KESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 83 



arrival at Berlin the Theatre was finished and the Museum in 

 process of erection, Ranch's monument to Bliicher was completed, 

 and had been placed facing the statues of Scharnhorst and 

 Billow : by these works of art was laid the foundation of a 

 style which for a long time received its chief encouragement 

 at Berlin. The interest Humboldt had taken in monumental 

 works of art in Paris naturally inclined him to seek the society 

 of these distinguished artists ; with Rauch this intercourse 

 ripened into friendship, of which we shall hereafter meet with 

 many interesting proofs. But to one of his scientific turn 

 of mind, the sentiments aroused by the contemplation of a 

 building or a statue must always have been of a subordinate 

 character. The works of Schinkel even failed vitally to interest 

 him. In writing of him to Curtius, at a later period, he 

 remarks : ' Schinkel has undoubtedly been the means of awa- 

 kening in Germany a recognition of the principles of Greek 

 art, but these principles have in true German fashion remained 

 with him an abstract idea. The embodiment of his ideas 

 fails to give me pleasure, whether in his completed works or 

 in his fantastic designs for an Acropolis or a Kremlin.' 



It cannot be denied that the productions in elegant literature, 

 which shared with philosophy the chief interest of the intellec- 

 tual life of Berlin, were of a very mediocre description. It is 

 only necessary to recall the names of the most noted writers of 

 that day, Chamisso, Arnim, Alexis, Varnhagen, Streckfuss, and 

 others, to feel how little this faint echo of romance could stir 

 the mind of Humboldt. He who had followed with sympathetic 

 interest the development of the classic literature of his country 

 had, since his absence from Germany, been transplanted from 

 the realm of fancy to a world of stern reality ; he had early for- 

 saken the attractions of poetry for the higher and more absorb- 

 ing interests of politics and science a movement which was not 

 followed by the mass of the educated society of Germany till 

 after the Revolution of July. In his voluntary retirement 

 from the regions of poetry and of systematic philosophy, he had 

 ceased to follow the triumphs of the one, or the progressive 

 inarch of the other. He was quite incapacitated for sympa- 

 thising with the weekly reunions formed by Hitzig, Alexis, 

 Holtei, Chamisso, Varnhagen, Stagemann, and their followers, 



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