(INCLOSURE IN A LETTER FROM HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.)
You ask me, dear friend, what were the earliest impressions produced upon me by Franz Baader! I first saw him in June, 1791, while studying the art of mining in Freiberg, after the journey with George Forster to England, and after my sojourn in the Hamburg Commercial Academy of Buesching and Ebeling. For eight months I enjoyed the daily intercourse of this amiable and gifted man. Franz Baader had then published his work on caloric, and his inclinations were all of a chemico-physical nature, with a slight infusion of ideas on the philosophy of physical science. He was active underground, more occupied with practical mining and furnace operations than with geognostic researches; thorough in the observation of fact, cheerful, and satirical, but always with good taste, and not intolerant of those who differed from him. His imagination was not then specially directed to religious subjects. He was generally popular, and a little feared at the same time, as is so common where there is a consciousness of mental superiority. His political opinions were liberal. It was the period of the Congress of Pillnitz in our neighborhood—a time and a neighborhood which gave occasion to political utterances.
206.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, April 25th, 1857.
“The gate of the oracle, the abyss of the archives of state, analogies leading down to the depths of the sea.” This is inferior to the last letter. Rafael’s manner is not always the same. I am surprised to find that curiosity appears to have led him to avoid seeing —— before the journey to Hanover! Preserve the vapid letter, my dear friend! The bottom of the sea refers to a map of the sea from Newfoundland to Ireland, which I recommended to the Grand Duke, but which is not to be procured because it was published in Carthage by Perthes! The Times flatter themselves, in all seriousness, that the French race is on the point of extinction; well, the pugs are extinct also.
Yours,
A. v. Humboldt.
I have disagreeable rudera of the correspondence with a certain Dr. Gross Hoffinger, in Vienna, who accuses himself of having written against Prussia in 1848, and now asks Prussia to recommend him to the Austrian government. Have you any recollection of him?
Note by Varnhagen.—“Carthage” means Gotha, a town not far from Weimar, but under the sovereignty of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, between whom and his cousin there is a constant rivalry, such as of old existed between Rome and Carthage.
207.
CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.
Your Excellency’s letter was duly received by the hands of Mr. ——. Accept my thanks for these lines, for this new token of your constant kindness to me. The bearer is for the present immersed in the abyss of my archives. As soon as I shall return from Hanover, where an invitation will detain me a few days,[[94]] to seek him out, awaiting further developments at the hand of time, like the people at the gate of the oracle.
Analogies lead me from deep to lower deep, and then I descend from the archives to the bottom of the sea. How am I to obtain the map of which you wrote? When I inquired for it in Gotha, some time ago, the inquiry was futile. So I return to the source, ever rich and bounteous, of whom I subscribe myself the most grateful and obedient
Charles Alexander.
Vienna, April 22d, 1857.
208.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, May 28th, 1857.
I am uneasy, my dear friend, about Weimar. The Grand Duke is everywhere, except in Weimar “Athens.” What will become of our warmly recommended? Has he been spoken to by the eloquent Prince? You have not wished me joy to the order bestowed upon me by the “Hamburg Moniteur” as Grand Officier, which Guizot gave me fifteen years ago. Raumer’s conversation is very interesting; he was at Pesth, at Milan, dined with the Archduke, and called on Cavour. He has again returned with something of a hankering after the Austrian régime in Lombardy, like the Republicans when they visit the United States, where arsenic, the torture, or Fremont-worshipping negroes, cause a criminal colic to Cuba-mad Buchanan. Multa sunt eadem sed aliter. The Russian Minister of Enlightenment, Noroff, who had a leg shot off by the thigh at Borodino, and who has carried his wooden leg to Jerusalem and Egypt, and even to the top of the Pyramids, is here, and attends as a guest, sitting among the students, the lectures of Johannes Mueller and Diderici. His companion, the young Count Ouwaroff, the author of a great work on Hellenic antiquities in the Chersonese, attends the lectures of Michelet and Boeckh. Both are very agreeable men. The former is accused of being over spiritual, but not intolerant; both are much pleased with the freedom of our student life, and with the absence of policemen from our university building. I did not care to disabuse the mind of the one-legged Raumer, as they will leave soon. Decipitur mundus.
With old affection, your tiresome
A. v. Humboldt.
Note by Varnhagen.—“The United States, where arsenic, the torture, or Fremont-worshipping negroes, cause a criminal colic to Cuba-mad Buchanan.” This passage alludes to the circumstance, that at a hotel in Washington, the President, and many others with him, were seized with a violent colic after dinner, so that suspicions of poison were entertained; and it was only after a legal investigation that the whole was found to have been caused by impure water.
By the Translator.—“Fremont-worshipping negroes” must refer to the slaves who were reported to be in insurrection soon after the accession of President Buchanan, in Tennessee or Kentucky, and of whom it was said, that they believed Fremont and all his men to be encamped at the bottom of the Cumberland river, ready to emerge for their delivery.
209.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Potsdam, Thursday. In haste,
June 4th, 1857.
A truly grand ducal letter, indelicate without excuse, cutting off every prospect, as he said “Au revoir” on going away, after the preconcerted shibboleth. Silence as to the costs, which are unnecessarily heavy. You and I shall cease “steering in the ocean of investigation,” as acquaintance with the party proposed does not suffice to determine him. I have a mind to answer somewhat mockingly. It may be agreeable to you, my esteemed friend, to enrich your archives with an autography of Thiers, who is now an Orleanist. Duvergier de Hauranne also came here after a pilgrimage to Eisenach. The Duchess is going to England. Preserve both letters, the bad one and that which is simply good.
