LETTERS FROM BUNSEN TO MAX MÜLLER IN THE YEARS 1848 TO 1859.98 (continued 2)

[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)!

[pg 434]

[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 has lightened—on the Danube!”

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.

[pg 436]

[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.

[54.]

Carlton Terrace

,

Maundy Thursday, April, 1854.

My Dear Friend,—The bearer, Herr von Fennenberg from Marburg, has brought me greetings and a little book from Thiersch, and wishes to be introduced to you. He is a philologist, in particular a Sanskritist. He wishes to have a place or employment that would make it possible for him to stay in England. I know no one who could better advise him than you. Before you receive these lines you will hear from George about me. I am determined to fight through the crisis, and am quite calm.

[55.]

Carlton Terrace

,

Wednesday, May 10, 1854.

Dear Friend,—Of course Dietrich has sent nothing. The affair presses. My summary of the Semitic alphabet (lithographed) gives the summary of the system of transliteration used in this work, and is also in the press. Set aside then what is still wanting, and hurry on the matter for me. My journey to Heidelberg with my family, who at all events go on the 20th, depends on the work being finished. To-day I take refuge at St. Leonard's-on-Sea, 77 Marina, till the telegraph calls me to London to receive my letters of recall. I depend, therefore, on your friendly help in one of the most important parts of the book. All right here; the house is deserted, but the heart rejoices and the soul already spreads its wings. Truly yours.

Just starting. Dear M., pray send the MS. Spottiswoode lays everything on you.

[pg 438]

[56.]

77

Marina, St. Leonard's

,

Monday Morning, May 15, 1854.

Your despairing letter of Thursday has alarmed me very much. You had offered me the alternative of leaving out the Semitic tables, if Dietrich does not send them by the courier. I did not write to him, as the omission of that list really did not seem to me a great misfortune. But now you say something quite new to me, and most dreadful, that you cannot make the corrections without having what I am unable to procure for you. I must own I cannot make this out. Trusting to your goodwill to do the utmost, I wrote to Petermann to send you at once an impression of the Semitic paraphrase put together by me and Bötticher. The courier comes on Friday, only I have given up all dependence on Dietrich, since he could take away the lists with him. He never said a word to me about it.

I must go to Germany on the 16th of June. Yesterday I sent all the rest to Spottiswoode, and at the same time complained about Watts. Only what can they, and what can I do, if you do not enable us to finish the most important book of the three works? I hope you have not worked yourself to death for Trevelyan, and that you will reserve a free hour for London to say good-by. Since last night I am at work at my German “Egypt,” to my inexpressible delight. Friday I return to town, and stay probably (at Ernest's) till my things are sold. Cura ut valeas.

What is the original meaning of glauben, to believe?

[57.]

St. Leonard's

,

Wednesday, May 24, 1854.

You have done wonders; and I hope you will rest yourself. A thousand thanks. I have at once sounded an alarm. I go to-day to town; Fanny and her two daughters will embark on Sunday morning: we have taken a house from the 1st of July, on the Neckar. I hope you will soon make your appearance there. George goes into the country to-morrow on business. I stay with Ernest till Hippolytus is out.

The snare is broken, and the bird is free; for which let us bless the Lord. As they once let me out of my cage, they shall not catch me again. My fifth book is ready for printing, down to the general philosophical article. Johannes Brandis, the Assyrian chronologist, arranges for me the synchronistic tables from Menes to Alexander.

[pg 439]

Greetings to Aufrecht. I have not yet received the impression of the text, which he restored from the Codex.

[58.]

Abbey Lodge, Regent's Park

,

Friday, June 9, 1854.

Your letter came just when wanted, my dearest friend. My wife and children leave the house to-morrow; and I follow them a week later, on account of Spottiswoode. Come here then to-morrow morning, and stay at least till Monday: so my daughter-in-law Elizabeth begs, who herself goes to Upton. George, Brandis, and I help Ernest to keep house this week.

I have to-day sent to press the “Resolutions and Statements on the Alphabet” which you wrote, with Lepsius's not “amendments” but certain explanations on his part, and my now English “recapitulations.” I shall receive the first impression to-morrow evening. Lepsius has sent a long Essay, of which I only print the “Exposition of the System,” with some “specimens of application.”

You should rejoice, as I do, over “Hippolytus VII., Christianity and Mankind, their Beginnings and Prospects,” in seven volumes (also as three separate works).

I shall easily finish it. Also “Egypt II.” is publishing; I have written a new Preface to it. The “Theologia Germanica” is waiting for you; one copy for my dear M., and one for Dr. Thomson, whose address I don't know. Spottiswoode has vowed to have all ready next week. If you could stay here, and revise your sheets at once, I might believe the vow.

We have secured a beautiful house in Heidelberg (Heidt-weiler), on the right bank, opposite the Castle.

[59.]

Thursday Morning, June 15, 1854

, 9 o'clock.

Immediately saw about Venn: wrote urgently to him to send the order direct to Spottiswoode, and marked this on the sheet. I cannot send Lepsius, because the sheets are being printed; refer the printer to it. You deceiver! the hymn is without the interlineal version for the non-Iranians. Just as if you were a German professor! I personally beg earnestly for it, for myself and for those who are equally benighted. I have everything now at press, except some Latin abuse for M. Your visit refreshed me very much. Fanny had an exceedingly good journey, and will be to-morrow in Heidelberg.

[pg 440]

[60.]

Thursday, June 15, 1854.

Dearest Friend,—All ready for the journey. Your slips come in. Thirty-two men are day and night printing, composing, correcting, etc. I am ready. Venn will print nothing of yours, and will not even send Lepsius' Essay to the missionaries, that they may not be driven mad.

I do not know what books you have of mine: if I can have them by Saturday morning, 9 o'clock, good—if not, you must bring them yourself. George goes with me, instead of Ernest.

[61.]

Heidelberg

,

June 23, 1854.

Dear Max M.,—Allow me, through this note, to recommend to you, in my own name, as well as in the name of the Duke of Coburg and Baron Stockmar, the bearer of this, Dr. Wilhelm Pertsch, who is going to England on Sanskrit business, and needs kind advice and a little assistance in his undertaking. Bunsen, who sends you his heartiest greetings, had at first offered to give him a letter to Wilson, but thought afterwards a word from you was worth more with Wilson than a letter from any one else.

The Bunsens have quite decided now to settle at Heidelberg for at least a year, and are already hoping for a speedy visit from you, by which I hope also to profit. He is studying upstairs with great delight your official and scientific vade mecum on the Turanian languages. Yesterday, by means of a breakfast, I introduced him to most of the scientific and literary celebrities here—such as H. Gagern, Mohl, Dusch, Harper, Jolly, etc., etc. George came with them, and helped in arranging things, but returns to-morrow.

A thousand good wishes. And always keep in friendly remembrance

Your true friend,

K. Meyer.

[62.]

Heidelberg, Charlottenberg

,

June 29, 1854.

I cannot let George, who took care of me here, return without a token for you of my being alive. I read your book for the English officers partly on the road, and partly here, with real delight and sincere admiration. What an advance from a “Guide Interprête,” or a “Tableau Statistique,” to such an introduction [pg 441] to languages and nationalities. The map, too, is excellent. The excellent Petermann must make us several, just of this kind, for our unborn Mithridates.

