BEIAN HODGSON 249 
Experience of such friendship inspires him to write home 
of * Hodgson, who shows me all the attachment and affection 
of a brother, and whom I shall alwa^^s regard as one of my 
dearest friends on earth,' and later, hoping that his friend 
would leave Darjiling, which did not agree with him, and 
go to England in the autumn of 1849, exclaims, ' I am 
so anxious you should all know him.' He allows that 
Hodgson w^as too proud and haughty, but never towards 
himself. He had lived too long with the power of a prince 
in his hand not to acquire something of a prince's out- 
look. The sensitiveness of ill-health, added to absorption 
in keen intellectual interests, helped to render him impa- 
tient of the chatter of a small station, and thus he was not 
disposed to suffer pettinesses gladly. 
He is said to quarrel with every one, and in truth is as 
proud a man as I ever met, but we have always got on 
comfortably, and as we live like brothers our quarrelling 
would be absurd. We have a tiff now and then, but very 
rarely. [And July 19 ] : He and I live like hemiiits, and 
hardly ever see anybody but Mr. and Mrs. Campbell and the 
Miiller brothers.^ 
But he opened out at once to a kindred spirit, forestalHng 
every wish before it could be uttered, and what is more, seeing 
to it that every promised arrangement should be carried out, 
to Hooker's great relief, during the privations of his journey in 
Sikkim. Like a prince he gave ; with a prince's pride he shrank 
from any appearance of a return for friendship's favours. In 
this mood indeed at first he even declined to let Hooker name 
after him the finest of the nevv^ rhododendrons discovered in 
Sikkim. 
If the friendship with Lord Dalhousie provided the key that 
opened official barriers and made Hooker's journey ings possible, 
the friendship with Hodgson more than anything else made them 
a practical success. 
1 These bachelor brothers were here for their health ; one being the head of 
the opium factory at Patna, and both interested in science. They gave Hooker 
every help in their power, and in particular reduced all his meteorological 
observations for him. 
