NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—As a comfort for his eighty years, I had written to
Humboldt that even these could be transformed into a comparative
youth, as appeared by Fontenelle’s example, who, at the age of a
hundred years, attempted to pick up a fan dropped by a lady, and,
unable to do it as quickly as he wished, exclaimed, “_Que n’ai je
plus mes quatre vingt ans!_” Of Friedrich Schlegel I had told him,
that shortly before his death, he prophesied to Tieck, at Dresden,
that, at no very remote period, though he could not exactly define
it, a mighty change would take place in the heavens, the great
constellations would leave their places, and combine to form an
immense cross.
152.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
BERLIN, _August 15th, 1853_.
Separated from you, my dear intellectual friend, by the prolongation of
my dreary sojourn at Potsdam, my first approach to you is to petition.
You, you alone are my literary adviser, you who combine such depths of
feeling with so wonderful a command of the harmonies of language. In my
extreme old age, timidity in regard to my own powers increases in an
almost morbid degree. A separate volume is to contain a selection of the
sonnets of my brother, in which there is not always a perfect consonance
between form and substance. I crave your permission to come to you
to-morrow, Tuesday, at one o’clock, to read you a preface I have been
compelled to write! By all means send a verbal assent by the bearer.
With indestructible friendship, yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.
153.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
BERLIN, _August 31st, 1853_.
For once in this gloomy time, when a fell simoom blows from the Pruth to
the Tajo, I have had a real and a keen delight—your return, your
encouraging message, and even the assistance I implored. Your superb
letter finds me at the _bon à tirer_ of a little, I hope unpretending,
preface to the sonnets. As it will be unfortunately impossible to-morrow
(on Friday the King arrives at Potsdam, when I must hand him a good many
things, according to promise), I take the liberty of sending you my
proof sheets this evening.
I beseech you to be severe in your treatment of these sheets, with which
I have incorporated a remarkable fragment (in illustration of the ideas
and frames of mind manifested in the “Letters to a Lady Friend”) and to
note on a separate piece of paper what I ought to _alter_, and
especially what I ought to _substitute_. I follow _you_ implicitly.