“‘Garcia cannot sing here, he said some time ago, she is too red;[59] all representations, that her singing would not be red, were in vain. At last I told him to send to Bethania[60] for deaconesses to sing. He will be happy to see me under the sod.’” On the 25th of September, Varnhagen narrates in his diary: “They say, on the presence of Humboldt in the High Ecclesiastical Council, that the priests had had in their midst their greatest adversary, who puts all of them to rout—the man of natural science, before whom all their mist and deceits flow into nothingness. ‘Abaellino is among you!’ one might have cried out.” 155. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. BERLIN, _Dec. 12th, 1853_. Again, my noble friend, you have shown your skill in giving me pleasure. After our departure from Potsdam, which transformed itself entirely into a Buddhistic “cold hell,” was prevented for a long time by the delicate health of the Queen, I at last moved over here on Saturday. You have shed renown upon the Prussian arms, and, what touches me in a more human manner, on the warrior of many-sided culture.[61] The gallery of your biographies stands in singular grandeur in our German literature. I am enraged by the treatment of my friend Arago in the last number of the “Quarterly Review” (September)—an ebullition of political party spirit, exactly as I was treated by the same journal from 1810–1818. A note at the end of the number for September says, with rare _delicacy_, that the article was written before his death was known; but it was known generally in London that he had become blind, and that he suffered infinitely from dropsy, one of the symptoms of which is to fill the mind with apprehensions. With ancient gratitude and devotion, and admiration of your talents, your faithful A. V. HUMBOLDT. MONDAY. 156. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. BERLIN, THURSDAY NIGHT—_from the 13th to the 14th of April, 1854_.