hem
in our little circle in his weak old voice. He was then seventy, but his
freshness and vivacity made him appear younger. The chivalrous courtesy
he showed to all ladies was wonderfully winning.

Justus Liebig's manners were no less attractive, but in him genuine
amiability was united to the elegance of the man of the world who had
long been one of the most distinguished scholars of his day. He must have
been remarkably handsome in his youth, and though at that time past
fifty, the delicate outlines of his profile were wholly unmarred.

Conversation with him was always profitable and the ease with which he
made subjects farthest from his own sphere of investigation--chemistry
perfectly clear was unique in its way. Unfortunately, I have been denied
any deeper insight into the science which he so greatly advanced, but I
still remember how thoroughly I understood him when he explained some
results of agricultural chemistry. He eagerly endeavoured to dissuade the
gentlemen of his acquaintance from smoking after dinner, which he had
found by experiment to be injurious.

For several weeks we played whist with him every evening, for Liebig,
like so many other scholars, regarded card-playing as the best recreation
after severe tension of the mind. During the pauses and the supper which
interrupted the game, he told us many things of former times. Once he
even spoke of his youth and the days which determined his destiny. The
following event seems to me especially worth recording.

When a young and wholly unknown student he had gone to Paris to bring his
discovery of fulminic acid to the notice of the Academy. On one of the
famous Tuesdays he had waited vainly for the introduction of his work,
and at the close of the session he rose sadly to leave the hall, when an
elderly academician in whose hand he thought he had seen his treatise
addressed a few words to him concerning his discovery in very fluent
French and invited him to dine the following Thursday. Then the stranger
suddenly disappeared, and Liebig, with the painful feeling of being
considered a very uncivil fellow, was obliged to let the Thursday pass
without accepting the invitation so important to him. But on Saturday
some one knocked at the door of his modest little room and introduced
himself as Alexander von Humboldt's valet. He had been told to spare no
trouble in the search, for the absence of his inexperienced countryman
from the dinner which would have enab