n a visit to
Paris, and I had seen him in the morning, when he asked me what was the
cause of my depressed feelings; and I told him that I had to go for I
had nothing left. The next morning as I was seated at breakfast in front
of the yard of the hotel where I lived, I saw the servant of Humboldt
approach. He handed me a note, saying there was no answer and
disappeared. I opened the note, and I see it now before me as distinctly
as if I held the paper in my hand. It said:--

"My friend, I hear that you intend leaving Paris in consequence of some
embarrassments. That shall not be. I wish you to remain here as long as
the object for which you came is not accomplished. I enclose you a check
of L50. It is a loan which you may repay when you can."

Some years afterward, when I could have repaid him, I wrote, asking for
the privilege of remaining forever in his debt, knowing that this
request would be more consonant to his feelings than the recovery of the
money, and I am now in his debt. What he has done for me, I know he has
done for many others; in silence and unknown to the world. I wish I
could go on to state something of his character, his conversational
powers, etc., but I feel that I am not in a condition to speak of them.
I would only say that his habits were very peculiar. He was an early
riser, and yet he was seen at late hours in the salons in different
parts of Paris. From the year 1830 to 1848, while in Paris, he had been
charged by the King of Prussia to send reports upon the condition of
things there. He had before prepared for the King of Prussia a report on
the political condition of the Spanish colonies in America, which no
doubt had its influence afterward upon the recognition of the
independence of those colonies. The importance of such reports to the
government of Prussia may be inferred from a perusal of his political
and statistical essays upon Mexico and Cuba. It is a circumstance worth
noticing, that above all great powers, Prussia has more distinguished,
scientific, and literary men among her diplomatists than any other
state. And so was Humboldt actually a diplomatist in Paris, though he
was placed in that position, not from choice, but in consequence of the
benevolence of the king, who wanted to give him an opportunity of being
in Paris as often and as long as he chose.

But from that time there were two men in him--the diplomatist, living in
the Hotel des Princes, and the naturalist who roomed