Springtime and Other Essays Part 9

I imagine that Hooker was lucky in being taken on Ross's voyage _as a naturalist_, since the primary object of the expedition was to fill up "the wide blanks in the knowledge of terrestrial magnetism in the southern hemisphere."

It seems like a forecast of what was to be the chief friends.h.i.+p of his life, that Darwin's _Naturalist's Voyage_ should have been one of the books that inspired him to join in the voyage of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_. Hooker "slept with the proofs under his pillow, and devoured them eagerly the moment he woke in the morning." Much earlier he had been stirred by Cook's voyages, and, like Darwin, was fired by Humboldt's _Personal Narrative_. While at sea his work was largely zoological, and the tow-net was kept busy. But on 24th August 1841, he writes to his father of his great wish to devote himself "to collecting plants and studying them . . . but we are comparatively seldom off the sea, and then in the most unpropitious seasons for travelling or collecting." He speaks, too, of his wish to see the end of the voyage, in order that he might devote himself to botany.

The voyage had its dangers: in March 1842, during a storm, the _Terror_ collided with the _Erebus_, and for nearly ten minutes the interlocked s.h.i.+ps drifted towards a huge berg: the _Erebus_ remained rolling and striking her masts against the berg, but managed by the "desperate expedient" of "sailing stern first down wind" to escape destruction.

Hooker writes to his father, 25th November 1842: "The Barrier, the bergs several hundred feet high and 16 miles long, and the Mts. of the great Antarctic continent, are too grand to be imagined, and almost too stupendous to be carried in the memory."

In a letter to his mother he describes seeing at Cape Horn "a little cairn of stones raised by the officers of the _Beagle_." And again he writes, "Clouds and fogs, rain and snow justified all Darwin's accurate descriptions of a dreary Fuegian summer." He speaks of Darwin's _Naturalist's Voyage_ as "not only indispensable but a delightful companion and guide." There is plenty of interesting matter in the account of Hooker's voyage, but the above fragments of detail must here suffice. The _Erebus_ and _Terror_ reached Woolwich on 7th September 1843.

Having safely returned to England, the next problem was what was to be Hooker's permanent occupation. Nothing, however, was fixed on, and in the meantime he fulfilled "his intention of seeing the chief Continental botanists, and comparing their gardens and collections with those of Kew."

His first visit was to Humboldt, at Paris, who turned out "a punchy little German," whereas he had expected "a fine fellow 6 feet without his boots." Of the great man he says, "He certainly is still a most wonderful man, with a sagacity and memory and capability for generalising that are quite marvellous. I gave him my book [_Flora Antarctica_], which delighted him much; he read through the first three numbers, and I suppose noted down thirty or forty things which he asked me particulars about." Humboldt was then seventy-six years of age. Hooker's impression of the Paris botanists was not favourable; he speaks of their habit of telling him of the magnitude of their own researches, "while of those of their neighbours they seem to know very little indeed." Of Decaisne, however, he speaks with warm appreciation. He would have been surprised if a prophet had told him that he was to be instrumental in bringing out an English version of Decaisne's well-known book.

In 1845 Hooker acted as a deputy for Graham, the Professor of Botany at Edinburgh. In May he wrote to his father, "I am lecturing away like a house on fire. I was not in the funk I expected, though I had every reason to be in a far greater one." Finally, when Graham died, Balfour, the father of the present holder of the office, was elected professor, and Hooker was fortunately freed from a post that would have been a fatal tie to his career.

But happier events followed; he became engaged to Frances, daughter of Professor Henslow. Sir William spoke of the affair with a certain pomposity: "I believe Miss Henslow to be an amiable and well-educated person of most respectable though not high connections, and from all that I have seen of her, well suited to Joseph's habits and pursuits." Their engagement was a long one, and their marriage could not take place till after his Indian journey, which was the next event of importance in his career.

On the voyage out, he was fortunate in becoming known to Lord Dalhousie, and the friends.h.i.+p built up in the course of the journey and afterwards in India "showed itself in unstinted support of Hooker." It was, however, "a personal appreciation of the man rather than of the scientific investigator." Indeed, Lord Dalhousie, "a perfect specimen of the miserable system of education pursued at Oxford," had a "lamentably low opinion" of science.

At Darjiling began Hooker's "lifelong friends.h.i.+p with a very remarkable character, Brian Hodgson," {122a} administrator and scholar, who had "won equal fame as Resident at the court of Nepal and as a student of Oriental lore." Mr L. Huxley points out that "if the friends.h.i.+p with Lord Dalhousie provided the key that opened official barriers and made Hooker's journeyings possible, the friends.h.i.+p with Hodgson more than anything else made them a practical success."

