[30.]
London, July 1, 1853.Good morning, my dear M. You were so good as to promise me a chapter for my “Sketch of the History of the Philosophy of Language;” namely, the results of the latest investigations concerning the unity and Turanian character of the non-Sanskrit languages of India. The printing of my three volumes goes on so fast that I am already revising the Celtic portion, of which Meyer is the Heros.
If, in your researches on the relationship of the Vedic language with Zend, you have hit on new formulas, please gather these results together into a separate chapter. Only one request,—without any delay, for the printing presses. I hope you are satisfied about your future in Oxford. Greet your friend and companion, whom we all liked very much. Again four new men from Dessau among the arrivals! One is a famous actor from Berlin, and has brought a letter from Lepsius. Lucien Bonaparte (brother of Canino) is now writing a book here, “Sur l'Origine des Langues.” No war!
[31.]
Monday, July 5, 1853.A word of explanation, with my best thanks. I do not want the Egyptian-Iranian work before September. I am just printing the treatise on the “Origin of Languages” as a part of my philosophical work, and in it I would gladly have something on you, and from you, on the non-Sanskritic languages. Both chapters can be quite short, only definite. You must help me over these two chapters. I shall soon send you as a reminder the proof-sheets of what goes before, that you may see how I am driven for it. So write away, regardless of consequences. You are by instinct far too cautious for me to feel the least hesitation about saying this.
[pg 424]I am going on rapidly with the printing of my four volumes, and write con amore at the eighth (Hippolytus I.) The court goes on the 12th for a week to Dublin. All right. No war, only uplifted fists!
[32.]
London, Friday Evening, July 9, 1853.Here follow the sheets, which I have just looked through, and where I wish to have two short chapters interpolated. We have one page for each, as the last leaf remains blank. Besides this, there is room for many additions to the other chapters, which I commend to your critical and sympathizing attention. Your Breslau friend has never called on me. He may have been at the office whilst I was out. He would be welcome. Your opinion about Sidney Pusey has set me at ease. Go soon to Pusey's, to see the old man himself.
[33.]
London, Tuesday Morning, July 13, 1853.“What one desired in youth one obtains in old age.” I felt this as I read your chapter yesterday evening. It is exactly what I first wished to know myself, in order to tell it to my readers. You have done it after my own heart,—only a little too briefly, for a concluding sentence on the connection of the language of the Achæmenian Inscriptions with Zend is wanting. Pray write for me at once just such a Turanian chapter. I have introduced that chapter this morning as coming from you, and have placed your name in the list of investigators mentioned in the title, where it belongs. For the Turanian part, however, you must yourself write me such an Introduction as I shall only need to preface by a line. I mean, you should give what you send me as the result of a portion of the investigations with which you have busied yourself in your Oxford Lectures, and which you intend to publish in your “Vestiges.” Never mind space; it will all fit in. You have just hit the right tone and measure, and have written the little chapter just after my own heart, though I first learnt the matter from what you told me. Do you wish to see the list of examples to “Grimm's Law” again, which you made out for my lecture, and which I shall give in my Appendix in order to make any additions? I have as much space as you wish, even for new Appendices, if you [pg 425] will only give me some. This will be a pet book of mine, and a forerunner of my “Philosophy of History.” I do not doubt but that it will be read in England, and indeed before all my other works on Hippolytus; for I give it as a philosophical key to Hippolytus. I find that though at first despised, it has in the last few months become the favorite part of my Hippolytus. Write me a line to say how you are, and what you are about. Again, my dear M., my best thanks.
P. S. Is there anything to be said in the text, or Appendix, or in both, about the real results of Aufrecht's investigations on the Italian languages? I should like to take the opportunity of bringing his name before the English public.
[34.]
Wednesday, July 14, 1853.This will do, my dear M. To-morrow early I will send you the fifth chapter, printed, for correction, and expect your other chapter. Concerning A., it is clear you must write that chapter, for A. can do it as little as I. So let me have that too. In the Catalogue of the examples for “Grimm's Law,” get everything ready, and I will then send you the sheet, that you may enter the additions and corrections,—or, better still, you can send me the additions and corrections first, and I will have them inserted at once. Please do this.
[35.]
