[73.]
Charlottenberg, May 22, 1856.My Dear Friend,—H. R. H. the Prince Regent, who starts for England to-morrow, wishes to see Oxford, and quietly and instructively. I therefore give these lines to his private secretary, Herr Ullmann, that he may by letter, or (if the time allows) by word of mouth, apply to you, to fix a day. Herr Ullmann is the son of the famous Dr. U., the present prelate and chief church-councilor, and a man of good intentions.
I have at last gone in for Vedic and Bactrian chronology, after having had Dr. Haug of Bonn with me for eight days. He translated and read to me many hymns from your two quartos (which he does very fluently), and a little of Sâyana's commentary. By this and by Lassen and Roth, and yours and Weber's communications, I believe I have saved myself from the breakers, and I hold my proofs as established:—
That the oldest Vedas were composed 3000-2500 B. C., and that everything else is written in a learned dead Brahmanical language, a precipitate of the Veda language, and certainly very late: scarcely anything before 800 B. C.
[pg 469]Manu takes his place after Buddha.
The ages of the world are the miserable system of the book of Manu, and nothing more than evaporated historical periods. These epochs can be restored not by the aid, but in spite of the two epics and their chronology.
Petermann sends me a beautiful map. The routes and settlements of the Aryans from their primitive home to the land of the five rivers (or rather seven).
Haug has worked out all the fourteen names. Kabul and Kandahar are hidden amongst them. I hope he will settle in the autumn with me, and for the next few years.
In haste, with hearty thanks for your affectionate and instructive answers. God bless you.
P. S. I shall take the liberty of sending you, about the 1st of July, the first five sheets of my Aryans, before they are printed off, and ten days later the remaining three or four, and beg for your instructive remarks on them.
[74.]
Charlottenberg, July 17, 1856.My dearly loved Friend,—Yesterday evening at half-past seven o'clock I wrote off my last chapter of “Egypt's Place” for press, and so the work is finished, the first sheets of which were sent to Gotha from London in 1843, the chief part of which however was written in 1838-39. You will receive the two new volumes (Books IV., V. a) in a fortnight; they will be published to-day. Of the third volume (the sixth of the German editions), or V. (b), twelve sheets are printed, and the other eighteen are ready, except a few sheets already at Gotha, including the index to I. to V. (a). I am in the main satisfied with the work.
You are the first with whom I begin paying off my debts of correspondence; and I rejoice that I can take this opportunity to thank you for all the delightful news which your last dear letter (sent by that most amiable Muir) conveyed to me; especially for the completion of the third big volume of the Rig-veda, and for the happy arrival of your mother and cousin, which has doubtless already taken place. You know it was a letter from the latter, which first told me of you, and made me wish to see you. And then you came yourself; and all that I prophesied of you after the first conversation in London and your first visit in the country, has been richly fulfilled—yes, [pg 470] beyond my boldest hopes. You have won an honorable position in the first English university, not only for yourself but for the Fatherland, and you have richly returned the love which I felt for you from the first moment, and have faithfully reciprocated a friendship which constitutes an essential portion of my happiness. I therefore thank you all the more for all the love and friendship of your last letters. I can only excuse myself by my book for not having sooner thanked you. I soon perceived that you were quite right, that the chronological researches on Indian antiquity have led to nothing more sure than the conviction that the earlier views, with few exceptions, were wrong or without foundation. As soon as I acquired this conviction, through reading the last works on the subject (Lassen and Roth), I grew furious, as it happens to me from time to time, and at the same time reawoke the longing after the researches which I had to lay aside in 1816, and which I now determined to approach again, in the course of my work, which is chronological in the widest sense. After I had read all that is written, I let Haug come to me in the Whitsun holidays. He brought with him the translation I wished for of the First Fargard of the Vendidad; and you can imagine my delight, when in Books XII. and XIII. he discovered for me (purely linguistically) the two countries, the non-appearance of which was the only tenable counter-reason which opposed itself to the intuition to which I had held fast since 1814—namely, that this document, so ancient in its primitive elements, contained nothing less than the history