LETTER FROM HIS FATHER. 101 



shown in this letter it will be seen later how 

 the restless aspirations of childhood, boyhood, 

 and youth, which were, after all, only a latent 

 love of research, crystallize into the concen- 

 trated purpose of the man who could remain 

 for months shut up in his study, leaving his 

 microscope only to eat and sleep, a life as 

 sedentary as ever was lived by a closet student. 



FROM HIS FATHER. 



ORBE, February 23, 1829. 



... It was not without deep emotion that 

 we read your letter of the 14th, and I easily 

 understand that, anticipating its effect upon 

 us all, you have deferred writing as long as 

 possible. Yet you were wrong in so doing ; 

 had we known your projects earlier we might 

 have forestalled for you the choice of M. de 

 Humboldt, whose expedition seems to us pref- 

 erable, in every respect, to that of M. Acker- 

 mann. The first embraces a wider field, and 

 concerns the history of man rather than that 

 of animals ; the latter is confined to an excur- 

 sion along the sea-board, where there would 

 be, no doubt, a rich harvest for science, but 

 much less for philosophy. However that may 

 be, your father and mother, while they grieve 

 for the day that will separate them from their 