I should like to scold your English reviser for several Gallicisms, for which I feel certain you are not to blame. Rawlinson's barbaric débris instead of “ruins,” and fauteuil instead of “chair,” which in French as well as in English is the right expression for a professor's chair; whilst fauteuil is only used in French to denote the “President's chair” (for instance, in the Institute), and is quite inadmissable in English, even by the “Upholsterer.” The third I have forgotten but not forgiven.

I cannot even now give up my habit of using Iranian in opposition to Turanian, in deference to you. He who uses Turanian must use Iranian. Arian is to me something belonging to the land of Aria, therefore Median, part of Bactria and Persia. It is decidedly a great step in advance to separate the Indian from this. That the Indians acknowledge themselves to be Arians, suits me as it does you. But Iranian is a less localized name, and one wants such a name in contradistinction to Turanian and Semitic. It is only despised by the German “Brahmans and Indomaniacs.”

There you have my opinions and criticisms.

I have already written 67 of the 150 pages belonging to the fifth book, and cannot go on till I have my books. I am now occupied with the principles of the method for the historical treatment of mythology, with especial reference to three points in the Egyptian:—

1. Age and relation of the Osiris-worship to the θεοὶ νοητοί and the astronomical gods (Ra, Horus, etc.).

2. History of Seth in Asia and in Egypt, ad vocem Adam.

3. Position and signification of animal worship.

Book IV. goes to press on the 15th of July. Book V. must be ready (D. V.) on the 24th of August.

Both the people and the country here please me. The land is enchantingly beautiful, nay, fairy-like, and our house is in the best situation of all. Fanny is almost more at home in Germany than I am, and the girls revel in the German enjoyment of life. I count on your paying us a visit. Say a good word for us to your mother, and persuade her to come with you to visit us in Heidelberg. We should much like to make her acquaintance, and tell her how dear you are to us all. Meyer is proxenus Anglorum and Anglaram, and does nothing. I hope [pg 442] to form here a little Academia Nicorina. Shall I ever leave Heidelberg? God bless you. Cura ut valeas. Ever yours.

P. S. I have worked through Steinschneider's sheet on the Semitic Roots in Egyptian with great advantage, and have sent it to Dietrich. The analogy of the consonants is unmistakable. Dietrich will certainly be able to fix this. And now you must shake that small specimen Aricum out of your Dessau conjuring sleeve. You need only skim the surface, it is not necessary to dig deep where the gold lies in sight. But we must rub the German nose in Veda butter, that they may find the right track.

We shall have a hard battle to fight at first in the Universities. Were Egypt but firmly established as the primitive Asiatic settlement of the as yet undivided Arian and Semitic families, we should have won the game for the recognition of historical truth.

I hope the “Outlines” and “Egypt” will come over next week. Longman will send them both to you; and also the copy of the Outlines for Aufrecht (to whom I have written an ostensible letter such as he wished for). I wish something could be found in Oxford for that delightful and clever man Johannes Brandis. He would exert an excellent influence, and England would be a good school for him. Will the Universities admit Dissenters to take a degree?

[63.]

Charlottenberg

,

December 12, 1854.

My dear vanished Friend,—Where thou art and where thou hast turned since thy fleeting shadow disappeared, I have asked in vain on all sides during my journey through Germany. No one whom I met had seen you, which Ewald particularly deplored very much. At all events you are now in the sanctuary on the Isis, and I have long desired to communicate one thing and another to you. But first I will tell you what at this moment lies heavy on my heart—“Galignani” brought me the news yesterday: my dear friend Pusey lies seriously ill at his brother's house in Oxford; “his life is despaired of.” Unfortunately there is nothing improbable in this sad intelligence. I had already been anxious before this, for ten days, as I had written to him, to Pusey, nearly three weeks ago, on the news of the death of his wife, entreating him most pressingly, for his own and his family's sake, to spend the winter here, and to live as much as possible with us, his old friends. I know he would [pg 443] have answered the letter, were he not ill. Perhaps he was not even able to read it.

Dr. Acland is our mutual friend, and without doubt attends the dear invalid. At all events, he has daily access to him. My request therefore is, if he is not already taken from us, that you will let Acland tell you how it really is with him, and let me hear by return of post, via Paris: if possible also, whether Pusey did receive my letter, and then how Sidney and the two daughters are; who is with them, whether Lady Carnarvon or only the sisters of charity.

Now to other things.

1. Dietrich gave me the inclosed, of course post festum. I have marked at the back what he still wants in your Tables.

2. Greet Dr. Aufrecht, and tell him I am very sorry that Dietrich has found fault with his Paternoster. I was obliged in the hurry to leave the printing of this section to him. I will let A.'s metacritic go to him.

3. I have a letter from Hodgson of Darjeling as an answer to the letter written here by you, very friendly and “in spirits,” otherwise but slightly intelligible. He refers me to a letter forty pages long which he has sent to Mohl in Paris, an improved edition of the one he sent to Wilson. He supposes that I received both; if not, I should ask for the one to Mohl.

Of course I have received neither. But I have sent to Mohl through his niece, to beg he would send the said letter to you, and you would inform me of the particulars. I hope you have already received it. If not, see about it, for we must not lose sight of the man.

The copy of the “Outlines” must now be in his hands. These “Outlines,” the child of our common toil, begin now to be known in Germany. Ewald has already taken a delight in them; he will review them. Meyer is quite enchanted with your Turanians, but would gladly, like many others, know something more of the Basques. For me it is a great event, having made a friendship for life and an alliance with Ewald, over Isaiah's

“No peace with the wicked;”

and on still higher grounds. Those were delightful days which I spent in Göttingen and Bonn, as also with Bethman-Hollweg, Camphausen, and others. I see and feel the misery of our people far more deeply than I expected, only I find more comfort than I hoped in the sympathy of my contemporaries, who willingly give me a place among themselves.

[pg 444]

A proposal to enter the Upper House (of which, however, I do not care to speak) I could of course only refuse, with many thanks. I have finished my “Egypt,” Volume. IV., with Bötticher, and sent it for press for the 1st January.

As an intermezzo, I have begun a specimen for a work suggested to me in a wonderful manner from England, America, and Germany (particularly by Ewald and Lücke),—a real Bible for the people, that is, a sensible and sensibly printed text, with a popular statement of the results of the investigations of historical criticism, and whatever the spirit may inspire besides.

I am now working from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Baruch, where, beyond all expectation, I found new light on the road I was treading.

We live in the happiest retirement. Your visit, and that of your mother, of whom we all became very fond, was a great delight to us, though a short one. Fanny and I have a plan to greet her at Christmas by a short letter. Now write me word how it fares with you.

[64.]

Charlottenberg, Baden

,

January 11, 1855.

