344 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



more willingly, as in the narrow circle in which he passed 

 those sad summer months shut up with the king at Potsdam, 

 he was entirely cut off from political sympathy. ' I am 

 glad to take refuge,' he wrote to Berghaus in August 1848, 1 

 as often as I can, from the everlasting complaints to which I 

 am condemned to listen upon the ingratitude of this degenerate 

 race, and from the perpetual state of indecision ever before 

 me, in the inexhaustible study of Nature, finding in the con- 

 templation of her phenomena and the discovery of her lavs 

 that peace which at the close of a restless life I feel to be so 

 necessary.' To him it was a subject of regret that Arago, on 

 whose account he had suffered considerable anxiety during the 

 June days, should be so deeply entangled in politics. On July 

 31, he writes to him : 2 ' I grieve to see your generous devotion 

 to public * affairs, the natural impulse of a grand character, so 

 often put to the proof. How grateful I feel that your health has 

 not suffered from such long continued strain. I am still working 

 with true German constancy at the last volume of this intermi- 

 nable " Cosmos." Your handwriting lies before me on the table. 

 The sight of it sometimes saddens me, but more frequently 

 it seems to revive my courage and inspire me with noble 

 thoughts ; this results from a friendship which for forty years 

 has been my chief source of happiness, and which widens and 

 deepens as the sphere of action which you have created for 

 yourself expands intellectually, socially, and politically.' His 

 increasing dissatisfaction with the prevailing anarchy and the 

 extravagances of radicalism is strongly apparent in a letter 

 addressed to Paris on September 24, whence we quote the 

 following passage : 3 ' While on one hand the attempt is made 

 to consolidate liberty by despotism and an absolute govern- 

 ment, all attempt to reinstate order in the streets is viewed 

 as a reaction in favour of aristocracy, and one cannot even go 

 to spend the evening with one of the ministers without running 

 the risk of being hit on the head with stones or brickbats. I 

 hope some principles will nevertheless be left to us, and that 

 at least the long-established prejudices in favour of morality, 



1 ' Briefwechsel mit Berghaus/ vol. iii. p. 1. 



2 De la Roquette, vol. ii. p. 386. 



3 Ibid. Avert, des nouv. e*dit. p. vi. Address unknown. 



