1 86 5 .] 



CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 



39 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker, 



Down, Thursday, 27th [Sept. 1865]. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, — I had intended writing this morning 

 to thank Mrs. Hooker most sincerely for her last and several 

 notes about you, and now your own note in your hand has 

 rejoiced me. To walk between five and six miles is splendid, 

 with a little patience you must soon be well. I knew you had 

 been very ill, but I hardly knew how ill, until yesterday, when 

 Bentham (from the Cranworths *) called here, and I was able 

 to see him for ten minutes. He told me also a little about 

 the last days of your father ; f I wish I had known your father 

 better, my impression is confined to his remarkably cordial, 

 courteous and frank bearing, I fully concur and understand 

 what you say about the difference of feeling in the loss of a 

 father and child. I do not think any one could love a father 

 much more than I did mine, and I do not believe three or four 

 days ever pass without my still thinking of him, but his death 

 at eighty-four caused me nothing of that insufferable grief J 

 which the loss of poor dear Annie caused. And this seems to 

 me perfectly natural, for one knows that for years previously 



* Robert Rolfe, Lord Cranworth, 

 and Lord Chancellor of England, 

 lived at Holwood, near Down. 



t Sir Wm. Hooker; b. 1785, 

 d. 1865. He took charge of the 

 Royal Gardens at Kew, in 1840, 

 when they ceased to be the private 

 gardens of the Royal Family. In 

 doing so, he gave up his professor- 

 ship at Glasgow — and with it half 

 of his income. He founded the 

 herbarium and library, and within 

 ten years he succeeded in making 

 the gardens the first in the world. 

 It is, thus, not too much to say that 

 the creation of the establishment 

 at Kew is due to the abilities and 

 self-devotion of Sir William Hooker. 



While, for the subsequent develop- 

 ment of the gardens up to their 

 present magnificent condition, the 

 nation must thank Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, in whom the same qualities 

 are so conspicuous. 



% I may quote here a passage 

 from a letter of November 1863. 

 It was written to a friend who had 

 lost his child : " How well I re- 

 member your feeling, when we lost 

 Annie. It was my greatest comfort 

 that I had never spoken a harsh 

 word to her. Your grief has made 

 me shed a few tears over our poor 

 darling ; but believe me that these 

 tears have lost that unutterable 

 bitterness of former days.' 5 