London, July 15, 1853.Your MS., my dear friend, is just dispatched to the printer, with the order to send the proof of the whole chapter direct to you at Oxford. Send the Mongolian chapter as soon as you conveniently can, but not sooner; therefore, when your head is more free. The printing goes on, and it cannot be paged till your chapters are ready, and also I hope the Italian one from Aufrecht, to whom I am writing about it to-day. He can send it to me in German. You must give him some help as to the length and form. It is best for him, if I personally introduce him to the English public, amidst which he now lives, and to which he must look for the present. So I hope to receive a real masterpiece from the Oxford Mission of German Science.
Vale. Cura ut valeas. Totus tuus.
[36.]
Tuesday, July 20, 1853. 10 o'clock.“As to the language of the Achæmenians, represented to us by the Persian texts of the Cuneiform inscriptions”—so I began this morning, determined to interpolate a paragraph which is wanting in your beautiful chapter, namely, the relationship of the language of the inscriptions to that of the Zend books, including the history of the deciphering with Grotefend in the background, at the same time avoiding the sunken rocks of personal quarrels (Burnouf contra Lassen). My young house-pundit gives the credit to Burnouf (as he first informed Lassen of the idea about the satrapies). However, it seems to me only natural that you should write the conclusion of this chapter yourself. I shall also write a short chapter on Babylon, for which I have still to read Hincks only, an uncomfortable author, as he has no method or clearness, probably also therefore no principles.
Now let us make this little book as attractive and useful to the English as we can; for that is really our mission.
Böticher asks if you do not wish to say something on the two dialects of Zend, discovered by Spiegel,—an inquiry which delights me, as Bötticher and Spiegel are at war, and in German fashion have abused each other.
[37.]
Carlton Terrace, Friday Morning, July 23, 1853.Anything so important, so new, and so excellent, as what you send me can never be too long. Your table is already gone to the printer. With regard to the general arrangement, I would ask you to keep the plan in mind.
1. That all references (as for instance the table of the forty-eight languages) belong to the Appendix or Appendices.
2. The arrangement of the leading ideas and facts to the text (Chapter X.).
3. Nothing must be wanting that is necessary for the establishing a new opinion.
Your tact will in all cases show you what is right. The justification of those principles you will assuredly find with me in the arrangement of all the other chapters, and of the whole work, as also in the aim in view, namely, to attract all educated [pg 427] Englishmen to these inquiries, and show them what empty straw they have hitherto been threshing.
Greet Aufrecht, and thank him for his parcel. I cannot arrange Chapter IV. till I have his whole MS. before me. I can give him till Tuesday morning.
The separate chapters (twelve) I have arranged according to the chronology of the founders of the schools. What is still in embryo comes as a supplement; as Koelle's sixty-seven African Languages, and Dietrich and Bötticher's Investigation of Semitic Roots. If your treatise is not so much a statement of Schott, Castrén, and Co. as your own new work, you shall have the last chapter for yourself.
And now, last but not least, pray send me a transliteration table, in usum Delphini. I will have it printed at the end of the Preface, that everybody may find his way, and I shall turn in future to it, and see that all transliterations in the book accord with it. I must ask for it therefore by return. You understand what we want. “A transliteration alphabet, for explaining the signs employed,” would be a good precursor to yours and Lepsius' scientific work. We shall do well to employ in the text as few technical letters as possible.
To-day I am going to see the “Bride of Messina” for the first time in my life. I have no idea that the piece can possibly produce any effect; and I am afraid that it may fail. But Devrient is of good courage.
[38.]
Carlton Terrace, July 29, 1853.“What is long delayed must be good when it comes.” So I would be patient till you had really caught your Tartar, did I not fear that my dear friend was suffering again from his wretched headaches. Meanwhile I worked up the Italica, and the summary of the sixty-seven African languages is getting into shape, and the printer's devils are run off their legs. It would be delightful if my dear M. were to send me soon the chapter on the Mongols; only he must not work up a headache. You will have received my Schott last week by book post.
I have not been well. Theodora has had gastric fever, but is quite on the mend since this morning.
At last I have received Lassen III. (2) with the map.
[39.]
