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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 51: 49. GUIZOT 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.

49.
GUIZOT TO HUMBOLDT.

London, August 24, 1840.
Monsieur le Baron:

It was very amiable indeed in you to have thought of sending me the two new volumes of your brother’s works. I thank you not only for this gift, in itself so very valuable, but also for your remembrance which is at least equally dear to me. I hope that notwithstanding all our affairs, for they are yours as well as mine, I shall manage to read something of this great work. I should like to employ my time in so complete and varied a manner as you occupy yours. Preserve a little of it for the advancement of a good and a wise policy, which though it already owes you much, still needs you.

I envy Baron von Bülow the pleasure of seeing you. I regret extremely losing his society in London. Conversation—genuine conversation—profound, pregnant, and free, is very scarce among us. His I shall miss very much. I should like to go some day to see you at your home, to visit your country, in which, beyond all others, human intellect acts the greatest part, and to see your new King, who is worthy, it is said, of such a country. In the meanwhile, Monsieur le Baron, pray preserve for me your old kindness and believe in the lasting sincerity of the sentiments which long ago I conceived for you.

Guizot.
Note of Humboldt.—Received at Königsberg during the festivals.
A. von Humboldt.