38 
LINNAEUS 
derived therefrom only amounted to ten dalers in silver 
[fifteen shillings] in each term. It is probable that the 
Stockholm visits exhausted his funds. The coming 
term therefore “ was very wretched for him,” and he 
began really to suffer want; he had to run into debt for 
food, and to go almost barefoot, as he could not sole 
his shoes, but had to substitute paper which he laid in 
his shoes. The prosperous, childless Roberg could 
easily have succoured him, but his friendship was no 
longer than his pupil’s purse; it stopped as soon as 
Carl’s money was gone. No employment by which 
poor youths used to push themselves with the academi¬ 
cians, could be entrusted to Linnaeus as a medical 
student, for at this time it was no honour to study 
medicine. No wonder therefore, that he began to 
think regretfully how different it had been at Lund; 
the prodigal son would have gone willingly to his 
Stobaeus again, but he had no money in his purse for 
so long a journey of nearly five hundred English miles. 
Moreover he feared that Dr. Stobaeus would be 
thoroughly displeased when he again saw a youth for 
whom he had done so much, and who had left him so 
ungratefully. 
From these economic troubles, which doubtless 
weighed more upon his conscience than on that of 
many of his comrades, because he was in a high degree 
always afraid of debt, he was freed before the end of 
the term through the acquaintance, which he had the 
good fortune to make, of the old and venerable Dr. 
Olof Celsius, an acquaintance which was advantageous 
in more than one respect for Linnaeus, and without 
which, Sweden might never have reckoned him as 
amongst its great men. By means of the help he 
received from Celsius, and also the income which 
he derived from other sources, Linnaeus’s economic 
position hereafter so improved, that he cannot be said 
during his remaining student life, to have found him¬ 
self pressed by difficulties as to subsistence, although 
occasionally finding himself in temporary pecuniary 
