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Letters Of Alexander Von Humboldt To Varnhagen Von Ense.

Alexander von Humboldt

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LETTERS OF Alexander von Humboldt TO Varnhagen von Ense. From 1827 to 1858. WITH Extracts from Varnhagen’s Diaries, and Letters of Varnhagen and others to Humboldt.

LETTERS OF Alexander von Humboldt TO Varnhagen von Ense. From 1827 to 1858. WITH Extracts from Varnhagen’s Diaries, and Letters of Varnhagen and others to Humboldt.

“Your last favor doing me so much honor contains words about which I wish to prevent every mistake. ‘You are afraid to confess yourself the exclusive owner of my impieties.’ You may freely dispose of this sort of property after my not far distant departure from life. Truth is due to those only whom we deeply esteem—to you therefore.”...

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Preface.

Preface.

The following letters of Humboldt furnish a contribution of the highest importance to the true, correct, and unveiled representation of his genius and character. That they should be delivered to publicity after his death was his desire and intent, which have found their positive impression in the words preceding this book as its motto. Never has he spoken out his mind more freely and sincerely, than in his communications with Varnhagen, his old and faithful friend, whom he esteemed and loved bef

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1. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

1. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Allow me to present you with the best copy of my essay [1] left me. The end of it will, I hope, secure me your indulgence for the whole. Tuesday....

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2. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

2. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

You recollect having once uttered some affectionate words in acknowledgment of my endeavors to describe Nature vividly and truly (that is, with strict correctness as to what we do observe). That your words have left agreeable impressions, you will perceive from this insignificant token of my gratitude. [2] I have altered nearly all “the Explanations,” and added “The Genius of Rhodes,” for which Schiller has shown some predilection. With friendship and the highest consideration, Is it not strange

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3. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

3. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Trusting more to your friendship for me and to my memoranda, which always guide me in my lectures, than to the notes taken by the students, I send you herewith the entire fifth lecture, together with to-day’s recapitulation. I am sure, you will not find anything anti-philosophical therein. You may make whatever use you like of them—except a copy for publication—please send them back before Saturday. That the memoranda were made for my own use only, you will observe by the confusion in their comp

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4. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

4. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Will you allow me to disturb you for some moments between 2 and 3 o’clock this afternoon, that I may ask your literary opinion? My book shall bear the title: “Sketch of a Physical Description of the World.” I should like to embody in the title itself the occasion of these lectures, so as to make it understood at once that the book contains more and something else than the lectures. “From reminiscences of lectures in the years 1827 and 1828, by A. v. Humboldt,” is considered, I am told, ridiculou

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5. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

5. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I shall call and thank you and enjoy your being home again, and the good effects which the exercise of your new duties have everywhere had. And I will implore pardon of your gifted lady, so dear to me through the misfortunes that happened in my own family. It is never allowed to present a book to the King, not even by Prince Wittgenstein. It must go the usual way. But I will entreat Albrecht very, very fervently. [4] I am quite exhausted and will be off in a week. Friday....

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6. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

6. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I have just come home from Potsdam, and find your dear letter and your present, so very agreeable to me. The “ Zinzendorf ” [5] will delight me very, very much. He is an individual physiognomy like Lavater and Cardanus . The recent pietism, which began to break out at Halle, made me smile. I rejoice that you will kindly accept my “Cri de Pétersbourg”—it is a parody recited at Court—the forced work of two nights; an essay to flatter without self-degradation, to say how things should be. As you an

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7. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

7. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Please accept for yourself and your highminded and excellent lady my sincerest thanks for your new present, so agreeable to me. [7] I was not personally acquainted with the man whose eccentricities you have so æsthetically described. He was one of those who shine by their personal appearance; their lives are of greater effect than their writings. A man who boasts that his recollections go back to the first year of his life (how differently the Margravine judged things, when she says: “J’étais un

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8. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

8. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

Certainly it was I who met your Excellency some time ago at the sunny hour of noon and who recognised you too late, as I was recognised too late by you. How I should have liked to run after you, but it would not do, the distance was already too great. I would have liked to have told you something concerning Mr. von Bulow at London, which I had just got from the best authority, and which I thought would be new to you, as it was to me. It was about the danger in which that bold ambassador was for

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9. HUMBOLDT TO RAHEL.

9. HUMBOLDT TO RAHEL.

My speedy reply has no good foreboding, my dear friend. When anything is to be done in this country, it wants fourteen months’ maturing—after that there is hope. The inclosed letter, which, however, you are entreated not to leave in the hand of your lady friend, explains all. I was listened to in my words and letters kindly and promisingly. This morning, however, the drawings—those beautiful drawings—were sent back. The underlined word in the accompanying note might give some hope; but I like be

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10. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

10. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I am eternally grateful and affected by your noble letter. Grace and euphony of language should always be joined to purity of character and gracefulness of manners. My brother was here for two days, but almost always under the shock of the waves, dashing from the Court. Princes have the right to pray without ever being deprecated. He ordered me to tell you, dear friend, how very sensible he is to the flattering nature of your offer; but he is just now so much occupied with the publication of the

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11. HUMBOLDT TO RAHEL.

11. HUMBOLDT TO RAHEL.

I have seen Beuth once more, to remind him of his ancient friendship with L. His opinion is, that it would be advantageous for the family to separate the architectural subjects from what belongs to landscape merely, and also to leave out the engravings. Only the architectural drawings were of any use to his institute, and if the family wanted the money, he would be enabled to purchase to the amount of some hundred Thalers (perhaps four to five hundred?). However uninviting such an offer may be,

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12. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

12. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

To a mind like yours, noble friend, solitude and calm are necessary. You draw only upon yourself. Think, that I received the painful news [9] only last night by Prince Carolath. You know what a warm-hearted, long-proved, and kind friend I lost in her, the honor of her sex! how amiable she was, when lately she instructed me to transact the little business with Beuth. So experienced in all the vicissitudes and illusions of life, and yet so cheerful, and so gentle! With such an intellect, so full o

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13. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

13. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Pardon, a thousand pardons, for not sooner returning the classical studies of Friedrich Schlegel. I studied them diligently and I am convinced that many views of Grecian antiquity, which modern authors ascribe to themselves, are buried in writings dated from 1795 (a deucalionic time of yore!). Angelus Silesius, whom I have but now learned to appreciate, has also gratified me and my brother very much. There is a piety in the book, which breathes on the mind like the balmy air of spring, and the m

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14. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

14. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I enclose you, most honored friend, some words of the lovely Duchess of Dessau. Anything honoring the memory of our departed lady friend must be dear to your heart. Accept my best thanks for the books you sent me. Each in its way interested me very much. I am sorry not to have been personally acquainted with Rahel. Her mind now lies so clearly before me, that I should have been happy to have been acquainted with her exterior appearance, that it might suggest to me the intellect within. Yet full

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15. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

15. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I have been prevented by the irksome and noisy Court-life from inquiring personally after the dear health of my friend. I am sorry that I must request you, by the present note, to return me the letter of the Duchess of Dessau, containing the amiable words concerning our sainted friend....

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16.

16.

I begin the printing of my work (the work of my life). I have the extravagant idea of describing in one and the same work the whole material world—all that we know to-day of celestial bodies and of life upon the earth—from the nebular stars to the mosses on the granite rocks—and to make this work instructive to the mind, and at the same time attractive, by its vivid language. Every great and sparkling idea must be noticed, side by side with its attendant facts. The work shall represent an epoch

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17. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

17. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

You have encouraged and cheered me by your amiable letter, and your still more amiable solicitude. You have quite entered into the spirit of my efforts. But the expression of my affectionate confidence in you [a manifestation of the acknowledgment of your talent in the Humboldt family] has rendered you too considerate and inclined to praise. Your remarks have a degree of refinement, of taste, and acuteness, which makes emendation a highly pleasant task. I have adopted all, or nearly all—more tha

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18. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

18. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

You, my dearest Varnhagen, who are not afraid of grief, but who trace its phases through the depths of sentiment, you should receive at this sorrowful time a few words expressing the love which both brothers feel for you. The release has not yet come. I left him last night at 11 o’clock, and I hasten to him again. The day, yesterday, was less distressing. A half lethargic condition, frequent, though not restless, slumber, and after each waking, words of love, of comfort; but always the clearness

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19. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

19. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

My time is, unfortunately, so much occupied by the many princely strangers, and I am so affected by the cold, though not at all bracing weather, that I can scarcely find leisure to thank you, dear friend, for the “Bollmann” [12] and the biographical sketch of him, in which I recognised at once your pen, and also the “retouchings,” when the “Staats Zeitung” fell into my hands. One should not undertake to speak of distinguished men in such papers; it is a difficult task, even for a man of your gen

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20. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

20. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I send back the communicated sheets, as they might interrupt the series. I was personally acquainted with almost all those whom Bollmann describes so vividly and faithfully. One perceives how he rises as he enters into more important situations. What a strange course of life, “Médecin de Sauvetage!” I have now a better impression of him, thanks to you; for, without being capable of divining the true cause, I noticed some coolness towards Bollmann in Lafayette’s family, for some years past....

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21. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

21. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

If the “Morgenblatt” of the 18th of May should fall into your hands, dear friend, please glance at a rather offensive article therein, entitled “Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Funeral.” My brother is said to have died abandoned by his family. I take but little notice of such misrepresentations. I should wish to know, however, is “that other thing” which my brother was “ignorant of, besides music, and which one dare not name”—is it God, or some lewdness? I do not know what it possibly can be! Please, dea

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22. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

22. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

A mind like yours, my generous friend, understands, in its mildness and fortitude, how to discover some justification for everything. I do not fear, therefore, to appear this morning again before you as a petitioner, after a winter distracted by the dashing court-waves and festivities. You are the only one in this harmony-barren, genius-deserted city who possesses a harmony of style and a sense of moderation in the utterance of painful sentiments. May I beg you to cast a critical glance over the

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23. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

23. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

The correspondent had, it seems, little to fear from the mendacious declaration of this “defloured.” In the general view on the shallowness and dough-facedness, of the great historian, I am of his opinion. Moreover reading Herr von Raumer’s books is like being “whipped,” and that I neither suffer nor pardon....

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24. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

24. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

It is very consoling, that both brothers in this intellectually desolated city (how brilliant it was when Rahel was in her zenith) live in the memory of the only one, to whom have remained good taste, refined manners, and gracefulness of style. All my researches concerning the separate print of the essay were in vain to-day. I have not even the single volume of the Academical Proceedings of 1822, because at that time I lived in Paris. Yet, in a few days, I will bring you this one. I will then al

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25. HUMBOLDT TO THE PRINCESS VON PUECKLER.

25. HUMBOLDT TO THE PRINCESS VON PUECKLER.

I arrived this very night from Potsdam, and I accept with pleasure the amiable offer of Madame la Princesse for to-morrow, Wednesday night, at eight o’clock precisely, for the spectacle lasts one hour. I feel some fear in fixing it for Thursday, considering the planetarian perturbations. Any persons selected by you will be agreeable to me. I would only beg Madame la Princesse not to invite Rauch, Gans, and Mr. and Mrs. Ruhle, because they have already been bored by this affair. Mr. de Varnhagen

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26. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

26. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I came, dear friend, for two purposes: 1, to bring you the opinions of Minister Kamptz ( casus in terminis , only twenty-five copies printed), which you, perhaps, had not seen before, and which has elicited a vehement reply from Herr von Oertzen, the Minister of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, burned in the Lord. Read (p. 30 and 32), how one can whitewash a person. I would beg of you not to laugh at me, when you are invited to-morrow to a lecture at the Princess’s. I can assure you there is less vanity, f

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27. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

27. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

At last, my dear friend, I can send you the volume of the Academical Proceedings, which contains the important treatise on history. I shall soon exchange this borrowed volume for another, which you may keep. It seems that there never were separate copies made of this essay. You disappeared so quickly after the last performance, that I fear very much your appearance on that fated day was only a sacrifice to me. I move eternally like a pendulum between Potsdam and Berlin. To-morrow again to Potsda

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28. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

28. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

You have prepared for me, my highly esteemed friend, a delightful pleasure. I hope that these remarks upon the composition of history will hereafter form a part of your miscellaneous writings! The mind certainly becomes dizzy in contemplating the abundance of material which springs copiously from every fresh source. You point out how this material may be moulded by a man of genius. In the approaching millennium everything will be simplified—the individual life of nations is preserved, in spite o

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29. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

29. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

You can, my revered friend, dispose entirely of the volume of the Academy until I shall procure you a copy for yourself. I am particularly pleased with the communication to the ingenious Gans. The historical studies of Hegel will interest me particularly, because, until now I nourished a wild prejudice against the idea that each nation individually is bound to represent an idea. In order that the prediction of the philosopher may be fulfilled I shall nevertheless read it attentively, and gladly

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30. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

30. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

To-morrow to Tegel, [16] and on Monday I depart for the eternal spring, [17] at which the sight of the Prince of Warsaw will not lessen my sadness; I cannot, therefore, thank you personally. Sophie Charlotte [18] and Hegel’s Philosophy of History will accompany me, and both will delight me greatly. My soul rather turns to you. I shall certainly find a torrent of ideas in that Hegel, whom his editor, Gans, in so masterly a manner has not deprived of his great individuality; but a man who is as I

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31. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

31. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

You delight sometimes in arresting fleeting events, and in preserving what the winds usually carry away. I therefore send you, dear friend, the little speech, which the papers have published in such a mutilated form. The sense of it will please you, although its neglected style might be better. Political Hanover I found, as you supposed; and private conversations with King Ernest, which at the same time express wrath and fear, confirm the view. Leist of Stade with his report, which lasted five h

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32. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

32. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I find after a week’s residence in Potsdam, which has very much discouraged me, your amiable souvenir. Receive, revered friend, this very evening, my warmest thanks; you have praised me for my most cherished aim, which is, that I may not become a fossil, as long as I move, and cling to the belief, “that nature has put her curse upon stagnancy and inertia.” Youth is the symbol of progress, and those, who rule now (the Berlin world’s elephants) sont des momies en service extraordinaire....

