“As often and so sure as you base your church upon human obtuseness, the
gates of the mind will not prevail against it, because there will always
be consummate fools, old fools, and little fools, to uphold and repair
it. Pure reason has not the same chance.”
Yours, ever devotedly,
JOBARD.
191.
LINES BY VARNHAGEN ON HILDEBRANDT’S PAINTING OF HUMBOLDT’S APARTMENTS,
AND THE MOTTO ATTACHED.
(TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GOEPP, ESQ., AT EASTON, PA.)
This was the latest, the peaceful home, where the mighty explorer,
Early ascender of summits, reposed on the heights of his glory.
Hall of the Castle of Knowledge, the limner has deftly restored thee!
Lofty and light, rich hung with trophies of noble endeavor;
Treasures of nature and art, and of love, and the weapons of science.
While in the midst sits, earnestly glad, thoughtfully commanding
All the profusion around, himself thy sovereign, breathing
Speech and significant life into every shape of the picture;
Plying the wonderful shuttle of thought, until it produces,
Painting and painted at once, fresh images, brighter and brighter.[87]
VARNHAGEN VON ENSE.
BERLIN, _December 1st, 1856_.
192.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
BERLIN, _December 3d, 1856_.
So my pedestrian prose has led you back, my friend, to the regions of
the noblest of rhythms! It would make me proud, if the universe were not
entitled to your favor. With even more modesty than the poor, for whose
benefit the old man with the moss-grown beard[88] exhibits himself for
the small compensation of five silver groschen. With what excellent
taste you have transferred the English “_home_” into “_Daheim_.”
Indescribably beautiful is your poetry, full of grace and delicacy, and
of a solemn monition of what should have been extracted from nature and
art, and the weapon of science. If my brother William, who, in his
correspondence with Wolf, discoursed so largely on lax and severe
hexameters, could but have lived to witness this family honor!
Your advice, even when not clothed in verse, is law to me. I shall
follow it at once; and you have made matters a great deal easier than
they were. _Alea jacta sit!_ Could you, perhaps, dear friend, transfer
the last ten syllables (or lines) of the Grand Ducal letter into your
classic chirography, so as possibly to enable me to guess what it is
that I am understood to have promised.
Fremont’s portrait reminds one vividly of Chateaubriand. A biography of
the former has just appeared in New York, dedicated to me—“Memoirs of
the Life and Public Services of John Charles Fremont, by John Bigelow
(?).” The dedication says; “To Alexander von Humboldt this memoir of one
whose genius he was among the first to discover and acknowledge, is
respectfully inscribed by the author.” Delicate words, a little
artificially combined. There is a copy of the letter written to him from
Sans Souci, in the King’s name, in 1850, accompanying the great prize
medal for science and art, upon his having projected the most extensive
barometrical level ever executed, from Missouri to the South Sea. It
closes with the words of which Sans Souci has no reason to be ashamed:
“_La Californie, qui a_ NOBLEMENT résisté à l’introduction _de
l’esclavage_, sera dignement représentée par _un ami de la liberté et
des progrès de l’intelligence_.”[89] The biography has passages of a
strange romantic interest. At one time cold and hunger have driven a
party to fury and almost phrensy, when they all pray and sing, and then
an oath from Fremont that there shall not in any case be a resort to
cannibalism. As soon as my own curiosity is satisfied I shall send you
the book. For the present, you may occupy yourself with the miracle
performed by the chaplain of an army division in Magdeburg, on a Mr.
Assemann, in Quedlinburg. I have lighted upon it in my capacity of
naturalist. It is to be found on p. 34.
Gratefully yours,
A. V. HUMBOLDT.
NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—The water color paintings by Hildebrandt, that of
Humboldt among them, were exhibited in the hall of the Art Union,
for the benefit of the poor. Price of admission, five
silber-groschen.[90]
Suicide a Folly and a Crime; Two Sermons by Dr. Crusius, Chaplain of a
Division of the Army: Magdeburg, 1855. 8vo. The miracle consists in
this, that one, who under the qualms of a guilty conscience, was
long occupied with thoughts of suicide, was suddenly cured of them,
permanently, by an invocation of the name of Jesus. The production
is also remarkable as containing, on p. 34, the following allusion
to Schleiermacher: “It is said of a distinguished divine, that he
was once sorely tempted to commit suicide. Such is the influence
which suffering of body and mind may exercise even upon good and
godly men.”
193.
HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN.
BERLIN, _December 17th, 1856_.
Another grateful, unconstrained, and amiable letter from the Grand Duke.
He fixes February for the visit, and desires the drama to open with a
request to search the archives. The permission being given, the material
part is to follow, as he says, symbolically. You will arrange that with
care, my dear friend. We are approaching the goal of our wishes.
I have another funeral to-morrow at the column in Tegel, which, under
the hand of Thorwalsden, promises _Hope_. The oldest niece (daughter) of
my brother, the wife of General Hedemann, born in Paris in 1800, a few
days after Madame von Humboldt’s return from Spain, has departed after
much suffering (liver complaint connected with dropsy), an amiable,
cheerful housewife, who enjoyed good health for forty years in a very
happy marriage. I live to bury all my kith and kin.
Yours,
A. V. H.