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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 46: 44. KING CHRISTIAN VIII. OF DENMARK 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.

44.
KING CHRISTIAN VIII. OF DENMARK TO HUMBOLDT.

Copenhagen, the 13th January, 1840.
Monsieur le Baron de Humboldt:

Of all the letters received on the occasion of my accession to the throne, none has afforded me so sensible a pleasure as that which you addressed me under the date of the 17th of December last.

Your remembrance is of the highest value to me, and I recall with the greatest interest, Monsieur le Baron, our conversations many years ago at Paris. Since that time you have enriched science by new discoveries. Siberia, explored by you, as you before explored America, offers to natural science new views for which, Monsieur le Baron, it is entirely indebted to you. Really—I shall be happy at some future day to converse with you on these new researches.

The natural sciences are constantly presenting fresh interest, and I shall certainly not neglect to do everything that depends upon me for their advancement.

The astronomical and geodesical labors of your distinguished friend Schumacher, certainly deserve my patronage. He has acquired a European name as a savan, and I appreciate his rare merits. As to the magnetic observations after the method of Gauss—I am occupied in amplifying them here at Copenhagen, where an observatory, established since 1834 near the Polytechnic School, is about to be removed to a more suitable place on the outskirts of the city. It will be provided with two different “emplacements,” one for “observations on declination,” and another for experiments in “inclination.” The establishment will be under the superintendence of the celebrated Oersted.

I esteem myself happy, my dear Baron, in being able to speak to you of the advancement of natural science in my own country, and you must consider it a proof that I shall not neglect any occasion of justifying the good opinion you entertain of my interest in the sciences and in everything which can tend to the enlightenment and happiness of my subjects.

I hope, Monsieur le Baron, that you will frequently find leisure to communicate with me, and I shall endeavor, upon my own part, to cultivate relations so agreeable to myself.

The Queen charges me with her compliments to you, and I embrace the occasion of assuring you of my highest consideration, Monsieur le Baron Humboldt.

Your most affectionate,
Christian.