Alexander von Humboldt

“ The traveller enjoys by anticipation the first sight of the constellation of the cross, and of the Magellanic clouds circling round the Southern Pole,—of the snow of the Chimborazo, and the column of smoke ascending from the volcano of Quito,—of the first grove of tree-ferns, and of the Pacific Ocean. The days on which such wishes are realised form epochs in life, and produce ineffaceable impressions; exciting feelings of which the vividness seeks not justification by processes of reasoning. ”

“ Nature, in every region of the earth, is indeed a reflex of the whole; the forms of organised beings are repeated [202] everywhere in fresh combinations; even in the icy north, herbs covering the earth, large alpine blossoms, and a serene azure sky, cheer a portion of the year. Hitherto landscape painting has pursued amongst us her pleasing task, familiar only with the simpler form of our native floras, but not, therefore, without depth of feeling, or without the treasures of creative imagination. ”

“ But the high cultivation of our languages, the glowing fancy of the poet, and the imitative art of the painter, open to us sources whence flow abundant compensations, and from whence our imagination can derive the living image of that more vigorous nature which other climes display. In the frigid North, in the midst of the barren heath, the solitary student can appropriate mentally all that has been discovered in the most distant regions, and can create within himself a world free and imperishable as the spirit by which it is conceived. ”

“ The luminosity of the ocean is one of those superb natural phenomena which continue to excite our admiration even when we have seen them recur every night for months. The sea is phosphorescent in every zone; but those who have not witnessed the phenomenon within the tropics, and especially in the Pacific, have only an imperfect idea of the grand and majestic spectacle which it affords. ”

“ If we penetrate into the interior of the earth, and search the cemeteries in which the plants and animals of the ancient world lie entombed, the fossil remains which we discover not only announce a distribution inconsistent with our present climates,—they also disclose to us gigantic forms that contrast no less with those which now surround us, than does the simple heroism of the Greeks with the character of human greatness in modern times. Has the temperature of our planet undergone considerable changes,—possibly of periodical recurrence? ”

“ During sixty years I have reflected on the internal motive powers of nature, and on the differences of substances: to-day for the first time the picture of the Rhodian Genius leads me to see more clearly that which I had before only obscurely divined. As living beings are impelled by natural desires to salutary and fruitful union, so the raw materials of inorganic nature are moved by similar impulses. Even in the reign of primeval night, in the darkness of chaos, elementary principles or substances sought or shunned each other in obedience to indwelling dispositions of amity or enmity. ”

“ The whole of the western declivity of the Cordillera by Chorillos and Cascas, covered with large blocks of quartz 13 to 15 English feet long, and the plains of Chala and Molinos as far as the sea shore near Truxillo, lay beneath our eyes in astonishing apparent proximity. We now saw for the first time the Pacific Ocean itself; and we saw it clearly: forming along the line of the shore a large mass from which the light shone reflected, and rising in its immensity to the well-defined, no longer merely conjectured horizon. ”

“ Every expedition enriches natural history with new species or new genera of plants and animals: there are thus presented to us sometimes forms which connect themselves with previously long known types, and thus permit us to trace and contemplate in its perfection the really regular though apparently broken or interrupted network of organic forms: at other times shapes which appear isolated,—either surviving remnants of extinct genera or orders, or otherwise members of still undiscovered groups, stimulating afresh the spirit of research and expectation. ”

“ Now view with me the new picture which the tyrant has sent to me for explanation: turn your eyes from the image of life to that of death. The butterfly has left its former place and soars upwards; the extinguished torch is reversed, the head of the youth has sunk: the spirit has fled to other spheres, and the vital force is dead. ”

“ The carpet of flowers and of verdure spread over the naked crust of our planet is unequally woven; it is thicker where the sun rises high in the ever cloudless heavens, and thinner towards the poles, in the less happy climes where returning frosts often destroy the opening buds of spring, or the ripening fruits of autumn. Everywhere, however, man finds some plants to minister to his support and enjoyment. ”

