[273]
not even know the contents of the journal, but I suppose it contained papers of yours, full of genius and ardor.
I like your way of looking at nature, and I think you render great service to science by your observations.
A right spirit will readily lead you to see that this is the true road to glory, far preferable to the one which leads to vain analogies and speculations, the time for which is long past.
I am grieved to hear that you are not well, and that your eyes refuse their service.
M. de Humboldt tells me that you are seeking a better climate here, in the month of February.
You may find it, perhaps, thanks to our stoves.
But as we shall still have plenty of ice in the streets, your glacial opinions will not find a market at that season.
I should like to present you with a memoir or monograph of mine, just published, on Spirifer and Orthis, but I will take good care to let no one pay postage on a work which, by its nature, can have but a very limited interest. . . . I will await your arrival to give you these descriptions.
I am expecting the numbers of your Fossil Fishes, which have not yet come.
Humboldt often speaks of them to me. Ah!
how much I prefer you in a field which is wholly your own than in one where you break in
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