of the gradual invasion, founding of states, and peopling of Asia by the Aryans. How could Kandahar and Kabul be missing if this were true? Without the least suspicion of this historical opinion, Haug proved to me that they are not wanting. Petermann will make the whole clear in a little map, such as I showed him. You will find it in the sixth volume. Then he rejoiced my heart by translating some single hymns of the Rig-veda, especially in Book VII., which I found threw great light on the God-Consciousness, the faith in the moral government of the world. He comes to me: from the 1st of August he is free in Bonn, and goes for the Zend affairs to Paris, marries his bride in Ofterdingen, and comes here to me on the 1st of October for Mithridates and the Old Testament, the printing of which begins in January, 1857, with the Pentateuch. With him (in default of your personal presence) I have now gone through everything at which I arrived with regard to the period [pg 471] of the entry of the Aryans (4000 B. C.) in the Indus country (to which Sarasvatî does not belong—one can as easily count seven as five rivers from the eastern branch of the upper Indus to the west of the Satadru), and with regard to the difficult questions of the connection of these migrations with Zoroaster. That is, I must place Zoroaster before the emigration; on the march (from 5000-4000) the emigrants gradually break off. Three heresies, one after another, are mentioned in the record itself. The not exterminated germs of the nature-worship (with the adoration of fire) spring up again, but the moral life remained. (1.) Therefore the Veda language is to me the precipitate of the Old Bactrian (as the Edda language of the Old Norse). (2.) The Zend language is the second step from the Northern Old Bactrian. (3.) The Sanskrit is one still further advanced from the Southern Old Bactrian, or from the Veda language. (4.) All Indian literature, except the Vedas, is in the New South Bactrian, already become a learned language, which has been named the perfect or Sanskrit language. The epochs of the language are the three great historical catastrophes.
A. Kingdom in the region of the Indus.—4000-3000. The Veda language as a living popular language.
B. Second Period.—On the Sarasvatî and in the Duâb. The Veda tongue becomes the learned language. Sanskrit is the popular language, 3000-2000.
C. Third Period.—Sanskrit begins to be the learned language, at least at the end.
D. Kali=1150 B. C. Sanskrit merely the learned language.
Therefore the oldest Vedas, the purely popular, cannot be younger than 3000; the collection was made in the third period, the tenth book is already in chief part written in a dead language. You see all depends on whether I can authenticate the four periods with their three catastrophes; for a new form of language presupposes a political change. Forms such as Har-aqaiti I can explain just as that the Norwegian names of places are younger than the corresponding Icelandic forms; in the colony the old remains as a fixed form, in the mother country the language progresses.
For what concerns now seriously the Mythology, your spirited essay opening the way was a real godsend, for I had just arrived at the conviction which you will find expressed in the introduction to Book V. (a): That the so-called nature-religion can be nothing but the symbol of the primitive consciousness of [pg 472] God, which only gradually became independent (through misunderstanding) and which already lies prefigured in organic speech. P——, K—— and Co., are on this point in great darkness, or rather in utter error. You have kept yourself perfectly free from this mistake. I however felt that I must proclaim what is positively true far more sharply, and have drawn the outlines of a method which is to me the more convincing, as it has stood the test of the whole history of old religion. For in taking up the Aryan investigations, I closed the circle of my historical mythological inquiry. What will you say to this? For I have written the whole especially for you, to come to an understanding with you. I arrive at the same point which you aim at, but without your roundabout way, which is but a make-shift. But in the fundamental conception of nature-religion, we do certainly agree altogether. If you come to Germany, you will find here with me the proof-sheets of Book V.(b) (about pages 1-200) which treat of this section, as well as the analysis of the table of the Hebrew patriarchs. They will be looked through before Haug's journey to Paris and mine to Geneva (August 1), and will be therefore all struck off when I return here on the 23d August.
Your essay holds a beautiful place in the history of the subject. The work on that section gave me inexpressible delight, and a despaired-of gap in my life is filled up, as far as is necessary for my own knowledge; and I believe too not without advantage to the faithful.
