276 Humboldt's Letters. 



appeared like a prelude to my own, C'est comme cela que 

 je serai dimanche. And in what a condition do I leave 

 the world I who lived in 1789? But centuries are 

 as seconds in the mighty development of advancing 

 humanity. The swelling curve, however, has its little 

 indentations, and it is irksome to be found in such an 

 interval of decadence. 



151. 



HUMBOLDT TO YARNHAGEN. 



BERLIN, March 14th, 1853. 



HEAETY thanks for the comfort derived from the 

 characteristic word of Fontenelle's, hitherto unknown to 

 me but twenty years are too short to see anything 

 better! Tour Buelow von Dennewitz is great and 

 good news to me ! The treasure of the warm-blooded 

 Leopold von Buch I return inclosed. May not Fried- 

 rich Schlegel's astronomical vision be connected with 

 conversations I had with him at Vienna on the certainty 

 that we shall see the southern cross rise again in Ger- 

 many, where it has already shone in historic ages ? Let 

 me remind you of a passage in my Kosmos (II. p. 333), 

 which derives some interest for you from its reliable 

 chronological date. "It was not more than 2900 years 