I shall not attempt to follow Hooker through his wanderings-only a few scattered references to them are possible. It is pleasant to read that when Mr Elwes visited Sikkim twenty-two years after Hooker, he found that the Lepchas almost wors.h.i.+pped him, and he was remembered as a learned Hakim, an incarnation of wisdom and strength.

The most exciting adventure of Hooker and his fellow-traveller was their imprisonment in Sikkim, where their lives were clearly in danger, and they were only released when "troops were hurried up to Darjiling" and "an ultimatum dispatched to the Rajah." {122b}

For the rest of his botanical journeyings he had the companions.h.i.+p of Thomson, who had been his fellow-student, and, like himself, was the son of a Glasgow professor. A letter to his father (undated) gives an idea of the wonderful success of his Indian travels: "It is easy to talk of a _Flora Indica_, and Thomson and I do talk of it, to imbecility! But suppose that we even adopted the size, quality of paper, brevity of description, etc., which characterise De Candolle's _Prodromus_, and we should, even under these conditions, fill twelve such volumes at least."

The usual shabbiness {123} of governments towards science is well ill.u.s.trated (p. 344) in the case of Hooker:-"His total expenditure was 2200; the official allowances were 1200: the remainder was contributed from his own and his father's purse."

In 1855 Joseph began his official life at Kew on being appointed a.s.sistant to his father. And ten years later, on Sir William's death, he succeeded as a matter of course to the Directors.h.i.+p.

Shortly before this, _i.e._ in 1854, he was the recipient of an honour greatly coveted by men of science, namely the award of the Royal Medal.

He is characteristically pleased for the sake of the science of Botany rather than for himself, and refers to the neglect that botany has generally experienced at the hands of the Society in comparison with zoological subjects. His own success characteristically reminds him of what he considered a slight to his father, viz., that he had not received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. This, the highest honour which men of science can aspire to, is open not merely to Britons but to all the world, and I should doubt whether Sir William had ever been high in the list of possible recipients.

We are now approaching the great change wrought in the scientific outlook of the world by the _Origin of Species_. In November 1856, after reading Darwin's MS. on geographical distribution, Hooker wrote that though "never very stubborn about unalterability of specific type, I never felt so shaky about species before." It must be remembered that throughout the companions.h.i.+p of Hooker and Darwin the latter was a convinced evolutionist. He writes in his autobiography that in 1838, after reading Malthus on Population, he was convinced of the origin of new species by means of natural selection. Throughout the close intercourse which subsisted for so many years between Hooker and Darwin, in which the views afterwards put forth in the _Origin of Species_ were discussed, Hooker seems not to have been a convinced evolutionist. His conversion dates apparently from 1858, when the papers by Darwin and Wallace were read at the Linnean Society. This has always appeared to me remarkable, and T.

H. Huxley {124} has said with regard to his own position:-"My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central idea of the 'Origin' was, 'How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!'"

After the publication of the _Origin of Species_ Hooker wrote to Darwin, {125} "I have not yet got half through the book, not from want of will, but of time-for it is the very hardest book to read, to full profit, that I ever tried-it is so cram-full of matter and reasoning. . . . Somehow it reads very different from the MS., and I often fancy that I must have been very stupid not to have more fully followed it in MS."

Whatever Hooker may have been he was not stupid, and though nowadays it is easy to feel surprise that his long-continued familiarity with Darwin's work had not earlier convinced him of the doctrine of evolution by means of natural selection, we must ascribe it rather to his early education in the sacrosanct meaning of the word _species_.

I think it must have been roughly about the time of the publication of the _Origin of Species_ that my earliest memories of Sir Joseph Hooker refer. I clearly remember his eating gooseberries with us as children, in the kitchen garden at Down. The love of gooseberries was a bond between us which had no existence in the case of our uncles, who either ate no gooseberries or preferred to do so in solitude. By a process of evolutionary change the word gooseberry took on a new meaning at Down.

Hooker used to send Darwin some especially fine bananas grown in the Kew hothouses, and these were called Kew gooseberries. It was characteristic of my father to feel doubts as to whether he ought to receive Royal bananas from a Royal garden. I wish I could remember Hooker romping with us as children, of which he somewhere speaks.

It was about this time that Darwin had a fancy to make out the names of the English gra.s.ses, and Hooker wrote, "How on earth you have made out 30 gra.s.ses rightly is a mystery to me. You must have a marvellous tact for appreciating diagnosis." It was at this time that one of Darwin's boys remarked in regard to a gra.s.s he had found:-"I are an extraordinary gra.s.s-finder, and must have it particularly by me all dinner." Strange to say he did not grow into a botanist.