Carlton Terrace, Tuesday, August 2, 1853. Half-past eleven o'clock.My courier occupied me till nine. Since then I have read through your letter with intense delight; and now in a quarter of an hour I must go to the railway for a country party with Grote. I hasten to thank you for this beautiful gem for my Introduction and for my whole book. You shall have the last word. Your treatise is the only one in the collection which extends beyond isolated types of speech and families, although it preserves throughout the scientific method of Indo-Germanic philology. It was a double refreshment to me, as out of conscientiousness I had looked at and skimmed through L.'s perverse books. What determined impudence there is in that man!
Whilst I am looking over my materials, among which Aufrecht's contribution looks very well, I feel very strongly the want of a report of the last results of the Caucasian languages. My two lines on Rosen look too miserable; also new works have appeared on the subject. Samiel help!
I am entirely of your opinion concerning the transliteration, but I maintain that you must send me a table (key) to your own transliteration. For your table of the forty-eight is otherwise not easy for my good English readers, or even for me; and to most it is unintelligible. With the others I shall soon find my way.
I intend to insert a chapter on definite terminology. I think it must be settled from the only tenable hypothesis, namely, the spreading abroad from one central point in mid-Asia,—that is, from the great district which (originally) was bounded towards the north by the open Polar Sea, with the Ural Island or Peninsula; to the west by the Caucasus and Ararat; east by the Altai and Altan Mountains; and south by the continuation of the Taurus Mountains, which stretch in the interior from west east, as far as the Hindu-Kush.
Therefore, for Turanian == Ural-Altaic, or the northeastern branch.
For Semitic == Aramean, from Aram, the Mesopotamian highland.
For Japhetic == Eastern highland, or southeastern branch.
What do you think of this? I must get free from Semitie, [pg 429] etc., because Chamitic appears to be primitive Semitic, just as Turanian leans towards Iranian.
The carriage is there. Best thanks to Aufrecht.
You are indulging in a beautiful dream if you imagine that I have Dietrich here. I have studied his two volumes. I wish I could summon him to help me. He was most anxious to come to England. I am afraid of a young scholar whom I do not know personally.
[40.]
August 4, 1853.Only a word, my dear friend, to express to you my delight and admiration at your Turanian article. I was so carried away by it that I was occupied with it till far into the night. It is exhaustive, convincing, and succinct.
What do you feel about the present state of the investigations on the Basque? I have convinced myself by my extracts from the grammar and dictionary that Basque is Turanian, but I have nothing fit for printing. I have never seen Rask's work. Do you know it, and can you make anything out of it?
There is only one point on which I do not agree with you. You say there is no purely monosyllabic language. But even that wretched modern Chinese has no dissyllabic word, as that would entail a loss of the accent. Or do you deny this? I have covered the baldness of our German vulgarism, “thief,” “liar,” in Böhtlingk versus Schott, and said, “With an animosity more German than Attic.” Does that please you? Greetings to Aufrecht.
[41.]
Abbey Lodge, August 22, 1853.(Continuation of our conversation.) Before anything else, finish the Iranian Chapter III. for me, a copy of which I gave you; that is to be printed at once, as the Italic Chapter II. is printed, and needs only revising. You will shake this at once out of your conjuring bag, won't you?
[42.]
Highwood, Friday, August 26, 1853.It strikes me, my dearest M., that we should be more correct in christening your essay Arian, instead of Iranian. I have always used Iranian as synonymous with Indo-Germanic (which [pg 430] expresses too much and too little) or (which is really a senseless name) Indo-European: Arian for the languages of Aria in the wider sense, for which Bactria may well have been the starting-point. Don't you think we may use Arian, when you confine yourself to Sanskrit, Zend, and Parsi?
I get more and more angry at L.'s perverseness in doubting that the Persians are Aryans. One cannot trace foreign words in Persian, and just these it must have carried off as a stigma, if there were any truth in the thing. One sees it in Pehlevi. But then, what Semitic forms has Persian? The curious position of the words in the status constructus is very striking. Yet you have explained that. Where, then, are the Aramœisms in the Achæmenian Inscriptions, which surely are Persian in the strictest sense? Earlier the Persians may have been tormented by the Turanians, and even subjugated; but the Babylonian rule of Shemites over Persia cannot be of old date. About 2200 B. C., on the contrary, the Bactrians conquered Babylon, and kept it for a long time. But would not totally different corruptions have appeared in Persian, if they had allowed their language to be so entirely ruined? A corruption, and then a later purification through the Medes, sounds Quixotic. Will you not prove this point?
