Privatissime.—I expressed some doubts about that hieroglyph distinguishing the male swan from the female. The King thinks me, however, quite “arrière” as to the changes which art-life has made in modern education. NOTE BY VARNHAGEN.—Bettina von Arnim had given me a delicate and beautifully executed drawing, representing a naked girl and a naked lad standing under a tree, in the foliage of which a nightingale is singing, which she requested me to send anonymously to Mr. v. Humboldt, asking him to present it also anonymously to the King as a New Year’s present. The nakedness of the male figure might indeed appear rather shocking, although it would have been pardonable in one _like Bettina_, but that the King could suppose it the work of her daughters is rather too strong, unless by this pretence he meant to convey a rallying correction to Bettina. On the 1st of April, 1844, Varnhagen wrote in his diary: “After a long interruption, a visit from Humboldt at last. He told me all that occupies his mind. He is striving to do what he can, but this is not much, and after all, the man of seventy-four years is but a man of seventy-four. He himself refers significantly to his advanced age. His manifold duties are a heavy charge upon him, although he is reluctant to abandon them. The Court and its society are to him like a tavern of habitual resort, where one is wont to pass one’s evening, and to drink one’s glass. The King, says he, busies himself with nothing but his whims, and these have, for the most part, a spiritual, nay, an ecclesiastical, tendency—worshipping, building churches, concocting missions. He cares very little about earthly affairs. It seems immaterial to him whether Louis Philippe’s death causes a crisis; what may happen after Metternich’s death, or how Russia behaves with us. To all this he is indifferent; he scarcely thinks of it. Whoever has secured his favor and nourishes his fancies plays a sure game. Bunsen, Radowitz, and Canitz stand highest in his favor. Stollberg comes only in the second rank. Besides, there exists the greatest carelessness and distraction. Rueckert had congratulated the Queen upon her recovery, in some very beautiful stanzas. They were found delightful; but the propriety of acknowledging such an offering by a word of thanks was overlooked, until at last it occurred to the Queen. Rueckert was then sent for, but had been gone some three weeks. Schelling is received scarcely once a year by the King. Having secured him, he cares but little for him. Steffens, too, whom he likes, is seldom invited. Reumont belongs to the exceptions; he secures a small share of the favoritism of Bunsen and Count Bruehl. There is much sneering at ... about his dancing, &c. Humboldt said once, he was green, if not quite yellow, whereupon the King answered: ‘At ... every one had that complexion.’ Bunsen has not grown much wiser: he proposed to the King to purchase