The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1869-09-23
VOLUME 5.---N0. 13.


government-in everything. H. saw the
beginning of the Institute of France and
lived to be considered by its associates as
one Of its most brilliant ornaments ut its
most brilliant period. He lived through
periods which distinctly mark the science
of chemistry. fom Luvoiscr to Rose and
Lebig. Humboldt was seventeen ears
old when the great king, perhaps the
most illustrious despnt Of history, died 20
tired by the genius of his own absoluism
that we cannot forget the wol ds 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 thirking. ohser.
wing, writing. travelling and discovering
he has performed, frcm that juvenile essay
OF his own textile fabrics of the ancients
to the last line Of his Cosmos, which re.
minds us OF Copcrnicus reading the last
proof sheet on his death-bed, shortly he.
fore his departure; or of Mozar:., who. in
his darkcned room, directed with dying
looks the singing of Il portion of that re-
QUEEN which he had in part composed,
conscious that his ears would never hear
its pcalng sounds resurrection. Let us,
one and all, young and OLD. symbolic by
the name OF Humboldt the fact that,
however untrue assuredIy 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 to eat the breac of our
mouth in the sweat of our brow, but TO
earn in the same way the nourlshing
bread of the mind. This is no world of
trifing; it is world Of work and Hum
bodt, like the Greeks whose intellectual
ity he loved to honor-whose Socrates
loved to say: Arduous are all noble
things-was q hard working man-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 couch
from which he rose no more.
81 visited Humboldt ut Potsdam in the
year 1874 when he had reached, therefore,
the aye of seventy five for you know that
'
1859, in which Cuvicr was born, and Well
ling on, and Chaleaubrand, 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
,,l., F.;.n,ic h,r. ronu,tod tLe ou.ctiun
Was he not the greatest man OF the
century? l 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 or that ole the greatest
man. If all men We're counted together,
each one of whom has been called in his
turn the greatest Of ull, there would be a
crowd OF greatest men. Morluls ourselves,
we should call no one the greatest. His.
tory is abstcmious even in attributing
simple greatness. But If it is an atlri-
butte of greatness to impress an indcli-
BILE stamp on the collective mind of a
race, and give new impulse to its intel
lecl ]; if greatness. in part. consists in de-
viSing that which is good, large and noble,
and in per>everil gy executing it by
means which in the hands oFcscrs ssould
have been insufficient, and against obsta-
clrs which would have been lnsnrmoun-
table to others: it it is great To graft new
branches on the trees ot science and cnl-
turc, leading the sap tn form hencetorth
choicer fruit; if the darling solitude OF
lofty thought and loyal adhesion To its
own royalty is Il constituent oi greatness;
if lucid common ScnSc-the health and
rectiude cl our rintelisehcc which avoids,
in all directions, the To" Much--is y
requisite Of greatness; it raic and varied
yiilS, such as mark distinction when sing
ly granted, showerrd hy Providence on
one man-if this makes up or proves
greatness, then indeed we may say. with
out presump;iuns tl'at one OF the great
men has been our own.
That period has arrived to which
Croesus alluded in the memorable cXcIa-
nlaticn, OH. Solon, Scion, SoIon. And
we are now allowed to say that uumbnldt
was one Of the most gifted. most tortu-
nate and most favored murtalS-tavured
ever with comeliness, with brow so cX-
quisitrly chi>elcd, that irrespective OF its
being the symbol Of lofty thought, is
pleasant to look upon in his b"sls as II
mere beautiful thing; favored even in his
name, so easily uttered by III the nations
which were destined TO pronounce it.
"Whcn we pray not Only for the kind
Iy fruits of the earth, but also, as we
ought to do for the kindly fruits of the
mind. let MS always gratefully remember
that He who gives us all blessed things
has given 10 our aye and to all posterty
snch man as Humboldt
BEAUTIFUL ALLEGoRY.-Thc old man
was toilng through the burden and heat
of the day, in cullivating his field with