by Andrea Wulf
71 ‘large Walden Pond’: Myerson 1979, p.52.
72 ‘Standing on the Concord’: Thoreau, ‘A Walk to Wachusett’, Thoreau Excursion and Poems 1906, p.133.
73 ‘drink at my well’: Thoreau Walden 1910, pp.393–4.
74 travel at home: Thoreau, 6 August 1851, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.3, p.356.
75 ‘but how much alive’: Thoreau, 6 May 1853, ibid., vol.8, p.98.
76 ‘your own streams’: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.423.
77 ‘You tell me it is’: Thoreau, 25 December 1851, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.4, p.222.
78 ‘which enriches the understanding’: Ibid.
79 ‘deprived thereby of the’: AH Cosmos 1845–52, vol.2, p.72; AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.2, p.74.
80 ‘chill the feelings’: AH Cosmos 1845–52, vol.1, p.21; AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.1, p.21.
81 ‘deeply-seated bond’: AH Cosmos 1845–52, vol.2, p.87; AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.2, p.90.
82 ‘Every poet has trembled’: Thoreau, 18 July 1852; see also 23 July 1851, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.3, p.331 and vol.5, p.233.
83 ‘a true account’: Henry David Thoreau, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906, vol. 1, p.347.
84 stopped using journal for poetry and facts: Sattelmeyer 1988, p.63; Walls 2009, p.264.
85 ‘the most interesting & beautiful’: Thoreau, 18 February 1852, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.4, p.356.
86 Thoreau wrote seven drafts of Walden (footnote): Sattelmeyer 1992, p.429ff.; Shanley 1957, pp.24–33.
87 changes of Walden manuscript: Sattelmeyer 1992, p.429ff.; Shanley 1957, p.30ff.
88 ‘I feel myself uncommonly’: Thoreau, 7 September 1851, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.4, p.50.
89 ‘The year is a circle’: Thoreau, 18 April 1852, ibid., p.468.
90 seasonal lists: Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.2, p.494; see also his seasonal charts extracted from his journals, Howarth 1974, p.308ff.
91 ‘a book of the seasons’: Thoreau, 6 November 1851, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.3, p.253, 255.
92 ‘I enjoy the friendship’: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.173.
93 ‘look at Nature’: Thoreau, 4 December 1856, Thoreau Journal 1906, vol.9, p.157; see also Walls 1995, p.130; Walls 2009, p.264.
94 methods based on AH’s Views: Thoreau to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 19 December 1853, Thoreau Correspondence 1958, p.310.
95 earth as ‘living poetry’: Thoreau, 5 February 1854, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.7, p.268.
96 ‘snore in the river’: Thoreau, 14 May 1852, ibid., vol.5, p.56.
97 ‘the record of my love’: Thoreau, 16 November 1850 and 13 July 1852, ibid., vol.3, p.143 and vol.5, p.219..
98 cut flowers as metaphor for book: Thoreau, 27 January 1852, ibid., vol.4, p.296.
99 ‘bring him a berry’: Emerson to William Emerson, 28 September 1853, Emerson 1939, vol.4, p.389.
100 ‘I am dissipated by’: Thoreau, 23 March 1853, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.6, p.30.
101 ‘detailed & scientific’: Thoreau, 19 August 1851, ibid., vol.3, p.377.
102 ‘With all your science’: Thoreau, 16 July 1851, ibid., p.306ff.
103 no poems: Thoreau wrote almost no poems after 1850, Howarth 1974, p.23.
104 ‘Nature will be my’: Thoreau, 10 May 1853, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.6, p.105.
105 ‘the pure blood’: Thoreau, 23 July 1851, ibid., vol.3, pp.330–31..
106 ‘thus reduced to a’: Thoreau, 20 October 1852, ibid., vol.5, p.378.
107 ‘Order. Kosmos’: Thoreau wrote ‘Kosmos’ in Greek, ‘κόσμος’, Thoreau, 6 January 1856, Thoreau Journal 1906, vol.8, p.88.
108 ‘a little world all to’: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.172.
109 ‘Why should I feel lonely’: Ibid., p.175.
110 ‘Am I not partly leaves’: Ibid., p.182.
111 thawing of sand: Thoreau, spring 1848, 31 December 1851, 5 February and 2 March 1854, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.2, p.382ff., vol.4, p.230, vol.7, p.268, vol.8, p.25ff.
112 thawing in first version: Thoreau’s first version of Walden, Shanley 1957, p.204; in published Walden, see Thoreau Walden 1910, pp.402–9.
113 ‘the anticipation of the’: Thoreau Walden 1910, pp.404–5.
114 ‘prototype’: Thoreau Walden 1910, pp.404–5; for Thoreau and Goethe’s urform, see Richardson 1986, pp.8.
115 ‘unaccountably interesting and’: Thoreau’s first version of Walden, Shanley 1957, p.204.
116 ‘the principle of all’: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.407.
117 ‘lives & grows’: Thoreau, 31 December 1851, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.4. p.230.
118 ‘living poetry’: Thoreau, 5 February 1854, ibid., vol.7. p.266; see also Thoreau Walden 1910, p.408.
