205.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Berlin, April 21st, 1857.
To my great regret, dear friend, I cannot accept the kind invitation of yourself and your amiable niece to a cup of coffee on Thursday, as I shall return late and much fatigued from Charlottenburg. During my illness, a number of unimportant matters have accumulated, which must be disposed of after dinner, because they are trumpery affairs of orders and dedications, a presentation of Betel in preference to gifts of money. The fourth class[[93]] operates like Betel chewing, it occupies the time, but affords no nourishment. On Thursday the King hopes to close and settle with me. Be pleased to write Professor Hoffmann, of Wuerzburg, that I am grateful for his torso, but no assistance is to be expected from the King, not only (what you must not write), because something like a holy horror of the Catholic zeal of Baader is rooted in the King’s mind, but also because all literary assistance dwindles down in the cabinet to a present of forty or forty-five thalers. In preference to the publication in the preface of a miserable letter of introduction, which may have been written in a moment of ill-humor, I enclose a memorandum as requested.
With the same friendship as of old,
A. v. Humboldt.
(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.