1860 LETTERS TO HOOKER 321 



should carry out Hooker's own good resolutions of 

 keeping out of the turmoil of life, and devoting him- 

 self to pure science, seems to indicate in its tone 

 something of the stress of the time when it was 

 written 



JEP.MYN STREET, December 19, 1860. 



MY DEAR HOOKER What with one thing and an- 

 other, I have almost forgotten to answer your note and 

 first, as to the business matter. . . . Next as to my 

 own private affairs, the youngster is " a-swelling wisibly," 

 and my wife is getting on better than I hoped, though 

 not quite so well as I could have wished. The boy's 

 advent is a great blessing to her in all ways. For my- 

 self I hardly know yet whether it is pleasure or pain. 

 The ground has gone from under my feet once, and I 

 hardly know how to rest on anything again. Irrational, 

 you will say, but nevertheless natural. And finally as 

 to your resolutions, my holy pilgrim, they will be kept 

 about as long as the resolutions of other anchorites who 

 are thrown into the busy world, or I won't say that, for 

 assuredly you will take the world " as coolly as you can," 

 and so shall I. But that coolness amounts to the red 

 heat of properly constructed mortals. 



It is no use having any false modesty about the matter. 

 You and I, if we last ten years longer, and you by a 

 long while first, will be the representatives of our re- 

 spective lines in this country. In that capacity we shall 

 have certain duties to perform to ourselves, to the out- 

 side world, and to science. We shall have to swallow praise 

 which is no great pleasure, and to stand multitudinous 

 bastings and irritations, which will involve a good deal of 

 unquestionable pain. Don't flatter yourself that there is 

 any moral chloroform by which either you or I can render 

 ourselves insensible or acquire the habit of doing things 

 coolly. It is assuredly of no great use to tear one's self 



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