384 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



of others be aroused to this subject.' The truth of this pre- 

 diction was verified, as is well known, a few days after it was 

 written, in the gold and platinum washings belonging to Count 

 Polier. 



The distinguished traveller was received on his return to 



O 



Moscow with every mark of honour, and entertained at State 

 festivals by the highest officers in the Government. A caustic 

 though in many points an accurate description of one of these 

 entertainments is given by Alexander Herzen, 1 at that time a 

 student in Moscow : 



' On his return from the Ural Mountains, a State reception 

 was given to Humboldt by the Scientific Society connected with 

 the University ; an institution comprising amongst its members 

 various senators, governors, generals, and other officials, who 

 had never been in any way concerned with scientific pursuits, and 

 were quite unacquainted with science in its higber branches. 

 The fame of Humboldt had reached them as of one who was 

 Privy Counsellor to the King of Prussia, and invested by the 

 emperor for the time being with all the honours due to one 

 ennobled by the Star of St. Anne ; as such they resolved to 

 prostrate themselves in the dust before the man who had 

 climbed the summit of Chimborazo, and had lived in the 

 palace of Sanssouci. 



'The affair was treated very seriously. The governor- 

 general and the military and civil dignitaries appeared in gala 

 uniforms, decked with the ribbons of their orders ; the pro- 

 fessors strode along trailing their swords in military fashion 

 with their three-cornered hats under their arm. Humboldt, 

 who had anticipated nothing of this sort, presented himself in 

 a simple blue coat, and was taken completely by surprise. 

 From the stairs to the saloon in which the " men of science " 

 were assembled a row of seats had been arranged ; here stood 

 the rector, there a dean, on the right a professor just starting 

 in life, on the left a veteran at the close of his career speaking 

 with the measured accents, of age. From everyone he received 

 a few words of welcome, from, one in German, from another in 



1 Julius Eckardt, ' Jun.yrimlsj 

 turgeschichtliche Aufsatze ' (Leipzig, 1871), p. 149. 