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33. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

33. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

The commencement of my letter is weak, the end of it more reasonable. But you should not lose the dramatic effect of the whole. What you ask, my dear friend, is very perilous, for the question is not about my feelings, but about a family who anxiously interpret . The more striking and spirited your delineation is, particularly p. 10–15, (“He started from ideas.”... “That which many deny to him entirely.”)... it impresses me uncomfortably, the more because it is in so short an essay, and because

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34.

34.

I am very happy, revered friend, that I can offer to you as a present the only volumes of the great Russian poet hitherto published. Shall I come to you to-morrow, Sunday, at one o’clock, that my eyes may see the beautiful eyes which have enticed you (for our literary benefit) into the Slavonian lingual labyrinth? I called twice at Mr. K.’s; but, as he was not in, I left cards. Moreover, I wrote him a tender letter, with offers for Petersburg (concerning his journey to Geneva)—but I have not hea

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35. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

35. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

You are for me, my dearest friend, the standard of refinement as well as my authority in matters of elevated taste. I have written two articles (not heretofore published) for Cotta’s “New Quarterly,” with which his advisers are very much delighted, viz.: a natural description of the Plateau of Bogota, and on the fluctuations in the production of coin since the middle age. He sends me for them (they fill four printed sheets) an exchange for fifty fredericksdor’s, or more than twelve fredericksdor

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36. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

36. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

The book which you lent me, dear friend, is delightful, [19] as everything must be called which characterizes the individuality of men. My brother’s letters are excellent indeed. His opinion of the State Chancellor does much credit to his character, and the conclusion, which seems to take away something from the praise bestowed on him, is full of a deep political meaning. He alludes to some other result of greater magnitude, which the development of the world-wide events in question might have p

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37. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

37. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Mr. Piaget has made a very favorable impression on me. In my opinion, he would be most useful as “Professeur de Litterature ou d’Histoire” at the “College Français.” A pedantic examination, however, stands in his way. I will try my best with Mr. von Werther. I have, however, some fear that the rather illiterate-looking mustaches, and the long, straight, South Sea hair, will be found a little odd in that quarter. Is it not remarkable that the Neufchatel Councillors in the cabinet, have tried to d

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38. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

38. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

It is kind in you, and very humane , dear friend, sending me that little pamphlet, [21] which otherwise would certainly have escaped my attention. The praise which you bestow on it is of great weight, as you understand so well sketching a life-portrait and adorning it gracefully, without discoloring its characteristic traits. Kries is one of my earliest friends. We were students together in Heyne’s Seminary. [22] I will return the print very soon....

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39. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

39. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I deem myself unfortunate, dear friend, in having missed you. I have been suffering from a miserable little boil on my foot, and went to-day (for the first time) to my neighbor, Leopold von Buch. Best thanks for Sesenheim. [23] You certainly were right in snatching the little work from oblivion, a work which possesses a German character in the highest degree, and derives a tender interest from your preface. There is in this little work a nice appreciation of what must ever be important and sacre

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40. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

40. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

The Crown-Prince, to whom I brought, this morning, your thoughtful “ Lebensbuch ,” has ordered me to express to you, revered friend, his “most friendly thanks.” It reminded him, at the same time, of your “Sophie Charlotte,” your “Seydlitz,” your always delightful language, and your skill in portraying difficult relations of life. The liberal passage on Grimm I read to him. It pleased him much, and brought on a conversation on Hanover. He expressed himself very sensibly in regard to it. “The King

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41. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

41. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

An insipid polemical book of Mr. Gretsch, against Melgunoff, and against the book of Koenig, which is entirely unknown to me, full of Siberia, strangulation, secret funds, and Russian patriotism—an insufferable rehash! Will you read it, my dear friend? For you alone understand it entirely. The book might almost reconcile me with Mr. Melgunoff, against whom I have felt some anger. I have, it is true, neither a recollection of him nor of my conversation with him; but he must have strangely interpr

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42. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

42. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

My dear Baron —Though I do not doubt that the Crown-Prince, to whom I had the honor of replying to-day, will inform you of my declaration, I refer you to my letter to his Royal Highness. You will see that I have placed myself at his disposal, with a reservation, however, prescribed by my ignorance of archæology. To my ignorance upon this point must be added my ignorance upon another—I mean the duties of the Presidency. I desire to state, at all events, what I think of the relations of a single m

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43. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

43. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Here are two Salamanders. The black (black bordered) king of Denmark is not only a Norwegian constitutional, but also a mineralogical king, who has written pretty good memoirs on Vesuvius. The predecessor having been an astronomical king, who proposed prize questions on comets, presented great men like General Mueffling and myself with chronometers, and died of a comet on the night of the discovery of Galli’s comet, the Danish astronomers were, probably, rather anxious for their heavenly pursuit

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44. KING CHRISTIAN VIII. OF DENMARK TO HUMBOLDT.

44. KING CHRISTIAN VIII. OF DENMARK TO HUMBOLDT.

Of all the letters received on the occasion of my accession to the throne, none has afforded me so sensible a pleasure as that which you addressed me under the date of the 17th of December last. Your remembrance is of the highest value to me, and I recall with the greatest interest, Monsieur le Baron, our conversations many years ago at Paris. Since that time you have enriched science by new discoveries. Siberia, explored by you, as you before explored America, offers to natural science new view

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45. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

45. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

The Crown-Prince would like very much to see that interesting letter of Prince Metternich to you. Could not you send it to me before half-past seven o’clock to-night, my dear friend? In regard to the said letter, Varnhagen says in his diary, under date of April 2d, 1840: “When returning home, found a letter from Prince Metternich—a long one, under his own hand. He declares my picture of the Congress of Vienna to be a perfectly faithful one, a few points excepted, which ought to be corrected. He

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46.

46.

The Crown-Prince has expressly charged me to offer you, dear friend, his thanks for such an interesting communication. Count Alvensleben was present. Every one considered the letter a gratifying testimonial to you and to your description of the Congress, and praised it for the noble simplicity in which one of the most remarkable events is recited. “Et tout cela prouve que ma fille est muette,” and that a talent like yours (in advising, in describing, and in knowledge of mankind) is allowed to be

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47. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

47. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Decide, master of eloquence and euphony: I had it thus, “As far as humanity (civilisation) extended on earth!” Now, it pleases me better to put: 1, “It has influenced rulers and nations equally, as far as civilization and commerce extend” (extend, not extended, which latter I abhor); or, 2, “As far as civilization and commerce ennobled mankind;” or, 3, “Made mankind susceptible;” or, 4, “United mankind.” Would No. 4 (the last), not be the better? Perhaps you have an inspiration. Put clandestinel

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48. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

48. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

If I have delayed so long in coming to you, my dear friend, both before and after my campaign to the North, it is only because there are impossibilities in life against which we battle in vain. Immediately after the festivities in this city I intended to hasten to you, but the uncertainty whether I should go to Paris (I refused, because then it would not have been honorable either to me or to the king, if Prussia did not dare to act independently!) the approaching departure of Bulow, the arrival

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49. GUIZOT TO HUMBOLDT.

49. GUIZOT TO HUMBOLDT.

It was very amiable indeed in you to have thought of sending me the two new volumes of your brother’s works. I thank you not only for this gift, in itself so very valuable, but also for your remembrance which is at least equally dear to me. I hope that notwithstanding all our affairs, for they are yours as well as mine, I shall manage to read something of this great work. I should like to employ my time in so complete and varied a manner as you occupy yours. Preserve a little of it for the advan

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50. ARAGO TO HUMBOLDT.

50. ARAGO TO HUMBOLDT.

I must not, I will not, believe that you asked me seriously whether I should look forward to your journey to Paris with pleasure. Could it be that you ever doubted my invariable attachment? Be it known to you that I should consider the slightest doubt upon this point a most cruel offence. Beyond the immediate circle of my own family you are, without comparison, the person whom, of all others, I love the most dearly. But you must be resigned to the duties of this position, as you are of my friend

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51. HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

51. HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

How could you doubt, most honored Madam, my being thankful for the news of the real situation of those noble men, who after so many undeserved sufferings, and after so long and so shameful a neglect, are at last to be placed in an independent position. I thought that, to have given them such a situation in Berlin, three thousand thalers would be a sufficient salary for both, and with this view I have continued my efforts. The King has adopted it as a principle never to issue an order in financia

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52. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

52. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Your letter has done me an immense deal of good. I see that we feel ourselves both equally attracted to each other, and that you attributed my long, and to me very gloomy, seclusion, only to the distracted state of my life, and to the application of my faculties, to an aim which they never can reach. Towards the close of a much troubled life which has but imperfectly realized its aspirations, it is a happiness to remain secure in, and to possess the esteem of those to whose mind and intellect an

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53. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

53. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

A disappointment, dear friend, not to have found you. Correct this title-page for me; I have to send it away. As it is necessary to state, “that this is not the lecture of 1828,” I thought of having the long sentence printed on the title-page, in small type, like an aphorism. It may look strange after the name, but I hope you will be able to approve of it. “Kosmos. Sketch of a Physical Description of the World, by A. von Humboldt. From Sketches and Lectures delivered in the years 1827 and 1828,

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54. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

54. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Be very kind and indulgent in reading my work. I am anxious that you should get a complete idea of the composition of it. In A, I have made large corrections. Notice especially p. 37 and the notes; Schelling’s name, pp. 37 and 68; Hegel, p. 66. The positive declaration at p. 64, that it is not the creator of Natural Philosophy whom I accuse, will, I hope, make my biting severity at the “gay Saturnalia,” le bal en masque of the craziest of all natural philosophers, seem more pardonable to him. “I

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55. HUMBOLDT TO SPIKER. (C.)

55. HUMBOLDT TO SPIKER. (C.)

Be so kind as to send me back this page. I make use of your fine translation in a note which is now being printed in my Kosmos . You will permit me to say: “according to Spiker’s translation.” It will give me pleasure to do so. Shall I excite the ire of the Marquis August von Schlegel or of Tieck Acorombonus? Please tell me whether they have also translated that passage? Many kind regards....

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56. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

56. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I am afraid, my dear friend, that I shall be obliged to go to Potsdam again on Thursday, and thence to Paris on the 10th or 12th. I am to send Cotta more copy before I go. Let me not be suspended so long between condemnation and indulgence. Pray send me a few words with the parcel....

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57. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

57. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

My Dear Friend :—Even after deducting the kind expressions written expressly for my tranquillity, there still remains more than enough in your letter of to-day to comfort me. The penance, [27] therefore, which I assign you is to receive me to-morrow morning at 11 o’clock, for a few moments, to accept my thanks. The “ schmeichle mich ” must be a clerical error; as for me I am unconscious of it. The false use of the accusative case at p. 44, you will have to show me. It cannot be “ Einsicht in den

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58. KING CHRISTIAN VIII. OF DENMARK TO HUMBOLDT.