Hooker's letters at this time impress me with the difficulty he met with in adapting his systematic work to the doctrines of evolution. He gives the impression of working at species in a puzzled or discontented frame of mind. Thus on 1st January 1859, he writes to a fellow-botanist:-"What I shall try to do is, to harmonise the facts with the newest doctrines, not because they are the truest, but because they do give you room to reason and reflect at present, and hopes for the future, whereas the old stick-in-the-mud doctrines of absolute creations, multiple creations, and dispersion by actual causes under existing circ.u.mstances, are all used up, they are so many stops to further enquiry."

A few days later he continues to the same correspondent: "If the course of migration does not agree with that of birds, winds, currents, etc., so much the worse for the facts of migration!" On the whole it seems to me a remarkable fact that Hooker's conversion to evolution was such a slow affair. As Mr Huxley points out, "The partial light thrown on the question in fragmentary discussions was not enough, and until 185859, after the consolidation of Darwin's arguments in the famous Abstract [_The Origin of Species_], Hooker . . . worked avowedly on the accepted lines of the fixity of species, for which he had so far found no convincing subst.i.tute."

It is pleasant to read Darwin's warm-hearted words: {127a} "You may say what you like, but you will never convince me that I do not owe you ten times as much as you can owe me" (30th Dec. 1858).

Hooker's importance in the world was ever on the increase, and this had also its usual concomitant drawbacks. Huxley wrote to him {127b} on 19th December 1860: "It is no use having any false modesty about the matter.

You and I, if we last ten years longer-and you by a long while first-will be representatives of our respective lines in the country. In that capacity we shall have certain duties to perform, to ourselves, to the outside world, and to Science. We shall have to swallow praise, which is no great pleasure, and to stand mult.i.tudinous bastings and irritations."

And this was doubtless a true prophecy for both the friends.

Hooker's work-both his botanical research and duties of a more public character-was ever on the increase.

In the first category comes the _Genera Plantarum_, a gigantic piece of work begun with the co-operation of Bentham in the '60's, and continued until 1883. The aim of this celebrated publication was no less than to give a revised definition of every genus of flowering plants. If this had been the only publication by the two friends, it had been enough to found a high and permanent place in the botanical world. But as far as Hooker was concerned, it may almost be said to have been carried out in his spare moments. It should be remembered that for part of this period he was aided in the management of the Gardens by Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, who began as Hooker's Private Secretary and was then made a.s.sistant Director. {128a}

The Presidency of the Royal Society, which Hooker held 187378, was clearly a great strain, but he carried out the work (which is in fact that of a ministry of science) with conspicuous success.

In January 1873 he wrote to Darwin:-"I quite agree as to the awful honour of P. R. S. . . . but, my dear fellow, I don't want to be crowned head of science. I dread it-'Uneasy is the head, etc.'-and my beloved Gen.

Plant. will be grievously impeded." It gives some idea of the strain of his work as a whole when we find him writing {128b} to Darwin (Jan. 14, 1875): "I have 15 Committees of the R[oyal] S[ociety] to attend to. I cannot tell you what a relief they are to me-matters are so ably and quietly conducted by Stokes, Huxley, and Spottiswoode that to me they are of the same sort of relaxation that metaphysics are to Huxley."

He speaks, {128c} too (1874), of the annual conversazione as "a tremendous affair. . . . How I did pity the President of the United States." I am reminded of an American caricature of the President of the United States with red, swollen fingers, inscribed:-"The hand we have shaken so often." With regard to other honours, he declined at once the K.C.M.G.; he then began to dread a K.C.B.; finally he was trapped into the K.C.S.I., an honour which most men would desire quite as much as Hooker longed to decline it.

In 1873 Hooker made a series of experiments on the digestion and absorption of food by certain insectivorous plants, notably Nepenthes, with the object of helping Darwin in his work on that subject.

We must return a year or two to deal with a matter which, as Mr L. Huxley remarks, "ravaged and embittered" the period 187072-namely, his conflict with Ayrton, the First Commissioner of Works in Gladstone's Government.

Mr L. Huxley, like a clever musician, gives a touch of Ayrton's tone in the opening phrases of his composition. At a grand festivity in honour of the Shah of Persia this sovereign was unaccountably anxious to meet the Commissioner of Works. Ayrton was at supper, and bluntly responded, with his mouth full of chicken, "I'll see the old n.i.g.g.e.r in Jericho first!"

He began to show his quality by sending an "official reprimand to the Director of Kew." This, the first received in twenty-nine years'

service, was based "on a misapprehension." Ayrton's aim seems to have been to compel Hooker to resign and convert Kew Gardens into a public park.

