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 143: 137. METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

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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.

137.
METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.

(FROM THE FRENCH.)

Richmond, Sep. 17th, 1849.

My dear Baron:

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 the richest, and you have made a noble use of your moral fortune. May God preserve you in safety and in health!

Receive, my dear Baron, with the expression of a congratulation of which you do not doubt the sincerity, that of my sentiments of devotion and friendship, of a date as ancient as all that has a place between us!

Metternich.