If you can give some chronological landmarks for the epoch of the Veda dialect, pray do so. There is so much in Lassen, that one learns nothing. I fancied the age of the Mahâbhârata and Râmâyana epoch was tolerably settled, and that thus a firm footing had been gained, as the language is that of the same people and the same religion. If you can say anything in the language-chapter about the genealogy of the mythological ideas it would be delightful for you to take possession of it, without encroaching on your own future explanations. And so good luck to you!
[43.]
Highwood, Friday Morning, August 26, 1853.Your hearty and affectionate words for my birthday added to the happiness of the day, which I spent here in the quiet of the country, with my family. I have long looked on you as one of us; and when I look forward into the future, I see your form as one of the bright points which there present themselves to me. You groan now under the burden of a very heavy mountain, [pg 431] which you have taken on your shoulders as others would take a block; only the further you advance, the more will you be satisfied that it is a part of the edifice which you will yet find time to finish; and at the same time it will stand by itself as a κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί.
George is well, and will be with us to-morrow week; Theodora a week later.
Place your essay where you will. I find the connection with the Gothic by means of “Grimm's Law” most natural. The foundation of my arrangement was the purely external idea of progression from the nearer to the more remote,—from the known to the unknown. I hope that next time Aufrecht's muse will give us an intermediate chapter on the Hellenes, Pelasgians, Thracians, Æolians, Dorians, and Ionians; it is curious enough that these are entirely passed over. I do not know, though, what positive facts have resulted up to now from comparative philology as regards the Hellenic element. An historical insight is needed here, such as Ottfried Müller had just begun to acquire when death robbed us of his noble mind. But Müller really understood nothing of comparative philology, as the Introduction to his Etruscans proves. The Pelasgians must have been a nearly connected people; the Thracians were certainly so. But from the north comes Hellas, and from Hellas the Ionian Asia Minor. However, the history of the language falls infinitely earlier than the present narrow chronologists fancy. The Trojan War, that is the struggle of the Æolian settlers with the Pelasgians, on and around the sea-coast, lies nearer 2000 than 1000 B. C. The synchronisms require it. It is just the same with Crete and Minos, where the early Phœnician period is out of all proportion older than people imagine. Had we but monuments of Greek, like the Fratres Arvales in Latin! Homer is so modern; even though he certainly belongs to the tenth or eleventh century. That was a time in which the Hellenic mind sang the history of the creation in the deep myth of Prometheus, the son of Iapetos, with his three brothers, the emblem of humanity; a poem which Homer no longer understood.
Now cheer up, my dearest friend. The book must come out.
Truly and cheerfully yours.
My wife sends her hearty greetings.
[44.]
London, September 2, 1853.My good wishes follow you to Wales, without knowing your address; so for my letter I must apply to Aufrecht. I hope you will speedily send me the linguistic proof that the noble Vedic hymn you sent us belongs to at least 1,000 years—not B. C., but before the language of the epic poets. Still this cannot really be the oldest; for it already contains a perfect reflection of the old poetic age.
Hare thinks the translation excellent, as I do; only one expression, “Poets in their hearts discerned,” we can understand only if we make it “have discerned” (or seen)—for otherwise it is only a continuation of the narrative, which cannot be the meaning. Send it to me in German, for Schelling.
It is cold and rainy here; so don't find fault with Wales, if you are having bad weather there. Cura ut valeas. All the Muses be with you.
[45.]
