190 LIFE AND FEIENDSHIP AT KEW 



daughter of a botanist and a considerable botanist herself, 

 her active interests marched with his. As a good writer of 

 English, she constantly aided him in his writing and correction 

 of proofs, where he relied greatly on her judgment. Her 

 knowledge of foreign languages enabled her to play her part 

 whether as hostess receiving the many foreign visitors to Kew, 

 or as guest with her husband on his official visits abroad. Her 

 skill was also shown in the translation of Le Maout and 

 Decaisne's ' General System of Botany,' which was published 

 in 1873, with additions by Dr. Hooker. An attachment 

 buttressed by mutual affinity, by a share of common interests 

 and pursuits, by the same measured firmness in ensuring the 

 same ideals of family and social life, had taken into its fabric 

 the common joys and sorrows of three-and-twenty years. 



Of the six surviving children, three still required care. The 

 inevitable problems of the home and education added their 

 undivided anxieties to Hooker's workaday burdens. For the 

 blow had fallen at a moment when not only the honours but 

 the labours of the time had been heaped up. 



His elder daughter was able to be a great help to her 

 father, and fortunately his aunt, Mrs. Dawson Turner, 1 and 

 her daughter (afterwards Mrs. Calverley Bewicke), were able to 

 join his family circle and were of great assistance to him. He 

 especially delighted in his cousin Mrs. Bewicke's beautiful 

 voice and cultured singing — a voice afterwards devoted for 

 many years and until, indeed, the present time, to the enjoy- 

 ment of the sick and wounded in Westminster Hospital. 



Two brief references may be permitted to his sense of loss. 

 One is in a letter to Huxley, a fortnight after the event. 



December 7, 1874. 



As for me, barring fits of depression, I am getting on. I 

 am still in a sort of trance — my memory of the immediate 

 past is blurred, and I have difficulty in recalling her features. 

 I think of her mostly as the girl I so long and so dearly loved 



1 The wife of Dawson William Turner (1815-85), philanthropist and 

 educational writer ; son of Dawson Turner ; demy of Magdalen College, Oxford ; 

 M.A. 1840, D.C.L. 1862; for some years Headmaster of the Royal Institution 

 at Liverpool, and a most generous benefactor to the London Hospitals. 



