Thomas Hooker

“ Were it within the purpose of this sketch to do so, no better illustration of the fighting general could be given than a detailed account of this battle, in which Hooker was the central—only figure. The country is as much indebted to him personally for the victory as to Sheridan for Cedar Creek, Rousseau for Perryville, or Thomas for Chickamauga.
Hooker is "his own worst enemy"—not in a common and vulgar acceptance of that term, now universally applied to those who indulge their appetite at the expense of the brain. ”

“ He was a supreme master of the art of war. He understood Hooker's move from the moment it began. His gray army had already slipped out of his trenches and were feeling their way through the tangled vines and underbrush with sure, ominous tread. In this wilderness Hooker's four hundred guns would be as useless as his own hundred and seventy. It would be a hand-to-hand fight in the tangled brush. The gray veteran was a dead shot and he was creeping through his own native woods. On this beautiful May morning, Lee, Jackson, and Stuart met in conference before the battle opened. ”

“ HOOKER, THOMAS (1586-1647) , New England theologian, was born, probably on the 7th of July 1586, at Marfield, in the parish of Tilton, County of Leicester, England. He graduated B.A. in 1608 and M.A. in 1611 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the intellectual centre of Puritanism, remained there as a fellow for a few years, and then preached in the parish of Esher in Surrey. About 1626 he became lecturer to the church of St Mary at Chelmsford, Essex, delivering on market days and Sunday afternoons evangelical addresses which were notable for their moral fervour. ”

“ The direct interest in the Ecclesiastical Polity is now philosophical and political rather than theological, for what theological importance it possessed was rather in regard to the spirit and method in which theology should be discussed than in regard to the decision of strictly theological points. Hooker bases his reasoning on principles which he discovered in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, but the intellectual atmosphere of his age was different from that which surrounded them ”

“ How I envied Hooker; he has long been engaged to a daughter of Professor Henslow's, and at this very meeting he sat by her side. He is going to be married in a day or two. His father is director of the Kew Gardens, and there is little doubt of his succeeding him.
Whether the Government accede to the demand that will be made upon them or not, I can now rest satisfied that no means of influencing them has been left unused by me. If they will not listen to the conjoint recommendations of the Royal Society and the British Association, they will listen to nothing... ”

“ Though this theory was in advance of the age, Hooker had no idea of the separation of church and state—“the privilege of election, which belongs to the people,” he said, must be exercised “according to the blessed will and law of God.” He also defended the right of magistrates to convene synods, and in the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639) , which he probably framed, the union of church and state is presupposed. Hooker was pastor of the Hartford church until his death on the 7th of July 1647. ”

“ Indeed, I would always like to see it given not as a mere honour, but as a help to a good man, and this it is assuredly in Hooker's case. Government people are so ignorant that they require to have merits drummed into their heads by all possible means, and Hooker's getting the medal may be of real service to him before long. I am in a snug, though not an idle nest,—he has not got his resting-place yet. And so, my dear Huxley, I trust that you know me too well to think that I am either grieved or envious, and you, Hooker, and I are much of the same way of thinking. ”

“ The conception of Hooker in his later years, which we form from the various accessible sources, is that of a person of low stature and not immediately impressive appearance, much bent by the influence of sedentary and meditative habits, of quiet and retiring manners, and discoloured in complexion and worn and marked in feature from the hard mental toil which he had expended on his great work. There seems, however, exaggeration in Walton’s statement as to the meanness of his dress; and Walton certainly misreads his character when he portrays him as a kind of ascetic mystic. ”

“ A man of very great knowledge, he is wholly free from pedantry and jealousy, the two besetting sins of literary and scientific men. Up to his eyes in work, he never grudges his time if it is to help a friend. He is one of the few men I have ever met to whom I can feel obliged, without losing a particle of independence or self-respect.
[The following from a letter to Hooker, announcing Forbes'death, is a striking testimony to his worth:—]
I think I have never felt so crushed by anything before. It is one of those losses which cannot be replaced either to the private friend or to science. ”

