154.HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin,September 2d, 1853.
Berlin,September 2d, 1853.
Berlin,September 2d, 1853.
Berlin,September 2d, 1853.
A thousand pardons for troubling you in suffering! I have adopted every suggestion, taken every hint. But I should like also to insert the reflection you made in regard to p. 6. Would you approve of the following interpolation: “A long sojourn at Rome, and perhaps a lively interest in certain epochs of Italian poetry, appear to have imbued my brother with a particular preference for a little lyric form, which, if melody is not to be sacrificed, closely fetters the thought, but which he handled with a freedom, the result of intention and confidence.” Or would you have it, “which he freely handled with the confidence of a clear intention,” or, “which he handled with a freedom of which he was perfectly conscious?” “When the poet, urged by his realistic and individual peculiarity, felt most keenly the desire of welding ideas into the flood of sentiment.”
Be good enough to return me your MS., which is a treasure of critical research.
Very thankfully, yours,Humboldt.
Very thankfully, yours,Humboldt.
Very thankfully, yours,Humboldt.
Very thankfully, yours,
Humboldt.
Note by Varnhagen.—I selected “which he handled with a freedom of which he was perfectly conscious,” as most in accordance with the metaphor of the fetters, and as otherwise clearly indicative of the idea intended to be conveyed.
Note by Varnhagen.—I selected “which he handled with a freedom of which he was perfectly conscious,” as most in accordance with the metaphor of the fetters, and as otherwise clearly indicative of the idea intended to be conveyed.
Note by Varnhagen.—I selected “which he handled with a freedom of which he was perfectly conscious,” as most in accordance with the metaphor of the fetters, and as otherwise clearly indicative of the idea intended to be conveyed.
Note by Varnhagen.—I selected “which he handled with a freedom of which he was perfectly conscious,” as most in accordance with the metaphor of the fetters, and as otherwise clearly indicative of the idea intended to be conveyed.
Varnhagen reports under date of September 9th, 1853, in his diary: “Humboldt had advised me of his coming; he came about half-past one o’clock, and remained till half-past two o’clock, a mere visit, nothing of business; he felt the necessity of unburdening himself of many things. First he vented his bitter and indignant scorn on the speeches of the King in Elbing and Hirschberg, and on the utter absence of vigor, which makes itself known in such disconnected ebullitions. Then he spoke with the utmost contempt of von Raumer, the Minister of Public Worship and Instruction, of his brutality and insolence, his hatred of all science, his pernicious activity. ‘The King,’ Humboldt said, ‘hates and despises all his ministers, but this one particularly, and speaks of him as of an ass; what particularly nettles him is, that Raumer opposes all the King’s wishes, and he keeps him in office nevertheless, as he keeps all of them, because he has them, and every change is a troublesome affair.’ The case of the brothers Schlagintweit was cited as an instance. The King wished to aid them in their voyage to the Himalaya Mountains; the minister refused; the King ordered him to hear the opinion of Humboldt, which was a most favorable one,but Raumer insisted upon his opinion, which, he said, was not changed by Humboldt. Then the King, who confessed himself to be powerless against his minister, wrote to Bunsen, who took the matter in hand, and the brothers Schlagintweit now receive English aid. And the very same King, who pretends to be so jealous of his prerogatives, permits them to be thus encroached upon? ‘Yes, sometimes he delights in playing the part of a constitutional monarch, absolves himself from all responsibility when the matter is a delicate one, answers demands made upon him by adverting to the difficulty of obtaining the signatures of his ministers, and even pretends to regard that “baggage, the state” as something with which he had little concern, accuses the ministers of forgetting him in their devotion to that “baggage, the state,” &c., &c.
“‘In the asking of small sums the King often experiences the greatest resistance, large ones he gets; he is refused three hundred thalers for a poor scientific man or artist, forty thousand thalers for buying something, they dare not refuse. What a mess of confusion and disaster! The King is quite satisfied that he is permitted to cook up church matters to his heart’s content, for these are considered separate from the state, no minister has a word in them.’ That I do not understand and it cannot be so, the ministers I believe have their hands in it too. ‘The meanest fellow of thewhole concern is privy counsellor Niebuhr, a low, canting parasite, full of spite and venom.
“‘Garcia cannot sing here, he said some time ago, she is too red;[59]all representations, that her singing would not be red, were in vain. At last I told him to send to Bethania[60]for deaconesses to sing. He will be happy to see me under the sod.’”
On the 25th of September, Varnhagen narrates in his diary: “They say, on the presence of Humboldt in the High Ecclesiastical Council, that the priests had had in their midst their greatest adversary, who puts all of them to rout—the man of natural science, before whom all their mist and deceits flow into nothingness. ‘Abaellino is among you!’ one might have cried out.”