Chapter IV (3)

As you say, in words so mild and yet so truly appropriate, “Men are at present laboring at a _fable convenue_; they strive in part after what is unattainable, and in which they themselves do not believe!” But where will the light appear that is to lead them to the truth, and what events will yet be required to convince them of the impracticability of the most contradictory demands? I agree with your Excellency in thinking that the present tranquillity is destined to be of brief duration. I also do not see in it any real pacification, but only the apathy and indifference which enervates without convincing. Who can fathom the future? The riddle of the coming day remains concealed—how much more must we await in patience the developments of coming years? But courage and resignation must not be impaired by this uncertainty; on the contrary, our hearts should be steeled by it.

During my visit in England, the King asked many questions in regard to the health of your Excellency; the Queen also received with great interest such reports as I could give her. They hold in grateful remembrance your frequent visits in Paris. My children ask to be commended to your recollection, and I also hope to revive in it from time to time.

With heartfelt reverence and gratitude, your Excellency’s friend and admirer,

HELEN.

EISENACH, _Oct. 23, 1849_.

140.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

POTSDAM, _October 31st, 1849_.

A thousand, thousand thanks for the interpretation, my dear friend. How the political tempests have ravaged even this handwriting, once so fine, or, at least, so distinct. The “beloved courier” I read “beloved cousin,” the Princess of Prussia, who first showed the Duchess the latest “Views.”

A little address delivered by me before the delegates from this city, in which I referred to the views of my brother, a Potsdamer by birth, on a political life which develops itself freely from within, has been printed by the “Spikersche Zeitung,” with numerous typographical errors. Inclosed is my own report, written immediately after delivery. I would have been pleased if the answer had been correctly given in the Constitutional and other truly liberal papers. With my old devotion and friendship,

Yours,
A. HT.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

(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 the advancement of knowledge, the education of the people, and the general culture of mankind. As a reward for a portion of these efforts, to which my long and chequered life has been devoted, I accept with pride your flattering gift. By the favor of two illustrious monarchs it has been my privilege, for twenty-two years, with but little interruption, to live as your townsman, and to find, in scenery beautiful by nature and art, those inspirations indispensable to a life-like portraiture of nature, which aims to display the workings of the powers of the universe. Grateful for this good fortune, I have adorned almost all my later writings with the historic name which has become dear to me, and in the walls of which the year 1767 witnessed the birth of my brother, whose memory lives in the hearts of those who have preserved a sense of the enlarged proportions of a political life which progresses in obedience to laws inherent in the constitution of society.

A. V. HUMBOLDT.

On receipt of the Honorary Citizenship of Potsdam.

141.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

POTSDAM, _November 4th, 1849_.

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 send it back to me soon.

How important is the news from Paris! The forward one may attain the consulate for life (to which the words _durée et stabilité_ seem to refer); but he will fall, nevertheless, and awake the sleeping lion. Liberty will lose nothing by it, and the German statesmen (are there any such besides Herr von Gagern?) will then understand, that in the centre of Europe is the France of 1789, the same, about the nullity of which so many sarcasms have been uttered. The centres of gravity change.

With cordial friendship, yours,

A. HT.

SUNDAY.

142.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _March 19th, 1850_.

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,

Yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

TUESDAY.

143.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

POTSDAM, _July 2d, 1850_.

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 burst before the diplomatists find time to calculate its evanescent figure.

I shall render my heartfelt thanks to Herr von Froloff. I made a futile effort to dissuade him from inserting a mass of explanations and metaphors, intended to facilitate comprehension. He wished to accomplish what is absolutely impossible, and seemed to have but little understanding of the form of composition. I shall say nothing more to him about all that. Hybrids are never successful in literature.

I was extremely unwell, confined to my bed even; but now, in spite of the dispersion of all matters of interest, I am well, industrious, and not cheerful.

In friendship as of old, yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

144.
HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

(Copy in Varnhagen’s Handwriting.)

BERLIN, _June 7th, 1851_.

