256 KEW : 1879-1885 



and my daughter being on the Continent : they returned 

 last week. I have been busy, too, negotiating for the purchase 

 of a plot of land near Sunningdale whereon to build a * Tus- 

 culum,' and am on the point of closing with an offer of 

 six acres of ' Bagshot sand/ including a hill of 300 feet com- 

 manding a superb view, and in a country of Scotch fir and 

 heather. Another year I shall hope to be able to build 

 a cottage, an awful- undertaking for me. The situation, 

 1J miles from the station, from which I can reach Kew 

 in 1-1J hours, will be very convenient. 



The building of the new house gave Hooker's old friend, 

 George Maw, the opportunity of making him a present, from 

 his own factory, of all the floor and grate tiles required for the 

 house. 



Mrs. Asa Gray, knowing his partiality for such things, sent 

 some beautiful tiles for the study fireplace, which he afterwards 

 said jestingly kept her in warm remembrance. 



The house was comfortable. Hooker's first use of it in the 

 autumn of 1883 was to make it a winter home for his father-in- 

 law, Mr. Symonds, whose health had obliged him to resign his 

 living at Pendock. Invalid though he was, and always in 

 suffering, 



his spirits are as good as ever. I never knew such a man 

 for not knocking under ! He reads, writes poetry for Joe, 

 and keeps up his warm and generous interest in everything. 

 There is in him no trace of the * selfishness of illness.' 

 (To Hodgson, May 28, 1884.) 



The house was called * The Camp.' 



We took the name of the spot for it [he tells W. E. 

 Darwin, March 4, 1884] ; it is the site of a camp formed after 

 the battle of Culloden, the troops from which were such 

 scoundrels that they could not be kept in the town ! and 

 were camped in this spot, which was continued as a camp 

 during all the French wars. 



These ' scoundrels ' were usefully employed in making the 

 Lake and Waterfall at Virginia Water, the large stones for the 

 latter being taken from the camp and its neighbourhood. The 



