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family, at the little chateau of Lagrange, near Paris; 

 Lafayette's country seat, where Billow was quartered. 



Your 

 A. v. HUMBOLDT. 



I shall bring vol. vi. in person. 



Note by Varnhagen. To console him on the score of his age, 

 I had written to Humboldt that even eighty years may become 

 comparative youth ; witness Fontenelle, who, at a hundred, wish- 

 ing to pick up a lady's fan, and not being able to do it quickly 

 enough, exclaimed regretfully : " due n'ai je plus mes quatre- 

 vingt ans!" About Friedrich Schlegel, I had told him how, at 

 Dresden, shortly before his death, he had prophesied to Tieck, he 

 did not know when, but certainly at no very distant period, a 

 mighty change would take place in the heavens ; all the great stars 

 would shift their places, and gather into an immense cross. 



CLII. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 1 5th August, 1853. 



After my long and tedious visit at Potsdam, my first 

 appearance before you, my dear and gifted friend, is 

 to trouble you with a request. To you, and you alone, 

 I look for literary advice ; since in you I find united 

 depth of feeling and the faculty of expressing yourself 

 with wondrous harmony. Now, in my old age, mistrust 

 in my own powers is morbidly on the increase every 

 day. A separate volume is to contain a selection of 

 my brother's sonnets, in which, however, matter and 

 form are not always in harmonious union. 



I entreat you to allow me to call on you to-morrow 

 (Tuesday), at one o'clock, to read you a preface which 



p 2 