How disgraceful it is that we do not instinctively understand the Veda language, when we read it in respectable Roman letters, with a little previous grammatical practice! Your Veda Grammar will be a closed book to me, as you print in the later Devanagari goose-foot character. Haug shall transliterate for me the grammatical forms into your alphabet. He is a noble Suabian, and much attached to me; also a great admirer of yours.
My “God-Consciousness” is printed (thirty-two sheets), twenty are corrected (and fought through with Bernays). This work, too, will be carried through the second revise before my journey. I wonder myself what will come of the work. Its extent remains unaltered (three volumes in six books), but its contents are ever swelling. I hope it will take. I shall strike the old system dead forever, if we do not go to ruin; of this I am sure; therefore I must all the more lay the foundations of the new structure in the heart, the conscience, and the reason.
[pg 473]O! what a hideous time! God be praised, who made us both free. So also is Carl now, through his official efficiency and his happy marriage. The wedding will take place in Paris between the 9th and 15th October. We shall go there.
I take daily rides, and was never better. Please God I shall finish the “God-Consciousness” (II. and III.) between the 25th August and the end of October (the third volume is nearly ready), and then I shall take up the “Biblework,” the proof-sheets of which lie before me, with undivided energy. The contract with Brockhaus is concluded and exchanged. I shall perhaps come to England in October, 1857; that is to say with the first volume of the Bible, but not without it.
Neukomm and Joachim have been with us for six weeks, which gave us the greatest enjoyment. Neukomm returns here at the end of August.
My children promise me (without saying it) to meet here for the 25th August, to introduce the amiable bride to me. I am rejoicing over it like a child.
Why do you not make a journey to the Neckar valley with your mother and cousin? My people send hearty greetings. With true love, yours.
I am purposely not reading your Anti-Renan all at once, that I may often read it over again before I finish it. I think it is admirably written. Perhaps a distinguished philologist, Dr. Fliedner (nephew of the head of the Deaconesses), may call on you. He has been highly recommended to me, and is worthy of encouragement. What is Aufrecht about? I cannot cease to feel interested about him.
[75.]
Charlottenberg, October 7, 1856.Yesterday, my dearest friend, I sent off the close of the last volume of “Egypt,” together with the printed sheets 13-19, and at the same time to Brockhaus the last two revised sheets of the “God in History,” Volume I.; and to-day I have again taken up the translation of the Bible (Exodus), with Haug and Camphausen—that is, Haug arrived the day before yesterday. (Between ourselves, I hope Bernays is coming to me for three years.) How I should have liked to show you these sheets, 13-19 (the Bactrians and Indians and their chronology). You will find in them a thorough discussion of your beautiful essay (which has been admired everywhere as a perfect masterpiece), not without [pg 474] some shakings of the head at K—— and B——. In fact I have gone in for it, and by New Year's Day you shall have it before you. This, with the journey to Switzerland and three weeks of indisposition afterwards, are an excuse for my silence.
It always gives me great and inexpressible pleasure when you talk to me by letter and think aloud. And this time I have been deeply touched by it. I am convinced you have since then yourself examined the considerations which oppose themselves to your bold and noble wish with regard to the Punjab. What would become of your great work? I will not here say what shall we in Europe do without you? Also; do you mean to go alone to Hapta Hendu, or as a married man? There you will never find a wife. And would your intended go with you? And the children? All Englishmen tell me it is just as unbearably hot in Lahore as in Delhi; in Umritsir there is no fresh air. No Sing goes to Cashmir because he who reigns there would soon dispatch him out of the world at the time of the fever.
By the by, what has become of your convert? Does he still smoke without any scruple?
Your gorgeous Rig-veda at Brockhaus' frightens people here because of its extent (they would have given up the Sanhita, satisfied with various readings) and the exorbitant price. Others would willingly have had your own Veda Grammar besides the Indian grammatical treatise, especially on account of the Vedic forms. In fact you are admired, but criticised. You must not allow this to annoy you. I find that Haug thinks about the mythology nearly as I do.
