64 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



and sincere friendship for you are as imperishable as the soul 

 ivhich gives them birth ! I am now returning to my former 

 career. My college life begins afresh. But my whole position 

 is changed. I am now to take my first step in the world 

 alone, and as a free agent ; and critical as the circumstances 

 may appear to be, I rejoice in the condition. After being- 

 kept as a child in leading-strings, man longs to set his pent-up 

 powers in action according to the movement of his own will, and 

 become as a free agent the architect of his personal happiness 

 or misery. I contemplate my new position, however, with 

 modest confidence. Limited as the sphere of my previous life 

 appears to have been, I have yet found many opportunities for 

 the study of human nature in observing the men by whom I 

 have been surrounded. I am persuaded that no strong passion 

 will ever sway me with an overwhelming power. Serious occu- 

 pation and the calm induced by an absorbing study of nature 

 will preserve me from the temptations of life. Of all my 

 friends, my dear Wegener, you know me the best ; therefore 

 you can yourself pronounce a judgment as to whether I am 

 strong enough to walk alone in this world's slippery path. 

 How happy, how inexpressibly happy should I be, if I had a 

 friend like you by my side ! Grottingen is a perfect desert to 

 me. I know I shall find there plenty of acquaintances; but my 

 brother, Dohna, Stieglitz, Mecklenburg, Bing, and oh ! mise- 

 rable me ! Keverberg quod Dii avertant malum ! are all 

 people with whom I have no sympathy. I doubt not that 

 among 800 men there must be some with whom I could form 

 a friendship, but how long is it often before we find each 

 other out ! Were not you and I acquainted for three months 

 before we discovered how completely we were made one for the 

 other ? To be without a friend what an existence ! And 

 where can I hope to find a friend whom I could place by your 

 side in my affections ! 



c My departure is fixed for the 8th of April, and I have 

 planned my journey through Magdeburg, Helmstadt, Bruns- 

 wick, and Nordheim. Although I shall stop at each of these 

 places, and remain for some days at Brunswick, where I must 

 appear at court, I doubt if I shall be able to write to you on 

 the journey. In any case, it will be my first business on 

 reaching Grottingen to give you news of my arrival.' 



