Alexander
Humboldt was delicate in his youth, but the longing for great
enterprises made him dread the hindrances of physical insufficiency, so
he accustomed his body to exercise and fatigue, and prepared himself for
those wonderful explorations which opened his great career. Here are
intellectual lives which were forwarded in their special aims by habits
of physical exercise; and, in an earlier age, have we not also the
example of the greatest intellect of a great epoch, the astonishing
Leonardo da Vinci, who took such a delight in horsemanship that
although, as Vasari tells us, poverty visited him often, he never could
sell his horses or dismiss his grooms?

The physical and intellectual lives are not incompatible. I may go
farther, and affirm that the physical activity of men eminent in
literature has added abundance to their material and energy to their
style; that the activity of scientific men has led them to innumerable
discoveries; and that even the more sensitive and contemplative study of
the fine arts has been carried to a higher perfection by artists who
painted action in which they had had their part, or natural beauty,
which they had travelled far to see. Even philosophy itself owes much to
mere physical courage and endurance. How much that is noblest in ancient
thinking may be due to the hardy health of Socrates!

LETTER VI.

TO AN AUTHOR IN MORTAL DISEASE.

Considering death as a certainty--The wisdom learned from
suffering--Employment of happier intervals--The teaching of the
diseased not to be rejected--Their double experience--Ignorance of
Nature's spoiled children--Benefit of disinterested thought--Reasons
for pursuing intellectual labors to the last--Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.

When Alexandre Bixio lay on his death-bed, his friend Labrousse visited
him, and exclaimed on entering the room, "How well you are looking
to-day!" To this, Bixio, who was clearly aware of his condition,
answered in these words:--"Voyons, mon pauvre Labrousse; tu viens voir
un homme qui n'a plus qu'un quart d'heure a vivre, et tu veux lui faire
croire qu'il a bonne mine; allons, une poignee de main, cela vaut mieux
pour un homme que tous ces petits mensonges-la."

I will vex you with none of these well-meant but wearisome little
falsehoods. We both of us know your state; we both know that your
malady, though it may be alleviated, can never be cured; and that the
fatal termination of it, though delayed by all t