George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

At half past 1 I read the passages in Blumenbach's Manual which he will expound in his lecture, and at three go to his lecture on natural history, which would be amusement enough for me, if I had no other the whole day. He is now nearly or quite seventy years old, has been professor here above forty years, and is now delivering, to an overflowing class, his eightieth course of lectures on natural history. He is the first naturalist in Germany,—perhaps in the world,—has an astonishingly wide and intimate familiarity with his subject, and a happy humor in communicating his instruction, which makes doubly amusing what is, itself, the most interesting of all studies. His jokes, however, are never frivolous; they are always connected with some important fact or doctrine which they are intended to impress; and when we come out of his lecture-room, after having laughed half the time we were there, we are sure to have learnt twice as much, and to remember it twice as well, as if we had never laughed at all. After this I take a walk, and at five go to Dr. Schultze, a young man, but at least to me an extraordinary Greek scholar, and held to be decidedly the best Greek instructor in Gottingen, and recite to him in Greek. . . . . He is as completely at home in Greek as if it were a modern language which he had learnt in the ordinary way; and before the spring comes, I trust I shall have learnt something from him which I shall not forget.

Finding it impossible, from the continual rains and intolerable mud of the streets, to get exercise enough, Everett and myself have fallen into the universal fashion, and go an hour to the University fencing-master three times a week, from six to seven. We find it useful and pleasant too; for, except at Blunmenbach's lectures, where we cannot talk, we seldom meet in the week, except at these fencing hours. The evenings I pass in reading German, principally such books as will profit me in Italy and Greece. Just before ten I go to bed, and ‘sleep the sleep that knows no waking’ till my punctual Frederick comes in, and says, ‘It is striking five, sir, and your breakfast is ready.’

You will ask whether my acquaintance and visitors do not sometimes interrupt me. Visiting, as it is done in our colleges, is a thing absolutely unknown here. If a man, who means to have any reputation as a scholar, sees his best friend once a week, it is thought quite often enough. As for acquaintance, except an English student in divinity, whom I see at my two lectures and the fencing masters, a German student, whom I do not visit, but who comes to see me about once a fortnight, and a modern Greek, whom I see about once a month, I have no acquaintance. Our Sunday evenings Everett and I commonly spend either at Blumenbach's, Heeren's, or Eichhorn's.