198 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



If we turn now from Schiller's judgment of Humboldt's 

 scientific investigations to his remarks upon his personal cha- 

 racter, we shall find that on this subject his views are more in 

 accordance with general testimony. 



We have already seen in p. 47 that ' vanity and a love of 

 approbation ' had been early pointed out by William von 

 Humboldt as the chief failings in his brother's character. 

 Freiesleben expressed himself in a still more pointed manner 

 in a letter to Humboldt from Marienburg on December 23, 

 1796 : ' Now, my dear friend, I venture in the strictest confi- 

 dence, and in dependence on your generosity of feeling, to write 

 a few words which you must destroy as soon as you have read 

 them, and which I shall forget that I have ever penned as soon 

 as I have committed them to paper ; in speaking of your dis- 

 coveries, let it be with that cautious reserve and quiet modest 

 seriousness for which you used to be distinguished. I know I 

 shall appear to be wanting in delicacy in presuming to make 

 you this request, yet I feel it to be a duty ; since it has come to 

 my knowledge that in some of your letters, as well as in con- 

 versation in certain scientific circles, upon the subject of your 

 physiological discoveries in which you may perhaps have 

 expressed yourself with some vivacity while entering enthusi- 

 astically into the defence of acute but paradoxical hypotheses 

 you have given occasion to some erroneous judgments, to which 

 you are the more exposed from the envy you have excited among 

 the learned a feeling that is increasing from day to day. 

 Pray do not seek any further particulars as to the facts which 

 ha\e prompted me to make this communication, which may 

 perhaps seem to you rather abrupt, but which is dictated by 

 true-hearted interest in yourself; the knowledge could do no 

 good, and might lead to bitterness of feeling. In you these 

 remarks can produce no irritation ; for blame of this character, 

 which is directed only against the acuteness of your penetration, 

 would be to others a subject of envy.' 



Humboldt's reply is dated from Bayreuth, February 26, 1797 : 

 c For your beautiful and accurate experiments I thank you 

 much, but for your brotherly counsel concerning myself and 

 the impression I produce upon others, I would repay you, my 

 dear Karl, with the tenderest regard of my thankful heart. You 

 are quite right, and your counsel shall not be lost.' 