Everything in Germany resolves itself more and more into pettinesses and cliques, and the pitiful question of subsistence. “The many princes are our good fortune, but poverty is our crime.” Had not Brunn offered himself to take Braun's place, giving up his private tutorship, we must have given up the Archæological Institute at Rome! With difficulty Gerhard has found one man in Germany who could undertake the Italian printing of the “Annali” (appearing, as you know, in Gotha). “Resta a vedere se lo può!” All who can, leave Prussia—and only blockheads or hypocrites are let in, with the exception of physical science; whoever can do so turns engineer, or goes into a house of business, or emigrates. My decided advice on this account therefore is, reserve yourself for better times, and stay at present in England, where you have really won a delightful position for yourself.
[pg 475]Now for various things about myself. Every possible thing is done to draw me away from here (my third capitol, the first of my own). The King quite recently (which I could not in the least expect) received me here at the railway station, in the most affectionate way, and demanded a promise from me that I would pay him a visit within a year and a day. But I have once for all declared myself as the “hermit of Charlottenberg,” and hermits and prophets should stay at home. I do not even go to Carlsruhe and Coblentz. Cui bono? What avails good words, without good deeds? But the nation is not dead. Don't imagine that. Before this month is out you will see what I have said on this subject in the Preface to the “God in History.” Within six to ten years the nation will again be fit to act. Palmerston will cut his throat if nothing comes of the Neapolitan business, and just the same if he cannot make “a good case;” the principle of intervention even against Bomba is self-destruction for England, and disgraceful in the highest degree. The fox cannot begin war in Italy at the present moment from want of money, and his accomplices are afraid of losing their stolen booty. So he tries to gain time. He will still live a few years.
I have seen ——: he knows a great deal more than he allows to appear, but is the driest, and most despairing Englishman I have ever seen. He has suffered shipwreck of everything on the Tübingen sand bank. The poor wretches! Religion and theology without philosophy is bad; philosophy without philosophy is a monster! So Comte is a trump-card with many in Oxford! He is so in London. What a fall of intellect! what a decay of life! what an abyss of ignorance! Jowett is a living shoot, and will continue so; but John Bull is my chief comfort, even for my “God in History.” America is my greatest misery after my misery for Germany; but the North will prove itself in the right.
With hearty greetings of truest attachment and love to your mother, truly yours.
We expect George on the 18th. Ernst is here.
[76.]
Charlottenberg, January 29, 1857.You have really inflicted it on me! For though I have but one leg to stand upon (I cannot sit at all), as the other has been suffering for four days from sciatica (let Dr. Acland explain [pg 476] that to you, whilst you at the same time thank him heartily for his excellent book on the cholera), still I am obliged to place myself at the desk, to answer my dear friend's letter, received yesterday evening in bed. The last fortnight I have daily thought of you incessantly, and wished to write you a dunning letter, at the same time thanking you for the third volume of the Veda, which already contains some hymns of the seventh book, as the admiring Haug read it out to me. Out of this especially he promises me a great treasure for my Vedic God-Consciousness, without prejudice to what the muse may perhaps prompt you to send me in your beautiful poetical translation; for my young assistant will have nothing to do with that. You will certainly agree with him, after you have read my first volume, that much is to be found in that Veda for the centre of my inquiries; the consciousness in the Indian Iranians of the reality of the divine in human life. I find in all that has yet come before me, almost the same that echoes through the Edda, and that appears in Homer as popular belief; the godhead interferes in human affairs, when crime becomes too wanton, and thus evil is overcome and the good gains more and more the upper hand. Of course that is kept in the background, when despair in realities becomes the keynote of the God-Consciousness, as with the Brahmans, and then with the much-praised apostles of annihilation, the Buddhists. You are quite right; it is a pity that I could not let the work appear all at once, for even you misunderstand me. When I say “we cannot pray with the Vedas and Homer and their heroes, not even with Pindar,” I mean, we as worshippers, as a community; and that you will surely allow. Of course the thoughtful philosopher can well say with Goethe, “worship and liturgy in the name of St. Homer, not to forget Æschylus and Shakespeare.” But that matter is nevertheless true in history without any limitation. I have only tried it with Confucius, but it is more difficult; it is as if an antediluvian armadillo tried to dance.