58. KING CHRISTIAN VIII. OF DENMARK TO HUMBOLDT.

Monsieur le Baron —I am doubly obliged to the illustrious counsellor Dieffenbach for his attention in presenting me with a copy of his work on the cure of strabism and stammering, since it was the cause of your dear letter of the 9th February. Introduced by you, Monsieur le Baron, any one is sure of success. In the present case, the reputation and the works of the author could have dispensed with all further recommendation; but you only do justice to the great services which Counsellor Dieffenba

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59.

59.

I am very sorry not to be enabled amid the annoyances of to-morrow’s departure (first to Potsdam, then to Paris, until October) to bid you farewell. I appeal to you once more as the source, until Rückert’s arrival, the only source of good taste, of pure language, and of a delicate appreciation of the appropriate sense. Tell me with all indulgence what I ought to strike out from the enclosed preface, but give me also your advice wherever you find fault. I wrote the two pages at night in a gloomy

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60. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

60. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Of all that I have had to thank you for, dear friend, I like Hormayr’s manly letter best. Le style est tout l’homme. He is not like the people who surround us, the better ones of whom lose themselves in reticences, temporizations, in trimming, excitements, and irresolution. His belief in Muenster’s liberalism is perhaps only a misconception of Muenster’s motives. No doubt Count Muenster has nobly contributed to the liberation of Germany—but assuredly he never did it in order to open the path to

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61. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

61. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I have not the leisure, dear friend, to thank you as I ought to do for your spirited and historically thorough biography of Schwerin. [28] A deep penetration into the individuality of this great man pervades the whole. Simplicity is the essential, vital element of description. A hasty word of advice to ride off, and the winning of the battle by himself alone, [29] were constant stumbling-blocks in the path of this hero during his life. His end, the standard in his hand, amid the bloody massacre

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62. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

62. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I am anxious to hear a few words about your health, dear friend. I have succeeded in procuring a pension of three hundred thalers, a miserable sum, but it is only a beginning, for the impoverished but talented poet Freiligrath at Darmstadt, involving no obligation on his part, and allowing him to live out of the country. Can you lend me his poems? And this miserable fellow has been appointed under Guizot’s ministry Professeur des Langues du Nord (litt. anglaise, allemande) au College de France.

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63. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

63. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Be comforted about the mishap. The King purchases Italian, but, under no circumstances whatever, French pictures. The portrait of Cherubini is, indeed, very fine, and if I remember aright, I saw it in Cherubini’s own house. As the author is not dead, and Ingres very rich, I cannot conceive how the portrait can be for sale? You can tell the sprightly “Child” [30] that you sent me the feuilleton. In the last number of the Journal des Débats there is a strong and very fine article against the abomi

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64. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

64. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

My dear friend, so happily restored to me! It is a source of infinite joy to me to learn, from your exquisite letter, that the really very delightful society at the Princess’s has benefited you physically, and, therefore, as I should say in my criminal materialism, mentally also. Such a society, blown together chiefly from the same fashionable world of Berlin (somewhat flat and stale), immediately takes a new shape in the house of Princess Pueckler. It is like the spirit which should breathe lif

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65. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

65. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

On my return from Potsdam with the King I received the “Loa-Tseu,” a work with a peculiar flavor of ante-Herodotian antiquity. Your note accompanying the Chinese philosopher impresses me painfully. I find that you have not yet received the courage arising from a consciousness of restored physical strength. That the vigor of your intellect never suffered is shown in each of your letters. I think I have not lost any of them. About a week ago I wrote you a long one of four pages about that “Christi

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66. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

66. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Since the inquisitorial sentence against Bruno (Bauer) has been so presumptuously published, I deem it my duty to retain your Strauss no longer. I return you that remarkable book, which caused me to indulge in much meditation. Accept my best thanks. The method of the author is excellent; it makes us acquainted with the whole history of the faith of our time, particularly so with the jesuitical trick of so many people who declare publicly their belief in and their adherence to all the dogmas of t

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67. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

67. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Our unknown friend is very amiable. I have lost all apprehension. You have a balm for every wound. I will show you, with pleasure, the few lines, which fell, as it was intended they should, into the King’s hands on the following morning. I chose that circuitous way, because it enabled me to write more freely, and to openly show my dissatisfaction. The thing is now in a better way, but it is not yet irrevocably dismissed. I must entreat you, therefore, most fervently, not to give the lines in que

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68. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

68. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Your kind remembrance, honored and gifted friend, was very beneficial to me—the more so, as I have returned from Sans Souci rather unwell, affected by a cold; and as I am involved in all the miseries of moving into a detestable house in the Siberian ward of the city, the Oranienburger Strasse, I have not even an inkstand on my table. At present, nothing more than my best thanks. I have told Marheineke myself how dear he is to me. A thunderstorm, in the form of a cabinet order, suddenly growling

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69. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

69. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

If I have appeared slow in thanking you, my dear friend, for your delightful present, it is because all my leisure time at Potsdam was absorbed by the perusal of your biography, beginning with your early youth and terminating with your description of the Congress of Vienna. To have had such a development as yours is a gratifying advantage. It is instructive to follow the career of men like you and to behold them acting before our eyes. How unjust we once were in our opinions of the men who under

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70. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

70. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Excuse me, dear friend, for being prevented by the absence of Reimer, by my own eternal distractions and pendulum-like movements, as well as by some little preparations for an excursion to Pomerania, from sending you the two new volumes of Wilhelm’s works. I know that you are little pleased with the commentary on Hermann and Dorothea. It would have been preferable, to be sure, had he extended it into a pamphlet on epics; but you perceive even in the Kawi book how that great genius always deduced

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71.

71.

I am sure, dear friend, to afford you some enjoyment by communicating to you (to you alone ) a fragment of a new volume by Eckermann. Remarkable adoration of youthful vigor as the divine source of productiveness. This is simply the adoration of an old man. Napoleonic worship unrestrained by moral considerations. I most fervently entreat you, not to show the sheet to our child , also not to talk with Brockhaus about what Eckermann has confided to me. It might possibly damage him, and he is alread

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72. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

72. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I am afraid, my dear friend, that you might come to Tegel next Thursday and find nobody at home. Buelow will take leave of the King to-night and expects to start to-morrow—Wednesday—for Schlangenbad. His wife and two oldest daughters are going with him. I write this in view of the impossibility of my embracing you before your departure. The torchlight procession at Düsseldorf could shed light on many a thing. I enclose the little speech for you, as you like to preserve everything concerning your

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73. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

73. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

How could I be, my dear friend, otherwise than alive to the duty of thanking you at once for your precious gift, and for the affectionate souvenir of one whose life is gradually vanishing? I know nothing more graceful in composition, in sympathy of conception, in elegance of language, and in appropriate scenic surroundings, than your “ Lebensbilder ,” which serve at the same time as correct commentaries upon all the valuable literature of our time. How generous you are when you mention me, and e

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74. HUMBOLDT TO THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA.

74. HUMBOLDT TO THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA.

I have the honor, most humbly, to inform you that the box containing the universal siderial clock of the inventors, D. and H. v. A ——, together with your gracious orders, has duly been delivered to me. I shall do in the matter what will be agreeable to you. The two officers, in a letter dated Temesvar, 13th of December, gave me notice of the arrival of the instruments, naively adding “That I should try to procure for the inventors some military decoration from His Majesty the King ‘the universal

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75.

75.

I am in haste to tell you, as the Potsdam train is about starting, dear friend, in spite of your incognito, that the King, previous to the soap bubbling, lead melting, and to the angelic chorus in the cathedral, and the entrance of the watchman, [36] received and enjoyed very much the charming gift. It is a group full of grace and sweetness of composition; it is heaven reflected in earthly love. The King instantly guessed it to be the work of those young fairies, Bettina’s cygnets, and would lik

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76. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

76. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I have a mind, my noble friend, to impart some enjoyment to you to-night by a few insignificant gifts, accompanying the horrible Ruthenic venom beneath enclosed. [37] I know that I am personally flattered in all the inclosed letters with the exception of that from Solingen; but this cannot prevent my offering what may be interesting to you. You will find the following letter from 1. Lord Stanley, the present minister, to whom I had recommended the cousin of our Dieffenbach, the author of a highl

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77. J. W. T. TO HUMBOLDT.

77. J. W. T. TO HUMBOLDT.

Your Excellency will not be offended at the liberty I take of writing you. Some time ago I read in the newspapers that somebody of Koenigsberg is said to have written you about secrets of nature, referring to photographs taken in the dark. I presume, therefore, that your Excellency is a naturalist and has friends who are likewise so. As I also have made important discoveries in secrets of nature, which my present business will not allow me to pursue, I wish to have an opportunity of speaking wit

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78. COUNT BRESSON, FRENCH AMBASSADOR, TO HUMBOLDT.

78. COUNT BRESSON, FRENCH AMBASSADOR, TO HUMBOLDT.

Dear Excellency ,—I am happy to be able to send you to-day an article worthier of you than that of yesterday. Keep this number “ Des Débats. ” I do not file them. The remark of Mr. M. V. L—— on the “ Nescio quis Plutarchus ” is puerile. Besides, excepting this, his article is inspired by a just appreciation of your glory, which is ours as well, and which we claim as such. Pray, dear Excellency, receive my affectionate and respectful homage. P. S.—I had just finished this note when yours of this

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79. ARAGO TO HUMBOLDT.

79. ARAGO TO HUMBOLDT.

My dear Friend —I cannot find words to tell you [38] how sorry I am at having caused you a moment’s annoyance. Be persuaded, then, once for all, that whatever wrongs, real or apparent, you may have experienced at my hands, you will never suffer that of my forgetting how good you have always been to me. The friendship which makes me so happy and proud, and which I have shown to you, shall never be surpassed by yours for me. I wanted, on the occasion of your kindly dedication, to give a public evi

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I.

I.

The quasi nameless number [39] may expect the mildest of sentences. It will, doubtless, be commuted to six months, and three years’ incapacity to hold office. You may therefore send some comfort, at least as a Christmas present, to the faithful Crefeld. Perhaps!!?!! I shall succeed in procuring the full pardon of this list. It is, however, revolting and horrible to let the poor boy languish so long in a loathsome hole. Leaving the respectability of his parents out of the question, had they been

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II.

II.

Cherissime Humboldt, you are acquainted with all the pretenders to all the crowns. Please read the inclosed letter, and inform me who the Seigneur Cados may be—who were his father, mother, and ancestors, and also what are his titles to the crown of France, which I shall certainly try to procure for him?...

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III.

III.

Episode from “The Marriage of Figaro.” Il y manque quelque chose. Quoi?— Le cachet. Don’t overlook the nice allusion, dearest friend! Your seal must help me out of nearly as great a difficulty as that of Countess Almaviva; otherwise the Prince would perceive that I have read all the flattering things which you have so ill-advisedly! said of me. Pour vous divertir , I inclose my letter. Vale. ( In Humboldt’s handwriting. )—Autograph of the Prince Royal of Prussia.—The Prince offered to Prince Met

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IV.

IV.

I communicate you the inclosed despatch from Copenhagen, to inform you of the new “Seccatura,” which will wait upon you in the shape of a sea-dog of the Sound, to ask your advice, and assistance as to a voyage around the globe. This letter having no further object, I pray God, Monsieur le Baron de Humboldt, to keep you in his holy and especial care. Given at our Palace at Potsdam, 29th April, 1849 (1843?), near midnight....

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81. KING CHRISTIAN VIII. OF DENMARK TO HUMBOLDT.

81. KING CHRISTIAN VIII. OF DENMARK TO HUMBOLDT.

The letter which you addressed me the day before you left Paris has called my attention to the lunar tables, for which science is indebted to the labors of Professor Hansen. I have applied to our illustrious astronomer Schumacher, in order to learn what will be still necessary to complete this important subject. By following his advice it was easy to procure everything necessary for the continuation of the labors, the comparing of the observations, and when the necessary expenses are once apport

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82. JOHN HERSCHEL TO HUMBOLDT.

82. JOHN HERSCHEL TO HUMBOLDT.

It is now a considerable time since I received your valued and most interesting work on Central Asia, which I should have long ago acknowledged, but that I was unwilling, and indeed unable, in proper terms to thank you for so flattering and pleasing a mark of your attention, till I had made myself at least in some degree acquainted with the contents. This, however, the continued pressure of occupations which leave me little time and liberty for reading has not yet allowed me to do otherwise than

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83. BALZAC TO HUMBOLDT.

