22 



was not then mistaken as regards the latter, in which 

 I had already recognised your handiwork, and the 

 censor's " teachings up," when the " State Gazette" 

 fell into my hands. One should take care not to 

 speak in such papers about men of mark, even with 

 talent such as yours ; the problem is a difficult one to 

 solve, what with the family, the censor, and a public 

 cold as ice. The name of Mundt^ reminds me of some 

 very remarkable pages in his Madonna, on the pro- 

 pensity of Germans to give way to strong but indistinct 

 feelings in contemplating nature. There is much truth 

 in these observations, and I thought I read in them 

 a condemnation of myself. So much, my dear friend, 

 about this world, now desolate for us both. 



Most gratefully yours, 



A. HUMBOLDT. 



I must say, I am sorry you do not wish to see the 

 Grand-Duchess. 



XX. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 6th May, 1835. 

 I return you the parts forwarded to me, as they 



(see " Denkwurdigkeiten," vol. iv.) is here alluded to. This person was a 

 Hanoverian, known chiefly for an unsuccessful though daring attempt to 

 liberate Lafayette from the fortress of Olmiitz in 1791. He subsequently 

 lived in England and the United States, where he was engaged in mercantile 

 and financial speculations ; died at Kingston, Jamaica, whither he had 

 gone on a mission connected with the Barings. TK. 



* Theodor Mundt, an author of some note, attached to the literary school 

 of Young Germany, one of the curators of the Eoyal Library at Berlin. 

 The title of the book alluded to is "Madonna. Unterhaltungen mit 

 einer Heiligen," .Leipzig, 1835. It created a sensation at the time, and 

 manifests talents of no mean order, but grotesqueness and want of reality 

 preponderate in it. TR. 



