(INCLOSURE.)
I cannot, fellow-citizens, more vividly express the profound gratitude I entertain, than by saying, that you have given me as great a pleasure as you have bestowed an unexpected honor. A pleasure such as this shall not be dashed by the question how I can possibly deserve this distinction at the hands of your beautiful city. You have worthily shown, not only that you value her material prosperity, but that you are alive to higher interests, and accord sympathy and respect to efforts directed to the advancement of knowledge, the education of the people, and the general culture of mankind. As a reward for a portion of these efforts, to which my long and chequered life has been devoted, I accept with pride your flattering gift. By the favor of two illustrious monarchs it has been my privilege, for twenty-two years, with but little interruption, to live as your townsman, and to find, in scenery beautiful by nature and art, those inspirations indispensable to a life-like portraiture of nature, which aims to display the workings of the powers of the universe. Grateful for this good fortune, I have adorned almost all my later writings with the historic name which has become dear to me, and in the walls of which the year 1767 witnessed the birth of my brother, whose memory lives in the hearts of those who have preserved a sense of the enlarged proportions of a political life which progresses in obedience to laws inherent in the constitution of society.
A. v. Humboldt.
On receipt of the Honorary Citizenship of Potsdam.
141.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Potsdam, November 4th, 1849.
What pleasure you have given me, dear friend, by so agreeable a communication from England! But on account of my brother’s memory, and in order to reply to those who calumniate me for remaining at this court, I am very anxious to see my response to the deputies of Potsdam correctly printed in a liberal journal. I would like to send it to the “Constitutionelle Zeitung,” which has not yet mentioned the subject. I have no copy, however—nothing but the bit of paper I sent you. Have the goodness to send it back to me soon.
How important is the news from Paris! The forward one may attain the consulate for life (to which the words durée et stabilité seem to refer); but he will fall, nevertheless, and awake the sleeping lion. Liberty will lose nothing by it, and the German statesmen (are there any such besides Herr von Gagern?) will then understand, that in the centre of Europe is the France of 1789, the same, about the nullity of which so many sarcasms have been uttered. The centres of gravity change.
With cordial friendship, yours,
A. Ht.
Sunday.
142.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, March 19th, 1850.
Accept, my dear friend, my heartfelt thanks for the lines you gave M. Rio, whose praises had already been sung to me by Cornelius, Olfers, Radowitz, and the King himself, on account of the book, “De l’Art Chretien.” The new incarnation of a deputy to the Erfurt Parliament, and his supervision in the interest of the Prince President, was unexpected; but Rafael himself was a good deal of a mannerist.
Very truly, and in some suspense,
Yours,
A. v. Humboldt.
Tuesday.
143.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Potsdam, July 2d, 1850.
In the gloomy period of reaction, I am delighted to receive so pleasing a memento at your hand, my dear friend. I am also glad of your journey to Kiel, to the little region where German spirit finds an expression free and consistent. The state of public affairs is like the water-bottle shaken by D’Alembert, in order to produce a mixture of bubbles of different shapes. “Calculez moi cela,” he said, in irony of hydraulic science, of which he was himself so great a professor. Many a bubble will burst before the diplomatists find time to calculate its evanescent figure.
I shall render my heartfelt thanks to Herr von Froloff. I made a futile effort to dissuade him from inserting a mass of explanations and metaphors, intended to facilitate comprehension. He wished to accomplish what is absolutely impossible, and seemed to have but little understanding of the form of composition. I shall say nothing more to him about all that. Hybrids are never successful in literature.
I was extremely unwell, confined to my bed even; but now, in spite of the dispersion of all matters of interest, I am well, industrious, and not cheerful.
In friendship as of old, yours,
A. v. Humboldt.
144.
HUMBOLDT TO BETTINA VON ARNIM.
(Copy in Varnhagen’s Handwriting.)
Berlin, June 7th, 1851.
You could not doubt, dear lady Baroness, that I would respond with the greatest warmth to your wishes for a composer of such sterling merit as * * * * In consequence of malignant prejudices against music, originated by my brother, and transmitted through the King to me, my voice upon a subject which no one ever mentions to me, is somewhat lacking in tone, particularly when church music is in question. What with Warsaw, Olmuetz, Russian Grand Dukes, and, to name something of a higher order, Rauch’s inspiring master-piece, it was impossible hitherto to obtain a hearing. Warsaw is now succeeded by Hanover, by the visit to your royal friend and mine. I have not yet seen our monarch at Potsdam again, and surrounded by all the horrors of a cosmic transmigration, shall wait for the returning tide from Warsaw (the alluvium of Batavian and Mecklenburgh highnesses), and when the rock-bound seas are calm again, I shall go to work systematically, as your cheerful and genial letter inspires me. But at this gloomy period everything oral is unheard, and what is written is scarcely noticed. The latter, however, is an insuperable necessity. In order, then, to accomplish so attainable a purpose, a very brief writing addressed immediately to the King, will be required, to be delivered by me with a warm recommendation. Our excellent friend asks the King for a trifling assistance in point of funds, to enable him to travel to Munich. The statement of a specific amount is not necessary, but it will simplify the matter. The man’s delicate sense of honor will not be offended by my suggestion, as the request is made not for himself, but for a noble service to the cause of art.
With all devotion and grateful reverence, your most faithful and obedient
A. v. Humboldt.
145.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Potsdam, November 1st, 1851.