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’s inspiring master-piece, it was impossible hitherto to obtain a hearing. Warsaw is now succeeded by Hanover, by the visit to your royal friend and mine. I have not yet seen our monarch at Potsdam again, and surrounded by all the horrors of a cosmic transmigration, shall wait for the returning tide from Warsaw (the alluvium of Batavian and Mecklenburgh highnesses), and when the rock-bound seas are calm again, I shall go to work systematically, as your cheerful and genial letter inspires me. But at this gloomy period everything oral is unheard, and what is written is scarcely noticed. The latter, however, is an insuperable necessity. In order, then, to accomplish so attainable a purpose, a very brief writing addressed immediately to the King, will be required, to be delivered by me with a warm recommendation. Our excellent friend asks the King for a trifling assistance in point of funds, to enable him to travel to Munich. The statement of a specific amount is not necessary, but it will simplify the matter. The man’s delicate sense of honor will not be offended by my suggestion, as the request is made not for himself, but for a noble service to the cause of art.

With all devotion and grateful reverence, your most faithful and obedient

A. V. HUMBOLDT.

145.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

POTSDAM, _November 1st, 1851_.

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 finished with great difficulty, and which unfortunately is exclusively astronomical. I was certain of a kind reception, and your letter of the 24th of October, which had been left behind in my house at Berlin, confirmed my purpose. Ottilie von Goethe gives me cheering news in regard to your health. As usual you will combat her opinion. But what astonished me was, that the president of the council, usually cold as a glacier, was delighted with Ottilie, and is entirely disposed to gratify her wish for the appointment of Wolfgang, at the Prussian embassy at Rome. Was it necessary, however, for Wolfgang, after publishing a very able little work on Nature and Legislation, to go to press with a collection of poems, containing but rare gleams of imagination?

Written with the devotion of better days, in a time of gloom and feebleness, by

A. V. HUMBOLDT.

On the 24th of November, 1851, Varnhagen wrote in his diary: “Backbiters are busy with Humboldt. Littleness and mediocrity, conscious of their nothingness beside him, combine their envy and spite, and thereby hope to be something. The one comes to the other with smiles, and makes him the confidant of the dislike he entertains, and of the foibles and defects he claims to have detected. The other welcomes the suggestion, responds with similar remarks, they clasp each other’s hands, and are fast friends in enmity of the hero. Those who pretend to be the most faithful lend themselves to such intrigues. Singly they amount to nothing, but when lumped together they constitute a stumbling-block, which obstructs the light of day, interferes with what is good, and destroys life and spirits: such vermin tormented Goethe, and now they torment Humboldt. I know these fellows by experience; in Rahel’s time I have seen my fill of it! The brothers, the nieces, how glad they would be to make common cause with the most inferior beings, to place their united mediocrity above the genial power of heart and mind, by which even they were yet constantly lighted and warmed! Humboldt’s weak points are well known, he does nothing in secret, men see him as he is; but his greatness is unimpaired, the greatness of his mind and the equal greatness of his heart. And eighty years—what a bulwark! Who will dare assail it?”

146.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _January 28th, 1852_.

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,

A. V. HUMBOLDT.

WEDNESDAY.

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, Varnhagen’s journal reads as follows: “Humboldt came at one o’clock, wonderfully robust for his time of life! Speaks with indignant scorn of the _coup d’état_ in France, the undisguised outrage, the arbitrary banishments, and particularly the robbery of the estates of the Orleans family. The King was at first full of rejoicing, he and the court saw nothing offensive in the crime committed against the people, the legislature, the law, and the sanctity of oaths, but that the adventurer preserves universal suffrage, rests upon the people, practises socialism, and even wants to be emperor; this is what makes him detested! Humboldt is of opinion that in the revolution of February the establishment of the Provisional Government, which was immediately obeyed throughout France, was a piece of even greater audacity than the present usurpation of the one man who has already been president, and worn the name of government for three years. I reminded him of the parliament, and the committee of fifty at Frankfort-on-the-Main. In the disposition to acquiesce, he sees that national feeling of unity and cohesion which, among Frenchmen, suppresses all party feeling. Humboldt says there is no doubt that Louis Bonaparte is a son of Admiral Verhuel, and his brother, Morny, a son of General Flahault, who, he says, lived with both the sisters, the Queen of Holland and the Queen of Naples. Of Persigny—Fialin de Persigny—he speaks with the utmost contempt, calling him a raw, unkempt non-commissioned officer, who still arrogates to himself discoveries about the pyramids. Passing on to our own affairs, he deplored the narrowness, the pitiful character of our ministry; he considers Raumer the most stupid of them all, stupid and unmannerly both; the King is cross and peevish, capricious, and prone to excuse himself by saying that he is powerless, and must be governed by his ministers.”