119 ‘Earth is all alive’: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.399.
120 ‘in full blast’: Ibid., p.408.
121 ‘like the creation of’: Ibid., p.414.
122 Walden as mini-Cosmos: Walls 2011–12, p.2ff.
123 ‘Facts fall from the’: Thoreau, 19 June 1852, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol. 5, p.112; for objective and subjective observation, Thoreau, 6 May 1854, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.8, p.98; Walls 2009, p.266.
124 ‘I milk the sky’: Thoreau, 3 November 1853, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.7, p.140.
Chapter 20: The Greatest Man Since the Deluge
1 articles read in coffee houses: Varnhagen Diary, 3 March 1848, Varnhagen 1862, vol.4, p.259.
2 ‘only had to get rid’: Varnhagen, 5 April 1841, Beck 1959, p.177.
3 ‘does just what he’: Varnhagen, 18 March 1843, AH Varnhagen Letters 1860, p.97.
4 ‘earthly matters’: Varnhagen, 1 April 1844, ibid., p.106; see also AH to Gauß, 14 June 1844, AH Gauß Letters 1977, p.87; AH to Bunsen, 16 December 1846, AH Bunsen Letters 2006, p.90.
5 not ruled by popular will: King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, speech to Vereinigte Landtag, 11 April 1847, Mommsen 2000, p.82ff.; for AH reporting the king’s speech, AH to Bunsen, 26 April 1847, AH Bunsen Letters 2006, p.96.
6 revolution in Berlin: Varnhagen Diary, 18 March 1848, ibid., p.276ff.
7 ‘Oh Lord, oh Lord’: Varnhagen Diary, 19 March 1848, ibid., p.313.
8 slow reforms: AH to Friedrich Althaus, 4 September 1848, AH Althaus Memoirs 1861, p.13; AH to Bunsen, 22 September 1848, AH Bunsen Letters 2006, p.113.
9 revolution Berlin: Varnhagen Diary, 19 March 1848, Varnhagen 1862, vol.4, pp.315–31.
10 king wearing black, red, gold: Varnhagen Diary, 21 March 1848, ibid., p.334.
11 AH balcony with king: Varnhagen Diary, 21 March 1848, ibid., p.336; for AH at funeral procession, see Bruhns 1873, vol.2, p.341 and AH Friedrich Wilhelm IV Letters 2013, p.23.
12 ‘differences in political’: AH to Johann Georg von Cotta, 20 September 1847, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.318.
13 ‘ultraliberal’: Friedrich Schleiermacher, 5 September 1832, Beck 1959, p.129; Bruhns 1873, vol.2, p.102; Wilhelm of Prussia to his sister Charlotte, 10 February 1831, Leitner 2008, p.227.
14 ‘He is well aware’: Charles Lyell to Charles Lyell sen., 8 July 1823, Lyell 1881, vol.1, p.128.
15 ‘hard pork chops’: AH to Hedemann, 17 August 1857, Biermann and Schwarz 2001b, no page numbers.
16 ‘a spineless pale one’: AH to Varnhagen, 24 June 1842, Assing 1860, p.66.
17 ‘courage to have his’: Max Ring, 1841 or 1853, Beck 1959, p.183.
18 ‘always the same, always’: Krätz 1999b, p.33; see also AH to Friedrich Althaus, 23 December 1849, AH Althaus Memoirs 1861, p.29.
19 ‘a revolutionary and’: AH to Friedrich Althaus, 5 August 1852, AH Althaus Memoirs 1861, p.96; see also AH to Varnhagen, 26 December 1845, Beck 1959, p.215.
20 AH frustrated about politics: AH to Varnhagen, 29 May 1848, Beck 1959, p.238.
21 ‘organism and the unity’: AH to Maximillian II, 3 November 1848, AH Friedrich Wilhelm IV Lett
ers 2013, p.403.
22 prospects gloomy: AH to Johann Georg von Cotta, 16 September 1848, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.337.
23 ‘dirt and clay’: King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to Joseph von Radowitz, 23 December 1848, Lautemann and Schlenke 1980, p.221ff.
24 ‘a dog collar’: King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to King Ernst August von Hanover, April 1849, Jessen 1968, p.310ff.
25 AH disappointed about politics: AH to Johann Georg Cotta, 7 April 1849 and 21 April 1849, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.367; Leitner 2008, p.232; AH to Friedrich Althaus, 23 December 1849, AH Althaus Memoirs 1861, p.28; AH to Gauß, 22 February 1851, AH Gauß Letters 1977, p.100; AH to Bunsen, 27 March 1852, AH Bunsen Letters 2006, p.146.
26 ‘pest of slavery’: AH to Oscar Lieber, 1849, AH Letters USA 2004, p.265.
27 ‘the old Spanish Conquista’: AH to Johann Flügel, 19 June 1850; for AH and Mexican war, see John Lloyd Stephens, 2 July 1847 and AH to Robert Walsh, 8 December 1847, ibid., pp.252, 268, 529–30.
28 ‘worn-out hope’: AH to Arago, 9 November 1849, quoted in AH Geography 2009, p.xi.
