352 MISCELLANEOUS LETTEES, 1886-1897 



an opinion of your ' other ' eye. You may now rest satisfied, 

 and relegate any fancied obscurities of its sight to their 

 psychical origin. As to the use of the microscope, the very 

 low powers I use do not strain the sight. My use of it consists 

 in making what are, with my half century's experience, really 

 (for me) rough dissections under low powers. When one 

 wonders what Malpighi 1 and the older microscopists dis- 

 covered with the miserable instruments that they possessed, 

 one forgets how far practice and foreknowledge of the results 

 to be sought obviate the need of high powers. As to the 

 stooping, that affects my vertebrae, not my eyesight. A 

 fortnight ago, at Kew, I most foolishly spent two consecutive 

 hours dissecting grasses under the microscope, sitting on 

 a low stool, at a low table ; on rising I was as stiff as a board, 

 and I could not straighten my back for three days ! nor then 

 without pain. My eyes were unaffected. 



April 9, 1894. 



I do indeed most sincerely sympathise with you in your 

 great affliction, and can only implore you not to let it prey 

 on your mind, and to hold fast to the stores of information 

 you have laid up to refresh your mind with in evil times. 

 It is easy to say all this and more, but it cannot be easy 

 to fall back upon such considerations at first that will 

 come, and you may rest assured that the anticipation of a 

 failure of sight is far less endurable than the failure itself. 

 If the empty headed blind are notoriously at peace, how 

 much more should those blind be who have useful lives to 

 look back upon, and well-stored minds to draw consolation 

 from. No doubt in your case the money matters are a 

 seriously disturbing element, but you may depend upon 

 that being removed in some shape or other. So, my dear 

 friend, do not be down-hearted. 



Among his Wedgwood collection, Hooker possessed com- 

 plete breakfast and dessert services in the rare Water-lily 

 pattern. William Darwin, who was lending specimens for a 

 Wedgwood exhibition, wished to learn the origin of these. 



1 Marcello Malpighi (1628-94). Besides his anatomical researches he pub- 

 lished two volumes of botanical works in 1686, and his Anatomes plantamm 

 Idea appeared in 1675-79. A statue was put up in his honour in 1897 at 

 Bologna. 



