KING HUMBOLDT. 455 



from that city, under the date of November the 25th, 

 1856 : " I came to Berlin, not to visit its museums and 

 galleries, its magnificent street of lindens, its operas and 

 theatres, nor to mingle in the gay life of its streets and 

 saloons, but for the sake of seeing and speaking with 

 the world's greatest living man, Alexander Von Hum- 

 boldt. 



" At present, with his great age and his universal re- 

 nown, regarded as a throned monarch in the world of 

 science, his friends have been obliged, perforce, to pro- 

 tect him from the exhaustive language of his thousands 

 of subjects, and, for his own sake, to make difficult the 

 ways of access to him. The friend and familiar com- 

 panion of the King, he may be said, equally, to hold his 

 Court, with the privilege, however, of at any time 

 breaking through the formalities, which only self-defence 

 has rendered necessary. Some of my works, I knew, 

 had found their way into his hands ; I was at the begin- 

 ning of a journey which would probably lead me 

 through regions which his feet had traversed, and his 

 genius illustrated, and it was not merely a natural curi- 

 osity which attracted me towards him. I followed the ad- 

 vice of some German friends, and made use of no media- 

 tory influence, but simply dispatched a note to him, stating 

 my name and object, and asking for an interview. 



" Three days afterwards I received, through the city 

 post, a reply in his own hand, stating, that although he 

 was suffering from a cold which had followed his removal 

 from Potsdam to the capital, he would willingly receive 

 me, and appointed one o'clock to-day for the visit. I 

 was punctual to the minute, and reached his residence in 

 the Oranienburger-strasse as the clock struck. While in 