83. BALZAC TO HUMBOLDT.

Monsieur Le Baron :—May I hope on my arrival in Potsdam, next Monday, by the 11 o’clock train, to have the honor of seeing you, for the purpose of presenting my respects. I am merely passing through this city, and you will therefore excuse the liberty I take in announcing the time of my visit. May I hope that you will receive it as a proof of my ardent desire to add some new recollections to those of the “Salon de Gérard.” Should I be so unfortunate as to miss seeing you, this little note will a

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84. ROBERT PEEL TO HUMBOLDT.

84. ROBERT PEEL TO HUMBOLDT.

I was much flattered by your kind attention in transmitting for my acceptance your most interesting work on Central Asia. It will be much prized by me, as well on account of its intrinsic value as a token of your personal regard and esteem. There is no privilege of official power the exercise of which gives me greater satisfaction than that of occasionally bestowing a mark of Royal favor and public gratitude on men distinguished by scientific attainments and by services rendered to the cause of

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85. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

85. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

You were kind enough to present me a copy of your “ Asie Centrale .” I call it your because discoveries lawfully belong to those who make them, and because it is often better to make a discovery than to become the possessor of its results. I have begun the perusal of the work, which is among those to which I look for mental relaxation, just as minds differently constituted from mine are apt to have recourse to light and futile productions. This is really the case. I often feel the necessity of s

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86. PRESCOTT TO HUMBOLDT.

86. PRESCOTT TO HUMBOLDT.

Sir —A book on which I have been engaged for some years, the History of the Conquest of Mexico, is now published in this country, as it was some few weeks since in England; and I have the pleasure to request your acceptance of a copy which sails for that purpose from New York in January. Although the main subject of the work is the conquest by the Spaniards, I have devoted half a volume to a view of the Aztec civilisation; and as in this shadowy field I have been very often guided by the light o

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87. MADAME DE RÉCAMIER TO HUMBOLDT.

87. MADAME DE RÉCAMIER TO HUMBOLDT.

I find no words, dear Sir, to tell you how deeply your letter has affected me. You have spared me the horror of suddenly learning through the papers the painful and unexpected news. Although very much afflicted and suffering I will not lose a moment in expressing my thanks. You are aware, dear Sir, that I had not seen for many years the Prince Augustus. I received, however, continually, evidences of his remembrance. It was at the most unhappy time of his life that I made his acquaintance at Mada

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88. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

88. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I trust that the following autographs will prove welcome to you:—(A) Bettina under the indictment; (B) two copies of my very brief speech; (C) two letters of Spontini, with strange allusions to Prince Wittgenstein, Count Redern, full of hatred against Meyerbeer, together with my earnest reply to it; (D) a letter of Gay-Lussac, when he was so dangerously injured by an explosion; (E) a very humane letter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany....

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89. LEOPOLD, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY, TO HUMBOLDT.

89. LEOPOLD, GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY, TO HUMBOLDT.

The Professor of Botany, Philip Parlatore, is about to leave for Berlin, and I cannot resist charging him with a letter to you, dear Count, expressive of my thanks for the recommendations whereby you have enriched Tuscany with several illustrious men. You (the father and patron of natural science) knew Mr. Parlatore, and your good opinion was sufficient to secure him the appointment at Florence, where he is now the Botanic Director of the Museum, and President of the Botanic Central Institute, w

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90. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

90. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

If Dr. Prutz, at Halle, in his obnoxious “Moritz,” had said nothing more than what he puts in the mouth of the clown (page 40), who, speaking of the people, “One should give them two morsels, so that they may wag their tails and crawl back into their cold kennels;” and at page 53, the poetically fine lines “I conjure you, ye future monarchs,” one would understand how that wonderful drama, in which Moritz contrives to plunge all his friends into the water that he may have the pleasure simply of f

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91. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

91. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I understand as well as you do, my dear friend, that the speech [41] in question must necessarily have produced a great sensation and excitement in our “north,” as well as under the sluggish Pole. He really excels in flowery eloquence. The figures which he presents are hardly new; but a certain delicacy of expression, and a nice perception of the “harmonious” in oratory, cannot be denied him. There is really something noble in the passion for speaking, upon every occasion, to thousands of people

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92. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

92. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I must be in a few moments at the Stettin depôt to meet the King, who arrives at 9 o’clock. Thence I go for a few days to Sans Souci, where I shall, unfortunately, celebrate my seventy-fifth birth-day. I say unfortunately, because in 1789 I believed that the world would have solved more problems than it has done. It is true that I have seen a great deal; but very little, indeed, in proportion to my exactions. I have no time to-day to write you about your charming description of your sojourn in P

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93. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

93. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Can you command courage enough, dear friend, to devote a few moments to a conversation on the present state of French literature? I take the liberty to introduce Mr. Jousserandot of Franche Comté, a French novel-writer. He possesses much beard and much good-natured vivacity. He is the son of a wealthy physician, and was recommended me from Paris. Excuse the importunity, but you must sometimes take your share of the annoyance of being gazed at....

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94. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

94. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

All the mysteries were solved to-night, dearest friend. I received this afternoon from the department of Foreign Affairs, where they were stored up, fourteen parcels pell-mell, misdirected there from Paris and dating from December to May. The first thing we perceived was your handwriting; the parcel was duly directed and contained, well secured under your seal, your important political letter and a parcel for Comtesse d’Agoult, which I remit with the present. I am quite innocent of what has happ

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95. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN

95. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN

I recognised at once from the gracefulness of style the guardian spirit of my feeble literary efforts. I had not yet seen the precious sheet, containing, in addition, the interpretations by Neander. I avail myself of the last moment before breaking up, to write you a preliminary word of sincerest thanks for one of the most interesting life sketches—for which we are indebted to your brilliant and vivifying pen. You have represented with dignity and magnificence a subject, which popular enthusiasm

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96.

96.

I avail myself of the few moments allotted me before going to the railroad station, dear friend, to thank you heartily for your characteristic biography of “Hans von Held.” I have read but one half of it, and that immediately after having read your “Life of Bluecher.” It is, therefore, but natural that I was filled with admiration. How fortunate you are in coloring all the details of military life in the one, and in describing the civil efforts of a people struggling for liberty, in the other bo

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97. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

97. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I avail myself of the first moments of my return from Potsdam to joyfully congratulate you on the good effect of the waters on your health. On account of the domestic misfortunes of my family, my participation in the dull and rain-spoiled Court festivities at Bruehl and Stolzenfels was a hard trial for me. I will acquaint Madame von Buelow to-morrow with your hearty sympathy. Buelow’s recovery progresses rapidly. Except some weakness of memory, which, however, does not appear for whole days, no

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98. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

98. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

Enclosed you will find my vote for the future colleague. I expect that you will not look for my assistance beyond the sphere of my principles; but my principles are so strongly influenced by a recommendation from you, that the request and the grant are but one. I have perused your Kosmos and have treated it as is my habit with rich collections. The impression made on me by the work will be best described by the avowal that it caused in my mind two conflicting, or if you like better, two mutually

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99. JULES JANIN TO HUMBOLDT.

99. JULES JANIN TO HUMBOLDT.

Dear Sir ,—I beg and entreat you to do an impossible thing for me. You are the kindest friend of the literary men of my country, and you have always been the most indulgent of men to me. Please listen, therefore, to my request. I left Paris a week ago for the express purpose of transmitting to the “ Journal des Débats ” a faithful record of the journey of her Majesty the Queen of England along the banks of the Rhine. Before leaving, I had the honor of paying my respects to the King at Neuilly, a

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100. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

100. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Por lo que desio la conversacion de los Reyes desio la conversacion de ellos dentro de los limites permitidos. Un grave consejero dixò al Rey Don Phelipe II., viendo que iva en diversas ocasiones al poder absoluto: Señor, reconoced á Dios en la tierra como en el cielo, por que ne se cause de las monarquías, suave govierno si los Reyes suavemente usan de él. — Cartas de Antonio Perez, p. 545. At the time of the insurrection of the Netherlands there had already been raised the question, “Whether t

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101. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

101. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

The curious little note containing the prophecy “that God would become tired of kings,” was lying for many days on my desk, awaiting my delivering it to you, in person, my dearest friend. Whenever anything worth reading falls into my hands during the late hours of my solitary study in the chateau here, I always think of you. As I have hitherto been prevented by my efforts to arrange the manner of Buelow’s discharge from calling on you, I have thought best to send you, dear friend, the little she

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102. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

102. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I would not like, my dear friend, that a friend of Thiers, whom he has warmly recommended to me, should leave Berlin without having had the pleasure of seeing you. Mr. Thomas, one of the editors of the “Revue des deux Mondes,” is the author of a most remarkable work on the ancient provincial constitutions of France, compiled from archives. I recommend him to your indulgence....

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103. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

103. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

All gifts, tendered through a hand like yours, are of double value to me, my dear friend. I have immediately replied to that high-gifted lady, the Countess. You are quite right in saying that her beautiful poetry evinces an admirable familiarity of the mind with the subject. I deem it more delicate to write to Baron Hormayr rather than to his lady. May I beg to enclose my little note, provided you approve its form? I have long had a predilection for this liberal-minded man. His literary activity

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104. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN

104. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN

Mr. Milnes, and what he may have said of the King, “who showed him no personal civilities,” interest me but little; but it will afford me great joy if my earnest intercession for Prutz be at last useful to him. This miserable trifle is the only thing that I can secure in my position. I shall die, however, in the conscientious belief, that to my last moment I never abandoned one devoted to the same principles as myself. Your approbation is highly valuable to me, my dear friend! The “Quarterly Rev

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105. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

105. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

After an official feeding, at court, of the “knights of the peace,” whose unworthy chancellor I am—after some sorrowful hours at Buelow’s, whose state becomes every day more precarious—after a ball at the Chateau, from which I am just returned, I cannot seek repose without sending you my preliminary thanks for your ecclesiastical gifts. I am delighted at the review of a poetical period, the precursor of a nobler one—or, to speak more correctly, of one more pregnant with life. I will, however, tu

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106. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

106. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Yesterday afternoon poor Buelow was released from his sufferings. Thursday night, at eleven o’clock, on going to bed, he fell lifeless into the arms of his servant. An apoplexy! He closed his eyes never to open them again. In the morning a hundred and forty pulses were counted; bleeding had no effect. His end was, as lately his life was, unconscious. The family is deeply affected; the event, however, is beneficial. His excellent wife would have been sacrificed. Next Tuesday morning we will carry

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107. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

107. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Do you guess, my dear friend, who sent me this strange article? Do you guess anything from the seal and the name on the envelope, “M.?” Is that the author, and to what journal may the article belong? Profound, of enlarged political views, it certainly is not. The passage on p. 8 is underscored by the author himself, and it contains a contradiction! Prussia is to have unity in an American confederacy. His remarks, p. 3, on Frederick II. and on his works, and on “Kant a guillotine,” p. 5, are as M

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108. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

108. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I have only time to tell you, that I shall certainly be in Sans Souci from June to September, and to thank you, noble friend, from my heart, for the kind manner in which you allude to the Agamemnon of my brother. To choose maliciously 16 verses out of 1700!! I once complained that they would not perform the drama in a royal palace in my brother’s translation! As the Staats Zeitung is seen every evening by the King, they thought it well to malign the production there. The very next day I answered

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109. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

109. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I send you again some autographs of little import, ten in number, of Villemain, Bessel, Victor Hugo, Rueckert (of whom you have plenty of autographs), Manzoni (full of praise for me, but in bad style), Thiers, Widow of Lucien Bonaparte, three billets de matin of the Duchesse d’Orleans. I add to these fugitive sheets a letter from me to the King, which I beseech and implore you not to show to any one, and to send back to-morrow , because I might have use for it. You shall have the letter afterwar

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110. HUMBOLDT TO FRIEDRICH WILHELM IV.

110. HUMBOLDT TO FRIEDRICH WILHELM IV.

As early as eight o’clock this morning I sent to the Koethener Strasse, to have an interview with Professor Massmann, after the confiding communications of your Majesty, concerning the decision of his situation. He has just gone, leaving me again with an excellent impression of his solidity, clear perceptions, and enthusiastic vigor for influencing our youth (the indelible, primæval, self-restoring institution of mankind). To be afraid of every enthusiastic energy is to take from the life of a S

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111. BESSEL TO HUMBOLDT.

