Santa is a clever guy. He knows how much I love books, and how much I love nature writing and 19th-century field notes.

On Christmas morning what a delight to unwrap a first-edition, five-volume set of Alexander von Humboldt’s epic Cosmos: A sketch of a physical description of the universe, first published in 1848.

I have not been reading it in any particular order, owing to the way it’s written: in carefully organized sections on topics such as “The elevations and climatic relations of many of the most celebrated mountains in the world” to “General Review of Natural Phenomena” (which includes everything from zodiacal light to earthquakes to hygrometry to floras . . .) and everything (everything) in between.

Humboldt took delight in all things nature, from the tide pools to the stars and back again (to steal from John Steinbeck).

Thus far, my favorite quote from the book is:

“. . . at periods characterized by general mental cultivation, the severer forms of science and the more delicate emanations of fancy, have reciprocally striven to infuse their spirit in one another. In order to depict nature in its exalted sublimity, we must not dwell exclusively on its external manifestations, but we must trace its image, reflected in the mind of man, at one time filling the dreamy land of physical myths with forms of grace and beauty, and yet at another developing the noble germ of artistic creations.” - from volume II: “Incitements to the study of nature” (p. 371).