BENTHAM AND KEW 431 
Then, were your Herb, at the K. of Hanover's and your 
Library with yourself, you might get on very comfortably. 
This will be my resting place no doubt, and I do not think we 
should quarrel, and I am sure our better halves would hail 
the event. If you should think of such a change (and it 
strikes me that feeling as you must, the comparative solitude 
of your present position, you may do so) I need not say how 
happy I should be that you put it into execution.^ 
To George Bentham 
February 16, 1854. 
My dear Bentham, — I am heartily glad that your mind 
is made up now, as I cannot but in my humble judgment 
think that it is so for the wisest and best in every point of 
view. I have turned the matter over in every possible way, 
as I have been going through the daily dull routine of 
distributing tickets and specimens for ' Herb. New Zealand ' 
and ' Herb. Ind.' or ' Hook. fil. and Thorn.' I do not wonder 
at your regret in leaving Pontrilas, seeing that I have always 
felt leaving a home, however bad, and even for a better. In 
your case, so far as the change is concerned of Jiouse, yours 
will not be for the better, as you certainly will not get so 
good, large and airy a one here, and I fear nothing so much 
as your feeling the change. Still as I have always become 
attached to a home however bad, I quite expect that you 
will warm to a small abode here. It is very odd, but I left 
my detestable cabin on board the Erebus with real regret, 
and no less my wretched tent in the Himalaya : not from a 
maudlin romantic regard, but because I felt I had been happy 
and comfortable (after a sort) under their respective shelters 
and fulfilled so much of my destiny under them as was 
appointed to me without wishing or caring for better. 
Whenever it was possible, during this period, a summer 
trip to Switzerland, then a more primitive playground than in 
these days, was planned. The Hookers enjoyed making up 
a small party of intimate friends, travelling in cheerful com- 
panionship and with the economy that attends on numbers. 
One such group which set out in 1852 became immortahsed 
^ In 1855 Bentham moved to London, taking a flat in Victoria Road, 
whence he visited Kew daily. 
