The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1869-09-23
VOLUME 5.---NO. 13.

beginning of the Institute of France and
lived to be considered by its associates as
one of Its most brilliant ornaments at its
most brilliant period. He lived through
periods which distinctly mark the science
of chemistry. f,om Luvoisier to Rose ard
Liebig. Humboldt was seventeen years
old when the great king, perhaps the
most ilustrious despot Of iistory, died 80
tired by the genius of his OVID absolutism
that we cannot forget the words of the
dying king: 81 am weary of ruling over
slaves ;" and he lived through the whole
period of growing popular sentiments and
habits, Of constitutional! demands and
revolutionary, fearful conflicts.
What an amount Of thinking, obser:
wing, writing, travelling and discovering
he has performed, from that juvenile essay
Of his own textile fabrics of the ancienes
to the last line of his Cosmos, which re.
minds US OF Copetnicus reading the last
proof sheet on his death-bed, shortly be.
fore his departure or of Mozur:., who. in
his darkcned room, directed with dying
looks the singing of II portion of that re-
QUEEN which he had in part composed,
conscious that his ears would never hear
it's pealing sounds ofresurrection. Let us,
one and all, young and old. symbolic by
the name of Humboldt the fact that,
however untrue assuredly the saying is
that genius is labor, it is true that the
necessary co efficient of genius and of any
talent is incessant diligence. We are
ordained not only 60 eat the bread of our
mouth in the sweat of our brow, but TO
earn in the same way tne nourishing
bread of the mind. This is no world of
trifing; it is world Of work (; and Hum
boldt, like the Greeks whose intellectual.
ity he loved to honor-whose Socrates
loved to say: Arduous are all noble
things-was a hard d.working naH--far
harder working than most OF those who
arrogate the name 10 themselves. He
ceased to work, and 10 work hard, only
when he laid himself down on that coucl,
from which he rose no more.
81 visited Humboldt at Potsdam in the
year 1874 when he had reached, therefore,
the aye eofseventy-fve for you know that
he was born in that remarkable year OF
1859, in which Cuvier was born, and Well
lington, and Chateaubrand, and Napoleon,
Just ten years after Schiller, just twenty
after Goethe. Humboldt told me ut that
time he was engaged in work which he
intended to call Cosmos.
Many of my young friends have asked
me, as their teacher, and, indeed many
other friends have repeated the question
Was he not the greatest mar OF the
century? I do not believe it is fit for
man to scat himself on the bench in the
chancery Of humanity and there to pro:
nounce this one OF that one the greatest
man. If all men were counted together,
each one OF whom has been called in his
turn the greatest of all, there would boa
crowd of greatest men. Mortals ourselves,
we should call no one the greatest. His:
tory is abstemious even in attrbuting
simple greatness. But If it is an attri-
butte of greatness to impress an indeli-
BILE stamp on the collective mind of
race, and give new impulse to its intel
lect If greatness. in part, consists in de-
vising that which is good, large and noble,
and in perseveril gly executing it by
means which in the hands Ufot,erS would
have been insufficient, and against obsta.
cles which would have beer nsurmoun.
table to others: it it is great to graft new
branches OH the trees OF science and cul-
tarc, leading the sap to form hencetorth
choicer fruit; if the darling solitude of
lofty thought and loyal adhesion To its
own royalty is a constituent ofgreatnessi
if lucid common sense-thc health and
rectilude Of our intelligence which avoids,
in all directions, the Too Much-is u
requisite Of greatness it ruie and varied
gifts, such lis mark distinction when sing
ly granted, showercd by Providence on
one man-if this makes UP or proves
greatness, then indeed we may say. with
out presumption, that one OF the great
men has been our own.
THAT period has arrived to which
Croesus alluded in the memorable exca.
nation, Oh Solon, Solon. Solon And
we are now allowed to say that Humbuldt
was one of the most gifted, most tortu-
nate and most favored mortals-favured
even with comeIness, with brow so cx-
quisitely chiselet, that irrespective of its
being the symbol of lofty thought, is
pleasant to look upon in his busls as a
mere beautiful thing; favored even in his
name, so easily uttered by all the nations
which were destined 10 pronounce it.
"When we pray not Only for the kind
ly fruits of the earth, but also, as we
ought TO do, for the kindly fruits of the
mind, let US always gratefully remember
that He who gives US all blessed things
has given TO our aye and to all posterity
such a man as Humboldt"
BEAUTIFUL ALLEGoRY.-The old man
was toling through the burden and heat
of the day, in cullivating his field with