The Invention of Nature (60 page)

94 Bolívar’s poem: Clark and Lubrich 2012, pp.67–8; the first known copy of the poem was dated 13 October 1822 and it was first published in 1833, Lynch 2006, p.320, note 14.

95 ‘I grasp the eternal’: Bolívar, ‘My Delirium on Chimborazo’, Clark and Lubrich 2012, p.68.

96 ‘the tremendous voice of Colombia’: Ibid.

97 ‘majesty’ of New World: Bolívar, Speech to the Congress of Angostura, 15 February 1819, Bolívar 2003, p.53.

98 ‘Come to Chimborazo’: Bolívar to Simón Rodríguez, 19 January 1824, Arana 2013, p.293.

99 ‘the throne of nature’: Ibid.

100 Bolívar at height of fame: Arana 2013, p.288.

101 ‘a colossus’: Bolívar to General Bernardo O’Higgins, 8 January 1822, Lecuna 1951, vol.1, p.289.

102 ‘uprooted’ him: Bolívar to AH, 10 November 1821, Minguet 1986, p.749.

103 ‘discoverer of the New’: Bolívar to Madame Bonpland, 23 October 1823, Rippy and Brann 1947, p.701.

104 ‘a great volcano lies’: Bolívar to José Antonio Páez, 8 August 1826, Pratt 1992, p.141.

105 ‘precious plant’: Bolívar to Pedro Olañeta, 21 May 1824.

106 ‘tottering on the’: Bolívar, A Glance at Spanish America, 1829, Bolívar 2003, p.101.

107 ‘drown in the ocean’: Bolívar, Manifesto in Bogotá, 20 January 1830, ibid., p.144.

108 ‘ready to explode’: Bolívar to P. Gual, 24 May 1821, Arana 2013, p.268.

109 ‘volcanic terrain’: Bolívar to General Juan José Flores, 9 November 1830, Bolívar 2003, p.147.

110 Bolívar a dreamer: AH to Daniel F. O’Leary, 1853, Beck 1969, p.266.

111 ‘founder of your beautiful’: AH to Bolívar, 29 July 1822, Minguet 1986, p.750.

112 ‘I reiterate my vow’; Ibid.

113 ‘degeneracy of America’: Jefferson 1982; Cohen 1995, pp.72–9; Thomson 2008, pp.54–72; French scientists were Comte de Buffon, Abbé Raynal and Cornélius de Pauw.

114 ‘shrink and diminish’: Buffon, in Martin 1952, p.157.

115 savages were ‘feeble’: Buffon, in Thomson 2012, p.12.

116 ‘larger in America’: And list of measurements, Jefferson 1982, pp.50–52, 53.

117 ‘could walk under’: TJ in conversation with Daniel Webster, December 1824, Webster 1903, vol. 1, p.371.

118 Jefferson’s moose: Thomson 2012, pp.10–11.

119 ‘the heaviest weights’: Jefferson to Thomas Walker, 25 September 1783, TJ Papers, vol.6, p.340; see also Wulf 2011, pp.67–70.

120 mastodon to Paris: TJ to Bernard Germain de Lacépède, 14 July 1808, DLC.

121 ‘Let both parties’ (footnote): TJ to Robert Walsh, 4 December 1818, with Anecdotes about Benjamin Franklin, DLC.

122 ‘Buffon was entirely’: AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.3, pp.70–71; and AH Cosmos 1845–52, vol.2, p.64; AH Kosmos 1845–50, vol.2, p.66.

123 Caribs like bronze statues: AH to WH, 21 September 1801, AH WH Letters 1880, p.30; see also AH, 1800, Notes on Caribs, AH Diary 2000, p.341.

124 manuscripts and languages: AH to WH, 25 November 1802, AH WH Letters 1880, pp.50–53.

125 ‘flattered the vanity’: AH New Spain 1811, vol.3, p.48; for Bolívar’s copy of AH New Spain 1811, see Bolívar 1929, vol.7, p.156.

126 ‘M. de Humboldt observes’: Morning Chronicle, 4 September 1818 and 14 November 1817.