My dear Friend,—I think you will not have misunderstood my silence since your last letter. Your heart will have told you that no news could be pleasanter to me than that you would undertake to bring the last sevenfold child of my English love into public notice. This can of course only be during the Parliamentary recess. You know better than any one what is the unity of the seven volumes, and what is the aim and result. Your own is a certainly not unimportant, and an independent part of it. But you have with old affection worked yourself and thought yourself into the whole, even where the particulars were of less interest to you. Lastly, as you have told me to my delight, Jowett has begun to interest himself in the work, and you have therefore one near at hand who, from one point of view, can help you as reflecting English opinion. Ewald told me that I had wished to give a Cosmos of the mind in that work. At all events, this idea has floated before me for many years, and is expressed in the Preface to the “God Consciousness.” Only it is not more than a study for that which floats before me. My two next volumes will give more of it. If I only knew what to do with the work for Germany! My [pg 445] task was arranged for England. It seemed to me important, under the guidance of the rediscovered Hippolytus, whose form first rose clearly before me during the first work, to show the organic development of the leading ideas of Christendom in the teachers and heroes, beginning from the first Pentecostal feast; in order to sift the ground, and show to my readers—

a. That the old system of inspiration and the Theodice of the Middle Ages, that is to say, that of the seventeenth century, has no support in ancient Christianity, but just the contrary. That is now a fact.

b. That we have something infinitely more reassuring to put in its place. Truth instead of delusion; reality instead of child's play and pictures.

c. That it is high time to be in earnest about this.

d. That for this, clear insight and practical purpose, also reasoning and moral earnestness, will be required on the part of the spiritual guides.

e. But that before all things Christianity must be introduced into the reality of the present; and that the corporation of the Church, the life of the community in its worship as in its mutually supporting work, must become the centre whence springs the consciousness of communion,—not a system of theology. Christianity is nothing to me but the restoration of the ideal of humanity, and this will become especially clear through the antecedent forms (præformations) of the development in language and religion. (See “Outlines.”) There is a natural history of both, which rests on laws as sure as those of the visible Cosmos. The rest is professional, philological,—legitimatio ad causam.

How much of this idea can be presented to the English public, and in what manner, you know much better than I. Therefore you know the one as well, and the other better than I do. This is the reason why I believe you would not wait for my answer. Still I should have sent to you, if during this time two passions had not filled my heart. For once the dreadful distress of our condition forced me to try, from the midst of my blessed Patmos, to help by letters as far and wherever I could, through advice and cry of distress and summons to help. Now there is nothing more to be done but to wait the result. Alea jacta esse. Ernest is in Berlin.

My second passion is the carrying out of an idea by means of a Christian philosophical People's Bible, from the historical point of view, to get the lever which the development of the present [pg 446] time in Europe has denied me. That I should begin this greatest of all undertakings in the sixty-fifth year of my age, is, I hope, no sign of my speedy death. But I have felt since as if a magic wall had been broken down between me and reality, and long flowing springs of life stream towards me, giving me the discernment and the prolific germ of that which I desired and still strive after. The Popular Bible will contain in two volumes (of equal thickness), 1st, the corrected and reasonably divided text; and 2d, the key to it. For that purpose I must see whether I shall succeed in executing the most difficult part, Isaiah and Jeremiah. And I have advanced so far with this since yesterday evening, that I see the child can move, it can walk. The outward practicability depends on many things, but I have thoroughly worked through the plan of it.

By the end of 1856 all must be ready. My first letter is to you. Thanks for your affection: it is so exactly like you, breaking away at once from London and going to Oxford, to talk over everything with Acland.

Meyer has once more descended from Pegasus, to our prosaic sphere. I believe he is working at a review of our work for the Munich Literary Journal of the Academy. Laboulaye (Vice-President of the Academy) says I have given him so much that is new to read, that he cannot be ready with his articles before the end of February. We shall appear in the “Débats” the beginning of March.

Holzmann is working at the proofs that the Celts were Germans. Humboldt finds the unity of the Turanians not proved. (Never mind!) Osborn's “Egypt” runs on in one absurdity (the Hyksos period never existed), which the “Athenæum” censures sharply.

What is Aufrecht about? But above all, how are you yourself? God preserve you. My family greet you. Heartily yours in old affection.

[65.]

Heidelberg

,

February 26, 1855.

It was, my dear friend, in expectation of the inclosed that I did not sooner return an answer and my thanks for your affectionate and detailed letter. I wish you would take advantage of my communication to put yourself in correspondence with Benfey. He is well disposed towards you, and has openly spoken of you as “the apostle of German science in England.”

[pg 447]

And then he stands infinitely higher than the present learned men of his department. He would also be very glad if you would offer yourself to him for communications suitable for his Oriental Journal from England, to which he always has an eye. (Keep this copy, perhaps Jowett may read it.) Humboldt's letter says in reality two things:—

1. He does not approve of the sharply defined difference between nomadic and agricultural languages; the occupations may change, yet the language remains the same as before. That is against you. The good old man does not consider that the language will or can become another without perishing in the root.

2. He does not agree in opposing one language to all others as inorganic. This is against me. But first, this one language is still almost the half of the human race, and secondly, I have said nothing which his brother has not said as strongly. It is only said as a sign of life, and that “my praise and my admiration may appear honest.”

In the fifth volume of my “Egypt” I call the languages sentence-languages and word-languages; that is without metaphor, and cannot be misunderstood. The distinction itself is right. For organic is (as Kant has already defined it) an unity in parts. A granite mountain is not more thoroughly granite than a square inch of granite, but a man without hands or head is no man.

I am delighted to hear that your Veda gets on. If you would only not allow yourself to be frightened from the attempt to let others work for you in mere handicraft. Even young men have not time for everything. You have now fixed your impress on the work, and any one with the will and with the necessary knowledge of the tools, could not go far wrong under your eye. I should so like to see you free for other work. Only do not leave Oxford. Spartam quam nactus es orna. You would not like Germany, and Germany could offer you no sphere of activity that could be compared ever so distantly with your present position. I have often said to you, Nature and England will not allow themselves to be changed from without, and therein consists exactly their worth in the divine plan of development; but they often alter themselves rapidly from within. Besides, the reform is gone too far to be smothered. Just now the Dons and other Philisters can do what they like, for the people has its eyes on other things. But the war makes the classes who are pressing forwards more powerful than ever.

[pg 448]

The old method of government is bankrupt forever. So do not be low-spirited, my dear M., or impatient. It is not so much the fault of England, as of yourself, that you do not feel settled and at home. You have now as good a position as a young man of intellect, and with a future before him, could possibly have anywhere, either in England or in Germany. Make a home for yourself. Since I saw your remarkable mother, I have been convinced that, unlike most mothers, she would not stand in the way of your domestic happiness, even were it contrary to her own views, but that she must be the best addition to your household for any wife who was worthy of you. Oxford is London, and better than London; and London is the world, and is German. How gladly would Pauli, that honest, noble German soul, stay, if he had but an occupation. The subjection of the mind by the government here becomes more vexatious, more apparent, more diabolical. One form of tyranny is that of Augustus, the more thorough, because so sly. They will not succeed in the end, but meanwhile it is horrible to witness. More firmly than ever I settle myself down here in Heidelberg, and will take the whole house, and say, “You must leave me my cottage standing, and my hearth, whose glow you envy me.” We are now on the point of binding ourselves, without binding ourselves; and the prudent man in P(aris) pretends not to observe it—just like the devil, when a soul is making some additional conditions.

