299 



you would fix the amount of courtesy with which I 

 am to reply to the man. 



Before me lie eight volumes at a honorarium of 

 forty louis-d'ors each, four for me, four (as usual) for 

 the King, and a nonsensical letter. The man seems 

 to have celebrated in song the great Napoleon and 

 Ney ; but to have knocked in vain at the door of 

 Napoleon III., Stephanie, Walewski, and Edgar 

 Ney. He wants to impose on me the task of reading 

 at once a Trajan, a Bianca, and a Henri IV. Nor 

 does he seem to have a settled notion as to what he 

 may expect from the King, which is rather discou- 

 raging to me in delivering his poems. 



" Elisa von Ahlefeldt," that delicate and tasteful 

 work, has given much satisfaction at Tegel, where 

 Kaulbach and I were yesterday. Not in Tegel, but 

 at Berlin in the circles of Court chaplains and officers, 

 who perchance might not be averse to the honorary 

 title of Councillor of the Consistory, the ecclesias- 

 tical question has been started whether it be permis- 

 sible to have a friend besides the husband ? What 

 at Berlin could escape being gossipped about and 

 dragged through the mud ! 



Gratefully yours, 



A. v. HUMBOLDT. 



Monday Night. 



I shall send for the two little volumes in a few 

 days. My kindest and most grateful respects to 

 Fraulein Ludmilla, the poet-artist, who harmoniously 

 unites poetry and a noble talent for reproducing 

 Form. 



