340 Humboldt's Letters. 



Nov. 22d, 1856. Yarnhagen writes in his diary: 

 "I started at half-past 12 o'clock, and drove to Hum- 

 boldt in the pouring rain. He was rejoiced at my 

 coming, and soon led me to an adjoining room, where 

 hung Hildebrandt's great aquarelle picture, in a frame ; 

 an excellent picture, indeed, in the rich variety of which 

 the sitting figure of Humboldt predominates. Now 

 came the question about the inscription to be chosen for 

 it. I had rightly expected that he did not so much 

 expect propositions from me, as my approval of those 

 chosen by him already. Contrary to my expectation, 

 no short sentence, but a longer speech, a rhetorical com- 

 position, which happily compares the searching traveller 

 with the returned man of science. Some alterations 

 were approved in the beginning, but disapproved again 

 in the end. Hildebrandt gave the picture not to Herr 

 von Humboldt, but to his valet Seiffert. It is to be 

 engraved. We looked at the rooms, in three of them ; 

 his apparatus of study is strewn about ; all three 

 warmed to 19 degrees Reaumur, an intolerable tem- 

 perature for me. A library hall not warmed. Pictures 

 painted by Madame Gaggiotti, whose talents he praised 

 highly ; he wondered and rejoiced that I knew her too. 

 He complained of itching ; I said it was a well-known 

 complaint, pruritus. " Senilis," he immediately added. 

 In a box he had a living chameleon, which he showed 

 me, and of which he said, that it was the only animal 



