352 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



interest and respect. I frequently recall the visit I once paid 

 you, and never can I forget the kindness with which you showed 

 me your valuable manuscripts. The remembrance of these 

 hours is deeply engraved on my heart, where they will ever be 

 affectionately cherished. Since last I saw you my life has alto- 

 gether changed, it has become so much more beautiful and 

 glorious ; my domestic happiness has increased and strength- 

 ened, and my darling infant has brought me a joy such as I 

 had never anticipated. Could I but show you my little 

 treasure, I am sure you would rejoice with me, but even unseen 

 I cannot but commend it to your sympathies.' Letters be- 

 tokening a friendship equally sincere were received by Hum- 

 boldt from the grand duke. 



The arrival in Berlin of the Princess Royal of England was 

 greeted by Humboldt with the liveliest joy ; c she cannot be 

 too highly praised,' he wrote, ' for intelligence, sweetness of 

 disposition, and frankness.' In writing to the Princess of 

 Prussia in the autumn of 1856, he besought her not to remain 

 too long in the ' far West,' away from her daughter-in-law, so 

 that the daughter of Albion, accustomed to the affectionate 

 intercourse of a family circle, should not be left too long alone 

 in the arid atmosphere of a foreign court. 



It will readily be conceived that with the deepest personal 

 sympathy for the distressing affliction of the king, Humboldt 

 could not but regard the change necessary in the Government as 

 one likely to promote the interests of the country. Instead of 

 the half-measure of appointing a deputy, Humboldt would have 

 preferred that the regency soon found to be inevitable had been 

 at once declared. ' A deputy-Grovernment, thus weakened by 

 conflicting elements,' he wrote to Curtius on November 25, 1857, 

 c and hampered by a thousand constraints, to which is added 

 the necessity of acting with men who have set themselves in 

 opposition to everything which a new Government seemed to 

 promise, fills me with grief for the noble Prince of Prussia, who 

 has shown a spirit of so much self-sacrifice in the path of duty. 

 His conduct is most exemplary, and he and his noble son pre- 

 serve an admirable demeanour towards the invalid no longer able 

 to take any interest in public affairs, and the queen who shows 



