The Invention of Nature

‘foolish letters’: AH to Carl Freiesleben, 13 August 1793, ibid., p.269.

68

AH inventions: AH,

Über die unterirdischen Gasarten und die Mittle, ihren Nachteul zu vermindern. Ein Beytrag zur Physik der praktischen Bergbaukunde

, Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1799, Plate III; AH to Carl Freiesleben, 20 January 1794, 5 October 1796, AH Letters 1973, pp.311ff., 531ff.

69

textbooks for miners: AH to Carl Freiesleben, 20 January 1794, AH Letters 1973, p.311.

70

sixteenth-century mining manuscripts:, Ibid., p.310ff.

71

‘8 legs and 4 arms’: AH to Carl Freiesleben, 19 July 1793, ibid., p.257.

72

AH often ill: AH to Carl Freiesleben, 9 April 1793 and 20 January 1794; AH to Friedrich Wilhelm von Reden, 17 January 1794; AH to Dietrich Ludwig Karsten, 15 July 1795, ibid., pp.243–4, 308, 311, 446.

73

book on basalts: AH,

Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein

, 1790.

74

book on subterraneous flora: AH,

Florae Fribergensis specimen

, 1793; inspired by the work of the French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and the British scientist Joseph Priestley, Humboldt also began to examine the stimulus of light and hydrogen on the production of oxygen in plants; AH,

Aphorismen aus der chemischen Physiologie der Pflanzen

, 1794.

75

AH experimented on himself: AH to Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, 17 November 1793, AH Letters 1973, p.471; AH 1797, vol.1, p.3.

76

‘street urchin’: AH to Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, June 1795, Bruhns 1873, vol.1, p.150; the original German is ‘Gassenläufer’, Bruhns 1872, vol.1, p.173.

77

all went ‘splendidly’: AH to Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, 17 November 1793, AH Letters 1973, p.471.

78

Über den Bildungstrieb

: The first edition was published in 1781, and the second in February 1789. Humboldt arrived in Göttingen in April 1789; for Blumenbach, see Reill 2003, p.33ff.; Richards 2002, p.216ff.

79

‘Gordian knot’: AH to Freiesleben, 9 February 1796, AH Letters 1973, p.495.

Chapter 2: Imagination and Nature

1

Humboldt in Jena: AH first went to Jena in July 1792 and stayed together with his brother Wilhelm at Friedrich Schiller’s house but he only met Goethe briefly in March 1794, and then again in December 1794; AH to Carl Freiesleben, 6 July 1792, AH Letters 1973, p.202; Goethe’s Day 1982–96, vol.3, p.303.

2

progressive Jena: Merseburger 2009, p.113; Safranski 2011, p.70.

3

liberty in Jena: Schiller to Christian Gottlob Voigt, 6 April 1795, Schiller Letters 1943–2003, vol.27, p.173.

4

Weimar description: Merseburger 2009, p.72.

5

brightest minds in Jena and Weimar: de Staël 1815, vol.1, p.116.

6

WH and Schiller at market square: Wilhelm lived at Unterm Markt 4 and Schiller lived at Unterm Markt 1, AH Letters 1973, p.386.

7

WH invited Goethe: WH to Goethe, 14 December 1794, Goethe Letters 1980–2000, vol.1, p.350.

8

noisy discussions: Maria Körner, 1796, Goethe Encounters 1965–2000, vol.4, p.222; for daily meetings see Goethe’s diaries during this time.

9

He ‘forced us’: Goethe, 17–19 December 1794, Goethe Encounters 1965–2000, vol.4, p.116.

10

‘In eight days’: Goethe to Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, March 1797, ibid., p.288.

11

AH visit December 1794: Goethe, December 1794, Goethe’s Year 1994, pp.31–2; December 1794, Goethe Encounters 1965–2000, vol.4, pp.116–17, 122; Goethe to Max Jacobi, 2 February 1795, Goethe Correspondence 1968–76, vol.2, pp.194, 557; AH to Reinhard von Haeften, 19 December 1794, AH Letters 1973, p.388.

12

frozen Rhine: Boyle 2000, p.256.

13

walking to anatomy lectures: Goethe, December 1794, Goethe’s Year 1994, p.32.

14

Goethe and stove: Goethe to Schiller, 27 February 1797, Goethe Correspondence 1968–76, vol.2, p.257.

15

AH stimulated Goethe: Goethe, December 1794, Goethe Encounters 1965–2000, vol.4, p.122.

16

Karl August in

Werther

uniform: Merseburger 2009, p.67.

17

Werther

fever: Friedenthal 2003, p.137.

18

Goethe’s early years in Weimar: Merseburger 2009, pp.68–9; Boyle 1992, p.202ff., 243ff.

19

Christiane Vulpius: Goethe eventually married Christiane Vulpius in 1806.

20

‘that of a woman’: Botting 1973, p.38.

21

‘fat of his cheeks’: Karl August Böttiger about Goethe, mid-1790s, Goethe’s Day 1982–96, vol.3, p.354.

22

‘Apollo’ and changed appearance: Maria Körner to K.G. Weber, August 1796, Goethe Encounters 1965–2000, vol.4, p.223.

23

Goethe’s son in miner’s uniform: Goethe’s Day 1982–96, vol.3, p.354.

24

‘cold, mono-syllabled God’: Jean Paul Friedrich Richter to Christian Otto, 1796, quoted in Klauss 1991, p.14; for Goethe’s arrogance: Friedrich Hölderlin to Christian Ludwig Neuffer, 19 January 1795, Goethe’s Day 1982–96, vol.3, p.356.

25

Goethe rude: W. von Schak about Goethe, 9 January 1806, Goethe Encounters 1965–2000, vol.6, p.4.

26

‘sacred poetic fire’: Henry Crabb Robinson, 1801, Robinson 1869, vol.1, p.86.

27