Yours,
A. v. Ht.
On Saturday I expect to come to Berlin with the King. The Queen is coming on Monday.
210.
CHARLES ALEXANDER, GRAND DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR, TO HUMBOLDT.
Ettersburg, June 1, 1857.
Your Excellency has probably learned already, that I have seen, repeatedly conversed with, but finally refrained from appointing ——. He interested me, I may say he pleased me, but I thought I could not recognise in him the secretary who could not only keep me informed of everything of moment in the spheres of science, art, and literature, but should attend to my correspondence, my intercourse, verbal and social, in various languages; and to appoint him at hazard I feared to venture. To retreat was, then, the only resource. I did so in order to steer further in the ocean of investigation. Whether you will continue, even in this matter, to cast upon me, as a star of good omen, the light of the goodness ever extended to me—is what I may be permitted to wish, but can hardly be permitted to hope—although we agreed that the acquaintance of the party was not to include his selection.
I shall now retire into various forest solitudes of Thuringia with a number of books, among which I anticipate particular pleasure from the perusal of Barth’s itinerary. I bow in reverence before such endurance in the love of science, before such indomitable energy; how much the more must I do so before his prototype, before you? Remaining your most devoted, most grateful servant,
Charles Alexander.
211.
THIERS TO HUMBOLDT.
(FROM THE FRENCH.)
Paris, May 14th, 1857.
My Dear M. de Humboldt—I take the liberty of commending to your goodness shown so often to myself and to Frenchmen generally, M. Duvergier de Hauranne, who goes to Germany to show it to his young son. You know our country too well for me to tell you what important and always honorable part has been sustained by M. Duvergier de Hauranne in our assemblies, where he has ever been faithful to the cause of rational liberty; and not faithful alone, but eminently useful. Having returned to private life and devoted himself to study, he goes to see your excellent country, and I thought I could not do better than to recommend him to your kindness. To his young son it will be an imperishable recollection to have seen the illustrious savan who does the greatest honor to the century, and whom we Frenchmen have the vanity to consider as French, and belonging to us no less than to Germany.
I do not write on current affairs here, for M. Duvergier de Hauranne knows them, and can make you acquainted with them better than any other man.
Accept the renewed homage of my respectful attachment.
A. Thiers.
212.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, June 19th, 1857.
To my greatest joy, a beautiful portrait of yourself was brought me by Mr. Richard Zeune, during an excursion to Tegel. I know not which most to admire, the fresh, vivid, characteristic likeness of features so dear to me (the talent of the skilful Miss Ludmilla Assing), or the writing of your hand, so pregnant in thought and expression. The latter I have copied myself and shown it to my friends, because it is to be ranked with the best of what our language contains in the sententious compression of ideas. The unexpected arrival of the brothers Schlagintweit from Cashmere, Thibet, and the Kuen Luen mountains, which bound Thibet on the north, as the Himalaya on the south, has unreasonably delayed my acknowledgment of your kindness, as they are going to the King at Marienbad, without, it is to be hoped, the three hundred and forty boxes they have brought with them. All the passes, even those most convenient for travel, are 18,000 feet high. From the liberal grand ducal power (not liberal in the prosaic sense of filthy lucre), not a syllable, probably because he is expecting us to send him fresh proposals, fresh victims. No one but the honorary Hungarian monk[[95]] and the princess is now a riddle to me.
Yours most faithfully,
A. v. Humboldt.
The Emperor Napoleon has adroitly mended what before was dubious, by means of very amiable letters, rich in delicate turns of language, addressed to me by Prince Napoleon (plon plon), and Walewski. As Niebuhr, the Prussian Cabinet Councillor, is publishing a book on Noric Antiquities, nothing remains to cause surprise, not even the FREE canvass for the free election in free France. I believe a few weeks in Branitz will be of benefit to you.
213.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, June 30th, 1857.
I am at a loss for words to express to you, my honored friend, and to the amiable and brilliant artist and authoress, Ludmilla Assing, what pleasure you have provided for my solitude, by “Elisa von Ahlefeldt,” a pleasure still to be enjoyed by all who will deprive me of it for a few days. Who can read without emotion a fate so tender, so simple, told in such glowing language, by Miss Ludmilla; who can escape the most anxious reflections about the tortures of sentiment which the most noble and cultivated of mankind are skilled in inflicting on themselves about passion half-dogmatic in character, for the gratification of which the difficult institution of official marriage is inadequate. Elisa von Ahlefeldt loved Adolph von Luetzow, but only as the vigorous representative of a noble political sentiment. The motive for the disruption of the fetters, indelicate on his part, has something depressing. Immerman wishes to be loved, dreads the constraint of marriage, as Elisa does, but marries nevertheless!! The man who most occupies my thoughts in all these matters is Friesen, who worked so hard with me at the Mexican atlas in 1807, who was so dear to me, and to whom I was so much. I have mentioned him with tenderness in the Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne. Had I known the beautiful work of Miss Ludmilla, I would gladly have offered her a few lines. Her book, however, will go through many editions. As I am unfortunately compelled to go to Tegel for a night, I inquire, my dear friend, whether I may call upon you at three o’clock on Friday, and whether I may hope then to find Miss Ludmilla with you. So much skill in art and literary genius united in one and the same person is a rare luxury. It might lead to misfortunes. The course of the world refuses to admit of great exceptions to its compensatory system of pleasure and sadness.
Your
A. v. Humboldt.
Tuesday.
In great haste, and incorrect.