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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 68: 66. 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.

66.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, April 6th, 1842.

Since the inquisitorial sentence against Bruno (Bauer) has been so presumptuously published, I deem it my duty to retain your Strauss no longer. I return you that remarkable book, which caused me to indulge in much meditation. Accept my best thanks. The method of the author is excellent; it makes us acquainted with the whole history of the faith of our time, particularly so with the jesuitical trick of so many people who declare publicly their belief in and their adherence to all the dogmas of the Christian mythology, after the fashion of Schleiermacher, and after having “drained the chalice,” are followed to the grave by a solemn cortege of court equipages, although in fact they had always discarded the orthodox belief and substituted for it pseudo-philosophical interpretations.

What displeases me very much in Strauss is his frivolous manner of speaking of natural sciences, which makes him accept without hesitation the formation of organism from inorganisms, and which enables him to easily believe in the origin of man as springing from the primitive sod of Chaldea. That he seems to think very little of the blue regions on the other side of the grave I might cheerfully forgive him; the more so, as we are the more agreeably and willingly surprised when we expect little. As for you, you fortunate man, it could have caused no surprise. How purely Spanish and revolting in the present inquisitorial formula was the sentence that “The culprit would admit himself.” Neque aliud aut qui eadem saevitia usi sunt, nisi dedecus sibi atque reges illis gloriam peperere.

I send you a copy of “Don Juan.” It shows beauty of language, also a rich imagination. I am anxious to hear how you are pleased with it.

The constitutional Roi des Landes[34] repeatedly said yesterday at dinner in the presence of forty people: The professors of Goettingen had talked of their patriotism in an address to him. Professors, he said, have no country at all. Professors, prostitutes, and dancers may be had every where for money; they go to the highest bidder. What a shame to call such a fellow a German Prince!

With faithful attachment, yours,

A. Ht.
Wednesday Night.