The Invention of Nature

AH Great Exhibition, Siam and Hong Kong: Friedrich Droege to William Henry Fox Talbot, 6 May 1853, BL Add MS 88942/2/27; Bruhns 1873, vol.2, p.391.

60

‘Ask any schoolboy who’:

New Englander

, May 1860, quoted in Sachs 2006, p.96.

61

‘household word’: John B. Floyd, 1858, Terra 1955, p.355.

62

‘Humboldt Andes’: Francis Lieber to his family, 1 November 1829, Lieber 1882, p.87.

63

AH’s name in US: Oppitz 1969, pp.277–429; AH to Heinrich Spiker, 27 June 1855, AH Spiker Letters 2007, p.236; AH to Varnhagen, 13 January 1856, AH Varnhagen Letters 1860, p.243.

64

‘I am full of fish’: Theodore S. Fay to R.C. Waterston, 26 August 1869, Beck 1959, p.194.

65

‘naval power’: AH to Ludwig von Jacobs, 21 October 1852, Werner 2004, p.219.

66

‘I need my head’: AH to Christian Daniel Rauch, Terra 1955, p.333.

67

female admirer to AH: AH to Hermann, Adolph and Robert Schlagintweit, Berlin, May 1849, Beck 1959, p.265.

68

‘ugly baroness Berzelius’: AH to Dirchlet, 7 December 1851, AH Dirichlet Letters 1982, p.99.

69

‘half-petrified curiosity’: AH to Henriette Mendelssohn, 1850, AH Mendelssohn Letters 2011, p.193.

70

‘made space shrink’: AH to Friedrich Althaus, 4 September 1848, AH Althaus Memoirs 1861, p.12; see also John Lloyd Stephens, 2 July 1847, AH Letters USA 2004, p.528.

71

AH and Panama Canal: AH to James Madison, 27 June 1804, JM SS Papers, vol.7, p.378; AH to Frederick Kelley, 27 January 1856 and ‘Baron Humboldt’s last opinion on the Passage of the Isthmus of Panama’, 2 September 1850, AH Letters USA 2004, pp.544–6; 372–3; AH Aspects 1849 vol.2, p.320ff.; AH Views 2014, p.292; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.2, p.390ff.

72

‘a piece of Sub-Atlantic’: Francis Lieber Diary, 7 April 1857, Lieber 1882, p.294.

73

Morse reported about cable: Samuel Morse to AH, 7 October 1856, AH Letters USA 2004, pp.406–7.

74

neighbours saw AH: Engelmann 1969, p.8; Bayard Taylor, 1856, Taylor 1860, p.470.

75

‘our Potsdam Chimborazo’: Heinrich Berghaus, 1850, Beck 1959, p.296.

76

‘I knew him more than’: Charles Lyell to his sister Caroline, 28 August 1856, Lyell 1881, vol.2, pp.224–5.

77

AH in old age: Bayard Taylor, 1856, Taylor 1860, p.458; AH to Friedrich Althaus, 5 August 1852, AH Althaus Memoirs 1861, p.96; AH to Arago, 11 February 1850, AH Arago Letters 1907, p.310.

78

‘nothing flabby about’: ‘A Visit to Humboldt by a correspondent of the

Commercial Advertiser

’, 1 January 1850, AH Letters USA 2004, p.540.

79

‘meagre with age’: Ibid., p.539.

80

‘all the fire and spirit’: Ibid, p.540.

81

AH’s finances: Eichhorn 1959, pp.186–207; Biermann and Schwarz 2000, pp.9–12; AH to Johann Georg von Cotta, 10 August 1848, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.334.

82

AH’s books too expensive for AH: AH to Friedrich Wilhelm IV, 22 March 1841, AH Friedrich Wilhelm IV Letters 2013, p.200.

83

AH study and AH appearance: Bayard Taylor, 1856, Taylor 1860, p.456ff.; ‘A Visit to Humboldt by journalist of

Commercial Advertiser

’, 1 January 1850 and Rossiter W. Raymond, A Visit to Humboldt, January 1859, AH Letters USA 2004, pp.539ff., 572ff.; Robert Avé-Lallement, 1856, Beck 1959, p.377; Varnhagen Diary, 22 November 1856, AH Varnhagen Letters 1860, p.264; see also watercolours of Humboldt’s study and library by Eduard Hildebrandt, 1856.

84

‘magnificent’ leopard skin: Rossiter W. Raymond, A Visit to Humboldt, January 1859, AH Letters USA 2004, p.572.

85

‘Much sugar, much’: Biermann 1990, p.57.

86

then ‘imbecility’: Wilhelm Förster about a visit to AH, 1855, Beck 1969, p.267.

87

his ‘celebrity’: AH to George Ticknor, 9 May 1858, AH Letters USA 2004, p.444.

88

as ‘many clerics’: Varnhagen Diary, 22 November 1856, AH Varnhagen Letters 1860, p.264; Theodore S. Fay to R.C. Waterston, 26 August 1869, Beck 1959, p.194.

89

slavery a ‘stain’: AH to Johann Flügel, 22 December 1849; see also 16 June 1850, 20 June 1854; and AH to Benjamin Silliman, 5 August 1851; Cornelius Felton, July 1853; AH to Johann Flügel, 22 December 1849, 16 June 1850, 20 June 1854, AH Letters USA 2004, pp.262, 268, 291, 333, 552.

90

AH and US Cuba book:

Berlinische Nachrichten von Staats- und gelehrten Sachen

, 25 July 1856; see also Friedrich von Gerolt to AH, 25 August 1856, AH Letters USA 2004, p.388; Walls 2009, pp.201–9.

91

‘uninterrupted stream of’: Bayard Taylor, 1856, Taylor 1860, p.461.

92

‘unrelentingly persecuted by my’: AH to George Ticknor, 9 May 1858; for number of letters see AH to Agassiz, 1 September 1856, AH Letters USA 2004, pp.393, 444.

93

AH health: AH to Johann Georg von Cotta, 25 August and 25 September 1849, AH Cotta Letters 2009, pp.398, 416; AH to Bunsen, 12 December 1856, AH Bunsen Letters 2006, p.199.

94

AH getting weaker: AH to Agassiz, 1 September 1856, AH Letters USA 2004, p.393.

95

falling painting in Potsdam: Biermann and Schwarz 1997, p.80.

96

‘much unoccupied in my’: and AH’s stroke, AH to Varnhagen, 19 March 1857, Varnhagen Diary, 27 February 1857, AH Varnhagen Letters 1860, pp.279, 281.

97

‘machinery’: Bayard Taylor, October 1857, Taylor 1860, p.467.

98