422 HUMBOLDT AND GOETHE. 



to arrange the collected results, to calculate tliem, and to 

 publish the mean results." 



After the publication of the "Asiatic Fragments," Hum- 

 boldt returned to Berlin, stopping on his way at Weimar 

 to see Goethe. " I owe some hours of a frank friendly 

 conversation with your brother," Goethe wrote to Wil- 

 liam Von Humboldt on the 1st of December, 1831, "for 

 whom I can find no expressive title. For although his 

 view of accepting and operating on geological objects is 

 quite impossible for my cerebral organs, I have seen with 

 real interest and admiration how that of which I cannot 

 convince myself, is with him clearly deduced, and enters 

 into combination with the stupendous mass of his know- 

 ledge, where it is then digested by his most estimable 

 character." A few months more, and Goethe was dead. 



The next six or seven years of Humboldt's life were 

 devoid of incident. His time was principally spent at 

 Berlin with the King, and at Tegel with his brother Wil- 

 liam. Indeed all the time that he could spare from his 

 official duties was devoted to William. The death of 

 Frau Caroline brought them more closely together ; the 

 blow that robbed William of his wife gave him back his 

 brother. Not that there had ever been a shadow of 

 estrangement between them, but in their case, as in thou- 

 sands of others, death seemed to reveal them more fally 

 to each other. Their hearts were cemented by sorrow. 

 Besides this there was another bond between them — the 

 growing consciousness that William's health was de- 

 clining. The blow that struck down Frau Caroline 

 seemed to have wounded him also, for from the day of 

 her death he was changed. His nerves were shattered; 

 he stooped and tottered in his gait, and his whole body 