London, Friday Morning, September 24, 1853.You have sent me the most beautiful thing you have yet written. I read your Veda essay yesterday, first to myself, and then to my family circle (including Lady Raffles, your great friend in petto), and we were all enchanted with both matter and form. I then packed up the treasure at once; at nine it goes to the printers. I think that the translation of the hymn is really improved; it is not yet quite clear to me whether instead of “poets discerned,” it should not be “poets discern,” or “have discerned,” which is at all events the meaning. And now, I hope the same father of the Muses, with their mother, Mnemosyne, will accompany you into the Turanian wilderness, and give you courage to adopt the poor Malays; that in the next separate edition of this sketch, as Mithridates, we may already have the links for joining on Australia and East Africa. We go on printing valiantly. Dietrich has at once accepted my proposal with true German good-nature, although he has only been married for seven months to a young and charming wife. His good mother-in-law tried to shorten the six months, which he at first offered; but that would neither suit me nor him: so I have written to him to come away at once—to arrive here the 16th of October, instead of in November, that I may dismiss him with my blessing early in April.
[pg 433]J. Mohl is here, and Rosen. Both go on Monday. I give them on Saturday (to-morrow) an evening party of literati, to which I have invited Wilson, Norris, Loftus, Birch, etc., etc. Mohl, as well as Rosen, would like to see you. Could not you by a stroke of genius fly here, rest yourself Sunday, and think on Monday if you really need go back again? Theodore is here, and George is expected. My household all share my wish to see you. Greetings to Aufrecht.
Bötticher has discovered a fragment of Livy (palimpsest), and the Greek translation of Diocles, who, 120 B. C., wrote the “Founding of Rome” (fragment).
Another idea has just struck me. Could one not perhaps make the original unity of Aryans and Europeans clear, if one furnished the hymn written in Latin letters, with an interlinear translation, just as you once gave me an intuition of the first lines, which I have never forgotten. The translation would be best in Latin, with references to the other languages, according as the one or the other of them contains certain radicals with the same meaning as in Sanskrit. If you do not like this, you must prepare for me a Vedic Paternoster, just as Lepsius devised for me a pyramido-Pharaonic, and now prepares a Nubian.
I have announced you as a member of the Assyrian Society, and so saved you three guineas. It is arranged that whoever pays two guineas should receive all reports, transactions, etc. I have therefore inserted your name, with two guineas, and paid it.
Lord Clarendon has, on my recommendation, attached Loftus to the embassy at Constantinople, so that he has a position at Bagdad and Mosul. He leaves on the 1st of October, and we give him a parting entertainment on the 28th of this month. The plan is a secret, but we hope great things from it. I hope to secure the best duplicates for the Berlin Museum.
A Cheruscan countryman, personally unknown to me, Schütz from Bielefeld, the Sanskritist, has asked, with antique confidence, for a bed for his young daughter, on her way to Liverpool as a governess, which we have promised him with real pleasure. This has again shown me how full Germany is of men of research and mind. O! my poor and yet wealthy Fatherland, sacrificed to the Gogym (heathen)!
[46.]
Carlton Terrace, Monday, October 17, 1853, 10 o'clock.I have already admonished the printer most seriously. You have revised the tables once, but they had to be fresh printed on account of the innumerable alterations. But that is no reason why you should not get them. You would have had them long ago, had I had an idea of it. I am impatiently awaiting yours and Aufrecht's revision of Chapters II., III., and IV., which I sent you myself last week. This presses very much. You have not much to do to them. I will look after the correct English here with Cottrell; but all the rest Aufrecht can shake out of his bag. In your letter you say nothing of having received them. They were taken to the book-post on Monday evening, the 16th, a week ago, and sent off.
Mi raccomanda, Signor Dottore, per il manuscritto. I will arrange the printing as much as possible according to your wishes. Much depends on the manner in which you organize the whole. With short chapters, easily looked through, the whole can be brought forward as a treatise intended for all readers. I have not, however, been so fortunate with my Semitic essay; I have printed a good deal of it in small print, partly to save space (for the volume on the “Philosophy of Religion” must really not be even half as thick as the first), partly on account of the legibility.
I am so sorry to hear from Pertz that you have been suffering from headache. I hope you are quite well and brisk again.
[47.]
Carlton Terrace, Saturday Morning, October 22, 1853, 10 o'clock.All right, my dear friend. I have already sent everything off to the printer. It is certainly better so. Where practicable you should have two chapters instead of one.
Ffoulkes' book shall be taken care of, either on the 1st or 15th. The same with the “Bampton Lectures,” if it is wished. I shall receive Mr. Thomson summo cum honore.