But what will my Old Testament readers say when I lead them into the glory of the Hellenic God-Consciousness? Crossing and blessing themselves won't help! My expressions therefore in the second volume are carefully considered and cautiously used. But the tragedy of my life will be the fourth book. Yet I write it, I have written it!
You are quite right about the English translation; all the three volumes at once, and the address at the beginning. But [pg 477] you must read the second book for me. It is no good saying you don't understand anything about it. I have made it easy enough for you. I have asserted nothing simply, without making it easy for every educated person to form his own opinion, if he will only reflect seriously about the Bible. The presuppositions are either as good as granted, or where anything peculiar to me comes in, I have in the notes justified everything thoroughly, although apparently very simply. Take the Lent Sundays for this, and you will keep Easter with me, and also your amiable mother (from whom you never send me even a word of greeting).
But now, how does it fare with “Egypt?” The closing volume, which, as you know, I wrote partly out of despair, because you would not help me, and in which I most especially thought of you, and reckoned on your guiding friendship, must surely now be in your hands (the two preceding volumes, of course, some time ago). Why don't you read them?
I am not at all easy at what you tell me about yourself and your feelings; even though I feel deeply that you do not quite withdraw your inmost thoughts from me. But why are you unhappy? You have gained for yourself a delightful position in life. You are getting on with your gigantic work. You (like me) have won a fatherland in England, without losing your German home, the ever excellent. You have a beautiful future before you. You can at any moment give yourself a comfortable and soul-satisfying family circle. If many around you are Philisters, you knew that already; still they are worth something in their own line. Only step boldly forward into life. Then Heidelberg would come again into your itinerary.
One thing more this time. I have not received Wilson's translation. I possess both the first and second volumes. Has he not continued his useful work? What can I do to remind him of the missing part? The third volume, too, must contain much that is interesting for me.
I cannot forget Aufrecht. Is he free from care and contented? The family greet you and your dear mother. We expect Charles and his young wife next week. Ernst is, as you will know, back at Abbey Lodge. With unaltered affection.
[77.]
Charlottenberg, April 27, 1857.The month is nearly over, my dear friend, before the close of which I must, according to agreement, deliver up my revised copy of the amendments and additions to the English edition of my “Egypt.” (They are already there.) I hoped that in this interval you would have found a little leisure (as Lepsius and Bernays have done, who sent me the fruits of their reading already at the beginning of the month, in the most friendly way) to communicate to me your criticisms or doubts or thoughts or corrections on that which I have touched on in your own especial territory, as I had expressly and earnestly begged you to do. I have improved the arrangement very much. As you have not done this, I can only entertain one of two disagreeable suppositions, namely, that you are either ill or out of spirits, or that you have only what is disagreeable to say of my book, and would rather spare yourself and me from this. But as from what I know of you, and you know of me, I do not find in either the one or the other supposition a sufficient explanation of your obstinate silence, I should have forced myself to wait patiently, had I not to beg from you alone a small but indispensable gift for my “God in History.”
