175.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, April 14th, 1856.
I could not but speak, being the Nestor of Prussian mining officials, and prone to boast of my calling. My reliance upon your indulgence, dear and worthy friend, is so great, that I am emboldened to send even you a copy of these unimportant lines. Count B. deserved this praise. Free from opinion of any kind, he is useful to the art of mining, and still occupies himself with scientific pursuits since he has resigned the direction.
With unshaken constancy, yours,
A. v. Humboldt.
Note by Varnhagen.—Enclosed was the address delivered at the fiftieth anniversary of the entrance into the royal miners of his Excellency the Actual Privy Councillor and Captain of Miners, Count Beust. April 9th, 1856.
176.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, September 11th, 1856.
Knowing the warm interest you take, my dear friend, in the slavery question, and in what concerns myself, I send you the last letter of Gerolt, which was very long in coming, but which will certainly command your attention. Most unfortunately Buchanan will be the next President, and not Fremont, the traveller of great acquirements, who has four times travelled the land route to San Francisco, surveying the country over which he passed, to whom it is owing that California did become a free State. Do not return the letter, nor the enclosure. On the heels of this African absurdity comes another folly, of a more serious cast, though richly fraught with ridicule, not royalistic so much as aristocratically Bernese, and spiced with a little railroad speculation as to whether the route by the way of Neufchatel or that by way of Chaux de Fonds is to be preferred! And the heroic Count,[[81]] who executes the coup d’état à la Napoleon, whence did he derive his inspiration? From Berlin, while we have a minister at the Diet, whom at this day we pretend never to have recognised. How are these things to be reconciled? We shall have a similar fate with our three ultramarine possessions, the Jade, the Zollern, discovered by Columbus Stillfried, and Neufchatel. I feel for the Constantinopolitan Pourtalès, who finds himself involved in an awkward conflict between his dynasty (the Prussian earldom) and his official liberalism. It is fortunate that the mouth of the English Parliament is still closed.
Your faithful