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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 201: 193. 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.

193.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, December 17th, 1856.

Another grateful, unconstrained, and amiable letter from the Grand Duke. He fixes February for the visit, and desires the drama to open with a request to search the archives. The permission being given, the material part is to follow, as he says, symbolically. You will arrange that with care, my dear friend. We are approaching the goal of our wishes.

I have another funeral to-morrow at the column in Tegel, which, under the hand of Thorwalsden, promises Hope. The oldest niece (daughter) of my brother, the wife of General Hedemann, born in Paris in 1800, a few days after Madame von Humboldt’s return from Spain, has departed after much suffering (liver complaint connected with dropsy), an amiable, cheerful housewife, who enjoyed good health for forty years in a very happy marriage. I live to bury all my kith and kin.

Yours,
A. v. H.
Wednesday Evening.