39.HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Wednesday Afternoon,Feb. 26th, 1840.
Wednesday Afternoon,Feb. 26th, 1840.
Wednesday Afternoon,Feb. 26th, 1840.
Wednesday Afternoon,Feb. 26th, 1840.
I deem myself unfortunate, dear friend, in having missed you. I have been suffering from a miserable little boil on my foot, and went to-day (for the first time) to my neighbor, Leopold von Buch. Best thanks for Sesenheim.[23]You certainly were right in snatching the little work from oblivion, a work which possesses a German character in the highest degree, and derives a tender interest from your preface. There is in this little work a nice appreciation of what must ever be important and sacred to a German in his literature. The author searches Sesenheim and Drusenheim as others do the Troade. The proper names, alas! are less poetic. The passages (p. 12 and 13), are written in a charming style; afterwards the philologist becomes heavy and doubtful about what he only half examined; doubtful, as if he had superficially read an old code. Whether the sistersof Friederike, “of whom one has not to care at all” (p. 48), whether the Catholic clergyman who, according to some, caused, and according to others, did not cause, and then did cause her fall, will rejoice at all this, I do not dare myself to decide. About the Troade and the Skamander, they never could exactly determine, and Helen had to suffer much from Hellenic gossip.
In old friendship most gratefully,
Yours,A. v. Hdt.
Yours,A. v. Hdt.
Yours,A. v. Hdt.
Yours,
A. v. Hdt.