The Invention of Nature

Chapter 13: London

1

‘thoughtlessly looked at them’: AH to Heinrich Berghaus, 24 November 1828, AH Berghaus Letters 1863, vol.1, p.208.

2

AH and more expeditions: AH to Académie des Sciences, 21 June 1803 and AH to Karsten, 1 February 1805, Bruhns 1873, vol.1, pp.327, 350; AH to Johann Friedrich von Cotta, 24 January 1805, AH Cotta Letters 2009, p.63.

3

‘One soon grows tired’: Goethe,

Faust

I, Outside the Town Wall, Act 1, Scene 5, line 1102ff (trans. Luke 2008, p.35).

4

‘cruelty of the Europeans’: AH New Spain 1811, vol.1, p.98.

5

‘unequal struggle’: Ibid., pp.104, 123.

6

AH in London 1814: WH to CH, 5 June 1814; 14 June 1814; 18 June 1814, WH CH Letters 1910–16, vol.4, pp.345, 351ff., 354–5; AH to Helen Maria Williams, 22 June 1814, Koninklijk Huisarchief, The Hague (copy at Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschungstelle, Berlin).

7

AH in London 1817: WH to CH, 22 October 1817, WH CH Letters 1910–16, vol.6, p.22.

8

WH didn’t like London: WH to CH, 14 June 1814 and 18 October 1817, ibid., vol.4, p.350; vol.6, p.20.

9

‘great with so little’: Richard Rush, 31 December 1817, Rush 1833, p.55.

10

WH disliked AH’s friendships: WH to CH, 1 November 1817, WH CH Letters 1910–16, vol.6, p.30.

11

WH and AH never alone: WH to CH, 3 December 1817, ibid., p.64.

12

‘flow of words’: WH to CH, 30 November 1815, ibid., vol.5, p.135.

13

WH let AH talk: WH to CH, 12 November 1817, ibid., vol.6, p.46.

14

visitors to Elgin Marbles: Hughes-Hallet 2001, p.136.

15

‘no one has robbed’: WH to CH, 11 June 1814, WH CH Letters 1910–16, vol.4, p.348.

16

bustle of commerce: Richard Rush, 7 January 1818, Rush 1833, p.81; Carl Philip Moritz, June 1782, Moritz 1965, p.33.

17

‘accumulation of things’: Richard Rush, 7 January 1818, Rush 1833, p.77.

18

AH to Banks, observatory, Herschel: AH to Robert Brown, November 1817, BL; AH to Karl Sigismund Kunth, 11 November 1817, Universitätsbibliothek Gießen; AH to Madame Arago, November 1817, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, MS 2115, f.213–14 (copies at Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschungstelle, Berlin).

19

‘Wonders of the World’: Holmes 2008, p.190.

20

‘the germination’: William Herschel’s

Catalogue of a Second Thousand Nebulae

(1789), Holmes 2008, p.192.

21

‘great garden of the’: AH Cosmos 1845–52, vol.2, p.74; AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.2, p.87.

22

AH and Royal Society: AH was made Foreign Member of the RS on 6 April 1815; see also RS Journal Book, vol.xli, 1811–15, p.520; by the end of his life AH held memberships in eighteen British scientific societies.

23

‘for the improvement of’: Jardine 1999, p.83.

24

‘All scholars are’: AH to Madame Arago, November 1817, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, MS 2115, f.213–14 (copy at Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschungstelle, Berlin).

25

‘one of the most beautiful’: AH to Karl Sigismund Kunth, 11 November 1817, Universitätsbibliothek Gießen (copy at Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschungstelle, Berlin).

26

AH at RS Dining Club: 6 November 1817, List of Attendees, RS Dining Club, vol.20 (no page numbers).

27

‘I have dined at’: AH to Achilles Valenciennes, 4 May 1827, Théodoridès 1966, p.46.

28

rising numbers of dinner guests: 6 November 1817, List of Attendees, RS Dining Club, vol.20, no page numbers.

29

Arago asleep: AH to Madame Arago, November 1817, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, MS 2115, f.213–14 (copy at Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschungstelle, Berlin).

30

It was ‘detestable’: Bruhns 1873, vol.2, p.198.

31

‘powerful men’: AH to Karl Sigismund Kunth, 11 November 1817, Universitätsbibliothek Gießen (copy at Alexander-von-Humboldt-Forschungstelle, Berlin).

32

‘unworthy political jealousy’:

Edinburgh Review

, vol.103, January 1856, p.57.

