225 Humboldt to Ludmilla Assing
Berlin, Oct. 12th, 1858.
What a day of agitation, of grief, of misfortune was yesterday. I was summoned by the Queen to Potsdam, to take leave of the King. He wept with deep emotion. Returning home at six in the evening, I opened your letter, my friend! He has departed from the earth before me, the man of ninety years, the old man of the hills! It is not enough to say that Germany has lost a great author, him who could most nobly mould our tongue to the expression of the finest sentiments—for what is the value of form in the presence of such acuteness, such pregnant force of mind, such elevation of thought, such knowledge of the world. What he was to me, to me who am now entirely isolated, is incomprehensible to any mind less refined, less beautiful than yours; I shall soon come to tell you,
Bowed with grief, yours,
A. v. Humboldt.
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