34 



XXX. 



HUMBOLDT TO YARNHAGEN. 



Saturday, 1st July, 1837. 



To-morrow Tegel, and Monday off again to that 

 everlasting watering-place, where the sight of the 

 Prince of Warsaw* will not do much towards cheering 

 up my weary soul ; it is therefore not permitted me 

 personally to present my sincere thanks. " Sophie 

 Charlotte"! and Hegel's " Philosophy of History" will 

 accompany me, and afford me real enjoyment. My 

 own taste will lead me to read you. There is indeed a 

 forest of ideas for me in this Hegel, whom Gaiis, in such 

 masterly style, has reproduced with the full stamp of 

 his great individuality : but to a man like me, spell- 

 bound, insect-fashion, to earth and the endless variety 

 of natural phenomena which it contains, a dry theo- 

 retical assertion of utterly false facts and views about 

 America and the Indian world is enslaving and oppres- 

 sive. For all that I do not fail to recognise the grandeur 

 it contains. 



In you all is at once profound and gentle, and 

 you possess what he wants, never-fading grace and 

 freshness of language. A. HUMBOLDT. 



I have ordered my life right badly, and am doing all 

 I can to arrive at early stupidity. Gladly would I re- 

 nounce the European beef, which Hegel (p. 77) talks of as 

 being better than the American, and take up my abode 

 with poor weak crocodiles (alas ! they're twenty-five 

 feet long). Pages 442 444, our worthy friend has evi- 

 dently been polishing up to make them more palatable. 



* Prince Paskiewitch. TR. 



t A biographical memoir by Varnhagen. TR. 