111. BESSEL TO HUMBOLDT.

I hear with great regret that your Excellency has to mourn the loss of Herr von Buelow. Although I had not the pleasure of knowing the late Baron personally, I was not unacquainted with the true affection of the uncle for his nephew, and I heard frequent mention of the enthusiastic manner in which it was reciprocated. Moreover, I knew his repute as that of a noble, talented, clear-sighted man. Would that I could indite words of consolation, such as I heard them, at the time of my great loss!—but

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112. VICTOR HUGO TO HUMBOLDT.

112. VICTOR HUGO TO HUMBOLDT.

You have been kind enough, my Lord Baron, and illustrious colleague, to promise your acceptance of a copy of “Notre Dame de Paris,” and the further good office of offering it in my name to your august Sovereign, my sympathy with and admiration for whom are well known to you. To “Notre Dame de Paris” I add my solemn discourse before the Academy. It would make me happy to think that it gave you a little pleasure to receive this mark of my high and profound regard....

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113. FRIEDRICH RUECKERT TO HUMBOLDT.

113. FRIEDRICH RUECKERT TO HUMBOLDT.

I had the misfortune of twice missing your Excellency when I called to give you my thanks for your great kindness, and at the same time to bid you a hearty farewell, as to-morrow I hasten to my rustic solitude. May God grant you many felicitous hours for the happy completion of your great work, for which I now am more heartily anxious than for any work of my own. For it is the monument of honor for Germany, her representative work before the nations of Europe; and I, as a German, feel proud that

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114. ALEXANDER MANZONI TO HUMBOLDT.

114. ALEXANDER MANZONI TO HUMBOLDT.

I would not have hesitated to express my confidence in an august and perfect goodness; but, instead of a becoming confidence, it would have been an unpardonable presumption on my part to have dared to foresee under what ingeniously amiable form this goodness would deign to manifest itself. I have thus a second time acquired the precious right (I had almost been made to forget that it is a sacred duty), to beg your Excellency to lay at the feet of your noble sovereign the humble tribute of a grat

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115. THIERS TO HUMBOLDT.

115. THIERS TO HUMBOLDT.

Sir,—I take the liberty of introducing a young Frenchman, full of talents, of acquirements, and of thirst for knowledge. He desires to become acquainted with Germany, and Berlin in particular. I thought I could not direct him better than to the illustrious who does the honors of Berlin to strangers. Permit me to recommend him in a very special manner. Mr. Thomas is my particular friend, and the friend of all your friends of Paris. Be pleased to receive in advance all my thanks for the reception

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116. THE PRINCESS OF CANINO, LUCIEN BONAPARTE’S WIDOW, TO HUMBOLDT.

116. THE PRINCESS OF CANINO, LUCIEN BONAPARTE’S WIDOW, TO HUMBOLDT.

I send you, M. le Baron, a copy of my refutation of M. Thiers, in regard to the passages of that historian which assail the memory of my husband. The esteem which you bore him, as well as that of your dear brother and your estimable sister-in-law, both, to me, of sweet and noble memory, leads me to hope that you will receive with interest this token of all the sentiments I possess for you, M. le Baron, and in which I beg you to believe me. Yours affectionately,...

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117. DUCHESS HELENE D’ORLEANS TO HUMBOLDT.

117. DUCHESS HELENE D’ORLEANS TO HUMBOLDT.

I will not longer hold the treasure intrusted to my keeping, which was a source of great joy to me. Receive once more my sincerest thanks for this communication, and let me hope soon to find new material for thanks. You see, selfishness is unpardonably predominant in my character....

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118. DUCHESS HELENE D’ORLEANS TO HUMBOLDT.

118. DUCHESS HELENE D’ORLEANS TO HUMBOLDT.

Your Excellency must suffer me often to claim your services; but to-day I come to ask something great of you. I wish for myself and for my cousin of Weimar the instructive pleasure of visiting Versailles in your society; our plan is to go there on Thursday. For the evening, the King invites you for dinner and theatre in Trianon. If you have the courage to share our altered pilgrimage, I invite your Excellency to be here in Neuilly, Thursday, half-past 11, to accompany us on our journey. But if o

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119. DUCHESS HELENE D’ORLEANS TO HUMBOLDT.

119. DUCHESS HELENE D’ORLEANS TO HUMBOLDT.

I had not the satisfaction to bid adieu to your Excellency, and to repeat to you my thanks for your excellent work; permit me to do it now in writing, whilst I send to you the lines for my beloved cousin, and receive once more the expression of the most heartfelt wish to greet again your Excellency, after a short interval, on French soil. With most sincere esteem, your Excellency’s affectionate...

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120. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

120. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

It has afforded me a great relief being permitted to read before you, and while very much of the warm and friendly praises expressed by you are of course to be ascribed to the kindness of heart which prompts you to give pleasure to an old man, still there is a large margin for the unalloyed gratification of my love of approbation. The main object of my efforts is that of composition in the precise sense of the word, the command of large masses of matter compounded with care and with an accurate

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121. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

121. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I send you, dear friend, to be added to your collection, a very remarkable letter from Prince Metternich, with a semi-theological conclusion, full of mind and rhetorical fervor, with a slight dread of pantheism at the close of the letter....

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122. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

122. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

My dear Baron —Inclosed is my vote. [48] I give it in good conscience, and absolve you from the crime of that electioneering to which the world is addicted. The King and his Chancellor are the sound appreciators of scientific merit, and I know how to designate the place which belongs to me in the avenue of science, and which, to my great regret, is far from the sanctuary. What I have just told you, my dear Baron, is neither gasconade nor an excess of modesty; it is the unvarnished history of my

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123. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

123. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Perhaps, my dear friend, it will not be without some interest to you to possess a copy of the poem of the Crown-Prince of Bavaria. The language is less crude than that of Walhalla; and some passages show a good deal of feeling, if but little poetical fervor....

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124. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

124. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

What a splendid reception, my dear friend, have you given the fifth volume of my brother! Pardon me if, in the excessive bustle of the last few days upon the cold “historic hill,” I have not written some commendatory remarks. I also deplore the omissions to which you are kind enough to make me attentive. Perhaps they could be supplied in the next volume. It was supposed that the letters must be printed in the form in which my brother had prepared them for publication, and in which they were offe

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125. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

125. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I do not answer to-day, my dear friend, in regard to your splendid Memoirs. How everything succeeds in your hands! To-day I recommend you an able Frenchman, M. Galuski, who knows Germany better than we do, the author of an essay on A. W. Schlegel. He will stay but a few days. Preserve the autograph of Barante. [50]...

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126. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

126. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

There will be perhaps some delay, my dear friend, in your receiving the “Cinq jours de Berlin,” in which I am spoken of by the Berliners (who are introduced as speaking themselves), as a tolerably pleasant tattler, but in which I am alluded to rather unkindly, as to my moral character. If all my speeches lack consistency, I apprehend for the durability of the system of the world, the Kosmos. Mr. Barrière will probably have called on you the sixth day, and you will have suggested all that to him.

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127. MIGNET TO HUMBOLDT.

127. MIGNET TO HUMBOLDT.

You will easily understand how happy and flattered I was at hearing, that the book “Antonio Perez and Philip II.” has interested you and obtained approval so distinguished as that of your King. The applause of a Prince, of so great genius and learning, who ranks among the most acute and most infallible of literary critics, could not be otherwise than of the greatest value to me. To make the book which was honored with this august approbation worthier of it, may I ask you, my dear and most illust

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128. HUMBOLDT TO BAUDIN.

128. HUMBOLDT TO BAUDIN.

When I embraced you for the last time in Helvetius Street, in Paris, on the eve of my departure for Africa and the East Indies, I had but a feeble hope of seeing you again, and of sailing under your orders. You have been told, no doubt, by our common friends, C. C. Jussieu, Desfontaines ... how the Barbaresques have prevented my departure for Egypt, how the King of Spain has given me permission to journey over his vast domains in America and Asia, to gather whatever may be useful to science. Ind

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129. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

129. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I do not recollect showing you a very beautiful letter of my brother, on the death of Schiller, dated “Rome, 1805.” It was discovered but lately, and will be published in the next volume of his works. I inclose a very amiable letter from Prince Metternich, received this week, also a stiff and unmeaning one from Prince Albert. Prince Metternich has published, at his own cost, a splendid description of his mineralogical collection at Koenigswart, having probably in view his election to the Preside

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130. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

130. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

I will begin this letter by congratulating you upon the new decoration, which the King has lately conferred upon you. The “ Eagle ” under whose wing— sub umbra alarum —you have executed so much will be a noble decoration on your breast. Suum cuique! Now to what I wish to say further. You know, that I am no savan and that I have no pretension to be one; but notwithstanding this, you know that I am the friend of science, and in that capacity have furnished the means to some savans of publishing th

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131. PRINCE ALBERT TO HUMBOLDT.

131. PRINCE ALBERT TO HUMBOLDT.

I have been constantly impressed while gradually reading the first volume of your “Kosmos” with my desire to thank you for the high intellectual enjoyment, its study has afforded me. I am really unable to give you an authoritative judgment on this excellent work, which I received from your hands, and to atone in some measure for this defect, as well as to give some substantial character to the expression of my thanks, I present you the accompanying work (Catherwood’s Views in Central America). I

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132. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

132. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Here, at last, is my thankful letter to Carriere, containing three warm recommendations. You were right in reprimanding me as to my extreme severity against the man of the “sidereal terraces.” I am severe only to the mighty ones of the earth, and this man impressed me very uncomfortably at Stolzenfels: “I know you feel great compassion for the Poles under the Russian sceptre; but, I am sorry to say, the Poles are as little deserving of our sympathy as the Irish.” “ Mihi dixit ;” and one is the h

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133. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

133. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I am more deserving than you would believe, dear friend! I am through with the first volume of the “Letters” [53] (Therese’s property). I had very little to correct, and only about four pages to suppress, viz. allusions to biscuits, household details, a few sarcasms against Duke Charles of Brunswick (which he would have answered with calumnies as to the lady’s virtue), and more such things. The letters are excellent both in thought and expression. They furnish a picture of a most remarkable life

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134.

134.

If I appear slow, my dear Varnhagen, and rather laconic to-day in offering you my thanks for your friendly presents and your letter, and your congratulations, you will not ascribe it to a diminution of my true esteem and friendship. I have had but now the enjoyment of what you alone are entitled to call “A Plain Discourse.” [55] How much more fearful, and at the same time hopeful, a turn events have taken. They only know how to oppose brute force to the impending danger, and are afraid themselve

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135. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

135. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Whenever I enjoy the fancy of having written a few lines grateful to my ears, I always ask myself whether they would also please you, my valued friend. You know, or rather you do not know, that the Princess of Prussia has deposited a splendid album, with numerous autographs and painted initials, in those halls of the Chateau at Weimar which have been dedicated to Goethe, Schiller, and to Herder and Wieland, maligned by Schiller in his letters to Koerner. I have been compelled to write a preface,

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136. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

136. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I hope, my dear friend, that my “Views of Nature,” enlarged, and, for two-thirds of it, almost re-written, are at last in your hands! It was owing to an unfortunate confusion, occasioned by my long absence from Berlin, that this my favorite work was so long in reaching my favorite reader. Perhaps you will derive a brief pleasure from contrasting the picture of the nocturnal din of the words with that of the stillness of high noon—vol. i., pp. 333 and 337; or from glancing at the golden visions o

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137. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

137. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

I see by to-day’s papers that the 9th of September, 1769, gave you to the world, and that thus you have just celebrated your eightieth birth-day. Had I been near you I would have joined your friends in offering my good wishes; at the distance which separates us, I approach you alone. Let me say in a few words that I render thanks to the giver of the faculties which have rendered your name imperishable. To be born is of little account; to make life valuable is excellent. You are numbered among th

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138. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

138. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

A German letter of the Duchess of Orleans, to whom I have sent all my writings for many years, and who is very fond of them. She writes a hand so cabalistic to my eyes, that I beg to avail myself of your diplomatic experience in decyphering, and to be favored with a legible copy. The purport appears to be of a political nature. It will not be without interest for you, and on this account I appeal all the more confidently to your good-nature....

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139. HELEN, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS, TO HUMBOLDT.

139. HELEN, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS, TO HUMBOLDT.

Your Excellency will accept my most heartfelt thanks for the token of the remembrance, so valued by me, which you devote to the hours we passed in times but recently gone by, which the course of events, however, seems already to have thrust back into antediluvian periods. I see with joyous gratitude that the conversations in my red saloon in the Tuileries and in St. Cloud, ever present to myself, still live in your recollection also, and thank your Excellency for this constancy of sentiments, do

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(INCLOSURE.)

