144 



GUI. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, November 30A, 1845. 



Gifts, my dear friend, are doubly dear, when they 

 reach me through a hand like yours. I wrote at once 

 to the excellent Countess. You are quite right in 

 saying that that sweet poem proves the writer to have 

 been wondrously imbued with her subject. 



It seemed more delicate to write to Baron Hormayr 

 and not to the Baroness. May I beg you to inclose 

 my note, if you approve of it in point of form. That 

 liberal-minded man has for a long time been an object 

 of my admiration. His literary activity astounds me. 

 I have had the pleasure to-day of seeing Dr. Sachs. 

 I shall be happy to give the King his book myself; 

 but it is an epoch in which nothing remains fixed 

 everything turns to airy images, which recur again and 

 again, ominous and misshapen, in connexion with 

 former fancies. Oftentimes one dreads the ulterior 

 results of these incitements, by which it was hoped a 

 better state of things would be produced.* 



How is it that " Kosmos" has achieved such an un- 

 expected success? Partly, I suppose, from the train 

 of thought which it awakens in the reader's mind, and 

 partly from the flexibility of our German tongue, which 

 renders word-painting (representing things as they 

 really are) so easy. 



I shall call upon you, my dear friend, to thank 

 you for the manner in which you have extolled Vol- 



* Humboldt's anticipations have been indeed fulfilled. TR. 



