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.

[Between two men who seldom spoke of their feelings, but let constant
intercourse attest them, these words show more than the practical side
of their friendship, their community of aims and interests. Quick,
strong-willed, and determined as they both were, the fact that they
could work together for over forty years without the shadow of a
misunderstanding, presupposes an unusually strong friendship firmly
based upon mutual trust and respect as well as liking, the beginning of
which Sir J. Hooker thus describes:--

My first meeting your father was in 1851, shortly after his return from
the "Rattlesnake" voyage with Captain Stanley. Hearing that I had paid
some attention to marine zoology during the voyage of the Antarctic
Expedition, he was desirous of showing me the results of his studies of
the Oceanic Hydrozoa, and he sought me out in consequence. This and the
fact that we had both embarked in the Naval service in the same capacity
as medical officers and with the same object of scientific research,
naturally led to an intimacy which was undisturbed by a shadow of a
misunderstanding for nearly forty-five following years. Curiously