P R E E A C E 



TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



ALTHOUGH it cannot be within my province to seek 

 to reply to the verdict which certain journals have 

 made it their business to pronounce on my having 

 committed to the press the Humboldt- Varnhagen 

 correspondence, I yet feel it incumbent upon me to 

 notice at some length the protest of Alexander von 

 Humboldt himself, inserted in the daily papers by 

 the late General Hedemann, against any unau- 

 thorized publication of his letters. I am the more 

 prompted to do this, as that protest has been pub- 

 lished by the General with pointed reference to this 

 publication ; and, therefore, with the evident inten- 

 tion of producing the erroneous belief that the letters 

 directed to Varnhagen were included in that protest. 

 In justice to myself I must not allow such a belief 

 to gain ground, although there is enough in the 

 protest itself to refute it. 



In this document, a portion of which has only 

 been communicated by the General, Humboldt first 

 of all states that more than two thousand letters were 

 written by him every year to all sorts of persons. 



