The words of Gneisenau, which Pertz alludes to in Stein’s Leben (v. 262), are so entirely inapplicable to William von Humboldt that one would be tempted to interpret the H. differently, if an acceptable conjecture could be found. I have myself, indeed, heard from Gneisenau’s lips expressions of dissatisfaction, but never such extravagant ones, which might be contradicted so easily and perfectly. What Gneisenau blamed chiefly in your brother was that he never tried, by the respect which he commanded and by the superiority of his mind, to unite all those of equal sentiment into a communion, by which much might have been undertaken and effected. But this reproach, if it be one, Gneisenau himself deserved as well, and received from his adherents! The book of Pertz is full of aspersions and incongruities, which, indeed, in most cases originate in Stein himself, but are confirmed by Pertz in blind partiality; he, while communicating everything, even in many cases things which do not belong to the subject, leaves out important documents without hesitation as soon as he finds them not entirely for the benefit of his hero. The same will take place when he writes the biography of Gneisenau, for which the hand of a tactician would seem to be the first desideratum. The pious quaker-sheet was already known to me; one could hardly have thought such monstrosities practicable in the English language! But our time abounds in such. The psychographer takes the place of the moving table; they try to enforce my faith in the absurdity; I excuse myself, that at my time of life a man is a little backward, and that I have just arrived at table moving, but of that they do not want to hear any more. This reminds me of something, I will not suppress! It of course happens often, that remarks of your Excellency, in particular such made at the royal table, come to the ears of the public, and are repeated with zeal, and by this assume widely different forms; thus, quite recently, a reply to Herr Senfft von Pilsach, in which the original form seemed lost to a great extent, it would certainly be desirable if the latter were always authentically preserved. With my repeated most heartfelt thanks, in most faithful reverence and submission, I remain immutably, your Excellency’s most obedient, VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. Some strong expressions in the London letter, as welcome to me as they were unexpected, remind me that Herr von Radowitz indulged in similar ones, and even had them printed (Gesammelte Schriften IV., 210, 256, 281); in the second passage he even goes so far as to reverse the motto, “Against democrats soldiers alone avail!” 161. HUMBOLDT TO VARNHAGEN. BERLIN, _July 9th, 1854_.