106 



with your sweet present. In its composition, full of 

 grace and loveliness, Heaven is seen in the reflection 

 of earthly love. The King at once guessed at the 

 young fairies, Bettina 5 s " cygnet brood/' and wishes 

 to be allowed to send his thanks. A. v. HT. 



Privatissime. I had some scruples about the hiero- 

 glyphic which distinguishes the male swan from the 

 female, but the King thought that I was quite arriere 

 with regard to the changes which Art-life has caused in 

 modern education. 



Note ly Varnhagen. Bettina v. Arnim had sent me an exqui- 

 sitely drawn and wonderfully beautiful sketch representing two naked 

 figures, a girl and a youth standing by a tree, on the top of which a 

 nightingale was singing. This she commissioned me to send anony- 

 mously to Baron Humboldt, in order that he might also anonymously 

 send it to the King as a New Year's gift. The expressive nakedness 

 of the youth might certainly create some surprise, but would easily 

 be pardoned in Bettina. But that the King should think her 

 daughters had drawn the sketch, is a bit too bad, unless his pre- 

 tending to believe such a thing is to be construed as a sly hit at 

 Bettina ! 



April 1, 1844, Yarnhagen wrote in his Diary: " After a long 

 interval another visit from Humboldt. He told me all that occupied 

 his mind. He does all he can ; but it is not much that he can do : a 

 man of seventy-four is, after all, a man .of seventy-four ! He himself 

 alluded pointedly to his advanced age. The accumulation of business 

 pressed on him, he said, and yet he was not prepared to forego it. 

 Court and company were to him as a club, in which he was in the 

 habit of spending his evening and taking his glass. 



" The King, he says, is occupied with nothing but his fancies, and 

 these are mostly spiritual and religious, rituals, churchbuildings, mis- 

 sions, and the like. About earthly matters he takes little care, and 

 whether Louis Philippe's death brings about a crisis, what may happen 



