Chapter IV (6)

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” is discussed.

A. HT.

The ravages of a single night. The noble, youthful old man, Vecchio della Montagna.

Accompanying the book, “Considerations Géographiques sur l’Histoire du Brézil, Examen critique d’une nouvelle histoire générale du Brézil, par M. Francois Adolphe de Varnhagen. Rapport fait par M. d’Avezac, Paris, 1857–58.”

221.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _March 7th, 1858_.

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. V. HUMBOLDT.

SUNDAY NIGHT.

“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 diary, under March 8th, 1858: “Humboldt sends me, with kind lines, the book of the Marquis of Normanby on the revolution of 1848. He calls it an indiscreet book, and almost talentless. I call it stupid, and perfidious in its contents; it shows the evil results of meddling with diplomacy, particularly if unofficial, as was that of the Marquis at the time. Lamartine as well as Cavaignac gave far too much heed to him. He is one of the dullest and most tedious Englishmen ever heard of.”

March 9th, 1858. Varnhagen adds this further remark on Normanby: “Read a little more of Normanby. He is a poor fool, but his bad book is good enough to expose the paltriness of Louis Philippe, the villany of Guizot, and the pernicious influences of sneaks and sharpers. His forte consists in the perfect success with which he flattens down to insufferable monotony the enlivening and exhilarating effects of the torrent of events.”

222.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _April 13th, 1858_.

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 shall write to Illaire for the third class, but beseech you to jog my memory. ——’s title! I believe he does not preach—has even ceased to administer the little wafers which refuse to unite with the bread, their chemical kinsman. I believe, however, he is a Protestant power in ——.

For the benefit of your soul and Miss Ludmilla’s, I inclose some phantasies on the antediluvian universal absence of rain in the Berlin world, and on the consuming fire, sure to be occasioned by a little forgotten potash, in the midst of innocent felspar of the granite formation, on the day of judgment: “de la geologie hébraïzante,” as I have been imprudent enough to style it in “Kosmos.”

Yours,
A. V. HT.

TUESDAY.

(“Thoughts on the first Rainbow, in connexion with certain Geological Facts.” London: 1852. The author is W. Bateman Byng, but it was sent to Humboldt by Mr. F. A. Fokker, of Hamburg, a superannuated pilot captain.)

On the 24th of April, 1858, Varnhagen observes in his diary: “Humboldt was very droll yesterday, in speaking of the letters he receives. A number of ladies in Elberfeld have conspired to labor at his conversion, by means of anonymous letters, and have informed him of their design. Such letters are received from time to time. Somebody in Nebraska asks him what becomes of the swallows in winter. I suggested that this inquiry must be for ever on the wing. ‘Of course,’ he replied; ‘I don’t know any more than other folks, but,’ he added, with jocose gravity, ‘I took care not to write that to the man in Nebraska, for it is never safe to make such admissions.’”

223.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

POTSDAM, _June 19th, 1858_.

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_.

A. HT.

There gloomy Potsdam has kept me too long from your side.

NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—This letter accompanied “The German Emigration, and
its Importance in the History of Civilization. By Julius Froebel.
Leipsic: 1858.” A copy sent by Froebel to Humboldt.

224.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

BERLIN, _September 9th, at night, 1858_.

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 from the Views of Nature and Kosmos (poetical descriptions of nature), as well as a letter from the American Secretary of War, who has been accommodating to me for the traveller Moellhausen, the son-in-law of Seiffert, draughtsman of the two expeditions to the South Sea, and who, _mirabile dictu_, has dismissed all political animosity on account of my friendship for Fremont. The latter of the communications gives me the greater pleasure of the two, though it is unpardonably extravagant in the use of great names.

