FROM REVOLUTION OP JULY TO DEATH OF THE KING. 181 



pursue ; these were the things of which he talked to me on 

 that delightful evening. ... It was not enough for him to 

 cheer and stimulate the student ; he cared also to give a 

 rare indulgence to a young man who could allow himself few 

 luxuries.' 



If after this short sketch of Humboldt's life in Paris subse- 

 quent to 1830 any higher testimony were needed as to the 

 general character of his sojourn there, we are able to adduce 

 an authority no less weighty than Bessel, who wrote to Hum- 

 boldt on January 24, 1838: 'I can scarcely understand how 

 your Excellency has been able to arrange your occupations in 

 Paris in the manner described in your letter such ceaseless 

 activity, such a perpetual succession of interests the most 

 varied ! I see the possibility of it all, and am amazed by it, 

 but I cannot make myself comprehend it, because to me it is 

 quite impossible to follow more than one line of thought in 

 the week.' That which proved a life-giving element to the 

 versatile mind of the one, appeared to the energetic concen- 

 trativeness of the other as an antagonistic element: Bessel, 

 however, knew as well as Gauss how to appreciate excellences 

 foreign to his own character. 



It cannot be any matter of surprise that upon each return 

 from Paris, Humboldt should experience ' a sense of ennui 

 and depression,' and that Berlin should appear to him ' an in- 

 tellectual desert, an insignificant city devoid of literary culture, 

 and infested by the gossip characteristic of a small place,' 

 4 where for months together the minds of men, vacated by all 

 noble thoughts, feed upon the self-created caricature of an 

 exhausted imagination,' 1 or that he should have felt it a most 

 oppressive burden to attend ' the children's breakfast at court, 

 with which the duties of the day began,' and to follow 4 the still 

 more objectionable practice of dining at two o'clock, whereby 

 the work of the day was cruelly interrupted.' 2 It must, how- 

 ever, injustice be remarked that these complaints were uttered 

 only after an event which in itself turned his home into an 



1 Varnhagen, < Tagebucher/ vol. i. pp. 41, 155. ' Briefe an Varnhagen,' 

 pp. 35, 42. 



2 De la Roquette, vol. ii. p. 131. 



