LEYDENTHE FAT OF THE LAND 315 



feel satiated with luxury, and loved best to talk of 

 other things in life than wealth can buy. ' To live, in 

 the true sense of the word, is to feel, love, desire, 

 admire, and not to breakfast, dine, sleep, and yawn.' 

 For the first time Linnaeus cared to study the phe- 

 nomena of human emotion. He longed for liberty and 

 home, and did not feel he was so greatly to be envied. 

 To himself he seemed like a lap-dog on a velvet cushion, 

 who would prefer straw with its wholesome friction, and 

 Artedi, though he now lived comfortably at Amsterdam 

 and liked his work, yet felt it was not for his own fame, 

 and looked forward likewise to his own return to Sweden. 

 Artedi was out of heart about himself and doubtful of 

 his own powers. His reception in England had been 

 freezing. He felt ' remote, unfriended, melancholy, 

 slow.' He had not the animal spirits of Linnaeus ; 

 and, as Carlyle says, 'there is no fairy gift like this for 

 helping a man to fight his way.' To his countryman's 

 chagrin, he kept without the pale of the gay circle 

 which welcomed the brilliant paradoxes of his exu- 

 berant and irresistible friend, and he seldom visited 

 Hartecamp. 



'No sooner,' says Linnaeus in his diary, 'had I 

 finished my " Fundamenta Botanica " than I hastened 

 to communicate them to Artedi. He showed me on 

 his part the work which had been the result of 

 several years' study his " Philosophia Ichthyologica," 

 and other MSS.' On these Artedi had built his 

 hopes, and these he could not bring to light for lack of 