I have again in this interregnum taken up the interrupted studies of last year on the Aryan God-Consciousness in the Asiatic world, and thanks to Burnouf's, yours, Wilson's, Roth's and Fausböll's books, and Haug's assistance and translations, I have made the way easy to myself for understanding the two great Aryan prophets Zaraduschtra and Sākya, and (so far as that is possible to one of us now) the Veda; and this not without success and with inexpressible delight. My expectations are far exceeded. The Vedic songs are by far the most glorious, which in first going through that fearful translation of Wilson's, seemed to wish to hide themselves entirely from me. The difficulties of making them intelligible, even of a bare translation, are immense; the utter perverseness of Sâyana is only exceeded by that of Wilson, to whom however one can never be grateful enough for his communications. I now first perceive what a difficult but also noble work you have undertaken, and how much still remains doubtful; even after one has got beyond the collectors and near to the original poets. It is as if of the Hebrew traditions we only had the Psalms, and that without an individual personality like David, without, in fact, any one; on the contrary, allusions to Abraham's possible poems and the cosmical [pg 479] dreams of the Aramæans. But yet how strong is the feeling of immediate relation to God and nature, how truly human, and how closely related to our own! What a curious similarity to the Edda, Homer, and Pindar, Hesiod, and the Hellenic primitive times! Nothing however gave me greater delight than the dignity and solemnity of the funeral ceremonies, which you have made so really clear and easy to be understood. This is as yet the only piece of real life of our blood relations in the land of the five rivers. I have naturally taken possession of this treasure with the greatest delight, and perfected the description for my problem by the explanation of Yama (following on the whole Roth, who however overlooks the demiurgic character), of the Ribhus (departing entirely, not only from Nève's mistaken views, but also from what I have read elsewhere, representing them as the three powers which divide and form matter, namely, Air, Water, and Earth, to whom the fourth, Agni, was joined under the guidance of Tvash'ar), and of the funeral ceremonies as the condition of the laws of inheritance; where I return to my own beginning. And here it strikes me at once that in the Vedas, so far as they are accessible to me, there is not a trace to be found of the joining together of the three generations (the departed and his father and grandfather), and making them the unity of the race through the sacrificial oblations. And yet the idea must be older than the Vedas, as this precise, though certainly not accidental limitation is found with Solon and the Twelve Tables, just as clearly as with Manu and all the books of laws, and the commentaries collected by Colebrooke. You would of course have mentioned this in your account if anything of the sort had existed in the tenth book. But even the Pitris, the fathers, are not mentioned, but it passes on straight to Yama the first ancestor. Haug, too, has discovered nothing; if you know anything about it, communicate it to me in the course of May, for my second volume goes to press on the 1st June. I shall read it aloud to George and Miss Wynn here, between the 25th and 31st.
But my real desire is that you should send me one of your melodious and graceful metrical translations of your hymn, “Nor aught nor nought existed.” I must of course give it (it belongs with me to the period of transition, therefore, comparatively speaking, late); and how can I venture to translate it? I have, to be sure, done so with about five poems, which Haug chose for me out of the first nine books, and translated literally [pg 480] and then explained them to me; as well as with those which I worked out of Wilson's two first volumes by the help of Roth and Haug. But that is your hymn, and I have already written my thanks for your communication in my MS. and then left a space. That good Rowland Williams thinks it theistic, or at all events lets one of the speakers say so.
Rowland Williams' “Christ and Hinduism” has been a real refreshment to me, in this investigation of the Indian consciousness of God in the world. The mastery of the Socratic-Platonic dialogue, the delicacy and freedom of the investigation, and the deep Christian and human spirit of this man, have attracted me more than all other new English books, and even filled me with astonishment. Muir, that good man, sent it me through Williams and Norgate, and I have not only thanked him, but Williams himself, in a full letter, and have pressingly invited him for his holidays to our little philosophers' room. It is an especial pleasure to me that Mary and John, whose neighbor he is in summer, have appreciated him, and loved and prized him, and Henry also.
Henry will bring me “Rational Godliness.” This book, English as it is, should be introduced into India, in order to convert the followers of Brahma and the English Christians! One sees what hidden energy lies in the English mind, as soon as it is turned to a worthy object, but for this of course the fructifying influences of the German spirit are required. I have, on the contrary, been much disappointed by G——'s communication contained in Burnouf's classical works, on that most difficult but yet perfectly soluble point of the teaching of Buddha, the twelve points “beginning with ignorance and ending with death.” G—— leaves the rational way even at the first step, and perceives his error himself at the ninth, but so far he finds Buddha's (that is his own) proofs unanswerable. How totally different is Burnouf. He is fresh, self-possessed, and clear. I can better explain why William von Humboldt went astray on this subject. But I have already gossiped too much of my own thoughts to you. Therefore to Anglicis.
