Humboldt's Letters. 75 



HUMBOLDT TO YARNHAGEN. 



WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, Feb. 26to, 1840. 

 I DEEM myself unfortunate, dear friend, in having 

 missed you. I have been suffering from a miserable little 

 boil on my foot, and went to-day (for the first time) to my 

 neighbor, Leopold von Buch. Best thanks for Sesen- 

 heim.* You certainly were right in snatching the little 

 work from oblivion, a work which possesses a German cha- 

 racter in the highest degree, and derives a tender inte- 

 rest from your preface. There is in this little work a 

 nice appreciation of what must ever be important and 

 sacred to a German in his literature. The author searches 

 Sesenheim and Drusenheim as others do the Troade. 

 The proper names, alas! are less poetic. The pas- 

 sages (p. 12 and 13), are written in a charming style; 

 afterwards the philologist becomes heavy and doubtful 

 about what he only half examined ; doubtful, as if he 

 had superficially read an old code. Whether the sisters 



* Pilgrimage to Sesenheim. By August Ferdinand Nacke. Pub- 

 lished by EL A, Yarnhagen von Ense. Berlin, 1840. 





