Fe[bruar]y 15/[18]85
Dear Gray
I posted a copy as soon as I could procure it, of "Genera" to Bessey Nebraska. The charges are Copy £6.15. 4
Postage & registration - 4. 4 ½ 6.19. 8 ½ I shall be very glad of orders for more as I have a heavy bill for binding & reprinting! I cannot at all understand what [George] Bentham or the printers were about. The number of imperfect copies is staggering.
Bentham's affairs are not settled yet & I do not know what we shall get. The R[oyal] S[ociety] & L[innean] S[ociety] are cut down one half (£500 each!). I have told Madam[?] W. that it wil

will remain with her to carry out her husband's uncle[']s intentions! -- If she will not take the hint I am determined to make it hot for her, not for Kew however -- our hands are full enough of unpaid work to care for more, & keeping up the Icones without Bentham's head & pen will be no such lazy task, worked as we all are; for we must both dissect & describe as well as select materials.
I never saw any caster prior to the inkstand. No doubt it belonged to the father (Sir Samuel) usually a taper occupied such a space, in a square box for wafers.
I hope you got my postcard in time converting the blunder of Portsmouth for Plymouth.
Yes I do wish that I could be with you -- but I do not believe that my wife could have stood it at all. If we are to visit you it will be a quick one to Boston which I should dearly enjoy & still look forward to but until I retire I see no chance of

it. I have not had a holiday since we were in Italy for a single week but the 10 days in Paris last Easter. Everything here seems tied round my neck. Dyer does a great deal with extraordinary ease, but he does not know what my continuous labour is, nor could he much help it if he did -- but I wish he would let me do certain things -- eg the Reports, that for 1883 is not even in hand. i.e. his parts (he has mine) -- Bot[anical] Mag[azine] is a drag too -- it becomes yearly more difficult to work up the nomenclature & synomy[sic] of isolated garden plants. The McGilvray affair is a lengthening chain; the business correspondence of last year is a huge pile & is not done yet. My poor sister Maria [McGilvray nee Hooker] is now in a very sad state, & quite unmanageable at times. [Henry Ashburton] Newman has gone to California to set up a school for teaching agriculture!!! -- & Margaret [Greene Newman nee McGilvray] *1 is to follow him -- we hope that Bessy will go too for which I suppose I shall have to pay her passage -- Willy [William Henslow Hooker] has again failed to pass for Surgeon -- & young Grace is in confinement. Tom [Thomas F. McGIlvray] *2 is in Canada

where he is doing nothing & wants money to go to California too! My poor sister Bessy [Elizabeth Evans Lombe nee Hooker] has been 7 weeks in bed & Lombe is in despair about her -- he has been most generous & helpful in this McG[ilvray] affair -- giving her £250 in aid.
Symonds is in "status quo", we have left him & Mrs S[ymonds] in the "Camp" as care--taker & returned to Kew with the new child, christened Richard -- my wife's choice, I don't approve ten to one he won't be "judicious" at all -- all the more his cranium is just like mine, i.e. like a Chenooks[sic] *3 tremendously long from chin to occiput.
fac simile [a hand--drawn illustration of a Chinook with a flattened head appears here]
I wish when you go north you, or Mrs Gray, would get made for me a Chenook[sic] flattener to work the other (back) way & I will ask Hyacinth to clip it on for a year or two & see if I can't make him judicious. Otherwise it is a fine healthy child & H[yacinth] nurses it well. Joey[Joseph Symonds Hooker] is enchanted with it & follows it like a puppy dog.
[Everard Ferdinand] Im Thurn has got up Roraima. Johnstone's[sic] *4 Kilmanjaro[sic] *5 collections are very small I am sorry to say, he lost his collectors who ran away & could not do much

himself -- but he will write an interesting book.
Yours of Fe[bruar]y 2 just received. I can't understand you not having heard from me of the birth of the child. Letter must be lost. I hope I wrote!
I am delighted to hear of the good portrait of you, will it photograph?
I have had Indian Polygona on the table for 7 months & not done a dozen species. Meissner's work is not bad if he had only reduced the bad species, but I shall simplify it -- Amblygonon is my Persicaria.
I am greatly troubled about Bentham's British Flora, he has left me with the copy--right & duty of bringing out a new edition which Reeve is calling out for. I must not alter the character of the work, but how to do it justice without introducing a good ded deal of new matter is the question. It has been a very useful work, introducing enticing many to take up Botany who otherwise would not have done so.
Now good--bye -- I wonder where this will overtake you -- I hope you may meet Morris at N[ew] Orleans.
My uncle Dawson Turner died a fortnight ago. He fell down in a fit on the Strand &

was taken to Charing X hospital where he died of Erysipela after a few days. Mrs Turner was in town but no one was allowed to see him because of fear of excitement; till the very end approached when they were sent for. For the last few years he lived in London devoting his whole time to Hospital work at C[haring] C[ross] & Westminster Hospitals. He was a most liberal kind friend to the poor & needy, but most eccentric -- Aunt Ellen is the only remaining one of the family -- she lives on at Chester.
With Hyacinth's best love to you both & mine too.
Ever dear old Gray | Y[ou]r aff[ecionat]e] | J. D. Hooker [signature]
Harriet is nearly better I think - but very weak & not up to much.