$0 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



certain frame of mind to write to my friends : it is not a condition 

 that will be enticed, therefore I must wait till it comes, however 

 long that may be. I returned here at the beginning of No- 

 vember, and have since been occupied in a tissue of contrarieties. 

 A host of lectures (T attend six) occupy the greatest part of the 

 day, so that I can only visit the library, which I still need for 

 my philological researches on weaving, on a Sunday, when I 

 have express permission from Heyne to go there and lock 

 myself in. Extra work, too, of a pressing character runs away 

 with a good deal of my time ; as, for instance, in occasional 

 contributions to the " Zurich Botanical Magazine," for the last 

 number of which I have written a Latin treatise. 1 I have 

 also to write out the journal of my tour, and Forster expects 

 me to furnish him with a mineralogical description of the 

 basalts at Unkel, for the next number of his magazine, in which 

 there is to appear an excellent paper by my brother, on the 

 influence exerted on the morals of a nation by theism, atheism, 

 and scepticism. My paper, however, grows so fast under my 

 pen that I think it will probably have to be printed in a 

 separate form. Do not think, my dear friend, that I wish to 

 boast of my numerous occupations : the load is certainly not 

 greater than I can bear, but in point of fact, I have but very 

 little time left for my correspondence, seeing that I have always 

 to write at least once and sometimes twice a week to my mother 

 or Kunth. 



c William, who , has oeen in Paris with Campe, returned by 

 way of Mayence, where he spent three weeks with young 

 Forster, and thence made a tour through Switzerland, visiting- 

 Zurich, ScharThausen, Kostnitz, Bern, the Grindelwald glacier, 

 the pass of St. Grothard and Lausanne, down to G-eneva, whence 

 he returned to Mayence by Neufchatel and Basle, and after 

 a further sojourn there of a fortnight proceeded through Saxony 

 to Berlin. This same William, who has caused me to construct 

 this ungraceful period, asked me to meet him at Grotha. Thither 

 I went alone in the beginning of December, riding through 

 Eichsfeld in the most detestable weather and along still more 



1 ' Observatio critica de Elymi Hystric. charaetere, in Usteri,' ' Magazin 

 fur Botanik/ 1790, Part VII. p. 36 ; Part IX. p. 32. 



