It may be called "Individualistic Socialism." I shall
be up in London soon, I expect, to the first Meetings of the Examiners
in the great science of "omnium gatherum."[44]--Your affec. papa,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
While he lived at Parkstone our father built a small orchid house in
which he cultivated a number of orchids for a few years, but the
constant attention which they demanded, together with the heated
atmosphere, were too much for him, and he was obliged to give them up.
He was never tired of admiring their varied forms and colours, or
explaining to friends the wonderful apparatus by which many of them were
fertilised. The following letter shows his enthusiasm for orchids:
TO Miss VIOLET WALLACE
_Parkstone, Dorset. November_ 25, 1894.
My dear Violet,-- ... I have found a doctor at Poole (Mr. Turner) who
has two nice orchid houses which he attends to entirely himself, and as
I can thus get advice and sympathy from a fellow maniac (though he _is_
a public vaccinator!) my love of orchids is again aroused to fever-heat,
and I have made some alterations in the greenhouse which will better
adapt it for orchid growing, and have bought a few handsome kinds very
cheap, and these give me a lot of extra work and amusement....
* * * * *
TO HIS WIFE
_Hotel du Glacier du Rhone. Wednesday evening, [July, 1895].
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