On the 30th of January, 1852, Varnhagen adds: “Humboldt takes a lively interest in the widow of the philologist F.; her husband has done much work for him. At Humboldt’s urgent advice, she has petitioned the King for a pension, and Humboldt and Boekh were to support the petition by their signatures. But F. was a democrat, not an active, but an avowed one, and the King might have heard of it. To neutralize this, Humboldt proposed to request Stahl to join in countersigning the petition. His own name can now accomplish nothing with the King! On what days have we fallen, when Humboldt asks Stahl to give him countenance!”

147.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _Feb. 5th, 1852_.

I believe, my dear friend, that the letter I have just received, will greatly confirm your ideas about Paris. Galuski, the translator of the second volume of Kosmos, is a man of noble instincts, great talents, and much philological learning, but very moderate in his love of liberty. What he says of his first impression, is a pretty impudent expression of this moderation. He also was seized with a marvellous dread of coming events. My opinion has always been that the wildest republic cannot do so much and such enduring harm to the intellectual progress of mankind, and to their consciousness of right and honor, as _le régime de mon oncle, le despotisme éclairé, dogmatique, milieux_, which applies all the arts of civilization to subject a people to the caprices of an individual. Read, to increase your abhorrence of such degradation, which threatens to spread like a pestilence, in the “Journal des Debats” of this morning (February 3d), the reasons for drawing up a list of recommendations of those who might be elected (according to the “Constitutionnel).” The “Spenersche Zeitung” of yesterday did not fail to follow suit with a communication in favor of a similar set of proposals for our second chamber!

I hope soon to procure for you the Histoire de l’Académie (by Bartholmess). I have made many vain efforts to advance the interests of Professor F.’s widow.

Your most attached,
A. HUMBOLDT.

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 men to vote would seem to be equally inexpedient and impracticable. But by refraining from voting in any number, the voters repose the decision of the question in the hands of an unknown minority, who, by exercising their privilege, frequently bring about a state of things by which representation is given, not to the political views of the constituency, but to their very opposite. The principles had in view in fixing the reconstruction of the First Chamber, have, by force of logical inference, led to the proposals to alter the electoral law for the Second Chamber in this manner, _that His Majesty, the King, shall appoint in each district, long before the election, a government candidate, who shall be the representative, unless the majority of the voters should at the election record their preference for another_. The specific arguments in support of such a plan will appear to-morrow in connexion with its details.

148.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _February 12th, 1852_.

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?

Yours,
A. V. HT.

Be kind enough to return the enclosed at your early convenience.

149.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _March 23d, 1852_.

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 of our diplomatist at the Diet.

With heartfelt attachment,

Yours,

A. HT.

TUESDAY, late at night.

