150.HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin,March 13th, 1853.
Berlin,March 13th, 1853.
Berlin,March 13th, 1853.
Berlin,March 13th, 1853.
The confusion of my lonely life, my dear friend of many years, at a time of such profound moral degradation, leaves me in a harassing uncertainty as to whether I have or have not sent you the seventh volume of my brother’s complete works. I am greatly ashamed, but I know that you have not yet learned to be angry with me. The article against Capodistrias, the demand for the surrender of Strasburg, sounds like the irony of fate upon our present humility....
With ancient love and reverence, yours,A. v. Humboldt.
With ancient love and reverence, yours,A. v. Humboldt.
With ancient love and reverence, yours,A. v. Humboldt.
With ancient love and reverence, yours,
A. v. Humboldt.
The death of Leopold von Buch bows me deeply. A happy blending of the most noble, philanthropic sentiments, momentary impulses, and a little despotism of opinion; one of the few men who have a physiognomy. He has given a new form to his science; he was one of the greatest illustrations of our times; our friendship has endured sixty-three years, unruffled, although we often tilled the same field. I found him, in Freiberg, in 1791, where he had come to the Mining Academy before myself, although five years younger. His funeralappeared like a prelude to my own, C’est comme cela que je serai dimanche. And in what a condition do I leave the world—I who lived in 1789? But centuries are as seconds in the mighty development of advancing humanity. The swelling curve, however, has its little indentations, and it is irksome to be found in such an interval of decadence.