirits with all the illness in this house; & our youngest Boy has just failed in miserable degree, like five of our other children, with intermittent pulse.—¹⁴

What misery there is in this life.— God Bless you my dear old friend—

C. Darwin

Do not forget Kew Carrier.—

P.S. The letter with curious address forwarded by M^rs Hooker¹⁵ was from a German Homœopathic Doctor—an ardent admirer of the Origin—had himself published nearly the same sort of book, but goes much deeper—explains the origin of plants & animals on the principles of Homœopathy or by the Law of Spirality— Book fell dead in Germany— Therefore would I translate it & publish it in England &c &c?!¹⁶