But now, my dear friend, where does the great Turanian essay hide itself? Pray let me soon receive something, not later than Monday or Tuesday; send it as a parcel by parcels' delivery, or, which is the cheapest and quickest, by book-post, which takes MS. (not letters) as well as printed matter, and forwards both for 6d. the lb.
[pg 435]I have sent my most difficult task to the printers, “Origin of the Three Gospels as part of the Second Age, 66-100.” I am longing for the promised addenda from Aufrecht on the Haruspex. The printing is stopped for it, also for the answer about a hieroglyphic which is unintelligible in London, instead of the honest amâ==mother, which is not good enough for him.
[48.]
Carlton Terrace, Monday Evening, October 24, 1853.It is of too much importance to me to have my dear Turanian's thoughts according to his own best way and form, for me not to be ready to wait till the end of November. The entire work, in seven volumes, must come out together, and I can keep back till then the first part of the “Philosophy,” which is entirely printed in slips up to your chapter, and go on with the second. Just look once at that book by the Scotch missionary, “The Karens, or Memoir of Ko-tha-bya,” by Kincaid, on the Karens in Pegu. He maintains the unity of the Karens and Kakhyans, another form of the same, and of all the scattered branches of the same race, starting from Thibet (five millions altogether) as the remnant of a once very powerful people. To judge from the representations the race must be very handsome. Frau von Helfer told me the same, and she knows them. There are extracts given in the “Church Missionary Intelligence,” October, 1853. Prichard says little about it, and has no specimens of the language. I have not got Latham at hand. Haruspex is printing; it waits for the conclusion. I have received Thomson's “Bampton Lectures.” Where does rife come from—Anglo-Saxon ryfe? It means prevalent, abundant.
[49.]
Friday Morning, October 28, 1853.Here is the printer's excuse. It is useless to think of printing at Oxford. You had better now keep the tables, in case you make more alterations, till you have quite finished your work, that nothing more may require alteration, but what you change during your work. I will send you Kincaid, if it is in London. Perhaps by a smile from the Muses you can get the first part ready in November. Is the Dean back? Good-by.
[50.]
Carlton Terrace, Monday, November 1, 1853.Please send me the letter for Humboldt. I will inclose it. Write him (and me) word in English what are the name and object of the Taylor Institution, and the name of the office. You will receive Kincaid from me. I will see after the tables. So courage.
[51.]
Carlton Terrace, Tuesday Evening, November 2, 1853.I have written to Humboldt to announce your letter and request, so write at once direct to him. I have told Pertz to send me the treatise of Schott by the courier on the 15th. So you will receive it on the 20th of this month. I have again admonished the printer. God bless you.
[52.]
London, Wednesday, February 8, 1854.My heartiest congratulations on your well-earned success (Taylorian Professorship). Your position in life now rests on a firm foundation, and a fine sphere of work lies before you; and that in this heaven-blest, secure, free island, and at a moment when it is hard to say whether the thrones of princes or the freedom of nations is in greatest danger. I send you the papers as they are. There is hope that the war may yet be rendered impossible.
With true affection yours.
Thanks for your Schleswig communication.
[53.]
Carlton Terrace, April 14, 1854.Dearest Friend,—So it is. My father has not up to this moment received a recall, and probably will not, in spite of the efforts of the Russians, within and without Berlin. On the other hand, we expect to-morrow the reply to an answer sent by my father in opposition to a renewed and very impetuous offer of leave of absence. In this answer (of the 4th of this month) my father made his accepting leave of absence dependent on the fulfillment of certain conditions guaranteeing his political honor. If the reply expected to-morrow from Berlin does not contain those conditions, nothing remains but for my father to [pg 437] send in his resignation and leave the Prussian mock negotiations to be fought through by another Prussian ambassador. If they are accorded to him, he will go on long leave of absence. But in either case he will certainly remain provisionally in England. More I cannot tell, but this is enough to give you information confidentially.
Dietrich is gone, and begged me to tell you, that in spite of constant work at it here, he could not finish your commission. He will have leisure in Marburg to make it all clear for you, and will send the packet here by the next courier. I will send you a line to-morrow as to the events of the day. My father does not go into the country before Tuesday.
George Bunsen.