The enclosed letter from August. Grau, of Montgomery County, Ohio, dated February 6, 1852, contains the following: “A gentleman who has travelled over a large portion of the earth, who, by the publication of so many excellent writings, has erected for himself so durable and so resplendent a monument on the field of literature and science, is not to be named by any German without the greatest esteem. When the names of great warriors who have spilt the blood of their fellow-men upon the battle-field shall be forgotten, your name will blaze for hundreds and thousands of years in the annals of history. But it is singular, at the same time, that the greatest naturalists, philosophers, and astronomers who have occupied the principal portion of their lives with new inventions, and with investigations into the elementary powers of nature, are often totally indifferent to their salvation or perdition in the world to come. Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and Kant, were all distinguished characters and brilliant ideals, and in their walk and conversation were more or less observant of what are called the laws of morality, so as probably to abstain from cards, nine-pins, playhouses, and dancing, but their sphere of operations did not reach into eternity, and the fate of their fellow-men in the other world—their salvation—was of little interest to them.” After launching into further sanctified regrets at the scarcity of true godliness, and its absence even in princes and royal chaplains, the writer continues: “The last King of Prussia, and his truly royal Louise, had some knowledge of a state of regeneration, as well as the last King of Sweden, the former French Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo. A poor peasant was better able to enlighten him on the means of salvation than one of the first bishops of the Lutheran church. O, Sir Privy Councillor, while I do full justice to your unblemished life, your high character as a statesman, and your acquirements as a man of science; and while I rejoice that Berlin—ay, that Prussia may boast of such a man as your Excellency, yet my joy would turn into holy exultation if I should have the honor of seeing you a warm disciple of Him who died upon Golgotha. Without Him, Lord Chamberlain, with all our acquirements, with all our boasted knowledge, we are singularly unhappy.” Further on, the letter reads: “Goethe says, on a certain occasion, that during the whole course of his long life he had not spent four happy weeks. These are the words of a great man of science. If Christ has not taken up his residence in our hearts, who else can be there but Satan? One of them, surely, must be there—one must wield the baton of command. It is manifestly impossible at one and the same time to serve two masters! Worthy sir, my gracious Lord Chamberlain, I am penetrated with great esteem for you and your lofty merits; I love and revere you. I am not worthy to unlace your shoes. This is the unconstrained language of my heart; although I have occupied myself with acquiring the elements of seventeen different languages, and can even at this day read the writings of the New Testament in seven different tongues. But I have not only been firmly convinced of the truth of the Christian religion for thirty-one years, but experience the influence of the Holy Ghost from day to day, and almost from hour to hour.” The letter is subscribed, “Your Grace’s most devoted servant and brother in Christ, Augustus Grau.” Humboldt adds the remark: “An attempt at conversion, from the State of Ohio.”

150.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _March 13th, 1853_.

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....

With ancient love and reverence, yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

The death of Leopold von Buch bows me deeply. A happy blending of the most noble, philanthropic sentiments, momentary impulses, and a little despotism of opinion; one of the few men who have a physiognomy. He has given a new form to his science; he was one of the greatest illustrations of our times; our friendship has endured sixty-three years, unruffled, although we often tilled the same field. I found him, in Freiberg, in 1791, where he had come to the Mining Academy before myself, although five years younger. His funeral appeared like a prelude to my own, C’est comme cela que je serai dimanche. And in what a condition do I leave the world—I who lived in 1789? But centuries are as seconds in the mighty development of advancing humanity. The swelling curve, however, has its little indentations, and it is irksome to be found in such an interval of decadence.

151.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _March 14th, 1853_.

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 _historic_ ages? Let me remind you of a passage in my Kosmos (II. p. 333), which derives some interest for you from its reliable chronological date. “It was not more than 2900 years before our era that the cross became invisible in Northern Germany. The constellation had ascended as far as the tenth degree above the horizon. When it disappeared from the Baltic skies, the pyramid of Cheops had already stood five hundred years. The shepherd nation of the Hyksos invaded Egypt seven hundred years later. The past becomes apparently less remote when we can measure it by reference to memorable events.”

Persevere in your diligence upon Buelow von Dennewitz, who became very dear to me in Paris. Fond of music, he was very affable in the family of Lafayette, in the little chateau of Lagrange, at Paris—Lafayette’s country-seat, where Buelow was quartered.

Yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

I shall bring volume VI. myself.

NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—As a comfort for his eighty years, I had written to
Humboldt that even these could be transformed into a comparative
youth, as appeared by Fontenelle’s example, who, at the age of a
hundred years, attempted to pick up a fan dropped by a lady, and,
unable to do it as quickly as he wished, exclaimed, “_Que n’ai je
plus mes quatre vingt ans!_” Of Friedrich Schlegel I had told him,
that shortly before his death, he prophesied to Tieck, at Dresden,
that, at no very remote period, though he could not exactly define
it, a mighty change would take place in the heavens, the great
constellations would leave their places, and combine to form an
immense cross.

152.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _August 15th, 1853_.

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 between form and substance. I crave your permission to come to you to-morrow, Tuesday, at one o’clock, to read you a preface I have been compelled to write! By all means send a verbal assent by the bearer.

With indestructible friendship, yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

153.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _August 31st, 1853_.

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 sheets this evening.

I beseech you to be severe in your treatment of these sheets, with which I have incorporated a remarkable fragment (in illustration of the ideas and frames of mind manifested in the “Letters to a Lady Friend”) and to note on a separate piece of paper what I ought to _alter_, and especially what I ought to _substitute_. I follow _you_ implicitly.

