76 



Paris, till October. To you I turn again as the source 

 till Eiickert* returns, the only source of pure taste, 

 linguistic perception, and nicest sense of propriety. 

 Tell me (but be indulgent the while), what part of 

 the Preface I must omit. But where you find a fault 

 pray help to mend it. I wrote the two pages late at 

 night in a gloomy frame of mind. They err, perhaps, 

 in having somewhat too sentimental a tendency in 

 their praise. 



P. 1, line 2. " Noch," because I have lived to see 

 it. 



L. 10. "Die hochbegabteri Geister," perhaps dis- 

 pleasing to you ; " Menschen ?" 



A. V. HUMBOLDT. 



Yarnhagen wrote, on November 21st, 1841, the following remark 

 on Humboldt. " Read to-day Alexander von Humboldt's Des- 

 patches, written from Paris in 1835, to the King. "Not the least 

 like what comes from Alexander Humboldt! They might have 

 been written by anybody, and, worst of all, no one could have written 

 them otherwise than they are! Such is the nature of political 

 affairs. They resolve themselves into trifles of no intrinsic import- 

 ance, but made weighty from a general understanding that they 

 shall be so regarded. Add to this the stereotyped hypocrisy of forms, 

 assumptions, and exaggerations, and truth must ever be in danger 

 of being lost. And I examined myself, and confessed that were I 

 once engaged in the like matters, I, too, should be unable to raise 

 myself out of this groove ! And then, people wonder that in 

 England and France journalists become ministers ! As though 

 very ordinary despatches were not infinitely easier to write than 

 first-rate leading articles !" 



* Friedrich Euckert, the German poet. TR. 



