295 



Je ne vous ecris rien des affaires courantes de notre 

 monde, car M. Duvergier de Hauranne les connait, 

 et vous les fera connaitre mieux que personne. 



Agreez le nouvel hommage de mon respectueux 

 attachement. 



A. THIERS. 



CCXII. 



HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. 



Berlin, 19th June, 1857. 



To my great delight, I have received, during an 

 excursion to Tegel, a splendid portrait of you, my 

 valued friend, through M. Richard Zeune. I do not 

 know which to admire most the graceful, charac- 

 teristic, vigorous resemblance of the features, so dear 

 and so attractive to me (a proof of the artistic talent 

 of your niece, Ludmilla Assing), or the inscription of 

 your hand, pregnant alike with thought and expres- 

 sion. I have copied the last myself, and handed it 

 about, because it belongs to the best that our language 

 can produce in the shape of ingenious aphorisms. The 

 thanks I owe you have been inconscionably delayed 

 by the arrival of the brothers Schlagintweit from Cash- 

 mere, Thibet, and the Kuenlun-mountains, which 

 they crossed. The latter form the northern boundary 

 of Thibet, as the Himalaya does the southern. (All 

 the mountain passes, the most convenient to the tra- 

 vellers, are 18,000 feet high !) They are going to the 

 KingtoMarienbad not, however, with the 340 boxes, 

 which they have brought with them. Of the liberal 

 Grand Ducal Mightiness (not liberal as to the prosaic 

 charm of coin), not a syllable, probably because he 

 expects new proposals, new sacrifices from us. The 