I dislike the phrase on page 4, “_Schoen_ errungene Himmelsgabe.”[58]

The pious fragment is an autograph, nearly illegible, and requiring some emendation in the construction of the sentences; thus on page 11: Perhaps you prefer the phrase “_bei_ Anerkennung.” The phrase is heavy, even now.

On p. 14 you will not disapprove of “eben nicht,” in place of “haben nie gerade,” which is still more vernacular. The four lines stand there like a fallen aerolith. They must be preserved at all hazards, if only on account of their _freedom_.

Could not you help out page 13 below somewhat? Is the close of the phrase “voice of conscience—has laid” clear to you? It is not so to me. Perhaps a few words would make the sense clear.

Roma, the verses to me from Albano, and all the choruses and Pindarus will form another volume.

With old affection and profound esteem,
Yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

The saddest news of Arago’s family; swollen hands and feet, diabetes, and almost blindness! Forty years of life go with him!!

154.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _September 2d, 1853_.

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 with a freedom, the result of intention and confidence.” Or would you have it, “which he freely handled with the confidence of a clear intention,” or, “which he handled with a freedom of which he was perfectly conscious?” “When the poet, urged by his realistic and individual peculiarity, felt most keenly the desire of welding ideas into the flood of sentiment.”

Be good enough to return me your MS., which is a treasure of critical research.

Very thankfully, yours,
HUMBOLDT.

NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—I selected “which he handled with a freedom of which
he was perfectly conscious,” as most in accordance with the metaphor
of the fetters, and as otherwise clearly indicative of the idea
intended to be conveyed.

Varnhagen reports under date of September 9th, 1853, in his diary: “Humboldt had advised me of his coming; he came about half-past one o’clock, and remained till half-past two o’clock, a mere visit, nothing of business; he felt the necessity of unburdening himself of many things. First he vented his bitter and indignant scorn on the speeches of the King in Elbing and Hirschberg, and on the utter absence of vigor, which makes itself known in such disconnected ebullitions. Then he spoke with the utmost contempt of von Raumer, the Minister of Public Worship and Instruction, of his brutality and insolence, his hatred of all science, his pernicious activity. ‘The King,’ Humboldt said, ‘hates and despises all his ministers, but this one particularly, and speaks of him as of an ass; what particularly nettles him is, that Raumer opposes all the King’s wishes, and he keeps him in office nevertheless, as he keeps all of them, because he has them, and every change is a troublesome affair.’ The case of the brothers Schlagintweit was cited as an instance. The King wished to aid them in their voyage to the Himalaya Mountains; the minister refused; the King ordered him to hear the opinion of Humboldt, which was a most favorable one, but Raumer insisted upon his opinion, which, he said, was not changed by Humboldt. Then the King, who confessed himself to be powerless against his minister, wrote to Bunsen, who took the matter in hand, and the brothers Schlagintweit now receive English aid. And the very same King, who pretends to be so jealous of his prerogatives, permits them to be thus encroached upon? ‘Yes, sometimes he delights in playing the part of a constitutional monarch, absolves himself from all responsibility when the matter is a delicate one, answers demands made upon him by adverting to the difficulty of obtaining the signatures of his ministers, and even pretends to regard that “baggage, the state” as something with which he had little concern, accuses the ministers of forgetting him in their devotion to that “baggage, the state,” &c., &c.

“‘In the asking of small sums the King often experiences the greatest resistance, large ones he gets; he is refused three hundred thalers for a poor scientific man or artist, forty thousand thalers for buying something, they dare not refuse. What a mess of confusion and disaster! The King is quite satisfied that he is permitted to cook up church matters to his heart’s content, for these are considered separate from the state, no minister has a word in them.’ That I do not understand and it cannot be so, the ministers I believe have their hands in it too. ‘The meanest fellow of the whole concern is privy counsellor Niebuhr, a low, canting parasite, full of spite and venom.

“‘Garcia cannot sing here, he said some time ago, she is too red;[59] all representations, that her singing would not be red, were in vain. At last I told him to send to Bethania[60] for deaconesses to sing. He will be happy to see me under the sod.’”

