185.METTERNICH TO HUMBOLDT.
Koenigswart,October 14th, 1856.
Koenigswart,October 14th, 1856.
Koenigswart,October 14th, 1856.
Koenigswart,October 14th, 1856.
My old Friend!—I received gratefully the information on the stele which Herr Brugsch calls by my name, and I beg of you to hand over to the learned investigator the words you find inclosed. After my return to Vienna, I shall avail myself of the interpretation, already so instructive, of the monument, to point out the wayto archæologists in which they may obtain copies, by an advertisement. I did not doubt that I could not do better than to address you for light on the scientific value of the present of Mehemed Ali, which for many years slept in my multifarious collections, and of which I was quite ignorant. May you and Herr Brugsch receive my most sincere thanks.
I have had the good fortune to find the King in excellent health, and in the usual kind disposition towards myself. Great recollections in long lives are a fine bond between man and man, the power of which is well tried when it has resisted the storms of time. It is more than half a century since my first intercourse with the young heir-apparent. What vicissitudes have occupied this long interval is matter of history. That they have never deprived me of the confidence of the two kings, father and son, is with me a source of pride—that is to say, of a sensation which the term peace of mind and heart would better characterize than the unsafe word that has escaped my pen.
You, three years my senior, have just celebrated your eighty-seventh birth-day. That you and I have understood “the art of living,” we may confess. That we shall do well to cultivate it still longer, is not to be denied.
With sincere friendship and esteem,Metternich.
With sincere friendship and esteem,Metternich.
With sincere friendship and esteem,Metternich.
With sincere friendship and esteem,
Metternich.