What are you about in Oxford? According to Haug's account you have abused me well, or allowed me to be well abused in your “Saturday Review,” which passes as yours and Kingsley's mouthpiece. If it were criticism, however mistaken, but why personal aspersions? Pattison's article on the “Theologia Germanica” in the April number of the “Westminster [pg 481] Review” is very brave, and deserves all thanks. He has learnt to prize Bleek: in all respects he has opened himself more to me in the last few weeks, and I like him. But the man who now writes the survey of foreign literature in the “Westminster Review” might have just read my book: this he cannot have done, or else he is a thorough bungler; for he (1) understands me only as representing the personal God (apparently the one in the clouds, as you once expressed it, a-straddle, riding) and leaving out everything besides; (2) that the last twenty-seven chapters of the book of Isaiah are not, as one has hitherto conceived, written by one man, but by Jeremiah, although he is already the glorified saint of the 53d chapter, and by Baruch. Now thank God that the sheet is finished, and think occasionally in a friendly way of your true friend.
I shall to-day finish the ante-Solonic God-Consciousness of the Hellenes. That does one good.
[78.]
Charlottenberg, Friday, May 8, 1857.I must at least begin a letter to you to-day, because I feel I must thank you, and express my delight at the letter and article. The letter confirms my fears in the highest degree, namely, that you are not well, not to say that you begin to be a hypochondriacal old bachelor. But that is such a natural consequence of your retired sulky Don's life, and of your spleen, that I can only wonder how you can fight so bravely against it. But both letter and article show me how vigorous are both your mind and heart. It is quite right in you to defend Froude, though no one better knows that the general opinion is (as is even acknowledged by members of the German romantic school) that Shakespeare intentionally counteracted the corrupt instinct and depraved taste of his nation in the matter of Oldcastle. Whatever strange saints there have been in all countries, yet the Wycliffites, true to their great and noble master, were martyrs, and Milman has insisted on this most nobly. To misapprehend Wyeliffe himself, that is, not to recognize him as the first and purest reformer, the man between the Waldenses, Tauler, and Luther, is, however, a heresy more worthy of condemnation than the ignoring of Germany in the Reformation, and doubly deplorable when one sees such blind faith in the bloody sentences of that most miserable court of judgment of Henry VIII. I must therefore invert your formula thus, [pg 482] “L'histoire romanique (romantique) ne vaut pas le Roman historique.” (I am not speaking of “Two Years Ago,” for I only began to read the book yesterday.) But I am very glad that you think so highly of Froude personally, and therefore this matter does not disturb me. On the other hand, I rejoice without any but, that you have taken up Buddha so lovingly and courageously. (Do you know that extracts from the article have found their way into the papers, through “Galignani” as “Signs of the Times.”) You will soon see how nearly we agree together, although I cannot say so much of the humanizing influence of Buddhism: it makes of the Turanians what the Jesuits make of the people of Paraguay, “praying machines.” In China the Buddhists are not generally respected; in India they could not maintain their position, and would with difficulty convert the people, if they tried to regain their lost ground. But Buddha, personally, was a saint, a man who felt for mankind, a profound man. I have said in my section, “Buddha has not only found more millions of followers than Jesus, but is also even more misunderstood than the Son of Mary.” Have you read Dhammapadam? What is the authority for Buddha's “Ten Commandments?” I have always considered this as an invention of Klaproth's, confirmed by Prinsep. I do not find them on Asoka's pillars, nor in that didactic poem; on the contrary, four or five ad libitum. I shall, however, now read the sermons of the (really worthless) convert Asoka at the fountain head, from Sprenger's library.
