187.HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin,November 21st, 1856.
Berlin,November 21st, 1856.
Berlin,November 21st, 1856.
Berlin,November 21st, 1856.
I yesterday prayed, dear friend, that you should make me the pleasure of your visit on Saturday. Ipray to-day that you will not come; I hear with sorrow that you suffer much. The great picture of Hildebrandt remains yet a long time in my house. Every later day will also be useful to me. I only beg of you that you will kindly announce to me the day, beforehand, on which I may expect you. Choose the twelfth hour, under any circumstances, because I am sure to be free then. I also am in a condition in which I desire torun out of my skin.[85]As an old man, I suffer as from musquito bites; and moreover, a hyper-christian, Mr. Foster (living at Brussels), consults me from time to time, whether I believe that the souls of the lower animals, such as bed-bugs and musquitoes, are included in the scheme of salvation, and destined to go to heaven. So they threaten me up there too, where I shall find the animal souls, well known to me from the Orinoco, chanting a hymn of praise.
In old friendship, yours,A. v. Humboldt.
In old friendship, yours,A. v. Humboldt.
In old friendship, yours,A. v. Humboldt.
In old friendship, yours,
A. v. Humboldt.
Friday.
Friday.
Friday.
Friday.
And the disgraceful party which sells negro children, and distributes canes of honor, as the Russian Emperor does swords of honor, and Graefe’s noses of honor,—who prove that all white workmen should rather be slaves than free—have succeeded. What a crime!
Nov. 22d, 1856.—Varnhagen writes in his diary:—“I started at half-past 12 o’clock, and drove to Humboldt in the pouring rain. He was rejoiced at my coming, and soon led me to an adjoining room, where hung Hildebrandt’s great aquarelle picture, in a frame; an excellent picture, indeed, in the rich variety of which the sitting figure of Humboldt predominates. Now came the question about the inscription to be chosen for it. I had rightly expected that he did not so much expect propositions from me, as my approval of those chosen by him already. Contrary to my expectation, no short sentence, but a longer speech, a rhetorical composition, which happily compares the searching traveller with the returned man of science. Some alterations were approved in the beginning, but disapproved again in the end. Hildebrandt gave the picture not to Herr von Humboldt, but to his valet Seiffert. It is to be engraved. We looked at the rooms, in three of them; his apparatus of study is strewn about; all three warmed to 19 degrees Réaumur, an intolerable temperature for me. A library hall not warmed. Pictures painted by Madame Gaggiotti, whose talents he praised highly; he wondered and rejoiced that I knew her too. He complained of itching; I said it was a well-known complaint, pruritus. “Senilis,” he immediately added. In a box he had a living chameleon, which he showed me, and of which he said, that it was the only animalwhich was able to direct one of its eyes upwards, and at the same time the other downwards; that our parsons only were able to do the same, with one eye directed to heaven and the other to the good things of this world. We talked of Neufchatel too; he said that the King was full of good hopes, and counted upon Louis Bonaparte; that Manteuffel did not see things in such a favorable light, but made merry of them. The Russian Chancellor, Graf von Nesselrode, said to Humboldt on his last visit, that the present constitution and position of Switzerland made the best impression on him, and were such as to win esteem and favor for the republic.”