My dear Hooker

If you can do come here & give us all pleasure, on Saturday 28^th for the Sunday.— Winwood Reade (whom I have never seen, & who has aided me) & I hope Günther & Swinhoe are coming.—² Will you bring, Willy³ with you, though we can give him only a dressing room.— I hope you may be able to come.— Come by train which leaves Charing Cross at 5^o. 5’ & reaches Orpington at 5^o. 47’, where our carriage will be.—

I finished the last proofs of my book a few days ago:⁴ the work half killed me & I have not the most remote idea whether the book is worth publishing,—though it seems that it will sell very well.— I shall be well abused, for as my son Frank⁵ says “you treat man in such a bare-faced manner.”—

All work tires me to death & idleness is twice as bad as work, so I am in a nice fix for the rest of my life. Softening of the brain w^d. not be a bad ending.—

Farewell | Your affect | C. Darwin

Mivart has published what seems (I have read only a few pages) a very good book against me, accumulating all possible & some impossible objections.⁶ It is, however, unfortunately theological. I daresay it will tell heavily against natural selection, but not against evolution, & this is infinitely more important.—