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 49: 47. 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.

47.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Friday, March 29th, 1840.

Decide, master of eloquence and euphony: I had it thus, “As far as humanity (civilisation) extended on earth!”

Now, it pleases me better to put: 1, “It has influenced rulers and nations equally, as far as civilization and commerce extend” (extend, not extended, which latter I abhor); or, 2, “As far as civilization and commerce ennobled mankind;” or, 3, “Made mankind susceptible;” or, 4, “United mankind.”

Would No. 4 (the last), not be the better? Perhaps you have an inspiration. Put clandestinely, to-night at Staegemann’s, a bit of paper in my hand. Perhaps the first conception is the best.

A. Ht.

“Humanity” I give up at any rate, having just read so many mockeries regarding it in the last volume of Campe’s dictionary.

“Sed quamquam, primo statim beatissimi sæculi ortu, Nerva Cæsar res olim dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem; augeatque quotidie felicitatem imperii Nerva Trajanus.” Tacitus in Agricola, cap. 3. Also, of the same old Nerva (noble and gifted with literary taste):

“Quod si vita suppeditet, principatum divi Nervæ, et imperium Trajani, uberiorem securioremque materiam senectati seposui: rara temporum felicitas, ubi sentire quæ velis, et quæ sentias dicere licet.” Tacit. Hist. I. 1. I, of course, in order to avoid all detail, shall give only the numerical quotations, sic: Tacit. Vita Ag. c. 3 Hist. I. 1.

Ht.