The regency, indispensable as it is to restore the wasted power of the country, is still, alas! in the clouds. I hope the Prince of Prussia will abide by his present promise, not to act further without being expressly invested with the title of Regent. But who is to make the first move, when the King is kept in such seclusion, that even I have not seen him since the return? If the Chambers initiate the matter, the Government stands convicted of pusillanimity. _Alea jacta_, and the sum of intelligence at stake seems to have been doled out by nature with laudable economy.

What knowledge have you, dear friend, of M. Iwan Golowin, whose impudence is so unprecedented as to admit of his photographing me before the public in the most dreadful _négligé de costume, même_, as I wrote him in great indignation, _en me dotant de deux fautes de français_, _venaient_ instead of _viennent_, _pourrait_ instead of _pouvait_. What will men not do to make tools of their neighbors?

I beg you to return me the three curiosities consisting of the copy of Victoria, the letter of the Secretary of War, and Rovira by Golowin, by Sunday morning, when I must go to Tegel with Baron Stockmar, the father.

My walk (_ma démarche_) increases lamentably in senile want of direction. Beware of my patience with life. Reputation keeps pace with imbecility, and the part of the “dear youth in age,” of the “worthy Nestor of all living men of Science,” _Vecchio della montagna_, becomes extremely irksome, though there be in the neighborhood of the Netze, a maiden whom the Nestor is to establish for life at Tegel, because the place is so near to Berlin, that on the slightest hint she can hasten to the city to close my eyes.

With the most faithful friendly esteem,

Yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

My wicked friend Lasalle—Heraclitus the Obscure—has been expelled by the Prince of Prussia and Illaire,[104] in spite of all my intercession, and in spite of the promises made to me. They led me to hope that after a few weeks (the election being over) the Obscure would return to Pythagoras, the more obscure. What a dispensation of justice!

NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—Iwan Golowin had asked Humboldt’s permission to
dedicate to him a Russian drama entitled Rovira, and when Humboldt
assented in a hasty French note, he inserted a facsimile of the note
into the book.

225.
HUMBOLDT TO LUDMILLA ASSING.

BERLIN, _Oct. 12th, 1858_.

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 in the presence of such acuteness, such pregnant force of mind, such elevation of thought, such knowledge of the world. What he was to me, to me who am now entirely isolated, is incomprehensible to any mind less refined, less beautiful than yours; I shall soon come to tell you,

Bowed with grief, yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX
OF PERSONS ALLUDED TO.

_The figures opposite the names refer to the numbers of the letters in
which they are mentioned._

A.

Aberdeen, Lord, 106.

Albert, Prince Consort, 124, 131, 132.

Alembert, d’, 143.

Allan, 46.

Alvensleben, 46, 61.

Amerigo Vespucci, 36.

Ancillon, 22, 217.

Arago, Francis, 50, 68, 75, 76, 78, 153, 155, 157.

Arndt, E. M., 48.

Arnim, Achim von, 64.

Assing, Ludmilla, 213, 214, 217, 222, 224, 225.

Augustus, Prince of Prussia, 4, 87. Auguste, Princess, 22.

B.

Baader, Francis, 145, 205. Balzac, 75, 83.

Baudin, 128.

Bauer, Bruno, 60, 66, 94. Baumgarten, 42.

Bavaria, Crown-Prince of, 123.

Belgium, King of, 48.

Bettina, 43, 48, 51, 52, 63, 71, 75, 88, 120, 133, 144, 162, 178.

Bessel, 48, 111.

Beyme, 168.

Beust, 175.

Beuth, 11.

Bigelow, John, 192.

Bodelschwingh, von, 106, 107, 116.

Bollmann, 19.

Bopp, 48.

Bresson, 22, 75, 76, 78.

Brown, R., 76, 84.

Brunel, 75, 76.

Buch, Leopold von, 31, 41, 150.

Buchanan, James, 176, 208.

Buelow, von, 8, 48, 49, 61, 65, 69, 70, 71, 72, 97, 101, 103, 106, 111.

Bugeaud, Marshal, 27.

Bunsen, 11, 61, 68, 75, 159, 168.