(INCLOSURE.)

I cannot, fellow-citizens, more vividly express the profound gratitude I entertain, than by saying, that you have given me as great a pleasure as you have bestowed an unexpected honor. A pleasure such as this shall not be dashed by the question how I can possibly deserve this distinction at the hands of your beautiful city. You have worthily shown, not only that you value her material prosperity, but that you are alive to higher interests, and accord sympathy and respect to efforts directed to t

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141. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

141. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

What pleasure you have given me, dear friend, by so agreeable a communication from England! But on account of my brother’s memory, and in order to reply to those who calumniate me for remaining at this court, I am very anxious to see my response to the deputies of Potsdam correctly printed in a liberal journal. I would like to send it to the “Constitutionelle Zeitung,” which has not yet mentioned the subject. I have no copy, however—nothing but the bit of paper I sent you. Have the goodness to s

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142. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

142. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Accept, my dear friend, my heartfelt thanks for the lines you gave M. Rio, whose praises had already been sung to me by Cornelius, Olfers, Radowitz, and the King himself, on account of the book, “De l’Art Chretien.” The new incarnation of a deputy to the Erfurt Parliament, and his supervision in the interest of the Prince President, was unexpected; but Rafael himself was a good deal of a mannerist. Very truly, and in some suspense,...

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143. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

143. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

In the gloomy period of reaction, I am delighted to receive so pleasing a memento at your hand, my dear friend. I am also glad of your journey to Kiel, to the little region where German spirit finds an expression free and consistent. The state of public affairs is like the water-bottle shaken by D’Alembert, in order to produce a mixture of bubbles of different shapes. “Calculez moi cela,” he said, in irony of hydraulic science, of which he was himself so great a professor. Many a bubble will bur

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144. HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

144. HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

You could not doubt, dear lady Baroness, that I would respond with the greatest warmth to your wishes for a composer of such sterling merit as * * * * In consequence of malignant prejudices against music, originated by my brother, and transmitted through the King to me, my voice upon a subject which no one ever mentions to me, is somewhat lacking in tone, particularly when church music is in question. What with Warsaw, Olmuetz, Russian Grand Dukes, and, to name something of a higher order, Rauch

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145. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

145. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

You have given me an inexpressible pleasure, my dear, my noble friend, by your kind letter. I am heavily in your debt, and my long silence and apparent neglect might have provoked some suspicions of coolness or diversity on matters of opinion. With a man of your mind and goodness of heart I ought to have entertained no such apprehensions. Before I received your dear letter with Baader’s portrait, it was my intention to bring you personally the third volume of Kosmos (two parts in one), now finis

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146. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

146. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Here is my Cosmic present, my dear friend! I choose not to bring it myself lest it should seem that I dare not come without it. Cast a look at p. 1–25, Mars p. 511, and the concluding passage p. 625–631. I may call to-morrow, Thursday, at one o’clock, may I not? I shall be sure to come. With the old attachment, which will never grow cold, With two yellow pamphlets, to his friend of many years, Varnhagen von Ense, with old admiration and attachment. The author. On the 29th January, 1852, Varnhage

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SUPPLEMENT.

SUPPLEMENT.

“Spenersche Zeitung,” of 1852, Feb. 4, No. 29.—The transactions in reference to the formation of the second Chamber have repeatedly been the subject of our communications. It is perhaps not equally well known, that at this moment the attention of higher circles is also directed to the formation of the Second Chamber. The present electoral law presents the right of suffrage as one to be exercised or not at the option of the voter, without a corresponding obligation on his part. A law compelling m

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148. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

148. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

It may interest you, dear friend, to see collected on one sheet all the efforts making by the Orleans dynasty to counteract the robbery. The Duchess of Orleans sends the paper by the Princess of Prussia. Are you acquainted with a candidate for theological honors, named William S., of Dresden, disguised under the name of Wilfried von der Neun, who torments me by sending aphorisms in manuscript? Be kind enough to return the enclosed at your early convenience....

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149. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

149. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

One of the many inconveniences of old age is that of liability to attempts at conversion. Do you care to deposit this curious, good-natured letter among your psychological curiosities? (The man who is entirely convinced of Bernadotte’s salvation, circuitously informs me that Satan wields the baton of command in my heart, as in that of Goethe, that of the pious Kant, and that of Wieland.) And our parliament!! If necessary the cities must be expunged from the face of the earth—such is the desire o

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150. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

150. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

The confusion of my lonely life, my dear friend of many years, at a time of such profound moral degradation, leaves me in a harassing uncertainty as to whether I have or have not sent you the seventh volume of my brother’s complete works. I am greatly ashamed, but I know that you have not yet learned to be angry with me. The article against Capodistrias, the demand for the surrender of Strasburg, sounds like the irony of fate upon our present humility.... The death of Leopold von Buch bows me de

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151. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

151. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Hearty thanks for the comfort derived from the characteristic word of Fontenelle’s, hitherto unknown to me—but twenty years are too short to see anything better! Your Buelow von Dennewitz is great and good news to me! The treasure of the warm-blooded Leopold von Buch I return inclosed. May not Friedrich Schlegel’s astronomical vision be connected with conversations I had with him at Vienna on the certainty that we shall see the southern cross rise again in Germany, where it has already shone in

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152. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

152. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Separated from you, my dear intellectual friend, by the prolongation of my dreary sojourn at Potsdam, my first approach to you is to petition. You, you alone are my literary adviser, you who combine such depths of feeling with so wonderful a command of the harmonies of language. In my extreme old age, timidity in regard to my own powers increases in an almost morbid degree. A separate volume is to contain a selection of the sonnets of my brother, in which there is not always a perfect consonance

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153. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

153. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

For once in this gloomy time, when a fell simoom blows from the Pruth to the Tajo, I have had a real and a keen delight—your return, your encouraging message, and even the assistance I implored. Your superb letter finds me at the bon à tirer of a little, I hope unpretending, preface to the sonnets. As it will be unfortunately impossible to-morrow (on Friday the King arrives at Potsdam, when I must hand him a good many things, according to promise), I take the liberty of sending you my proof shee

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154. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

154. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

A thousand pardons for troubling you in suffering! I have adopted every suggestion, taken every hint. But I should like also to insert the reflection you made in regard to p. 6. Would you approve of the following interpolation: “A long sojourn at Rome, and perhaps a lively interest in certain epochs of Italian poetry, appear to have imbued my brother with a particular preference for a little lyric form, which, if melody is not to be sacrificed, closely fetters the thought, but which he handled w

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155. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

155. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Again, my noble friend, you have shown your skill in giving me pleasure. After our departure from Potsdam, which transformed itself entirely into a Buddhistic “cold hell,” was prevented for a long time by the delicate health of the Queen, I at last moved over here on Saturday. You have shed renown upon the Prussian arms, and, what touches me in a more human manner, on the warrior of many-sided culture. [61] The gallery of your biographies stands in singular grandeur in our German literature. I a

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156. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

156. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Receive, noble friend, my most heartfelt thanks, you and the amiable confidant of the “demons.” [62] The King is now invisible to me, on account of the spiritual preparations, and on Monday he goes to Potsdam for five or six days, on account of military affairs; but a very warm letter, written by me, will be in his hands to-morrow, at eight o’clock, in Charlottenburg. [63] Thus we have at least done our duty faithfully. I am fast becoming the responsible minister of the Conservatives ; for three

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157. ARAGO TO HUMBOLDT.

157. ARAGO TO HUMBOLDT.

My son has left for Berlin a few days ago, in the capacity of Minister Plenipotentiary. He quitted me animated with the best of sentiments, with the most decided ideas of peace and conciliation! And yet this day your Chargé d’Affaires waited upon our Minister of Foreign Affairs to represent to him the apprehensions which the mission of my son has excited in your cabinet and among the population of Berlin. This is my recompense for the efforts made since my arrival at power to maintain the accord

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158. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

158. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

As the King held his churching on Thursday, I dined in Charlottenburg to-day, and can give you news agreeable to us, that the King, as he told me, had known of the day of honor [67] (not by Uhden!!) [68] and had prepared everything for it long ago. The ingredients of the spiritual or material feeding are buried in Cimmerian darkness. The Prince of Prussia knows nothing of the invitation for noce et festin....

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159. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

159. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

My American connexions having entailed upon me the predilection of the Peace Society, I am molested by them with many of their writings and tracts. But the last number of the “Herald of Peace” is so remarkable on account of the political movement of the pietistic peace Quakers, that perhaps it will amuse you for one moment, my dear friend, to read for yourself the testimonies. Destroy the sheet! The missive, at the same time, is intended for a sign of life , that is, of most intimate and faithfu

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160. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

160. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

With emotions of gratitude I received the dear letter of your Excellency. Yet a sign of life, indeed, a sign of the most vigorous life! Whenever the question could arise how you felt and thought in this gloomy time, such a sheet would be the most decided answer, the most brilliant testimony, to a sentiment and activity which always kept on in the same direction, and never proved false. The letter from London—the epithet “unkempt” is singularly happy. I send back dutifully, as directed; how I sho

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161. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

161. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Returning from the Russian Saint’s day celebrated in Sans Souci, I found your amiable letter. As I cannot refuse you anything, I add Hippolytus! Satisfy in return my curiosity. I believe that I never in my life spoke to Herr Senfft von Pilsach; I might meet him in the street or in society without knowing him. Notwithstanding all this I may have dined with him at the King’s. After what I heard of him I do not feel well affected towards him. Since I always sit opposite the King, I talk aloud only

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162. HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

162. HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

To what purpose, most gracious baroness, did the Eternal shower down upon you, from the horn of plenty that he so sparingly opens upon this miserable, sinful earth, the bountiful gift of genius and the more precious adornment of a noble heart, if you believe the absurd gossip uttered “about those from whom I am separating myself!” What you call your prophetic vision could not alarm me, because the same double sight has fallen to my lot! Not a syllable of your book has the King read or desired to

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163. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

163. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Such a rough “Hind Pomeranian!” [70] direct answer, dear friend, you could certainly not expect from me! I have no idea of the question about the animation of pinewood at the King’s table, where everybody believes in it as in the Persian host seen in the air at the Eichsfeld. The “drama” of the “ Kreuz Zeitung ,” like everything emanating from this bad party, sick with mental poverty, bears the stamp of cowardly malice! You are not to be pitied, for you possess a treasure in the power of animati

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164. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

164. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

In Spain, the virtuous rebels, like the virtuous order of St. John on the Wilhelmsplatz, have raised the cry of “Long live chastity!”—“Viva el pudor” (Isabella)! “Viva la moralidad” (disinterested Christina)! But, will you, dear friend, think it possible (July, 1854!) that the Minister of Public Worship and Instruction, though hitherto without success, is also shouting “Viva el pudor!” He has quite officially demanded a royal order for the imprisonment in the arsenal of the wanton group [73] whi

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165. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

165. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Alas! no! I was in error thinking that the monument for Weimar was definitely bought, only that the enlargement of it, desired by our excellent lady friend, was given up. In the circles with which I am acquainted we cannot hope for an active participation. The expression, “Is not art itself a vestment?” is fine and felicitous. Monday, waiting for the train to leave. In the United States there has, it is true, arisen a great love for me, but the whole there presents to my mind the sad spectacle o

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166. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

166. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

I have to thank your Excellency most heartily that, in dispensing bounties, you always think with favor also of me! No one shall surpass me in anxiety to receive, in estimation of the gift, and in gratitude for the noble donor! This preface, at once temperate in form, rich in substance, and elegiac in tone, is the worthiest and most lasting monument of the prince, [74] of whom I hear on every side accounts which make one mourn his loss in the prime of life. I shall try to procure his work which

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167. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

167. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Revered Friend —A strange missionary experiment, enveloped in a somewhat idyllic ghost story, political and religious, in a style of singular “finish” and bombast, which I cannot refrain from showing to you. I take it to be the work of a male author. The saturnalia of despotism and of flatteries, the wanton festival of oblivion (as if there was no history of 1813 and ’14), is now played out among the free insular people, a kind of monkey comedy. There is only this consolation which uplifts my sp

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168. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

168. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I had already heard with sorrow from the gifted Princess von Wittgenstein, that you, noble friend, suffered more than usually. Receive me with indulgence on Saturday, about 10 o’clock, in spite of my long absence, and of my inconvenient trilogy, Berlin, Tegel, and Potsdam. I shall then also bring you a few lines of thanks to your cousin, the Imperial Brazilian Chargé d’Affaires in Madrid. His history, founded upon archival monuments, seems to become of great importance; but what a strange missiv

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169. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

169. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Smile, dear friend (you are fully justified!) at the strange lines of Princess Lieven, and at my troublesome inquiry. Madame de Quitzow, who has not written to me for twenty-five years, wants to know, whether the Emperor Paul, in the epoch of his political insanity, had made the proposition through Kotzebue, that the ministers for foreign affairs should measure swords personally instead of the armies. I was at that time (1799 and 1800) in the deltas of South America, and was entirely ignorant of

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170. THE PRINCESS LIEVEN TO HUMBOLDT.

