KESIDENCE AT BERLIN TO THE REVOLUTION OF JULY. 157 



William von Humboldt to the exclusion of Eumohr and 

 other candidates to be President of the Committee of Ma- 

 nagement of the Museum, consisting of Rauch, Schinkel, 

 Waagen, and others. The post was accepted by William, c with 

 the remarkable proviso,' as Varnhagen relates, 1 c that he should 

 only retain it till the return of his brother.' In reference to 

 this statement we extract the following lines from the letter 

 above quoted from lekaterinbourg : ' I am astonished to find 

 that you are being already deprived of the repose which you 

 were so anxious to preserve after the irreparable loss you have 

 sustained. It arises from the wish to arrange other people's 

 affairs, under pretext of doing them good. I believe that the 

 step is to be attributed to our friends, among whom it was a 

 current saying before my departure that, " we must not let 

 him bury himself at Tegel." .... It is quite certain that the 

 king, who is always so kind and considerate for us, would not 

 have given his consent without the assurance that you would 

 not dislike the appointment, and that it would be of service in 

 distracting your thoughts from your grief.' There could, in- 

 deed, be no doubt that Frederick William was actuated by 

 motives of the most kind and considerate character, since he 

 had already testified his sympathy with William von Humboldt 

 by summoning to Berlin his son-in-law Colonel von JTedemann 

 immediately upon the death of Fran von Humboldt. 2 On this 

 subject Alexander thus continues : c You have made a noble 

 sacrifice, for which I infinitely commend you. I fear I should 

 not have been so complaisant, but the delicate conduct of the 

 king, and the remembrance of his considerate thought of 

 Hedemann at the time of your grief, might well justify this 

 condescension.' To Witzleben, also, who had exerted himself 

 to obtain the appointment, Alexander could only attribute 

 motives of ' the purest attachment.' 



With a keen perception of the advantages that would accrue 

 to ari> from his brother's appointment to the Presidency of the 

 Fine Arts Committee, Humboldt refused to contemplate the 

 possibility of displacing him on his return. ' Your letters, my 

 dear brother, especially the earlier ones, have seriously disturbed 



1 < Blatter/ vol. v. p. 206. 8 Varnhagen, 'Blatter/ p. 199. 



