Part 16

Busy as he was, he seemed to find time to befriend everybody, especially young men. Liebig says in the preface of his work dedicated to Humboldt: "During my residence in Paris, I gave a course of lectures at the Academy in the winter of 1823-4, upon an analytic investigation of Howard's fulminating mercury and silver--my first effort in the field of science.

"At the close of the sitting of March 22, 1824, while busy packing up my apparatus, a gentleman came up to me from among a group of academicians, and entered into conversation. In the most winning manner, he made inquiry as to the objects of my study, my present occupations, and the plans I had laid for the future. We separated without my knowing to whom I was indebted for this kind expression of interest, for my shyness and inexperience had not allowed me to make the inquiry.

"This conversation laid the foundation of my future career, for I thus acquired a kind friend and a powerful patron in my scientific undertakings....

"From that time all doors were thrown open to me, I had access to every institution and every laboratory: the great interest you took in me procured the love and intimate friendship of my instructors, Gay-Lussac, Dulong, and Thenard, to all of whom I became deeply attached. The confidence which you accorded me was the means of my introduction into a sphere of labor which during the last sixteen years it has ever been my ambition worthily to occupy."

When Agassiz was a poor medical student in Paris, Humboldt visited him. Agassiz says:--

"After a cordial greeting, he walked straight to what was then my library--a small book-shelf containing a few classics, the meanest editions, bought for a trifle, along the quays, some works on philosophy and history, chemistry and physics, his own 'Aspects of Nature,' 'Aristotle's Zooelogy,' 'Linnaeus' Systema Naturae,' in several editions, 'Cuvier's Regne Animal,' and quite a number of manuscript quartos, copies which, with the assistance of my brother, I had made of works I was too poor to buy, though they cost but a few francs a volume....

"It was no doubt apparent to him that I was not over-familiar with the good things of this world, for I shortly afterward received an invitation to meet him at six o'clock in the Galerie Vitree of the Palais Royal, whence he led me into one of those restaurants the tempting windows of which I had occasionally passed by. When we were seated, he half laughingly, half inquiringly, asked me whether I would order the dinner. I declined the invitation, saying that we should fare better if he would take the trouble. And for three hours, which passed like a dream, I had him all to myself. How he examined me, and how much I learned in that short time! How to work, what to do, and what to avoid; how to live; how to distribute my time; what methods of study to pursue; these were the things of which he talked to me on that delightful evening."

Noble Humboldt! so great that everybody honored and looked up to him; so kindly interested in others that everybody loved him!

In 1827, at the request of his king, Humboldt returned to Berlin, and became chamberlain, with a yearly salary of five thousand thalers. He gave this year, before the university, a course of free, public lectures upon physical geography, sixty nine in all, which afterwards formed the basis of his grandest work, "Cosmos." The first four lectures were a general description of nature; then astronomy, the principal outlines of geology and meteorology, the distribution of plants and animals, the history of the study of our globe, volcanoes, the ocean, the atmosphere, and the human race.

The lectures were crowded and the applause unexampled. A second course, of sixteen lectures, was given to the public in the music hall, the royal family coming with the thousands who gathered each evening.

A grand way to educate the people! Would that at the expense of some philanthropist such a course might be given in every city.

In 1829, at the request of Emperor Nicholas, Humboldt made a scientific expedition to eastern Russia, travelling over nine thousand miles in twenty-five weeks. He was now in his sixtieth year, but he climbed high mountains with no apparent fatigue.

The emperor was delighted with the results of the expedition, which were published in several volumes. He said, "Your sojourn in Russia has been the cause of immense progress to my country; you spread a life-giving influence wherever you go." He presented Humboldt with a sable cloak worth five thousand rubles, and a malachite vase seven feet high, worth nearly forty thousand rubles.

