l845.] SIR J. D. HOOKER. 303 



I have little or rather nothing to say about myself ; we live 

 like clock-work, and in what most people would consider the 

 dullest possible manner. I have of late been slaving extra 

 hard, to the great discomfiture of wretched digestive organs, 

 at South America, and thank all the fates, I have done three- 

 fourths of it. Writing plain English grows with me more 

 and more difficult, and never attainable. As for your pre- 

 tending that you will read anything so dull as my pure geo- 

 logical descriptions, lay not such a flattering unction on my 

 soul * for it is incredible. I have long discovered that geolo- 

 gists never read each other's works, and that the only object 

 in writing a book is a proof of earnestness, and that you do 

 not form your opinions without undergoing labour of some 

 kind. Geology is at present very oral, and what I here say 

 is to a great extent quite true. But I am giving you a dis- 

 cussion as long as a chapter in the odious book itself. 



I have lately been to Shrewsbury, and found my father 

 surprisingly well and cheerful. 



Believe me, my dear old friend, ever yours, 



C. Darwin. 



C. Darwin to /. D. Hooker. 



Down, Monday [February loth, 1S45]. 



My dear Hooker, — I am much obliged for your very 

 agreeable letter ; it was very good-natured, in the midst of 

 your scientific and theatrical dissipation, to think of writing 

 so long a letter to me. I am astonished at your news, and I 

 must condole with you in your present view of the Professor- 

 ship,! and most heartily deplore it on my own account. There 



* On the same subject he wrote to Fitz-Roy : " I have sent my ' South 

 American Geology ' to Dover Street, and you will get it, no doubt, in the 

 course of time. You do not know what you threaten when you propose to 

 read it — it is purely geological. I said to my brother, ' You will of course 

 read it,' and his answer was, ' Upon my life, I would sooner even buy it.' " 



f Sir J. D. Hooker was a candidate for the Professorship of Botany at 

 Edinburgh University. 