170. THE PRINCESS LIEVEN TO HUMBOLDT.

You have not forgotten me, my dear Baron. I know that by two kind messages which Baron Brockhausen brought me from you. I have charged him to testify my lively gratitude; but I now prefer to express it myself. On this occasion, it serves me as the passport to a question which I take the liberty of addressing you. Can you, who know everything, remember the following fact? In 1799 or 1800, the Emperor Paul took it into his head to propose a combat on a tilted field, where England, Russia, Austria,

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171. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

171. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

With joyful thanks I profit by your Excellency’s goodness in sending me the copy of your beautiful response to the deputies of the city of Berlin. Were it not presumption to praise, where praise has already become a habit and a superfluity, I should say that the speech is as full of sterling merit as of noble intention. The brightest passage, to my mind, is the (I hesitate whether to call it felicitous or masterly) allusion to the King, in terms so dignified and delicate, so warm and graceful; a

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172. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

172. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

My far from dormant ambition has been abundantly gratified by the grateful praise bestowed by the great master of our language (to avoid the expression rhetorician), upon my manner of speaking of the King, and my relations with him. In praising that with which the party praised is but scantily supplied, we point him to the honorable road, and justify ourselves before the people. A man of the woods, who is supposed to have been tamed at court, is in need of such justification. Madame Quitzow, who

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173. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

173. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

As it would be impossible that you, dear friend, should not have seen the new book by Montalembert (the friend and companion of the Abbé Lammenais on his journey to Rome), I hope to give you a little pleasure by offering you the King’s copy for a few days (five or six). The only thing racy in it is the conclusion, levelled at the present state of affairs in France, p. 284 to 298. I wish it were possible to have the whole of it translated and published in Germany. How is our excellent Dora doing?

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174. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

174. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

Your Excellency’s kind and precious gift come into the seclusion forced upon me by the rude relapse of winter, brighter and more enlivening than the sunbeams which accompany them! Receive my repeated thanks and the assurance that I know how to appreciate every one of them, and most of all the beneficent intention, which remember me so well, and gladden my heart so cheerily! The pencil lines of the dying Heine are a valued keepsake, and shall be continued to be devoutly treasured in the envelope

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175. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

175. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I could not but speak, being the Nestor of Prussian mining officials, and prone to boast of my calling. My reliance upon your indulgence , dear and worthy friend, is so great, that I am emboldened to send even you a copy of these unimportant lines. Count B. deserved this praise. Free from opinion of any kind, he is useful to the art of mining, and still occupies himself with scientific pursuits since he has resigned the direction....

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176. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

176. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Knowing the warm interest you take, my dear friend, in the slavery question, and in what concerns myself, I send you the last letter of Gerolt, which was very long in coming, but which will certainly command your attention. Most unfortunately Buchanan will be the next President, and not Fremont, the traveller of great acquirements, who has four times travelled the land route to San Francisco, surveying the country over which he passed, to whom it is owing that California did become a free State.

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177. THE PRUSSIAN MINISTER RESIDENT, VON GEROLT, TO HUMBOLDT.

177. THE PRUSSIAN MINISTER RESIDENT, VON GEROLT, TO HUMBOLDT.

Since my last letter to your Excellency, of the 8th inst., I was made happy by your favor of the 27th of July, from which I learn, with the most sincere regret, of your temporary indisposition. For the information it contains I return your Excellency my most hearty thanks, and hasten to comply with your wish by sending two extracts from papers published here (the “New York Herald” and the “Courrier des Etats Unis”), containing your publication on the subject of slavery in Cuba, as well as the ex

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178. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

178. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

The great influence of the name of your Excellency in the United States, as in America in general, is a gratifying sign of the improvement of those countries in civilization, and a sure pledge of the ultimate triumph of the philanthropic principles which you have consistently advocated through the course of a long and eventful life. I thank you heartily for the letter of M. v. Gerolt, and its printed inclosure, which will be a valuable addition to my collections. At this moment, it is true, the

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179. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

179. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

The Grand Duke of Weimar, who has just left, commissions me to beg of you as a particular favor, the permission for him to visit you to-morrow (on Tuesday) between nine and eleven o’clock. He is determined to see you in person....

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180. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

180. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

How the improbable can become real! How royal huntsmen and royal coachmen cannot find you, cannot look for your direction in the prosaic directory. I send this direction at this moment to the Grand Duke, who has the anguish of having detained my revered friend. May he be more fortunate in a new attempt. The enclosed sheet is a Berlin curiosity for your archives....

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181. (ENCLOSED.) GRAND DUKE CHARLES ALEXANDER OF SAXE-WEIMAR TO HUMBOLDT.

181. (ENCLOSED.) GRAND DUKE CHARLES ALEXANDER OF SAXE-WEIMAR TO HUMBOLDT.

Had I had the skill of the Marquis of St. Germain, of whom, if I am not mistaken, it is told that one fine morning he departed through four gates at one and the same time, I could not have been more desirous to find M. von Varnhagen than I was. Nevertheless, it was all in vain. No one could tell me where he lived, and it was of no use to take the measure of the “ Maurenstrasse .” Nature having made me the most obstinate of all Grand Dukes, I still persist in my intention to see the invisible, an

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182. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

182. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

You have had not a little trouble on my account lately, which I lament with shame. Most of all I regret having missed your kind visit, which is always an honor as well as a good fortune. That the Grand Duke could not find me yesterday, although he drove up and down the Maurenstrasse, and made several inquiries, would be incomprehensible if the servants of a Court were not a very peculiar fraternity. It is nearly thirty years that I have resided in the largest house in the street, which the Grand

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183. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

183. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Before I bury myself again for some days in Potsdam, a sacrifice to the Queen and to her solitude, I shall, dear friend, justify the Grand Duke and myself. The Grand Duke visited you, which honors him, not to consult you, but out of respect for your fine talents and your character, because he had, as he said, inherited the idea from his house, that one must see two men in Berlin, you and me. That we must both accept with gratitude as an inheritance from the old gentleman and the Imperial Highnes

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184. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

184. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I forgot to inform you, my revered friend, that I fulfilled punctually your wish to send to Weimar the letter you addressed me, and to recommend urgently the proposed “Private Secretary,” and all this a few days after I knew your intention. A German letter from Prince Metternich, expressing sentiments full of graceful language, will interest you. I present you the letter for your archival collection. The occasion was a moulding in plaster and copy, partly by the Prince’s own hand, of an old Egyp

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185. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

185. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

My old Friend! —I received gratefully the information on the stele which Herr Brugsch calls by my name, and I beg of you to hand over to the learned investigator the words you find inclosed. After my return to Vienna, I shall avail myself of the interpretation, already so instructive, of the monument, to point out the way to archæologists in which they may obtain copies, by an advertisement. I did not doubt that I could not do better than to address you for light on the scientific value of the p

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186. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

186. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I want your literary aid, my noble friend. Our great landscape painter, Hildebrandt, who was in Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, and recently at the North Cape, has executed an admirable aquarelle picture of my “Interior Household,” in order to replace a smaller one sold in many hundreds of copies in America. “La renommée, fruit d’une longue patience de vivre, augmente avec l’imbécilité.” I am compelled to make an inscription to this picture of mine, with my own hand. This is no easy ta

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187. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

187. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I yesterday prayed, dear friend, that you should make me the pleasure of your visit on Saturday. I pray to-day that you will not come; I hear with sorrow that you suffer much. The great picture of Hildebrandt remains yet a long time in my house. Every later day will also be useful to me. I only beg of you that you will kindly announce to me the day, beforehand, on which I may expect you. Choose the twelfth hour, under any circumstances, because I am sure to be free then. I also am in a condition

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188. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

188. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

At this moment I receive a letter from a pupil , deserving of moderate praise for clearness of thought and diction. I shall not write before having first come to see you, my dear friend. The last fifteen lines of the letter are utterly illegible and unintelligible to me. I had written to him about the laying of the telegraph cable between Ireland and Newfoundland, but had not made him any offer. I cannot read what is underscored! Keep my pupil’s letter by all means, including the information tha

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189. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

189. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

As I fortunately have the honor to be known, truly known to your Excellency, I may flatter myself that you will not estimate my gratitude for your services and those of M. de Varnhagen, by the length of time which has elapsed since the day I received your letter of the 31st, and the present time. My sincere thanks shall here receive a place. They have been delayed by the very nature of the transaction. Such could not but be the effect, for in an affair of that kind it is impossible to form a sud

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190. JOBARD TO HUMBOLDT.

190. JOBARD TO HUMBOLDT.

Perhaps you will not be displeased to learn the rôle you have been made to play in the unfortunate debate of our religious politics. The old Minister Dechamps, who sat on your right at the dinner of the Baron of Arhim, and who was so much astonished at hearing you say that you were as much of a Republican as your friend Arago, having associated your name with those of the illustrious believers who profess the Catholic faith, a liberal journal this morning answered him as follows:— “M. Dechamps,

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192. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

192. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

So my pedestrian prose has led you back, my friend, to the regions of the noblest of rhythms! It would make me proud, if the universe were not entitled to your favor. With even more modesty than the poor, for whose benefit the old man with the moss-grown beard [88] exhibits himself for the small compensation of five silver groschen. With what excellent taste you have transferred the English “ home ” into “ Daheim .” Indescribably beautiful is your poetry, full of grace and delicacy, and of a sol

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193. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

193. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Another grateful, unconstrained, and amiable letter from the Grand Duke. He fixes February for the visit, and desires the drama to open with a request to search the archives. The permission being given, the material part is to follow, as he says, symbolically. You will arrange that with care, my dear friend. We are approaching the goal of our wishes. I have another funeral to-morrow at the column in Tegel, which, under the hand of Thorwalsden, promises Hope . The oldest niece (daughter) of my br

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194. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

194. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

Like unto Nature, eternally invoked, eternally giving, because eternally bountiful, you respond with ever returning goodness to every repeated solicitation. The proposal of your Excellency in regard to the young man of science, as suggested by the plan of M. de Varnhagen, is so excellent, that I can only beg for its speedy execution. For that purpose, it would seem desirable that M. de Varnhagen should instil the idea into the young men that our plentiful archives would repay a thorough search,

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195. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

195. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

When I read anything in Berlin that enlists my political or literary attention, my first thought is of you. Lasaulx of Munich, of Baader’s tribe, was only known to me as a man of the “ Kreuz Zeitung ” and of Schubert’s World of Darkness, and the new historical work he sends me contains little originality of views, but it manifests, by way of allusion, a wealth of positive knowledge, which I had not expected of the man. Numerous citations indicate a great preference for the views of my brother. T

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196. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

196. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

Your Excellency will receive, accompanying this, with my most hearty thanks, the book so kindly lent me. I have read it with varied emotions, I might say with painful interest. True, the author makes concessions, and opens up points of view, which I should not have expected any more than the luxurious learning of his manifold citations. But the pretty collection of notes fails to mantle the kernel of the text, which is extremely bitter; the apology of negro slavery, the brutal praise of warfare

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197. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

197. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

Will your Excellency pardon me for trespassing on your valuable time a moment? Not for myself, but for a literary project from which I cannot withhold my personal interest, if only on the score of old acquaintance! Professor Francis Hoffmann, of Wuerzburg, is engaged upon the publication of the works of Francis von Baader, which he pursues with self-sacrificing perseverance. I may say against wind and tide. He is about closing the enterprise with a sketch of the life of his author, and is anxiou

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198. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

198. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

I cannot deny myself the pleasure to offer to your Excellency my most heartfelt congratulations for your happy and perfect recovery! The finest and most powerful testimony of it is the letter to Privy Councillor Boeckh, which appeared in the papers this morning, and which no epithet of praise will suffice to describe. Such an invocation has never yet fallen to the lot of any man, and the receiver will not fail to honor and appreciate it as the most precious of all the gifts bestowed upon him. Ho

