ALEXANDER VOJST HUMBOLDT. 



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facility he had become a Spaniard in New Spain, so, without denying 

 his German, he made the Parisian academicians forget that he was not 

 a Frenchman. In this, that gift of ready wit with which, while a stu- 

 dent at Frankfort, he had troubled the more serious William, and 

 which he used as a powerful weapon in his subsequent court-life, was 

 of much advantage to him. Associated with Gay-Lussac and Proven- 

 5al in labors which are still instructive, he was received into that small 

 circle of learned men that gathered around the venerable Berthollet 

 at Arcueil. All of these and numerous other friendships of Hum- 

 boldt's are thrown into the shade by the life-long connection he formed 

 with Arago, to which the contrast of their natures lent a peculiar 

 charm. 



Humboldt was at first sight of insignificant, flattering, and pliant 

 appearance, Arago of imposing bearing, a type of fiery Southern man- 

 hood ; Humboldt of encyclopedic mind and knowledge, Arago an 

 astronomer and mathematico-physicist of so sharply limited a scope 

 and so strict a school that, while he analyzed according to three axes 

 the modifying effects which neighboring masses of metals exercise 

 upon magnetic deflections, he left it to Faraday, who could not square 

 a binomial, to find out their causes. Like Humboldt, Arago was a 

 master of comprehensive scientific description ; but, while Humboldt 

 inclined to melting pathos, the dazzling polish of Arago's keen lan- 

 guage becomes a tiresome mannerism. Sympathy in political views 

 was a bond between them. Arago was a republican, Humboldt called 

 himself a democrat of 1789. Probably this was the reason of the 

 contemptuous condescension with which Napoleon I, among whose 

 faults was not want of respect for science, used to meet him. 



In connection with Arago, Humboldt, as he was fond of telling, 

 ruled for twenty years what was then the first scientific body in the 

 world. If not of his fame, this period was the climax of his life. As 

 in the primitive forest he had watched through nights undisturbed by 

 the murmur of the cataracts, the humming of the mosquitoes, the 

 near roaring of the jaguars, and the fearful cry of the beasts in the 

 tree-tops above him, so now were the confusing pressure of the world's 

 metropolis, the thousand personal demands daily thrust upon him, the 

 brilliant society of the salon, the intrigues of academical lobbies, to 

 him only a pleasant, stimulating life-element. He found gratification 

 in this mental tumult, which, busy with the air and matter of life, 

 overlooked him while he built up the gigantic coral structure of the 

 many-membered story of his travels. More and more consumed with 

 an inextinguishable enthusiasm for science ; in unlimited devotion to 

 knowledge, neglecting domestic fortune ; drawing into the line of his 

 activity hosts of learned men and artists, and skillfully utilizing their 

 talents for his own objects ; not, indeed, teaching ex cathedra, but in- 

 spiring youth by his example and continually encouraging them — he 

 was at that time in Paris, as afterward in Berlin, a central figure, from 



