I should beyond anything like to know whether you have any Alpine collections from Japan, and what is their character. This letter is miserably expressed, but perhaps it will suffice to show what I believe have been the later main migrations and changes of temperature...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. [Down] October 6th, 1858.
...If you have or can make leisure, I should very much like to hear news of Mrs. Hooker, yourself, and the children. Where did you go, and what did you do and are doing? There is a comprehensive text.
You cannot tell how I enjoyed your little visit here, it did me much good. If Harvey is still with you, pray remember me very kindly to him.
...I am working most steadily at my Abstract, but it grows to an inordinate length; yet fully to make my view clear (and never giving briefly more than a fact or two, and slurring over difficulties), I cannot make it shorter. It will yet take me three or four months; so slow do I work, though never idle. You cannot imagine what a service you have done me in making me make this Abstract; for though I thought I had got all clear, it has clarified my brains very much, by making me weigh the relative importance of the several elements.
I have been reading with much interest your (as I believe it to be) capital memoir of R. Brown in the "Gardeners' Chronicle"...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, October 12th, [1858].
...I have sent eight copies (Of the joint paper by C. Darwin and A.R. Wallace.) by post to Wallace, and will keep the others for him, for I could not think of any one to send any to.
I pray you not to pronounce too strongly against Natural Selection, till you have read my abstract, for though I dare say you will strike out MANY difficulties, which have never occurred to me; yet you cannot have thought so fully on the subject as I have.
I expect my Abstract will run into a small volume, which will have to be published separately...