324 ALEXANDEK VON HUMBOLDT. 



between the years 1800 and 1810 : from George Forster, by 

 whom Humboldt was powerfully influenced in early life, a 

 highly poetic prose was to be expected ; Schleiermacher seems 

 to have recognised at once the change in public feeling, and 

 in 1810 apologised for the poetic garb of his discourses, pub- 

 lished ten years previously, as being in 4 sympathy, not with the 

 present day, but with a period now past.' But Alexander von 

 Humboldt continued to cherish as his ideal the style he had 

 learnt to admire at the close of the last century; for, in 1849, 

 he still regarded as his ' favourite work,' l the ' Aspects of 

 Nature,' a book which had been written more than forty years : 

 6 Cosmos,' was ever associated in his mind with the extrava- 

 gance of feeling and exaggeration of expression characteristic 

 of the period in which it first took form. 



After all, the phrase ' an unfortunate predilection for poetic 

 forms of expression ' is but of a vague character. It is possible 

 to infuse a poetic fire into language which shall in no way in- 

 terrupt its customary flow ; as an example, we have but to 

 adduce the c Letters from Switzerland ' or the ' Travels in Italy,' 

 by Goethe. In these charming compositions the most inspiring 

 and graceful flow of language falls harmoniously on the ear 

 without any expression that could justify the term poetic prose, 

 much more truly is it the genuine prose of a true poet. If, 

 for the sake of comparison, we place by the side of these works 

 the celebrated description of the cataracts of the Orinoco, from 

 the ' Aspects of Nature,' how laboured and massive it appears ; 

 what an attempt at grandeur in the flow of the diction ! The 

 reader is tormented, at the same time, by a feeling of a want, 

 and oppressed with a sense of superfluity ; his poetic sentiments 

 are excited without being gratified, while invited to soar into 

 the realm of imagination he is painfully chained to the earth 

 from which he is not allowed to rise. The striking difference 

 in style between Goethe and Humboldt will be found to consist 

 mainly, that whereas Goethe accomplishes everything by means 

 of the verb that ' life-giving, controlling, and directing power,' 

 as he once termed it Humboldt relies mainly on the adjective. 

 This habit was no doubt acquired during his early scientific 



1 'Briefe an Varnhagen,' No, 136. 



