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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 53: 51. HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.
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.

51.
HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.

[A copy in Varnhagen’s handwriting.]
Saturday, November 21, 1840.

How could you doubt, most honored Madam, my being thankful for the news of the real situation of those noble men, who after so many undeserved sufferings, and after so long and so shameful a neglect, are at last to be placed in an independent position. I thought that, to have given them such a situation in Berlin, three thousand thalers would be a sufficient salary for both, and with this view I have continued my efforts. The King has adopted it as a principle never to issue an order in financial matters on his own account; like all princes, he has no standard by which to measure the wants of learned men. The superior intellects with whom we wish to surround ourselves have wants as prosaic as their inferiors. Whoever wishes to obtain the end must also be willing to employ the means, and especially in an affair which attracts every eye and which touches the honor of the country. The minister Eichhorn, upon whom everything now depends, is happy in the arrival of the two Grimms. He was formerly on the most friendly terms with Jacob Grimm. I called on the minister an hour ago in order to support my view of the matter. He declares that by-and-by he will arrange the affair in the best manner, but that we must confide in him, and allow him to act without obstruction.

Receive, gracious Madam, the expression of my veneration and of my sentiments of gratitude.

A. Humboldt.