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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 196: 188. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
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.

188.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, November 30th, 1856.
Esteemed Friend:

At this moment I receive a letter from a pupil, deserving of moderate praise for clearness of thought and diction. I shall not write before having first come to see you, my dear friend. The last fifteen lines of the letter are utterly illegible and unintelligible to me. I had written to him about the laying of the telegraph cable between Ireland and Newfoundland, but had not made him any offer. I cannot read what is underscored! Keep my pupil’s letter by all means, including the information that I am the subject of discussion in the Belgian Chambers, as a materialist and republican, who ought to be discharged! Where the dinner of the Baron d’Arhim (Arnim) took place, I cannot guess. I may have said, that I was as liberal as Arago, but certainly not that I was a Republican. Deposit M. Jobard in your archives, my friend,

Your faithful,
A. v. Humboldt.
Sunday.

What men believe and disbelieve does not generally become a subject of contention until after they have been officially buried and bepreached by Sydow.[86]

The “Spenersche Zeitung,” besides discussing Neufchatel and the evacuation of the Danubian principalities, contains a daily health return about five little silkworms of Fintelmann, the court gardener. How all things diminish in importance! I have often written letters dated from the hill of Sans Souci, which formerly was historical. Now the Peacock’s Island becomes historical by the still life of two caterpillars. Thus the world moves. It must be remembered that when the Angora goats made illustrious the administration of Richelieu in France, the Moniteur contained the announcement: “Le moral des chèvres s’améliore de jour en jour.”