Since you like everything individual, I shall answer your kindness with another very small one. I make you a present of a letter of Guizot, which he wrote to me to Koenigsberg, not without design. The underlining belongs to me, as you would guess yourself. I showed the letter to the King. It was written when the Belgian (the King of Belgium), Bulow, and Guizot had been in Windsor, and when his affairs looked promising, as they do now again, as Thiers at once shows himself so weak and yielding, and Palmerston so dogmatical and defying. But do not let the letter out of your hands.
For the news about the brothers Grimm I thank you most cordially. It is very important to me to keep “au courant” with the course of passing events. In the months during which I lived on the “historical hill,”[[24]] I moved uncontrolled in the same direction, though surrounded by conflicting elements.
Respecting the brothers Grimm, the King had given orders to others, not to me; but up to the return from Königsberg, nothing was done. I therefore addressed a memorial to the King on the actions in Königsberg of the Provincial Diet, and on the necessity of acting authoritatively in things which interest all hearts, in order to secure their affections—and therefore to bestow a professorship upon the brothers Grimm, Albrecht, and Dahlmann. There is little hope for Dahlmann. Albrecht received a call, but refused it, giving as a reason his gratitude to Saxony. It would have been a satisfaction to the seven professors, could Albrecht have become professor in Berlin.
They certainly will at least hear in Hanover that the King has called the “Elbinger.” In respect to the brothers Grimm, the King insists upon his plan, that minister Eichhorn should offer to them a place in the Academy, with a pension to both, as they live like husband and wife. That the King wants these things to be arranged with tact, you may see from the negotiations with Tieck. For librarians, although excellent men, they are very unfit. Whether Wilhelm Grimm, as a correspondent of the Academy, lectures or not is also very irrelevant. The chief thing is to get them. Of “smuggling them in,” “a debasement,” “to think of them so late,”—dans un regne de cent jours—it is nonsense to talk! It does honor at least to the administration of Ladenberg, that I was able to propose Dahlmann in due form, and in flattering terms for the university of Breslau, where there was a vacancy. I have cleared the way as it was my duty to do, but the appointment itself is not in my hands. As soon as I return from Potsdam, I shall trouble minister Eichhorn, to settle this patriotic affair officially and at once. The interference of many in these things is injurious, although it can be pardoned where the interest is so natural. I know not, my dear friend, whether you will be able and willing to read these lines, the sense of which is more blameless than the style. I need not conjure you, the diplomatist, not to read my letter to the “child,”[[25]] but she ought to hear how these matters stand, respecting which I have neglected nothing.
A. Ht.
An inexpressible misfortune has happened in the death of the only son of my friend the astronomer, Bessel, only twenty-five years old, a young man of the most eminent mathematical talents. He died yesterday of nervous fever.
49.
GUIZOT TO HUMBOLDT.
London, August 24, 1840.
Monsieur le Baron:
It was very amiable indeed in you to have thought of sending me the two new volumes of your brother’s works. I thank you not only for this gift, in itself so very valuable, but also for your remembrance which is at least equally dear to me. I hope that notwithstanding all our affairs, for they are yours as well as mine, I shall manage to read something of this great work. I should like to employ my time in so complete and varied a manner as you occupy yours. Preserve a little of it for the advancement of a good and a wise policy, which though it already owes you much, still needs you.