uring his first stay in England he writes
(November 18, 1838):--

"I care no more about my external position than about the
mountains in the moon; I know God's will will be done, in spite of
them all, and to my greatest benefit. What that is He alone knows.
Only one thing I think I see clearly. My whole life is without
sense and lasting use, if I squander it in affairs of the day,
brilliant and important as they may be."

The longer he remained in that enchanted garden, the more difficult it
became to find a way out, even after he had discovered by sad experience
how little he was fitted for court life or even for public life in
Prussia. When he first appeared at the court of Berlin, he carried
everything by storm; but that very triumph was never forgiven him, and his
enemies were bent on "showing this young doctor his proper place." Bunsen
had no idea how he was envied, for the lesson that success breeds envy is
one that men of real modesty seldom learn until it is too late. And he was
hated not only by chamberlains, but, as he discovered with deepest grief,
even by those whom he considered his truest friends, who had been working
in secret conclave to undermine his influence with his royal friend and
master. Whenever he returned to Berlin, later in life, he could not
breathe freely in the vitiated air of the court, and the wings of his soul
hung down lamed, if not broken. Bunsen was not a courtier. Away from
Berlin, among the ruins of Rome, and in the fresh air of English life, he
could speak to kings and princes as few men have spoken to them, and pour
out his inmost convictions before those whom he revered and loved. But at
Berlin, though he might have learnt to bow and to smile and to use
Byzantine phraseology, his voice faltered and was drowned by noisy
declaimers; the diamond was buried in a heap of beads, and his rays could
not shine forth where there was no heavenly sunlight to call them out.

King Frederick William IV. was no ordinary King: that one can see even
from the scanty extracts from his letters given in "Bunsen's Memoirs." Nor
was his love of Bunsen a mere passing whim. He loved the man, and those
who knew the refreshing and satisfying influence of Bunsen's society will
easily understand what the King meant when he said, "I am hungry and
thirsty for Bunsen." But what constitution can resist the daily doses of
hyperbolical flattery that are poured into the ears of royalty,