13 



sources. Imagine, I only learned the fearful tidings* 

 from Prince Carolath last night. You know how 

 warm, how long-tried, and how indulgent a friend I lose 

 in one who was the ornament of her sex. How amiable 

 I found her, even in the trifling business I had to 

 arrange for her with Beuth ; so familiar with all that 

 is mutable and melancholy in life, and yet so cheerful, 

 so full of serenity. Such powers of mind, and yet so 

 genial, and so full of heart ! The world will long 

 appear to you a dreary waste. To know, however, 

 that you gave to that sweet spirit until it was sighed 

 away, whatever mind and heart and grace of manner, 

 such as yours, my dear Varnhagen, had to give, is, 

 after all, balm for the wound. Take care, I pray you, 

 of your health. 



A. HUMBOLDT. 



XIII. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 3rd December, 1833. 



Pardon, a thousand times pardon, that I have been 

 so long in sending you back the classical studies 

 of Friedrich Schlegel. I have read them carefully, 



* Rahel, of whose death Humboldt is here speaking in terms of such 

 infinite grief, requires some notice in this place. She was the wife of Varn- 

 hagen von Ense, and exercised great influence in Berlin. During the war 

 of freedom, which preceded the Congress of Vienna, her exertions in pro- 

 moting the national cause were unremitting. She accompanied her hus- 

 band to Vienna in 1814, and remained until July, 1815. On her return 

 she threw open her salons, and became the centre of all learning, intelligence, 

 and fashion. Her decease was severely felt, and her husband published, in 

 1834, a work entitled, " Rahel. Ein Buch des Andenkens fur ihre Freunde." 

 Subsequently, he published the " Galerie von Bildnissen aus Rahel's 

 Umgang" (Two volumes, Leipzig, 1836). Tn. 



