15 



Dessau, 1st December, 1833. 



Accept my best thanks for the books you sent 



me. Each of them interested me in its own way. I 

 lament not to have known " Rah el " personally, the 

 more so, as having clearly realized her inner self, I 

 would fain have made acquaintance with her outward 

 form, and recognised in it the working of the germ 

 within. FUEDERIKA, Duchess of Anhalt. 



Still full of wonder about E., " the book of all 

 books." May I ask you, my dear friend, for Friedrich 

 Schlegel's complete works say the third volume ? 



XV. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 19th December, 1833. 



Prevented by the tedious, restless life at Court from 

 personally informing myself as to my friend's health, 

 I am driven, alas ! to writing to beg you will kindly 

 send me back the letter of the Duchess of Dessau, con- 

 taining the kind expressions about our dear beatified 

 friend. A. v. HUMBOLDT. 



Thursday. 







XVI. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 27 October, 1834. 



I am going to press with my work, the work of my 

 life. The mad fancy has seized me of representing 

 in a single work the whole material world, all that is 

 known to us of the phenomena of heavenly space and 