Still, it is possible that the desire to aid in the councils of Vienna at any price may carry us so far that we may join in the march against Poland and Finland. After all, the rivers flow according to the laws of gravitation.

I have definitely arranged my “Biblework” in two works:—

A. The Bible (People's Bible), corrected translation, with very short and purely historical notes below the text. One volume, large Bible-octavo.

B. The Key, in three equally large volumes (each like the Bible). I. Introduction; II. The restored documents in the historical books of the Old Testament, and restoration of the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah, and of some of the smaller prophets; III. The New Testament. (The life of Christ is a part of this.)

The work looks well. I have now not only perfectly defined the Exodus and time of the Judges, but have put it so clearly and authentically before the public, that as long as the world [pg 449] of Europe and America lasts, the theologians cannot make the faithful crazy, nor the scoffers lead them astray. It can be finished in three years. I can depend on Ewald and Rothe.

We have got through the winter. I, for the first time for twenty years, without cold or anything of that sort. The delicious air of Spring begins to blow, the almond-trees promise to be in blossom in a week. With true love, yours.

[66.]

Charlottenberg

,

Tuesday Morning, April 17, 1855.

(The day when peace or war will be decided.)

My dear M.,—I cannot delay any longer to tell you that your first article announced to us by George, has reached me, and excited the delight and admiration of us all. It is pleasant, as Cicero says, “laudari a viro laudato;” but still sweeter “laudari a viro amato.” And you have so thoroughly adopted the English disguise, that it will not be easy for any one to suspect you of having written this “curious article.” It especially delights me to see how ingeniously you contrive to say what you announce you do not wish to discuss, namely, the purport of the theology. In short, we are all of opinion that your aunt or cousin was right when she said in Paris, to Neukomm, of you, that you ought to be in the diplomatic service. From former experience I have never really believed that the second article would be printed; it would have appeared by last Saturday at the latest, and would then have been already in my hands. But the article as it is has given me great pleasure, and all the greater because it is yours. I only wish you might soon give me the power of shaking your dear old hand, which I so often feel the want of.

Meanwhile I will tell you that Brockhaus writes in a very friendly way, in transmitting Ernst Schulze's biography (the unfortunate poet's journal, with very pleasant affectionate descriptions of his friends, of me especially), to ask if I would not make something out of the new Hippolytus for Germany. This letter reached me just as I had blended my past and future together for a large double work, the finished parts of which are now standing before me in seven large portfolios, with completed Contents, Preface, and Introduction.

“The Bible of the Faithful,” four volumes, large Bible-octavo; Volume I. the Bible; Volumes II.-IV. (separated) Key.

[pg 450]

“The Faithful of the Bible.” (A.) The government and the worship of the faithful. Two books, one volume. (B.) The congregational and family book (remodeling of the earlier devotional books for the faithful of the Bible), two volumes.

At the same time “Egypt” was at last ready for press as two volumes; and so I took courage to take up again that old idea, especially that which we had so often discussed. But first I can and will make a pretty little volume from the historical portraits in Hippolytus: “The first seven generations of Christians.” A translation (by Pauli) of the exact text of the first English volume, preceded by the restoration of the line and the chronology of the Roman bishops down to Cornelius, since revised and much approved of by Röstell (quite clearly written out; about ten printed sheets with the documents).

This gives me hardly any trouble, and costs me very little thought. But secondly, to use Ewald's expression: “The Kosmos of Language” (in four volumes). This is your book, if it is to exist. It appears to me before anything else to be necessary to draw proper limits, with a wisdom worthy of Goethe.

I do not think that the time has come for publishing in the German way a complete or uniformly treated book; I think it is much more important to fortify our view of language from within, and launch it forth armed with stings upon these inert and confused times. Therefore method, and satisfactory discussion of that on which everything depends; with a general setting forth of the points which it concerns us now to investigate. I could most easily make you perceive what I mean, by an abstract of the prospectus, which I have written off, in order to discuss it thoroughly with you as soon as you can come here. As you would have to undertake three fourths of the whole, you have only to consider all this as a proposal open to correction, or rather a handle for discussion.

First Volume. (Bunsen.)

General Division.

Introduction. The Science of Language and its Epochs (according to Outlines, 35-60).

1. The Phenomena of Language (according to Outlines, ii. 1-72).

2. The Metaphysics of Language (according to Outlines, ii. 73-122)—manuscript attempt to carry out Kant's Categories, not according to Hegel's method.

[pg 451]

3. The Historical Development (Outlines, ii. 123-140; and Outlines of Metaphysics, second volume, in MS.). Müller ad libitum. (With this an ethnographical atlas, colored according to the colors of the three families.)

Second Volume. (Müller:)

First Division. The sentence-languages of Eastern Asia (Chinese).

Second Division. The Turanian word-languages in Asia and Europe.

Third Volume. (Müller and Bunsen.)

First Division. The Hamitic-Semitic languages in Asia and Africa. (Bunsen.)

Second Division. The Iranian languages in Asia and Europe.

Fourth Volume. (Müller.)

The branching off of the Turanians and Hamites in Africa, America, and Polynesia.

a. The colony of East Asiatic Turanians in South Africa (great Kaffir branch).

b. The colony of North Asiatic Turanians (Mongolians) in North America.

c. The Turanian colonies in South America.

d. The older colonies of the East Asiatic Turanians in Polynesia (Papuas).

e. The newer ditto (light-colored Malay branch).

Petermann or Kiepert would make the ethnographical atlas beautifully. I have in the last few months discovered that the three Noachic families were originally named according to the three colors.

1. Ham is clear; it means black.

2. Shem is an honorary name (the glorious, the famous), but the old name is Adam, that is, Edom, which means red, reddish == φοίνιξ: this has given me great light. The Canaanites were formerly called Edomi, and migrated about 2850, after the volcanic disturbance at the Dead Sea (Stagnum Assyrium, Justin, xviii. 3), towards the coast of Phœnicia, where Sidon is the most ancient settlement, the first begotten of Canaan; and the era of Tyre begins as early as 2760 (Herodotus, ii. 44).

3. Japhet is still explained in an incredible way by Ewald according to the national pun of Genesis x. as derived from Patah, “he who opens or spreads.” It is really from Yaphat, “to be shining” == the light, white.

[pg 452]

It would certainly be the wisest plan for us to fall back on this for the ethnographical atlas, at least for the choice of the colors; and I believe it could easily be managed. For the Semitic nations red is naturally the prevailing color, of a very deep shade in Abyssinia and Yemen; black in negro Khamites, and a light shade in Palestine and Northern Arabia. For the Turanians, green might be thought of as the prevailing color. For the Iranians there remains white, rising into a bluish tint. But that could be arranged for us by my genial cousin Bunsen, the chemist.