“ HOOKER, RICHARD (1553–1600) , English writer, author of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, son of Richard Vowell or Hooker, was born at Heavitree, near the city of Exeter, about the end of 1553 or beginning of 1554. Vowell was the original name of the family, but was gradually dropped, and in the 15th century its members were known as Vowell alias Hooker. At school, not only his facility in mastering his tasks, but his intellectual inquisitiveness and his fine moral qualities, attracted the special notice of his teacher, who strongly recommended his parents to educate him for the church. ”

“ Hotel Righi Vaudois, Glion, Switzerland, September 21, 1887.
My dear Hooker,
I saw in the "Times" yesterday the announcement of Mr. Symond's death. I suppose the deliverance from so painful a malady as heart-disease is hardly to be lamented in one sense; but these increasing gaps in one's intimate circle are very saddening, and we feel for Lady Hooker and you. My wife has been greatly depressed in hearing of Mrs. Carpenter's fatal disorder. One cannot go away for a few weeks without finding some one gone on one's return. ”

“ These three were Lyell, Hooker, and Huxley. If these three came round, partly through the book, partly through their own reflections, he could feel that the subject was safe. "No one," writes Darwin on November 13, "has read it, except Lyell, with whom I have had much correspondence. Hooker thinks him a complete convert, but he does not seem so in his letters to me; but is evidently deeply interested in the subject." And again: "I think I told you before that Hooker is a complete convert. If I can convert Huxley I shall be content." ("Life" volume 2 page 221.) ”

“ If you are this way, pray look in at our Hermitage.
Yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Hodeslea, Eastbourne, January 30, 1891.
My dear Hooker,
I trust I have done with Booth and Co. at last. What an ass a man is to try to prevent his fellow-creatures from being humbugged! Surely I am old enough to know better. I have not been so well abused for an age. It's quite like old times. ”

“ In such cases he always took the bull by the horns, acknowledged an oversight or explained what was capable of misunderstanding. The choice between Edward Forbes and Hooker for the Royal Society's medal, or the explanations to Mr. Spencer for not joining a social reform league of which the latter was a prominent member, will serve as instances.]
The most considerable difference I note among men [he wrote] , is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses. ”

“ I was sorry to have to send an excuse by Tyndall the other day, but I found I must finish the Pyrosoma paper, and all last Tuesday was devoted to it, and I fear the next after will have the like fate.
It constantly becomes more and more difficult to me to FINISH things satisfactorily.
[To Hooker also he writes a few days later:—]
I hope your ear is better; take care of yourself, there's a good fellow. I can't do without you these twenty years. We have a devil of a lot to do in the way of smiting the Amalekites. ”

“ By April the 30th, Hooker had effected his crossing and slipped into the rear of Lee's left wing. The Southerner had paid little attention to Sedgwick's menace on his front. He left but nine thousand men on Marye's Heights to hold in check this forty thousand, and by a rapid night march suddenly confronted Hooker in the Wilderness before Chancellorsville.
So strong was the Union General's position he issued an exultant order to his army in which he declared:
"The enemy must now flee shamefully or come out of his defences to accept battle on our own ground, to his certain destruction." ”

“ I am at your disposition for whatever you want me to do, as you know, and I am sure Hooker is of the same mind. We shall not be ashamed when we meet our enemies in the gate.
The grace of god cannot entirely have deserted you since you are aware of the temperature of that ferocious epistle. Reeks [The late Trenham Reeks, Registrar of the School of Mines, and Curator of the Museum of Practical Geology.] , whom I saw yesterday, was luxuriating in it, and said (confound his impudence) that it was quite my style. ”

“ To accede without explanation to the claim put forth for the Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker, that it marks an epoch in English prose literature and English thought, would both be to do some injustice to writers previous to him, and, if not to overestimate his influence, to misinterpret its character. By no means can his excursions in English prose be regarded as chiefly those of a pioneer ”

