243 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



' exhilarating power produced by such exercises upon youth- 

 thai primeval, indestructible, and ever-renewed institution of 

 mankind ; ' it concludes with the comprehensive words : ' We 

 do not live in sad, but in very earnest times. All action will be 

 retarded, if suspicion be allowed to rob us of our best powers. 

 Affectionately attached to your person, and enthusiastically 

 devoted to the splendour of your government and the glory 

 of my country, I feel deeply grieved when your noble inten- 

 tions are in danger of being misunderstood. There are many 

 estimable men who, from love to your Majesty, would gladly see 

 me banished to the halls of Tegel, or expatriated once more 

 beyond the Ehine.' To console Humboldt as quickly as possible, 

 the king wrote on the back of the letter : ' Heartiest thanks, 

 dearest Humboldt. Herr Bodelschwingh will recall Massmann. 

 In great haste, yours faithfully as ever, Fr. W.' 



These instances furnish proofs of Humboldt's direct influence 

 upon the king a species of influence which Humboldt ever 

 regarded as distinct from that unconscious power emanating 

 like an ' atmosphere.' * In matters purely political his influ- 

 ence was mainly of this description. In the spring of 1847, 

 he confessed to Varnhagen that ' upon the affairs of the Cham- 

 bers,' the most important question at that time agitating 

 political life, the king had never spoken to him a word. 2 

 Nevertheless, he never allowed himself to grow weary in his 

 self-sacrificing efforts to render the mind of his sovereign sensi- 

 tive to the tone of public feeling. He took in the ' Journal 

 des Debats ' solely in the hope of kindling in the monarch a 

 love for liberal sentiments through the elegant form in which 

 they were there presented. Eanke remarked with admiration 

 how the aged man, while standing under a lamp in the middle 

 of the room, would patiently read out articles of a column's 

 length before the select circle at Potsdam. The direct influ- 

 ence that he exerted, therefore apart from that exercised, 

 directly or indirectly, upon scientific subjects may be said 

 never to have extended to any specific question in politics or 

 rights of government ; it was directed much more to the culti- 

 vation of grand, general principles, as, for instance, tolerance, 



1 Letter to Gauss of July 3, 1842. 



2 ' Briefe an Varnhagen/ p. 238 j see also ' Briefe an Bunsen,' p. 84. 



