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His modesty has often been insisted upon. Success did not spoil
him. In a letter of 1799 he asks that a certain statement in his
favour should not be mentioned, lest he "be accused of conceit
and arrogance, from which my Heavenly Father has preserved me all
my life long." Here he spoke the simple truth. At the same time,
while entirely free from presumption and vanity, he was perfectly
alive to his own merits, and liked to have them acknowledged.
When visitors came to see him nothing gave him greater pleasure
than to open his cabinets and show the medals, that had been
struck in his honour, along with the other gifts he had received
from admirers. Like a true man of genius, as Pohl says, he
enjoyed distinction and fame, but carefully avoided ambition.
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