422 HUMBOLDT AND GOETHE. 



to arrange the collected results, to calculate them, and to 

 publish the mean results." 



After the publication of the "Asiatic Fragments," Hum- 

 boldt returned to Berlin, stopping on his way at Weimar 

 to see Goethe. " I owe some hours of a frank friendly 

 conversation with your brother," Goethe wrote to Wil- 

 liam Von Humboldt on the 1st of December, 1831, "for 

 whom I can find no expressive title. For although his 

 view of accepting and operating on geological objects is 

 quite impossible for my cerebral organs, I have seen with 

 real interest and admiration how that of which I cannot 

 convince myself, is with him clearly deduced, and enters 

 into combination with the stupendous mass of his know- 

 ledge, where it is then digested by his most estimable 

 character." A few months more, and Goethe was dead. 



The next six or seven years of Humboldt's life were 

 devoid of incident. His time- was principally spent at 

 Berlin with the King, and at Tegel with his brother Wil- 

 liam. Indeed all the time that he could spare from his 

 official duties was devoted to William. The death of 

 Frau Caroline brought them more closely together ; the 

 blow that robbed William of his wife gave him back his 

 brother. Not that there had ever been a shadow of 

 estrangement between them, but in their case, as in thou- 

 sands of others, death seemed to reveal them more fully 

 to each other. Their hearts were cemented by sorrow. 

 Besides this there was another bond between them — the 

 growing consciousness that William's health was de- 

 clining. The blow that struck down Frau Caroline 

 seemed to have wounded him also, for from the day of 

 her death he was changed. His nerves were shattered; 

 he stooped and tottered in his gait, and his whole body 



