124.HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Potsdam,November 14th, 1846.
Potsdam,November 14th, 1846.
Potsdam,November 14th, 1846.
Potsdam,November 14th, 1846.
What a splendid reception, my dear friend, have you given the fifth volume of my brother! Pardon me if, in the excessive bustle of the last few days upon the cold “historic hill,” I have not written some commendatoryremarks. I also deplore the omissions to which you are kind enough to make me attentive. Perhaps they could be supplied in the next volume. It was supposed that the letters must be printed in the form in which my brother had prepared them for publication, and in which they were offered for sale. I believe no nation on earth can produce an instance of such a life devoted exclusively to the increase of the wealth of ideas! How inexpressibly I rejoice in the mere prospect of once more beholding a master-piece of your accurate, life-like, and withal delicate representations of social and diplomatic occurrences!
With unalterable attachment,
Your gratefulA. Humboldt.
Your gratefulA. Humboldt.
Your gratefulA. Humboldt.
Your grateful
A. Humboldt.
While it was not entirely wise in a monarch who is great in history to have yielded, under the influence of the atmosphere of Versailles, to the temptation of offsetting the memory of the barricades with a spectacle à la Louis XIV., throwing great difficulties in the way of the successor, and attaining nothing of value, the conduct of Palmerston, and of Albert and Victoria, on the other hand, is likewise clumsily ill-mannered. Meantime, the sober Americans are establishing a universal empire in the West, which already threatens the trade of China.
My MS. “On the Textile Fabrics of the Ancients,” pp. 106 and 113, appears also to have been lost among the papers of the lamented Wolf. The effect of the religious music, particularly on p. 323, contains much that is finely expressed.
In the year 1846 we find the following remark in Varnhagen’s diary: “The conversation turned upon the capacity of one of the younger princes, which was declared to be inferior. Humboldt was of a different opinion. ‘I do not agree with you,’ he said; ‘the young prince spoke to me the other day, finding me in waiting in the apartments of his mother, and asked, “Who are you?” “Humboldt is my name,” said I. “And what are you?” “A chamberlain to his Majesty the King.” “Is that all?” said the prince, curtly, turning on his heel. Is not that a proof of intelligence?’”