Humboldt's Letters. 291 



Egyptian, Indian, and excavated Assyrian Semitic, as 

 also on the situation of Paradise, for which a map has 

 been ordered at Kiepert's. Maps on the creeds of 

 nations can ascend from the ship-fastening myth at the 

 ocean and the Himalaya mountains to the Ararat and 

 to Aramea Kymbotas, even to the Mexican Coxcox, 

 vagaries, not unknown to the Mormon bible. (See 

 Supplement.) 



The Weimar fancies are of a more exhilarating kind ; 

 controlling the climates by means of crystal palaces, 

 which, at the same time, are taverns, and make super- 

 fluous Mcos and Madeira, and demand only a capital 

 of one and a half millions of thalers, an undertaking in 

 the deserted Potsdam town of barracks. And such a 

 device, hatched in the brains of a well-informed man 

 like Froriep. 



In faithful friendship, yours, A. HUMBOLDT. 



POTSDAM, July 4^ 1854. In the age of crystal palaces. 



It was but the other day, in glancing at a letter of 

 Gneisenau's, of 1818 (in the pointless biography of Stein,* 

 p. 262) that I stumbled upon a passage, doubtless long 

 familiar to you : " H. strives again for the centre, but 

 there are wanting to him confidence, esteem, character, 

 and courage." Sheer personal hatred alone can "have 

 moved the vain Gneisenau to speak thus disreputably of 



* By Pertz. 



