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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 197: 189. CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, 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.

189.
CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.

Weimar, November 29th, 1856.

As I fortunately have the honor to be known, truly known to your Excellency, I may flatter myself that you will not estimate my gratitude for your services and those of M. de Varnhagen, by the length of time which has elapsed since the day I received your letter of the 31st, and the present time. My sincere thanks shall here receive a place. They have been delayed by the very nature of the transaction. Such could not but be the effect, for in an affair of that kind it is impossible to form a sudden resolution, and accordingly I now write for the sole purpose of not appearing ungrateful, and because, on the other hand, it is necessary to secure the possibility of forming a fixed resolve. To do this I must have time and freedom of election. Both are secured by the kindness of yourself and M. Varnhagen, for you join in proposing to send the young man so as to enable me in the first place to make his acquaintance. The question arises, when can this be done? for I do not care to begin by calling * * * here with the trombone of an appointment. Nothing remains, therefore, but to beg your Excellency to make inquiries at what time the gentleman would be at leisure and inclined to undertake a journey to the bank of the Jlm. Having asked this question, I would pause above all things, in order to proceed to the expression of my thanks for the important news you have the goodness to communicate. If I add the question, whether your Excellency will kindly send me the map for an admiring inspection, and if you should possibly find this question wonderfully troublesome, I take refuge under the shelter of your goodness to me, which has often made me proud, and to-day, perhaps, indiscreet. Yet I am proud of your goodness, which is ever coupled with truth, and in the latter I put my trust, that you will decisively reject my petition, if it troubles you, to whom, in reverence, I remain the most grateful scholar,

Charles Alexander.