312 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



We append here, a little out of the regular 

 course, a letter from Humboldt, which shows 

 that he too was beginning to look more leni- 

 ently upon Agassiz's glacial conclusions. 



HUMBOLDT TO LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



BERLIN, August 15, 1840. 



I am the most guilty of mortals, my dear 

 friend. There are not three persons in the 

 world whose remembrance and affection I 

 value more than yours, or for whom I have a 

 warmer love and admiration, and yet I allow 

 half the year to pass without giving you a sign 

 of life, without any expression of my warm 

 gratitude for the magnificent gifts I owe to 

 you. 1 



I am a little like my republican friend who 

 no longer answers any letters because he does 

 not know where to begin. I receive on an 

 average fifteen hundred letters a year. I 

 never dictate. I hold that resort in horror. 

 How dictate a letter to a scholar for whom 

 one has a real regard ? I allow myself to be 

 drawn into answering the persons I know 

 least, whose wrath is the most menacing. My 

 nearer friends (and none are more dear to me 



1 Probably the plates of the Fresh - Water Fishes and other 

 illustrated publications. 



