WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
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 221: 212. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
By Alexander von Humboldt
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

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.

212.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, June 19th, 1857.

To my greatest joy, a beautiful portrait of yourself was brought me by Mr. Richard Zeune, during an excursion to Tegel. I know not which most to admire, the fresh, vivid, characteristic likeness of features so dear to me (the talent of the skilful Miss Ludmilla Assing), or the writing of your hand, so pregnant in thought and expression. The latter I have copied myself and shown it to my friends, because it is to be ranked with the best of what our language contains in the sententious compression of ideas. The unexpected arrival of the brothers Schlagintweit from Cashmere, Thibet, and the Kuen Luen mountains, which bound Thibet on the north, as the Himalaya on the south, has unreasonably delayed my acknowledgment of your kindness, as they are going to the King at Marienbad, without, it is to be hoped, the three hundred and forty boxes they have brought with them. All the passes, even those most convenient for travel, are 18,000 feet high. From the liberal grand ducal power (not liberal in the prosaic sense of filthy lucre), not a syllable, probably because he is expecting us to send him fresh proposals, fresh victims. No one but the honorary Hungarian monk[95] and the princess is now a riddle to me.

Yours most faithfully,
A. v. Humboldt.

The Emperor Napoleon has adroitly mended what before was dubious, by means of very amiable letters, rich in delicate turns of language, addressed to me by Prince Napoleon (plon plon), and Walewski. As Niebuhr, the Prussian Cabinet Councillor, is publishing a book on Noric Antiquities, nothing remains to cause surprise, not even the FREE canvass for the free election in free France. I believe a few weeks in Branitz will be of benefit to you.