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199. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

199. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

How should I deny myself the pleasure to thank you, the dearest, ablest, and most attached of my friends. Not indulgence—no, praising expressions on my address to Boeckh—a praise of form, of the vesture of thought—has been my lot from the lips of the master of language, and of the delicate turns of good-will. You caused me great joy, more than you anticipated. What my nervous affection was, which produced a paralysis of such short duration, with the functions of the brain remaining entirely free

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200. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

200. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

If you, dear friend, understand the letter of the Grand Duke as I do, —— must go. I had proposed that he should come to Weimar, under the pretext of studying the archives; he would bring a letter of introduction from you or me; should be invited to court and if he did not please, should simply be asked whether he meant to return to ——. That this should be a shibboleth as a bad end of the drama, quod Deus avertat . I also proposed to advance the stipulated sum of money. On this head the tyrant do

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201. KARL ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

201. KARL ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

A misunderstanding is the key to my behavior towards ——. I believed and expected that he, after he had, in January, I believe, asked the permission to search our archives, would immediately come hither. Then only of course I would have paid his expenses. Just in these last days I wondered neither to hear nor to see anything of ——. Then arrived the second letter of your Excellency, which, asking explanation of me, gives explanation; and I hasten to answer it by saying that —— may come in about te

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202. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

202. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

Your Excellency’s kind and very much desired communications I forwarded in haste to —— that is to say, the substance of it. It is to be hoped that —— will start immediately, but I expect first to receive an answer from him, and as I do not believe that in the short time the Grand Duke has left him, he can make the détour by way of Berlin, it will be best for him to receive the letter of introduction in Weimar. The Grand Duke insists upon discretion, and justly so! It is convenient for him, and d

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203. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

203. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

I have the pleasure to announce to your Excellency that Herr —— will start from —— to Weimar on the 14th. Much as he would have wished to make the détour by way of Berlin, if only to lay at the feet of your Excellency the most cordial expression of his boundless gratitude for so much friendly intercession, he is compelled by the brief period fixed by the Grand Duke to renounce the realization of that wish for the present. I therefore venture to solicit the favor of the introduction to the Grand

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204. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

204. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Here, my valued friend, is the archivary recommendation for ——, just as prescribed. May the matter be successful. To my great regret, dear friend, I cannot accept the kind invitation of yourself and your amiable niece to a cup of coffee on Thursday, as I shall return late and much fatigued from Charlottenburg. During my illness, a number of unimportant matters have accumulated, which must be disposed of after dinner, because they are trumpery affairs of orders and dedications, a presentation of

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(INCLOSURE IN A LETTER FROM HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.)

(INCLOSURE IN A LETTER FROM HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.)

You ask me, dear friend, what were the earliest impressions produced upon me by Franz Baader! I first saw him in June, 1791, while studying the art of mining in Freiberg, after the journey with George Forster to England, and after my sojourn in the Hamburg Commercial Academy of Buesching and Ebeling. For eight months I enjoyed the daily intercourse of this amiable and gifted man. Franz Baader had then published his work on caloric, and his inclinations were all of a chemico-physical nature, with

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206. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

206. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

“The gate of the oracle, the abyss of the archives of state, analogies leading down to the depths of the sea.” This is inferior to the last letter. Rafael’s manner is not always the same. I am surprised to find that curiosity appears to have led him to avoid seeing —— before the journey to Hanover! Preserve the vapid letter, my dear friend! The bottom of the sea refers to a map of the sea from Newfoundland to Ireland, which I recommended to the Grand Duke, but which is not to be procured because

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207. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

207. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

Your Excellency’s letter was duly received by the hands of Mr. ——. Accept my thanks for these lines, for this new token of your constant kindness to me. The bearer is for the present immersed in the abyss of my archives. As soon as I shall return from Hanover, where an invitation will detain me a few days, [94] to seek him out, awaiting further developments at the hand of time, like the people at the gate of the oracle. Analogies lead me from deep to lower deep, and then I descend from the archi

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208. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

208. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I am uneasy, my dear friend, about Weimar. The Grand Duke is everywhere, except in Weimar “Athens.” What will become of our warmly recommended? Has he been spoken to by the eloquent Prince? You have not wished me joy to the order bestowed upon me by the “Hamburg Moniteur” as Grand Officier, which Guizot gave me fifteen years ago. Raumer’s conversation is very interesting; he was at Pesth, at Milan, dined with the Archduke, and called on Cavour. He has again returned with something of a hankering

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209. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

209. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

A truly grand ducal letter, indelicate without excuse, cutting off every prospect, as he said “Au revoir” on going away, after the preconcerted shibboleth. Silence as to the costs, which are unnecessarily heavy. You and I shall cease “steering in the ocean of investigation,” as acquaintance with the party proposed does not suffice to determine him. I have a mind to answer somewhat mockingly. It may be agreeable to you, my esteemed friend, to enrich your archives with an autography of Thiers, who

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210. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

210. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

Your Excellency has probably learned already, that I have seen, repeatedly conversed with, but finally refrained from appointing ——. He interested me, I may say he pleased me, but I thought I could not recognise in him the secretary who could not only keep me informed of everything of moment in the spheres of science, art, and literature, but should attend to my correspondence, my intercourse, verbal and social, in various languages; and to appoint him at hazard I feared to venture. To retreat w

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211. THIERS TO HUMBOLDT.

211. THIERS TO HUMBOLDT.

My Dear M. de Humboldt —I take the liberty of commending to your goodness shown so often to myself and to Frenchmen generally, M. Duvergier de Hauranne, who goes to Germany to show it to his young son. You know our country too well for me to tell you what important and always honorable part has been sustained by M. Duvergier de Hauranne in our assemblies, where he has ever been faithful to the cause of rational liberty; and not faithful alone, but eminently useful. Having returned to private lif

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212. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

212. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

To my greatest joy, a beautiful portrait of yourself was brought me by Mr. Richard Zeune, during an excursion to Tegel. I know not which most to admire, the fresh, vivid, characteristic likeness of features so dear to me (the talent of the skilful Miss Ludmilla Assing), or the writing of your hand, so pregnant in thought and expression. The latter I have copied myself and shown it to my friends, because it is to be ranked with the best of what our language contains in the sententious compression

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(Inclosed, a Letter from Friesen, of the year 1807, with this Superscription by Humboldt.)

(Inclosed, a Letter from Friesen, of the year 1807, with this Superscription by Humboldt.)

A little gift for Miss Ludmilla Assing, the brilliant authoress of Elisa von Ahlefeldt, an autograph of my dear young friend Friesen, with sentiments of sincere thankfulness. Varnhagen’s diary of July 4, 1857, contains the following: “Yesterday Humboldt spoke of the time when he lived in a house at the side of George’s Garden, and was so assiduous in his magnetic observations that he once stinted himself of sleep for seven successive days and nights in order to examine the state of things every

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214. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

214. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

So ignorant of German poetry as to know nothing of the fame of Mr. —— of what he calls the dreary Mecklenburg, I must ask you, my dear friend, to specify the degree of politeness with which the man ought to be answered. Eight volumes, a compensation of forty louis d’or, four for myself, four, as usual, for the King, and a nonsensical letter, are before me. The man appears to have sung of the great Napoleon and Ney, but to have vainly knocked at the door of Napoleon III., Stephanie, Walewski, and

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215. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

215. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

The two volumes of poetry kindly sent by your Excellency, no doubt manifest considerable literary culture, and a skilful management of language and of metre; but this would seem to exhaust the truthful measure of their praise. The number of men of this order of talent is very large, and where there are not further excellences they can hardly be called otherwise than ordinary. The claims advanced on the basis of such performances are frequently exorbitant, and such is the case in the present inst

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216. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

216. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

An inquiry about letters and packages of the 8th and 22d of August, gives me the gratifying certainty of your return to monastic Berlin, where (supplement to No. 215 of Tante Voss, Sept. 15) “God in History” [96] is accused of rationalism and sinful Romanism on account of a kiss extorted from M. Merle d’Aubigné, and not yet sufficiently explained, and where (what is much more refreshing) pastor Kind boasts of having been kissed on the shoulder by a young Italian chambermaid at Naples, with the w

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217. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

217. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

My best thanks! I had already received the letters and enjoyed them. Nothing can add more to the glory of my brother. Strange that Ancillon could so long deceive so shrewd a man as Gentz. Varnhagen’s diary of Dec. 3d, 1857, reads as follows: “I called on Humboldt; M. von Olfers was just going, and told me that Rauch had died in Dresden. Next General Count von der Groeben took his leave; he was very cordial, and pleased with my offer to send him a man who will republish the poems of Schenkendorf.

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218. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

218. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Revered Friend ,—I, too, am a sufferer from the returning cutaneous affection, an unwelcome consequence of old age. You have, at least, unconditional freedom, and can attend to your comfort; to me there is no freedom granted; I am molested by all; most unmercifully and inexorably by the mail. The kind memento of Mrs. Sarah Martin is very honorable to me. I owe it, like many other things, to you. Suffer me to make you the interpreter of my gratitude and of my faithful reverence for the talented l

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219. PRINCE NAPOLEON, SON OF JEROME, TO HUMBOLDT.

219. PRINCE NAPOLEON, SON OF JEROME, TO HUMBOLDT.

Monsieur le Baron ,—Mons. Mariette sent to me, only a few days ago, your letter of July, in which you speak of Dr. Brugsch, and of his having sent me a Demotic Grammar, which I have not yet received. I mention this, so that you cannot accuse me of negligence in answering you. To-day I do not feel the courage in me to speak to you even of science. Your heart and your mind must be much afflicted by the sickness of your sovereign and friend, who causes us great sorrow. I say us, because the few day

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220. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

220. VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

You see, dear friend, that in spite of many little cavils of Mr. d’Avezac, who has learned to quote from Malte-Brun, your cousin does you much honor. But it is incomprehensible that Mr. d’Avezac knows nothing at all of the map of Juan de la Cose, of 1500, published by me in 1830, six years before the death of Colon, and of a work in large quarto, under the title “ Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim, von W. Ghillany and Alex. Humboldt, 1853 ,” where the origin of the name of “America”

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221. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

221. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I presume that you, dear friend, have not seen the indiscreet, almost talentless, book of Normanby. I shall not return it to Lady Bloomfield without offering it to you. Skip over it according to the index, and send it kindly back to me in four or five days. It depicts a badly played comedy. My reverence to your amiable niece. Your most attached “A Year of Revolution. From a journal kept in Paris in 1848. By the Marquis of Normanby, K.G. London, 1857. 2 vols. in 8vo.” Varnhagen remarks in his dia

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222. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

222. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

I am touched by the kindness of your letter, and the souvenir from your talented niece, Miss Ludmilla. As Illaire called yesterday, I have made every preparation to be of use to M——, the esteemed clergyman of ——, in the acquisition of one of those toys, which, if they do not nourish, yet afford an agreeable diversion, like that enjoyed by the knights of old, who galloped over a course covered with obstructions, and the prospect of escape from the infernal regions of the fourth class. [102] I sha

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223. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

223. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Tedious on the whole, and full of internal contradictions, but still historical in reference to the mythical Americo-Germanism, and unfortunately too true. See p. 76 to 80, and pp. 33, 35, 75. The charms of a language without genders. “ Fermez les lèvres et serrez les dents. ” [103] “Der” and “die” fell into lazy mouths, and lapses into “de,” and this was corrupted into a neutral, lifeless “the.” Page 88 sets forth how my friend Froebel escaped being Blumed . There gloomy Potsdam has kept me too

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224. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

224. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Hearty thanks, my dear friend, for your affectionate missive. The thanks of the excellent ... is far from indifferent to me. No one here has had the politeness to inform me that my proposal has been accepted. As you and your accomplished niece, Miss Ludmilla, are fond of curiosities, and as my extreme old age has deadened all compunction at the exhibition of my own praises, I send you a letter from Queen Victoria, delivered by the Princess of Prussia, and requesting an autograph of some passages

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225. HUMBOLDT TO LUDMILLA ASSING.

225. HUMBOLDT TO LUDMILLA ASSING.

What a day of agitation, of grief, of misfortune was yesterday. I was summoned by the Queen to Potsdam, to take leave of the King. He wept with deep emotion. Returning home at six in the evening, I opened your letter, my friend! He has departed from the earth before me, the man of ninety years, the old man of the hills! It is not enough to say that Germany has lost a great author, him who could most nobly mould our tongue to the expression of the finest sentiments—for what is the value of form i

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