You have given me an inexpressible pleasure, my dear, my noble friend, by your kind letter. I am heavily in your debt, and my long silence and apparent neglect might have provoked some suspicions of coolness or diversity on matters of opinion. With a man of your mind and goodness of heart I ought to have entertained no such apprehensions. Before I received your dear letter with Baader’s portrait, it was my intention to bring you personally the third volume of Kosmos (two parts in one), now finished with great difficulty, and which unfortunately is exclusively astronomical. I was certain of a kind reception, and your letter of the 24th of October, which had been left behind in my house at Berlin, confirmed my purpose. Ottilie von Goethe gives me cheering news in regard to your health. As usual you will combat her opinion. But what astonished me was, that the president of the council, usually cold as a glacier, was delighted with Ottilie, and is entirely disposed to gratify her wish for the appointment of Wolfgang, at the Prussian embassy at Rome. Was it necessary, however, for Wolfgang, after publishing a very able little work on Nature and Legislation, to go to press with a collection of poems, containing but rare gleams of imagination?
Written with the devotion of better days, in a time of gloom and feebleness, by
A. v. Humboldt.
On the 24th of November, 1851, Varnhagen wrote in his diary: “Backbiters are busy with Humboldt. Littleness and mediocrity, conscious of their nothingness beside him, combine their envy and spite, and thereby hope to be something. The one comes to the other with smiles, and makes him the confidant of the dislike he entertains, and of the foibles and defects he claims to have detected. The other welcomes the suggestion, responds with similar remarks, they clasp each other’s hands, and are fast friends in enmity of the hero. Those who pretend to be the most faithful lend themselves to such intrigues. Singly they amount to nothing, but when lumped together they constitute a stumbling-block, which obstructs the light of day, interferes with what is good, and destroys life and spirits: such vermin tormented Goethe, and now they torment Humboldt. I know these fellows by experience; in Rahel’s time I have seen my fill of it! The brothers, the nieces, how glad they would be to make common cause with the most inferior beings, to place their united mediocrity above the genial power of heart and mind, by which even they were yet constantly lighted and warmed! Humboldt’s weak points are well known, he does nothing in secret, men see him as he is; but his greatness is unimpaired, the greatness of his mind and the equal greatness of his heart. And eighty years—what a bulwark! Who will dare assail it?”
146.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, January 28th, 1852.
Here is my Cosmic present, my dear friend! I choose not to bring it myself lest it should seem that I dare not come without it. Cast a look at p. 1–25, Mars p. 511, and the concluding passage p. 625–631.
I may call to-morrow, Thursday, at one o’clock, may I not? I shall be sure to come.
With the old attachment, which will never grow cold,
A. v. Humboldt.
Wednesday.
With two yellow pamphlets, to his friend of many years, Varnhagen von Ense, with old admiration and attachment. The author.
On the 29th January, 1852, Varnhagen’s journal reads as follows: “Humboldt came at one o’clock, wonderfully robust for his time of life! Speaks with indignant scorn of the coup d’état in France, the undisguised outrage, the arbitrary banishments, and particularly the robbery of the estates of the Orleans family. The King was at first full of rejoicing, he and the court saw nothing offensive in the crime committed against the people, the legislature, the law, and the sanctity of oaths, but that the adventurer preserves universal suffrage, rests upon the people, practises socialism, and even wants to be emperor; this is what makes him detested! Humboldt is of opinion that in the revolution of February the establishment of the Provisional Government, which was immediately obeyed throughout France, was a piece of even greater audacity than the present usurpation of the one man who has already been president, and worn the name of government for three years. I reminded him of the parliament, and the committee of fifty at Frankfort-on-the-Main. In the disposition to acquiesce, he sees that national feeling of unity and cohesion which, among Frenchmen, suppresses all party feeling. Humboldt says there is no doubt that Louis Bonaparte is a son of Admiral Verhuel, and his brother, Morny, a son of General Flahault, who, he says, lived with both the sisters, the Queen of Holland and the Queen of Naples. Of Persigny—Fialin de Persigny—he speaks with the utmost contempt, calling him a raw, unkempt non-commissioned officer, who still arrogates to himself discoveries about the pyramids. Passing on to our own affairs, he deplored the narrowness, the pitiful character of our ministry; he considers Raumer the most stupid of them all, stupid and unmannerly both; the King is cross and peevish, capricious, and prone to excuse himself by saying that he is powerless, and must be governed by his ministers.”
On the 30th of January, 1852, Varnhagen adds: “Humboldt takes a lively interest in the widow of the philologist F.; her husband has done much work for him. At Humboldt’s urgent advice, she has petitioned the King for a pension, and Humboldt and Boekh were to support the petition by their signatures. But F. was a democrat, not an active, but an avowed one, and the King might have heard of it. To neutralize this, Humboldt proposed to request Stahl to join in countersigning the petition. His own name can now accomplish nothing with the King! On what days have we fallen, when Humboldt asks Stahl to give him countenance!”
147.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, Feb. 5th, 1852.
I believe, my dear friend, that the letter I have just received, will greatly confirm your ideas about Paris. Galuski, the translator of the second volume of Kosmos, is a man of noble instincts, great talents, and much philological learning, but very moderate in his love of liberty. What he says of his first impression, is a pretty impudent expression of this moderation. He also was seized with a marvellous dread of coming events. My opinion has always been that the wildest republic cannot do so much and such enduring harm to the intellectual progress of mankind, and to their consciousness of right and honor, as le régime de mon oncle, le despotisme éclairé, dogmatique, milieux, which applies all the arts of civilization to subject a people to the caprices of an individual. Read, to increase your abhorrence of such degradation, which threatens to spread like a pestilence, in the “Journal des Debats” of this morning (February 3d), the reasons for drawing up a list of recommendations of those who might be elected (according to the “Constitutionnel).” The “Spenersche Zeitung” of yesterday did not fail to follow suit with a communication in favor of a similar set of proposals for our second chamber!
I hope soon to procure for you the Histoire de l’Académie (by Bartholmess). I have made many vain efforts to advance the interests of Professor F.’s widow.
Your most attached,
A. Humboldt.