DARWIN'S DEBT TO HOOKER 21 



as Carl Nageli has lately been pitching into me on this head. 

 Hooker, with whom I discussed the subject, maintained that 

 uses would be found for lots more structures, and cheered 

 me by throwing my own orchids into my teeth.' 1 



DARWIN'S GREATEST FRIENDS IN THE TIME 

 OF STRESS 



It is interesting to put side by side passages 

 from two letters 2 written by Darwin to Hooker, 

 one in 1845 at the beginning of their friendship, 

 the other thirty-six years later, a few months 

 before Darwin's death. The first shows the 

 instant growth of their friendship : * Farewell ! 

 What a good thing is community of tastes ! I 

 feel as if I had known you for fifty years. 

 Adios.' 



The second letter expresses at the end of 

 Darwin's life the same feelings which find 

 utterance ever and again throughout the long 

 years of his friendship (see pp. 66, 67). 



' Your letter has cheered me, and the world does not look 

 a quarter so black this morning as it did when I wrote 

 before. Your friendly words are worth their weight in 

 gold.' 



It was to Hooker that Darwin first confided, 

 Jan. 11, 1844, his belief in evolution, but did not 

 at the time, even to him, give any account of 

 natural selection : 



'At last gleams of light have come, and I am almost 

 convinced (quite contrary to the opinion I started with) that 



1 More Letters, ii. 380. 



2 Ibid., i. 39. The passages here quoted are placed side by side 

 by the editors of this work. 