That would be a work, my dearest M.! The genealogy of man, and the first parable, rising out of the infinite. Were you not half Anglicized, as I am, I should not venture to propose anything so “imperfect”—that is, anything to be carried out in such unequal proportions. But this is the only way in which it is possible to us, and, as I think, only thus really useful for our Language-propaganda, whose apostles we must be “in hoc temporis momento.” And now further, I think we should talk this over together. I give you the choice of Heidelberg or Nice. We have resolved (D. V.) to emigrate about the 1st of October, by way of Switzerland and Turin, to the lovely home of the palm-tree, and encamp there till March: then I should like very much to see Sicily, but at all events to run through Naples and Rome in April; and then return here in the end of April by Venice. It is indescribably lovely here now; more enjoyable than I have ever seen it. We shall take a house there, where I could get into the open air four or five times every day. I fancy in the five working months I could do more than in the eight dreary winter months here. Much is already done, the completion is certain. Were not Emma (who has become inexpressibly dear to us) expecting her confinement about the 21st of September we should already at this time break up from here, in order to reach the heavenly Corniche Road (from Genoa to Nice) in the finest weather. Theodore goes in ten days for a year to Paris. Of course Emilia and the other girls go with us. They all help me in a most remarkable way in my work. I thought of inviting Brockhaus here in the summer to discuss with him the edition of the “Biblework.” Now we know what we have in view. Now write soon, how you are and what you have in view. All here send most friendly greetings. Ever yours.

[pg 453]

[67.]

Burg Rheindorf, near Bonn

,

December 2, 1855.

My dear Friend,—I think you must now be sitting quietly again in Oxford, behind the Vedas. I send you these lines from George's small but lovely place, where we have christened his child, to stop, if possible, your wrath against Renan. He confesses in his letter that “ma plume m'a trahi;” he has partly not said what he thinks, and partly said what he does not think. But his note is not that of an enemy. He considers his book an homage offered to German science, and had hoped that it would be estimated and acknowledged in the present position of French science, and that it would be received in a friendly way. Though brought up by the Jesuits, he is entirely free from the priestly spirit, and in fact his remarkable essay in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” of the 15th of November on Ewald's “History of the People of Israel” deserves all our thanks in a theological, national, and scientific point of view. We cannot afford to quarrel unnecessarily with such a man. You must deal gently with him. You will do it, will you not, for my sake? I am persuaded it is best.

Brockhaus will bring out the third unaltered edition of my “Signs of the Times,” as the 2,500 and the 1,000 copies are all sent out, and more are constantly asked for. I have, whilst here, got the first half of the “World-Consciousness” (Weltbewusstsein) ready to send off. The whole will appear in May, 1856, as the herald and forerunner of my work on the Bible. I have gone through this with H. Brockhaus, and reduced it to fifteen delightful little volumes in common octavo, six of the People's Bible, with a full Introduction, and nine of the Key with higher criticism. I am now expecting three printed sheets of the Bible, Volume I., the Key, Volumes I. and VII. The fourth and fifth volumes of “Egypt” are being rapidly printed at the same time for May. The chronological tables appear in September. And now be appeased, and write again soon. George sends hearty greetings. Thursday I shall be in Charlottenberg again. Heartily yours.

[68.]

Charlottenberg

,

March 10, 1856.

I should long ago have told you, my dearest friend, how much your letter of last September delighted me, had I not been so plunged in the vortex caused by the collision of old and new [pg 454] work, that I have had to deny myself all correspondence. Since then I have heard from you, and of you from Ernst and some travelling friends, and can therefore hope that you continue well. As to what concerns me, I yesterday sent to press the MS. of the last of the three volumes which are to come out almost together. Volumes III. and IV. (thirty-six sheets are printed) on the 1st of May; Volume V. on the 15th of July. I have taken the bold resolution of acquitting myself of this duty before anything else, that I may then live for nothing but the “Biblework,” and the contest with knaves and hypocrites in the interest of the faithful.

In thus concluding “Egypt,” I found it indispensable to give all the investigations on the beginnings of the human race in a compressed form. Therefore SET==YAHVEH and all discoveries connected with this down to Abraham. Also the Bactrian and Indian traditions. I have read on both subjects all that is to be found here; above all Burnouf (for the second time), and Lassen's “Indian Antiquities,” with Diis minorum gentium. I find then in Lassen much which can be well explained by my discoveries in the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Phœnician, but a huge chasm opens out for everything concerning the Vedas. I find in particular nothing analogous to the history of the Deluge, of which you most certainly told me. I therefore throw myself on your friendship, with the request that you will write out for me the most necessary points, so far as they do not exist in Colebrooke and Wilson, which I can order from Berlin. (1.) On the Deluge tradition; (2.) On the Creation of Man, if there is any; (3.) On the Fall of Man; (4.) On recollections of the Primitive Homes on the other side of Meru and Bactria, if such are to be found. I know of course what Lassen says. I do not expect much, as you know, from these enthusiastic emigrants; but all is welcome.

One must oppose with all one's power, and in solemn earnest, such pitiful nihilism and stupid jokes as Schwenk has made of the Persian mythology. I have done this in the “Doctrine of Zoroaster;” I am to-day applying to Haug about some hard nuts in this subject. The number seven predominates here also, of course, and in the symbolism depends on the time of each phase of the moon; but the Amshaspands have as little to do with it as with the moon itself. The Gahanbar resemble the six days of creation, if the Sanskrit translation by Neriosengh (which I don't understand) is more to be trusted than the Vispered. [pg 455] But at all events there is an ideal element here, which has been fitted in with the old nature worship.

The sanctity of the Hom (havam?) must also be ideal, the plant can only be a symbol to Zoroaster. Can it be connected with Om? As to the date, Zoroaster the prophet cannot have lived later than 3000 B. C. (250 years before Abraham therefore), but 6000 or 5000 before Plato may more likely be correct, according to the statements of Aristotle and Eudoxus. Bactria (for that surely is Bakhdi) was the first settlement of the Aryans who escaped from the ice regions towards Sogd. The immigration, therefore, can hardly fall later than 10,000 or 9000 before Christ. Zoroaster himself must be considered as after the migration of the Aryans towards the Punjab, for his demons are your gods.

Now will you please let me have, at latest at Easter, what you can give me, for on the 25th the continuation of the MS. must go off, and of this the Indians form a part.

I do not find the account by Megasthenes of Indian beginnings (Plinius and Arrianus) at all amiss: the Kaliyuga computation of 3102 B. C. is purely humbug, just like the statement about the beginning of the Chinese times, to which Lassen gives credit. How can Herodotus have arrived at a female Mithra, Mylitta? Everything feminine is incompatible with the sun, yet nowhere, as far as I can see, does any deity corresponding to Mater appear among the Persians or Indians. Altogether Mithra is a knotty point in the system of Zoroaster, into which it fits like the fist into the eye.

And now I come to the subject of the inclosed Kuno Fischer has given a most successful lecture in Berlin on Bacon, which has grown into a book, a companion to Spinoza and Leibnitz, but much more attractive through the references to the modern English philosophy and Macaulay's conception of Bacon. The book is admirably written. Brockhaus is printing it, and will let it appear in May or at latest in June, about twenty-five sheets. He reserves the right of translation. And now I must appeal to your friendship and your influence, in order to find, 1st, the right translator, and 2d, the right publisher, who would give the author £50 or £100, for Fischer is dependent on his own resources. The clique opposes his appearance: Raumer has declared to the faculty that “a Privat-docent suspended in any state of the Bund because of his philosophical opinions which were irreconcilable with Christianity, ought not to teach [pg 456] in Berlin.” The faculty defends itself. I have written public and private letters to Humboldt, but what good does that do? Therefore it is now a matter of consequence to enable this very distinguished thinker and writer, and remarkably captivating teacher (he had here 300 pupils in metaphysics), to secure the means of subsistence. Miss Winkworth's publisher offered her £150 when she sent him the first chapter of my “Signs;” Longmans half profits, that is—nothing! I only wish to have the matter set going. The proof-sheets can be sent.

