My family comes from Northern Pomerania. My brother and I were for a long time the last of our name. My mother’s maiden name was Colomb, cousin of the Princess Bluecher, and therefore niece of the old President in Aurich (Ostfriesland). She was first married to a Baron von Holwede. From this marriage sprung my step-brother Holwede, formerly in the regiment of gensdarmes. To my mother belongs the merit of having procured for us, at the instigation of old privy-councillor Kunth, a thorough education. Wilhelm, for the first years, was educated by our tutor Campe. The foundation of his profound attainments in Grecian lore was laid by Loeffler, the author of a liberal book on the New Platonism of the Fathers of the Church; he then was a chaplain in the army, and afterwards chief ecclesiastical counsellor at Gotha. Fischer, of the Graue Kloster, instructed Wilhelm in Greek for many years; he had, what is little known, a profound knowledge of Greek, besides that of mathematics. That Engel, Reitemeier, Dohm, and Klein lectured to us for a long time on philosophy, jurisprudence, and political science, is known to you. When at the University of Frankfurt (for six months) we lived with Loeffler, who was Professor there. In Goettingen, both of us were members (for one year) of the Philological Seminary of Heyne.
To my father belonged Tegel (formerly a hunting chateau of the great Elector, and it was consequently only a leasehold property. Wilhelm first possessed the place in fee-simple, as a manor; therefore Schinkel added to it four towers, in order to preserve the old tower erected under the great Elector). Besides this, he owned Ringenwalde, near Soldin, in the Neumark. Ringenwalde afterwards belonged to me, then to the Counts Reeden and Achim Arnim. Wilhelm, at the time of his death, possessed Tegel, Burgoerner, and Auleben (acquired by his wife, as the fiefdom of the Dacheroeden family had been abolished), Hadersleben, in the Magdeburg country, and Castle Ottmachau, in Silesia, the dotation given to him after the Paris peace.
The Sonnet I., 394, refers to a second child, I believe, which Frau von Humboldt lost when at Rome. One was buried in Paris.
I conjure you do not mention to the author anything as coming from me. He would inevitably state it in the preface, and then I should become responsible for a great many things which I dread.
Pardon the stercoran-like[[33]] loquacity.
A. Ht.
Note by Varnhagen.—He probably had just read of the Stercoranists in Strauss’s “Glaubenslehre.” Hence this allusion.
65.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
Thursday, 31st March, 1842.
On my return from Potsdam with the King I received the “Loa-Tseu,” a work with a peculiar flavor of ante-Herodotian antiquity. Your note accompanying the Chinese philosopher impresses me painfully. I find that you have not yet received the courage arising from a consciousness of restored physical strength. That the vigor of your intellect never suffered is shown in each of your letters. I think I have not lost any of them. About a week ago I wrote you a long one of four pages about that “Christianly-dogmatising philosopher,” and my reply to the inquiries of the “Biographer,” who pestered me with his pietistic curiosity. Did that letter come to hand safely? It contained also much chit-chat on my brother’s first erudition. You don’t make any mention of my talkativeness. I trust it will not be a source of trouble to me. We have succeeded with Buelow. He may be here next Saturday. It may be the beginning of something good; or the end of it—le bouquet—the stage effect of foot-lights. I met with Tholuk and Bekedorff yesterday at Potsdam at dinner. No other occasion would have favored me with their apparition. With constant devotion yours,