33

‘almost know by heart’: Darwin to D.T. Gardner, August 1874, published in

New York Times

, 15 September 1874.

34

‘painterly description’: AH to Helen Maria Williams, 1810, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, p.11.

35

‘you partake in his’:

Edinburgh Review

, vol.25, June 1815, p.87.

36

‘indulges in all’:

Quarterly Review

, vol.15, July 1816, p.442; see also vol.14, January 1816, 368ff.

37

‘a warmth of feeling’:

Quarterly Review

, vol.18, October 1817, p.136.

38

‘the vast wilds of’: Shelley 1998, p.146.

Frankenstein

was also steeped in other ideas that Humboldt discussed in his books such as animal electricity and Blumenbach’s formative drive and vital forces.

39

Humboldt, ‘the first of’: Lord Byron,

Don Juan

, Canto IV, cxii.

40

Southey visited AH: Robert Southey to Edith Southey, 17 May 1817, Southey 1965, vol.2, p.149.

41

‘a painters eye’: Robert Southey to Walter Savage Landor, 19 December 1821, ibid., p.230.

42

‘among travellers what’: Robert Southey to Walter Savage Landor, 19 December 1821, ibid., p.230.

43

Wordsworth borrowed

Personal Narrative

: William Wordsworth to Robert Southey, March 1815, Wordsworth 1967–93, vol.2, p.216; for Wordsworth and geology, see Wyatt 1995.

44

‘They answer with a smile’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.473.

45

‘There would the Indian’: William Wordsworth, ‘The River Duddon’ (1820).

46

Coleridge read AH: Wiegand 2002, p.107; Coleridge made references in his notebooks to

Essay on the Geography of Plants

and

Personal Narrative

, see Coleridge 1958–2002, vol.4, notes 4857, 4863, 4864, 5247; Notebook of S.T. Coleridge No. 21 ½, BL Add 47519 f57; Egerton MS 2800 ff.190.

47

‘brother of the great traveller’: Coleridge, Table Talk, 28 August 1833, Coleridge 1990, vol.2, p.259; AH had left Rome on 18 September 1805 and Coleridge arrived in December; Holmes 1998, pp.52–3.

48

‘walking poets’: Bate 1991, p.49.

49

‘a truly great man’: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Lectures, Coleridge 2000, vol.2, p.536; for Coleridge, Schelling and Kant, see Harman, p.312ff.; Kipperman 1998, p.409ff.; Robinson 1869, vol.1, pp.305, 381, 388.

50

‘give once again’: Richards 2002, p.125.

51

Coleridge and

Faust

: Coleridge never finished the translation of

Faust

for John Murray but published one in 1821 – albeit anonymously. Letters between Coleridge and John Murray, 23, 29 and 31 August 1814, Burwick and McKusick 2007, p.xvi; Robinson 1869, vol.1, p.395.

52

‘How it all lives’: Goethe’s

Faust

I, Scene 1, Night, lines 447–8 (trans. Luke 2008, p.17); for Coleridge and interconnectedness, see Levere 1990, p.297.

53

‘connective powers of’: Coleridge, ‘Science and System of Logic’, transcription of Coleridge’s lectures of 1822, Wiegand 2002, p.106; Coleridge 1958–2002, vol.4, notes 4857, 4863, 4864, 5247; Notebook of S.T. Coleridge No. 21 ½, BL Add 47519 f57; Egerton MS 2800 ff.190.

54

‘epoch of division’: Coleridge, ‘Essay on the Principle of Method’, 1818, Kipperman 1998, p.424; see also Levere 1981, p.62.

55

‘philosophy of mechanism’: Coleridge to Wordsworth, Cunningham and Jardine 1990, p.4.

56

‘fingering slave’: William Wordsworth, ‘A Poet’s Epitaph’ (1798).

57

‘screws or levers’: Goethe’s

Faust

I, Scene 1, Night, line 674 (trans. Luke 2008, p.23).

58

‘spirit of Nature’: Coleridge’s Lectures 1818–19, Coleridge 1949, p.493.

59

‘microscopic view’: William Wordsworth, ‘The Prelude’, Book XII.

60

‘Little–ists’: Coleridge in 1801, Levere 1981, p.61.

61

‘For was it meant’: William Wordsworth, ‘The Excursion’ (1814).

62

‘secret band’:

Edinburgh Review

, vol.36, October 1821, p.264.

63

‘found to reflect on’: Ibid., p.265

64

AH to settle in London: WH to CH, 6 October 1818, WH CH Letters 1910–16, vol.6, p.334.