29 ‘endless oscillations’: AH to Heinrich Berghaus, August 1848, AH Spiker Letters 2007, p.25.
30 excitement for revolutions wearing off: Friedrich Daniel Bassermann about AH, 14 November 1848, Beck 1969, p.264.
31 ‘cosmical phaenomena’: AH Cosmos 1845–52, vol.3, p.i; AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.3, p.3.
32 ‘master of the materials’: AH to Bunsen, 27 March 1852, AH Bunsen Letters 2006, p.146.
33 ‘those half dead are’: AH to du Bois-Reymond, 21 March 1852, AH du Bois-Reymond Letters 1997, p.124; see also AH to Johann Georg von Cotta, 3 February 1853, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.497.
34 ‘goblin on his’: AH to to Johann Georg von Cotta, 4 September 1852, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.484.
35 ‘Micro-Cosmos’: AH to Johann Georg von Cotta, 16 September and 2 November 1848; and Johann Georg von Cotta to AH, 21 February 1849, ibid., pp.338, 345, 355.
36 ‘it remains for the third’: AH Cosmos 1845–52, vol.3, p.8; AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.3, p.9; see also Fiedler and Leitner 2000, p.391.
37 O’Leary visited AH: Daniel O’Leary, 1853, Beck 1969, p.265; AH to O’Leary, April 1853, MSS141, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá.
38 ‘for the sake of seeing’: Bayard Taylor, 1856, Taylor 1860, p.455.
39 AH’s attitude to Americans (footnote): Ibid., p.445; Rossiter W. Raymond, A Visit to Humboldt, January 1859, AH Letters USA 2004, p.572.
40 ‘usual benevolence’: Carl Vogt, January 1845, Beck 1959, p.201; see also AH to Dirichlet, 27 July 1852, AH Dirichlet Letters 1982, p.104; Biermann and Schwarz 1999a, pp.189, 196.
41 young men like his children: AH to Dirichlet, 24 July 1845, AH Dirichlet Letters 1982, p.67.
42 ‘one of the most wonderful’: Carl Friedrich Gauß, Terra 1955, p.336.
43 AH and elections at Académie: Carl Vogt, January 1845, Beck 1959, p.202ff.
44 ‘and learned a lot from’: Ibid., p.205.
45 instructions for Hooker: AH to Joseph Dalton Hooker, 30 September 1847, reprinted in London Journal for Botany, vol.6, 1847, pp.604–7; Hooker 1918, vol.1, p.218.
46 ‘shamrock’: AH Friedrich Wilhelm IV Letters 2013, p.72; see also AH to Bunsen, 20 February 1854, AH Bunsen Letters 2006, p.175; Finkelstein 2000, p.187ff.; AH Friedrich Wilhelm IV Letters 2013, pp.72–3.
47 ‘nothing in my life’: AH Central Asia 1844, vol.1, p.611.
48 AH’s instructions for artists: For Johann Moritz Rugendas, Eduard Hildebrandt and Ferdinand Bellermann, Werner 2013, pp.101ff., 121, 250ff.
49 long list of plants for artist: AH’s instructions to Johann Moritz Rugendas, 1830, in a letter to Karl Schinkel, ibid., p.102.
50 ‘real landscapes’: Ibid.
51 ‘business of deciphering’: Carl Vogt, January 1845, Beck 1959, p.201.
52 ‘microscopic-hieroglyphic lines’: AH to Heinrich Christian Schumacher, 2 March 1836, AH Schumacher Letters 1979, p.52.
53 yearly 2,500–3,000 letters: AH to Edward Young, 3 June 1855, AH Letters USA 2004, p.347; AH to Johann Georg von Cotta, 5 February 1849 and 2 May 1855, AH Cotta Letters 2009, pp.349, 558.
54 ‘ludicrous correspondence’: AH to du Bois-Reymond, 18 January 1850, AH du Bois-Reymond Letters 1997, p.101; Bayard Taylor, 1856, Taylor 1860, p.471; Varnhagen Diary, 24 April 1858, AH Varnhagen Letters 1860, p.311.
55 Bonpland in South America: Schneppen 2002, p.21ff.; Bonpland to AH, 7 June 1857, AH Bonpland Letters 2004, p.136.
56 AH sent his books: AH to Bonpland, 1843; Bonpland to AH, 25 December 1853 and 27 October 1854, ibid., pp.110, 114–15, 120.
57 ‘We survive’: AH to Bonpland, 4 October 1853; see also AH to Bonpland, 1843, ibid., pp.108–10, 113.
58 ‘secret feelings of one’s’: Bonpland to AH, 2 September 1855; see also Bonpland to AH, 2 October 1854, ibid., pp.131, 133.
59 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 AH refused stick: Eduard Buschmann to Johann Georg von Cotta, 29 December 1857, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.601.
99 ‘Special Results of Observation’: AH Kosmos 1858, vol.4; AH wrote the fourth volume in two parts – the first 244 pages had been printed in 1854 but the official publication of the complete volume was only in 1857, Fiedler and Leitner 2000, p.391.