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Antiqua
Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung, Kapitälchen, Schriftgradverkleinerung.
A correspondent of the Daily Telegraph states that
a curious Hebrew publication has just issued from the
Berlin press, a biography of Alexander von Hum-
boldt,
destined to extend the knowledge of the life and
scientific labours of this celebrated man in the wide
circle of the Russo-Polish and Asiatic Jews. The
full title is “Alexander von Humboldt: a Bio-
graphical Sketch. Dedicated to the Nestor of Wis-
dom on his 88th birthday. By S. Slominski.” The
author is a Russian Israelite, who some years ago
invented a very clever calculating machine, and
drew upon himself, at that time, by his mathematical
knowledge, the attention of the celebrated astrono-
mers Herren Bessel and Jacoby, of Königsberg.
These gave him letters of recommendation to Alex-
ander von Humboldt, in Berlin, who, with his ac-
customed benevolence, effectually assisted the poor
Jewish scholar. The latter by this means had an
opportunity of making himself more fully acquainted
with the works of his patron, and thus arose within
him the wish (as he expresses it in his preface) to com-
municate to his Hebrew co-religionists in Sclavonian
and Eastern lands the progress of those branches of
science so intimately connected with the life of Hum-
boldt, and desiring at the same time to erect a memo-
rial (as the Hebrew title expresses it) to the justice
and sympathy which the latter has constantly mani-
fested towards Judaism and the Jews. The first half,
consisting of 100 pages of strong, correct, and flowing
Hebrew, is devoted to the life and general review
of Humboldt’s works; whilst the second forms
a sketch of the “Kosmos,” and in which the
author speaks of the double stars, and of earthly
magnetism, of volcanoes, and of the South American
Flora, in such a way as to lead one to imagine that
it would be impossible to find expressions worthy of
clothing the “ideas of this great Western sage.” The
author, who had transmitted the manuscript of his
work to Humboldt as a tribute of homage on his
88th birthday, received from him the following cha-
racteristic reply:
—I owe you a thousand
logies
gies
have been pleased to confer upon me. The unquiet con-
dition in which I live, in this age of social and political
excitement, can scarcely plead my excuse. A recommenda-
tion from two renowned, and to me personally so dear
friends as Bessel and Jacoby, leaves a lasting impression.
A stranger, alas! to Hebrew literature, but from my earliest
youth intimately connected with the noblest of your co-
religionists, and a warm and persevering advocate for their
numerous and unjustly withheld rights, I am not indif-
ferent to the honour you have conferred upon me. The
testimony of a learned oriental linguist, the celebrated and
highly learned Dr. Michael Sacks (one of the Rabbis of
the Berlin Jewish congregation), leads me to prize still
more highly this distinction. It is almost a comfort to
him who is the object of the praises not to be acquainted
with the original language. After next Tuesday I shall
again reside during a few weeks in Berlin, and at that time,
if you, Herr Slominski, have not yet returned to Warsaw, I
shall be pleased to see you daily in Berlin between one and
two o’clock, and personally renew the expressions of my
high esteem for your noble, prompt, and learned efforts.—
Yours, with high esteem,