On the 25th of September, Varnhagen narrates in his diary: “They say, on the presence of Humboldt in the High Ecclesiastical Council, that the priests had had in their midst their greatest adversary, who puts all of them to rout—the man of natural science, before whom all their mist and deceits flow into nothingness. ‘Abaellino is among you!’ one might have cried out.”

155.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _Dec. 12th, 1853_.

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 am enraged by the treatment of my friend Arago in the last number of the “Quarterly Review” (September)—an ebullition of political party spirit, exactly as I was treated by the same journal from 1810–1818. A note at the end of the number for September says, with rare _delicacy_, that the article was written before his death was known; but it was known generally in London that he had become blind, and that he suffered infinitely from dropsy, one of the symptoms of which is to fill the mind with apprehensions.

With ancient gratitude and devotion, and admiration of your talents, your faithful

A. V. HUMBOLDT.

MONDAY.

156.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, THURSDAY NIGHT—_from the 13th to
the 14th of April, 1854_.

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 days ago I asked the fourth minimum of the red bird[64] for a man who has _conserved_ his real estate for one hundred and fifty years, for Bouché, a gardener, an adopted son[65] from the Champagne. It is a great joy to me that my introduction, which has only the merit of liberal sentiment and faithfulness, has also pleased you in regard to form. As a sign of gratitude, I send you for your collection of autographs a document not unimportant on account of the political situation—June, 1848. The other papers, which contain the sublunar miserabilities of the disagreement,[66] which, alas! has become public, I beg you to return hereafter.

Everything noble is drawn down in the mud. I was compelled to write a few lines in answer. I live in a monotonous and sad mood—_et mourant, avant le principe_.

With old fidelity, yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

I shall certainly make my appearance on Monday in a wedding garment.

157.
ARAGO TO HUMBOLDT.

PARIS, _June 3d, 1848_.

MY DEAR AND ILLUSTRIOUS FRIEND:

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 of the two governments, in order to remove every pretext for war! Who can be made to believe that, animated with the sentiments which I publicly profess, I would have consented to entrust Emanuel with an important diplomatic mission, if he had been in discord with me, if he belonged to a hideous socialist sect, to _communism_, for, I am ashamed to say it, the accusations made have not stopped short of that? As to the rest, I appeal to the future; all such apprehensions will disappear as soon as Emanuel shall have entered upon his functions. Your Chargé d’Affaires will then regret the untimely protest addressed to M. Bastide.

I am very happy, my dear friend, to receive your welcome letter. Nothing in the world could be more agreeable than to hear of the continuance of your friendship. I am worthy of it, because of the price I set upon it. I have an abiding faith that my conduct, during the last three months (I had about said the last three centuries), has not caused me to lose in your esteem.

Ever yours, with heart and soul,
F. ARAGO.

158.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _Friday, April 14th, 1854_.

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.

Your faithful
HUMBOLDT.

The Prince of Prussia knows nothing of the invitation for noce et festin.

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 faithful friendship for you in these sad times of weakness and folly. I have disentangled myself from the new “Stahl-Ranke” council, for reasons which are not those of old age; I resigned. I add an unkempt letter of poor Bunsen, which you must keep quite secret, and send it to me, if there is an opportunity, to my Berlin residence. First Heidelberg and afterwards Bonn, constantly vibrating between the perturbating recollections of two archbishops. With the dangerous tendency of the noble man for theological dispute, and for his newly-invented apostolic church, under the firm of Hippolytus, a residence in England, that is to say, in the country between London and Oxford (on account of the books), would be more favorable than Bonn. The Anglican High Church, intolerant though it be, is less inconvenient in a _free_ country, than a ministerial church diet in Prussia. Moreover, in the interest of Bunsen’s scientific reputation, I look forward with dread to the impending productions, full of hypotheses on aboriginal nations, Egyptian, Indian, and excavated Assyrian Semitic, as also on the situation of Paradise, for which _a map has been ordered_ at Kiepert’s. Maps on the creeds of nations can ascend from the ship-fastening myth at the ocean and the Himalaya mountains to the Ararat and to Aramea Kymbotas, even to the Mexican Coxcox, vagaries, not unknown to the Mormon bible. (See Supplement.)

The Weimar fancies are of a more exhilarating kind; controlling the climates by means of crystal palaces, which, at the same time, are taverns, and make superfluous Nicos and Madeira, and demand only a capital of one and a half millions of thalers, an undertaking in the deserted Potsdam town of barracks. And such a device, hatched in the brains of a well-informed man like Froriep.

