134 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



half laughingly, half inquiringly, asked me whether 

 I would order the dinner. I declined the invita- 

 tion, saying that we should fare better if he would 

 take the trouble. And for three hours, which 

 passed like a dream, I had him all to myself. 

 How he examined me, and how much I learned in 

 that short time ! How to work, what to do, and 

 what to avoid ; how to live ; how to distribute my 

 time ; what methods of study to pursue ; these 

 were the things of which he talked to me on that 

 delightful evening." 



Noble Humboldt ! so great that everybody hon- 

 ored and looked up to him ; so kindly interested 

 in others that everybody loved him ! 



In 1827, at the request of his king, Humboldt 

 returned to Berlin, and became chamberlain, with 

 a yearly salary of five thousand thaler s. He gave 

 this year, before the university, a course of free, 

 public lectures upon physical geography, sixty- 

 nine in all, which afterwards formed the basis of 

 his grandest work, "Cosmos." The first four lec- 

 tures were a general description of nature ; then 

 astronomy, the principal outlines of geology and 

 meteorology, the distribution of plants and animals, 

 the history of the study of our globe, volcanoes, 

 the ocean, the atmosphere, and the human race. 



The lectures were crowded and the applause 

 unexampled. A second course, of sixteen lectures, 

 was given to the public in the music hall, the 

 royal family coming with the thousands who gath- 

 ered each evening. 



