I845-] 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 J. D. Hooker. 



Down, Monday [February 10th, 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. 



