460 PKOOF-SIIEEl'S OF KOSMOS. 



geograph}^ and climatolog}^, touching the farthest and 

 dai'kcst reojions of the earth with the li"'ht of his stu- 

 pendous knowledge. The sheets of the new volume of 

 ' Kosmos' lay upon the table. ' Here is what I have 

 been doing, since you were here before,' said he, taking 

 it up: 'the work will be published in two or three 

 weeks.' ' You find yourself, then, still capable of such 

 labour ?' I ventured to ask. ' Work is now a part of 

 my life,' said he ; 'I sleep so little, and much rest would 

 be irksome. Day before yesterday, I worked for sixteen 

 hours, reviewing these sheets.' ' Are you not greatly 

 fatigued,' I asked, ' after such an exertion ?' ' On the 

 contrarj^,' he replied, ' I feel refreshed, but the per- 

 formance of it depends greatly on my state of bodily 

 health. I am unconscious of any mental fatigue.' As 

 I saw in the face, and heard in the voice, of the splendid 

 old man, all the signs of a sound, unfailing intellect, I 

 could well believe it. I had prided myself a little on 

 having worked with the brain fifteen hours a day for six 

 months, yet here was Humboldt, in his eighty-ninth year, 

 capable of an equal exertion. 



The manner in which he spoke of his bodily health 

 was exceedingly interesting to me. His mind, full of 

 viorour and overflovnnor with active life, seemed to con- 

 sider the body as something independent of itself, and to 

 watch, with a curious eye, its gradual decay, as he might 

 have watched that of a tree in his younger days. ' I 

 have been unwell through the Summer,' said he, ' but 

 you must not believe all you may have seen in the news- 

 papers concerning my illness. They stated that I was 

 attacked with apoplexy, but it was only a vertigo, which 

 soon left me, and has not been followed by any of the 



