Washington's birth-day. 475 



The last page of the fifth and last volume of " Kosmos" 

 was finished on the 14th of September, 1858. It was a 

 happy day with Humboldt, for he had lived to finish his 

 life-long task ; besides, it was his birth-day, his eighty- 

 ninth birth-day. His friends assembled at his house and 

 congratulated him. "Never," says an English corres- 

 pondent, "did conqueror receive greater congratulations 

 from so many persons, and from such great distances, as 

 the postboy had to carry on Tuesday morning to the 

 well-known house in the Oranienburger-strasse. 



" Humboldt is said to be of the opinion that he will die 

 next spring ; but his friends who observe him speak dif- 

 ferently, and are bold enough to predict that this time 

 he is in error, and that a very different celebration than the 

 one he anticipates will next year take place in his house." 



Autumn passed, and winter came, and still the old 

 man lived ; so far as his friends could see there was no 

 danger of his prediction being fulfilled. They would 

 meet him on his ninetieth birthday, and banter him on 

 his mistake. 



" Yesterday," a young American wrote from Berlin on 

 the 23d of February, 1858 ; " yesterday was Washing- 

 ton's birth-day, and we celebrated it by a grand dinner 

 at the American Minister's, Gov. Wright. Some eighty 

 or ninety persons were present, among them the Baron 

 Von Humboldt, whom we all reverence above any man 

 living. I shall remember it until the last moment of my 

 life, and it will be with pride that I can say that I was 

 present upon that occasion in which he honoured the 

 American nation, in his old age, with his presence at a 

 dinner given in remembrance of ' The Father of our 

 Country.' 