You have represented the whole as with a magic wand. We really edified ourselves yesterday evening with it. Frances read aloud, and we listened; and this morning early my wife has made it into a beautiful little book in quarto, with which I this afternoon made Trübner very happy for some hours. He is a remarkable man, and is much devoted to you, and I have entered into business relations with him about my “Biblework,” the first volume of which goes to press on the 1st of January; the other six stand before me as far finished as they can be, till I have the printed text of “The People's Bible” in three volumes before me, on which the “Biblical Documents,” three volumes, and the “Life of Jesus and the Eternal Kingdom of God,” one volume, are founded. He appears to me to be the right negotiator between America, England, and Germany. He will before long call on you some Saturday. (Write me word how you think of him as a bookseller.) The duty you pay for [pg 483] your place, by putting together a Chresthomathy, is very fair; whether you are obliged to print your Lectures I cannot decide. I shall curse them both if they prevent you from tearing yourself away from the Donnish atmosphere and bachelor life of Oxford, and from throwing yourself into the fresh mental atmosphere of Germany and of German mind and life. You must take other journeys besides lake excursions and Highland courses. Why don't you go to Switzerland, with an excursion (by Berlin) to Breslau, to the German Oriental Congress? There is nothing like the German spirit, in spite of all its one-sidedness. What a lœta paupertas! What a recognition of the sacerdocy of science! And then the strengthening air, free from fog, of our mountains and valleys! You bad fellow, to tell me nothing of your mother's leaving you, for you ought to know that I am tenderly devoted to her; and it vexes me all the more, as I should long ago have sent her my “God in History,” had I known that she was in Germany. (Query where? Address?) Therefore fetch her, instead of luring her away to the walks under the lime-trees. George is going too at the end of June from here to the Alps; we expect him in a fortnight. He is a great delight to me.
Now something more about Yama. I think you are perfectly right with regard to the origin. It is exactly the same with Osiris, the husband of Isis, the earth, and then the judge of the dead and first man. Only we do not on this account explain Anubis as a symbol of the sun, but as the watchful Dog of Justice, the accuser. So there are features in Yama (and Yima) which are not to be easily explained from the cosmogonic conception, although they can be from the idea of the divine, the first natural representation of which is the astral one. I think, however, that Yama is Geminus, that is “the upper and lower sun,” to speak as an Egyptian. The two dogs must originally have been what their mother the old bitch Saramâ is; but with the God of Death they are something different, and the lord of the dead is to be as little explained by the so-called nature-religion without returning to the eternal factor, as this first phase itself could have arisen without it as cosmical—therefore, as first symbol. How I long for your two translations! The hymn which you give in the article is sublime: the search after the God of the human heart is expressed with indescribable pathos; and how much more will this be the case in your hands in a new Indian translation! For we are most surely now the Indians of [pg 484] the West. I am delighted that you so value Rowland Williams. We must never forget that he has undertaken (as he himself most pointedly wrote to me) the difficult task “to teach Anglican theology (and that to Anglican Cymri).” He has not yet quite promised to pay me a visit,—he is evidently afraid of me as a German and freethinker, and is afraid “to be catechised.” He, like all Englishmen, is wanting in faith. He seems to occupy himself profoundly with the criticism of the Old Testament. Poor fellow! But he will take to Daniel.
The Harfords are determined to keep him there, in which Henry has already encouraged them. I, however, think he ought to go to Cambridge if they offer him a professorship. Muir has written to me again,—an honest man; but he has again taken a useless step, a prize, for which Hoffmann (superintendent-in-general) is to be the arbiter; and the three judges will be named by him, Lehnert as theologian (Neander's unknown successor), H. Ritter as the historian of philosophy (very good,—and who as Orientalist)! No magister will touch his pen, his ducibus and tali auspicio. You should perform the Benares vow by a catechism drawn up for the poor young Brahmans in the style of Rowland Williams, and yet quite different, that is, in your own manner, telling and short. At all events, no one in Germany will write half as good a book for the Brahmans as Williams has done. The Platonic dialogue requires a certain breadth, unless one is able and willing to imitate the Parmenides. At the same time the ordinary missionaries may convert the lower classes through the Gospel and through Christian-English-German life, in which alone they prove their faith. By the by, it seems that Williams hopes for an article from you in the “North British Review.” That you intend to read my “Egypt” is delightful; only not in the Long Vacation, when you ought to travel about. Have you read the friendly article on “God in History” in the “National Review” (April), which however certainly shows an ignorance bordering on impudence. Even the man in the “Westminster Review” pleases me better, although he looked through my book fast asleep, and puts into my mouth the most unbelievable discoveries of his own ignorance,—Isaiah chapters xlix.-lxvi. are written by Jeremiah and Baruch, and similar horrors! When will people learn something? But in four years I hope, with God's help, to state this, in spite of them, and force them at last to learn something through “the help of their masters and mine.” With true love, yours.