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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 20: 18. 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.

18.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, Sunday, 6 o’clock A. M.,
April 5th, 1855.

You, my dearest Varnhagen, who are not afraid of grief, but who trace its phases through the depths of sentiment, you should receive at this sorrowful time a few words expressing the love which both brothers feel for you. The release has not yet come. I left him last night at 11 o’clock, and I hasten to him again. The day, yesterday, was less distressing. A half lethargic condition, frequent, though not restless, slumber, and after each waking, words of love, of comfort; but always the clearness of the great intellect, which penetrates and distinguishes everything and examines its own condition. The voice was very feeble, hoarse, and thin, like a child’s—leeches were therefore applied to the throat. Full consciousness! “Think often of me,” he said the day before yesterday, “but always with cheerfulness! I was very happy; and this day also was a beautiful one for me; for ‘Love is above all.’ I will soon be with mother, and will have an insight into a higher order of things.” I have no shadow of hope. I never thought my old eyes had so many tears! It has lasted near eight days.[11]