The death of friends saddened this busy year, 1829. William's wife had died, and left him utterly desolate. In his ministry to several countries, she had honored and graced his diplomatic positions. He did not long survive her. "Wholly given up to grief," said Alexander, "he seeks in the depth of his misery the only consolation that can render life supportable, while he occupies himself with intellectual pursuits as with the drudgery of a task."

He died four years later, tenderly watched over by his illustrious brother, to whom he said in dying, "Think of me often, but always with cheerfulness. I have been very happy, and even to-day has been a glorious day with me, for there is nothing more beautiful than love. I shall soon be with the mother, and enter upon a higher order of being."

This death was a great blow to Alexander. He said, "I am quite bereft of hope. I did not think that my old eyes could have shed so many tears.... I am the unhappiest of men.... I have lost half of myself." A few months later William's eldest daughter, Caroline, died, to whom Alexander was tenderly attached. From henceforth his life was devoted to his sovereign Frederick William IV., to "Cosmos," and to his ever widening circle of friends. Two thousand letters or more came to him yearly, and till late in life he answered each one, and answered it promptly, showing thereby how truly well bred he was in manner, and how truly kind in heart.

In 1834, when he was sixty-five, he began the publication of "Cosmos," in five volumes, the "most comprehensive compendium of modern science." It was soon translated into English, meeting with a cordial reception in that country, and into French, Dutch, and Italian.

Even at the age of sixty-five, so eager was he to know more that he attended courses of lectures on Grecian antiquities and literature, and upon chemistry, taking notes among the young university students. He now lived with the king, at Sans-Souci, spending every evening with him, and becoming the confidential friend of both king and queen. When Humboldt was ill, the king would read to him by the hour.

Frederick William IV. conferred on him the decoration of the Star of the Red Eagle, the Order of the Black Eagle, the highest honor in the royal power to confer, and the Order of Merit, given to those "who throughout Europe have won for themselves a name either in the arts or sciences."

Till the last years of his life Humboldt showed the same marvellous energy and industry. At eighty he said, "I am more than ever filled with a zest for work and literary distinction." When he wrote to friends for information in finishing "Cosmos," he asked for speedy answers, saying, "The dead ride fast." On the fortieth anniversary of his return to Europe, a fete was given in his honor, by the Berlin Academy. Later his bust was placed in the French Institute. The freedom of the city of Berlin was presented to him. America sent him in 1858, on his eighty-ninth birthday, an album of nine maps, showing the scores of towns, counties, rivers, bays, and mountains which had received his name. Letters came from all parts of the world, breathing love and admiration. Yet, with all this honor, he was often lonely, and spoke of the ennui of life. After the regency, Humboldt lived at Berlin, in an unostentatious home, with his attendant, Seifert.

On May 6, 1859, at half-past two in the afternoon, death came to Alexander von Humboldt, at the age of ninety. His mind was clear to the last.

All ranks gathered at the public funeral, for all, from king to peasant, had lost a friend. With uncovered head, the Prince Regent received the procession at the door of the cathedral, amid the tolling of the bells, and then they buried him at the summer home of his childhood, Tegel, by the side of William.

A new edition of his select works, including "Cosmos," was published in Stuttgart, in 1874, in thirty-six volumes.

Great in learning, great in achievement, great in will-power; unwise sometimes in utterance, as in the Varnhagen letters--how seldom is it safe or wise to express our inmost thoughts;--sarcastic sometimes in his language--a dangerous power, to be used sparingly, if indeed ever,--and yet withal a noble, unselfish, marvellous-minded man, who, as Agassiz says, "exerted upon science a personal influence which is incalculable."

SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.

Coleridge said, "Had not Davy been the first chemist, he probably would have been the first poet of his age."

Said Professor Silliman's "American Journal of Science and Arts:" "His reputation is too intimately associated with the eternal laws of nature to suffer decay; and the name of Davy, like those of Archimedes, Galileo, and Newton, which grow greener by time, will descend to the latest posterity."

Davy was poor and self-taught, but he triumphed over obstacles, and died universally lamented.