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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 185: 177. THE PRUSSIAN MINISTER RESIDENT, VON GEROLT, 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.

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

New York, August 25th, 1856.
My most dear and Honored Patron!

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 excuse published by Mr. Thrasher, which is, it must be confessed, exceedingly lame.

The affair has excited great attention here, and could not but be welcome to the opponents of slavery, who have made Fremont their candidate.

Some days ago, his German supporters, many thousands in number, held a mass meeting in his support, and honored him with a splendid torchlight procession in the evening.

The slavery question is becoming more alarming from day to day. While the House of Representatives refuse to appropriate moneys for the support of the army, news is daily coming in from Kansas of bloody conflicts between the free-soilers and the slaveholders. It is hoped, however, that after the presidential election (in November), domestic peace will be restored.

The unwholesome climate in Washington has driven me out for a few days, as the heat was intolerable last month, and now the fever and ague begins.

I am going to Albany to-day, to attend the meeting of naturalists to which I have been invited. I expect to meet a number of savans of distinction there, and to report the details to your Excellency hereafter.

Mr. Heine is very much delighted with the expression of your Excellency in his favor.

Mr. C—— and the beau monde have retreated to the mountains and the sea-baths long ago, and I shall not see him for three or four weeks to come.

Mr. Fillmore would be the best President; but he appears to have little hope of succeeding against Fremont and Buchanan; and the Knownothings have lost all credit.

My poor wife and children are counting the hours which must elapse before my return, and I am not less anxious to find all that is dear to me again in the country of my home, next year, at the close of the Congress.

The approaching departure of the mail for England compels me to close this letter, which I do with the most heartfelt wishes for your Excellency’s continued well-being.

With immutable reverence and affection, I remain your Excellency’s most devoted

Gerolt.