127 ‘done America more’: Bolívar to Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, 22 October 1823, Rippy and Brann 1947, p.701.

128 ‘You will also discover’: Bolívar, Message to Constituent Congress of the Republic of Colombia, 20 January 1830, Bolívar, 2003, p.103

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.

1 AH’s visits to London: In June 1814, November 1817 and September 1818; see also WH to CH, 22 and 25 September 1818, WH CH Letters 1910–16, vol.6, pp.320, 323; ‘Fashionable Arrivals’, Morning Post, 25 September 1818; Théodoridès 1966, pp.43–4.

2 Prince Regent gave support: AH to Karl August von Hardenberg, 18 October 1818, Beck 1959–61, vol.2, p.47.

3 ‘place in my way’: Ibid.

4 AH to Aachen: WH to CH, 9 October 1818, WH CH Letters 1910–16, vol.6, p.336.

5 ‘consulted on the affairs’: Morning Chronicle, 28 September 1818.

6 French secret police: Daudet 1912, p.329.

7 Spanish minister to Aachen: The Times, 20 October 1818.

8 Allies disinterested in Spanish colonies: Ibid.; see also Biermann and Schwarz 2001a, no page numbers.

9 his ‘own affair’: The Times, 20 October 1818.

10 ‘complete guarantee’: AH to Karl August von Hardenberg, 18 October 1818, Beck 1959–61, vol.2, p.47.

11 king granted AH money: Friedrich Wilhelm III to AH, 19 October 1818, ibid., p.48; The Times, 31 October 1818.

12 AH’s preparations for India: AH to Karl August von Hardenberg, 30 July 1819; AH to WH, 22 January 1820, Daudet 1912, pp.346, 355; Gustav Parthey, February 1821, Beck 1959–61, vol.2, p.51.

13 Humboldt’s financial situation: Eichhorn 1959, pp.186, 205ff.

14 compare plants on mountains: AH to Marc-Auguste Pictet, 11 July 1819, Beck 1959–61, vol.2, p.50.

15 ‘my whole existence’: Bonpland to Olive Gallacheau, 6 July 1814, Bell 2010, p.239.

16 Bonpland in Paris and London: Ibid., pp.22, 239; Schulz 1960, p.595.

17 Zea asked Bonpland: Francisco Antonio Zea to Bonpland, 4 March 1815, Bell 2010, p.22.

18 ‘new methods of practical’: Schneppen 2002, p.12.

19 ‘The illustrious Franklin’: José Rafael Revenga to Francisco Antonio Zea, ‘Instrucciones a que de orden del excelentísimo señor presidente habrá de arreglar su conducta el E.S. Francisco Zea en la misión que se le ha conferido por el gobierno de Colombia para ante los del continente de Europa y de los Estados unidos de America,’ Bogotá, 24 December 1819, Archivo General de la Nación, Colombia, Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Delegaciones - Transferencia 2, 242, 315r-320v. I would like to thank Ernesto Bassi for this reference.

20 ‘impatiently waiting for you’: Manuel Palacio to Bonpland, 31 August 1815, Bell 2010, p.22.

21 Bolívar, Bonpland and Argentina: Bolívar to Bonpland, 25 February 1815, Schulz 1960, pp.589, 595; Schneppen 2002, p.12; Bell 2010, p.25.

22 Bonpland’s herbarium: William Baldwin, March 1818, Bell 2010, p.33.

23 ‘old companion-in-fortune’: AH to Bonpland, 25 November 1821, AH Bonpland Letters 2004, p.79.

24 Bonpland’s arrest: Schneppen 2002, p.12.

25 ‘innocent whom I love’: Bolívar to José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, 22 October 1823, ibid., p.17.

26 AH’s attempts to help Bonpland: Ibid., pp.18–21; AH to Bolívar, 21 March 1826, O’Leary 1879–88, vol.12, p.237.

27 ‘maladie centrifuge’: AH to Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, 29 July 1803, Bruhns 1873, vol.1, p.333.

28 ‘liberty of thought’: AH to WH, 17 October 1822, Biermann 1987, p.198.