116 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



v 



the instructive companionship of his fellow-pupil and co-worker 

 Karl Freiesleben. 



The completion of his studies at Freiberg brought the 

 college life of Humboldt to a close. But neither to mineralogy 

 nor to mining, neither to botany nor to physics, nor yet to 

 chemistry, had he exclusively devoted his attention ; his in- 

 terest had been excited much more to ascertain the conditions 

 of organic life which he had already sought to discover even in 

 the darkest and deepest recesses of the mines. The laws re- 

 gulating the growth of plants, the rapid germination of seeds 

 in diluted oxy dated muriatic acid, 1 the movement of the 

 delicate filaments of the Parnassia Palustris, the cause of the 

 production of green in the most intense darkness, were all only 

 preparatory studies for his later, more comprehensive re- 

 searches. 



The nobility of Humboldt's frank and ingenuous character 

 is strikingly portrayed in the following extracts. 



In a letter addressed to his , friend Neumann at Dresden, a 

 week after his arrival at Freiberg, on June 23, he thus speaks 

 of himself : 



' You have seen me, my dear Neumann, as I wish to appear 

 before my friends. Warmth of heart and frankness of dispo- 

 sition are the only excellencies to which I venture to lay claim. 

 It is these qualities which have gained for me the friendship of 

 Jacobi and the confidence of our mutual friend Forster, and 

 since they have now procured for me an affectionate interest 

 in your heart, their value in my eyes has been trebled. I 

 know I am hasty and inconsiderate in my judgments, an im- 

 patience you must forgive on account of my youth and the 

 peculiar circumstances of my early education. Though power- 

 fully influenced by the dictates of reason, I am only bewildered 

 by the suggestions of the imagination in a word, it cannot 

 have escaped your own observation, nor that of your wife, how 

 completely unfinished my character yet is, and how much there 

 is in me still needing to be developed.' 



The following sketch of Humboldt's character at the time of 

 Ms departure from Freiberg is given by Freiesleben, afterwards 



1 [In the language of modern chemistry, a weak solution of chlorine.] 



