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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 6: 4. 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.

4.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, April 15th, 1828.

Will you allow me to disturb you for some moments between 2 and 3 o’clock this afternoon, that I may ask your literary opinion? My book shall bear the title: “Sketch of a Physical Description of the World.”

I should like to embody in the title itself the occasion of these lectures, so as to make it understood at once that the book contains more and something else than the lectures. “From reminiscences of lectures in the years 1827 and 1828, by A. v. Humboldt,” is considered, I am told, ridiculous and pretending. I do not insist on it; but “Souvenirs d’un cours de Physique du monde,” or, “Souvenirs d’un voyage en Perse,” seemed simple enough. How shall I arrange the title of the book? “Sketch of the Physical World, elaborated from lectures by A. v. H.:” or, “Partly treated from Lectures?” All that seems rather awkward. Adverbs will not do for titles. What if I add in small type: “A part of this work has been the subject of lectures in the years 1827 and 1828?” This is, however, rather long and then the verb! “Occasioned by,” &c., would perhaps be better. I trust to your genius! You will help me out of this labyrinth, I am sure! With the sincerest attachment,

Your obedient,
A. HUMBOLDT.
Note by Varnhagen.—I had objected to the first herein mentioned title myself when I once dined at Prince August’s, and Humboldt had heard it from Beuth.