76 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



he had by no means been an indifferent spectator all 

 faithfully preserved in a retentive memory, must prematurely 

 have impressed him, earnestly as he may have struggled 

 against it, with the feeling of having belonged to a bygone 

 age. As years passed away, he alludes more frequently to his 

 gradual ' petrifaction,' though always in that peculiar tone of 

 irony with which he was accustomed to speak of everything, 

 whether of praise or blame, that had reference to himself; 

 with increasing frequency he refers to the grand historical 

 epochs through which in his younger days he had lived, pain- 

 fully conscious of the contrast afforded by the present with 

 the past, until towards the close of life, half in pride and 

 half in humility, his favourite expression in speaking of himself 

 became 6 the primeval man.' 



But there is yet another consideration, which may serve to 

 render the important section in the biography of our hero upon 

 which we are now entering still more emphatically the period 

 of old age. Henceforth he was to lead a life of contemplation 

 in comparative tranquillity. The career which hitherto he had 

 loved to call ' eventful ' became in the future almost a monoto- 

 nous existence. Even the great expedition into Asia, which pre- 

 sented the first interruption to his settled home-life in Europe, 

 appears, in comparison with his wanderings in America, only 

 as a brief excursion. After his return he was led, both by 

 duty and inclination, occasionally to revisit Paris ; the exciting 

 stimulus of the society he enjoyed there being almost indispen- 

 sable to him amid the dull uniformity of his home-life. But 

 even these journeys ceased at last it is unnecessary to allude 

 to any others and his movements became restricted to those of 

 the court, which, with ever-increasing regularity, ' oscillated 

 like a pendulum ' between Berlin and Potsdam, while the days, 

 passed in work and conversation, became more and more the 

 one like the other. 



As an inevitable consequence, his mental activity became 

 year by year more concentrated, more peaceful, more con- 

 templative ; until at length, from the summit as it were of 

 human existence, to which he had by unwearied struggles 

 attained, he calmly watched the course of scientific inquiry. It 

 is true that he rejoiced at every new ray of light which shed its 



