292 Humboldt's Letters. 



my brother. I recollect, indeed, to have heard of him, 

 that Gneisenau was hostile to him when he was dis- 

 missed. By-the-by, what was said by all parties in those 

 times on political institutions looks to me now, and did 

 so already in the years 1815-1818, as if I was reading a 

 book of the thirteenth century on physical science ; 

 fear of provincial estates was alone praiseworthy 

 c'est de la bouillie pour les chats. 



On this letter Yarnhagen remarks in his diary, July 

 5th, 1854: "I found a long letter from Humboldt, 

 who communicated to me, accompanied by fine remarks, 

 the latest number of the Herald of Peace, a letter of 

 Bunsen four closely-written quarto pages and another 

 by Robert Froriep, of Weimar. c The missive at the 

 same time is intended for a sign of life^ that is, of most 

 intimate and faithful friendship for you in these sad 

 times of weakness and folly.' Farther : c I disengaged 

 myself from the new " Stahl-Ranke" council, for reasons, 

 which are not those of old age ; I resigned.' Then he 

 speaks of Froriep's plays of imagination, who wishes to 

 build a crystal palace to control the climate in the 

 'deserted town of barracks,' Potsdam, with a loan of 

 one and a half million of thalers ! Finally, he blames 

 Gneisenau's misjudgment on Wilhelm von Humboldt, 

 pronounced in a letter of 1818, which Pertz communi- 

 cates in his ' pointless Biography of Stein ;' and Hum- 



