356 LIFE AT DOWN. ^TAT. 33-45. [1853 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, November 5th [1853]. 



MY DEAR HOOKER, Amongst my letters received this 

 morning, I opened first one from Colonel Sabine; the con- 

 tents certainly surprised me very much, but, though the letter 

 was a very kind one, somehow, I cared very little indeed for 

 the announcement it contained. I then opened yours, and 

 such is the effect of warmth, friendship, and kindness from 

 one that is loved, that the very same fact, told as you told it, 

 made me glow with pleasure till my very heart throbbed. 

 Believe me, I shall not soon forget the pleasure of your letter. 

 Such hearty, affectionate sympathy is worth more than all 

 the medals that ever were or will be coined. Again, my 

 dear Hooker, I thank you. I hope Lindley * will never hear 

 that he was a competitor against me ; for really it is almost 

 ridiculous (of course you would never repeat that I said this, 

 for it would be thought by others, though not, I believe, by 

 you, to be affectation) his not having the medal long before 

 me ; I must feel sure that you did quite right to propose him ; 



* John Lindley (b. 1799, d. 1865) was the son of a nurseryman near 

 Norwich, through whose failure in business he was thrown at the age of 

 twenty on his own resources. He was befriended by Sir W. Hooker, and 

 employed as assistant librarian by Sir J. Banks. He seems to have had 

 enormous capacity of work, and is said to have translated Richard's 'Ana- 

 lyse du Fruit ' at one sitting of two days and three nights. He became 

 Assistant-Secretary to the Horticultural Society, and in 1829 was appointed 

 Professor of Botany at University College, a post which he held for up- 

 wards of thirty years. His writings are numerous : the best known being 

 perhaps his ' Vegetable Kingdom,' published in 1846. His influence in 

 helping to introduce the natural system of classification was considerable, 

 and he brought "all the weight of his teaching and all the force of his 

 controversial powers to support it," as against the Linnean system univer- 

 sally taught in the earlier part of his career. Sachs points out (Geschichte 

 der Botanik, 1875, p. 161), that though Lindley adopted in the main a 

 sound classification of plants, he only did so by abandoning his own the- 

 oretical principle that the physiological importance of an organ is a meas- 

 ure of its classificatory value. 