“ The fame of these master-works can never be impaired by those which I venture to hope for hereafter, and to which I could not but point, in order to recall the ancient but deeply-seated bond which unites natural knowledge with poetry and with artistic feeling; for we must ever distinguish in landscape painting, as in every other branch of art, between productions derived from direct observation, and those which spring from the depths of inward feeling and from the power of the idealising mind. ”

“ Different forms of plants and animals enliven the surface of the earth in every zone, whether the temperature of the atmosphere varies in accordance with the latitude and with the many inflections of the isothermal lines on plains but [214] little raised above the level of the sea, or whether it changes rapidly in ascending in an almost vertical direction the steep declivities of mountain-chains. Organic nature gives to each zone of the earth a peculiar physiognomy; but where the solid crust of the earth appears unclothed by vegetation, inorganic nature imparts no such distinctive character. ”

“ The philosophical study of Nature rises beyond the requirements of a simple description of Nature: it does not consist in a sterile accumulation of isolated facts. It may sometimes be permitted to the active and curious mind of man to stretch forward from the present to the still obscure future; to divine that which cannot yet be clearly known; and thus to take pleasure in the ancient myths of geology reproduced in our own days in new and varied forms. ”

“ In the preceding sketch of a “Physiognomy of Plants,” I have had principally in view three nearly allied subjects:—the absolute diversity of forms; their numerical proportion, i. e. their local predominance in the total number of species in phænogamous floras; and their geographic and climatic distribution. If we desire to rise to general views respecting organic forms, the physiognomy of plants, the study of their numerical proportions (or the arithmetic of botany) ,—and their geography (or the study of their zones of distribution) ,—cannot, as it appears to me, be separated from each other. ”

“ Thus we see variety and grace of form, mixture of colours, and generally the perpetually youthful energy and vigour of organic life, increase as we approach the tropics. This increase can be denied only by those who have never quitted Europe, or who have neglected the study of physical geography. When, leaving our oak forests, we traverse the Alps or the Pyrenees, and enter Italy or Spain, or when we direct our attention to some of the African shores of the Mediterranean, we might easily be led to draw the erroneous inference that hot countries are marked by the absence of trees. ”

“ Elevation above the level of the sea gives this cooler temperature even in the hottest parts of the earth; and Cypresses, Pines, Oaks, Berberries and Alders, (nearly allied to our own) cover the mountainous districts and elevated plains of Southern Mexico and the chain of the Andes at the Equator. Thus it is given to man in those regions to behold without quitting his native land all the forms of vegetation dispersed over the globe, and all the shining worlds which stud the heavenly vault from pole to pole. ”

“ When we bathed at Cumana in the waters of the Gulf of Cariaco, and afterwards lingered awhile on the solitary beach in the mild evening air without our clothes, parts of our bodies continued luminous from the shining organic particles which had adhered to the skin, and the light only became extinct at the end of some minutes. Considering the enormous quantity of animal life in all tropical seas, it is, perhaps, not surprising that the sea water should be luminous, even where no visible organic particles can be detached from it. ”

“ It would be an enterprise worthy of a great artist to study the aspect and character of all these vegetable groups, not merely in hot-houses or in the descriptions of botanists, but in their native grandeur in the tropical zone. How interesting and instructive to the landscape painter [34] would be a work which should present to the eye, first separately and then in combination and contrast, the leading forms which have been here enumerated! How picturesque is the aspect of tree-ferns spreading their delicate fronds above the laurel-oaks of Mexico ”

“ When we reflect on the influence which, for some centuries past, the progress of geography and the multiplication of distant voyages and travels have exercised on the study of nature, we are not long in perceiving how different this influence has been, according as the researches were directed to organic forms on the one hand, or on the other to the study of the inanimate substances of which the earth is composed—to the knowledge of rocks, their relative ages, and their origin. ”

“ It is under the burning rays of a tropical sun that vegetation displays its most majestic forms. In the cold north the bark of trees is covered with lichens and mosses, whilst between the tropics the Cymbidium and fragrant Vanilla enliven the trunks of the Anacardias, and of the gigantic fig trees. The fresh verdure of the Pothos leaves, and of the Dracontias, contrasts with the many-coloured flowers of the Orchideæ. Climbing Bauhinias, Passifloras, and yellow flowering Banisterias, twine round the trunks of the forest trees. ”