146.HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin,January 28th, 1852.
Berlin,January 28th, 1852.
Berlin,January 28th, 1852.
Berlin,January 28th, 1852.
Here is my Cosmic present, my dear friend! I choose not to bring it myself lest it should seem that I dare not come without it. Cast a look at p. 1–25, Mars p. 511, and the concluding passage p. 625–631.
I may call to-morrow, Thursday, at one o’clock, may I not? I shall be sure to come.
With the old attachment, which will never grow cold,
A. v. Humboldt.
A. v. Humboldt.
A. v. Humboldt.
A. v. Humboldt.
Wednesday.
Wednesday.
Wednesday.
Wednesday.
With two yellow pamphlets, to his friend of many years, Varnhagen von Ense, with old admiration and attachment. The author.
On the 29th January, 1852, Varnhagen’s journal reads as follows: “Humboldt came at one o’clock, wonderfully robust for his time of life! Speaks with indignant scorn of thecoup d’étatin France, the undisguised outrage, the arbitrary banishments, and particularly the robbery of the estates of the Orleans family. The Kingwas at first full of rejoicing, he and the court saw nothing offensive in the crime committed against the people, the legislature, the law, and the sanctity of oaths, but that the adventurer preserves universal suffrage, rests upon the people, practises socialism, and even wants to be emperor; this is what makes him detested! Humboldt is of opinion that in the revolution of February the establishment of the Provisional Government, which was immediately obeyed throughout France, was a piece of even greater audacity than the present usurpation of the one man who has already been president, and worn the name of government for three years. I reminded him of the parliament, and the committee of fifty at Frankfort-on-the-Main. In the disposition to acquiesce, he sees that national feeling of unity and cohesion which, among Frenchmen, suppresses all party feeling. Humboldt says there is no doubt that Louis Bonaparte is a son of Admiral Verhuel, and his brother, Morny, a son of General Flahault, who, he says, lived with both the sisters, the Queen of Holland and the Queen of Naples. Of Persigny—Fialin de Persigny—he speaks with the utmost contempt, calling him a raw, unkempt non-commissioned officer, who still arrogates to himself discoveries about the pyramids. Passing on to our own affairs, he deplored the narrowness, the pitiful character of our ministry; he considers Raumer the most stupid of them all, stupid and unmannerlyboth; the King is cross and peevish, capricious, and prone to excuse himself by saying that he is powerless, and must be governed by his ministers.”
On the 30th of January, 1852, Varnhagen adds: “Humboldt takes a lively interest in the widow of the philologist F.; her husband has done much work for him. At Humboldt’s urgent advice, she has petitioned the King for a pension, and Humboldt and Boekh were to support the petition by their signatures. But F. was a democrat, not an active, but an avowed one, and the King might have heard of it. To neutralize this, Humboldt proposed to request Stahl to join in countersigning the petition. His own name can now accomplish nothing with the King! On what days have we fallen, when Humboldt asks Stahl to give him countenance!”