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Letters of William Von Humboldt to a Female Friend
Letters of William Von Humboldt to a Female Friend Author:Wilhelm Humboldt Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER II. Yienna, Dec. 18, 1814. Your letter, dear Charlotte, has given me great pleasure, and I thank you heartily for it. You place too high a value on ... more »what was so natural, and could not indeed be otherwise. The recollection of you has never been effaced from my mind, nor ever can; but it did not occur to me to think that I should hear of you again, or that you could have any remembrance of me. All at once you recall to me the images of the past and of my youth by your kindness, and by your frank confession that were it not for the circumstances which separated us you might perhaps have felt more. I have answered you on the impulse of the moment, and with the pleasurable emotions you have awakened in me, and will continue so to do. Do not praise me for this, but continue your kindness and confidence; write to me as warmly and confidentially as you do now; be as open with me as I am with you, and never suppose that your letters can come too frequently, or be too circumstantial . There is nothing more delightful to a man than the implicit devotion of a female heart. I am very far indeed from making the smallest claim on you—I possess no such right. You can have but a very imperfect image of me in your mind. When I hold intercourse with you, I must shake myself loose from business and cares and distractions. But if you continue to write to me as you do now, telling me confidentially and without reserve all that concerns your outward and inward existence, in a manner corresponding with your early feelings towards me, I will receive it with the liveliest joy and gratitude. Write to me, therefore, I pray you, from time to time. You write extremely well, andnaturally besides; and I must confess I am so childish that even your handwriting gives me pleasure: it is pretty in itself...« less