ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
Frederick William Henry Alexander von Humboldt was born September 14, 1769, in Berlin, the same year as Baron Cuvier. Unlike Cuvier, he came into a home of wealth and culture. His father was a Prussian officer and chamberlain to the king. His mother, the widow of Baron von Hollwede, married Major von Humboldt when he was forty-six years old, bringing into the family much landed property. Three children were born to them, a daughter who died in infancy, and the famous brothers, William and Alexander, the former two years older than the latter.
The father, an exceedingly amiable and benevolent man, died when Alexander was but ten years old. The mother, left with her two sons, was wise enough to select superior tutors for them, deeming a good education their best preparation for a useful life.
Much of their time was spent at their summer home at Tegel, on the banks of the Havel, about eight miles from Berlin. In 1778 Goethe went there for a visit, and the two Humboldt lads, nine and eleven years of age, played and talked with the leading mind of Germany.
The children were not altogether happy there, as Alexander wrote a friend years afterward. "Vine-clad hills which here we call mountains, extensive plantations of foreign trees, the meadows surrounding the house, and lovely views of the lake with its picturesque banks awaiting the beholder at every turn, render this place undoubtedly one of the most attractive residences in the neighborhood. If, in addition, you picture to yourself the high degree of luxury and taste that reigns in our home, you will indeed be surprised when I tell you that I never visit this place without a certain feeling of melancholy.... I passed most of that unhappy time (my youthful days) here at Tegel, among people who loved me, and showed me kindness, but with whom I had not the least sympathy, where I was subjected to a thousand restraints and much self-imposed solitude, and where I was often placed in circumstances that obliged me to maintain a close reserve, and to make continual self-sacrifices.
"Now that I am my own master, and living here without restraint, I am unable to yield myself to the charms of which nature is here so prodigal, because I am met at every turn by painful recollections of my childhood, which even the inanimate objects around me are continually awakening. Sad as such recollections are, however, they are interesting from the thought that it was just my residence here which exercised so powerful an influence in the formation of my character and the direction of my tastes to the study of nature."
Much which seems trying and unsatisfactory is, after all, our best discipline for life. The strongest and noblest characters are not developed in the perpetual sunshine of happiness. Rain and sun are alike necessary for growth.
Alexander early showed great fondness for natural history, collecting flowers, plants, butterflies, shells, and stones, so that he was called the "Little Apothecary." He likewise found great delight in drawing. He says of himself: "Until I reached the age of sixteen, I showed little inclination for scientific pursuits. I was of a restless disposition, and wished to be a soldier. This choice was displeasing to my family, who were desirous that I should devote myself to the study of finance, so that I had no opportunity of attending a course of botany or chemistry; I am self-taught in almost all the sciences with which I am now so occupied, and I acquired them comparatively late in life. Of the science of botany I never so much as heard till I formed the acquaintance in 1788 of Herr Willdenow, a youth of my own age, who had just been publishing a Flora of Berlin. His gentle and amiable character stimulated the interest I felt in his pursuits. I never received any lessons professedly, but I used to bring him the specimens I collected, and he gave me their classifications. I became passionately devoted to botany, and took especial interest in the study of cryptogamia. The sight of exotic plants, even when only as dried specimens in an herbarium, fired my imagination with the pleasure that would be derived from the view of a tropical vegetation in southern lands."
At sixteen, then, the boy did not know for what he was best fitted in life. How important for young men and women to study themselves, and know their own tastes and capacities! At nineteen he had never heard of botany, and yet he became one of the most distinguished of botanists!