1860 LETTERS TO HOOKER 323 



making it an extra bond with one's friends. And so, 

 being himself ready to take up the relationship to a 

 friend's child so long as he was not called upon to 

 utter a declaration of belief in tenets he did not hold, 

 he writes to Hooker : 



You know iny opinions on these matters, and I 

 would not ask you to do anything I would not do 



myself, so if you consent you shall be asked to do 



nothing else than to help devour the christening feed, 

 and be as good a friend to the boy as you have been to 

 his father. 



14 WAVERLEY PLACE, Jan. 6, 1861. 



MY DEAR HOOKER My wife and I were very pleased 

 to get your hearty and kind acceptance of Godfathership. 

 We shall not call upon you for some time, I fancy, as the 

 mistress doesn't get strong very fast. However, I am 

 only glad she is as well as she is. She came down 

 yesterday for the first time. 



It is very pleasant to get such expressions of opinion 

 as I have had from you, Lyell, and Darwin about the 

 Review. They make me quite hopeful about its prosperity, 

 as I am sure we shall be able to do better than our first 

 number. 



1 am glad you liked what I said in the opening of my 

 article. 1 I wish not to be in any way confounded with 



1 In the Natural History Review (1861, p. 67). "The proof 

 of his claim to independent parentage will not change the brutish- 

 ness of man's lower nature ; nor, except in those valet souls who 

 cannot see greatness in their fellow because his father was a 

 cobbler, will the demonstration of a pithecoid pedigree one whit 

 diminish man's divine right of kingship over nature ; nor lower the 

 great and princely dignity of perfect manhood, which is an order 

 of nobility not inherited, but to be won by each of us, so far as he 

 consciously seeks good and avoids evil, and puts the faculties with 

 which he is endowed to their fittest use." 



