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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 cover

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

Chapter 119: 113. FRIEDRICH RUECKERT TO HUMBOLDT.
By Alexander von Humboldt
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Essays, Letters & SpeechesGerman LiteratureHistory - Modern (1750+)

About This Book

A curated correspondence collects letters from Alexander von Humboldt to his friend and confidant Varnhagen von Ense, supplemented by diary excerpts and letters from other contemporaries. The missives blend personal friendship with professional exchange, discussing scientific observations, lectures, manuscripts, travels, and reactions to peers and events. Editorial apparatus preserves original phrasing and provides contextual notes and extracts that illuminate relationships and chronology. The selection highlights the writer’s methods of observation, precise descriptive habits, and modes of intellectual collaboration. Together the documents form a compact portrait of an engaged scholar whose private reflections and public endeavors intersect across a wide range of topics.

113.
FRIEDRICH RUECKERT TO HUMBOLDT.

Berlin, March, 1846.

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 you did not write it in French. I would also ask your leave to introduce to you my eldest son, who is private tutor at the university of Jena; now, he may try his luck himself with you, as bearer of this letter. Finally, I beg of you that you will speak in my behalf with their Majesties, whom it was not my fortune to see this winter. May I yet be permitted to work something worthy of their approbation and of yours; but may you also be persuaded that it is not for me to appear in person before the public of the capital, but to shape my thoughts in the solitude and quiet of rural life, whither I am now permitted to withdraw, grateful for the highest favor of his Majesty, and with the purest reverence for you.

Rueckert.