BENTHAM AND KEW 431 



Then, were your Herb, at the K. of Hanover's and your 

 Library with yourself, you might get on very comfortably. 

 This will be my resting place no doubt, and I do not think we 

 should quarrel, and I am sure our better halves would hail 

 the event. If you should think of such a change (and it 

 strikes me that feeling as you must, the comparative solitude 

 of your present position, you may do so) I need not say how 

 happy I should be that you put it into execution.^ 



To George Bentham 



February 16, 1854. 



My deak Bentham, — I am heartily glad that your mind 

 is made up now, as I cannot but in my humble judgment 

 think that it is so for the wisest and best in every point of 

 view. I have turned the matter over in every possible way, 

 as I have been going through the daily dull routine of 

 distributing tickets and specimens for ' Herb. New Zealand ' 

 and ' Herb. Ind.' or * Hook. fil. and Thom.' I do not wonder 

 at your regret in leaving Pontrilas, seeing that I have always 

 felt leaving a home, however bad, and even for a better. In 

 your case, so far as the change is concerned of house, yours 

 will not be for the better, as you certainly will not get so 

 good, large and airy a one here, and I fear nothing so much 

 as your feeling the change. Still as I have always become 

 attached to a home however bad, I quite expect that you 

 will warm to a small abode here. It is very odd, but I left 

 my detestable cabin on board the Erehus with real regret, 

 and no less my wretched tent in the Himalaya : not from a 

 maudlin romantic regard, but because I felt I had been happy 

 and comfortable (after a sort) under their respective shelters 

 and fulfilled so much of my destiny under them as was 

 appointed to me without wishing or caring for better. 



Whenever it was possible, during this period, a summer 

 trip to Switzerland, then a more primitive playground than in 

 these days, was planned. The Hookers enjoyed making up 

 a small party of intimate friends, travelling in cheerful com- 

 panionship and with the economy that attends on numbers. 

 One such group which set out in 1852 became immortaHsed 



^ In 1855 Bentham moved to London, taking a flat in Victoria Road, 

 whence he visited Kew daily. 



