196.VARNHAGEN TO HUMBOLDT.
Berlin,Feb. 9th, 1857.
Berlin,Feb. 9th, 1857.
Berlin,Feb. 9th, 1857.
Berlin,Feb. 9th, 1857.
Your Excellency will receive, accompanying this, with my most hearty thanks, the book so kindly lent me. I have read it with varied emotions, I might say with painful interest. True, the author makes concessions, and opens up points of view, which I should not have expected any more than the luxurious learning of his manifold citations. But the pretty collection of notes fails to mantle the kernel of the text, which is extremely bitter; the apology of negro slavery, the brutal praise of warfare and of standing armies, and the beneficence ofaristocraticrevolutions, in spite of his far-fetched compliments, which look like invitations to be converted, the author really offers nothing but the fare of the “Kreuz Zeitung,” in a preparation somewhat more delicate than that of Professor Leo, whose “mire of cultivation” and “scrofulous rabble” are here cooked up with spices.Latet anguis in herba!I must say that I always take the alarm when philosophers undertake to measure the course and the stage of human development, and to combine the meagre dates of ourpuny history, of at most a few thousand years, with laws for the possibilities of millions of years. Neither Fichte, nor Schelling, nor Steffens, nor Hegel, were particularly fortunate in their essays; the assignment of the ages is best left to the poets. What is especially singular in our author is that he confesses to a strong doubt of his own doctrine, for he “cannot practically renounce the national Ideal of a restored emperor and empire, although his theoretical faith in their realization is slight” (p. 157). One who writes thus has written his own sentence. A friendly answer at the hands of your Excellency the author may hope to receive, an approving one you will not be able to give him.
To hear that your welfare, your activity, your energy, continue unaltered and progressive, is refreshing and encouraging to us authors, who stand in need of great example to protect us from flagging in our daily work,ολίγον τε φίλον τε. The views of the new volume of Kosmos give me great delight, and, as Schiller said when Goethe produced one of his masterpieces, “I thank the gods that they have suffered me to live to see it.”
The Neufchatel affair, even in its present stage, has in it much that is disheartening, and I was from the first opposed to our negotiations at Paris, which had all the appearance of snares, in which much may yet be entangled. The zeal displayed by many is not at all sincere, but seems an excellent means for the attainment ofother ends, and will probably be successful. Nevertheless, I am without anxiety for the future, the light cannot be extinguished and must triumph; it is only the moment of darkness that is hard to bear.
With the best wishes, in the greatest veneration and devotion,
I remain your Excellency’s most obedient,Varnhagen von Ense.
I remain your Excellency’s most obedient,Varnhagen von Ense.
I remain your Excellency’s most obedient,Varnhagen von Ense.
I remain your Excellency’s most obedient,
Varnhagen von Ense.