I hope you and Mrs. Hooker will have a very very pleasant tour. Farewell, my dear Hooker.
Yours affectionately, C. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Norfolk House, Shanklin, Isle of Wight, Thursday [August 5, 1858].
My dear Hooker,
I should think the note apologetical about the style of the abstract was best as a note...But I write now to ask you to send me by return of post the MS. on big genera, that I may make an abstract of a couple of pages in length. I presume that you have quite done with it, otherwise I would not for anything have it back. If you tie it with string, and mark it MS. for printing, it will not cost, I should think, more than 4 pence. I shall wish much to say that you have read this MS. and concur; but you shall, before I read it to the Society, hear the sentence.
What you tell me after speaking with Busk about the length of the Abstract is an IMMENSE relief to me; it will make the labour far less, not having to shorten so much every single subject; but I will try not to be too diffusive. I fear it will spoil all interest in my book (The larger book begun in 1856.), whenever published. The Abstract will do very well to divide into several parts: thus I have just finished "Variation under Domestication," in forty-four MS. pages, and that would do for one evening; but I should be extremely sorry if all could not be published together.
What else you say about my Abstract pleases me highly, but frightens me, for I fear I shall never be able to make it good enough. But how I do run on about my own affairs to you!
I was astonished to see Sir W. Hooker's card here two or three days ago: I was unfortunately out walking. Henslow, also, has written to me, proposing to come to Down on the 9th, but alas, I do not return till the 13th, and my wife not till a week later; so that I am also most sorry to think I shall not see you, for I should not like to leave home so soon. I had thought of going to London and running down for an hour or two to Kew...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Norfolk House, Shanklin, Isle of Wight, [August] [1858].
My dear Hooker,