EAKLY HOME. 15 



my tastes to the study of nature, &c. But enough of this. I 

 shall weary you with so much about myself.' 



Complaints of this kind often escaped Alexander when in a 

 melancholy mood, and even William occasionally gave expres- 

 sion to similar feelings. They had their origin mainly in the 

 depressing illness of their mother, to whom the solitude and 

 retirement of Tegel were often indispensable. It would perhaps 

 be scarcely justifiable to withhold every allusion to these out- 

 bursts of discontent-; but in giving this one instance, we may 

 remark that even the rarest gifts of fortune are often accom- 

 panied by ,much that is sad and distressing, a painful truth 

 early 'experienced by the youths, but which their magnanimous 

 natures taught them patiently to endure and almost to ignore. 



Alexander von Humboldt passed his childhood and early youth 

 in inseparable companionship with his elder brother, William. 

 These years flew by, to all appearance, as pleasantly as the 

 favourable circumstances in which they were placed by the posi- 

 tion and wealth of their parents would indicate. The winter was 

 spent in their own house at Berlin, while in summer they lived 

 occasionally at Kingenwalde, but more frequently at Tegel, on 

 account of its vicinity to the capital. It may be remarked 

 here, that Campe, the writer of books for the young, was tutor 

 in the household of Major von Humboldt before he joined 

 Basedow in the Educational Institution at Dessau. 



On this subject William von Humboldt writes as follows to 

 his friend and correspondent Charlotte, in a letter dated Tegel, 

 December, 1822: 'Campe was private tutor in my father's 

 house, and there is still standing a row of great trees here 

 which he planted. From him I learned reading and writing, 

 and some amount of history and geography, according to the 

 fashion of those times, which consisted in a knowledge of the 

 capital cities, the seven wonders of the world, &.c. Even at 

 that time he had a very happy knack of stimulating the mind 

 of a child.' 



On another occasion he writes : ' I am not mistaken about 

 Campe. He was at one time tutor, or, as it was then termed, 

 governor to an elder step-brother of mine, Hollwede, a son of 

 my mother's by a former marriage. From him I learned, when 

 I was three years old, reading and writing. He must have 