Who wrote the foolish article in the “Quarterly” against Jowett? The book will live and bear fruit. We are well, except that George has had scarlet fever. Frances is nursing him at Rheindorf. Heartily yours.

I have myself undertaken the comparison of the Aryan with the Semitic, on Lassen's plan. Two thirds of the stems can be authenticated. What a scandal is Roth's deciphering of the Cyprian inscriptions. Renan mourns over the “Monthly Review,” but is otherwise very grateful. I have made use of your Alphabet in my “Egypt.”

[69.]

Charlottenberg

,

March 12, 1856

.

My dearest M.,—You receive at once a postscript. I have since read W.'s essay on the Deluge of the Hindús, in the second volume of the “Indian Studies;” and can really say now that I understand a little Sanskrit, for the essay is written in a Brahmanic jargon, thickly strewn with very many German and French foreign terms. O, what a style! I am still to-day reading Roth (Münchener Gelehrte Anzeigen). I know therefore what is in it; that is, a child's tale which came to India from the Persian Gulf, or at least from Babylonia, about Oannes, the man in the shape of a fish, who gives them their revelation and saves them. Have you really nothing better? It is just like the fable of Deucalion, from the backward-thrown λᾶς, that is, stones! Or was it ἀπὸ δρυὸς ἥ ἀπὸ πέτρας?

Faith in the old beliefs sits very lightly on all the emigrant children of Japhet. Yet many historical events are clearly buried in the myths before the Pândavas. Wilson's statement (Lassen, i. 479 n.) of the contents of a Purâna, shows still a consciousness of those epochs. There must be (1) a dwelling in the primitive country (bordering on the ideal), quite obscure, historically; (2) expulsion, through a change of climate; (3) [pg 457] life in the land of the Aryans (Iran.); (4) migration to and life in the Punjab.

For the western Aryans and for southern Europe, there is another epoch, between 6000 and 5000 B. C. at latest, namely, the march of the Cushite (Turanian) Nimrud (Memnon?) by Susiana, and then across Northern Africa to Spain. The discovery of Curtius, of the Ionians being Asiatics that had migrated from Phrygia, who disputed with the Phœnicians for the world's commerce long before the colonies started from Europe, is very important.

Write me word what you think of Weber's Indian-Semitic Alphabet.

I have to-day written to Miss Winkworth, to speak to the publisher. If he will undertake it and pay Fischer well, both editions would appear at the same time; and she must then come here in April, to make the translation from the proof-sheets. The printing begins at Easter.

[70.]

Charlottenberg

,

April 22, 1856

. (

Palilia anni urbis 2610.

)

So there you are, my worthy Don, sitting as a Member of Committees, etc.; and writing reports, and agitating and canvassing in Academicis! This delights me: for you have it in you, and feel the same longing, which seized me at your age—to act and to exert an influence on the God-given realities of life. It inspirits me; for you, like me, will remain what you are—a German, and will not become a “Philister.”

I have missed you here very much, even more than your answers to my questions. No one escapes his fate: so I cannot escape the temptation to try my method and my insight on indirect chronology. I confess that such confusion I have not seen as that of these investigations hitherto beyond Colebrooke and Wilson, Lassen and Duncker. Something can already be made of Megasthenes' accounts in connection with the Brahmanic traditions, in the way cleared up by Lassen (in the “Journal”). I believe in the 153 kings before Sandrokottus and the 6402 years. The older tradition does not dream of ages of the world, the historical traditions begin with the Tretâage, and point back to the life on the Indus; the first period is like the divine dynasties of the Egyptians. The Kaliyuga is 1354 B. C., or 1400 if you like, but not a day older. The so called cataclysms “after [pg 458] the universe had thrice attained to freedom” (what nonsense!) are nothing but the short interregnums of freedom obtained by the poor Indian Aryans between the monarchies. They are 200 + 300 + 120. And I propose to you, master of the Vedas, the riddle, how do I know that the first republican interregnum (anarchy, to the barbarians) was 200 years long? The Indian traditions begin therefore with 7000, and that is the time of Zaradushta. I find many reasons for adopting your opinion on the origin of the Zend books. The Zoroastrians came out of India; but tell me, do you not consider this as a return migration? The schism broke out on the Indus, or on the movement towards the Jumna and lands of the Ganges. The dull, intolerable Zend books may be as late as they will, but they contain in the Vendidad, Fargard I., an (interpolated) record of the oldest movements of our cousins, which reach back further than anything Semitic.

About Uttara-Kuru and the like, you also leave me in the lurch; and so I was obliged to see what Ptolemy and Co., and the books know and mention about them. It seems then to me impossible to deny that the Ὀττοροκοροι is the same, and points out the most eastern land of the old north, now in or near Shen-si, the first home of the Chinese; to me the eastern boundary of Paradise. But how remarkable, not so much that the Aryans, faithful people, have not forgotten their original home, but that the name should be Sanskrit! Therefore Sanskrit in Paradise, in 10,000 or 9000. Explain this to me, my dear friend. But first send me, within half an hour of receiving these lines, in case you have them, as they assume here, Lassen's maps of India (mounted), belonging to my copy of the book, and just now very necessary to me. You can have them again in July on the Righi. Madame Schwabe is gone to console that high-minded afflicted Cobden, or rather his wife, on the death of his only son, whom we have buried here. She passes next Sunday through London, on her return to her children, and will call at Ernst's. Send the maps to him with a couple of lines. If you have anything else new, send it also. I have read with great interest your clever and attractive chapter on the history of the Indian Hellenic mind, called mythology. Does John Bull take it in? With not less pleasure your instructive essay on “Burning and other Funereal Ceremonies.” How noble is all that is really old among the Aryans! Weber sent me the “Mâlavikâ,” a miserable thing, harem stories,—I hope by a dissolute fellow [pg 459] of the tenth century, and surely not by the author of “Sakuntala.” For your just, but sharply expressed and nobly suppressed essay against ——, a thousand thanks. I have to-day received the last sheet of “Egypt,” Book IV., and the last but one of Book V. (a), and the second of Book V. (b). These three volumes will appear on the 1st of June. The second half of Book V. (b) (Illustrations, Chronological Tables, and Index) I furnish subsequently for Easter, 1857, in order to have the last word against my critics.

Meanwhile farewell.

[71.]

Charlottenberg

,

Wednesday, April 23, 1856

.

