57.HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.

Tuesday,May 4th, 1841.

My Dear Friend:—Even after deducting the kind expressions written expressly for my tranquillity, there still remains more than enough in your letter of to-day to comfort me. The penance,[27]therefore, which I assign you is to receive me to-morrow morning at 11 o’clock, for a few moments, to accept my thanks. The “schmeichle mich” must be a clerical error; as for me I am unconscious of it. The false use of the accusative case at p. 44, you will have to show me. It cannot be “Einsicht in den Zusammenhang?” because it is lookinginto. I shall expunge Mr. Spiker. I had a presentiment of the end, and would rather even omit the English as well, which, after all, is rather a praise of ignorance, than indicative of the increase of enjoyment to be derived from science.

I see that you give me full liberty concerning the “Saturnalia.” Speaking of the Dane, you say: “I only mention, I do not object.”

I did not wish to mention Steffens, however much he might deserve a reproach for his utter barrenness in experimental science, and for his vain and criminal idleness. “Saturnalia” I call that merry but short farce, of which lately I gave you some specimens, but which are not from Steffens; they are by some of his worshippers several degrees lower down. Were Steffens a poor savan, oppressed by the powerful, I would be more careful; but as you are an amateur of autographs, I will give you one from which you will see how northern kings believe that there exists in Berlin a Steffensian philosophy, which is consoling to the theologians,et qui n’est pas celle de Hegel! Steffens will believe that he is included among those deep and powerful thinkers, whose advice has been disregarded. Besides the dangerous passage is immediately followed by another: “Abuse of youthful talents; for serious minds, devoted equally to philosophy and to observation, have kept aloof from those Saturnalia.” Such a sentence is adéfense, afort detaché, and Steffens certainly thinks that he, too, devoted himself to observation, when he once descended into a mine at Freiburg. By softening anything I should spoil the whole, and we ought in writing to show the same courage as in speaking, but should do both in the same easy and cheerful manner.

Did you find out from Steffens’s tiresome biography,with which I was bored at Sans Souci, how his pietism and aristocracy is explained by the twofold inoculation of his old grandparents, performed by an archbishop and a king,—ce sont des heritages!

A. v. Humboldt.

Back to Index Next