In faithful friendship, yours,
A. HUMBOLDT.

POTSDAM, _July 4th, 1854_. In the age of crystal palaces.

It was but the other day, in glancing at a letter of Gneisenau’s, of 1818 (in the pointless biography of Stein,[69] p. 262) that I stumbled upon a passage, doubtless long familiar to you: “H. strives again for the centre, but there are wanting to him confidence, _esteem_, _character_, and courage.” Sheer personal hatred alone can have moved the vain Gneisenau to speak thus disreputably of my brother. I recollect, indeed, to have heard of him, that Gneisenau was hostile to him when he was dismissed. By-the-by, what was said by all parties in those times on political institutions looks to me now, and did so already in the years 1815–1818, as if I was reading a book of the thirteenth century on physical science; fear of provincial estates was alone praiseworthy—c’est de la bouillie pour les chats.

On this letter Varnhagen remarks in his diary, July 5th, 1854:—“I found a long letter from Humboldt, who communicated to me, accompanied by fine remarks, the latest number of the Herald of Peace, a letter of Bunsen—four closely-written quarto pages—and another by Robert Froriep, of Weimar. ‘The missive at the same time is intended for a sign of _life_, that is, of most intimate and faithful friendship for you in these sad times of weakness and folly.’ Farther: ‘I disengaged myself from the new “Stahl-Ranke” council, for reasons, which are not those of old age; I resigned.’ Then he speaks of Froriep’s plays of imagination, who wishes to build a crystal palace to control the climate in the ‘deserted town of barracks,’ Potsdam, with a loan of one and a half million of thalers! Finally, he blames Gneisenau’s misjudgment on Wilhelm von Humboldt, pronounced in a letter of 1818, which Pertz communicates in his ‘pointless Biography of Stein;’ and Humboldt rightly condemns the mean misjudgment of his brother.

“The letter of Bunsen is written in a very unconnected manner—Humboldt calls it an ‘unkempt’ one, which characterizes it admirably. Bunsen intends to live for the future in Bonn, but he complains that the university has deteriorated so much, particularly the theological faculty. Dorner and Rothe have been jostled out, and their places are held by the most mediocre and narrow-minded people to be found in all Germany, such as Lange and Steinmeyer; from Hengstenberg’s study, through Gerlach, all bends, he says, to ignorance and darkness, the present gloomy period of the most intellectual king of the century will come to be deplored even more grievously than the age of Woellner; every thing is imbued with the reactionary political character of the squirearchy; hypocrisy and _real_ infidelity can grow out of this unholy system, and a most violent reaction must ensue; body-guards and policemen can enforce any political programme as long as it lasts; but the German never submits to the enthralment of the mind, and his curse will pursue through all the centuries those who have attempted it. Thus writes Bunsen! But he writes thus now as a deposed favorite! How was he, and for what did he work before? For the same ignorance and darkness. Quite like Radowitz, who also played the liberal at last!”

160.
VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

BERLIN, _July 8th, 1854_.

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 should have liked to incorporate it with my collections! It is a remarkable sign of the present situation; many expressions in it strikingly significant. Had the writer but expressed himself thus before his last personal experience! The scientific renown which you believe in danger from the threatening deluge of writings seems to me to have stood from the first upon unsafe ground, upheld by external props, with which it must fall inevitably. Perhaps a political career will be open to him again, but certainly not through literary aid, for which, in part, this sudden literary taste seems intended. Silent rest would be far more useful. But this can hardly be expected in the place selected, where Catholic hatred is already alive, and nourishes and strengthens that political rancor which will continue in vigor, fed with fuel from here.

The late Prince Wittgenstein once congratulated me that I had not to sit in the Council of State, and that was the old Council, of which your Excellency also was a member! How much more must I congratulate you on your escape from the new one, of which Stahl and Ranke are members! To the latter, no one will dispute the part of the clown; to the first, every one will accord that of the sophist.

