The pious fragment is an autograph, nearly illegible, and requiring some
emendation in the construction of the sentences; thus on page 11:
Perhaps you prefer the phrase “_bei_ Anerkennung.” The phrase is heavy,
even now.
On p. 14 you will not disapprove of “eben nicht,” in place of “haben nie
gerade,” which is still more vernacular. The four lines stand there like
a fallen aerolith. They must be preserved at all hazards, if only on
account of their _freedom_.
Could not you help out page 13 below somewhat? Is the close of the
phrase “voice of conscience—has laid” clear to you? It is not so to me.
Perhaps a few words would make the sense clear.
Roma, the verses to me from Albano, and all the choruses and Pindarus
will form another volume.
With old affection and profound esteem,
Yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.
The saddest news of Arago’s family; swollen hands and feet, diabetes,
and almost blindness! Forty years of life go with him!!
154.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
BERLIN, _September 2d, 1853_.
A thousand pardons for troubling you in suffering! I have adopted every
suggestion, taken every hint. But I should like also to insert the
reflection you made in regard to p. 6. Would you approve of the
following interpolation: “A long sojourn at Rome, and perhaps a lively
interest in certain epochs of Italian poetry, appear to have imbued my
brother with a particular preference for a little lyric form, which, if
melody is not to be sacrificed, closely fetters the thought, but which
he handled with a freedom, the result of intention and confidence.” Or
would you have it, “which he freely handled with the confidence of a
clear intention,” or, “which he handled with a freedom of which he was
perfectly conscious?” “When the poet, urged by his realistic and
individual peculiarity, felt most keenly the desire of welding ideas
into the flood of sentiment.”
Be good enough to return me your MS., which is a treasure of critical
research.
Very thankfully, yours,
HUMBOLDT.
NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—I selected “which he handled with a freedom of which
he was perfectly conscious,” as most in accordance with the metaphor
of the fetters, and as otherwise clearly indicative of the idea
intended to be conveyed.
Varnhagen reports under date of September 9th, 1853, in his diary:
“Humboldt had advised me of his coming; he came about half-past one
o’clock, and remained till half-past two o’clock, a mere visit, nothing
of business; he felt the necessity of unburdening himself of many
things. First he vented his bitter and indignant scorn on the speeches
of the King in Elbing and Hirschberg, and on the utter absence of vigor,
which makes itself known in such disconnected ebullitions. Then he spoke
with the utmost contempt of von Raumer, the Minister of Public Worship
and Instruction, of his brutality and insolence, his hatred of all
science, his pernicious activity. ‘The King,’ Humboldt said, ‘hates and
despises all his ministers, but this one particularly, and speaks of him
as of an ass; what particularly nettles him is, that Raumer opposes all
the King’s wishes, and he keeps him in office nevertheless, as he keeps
all of them, because he has them, and every change is a troublesome
affair.’ The case of the brothers Schlagintweit was cited as an
instance. The King wished to aid them in their voyage to the Himalaya
Mountains; the minister refused; the King ordered him to hear the
opinion of Humboldt, which was a most favorable one, but Raumer insisted
upon his opinion, which, he said, was not changed by Humboldt. Then the
King, who confessed himself to be powerless against his minister, wrote
to Bunsen, who took the matter in hand, and the brothers Schlagintweit
now receive English aid. And the very same King, who pretends to be so
jealous of his prerogatives, permits them to be thus encroached upon?
‘Yes, sometimes he delights in playing the part of a constitutional
monarch, absolves himself from all responsibility when the matter is a
delicate one, answers demands made upon him by adverting to the
difficulty of obtaining the signatures of his ministers, and even
pretends to regard that “baggage, the state” as something with which he
had little concern, accuses the ministers of forgetting him in their
devotion to that “baggage, the state,” &c., &c.
“‘In the asking of small sums the King often experiences the greatest
resistance, large ones he gets; he is refused three hundred thalers for
a poor scientific man or artist, forty thousand thalers for buying
something, they dare not refuse. What a mess of confusion and disaster!
The King is quite satisfied that he is permitted to cook up church
matters to his heart’s content, for these are considered separate from
the state, no minister has a word in them.’ That I do not understand and
it cannot be so, the ministers I believe have their hands in it too.
‘The meanest fellow of the whole concern is privy counsellor Niebuhr, a
low, canting parasite, full of spite and venom.
“‘Garcia cannot sing here, he said some time ago, she is too red;[59]
all representations, that her singing would not be red, were in vain. At
last I told him to send to Bethania[60] for deaconesses to sing. He will
be happy to see me under the sod.’”
On the 25th of September, Varnhagen narrates in his diary: “They say, on
the presence of Humboldt in the High Ecclesiastical Council, that the
priests had had in their midst their greatest adversary, who puts all of
them to rout—the man of natural science, before whom all their mist and
deceits flow into nothingness. ‘Abaellino is among you!’ one might have
cried out.”
155.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
BERLIN, _Dec. 12th, 1853_.
Again, my noble friend, you have shown your skill in giving me pleasure.
After our departure from Potsdam, which transformed itself entirely into
a Buddhistic “cold hell,” was prevented for a long time by the delicate
health of the Queen, I at last moved over here on Saturday. You have
shed renown upon the Prussian arms, and, what touches me in a more human
manner, on the warrior of many-sided culture.[61] The gallery of your
biographies stands in singular grandeur in our German literature. I am
enraged by the treatment of my friend Arago in the last number of the
“Quarterly Review” (September)—an ebullition of political party spirit,
exactly as I was treated by the same journal from 1810–1818. A note at
the end of the number for September says, with rare _delicacy_, that the
article was written before his death was known; but it was known
generally in London that he had become blind, and that he suffered
infinitely from dropsy, one of the symptoms of which is to fill the mind
with apprehensions.
With ancient gratitude and devotion, and admiration of your talents,
your faithful