The Invention of Nature

His court obligations took up too much of his time. He had to join the king for meals and had to read to him, while his evenings were filled with the king’s private correspondence. When Friedrich Wilhelm III died in June 1840, his son and successor Friedrich Wilhelm IV demanded even more time from his chamberlain. The new king called him affectionately ‘my best Alexandros’ and used him as his ‘dictionary’, as a visitor at court observed, because Humboldt was always at hand to answer questions on topics as varied as the different heights of mountains, the history of Egypt or the geography of Africa. He furnished the king with notes on the size of the biggest diamonds ever found, the time difference between Paris and Berlin (44 minutes), dates of important reigns and the salary of Turkish soldiers. He also advised the king on what to buy for the royal collections and library as well as suggesting explorations to be funded – often appealing to his royal master’s competitive spirit, reminding him not to be outdone by other countries.

Subtly, Humboldt also attempted to exert some influence – ‘as much as I can, but like an atmosphere’ – although the king was interested neither in social reforms nor European politics. Prussia was going backwards, Humboldt said, much like William Parry, the British explorer who had believed that he was marching towards the North Pole when in reality he was drifting away from it on the moving ice.

Most evenings it was midnight before Humboldt arrived at his small flat in Oranienburger Straße which was a little less than a mile north of the king’s city palace, the Stadtschloss. Even here, though, he didn’t get the peace he needed. Visitors were constantly ringing the bell, Humboldt complained, almost as if his flat were a ‘liquor store’. To get any writing done, he had to work through half the night. ‘I don’t go to bed before 2.30am,’ Humboldt assured his publisher who had begun to doubt that Cosmos

would ever be finished. Again and again Humboldt postponed the publication because he constantly found new material that he wanted to include.

In March 1841, more than six years after he had first declared his intention to publish Cosmos, Humboldt promised – but once again failed – to send the manuscript for the first volume. He jokingly warned his publisher of the danger of getting ‘involved with people who are half fossilised’, but he would not be rushed.

Cosmos was too important, he insisted, his ‘most scrupulous work’.

Once in a while, when Humboldt became too frustrated, he left his manuscripts and books unopened on his desk and drove the two miles to the new observatory which he had helped to establish after his return to Berlin. As he peered through the large telescope into the night sky, the universe unfolded – here was his cosmos in all its glory. He saw the dark craters on the moon, colourful double stars that seemed to flash their light at him and distant nebulae scattered across the vault of heaven. This new telescope brought Saturn closer than he had ever seen it, the rings looking as if someone had painted them. These snatched moments of intense beauty, he told his publisher, inspired him to continue.

During those years when he was writing the first volume of Cosmos, Humboldt went to Paris several times, but in 1842 he also accompanied Friedrich Wilhelm IV to England for the christening of the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) at Windsor Castle. The visit was a rushed affair of less than two weeks, Humboldt complained, with little time for scientific matters. He couldn’t even squeeze in a visit to the observatory in Greenwich nor to the botanic garden at Kew, but he did manage to meet Charles Darwin.

Humboldt had asked the geologist Roderick Murchison, an old acquaintance from Paris, to organize a gathering. Murchison was happy to oblige, even though it was the hunting season and he would be ‘losing the best shooting of the year’. The date was set for 29 January. Nervous and excited about being introduced to Humboldt, Darwin left home early that morning, rushing to Murchison’s house in Belgrave Square, just a few hundred yards behind Buckingham Palace in London. Darwin had so much to ask and discuss. He was working on his evolutionary theory and was still thinking about plant distribution and species migration.

In the past Humboldt had used his ideas about plant distribution to discuss the possible connection between Africa and South America but he had also talked of barriers, such as deserts or mountain ranges, that stopped the movement of plants. He had written about tropical bamboo that had been found ‘buried in the ice-covered lands in the north’, arguing that the planet had changed and so too had plant distribution.