The words of Gneisenau, which Pertz alludes to in Stein’s Leben (v. 262), are so entirely inapplicable to William von Humboldt that one would be tempted to interpret the H. differently, if an acceptable conjecture could be found. I have myself, indeed, heard from Gneisenau’s lips expressions of dissatisfaction, but never such extravagant ones, which might be contradicted so easily and perfectly. What Gneisenau blamed chiefly in your brother was that he never tried, by the respect which he commanded and by the superiority of his mind, to unite all those of equal sentiment into a communion, by which much might have been undertaken and effected. But this reproach, if it be one, Gneisenau himself deserved as well, and received from his adherents! The book of Pertz is full of aspersions and incongruities, which, indeed, in most cases originate in Stein himself, but are confirmed by Pertz in blind partiality; he, while communicating everything, even in many cases things which do not belong to the subject, leaves out important documents without hesitation as soon as he finds them not entirely for the benefit of his hero. The same will take place when he writes the biography of Gneisenau, for which the hand of a tactician would seem to be the first desideratum.

The pious quaker-sheet was already known to me; one could hardly have thought such monstrosities practicable in the English language! But our time abounds in such. The psychographer takes the place of the moving table; they try to enforce my faith in the absurdity; I excuse myself, that at my time of life a man is a little backward, and that I have just arrived at table moving, but of that they do not want to hear any more. This reminds me of something, I will not suppress! It of course happens often, that remarks of your Excellency, in particular such made at the royal table, come to the ears of the public, and are repeated with zeal, and by this assume widely different forms; thus, quite recently, a reply to Herr Senfft von Pilsach, in which the original form seemed lost to a great extent, it would certainly be desirable if the latter were always authentically preserved.

With my repeated most heartfelt thanks, in most faithful reverence and submission, I remain immutably, your Excellency’s most obedient,

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE.

Some strong expressions in the London letter, as welcome to me as they were unexpected, remind me that Herr von Radowitz indulged in similar ones, and even had them printed (Gesammelte Schriften IV., 210, 256, 281); in the second passage he even goes so far as to reverse the motto, “Against democrats soldiers alone avail!”

161.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _July 9th, 1854_.

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 to him, but very freely, because I know that it will be reported, colored certainly according to the color of the reporter, and this the more especially in a country where anything like a gentle allusion by way of criticism is lost on account of the complete want of development of conversational language.

The judgment of Gneisenau is certainly on my brother. These often are ebullitions of the moment. Schiller writes to Koerner, when I arrived in Jena, “that I was by far more ingenious and gifted than my brother;” afterwards, in a time when he saw me daily and overwhelmed me with tenderness, he wrote to Koerner that “I was a man of narrow understanding, without poetry or soul, who, in spite of all my restless activity in my walk of study, never would accomplish anything great; that Herder’s works were diseases, discharged by his mental constitution.” (One thinks it is a passage of Zelter’s letters!) In an autograph of a collection at Augsburg, which they wanted to give to me, but which I sent back, my friend Prince S. writes to Koreff: “Alexander H. again accompanies the King to the Congress at Aachen only as a pointer!” Thus they play on the boards of the world for credulous posterity.

The Emperor Alexander had told the late King that my brother was doubtless bribed by the Jews to be of service to them in the Congress of Vienna, as Baron von Buelow was bribed in the Belgian affair by the French, according to the King of Hanover. In Schoening’s very interesting War of the Bavarian Succession, interesting by the correspondence with Prince Heinrich and the reflection cast on the present disputable state of things, there is mentioned on p. 294, a political project, which was unknown to me, the Austrian proposition to give Burgundy as a kingdom to the Bavarian dynasty in return for a cession of Bavaria. This title of King of Burgundy was the object of the ambition of the Duke of M. in 1815, though he would have contented himself with Lorraine and Alsatia. Napoleon also once had a momentary intention to make the Principe de la Paz, King of Baetica (Andalusia and Grenada) from recollections of “Télémaque,” and the King of Sardinia, Roi de Numidie, although the donor had not a foot of land in Africa to dispose of.

With warm friendship, always equally incorrect and illegible, your most faithful,

A. V. HUMBOLDT.

SATURDAY NIGHT.

NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—As early as the year 1743, Austria offered to the
Emperor Charles VII. a kingdom not yet conquered, to be composed of
Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comté, in return for Bavaria. See
“Mem. de Noailles,” Tome vi.

162.
HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

(Copied by Varnhagen.)

BERLIN, _July 8th, 1854_.