It would be a great pleasure to you, my dear friend, if you could see the enthusiasm of my reawakened love for India, which possessed me in the years 1811-14, and which now daily overpowers me. But it is well that you are not here, for I dare not follow the notes of the siren till I have finished the “Signs of the Times,” and have the first volume of my five books of the “Bible” before me. I see clearly, from my point of view, that when one has the right frame, the real facts of the Indian life can be dug out from the exuberant wealth of poetry as surely as your Eros and the Charites, and the deepest thoughts from their ritual and mythology. True Germans and Anglo-Saxons are these Indian worthies. How grateful I am to Lassen for his conscientious investigations; also to Duncker for his representation of the history, made with the insight of a true historian. But all this can aid me but little. I can nowhere find the materials for filling up my frame-work; or, in case this frame-work should not itself be accurate, for destroying it and my whole chapter. Naturally all are ignorant of the time which precedes the great fable,—namely, the time of the Vedas.

And so I turn to you, with a request and adjuration which you cannot set aside. I give you my frame-work, the chronological canon, as it has been shaped by me. It is clear that we cannot depend on anything that stands in the noble Mahâbhârata and the sentimental Râmâyana, as to kings and lines of kings, unless it is confirmed by the Vedas; but they generally say the very opposite. All corruptions of history by our schoolmen and priests are but as child's play compared to the systematic [pg 460] falsifying and destruction of all history by the Brahmans. Three things are possible; (1) you may find my frame-work wrong because facts are against it; (2) you may find it useless because facts are missing; or (3) you may find the plan correct, and discover facts to support and further it. I hope for the last; but every truth is a gain. My scheme is this: The poets of the Veda have no chronological reckoning, the epic poets a false one. There remain the Greeks. To understand the narrative of Megasthenes, one must first restore the corrupted passages, which Lassen unfortunately has so entirely misunderstood.

Arr. Ind. ix., in Didot's “Geographi,” i. p. 320: Ἀπὸ μὲν δὴ Διονύσου (Svayambhû) βασιλέας ἠρίθμεον Ἰνδοὶ ἐς Σανδράκοττον τρεῖς καὶ πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑκατὸν, ἔτεα δὲ δύο καὶ τεσσαρακόσια (instead of πεντήκοντα) καὶ ἑξακισχίλια (6402, according to Pliny's text, confirmed by all MSS., and by Solinus Polyhist. 59; of Arrian we have but copies of one codex, and the lacuna is the same in all).

Ἐν δὲ τούτοισι τρὶς ΙΣΤΑΝΑΙ (instead of τὸ πᾶν εἰς, Arr. writes only ἐς) ἐλευθερίην (ἱστάναι is Herodotean for καθιστάναι, as every rational prose writer would have put).

ΤΗΝ ΜΕΝ ΕΣ ΔΙΑΚΟΣΙΑ.

τὴν δὲ καὶ ἐς τριακόσια,

τὴν δὲ εἴκοσί τε ἐτέων καὶ ἑκατόν.

The restoration is certain, because the omission is explained through the ὁμοιοτέλευτον, and gives a meaning to the καὶ. The sense is made indubitable by Diodorus' rhetorical rendering of the same text of Megasthenes, ii. 38: τὸ δὲ τελευταῖον, πολλαῖς γενεαῖς ὕστερον καταλυθείσης τῆς ἡγεμονίας δημοκρατηθῆναι τὰς πόλεις; cf. 39, ὕστερον δὲ πολλοῖς ἔτεσι τὰς πόλεις δημοκρατηθῆναι.

From this it follows that the monarchy was thrice interrupted by democratic governments, and that there were four periods. This is the Indian tradition. But the whole was conceived as one history, doubtless with a prehistoric ideal beginning, like our Manus and Tuiskon. Therefore, no cosmic periods (Brahmanical imposture), but four generations of Aryan history in India.

The Kaliyuga is a new world, just as much as Teutonic Christendom, but no more. The Indians will probably have commenced it A. D. 410, as friend Kingsley too (in his “Hypatia”). [pg 461] Where is the starting-point? I hold to 1015 years as the chronological computation up to the time of the Nandas.

For the Nandas, I hold to the 22 years.

If they say that Kâlâṣoka and his ten sons reigned 22 years; and Nanda, nine brothers in succession, 22 years; the 22 years is not wrong, either here or there, but the 22 is correct and the ten kingly personages also, for aught I care: but the names are altered (and really to do away with the plebeian Nanda), therefore it is neither 44, nor 88, nor 100 (which is nothing), but

22

——

From Parikshit to the year before Sandrakottus1037

Sandrak's first year 312 (?), 317 (?), 320 (?). I have no opinion on the point, therefore take the middle number about317

——

Beginning of the fourth period 1354 B. C.

Interregnum, popular government120

——

End of the third period1475

Nakshatra era 1476? (Weber, “Indian Studies,” ii. 240.)

This fourth period is that of the supremacy of the Brahmans in the beginning, with its recoil in Buddha towards the end.

In the year 1250 B. C. about the one hundredth year of the era, Semiramis invaded India (Dâvpara).

Third period of the royal dynasties, the great empire on the Jumna, not far from the immortal Aliwal. Beginning with the Dynasty of the Kurus. (Here the names of the kings and their works, as canals, etc. Seat of the empire, the Duâb; Hastinapura, Ayodhyâ; or still on the Sarasvatî)

0 years

Interregnum between III. and II. (Must have left its traces. A pasted up break is surely there.)300

Second period of royal dynasties (Tretâ) 0 years.

(Is this the historical life in the Punjab, with already existing kingdoms?) N. B. What is the third of the pure flames? Is it the people? Atria, latria, patria?

Interregnum between II. and I.200 years.

First period. Beginning of the history after first x years, with an ideally filled up unmeasured period.

Beginning: Manu6402

317

——

6719 B. C.

Deduct from this a mythical beginning: a cycle of 5 × 12 = 60, or 600: at most 60 × 60 = 3600, at least 12 × 60=720. Or about 6 kings of 400 years each. Mean time: 2160.

Total: 4559.

(There remain, deducting 6 from 154 kings (with Dionysos), about 148.)

Length of time: 4559 - 1354 = 3205 ÷ 148 = 21-1/2 mean number of years for each historical government; which is very appropriate.

Zoroaster lived, according to Eudoxus and Aristotle (compared with Hermippos) 6350 or 6300 B. C. This points to a time of Zoroastrians migrating towards India, or having migrated, returning again. Accept the latter, and the beginning of the 6402 years lies very near the first period, and the Indianizing of the Aryans. Those accounts about Zoroaster are (as Eudoxus already proves) pre-Alexandrian, therefore not Indian, but Aryan. Do not the hymns of the Rig-veda, of which several are attributed to the kings of the Tretâ period, contain hints on that schism? If it really occurred in the Punjab some reminiscence would have been left there of it. The Zend books (wretched things) only give negative evidence.

The Brahmans of the most sinful period have of course smothered all that is historical in prodigies, and this wretched taste long appeared to the Germans as wisdom; whilst they despised the (certainly superficial) but still sensible English researches [pg 463] of Sir W. Jones and Co., as philistering! One must oppose this more inflexibly than even that admirable Lassen does. (N. B. Has Colbrooke anything on this? or Wilson?)

