THE LAST TEN YEARS. 395 



in the letters to the Princess of Prussia such spots are carefully 

 traced round, by way of ornament, with a trembling hand. He 

 not unfrequently begins a letter on the fourth page of a sheet ; 

 everything betokens that his motto is despatch. Hence arose 

 his ' cosmopolitan ' letter-covers, enabling him, when in haste, 

 to employ even workmen as his messengers. The ephemeral 

 nature of his communications is shown, too, in the incomplete- 

 ness of the dates, often consisting only of ' Tuesday,' ' Monday 

 night,' or ' noon.' All the more touching are the efforts he 

 made to write with great clearness and distinctness to save the 

 weak eyes of Bockh. For the sake of his own eyes he frequently 

 employed blue paper in his latter years, after the example of 

 Encke. 



These letters, written mostly at night, were destined to be 

 scattered over the whole world. Who that had ever approached 

 him could not boast of at least a few; whether letters of in- 

 quiry, thanks, congratulations, or consolation. With bound- 

 less good humour he suffered the abuse of his courteous kind- 

 ness ; since his return to Berlin he had become ' a general 

 inquiry office,' not only for Germany but for Europe, and 

 indeed for the whole world. Though groaning over it, he 

 endured almost to the end. It was not until a few weeks 

 before his death that the well-known 'protest' appeared in the 

 papers : 



' Suffering under the pressure of an ever-increasing corre- 

 spondence, amounting in the year to between 1,600 and 2,000 

 communications letters and printed matter upon subjects 

 quite foreign to my studies, manuscripts upon which I am 

 requested to furnish an opinion, projects for emigration and 

 colonisation, models of machinery, natural curiosities, questions 

 upon aeronautic navigation, solicitations to contribute to col- 

 lections of autographs, even propositions for looking after me 

 in my own house and supplying me with amusements and 

 diversions, &c. I venture publicly to appeal to all persons en- 

 tertaining for me any good will, begging that they would ar- 

 range so far as lies in their power that I should become less 

 often an object of interest in both hemispheres, so that my house 

 should not be converted into an inquiry office, nor my failing 

 powers both physical and mental be deprived of the little 



