WALLACE.
* * * * *
SIR J. HOOKER TO A.R. WALLACE
_The Camp, Sunningdale. November 12, 1905._
My dear Wallace,--My return from a short holiday at Sidmouth last
Thursday was greeted by your kind and welcome letter and copy of your
"Life." The latter was, I assure you, never expected, knowing as I do
the demand for free copies that such a work inflicts on the writer. In
fact I had put it down as one of the annual Christmas gifts of books
that I receive from my own family. Coming, as it thus did, quite
unexpectedly, it is doubly welcome, and I do heartily thank you for this
proof of your greatly valued friendship. It will prove to be one of four
works of greatest interest to me of any published since Darwin's
"Origin," the others being Waddell's "Lhasa," Scott's "Antarctic
Voyage," and Mill's "Siege of the South Pole."
I have not seen Clodd's edition of Bates's "Amazon," which I have put
down as to be got, and I had no idea that I should have appeared in it.
Your citation of my letters and their contents are like dreams to me;
but to tell you the truth, I am getting dull of memory as well as of
hearing, and what is worse, in reading: what goes in at one eye goes out
at the other. So I am getting to realise Darwin's consolation of old
age, that it absolves me from being expected to know, remember, or
reason upon new facts and discoveries.
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