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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 69: 67. 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.

67.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Berlin, April 7th, 1842.

Our unknown friend is very amiable. I have lost all apprehension. You have a balm for every wound. I will show you, with pleasure, the few lines, which fell, as it was intended they should, into the King’s hands on the following morning. I chose that circuitous way, because it enabled me to write more freely, and to openly show my dissatisfaction. The thing is now in a better way, but it is not yet irrevocably dismissed. I must entreat you, therefore, most fervently, not to give the lines in question out of your hand. They would irrevocably be inserted in the papers, and that would seriously injure my efforts in a good and important cause.

The King sent for me at a very early hour; and his thanking me very cordially for my frank exposition does him much honor.

I did not go to Potsdam to-day, because I wished to advocate in the full board of the Academy the election of Mr. Riess, the Jewish philosopher, as a member. His election is very honorable to the Academy. There were only three black balls.

To-morrow I shall be with the King till Sunday. I will try to hunt up some interesting autograph—something poetical (by Wilhelm von Humboldt)—for Stuttgart. All that I possess are unfortunately but copies.

Take care of your health, dear friend, it is not firmly restored.

Yours,
A. v. Humboldt.
Thursday Night.