“ What do you say to Ramsay? He lectures very well. I have done nothing whatever to the Primer. Stewart sent me Geikie's letter this morning, and I have asked Macmillan to send Geikie the proofs of my Primer so far as they go. We must not overlap more than can be helped.
I have not seen Hooker yet since my return. While all this row has been going on, I could not ask him to do anything for us. And until X. is dead and d—d (officially at any rate) , I am afraid there will be little peace for him.
Ever yours very faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
Please remember me very kindly to Mrs. Roscoe. ”

“ He will not only do his duty, but be beloved for doing it, which is what few people can compass.
I have little news to give you. The tail of the X.-Hooker storm is drifting over the scientific sky in the shape of fresh attacks by Owen on Hooker. Hooker answered the last angelically, and I hope they are at an end.
The wife has just come in and sends her love (but is careful to add "second-best") . The chicks grow visibly and audibly, and Jess looks quite a woman. All are well except myself, and I am getting better from a fresh breakdown of dyspepsia. ”

“ Beyond pottering away at my Gentians and doing a little with that extraordinary Cynanchum I have been splendidly idle. After three weeks of the ascetic life of Arolla, we came here to acclimatise ourselves to lower levels and to fatten up. I go straight through the table d'hote at each meal, and know not indigestion.
My wife has fared not so well, but she is all right again now. We go home by easy stages, and expect to be in Marlborough Place on Tuesday.
With all our best wishes to Lady Hooker and yourself.
Ever yours,
T.H. Huxley. ”

“ My dear Tyndall,
The copies of your booklet ["Principal Forbes and his Biographers."] intended for Hooker and me reached me just as I left Baden last Tuesday. Hooker had left me for home a fortnight before, and I hardly know whether to send his to Kew or keep them for him till I return. I have read mine twice, and I think that nothing could be better than the tone you have adopted. I did not suspect that you had such a shot in your locker as the answer to Forbes about the direction of the "crevasses" referred to by Rendu. It is a deadly thrust ”

“ Hooker's hosts replied in kind.
At noon a shout swept the Federal lines that Lee's army was in retreat. Sickles' division could see the long grey waves hurrying to the rear. They were close enough to note the ragged, dirty, nondescript clothes Jackson's men wore. No man in all the Union hosts doubted for a moment that Lee had seen the hopelessness of his position and was hurrying to save his little army of sixty-two thousand men from being crushed into pulp by the jaws of a hundred and thirty thousand in two grand divisions closing in on him. ”

“ It is most lamentable that a man of so much ability should have so utterly damned himself as X— has, but he is hopelessly Celtic.
I shall be at the Phil. Club next Thursday.
Ever yours faithfully,
T.H. Huxley.
14 Waverley Place, Monday morning [November 1861] .
My dear Hooker,
The obstinate manner in which Mrs. Hooker and you go on refusing to give any address leads us to believe that you are dwelling peripatetically in a "Wan" with green door and brass knocker somewhere on Wormwood Scrubbs, and that "Kew" is only a blind. So you see I am obliged to inclose Mrs. Hooker's epistle to you. ”

“ Hooker, when he had to work out the scientific results of the voyage of the "Erebus" and "Terror."
In this design he was fortified by his old Haslar friend, Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Watt Reid, who wrote: "They cannot, and, I am sure, will not wish to stand in your way at Whitehall." Meanwhile, the first person, naturally, he had thought of consulting was his old chief, Sir John Richardson, who had great weight at the Admiralty, and to him he wrote the following letter before leaving Plymouth. ”

“ As for the final stage of the excursion:—
After leaving the Ardeche (continues Sir J. Hooker) , with no Scrope to lead or follow, our scientific ardours collapsed. We had vague views as to future travel. Whatever one proposed was unhesitatingly acceded to by the other. A more happy-go-lucky pair of idlers never joined company.
As will be seen from the following letters, they made their way to the Black Forest, where they stayed till Sir Joseph's duties called him back to England, and my mother came out to join my father for the rest of his holiday. ”