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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 65: 63. 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.

63.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, 16th March, 1842.

Be comforted about the mishap. The King purchases Italian, but, under no circumstances whatever, French pictures. The portrait of Cherubini is, indeed, very fine, and if I remember aright, I saw it in Cherubini’s own house. As the author is not dead, and Ingres very rich, I cannot conceive how the portrait can be for sale? You can tell the sprightly “Child”[30] that you sent me the feuilleton.

In the last number of the Journal des Débats there is a strong and very fine article against the abominable Jew Bill, with which we are threatened, and against which I have already protested in very impressive words.

Ever grateful, yours,
A. Ht.
Wednesday.

It was intended in the preamble of the law to speak of “the miracle which God performed in preserving the Jewish race amid other nations;” “of the will of God to keep the Jewish race separated.” I have replied thereto, that the bill is a violation of all the principles of a wise policy of unity; that it is a dangerous arrogance in short-sighted man to dare interpret the primeval decrees of God. The history of the dark ages ought to teach us what abnormities such doctrines lead to.

I live in apparent outward luxury, and in the enjoyment of the fanciful predilection of a generous Monarch, yet in a moral and mental seclusion, such as can only arise from the monotonous dulness of a country (a real steppe) which, though it is not wanting in erudition, is torn asunder by the opposing influences of similar “poles,” and becomes more and more contracted in its Eastern proclivities. May you be content with him, who, though standing alone, has the courage to avow his own opinions.