acle 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 slashing at contemporary methods of
education. For instance, in regard to the mass of public school boys:
"Not one of them can now translate a simple paper in Latin or Greek, or
will look into a classical 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.

The _Flora of British India_ having been finished, he was asked to
complete the handbook to the Flora of Ceylon, interrupted by the death of
Trimen, and this occupied him for three years. He was then led to what
was to be his final piece of work, namely, a study of the difficult group
of the Balsams (_Impatiens_), and he certainly was not coloured by what
he worked in, for the whole stock of his admirable patience was needed
for this difficult research. His perseverance was a by-product of his
noble enthusiasm. In 190