COLLEGE LIFE. 117 



Counsellor of Mines, who at this period was his intimate friend 

 and the companion of his studies : l 



6 The salient points of his attractive character lay in his 

 imperturbable good nature, his benevolence and charity, his 

 remarkable and unselfish amiability, his susceptibility of friend- 

 ship, and appreciation of nature ; simplicity, candour, and the 

 absence of all pretension characterised his whole being ; he 

 possessed conversational powers that made him always lively 

 and entertaining, together with a degree of wit and humour 

 that led him sometimes to waggishness. It was these admi- 

 rable qualities, which in later years enabled him to soften and 

 attach to himself the untutored savages among whom he dwelt 

 for months at a time, which obtained for him in the civilised 

 world admiration and sympathy wherever he went, and which 

 gained for him while a mere student the esteem and devotion of 

 all classes at Freiberg. He was kindly disposed towards every- 

 one, and knew how tg make himself useful and entertaining in 

 every circle of society ; and it was only against every species of 

 inhumanity and coarseness, against every kind of insolence, 

 injustice, or cruelty, that he ever manifested either scorn or 

 indignation, while to pedantry and sentimentality, or, as he 

 called it, " the sloppiness of feeling " [Breiikeit des Gremuths], 

 he invariably showed the greatest indignation.' 



1 From an earlier biography of Alexander von Humboldt, published in 

 the ' Zeitgenossen ' (Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus), 3rd Series, vol. ii. Part I. 

 p. 67. 



