35 

 XXXI. 



HlJMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 4th October, 1837. 



There are times, my dear friend, when you are 

 pleased to confer durability on fleeting productions of 

 the day, and to preserve what would otherwise be scat- 

 tered to the winds, and so I send you the short Ad- 

 dress which the papers gave in such a mutilated form. 

 The substance of it will please you, even though you 

 may think the language might have been better chosen 

 had it been more thoroughly prepared. The political 

 Hanover I found as you have represented it, and pri- 

 vate conversations with King Ernest full of both rage 

 and fear, have confirmed your view. Leist of Stade,* 

 with his five hours' speech, has, I am told, again been 

 doing honied mischief. 



Yours, 



A. HT. 



Stieglitz'f appearance here was to me like a visit 

 from a ghost. He was Wilhelm's oldest friend, and 

 once saved his life when he was bathing in the Leine. \ 

 (My brother called out to him with unexampled sto- 

 icism, "I'm a dead man, but never mind!"} There's 

 something " uncanny " in the influence of that man's 

 mind. 



* Leist, Councillor of State, principal adviser of King Ernest Augustus 

 of Hanover in the abrogation of the fundamental law (Grundgesetz) of that 

 kingdom, and of the dismissal of the seven Gottingen professors. TR. 



f Stieglitz, born 1767, at Arolsen, died 1840 ; an original writer upon 

 medical subjects, and physician to the King of Hanover. TR. 



J The river Leine near Gottingen, where the two friends were students. 

 TR. 



D 2 