In 1871 Hooker casually discovered from a subordinate "that he himself had been superseded . . . in one of his most important duties-namely, the heating of the plant-houses." It would take too long to enumerate the endless acts of insolence and folly which marked Ayrton's treatment of Hooker. A full statement of the case was drawn up and signed by a small body of the most distinguished scientific men of the day, and after a debate in the House of Commons, Mr Ayrton was kicked upstairs "from the Board of Works to the resuscitated office of Judge Advocate General." I remember an anecdote which ill.u.s.trates Ayrton's stupendous ignorance of the great department over which he was called to rule. Hooker was taking Ayrton round the Gardens when they met Mr Bentham, who happened to remark that he had come from the Herbarium. "Oh," said Ayrton, "did you get your feet wet?" For the official ruler of Kew there was no difference between a Herbarium and an Aquarium.

This period has pleasanter memories, for it was in 1873 that Huxley, much out of health and "heavily mulcted" by having to pay the costs of an unsuccessful action brought against him by a man of straw, was persuaded to accept from a group of personal friends a sum of 3000 to clear his financial position, Hooker wrote to Darwin, "I am charmed by Huxley's n.o.ble-minded letter."

In 1874 Mrs Hooker died, leaving six children, of whom three still required care. Hooker wrote later to Darwin from Nuneham (ii., p. 191): "I am here on two days' visit to a place I had not seen since I was here with f.a.n.n.y Henslow [Mrs Hooker] in 1847. I cannot tell you how depressed I feel at times. She, you, and Oxford are burnt into my memory." Here occurs, in a letter from Mrs Bewicke, some account of Hooker's method of dealing with his family. She gives the impression (though clearly not intentionally) that Hooker rather worried his children. She speaks of the many questions he asked them at meals and the pleasure he took in their success in answering. She adds, "When we drove into London with him, he would tell us the names of the big houses and their owners, and then expect us to know them as we drove back." This confirms my impression that Hooker was not quite judicious in his manner of educating or enlightening his children. I have a general impression of having sympathised with them in their difficulties.

In 1876, Hooker was happily married to Hyacinth, widow of Sir William Jardine; and about the same time Sir William Thiselton-Dyer married Sir Joseph's daughter.

The _Index Kewensis_, which unites the names of two friends, was carried out at Kew, with funds supplied by Darwin. It was in fact a completion of Steudel's _Nomenclator_, and was published in four quarto volumes in 189295. The MS. is said to have weighed more than a ton and comprised about 375,000 entries. Hooker, with wonderful energy and devotion, read and criticised it in detail. {131}

In 1885, Hooker resigned his position as Director at Kew, and henceforward lived at the Camp, Sunningdale, his "Tusculum" among the pine-woods as Mr Huxley puts it, where he remained, ever hard at work, for twenty-six years.

He was still astonis.h.i.+ngly vigorous; at eighty-two he was "younger than ever," though at ninety-three he confessed to being lazy in his old age.

In 1885 and subsequent years he was, as I gratefully remember, employed in helping me in the _Life and Letters of Charles Darwin_. I could not have had a kinder or wiser collaborator.

Hooker's unaffected modesty came out again about this period. In 1887 he was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, an honour which is the pinnacle of scientific ambition, and is open to foreigners as well as British subjects. He wrote in regard to the award, "I never once thought of myself as within the pale of it." And in a letter to W. E. Darwin, "The success of my after-dinner homily at the R. S. is to me far more wonderful than getting the Copley. You . . . can guess my condition of two days' nausea before the dinner, and 2 days of illness after it. I am not speaking figuratively."

We find Hooker here and there slas.h.i.+ng at contemporary methods of education. For instance, in regard to the ma.s.s of public school boys: "Not one of them can now translate a simple paper in Latin or Greek, or will look into a cla.s.sical author, or listen to the talk about one."

Mathematicians fared no better. He wrote in 1893:-"What you say of A, B, and C does not surprise me. They are _ne plus ultra_ mathematicians, and have not a conception of biological science, and in fact are only _half-intellects_ (I suppose I deserve to be burned)."

It is pleasant to find that Hooker allowed himself time to indulge his love of art. He was especially fond of old Wedgwood ware, and corresponded with William Darwin-a fellow amateur. In 1895, he allowed the same friend to become the owner of some old Wedgwood ware; and when the sale was completed Hooker speaks of its being a relief "to feel that the crockery is going back where it should have gone by rights." {133} Elsewhere (ii., p. 360) Hooker discourses pleasantly on the perfect adaption to its end of the old Wedgwood ware. An old teapot, for instance, avoids all the faults of the modern article, in lifting which "you scald your knuckles against the body of the pot"; then the lid shoots off and you scald your other hand in trying to save it; the tea shoots out and splashes over the teacup; lastly the "spout dribbles when you set the pot down." All these sins are provided against in the old Wedgwood teapot.