i862.] FERTILISATION OF FLOWERS. 445 



Hooker, who added, " I thought it very well done indeed. I 

 have read a good deal of the Orchid-book, and echo all he 

 says." 



To this my father replied (June 30th, 1862) : — 

 " My dear Old Friend, — You speak of my warming the 

 cockles of your heart, but you will never know how often you 

 have warmed mine. It is not your approbation of my scien- 

 tific work (though I care for that more than for any one's) : it 

 is something deeper. To this day I remember keenly a letter 

 you wrote to me from Oxford, when I was at the Water-cure, 

 and how it cheered me when I was utterly weary of life. 

 Well, my Orchis-book is a success (but I do not know 

 whether it sells)." 



In another letter to the same friend, he wrote : — 

 *' You have pleased me much by what you say in regard to 

 Bentham and Oliver approving of my book ; for I had got a 

 sort of nervousness, and doubted whether I had not made an 

 egregious fool of myself, and concocted pleasant little stinging 

 remarks for reviews, such as 'Mr. Darwin's head seems to 

 have been turned by a certain degree of success, and he 

 thinks that the most trifling observations are worth publica- 

 tion.'" 



Mr. Bentham's approval was given in his Presidential 

 Address to the Linnean Society, May 24, 1862, and Vv^as all 

 the more valuable because it came from one who was by 

 no means supposed to be favourable to evolutionary doc- 

 trines.] 



C Darwin to Asa Gray. 



Down, June 10 [1862]. 



My dear Gray, — Your generous sympathy makes you 

 overestimate what you have read of my Orchid-book. But 

 your letter of May i8th and 26th has given me an almost 

 foolish amount of satisfaction. The subject interested me, I 

 knew, beyond its real value ; but I had lately got to think 

 that I had made myself a complete fool by publishing in a 

 semi-popular form. Now I shall confidently defy the world 



