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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 210: 202. VARNHAGEN 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.

202.
VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.

Berlin, April 7th, 1857.

Your Excellency’s kind and very much desired communications I forwarded in haste to —— that is to say, the substance of it. It is to be hoped that —— will start immediately, but I expect first to receive an answer from him, and as I do not believe that in the short time the Grand Duke has left him, he can make the détour by way of Berlin, it will be best for him to receive the letter of introduction in Weimar.

The Grand Duke insists upon discretion, and justly so! It is convenient for him, and delicate and sparing for the other party. —— has acted correctly in this respect up to the present time. I am very anxious to see the end of the matter; taking for granted that there was a good relation present in the germ. Success would give me extraordinary satisfaction.

The present you make me of the letter of the Grand Duke delights me very much. Not only the end is in good taste and fine, but the whole style has agreeable turns; and above all, the reverence for your Excellency expresses itself in a manner, the heartfelt sincerity of which cannot be misunderstood.

For some days I have been living entirely in recollections of past times and relations. The correspondence between Gentz and Adam Mueller, just now published by Cotta, keeps me spellbound, and I must contemplate the whole series of those experiences in my reviving recollection.

I have known both men early and intimately, and have had much intercourse with them, personally, of a friendly character, in measures generally an adversary. The superiority of Gentz over the younger friend, whom he greatly overvalued, never was doubtful to me, and is here confirmed anew; only at last when the murder of Kotzebue deranges and stupifies the mind, the force of terror drives the statesman, who formerly was fond of clearness, into the gloomy nebulous strata, to which the frightened friend had retreated long before. This correspondence is certainly unique in its kind. The transactions, disquisitions, mutual influences, inclinations, and feuds are invested with dramatic interest. In Adam Mueller, by-the-by, is contained the complete germ of the “Kreuz Zeitungs” party, though in ideal elevation, still without contact with the real world, and therefore without offensive vulgarities.

Your Excellency kindly promised me a few lines on Franz Baader; may I remind you of them in the most modest manner, and with the remark, that really a few lines only would suffice for the purpose?

In most faithful reverence and most grateful submission, immutably your Excellency’s most obedient

Varnhagen von Ense.