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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 232: 222. 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.

222.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, April 13th, 1858.

I am touched by the kindness of your letter, and the souvenir from your talented niece, Miss Ludmilla. As Illaire called yesterday, I have made every preparation to be of use to M——, the esteemed clergyman of ——, in the acquisition of one of those toys, which, if they do not nourish, yet afford an agreeable diversion, like that enjoyed by the knights of old, who galloped over a course covered with obstructions, and the prospect of escape from the infernal regions of the fourth class.[102] I shall write to Illaire for the third class, but beseech you to jog my memory. ——’s title! I believe he does not preach—has even ceased to administer the little wafers which refuse to unite with the bread, their chemical kinsman. I believe, however, he is a Protestant power in ——.

For the benefit of your soul and Miss Ludmilla’s, I inclose some phantasies on the antediluvian universal absence of rain in the Berlin world, and on the consuming fire, sure to be occasioned by a little forgotten potash, in the midst of innocent felspar of the granite formation, on the day of judgment: “de la geologie hébraïzante,” as I have been imprudent enough to style it in “Kosmos.”

Yours,
A. v. Ht.
Tuesday.

(“Thoughts on the first Rainbow, in connexion with certain Geological Facts.” London: 1852. The author is W. Bateman Byng, but it was sent to Humboldt by Mr. F. A. Fokker, of Hamburg, a superannuated pilot captain.)

On the 24th of April, 1858, Varnhagen observes in his diary: “Humboldt was very droll yesterday, in speaking of the letters he receives. A number of ladies in Elberfeld have conspired to labor at his conversion, by means of anonymous letters, and have informed him of their design. Such letters are received from time to time. Somebody in Nebraska asks him what becomes of the swallows in winter. I suggested that this inquiry must be for ever on the wing. ‘Of course,’ he replied; ‘I don’t know any more than other folks, but,’ he added, with jocose gravity, ‘I took care not to write that to the man in Nebraska, for it is never safe to make such admissions.’”