THE RANDALL FAMILY II3
letter and allow it to suggest somewhat. You speak of writing, and of a disposition in yourself thereto in excess of present ability — which, as I take it, is only in the usual order of things. Humboldt declares that his disposition to scientific discovery in South America was excited by the interesting voyages of George Forster, and that his desire for travel continually increased with thinking of it ; nor did he regard the dangers of so many kinds which threaten under the equator, because the objects were so interesting to him. So, also, the results of his journeys were proportionally great, and he did not undertake them until he had become well grounded in various sciences and had made previous expeditions in parts not so far from home. I also perceive in him some results other than those which he had specially in view, one of which is the attainment of a style in writing far more agreeable than can ever be reached by unvaried brooding over mere liter- ary pursuits, and which becomes picturesque from the multitude of ideas, the result of immense observation and experience. Indeed, his general narrative becomes at times almost too crowded to permit the single points to be enough isolated.
It is thus that a mind not poetical by nature becomes so through the nature of what it attains and the mode of attaining. I do not know that it is possible to express by the word poetical any idea which will command general assent, except as regards form, seeing that each person gives to himself a different interpretation. I am sure that what you and I would call poetry would hardly appear such to the majority, and what they would so call would seem to us as better deserving the title of folly. But, as I view it, no literary labors can seem highly poetical to persons of thought and experience, except their authors be also per-
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