There may have been two points of contact between the Aryans and the kingdoms on the Euphrates before the expedition of Semiramis.

a. By means of the Zoroastrian Medo-Babylonian kingdom, which had its capital in Babylon from 2234 B. C. (1903 before Alexander) for about two centuries.

b. In the oldest primitive times, by the Turanian-Cushite or North African kingdom of Nimrod, which cannot be placed later than in the seventh chiliad. The Egyptians had a tradition of this, as is proved according to my interpretation by the historical germ in the story in the Timæos of the great combat of Europe and Asia against the so-called Atlantides: but these are uncertain matters.

That is a general sketch of my frame-work. If you are able to do anything with it, I make you the following proposition: You will send me an open letter in German (only without your Excellency, and as I beg you will always write to me, as friend to friend), in which you will answer my communication. Send me beforehand a few reflections and doubts for my text, which I must send away by the 15th of May. Your open letter must be sent in in June, if possible before the 15th, in order to appear before the 15th of July as an Appendix to my text of Book V. b. (fourth division) first half. I can do nothing in the matter; everything here is wanting. I cannot even find German books here. Therefore keep Lassen's maps, if you have them. I have in the mean time helped myself by means of Ritter and Kiepert to find the old kingdoms and the sacred Sarasvatî. That satisfies me for the present.

Soon a sign of life and love to your sorely tormented but faithful B.

[72.]

Charlottenberg

,

Sunday Morning, April, 27, 1856

.

I have laid before you my restoration of the text of Megasthenes, and added a few preliminary thoughts on the possibility of the restoration of his traditions, and something of my restoring criticism. I have not however been able to rest since that time, without going to the very ground of the matter, to see if I am on a side-path, or on the right road. I now send you the summary of the two chapters which I have written since then.

[pg 464]

I. The restoration of the list of Megasthenes. (153 kings in 6402 years.)

1. The list begins, like the Sanskrit tradition, with the first generation; three interregnums presuppose four periods.

2. The whole fourfold divided chronology is one: three sections of historical recollections lie before the Kali age. Lassen is therefore wrong in saying that Megasthenes began with the Tretâ age. The progress of the gradual extension of the kingdom is organic.

3. The foundation of the whole tradition of the four periods of time are the genealogical registers of the old royal families, which must if possible be localized; of course with special reference to Magadha, which however begins late. As in Egypt, every branch tried somewhere to find its place; we must therefore throw away or mark all names not supported by the legend (that is, the Vedic traditions). The contemporary dynasties must be separated from those that follow each other.

4. Each period was divided from the preceding by an historical fact,—a dissolution followed by a subjugation or a popular government. The first is divided from the second by Herakles—Krishna. The third from the second by Râma, the extirpator of the heroes and royal races (great rising of the people). The fourth from the third by purely historical revolutions, caused or fostered by the Assyrian invasion.

5. The mythical expression for these periods is one thousand years.

6. The historical interregnums are 200, 300, 120.

7. As both are the same, therefore 3 × 1000 years vanish, and there remain but the 620.

8. Therefore Megasthenes' list:

Megasthenes' list6402

3000

——

Kings from the first patriarch to Sandrakottus 3402 years.

Interregnums620

——

4022

First Period.

A. Aryan recollections. Megasthenes' list unites the traditions of the Moon-race (Budha) with that of the Sun-race (direct from Manu).

(1.) Questions. First question. What do the names Ayus and Yayâti mean? Is Nahusha = man?

[pg 465]

(2.) I know king Ikshvâku, i.e., the gourd. Who are the Asuras, conquered by Prithu?

(3.) Anu, one of the four sons of Yayâti, is the North, not the Iranian, nor the Turanian, which is Turvasa, but the Semitic, i.e., Assur. Anu is the chief national god of the Assyrians, according to the cuneiform inscriptions. The cradle of the old dynasty was therefore called Telanu==hill of Anu. Salmanassar is called Salem-anu, i.e., face of Anu.

B. Indian primitive times.

1. Manu (primitive time)1000

2-14. Thirteen human kings in the Punjab, each reigns on an average thirty-six years468

15. Krishna, destruction 1000

2468 years, representing really only 268 + 200 years, with an unknown quantity representing Aryan migrations and settlements in the Punjab.

(4.) Question. Is Jones' statement correct in his chronology (Works, i. 299), that the fourth Avatâr must be placed between the first and second periods?

Second Period.

The kingdom of the Puru, and the Bharata kings. Royal residence, province of the Sarasvatî. Epos, the Râmâyana.

A. Period from Puru to Dushyanta.

Conquests from the Sarasvati on the north, and to Kalinga (Bengal) on the south. Conquerors: Tansu, Ilina, Bharata, Suhôtra (all Vedic names).

B. Period of destruction through the Pañkâlas.—Agamîdha (Suhôtra's son, according to the unfalsified tradition) is the human Râma, the instrument of destruction.

(5.) Question. Why is he called in Lassen, i. 590, the son of Rikshu? (This is another thousand years.)

Riksha is called in M. Bh. (Lassen, xxiii. note 17) son of Agamîdha, and in another place, wife of Agamîdha, or both times wife!

Third Period.

The Kurus; the Pañkâlas; the Pândavas. Seats in Middle Hindostan. Advance to the Vindhya (Epos, the Mahâbhârata of the third period, as the Râmâyana of the second).

A. Kingdoms of the Kurus.

[pg 466]

B. Kingdom of the Pañkâlas. Contemporary lists; but the Pañkâlas outlast the Kurus. Both are followed by—

C. Kingdom of the Pândavas.

Ad. A. From Kuru to Devâpi who retires (that is, is driven away), Sântanu, Bahlîka, the Bactrian (?), there are eleven reigns. Then the three generations to Duryodhana and Arguna.

Parikshit represents the beginning of the Interregnum.

The list in the Vishnu-purâna of twenty-nine kings, from Parikshit to Kshemaka, with whom the race becomes extinct in the Kali age, does not concern us.

They are the lines of the pretenders, who did not again acquire the throne. The oldest list is probably only of six reigns; for the son of Satânîka, the third V. P. king of this list, is also called Udayana (Lassen, xxvi. note 23), and the same is the name of the twenty-fifth king, the son of Satânîka II. Therefore Brihadratha, Vasudâna, and Sudâsa (21, 22, 23) are likewise the last of a Parikshit line. But they do not count chronologically.

Fourth Period.

The kingdom of Magadha. Chronological clews for Megasthenes. The first part of the Magadha list preserved to us (Lassen, xxxi.) from Kuru to Sahadeva is an unchronological list of collateral lines of the third period, therefore of no value for the computation of time. The Kali list of Magadha begins with Somâpi to Ripungaya, 20 kings. The numbers are cooked in so stupid a way that they neither agree with each other nor are possible. One can only find the right number from lower down.

Restoration of the Chronology.

Kali II. Pradyota, five kings with138 years.

Kali III. Saisunâga, ten kings with360 years.

Kali IV. Nanda, father with eight or nine sons 22 years.

——

Kali V. Kandragupta king 317 B. C.

——

837 years.

If one deducts these 837 years from 1182, the first year of the Kali age, there remain 345 years for the twenty kings from Somâpi to Ripungaya (First Dynasty), averaging 17-1/2 years. (That will do!) I adopt 1182 years, because 1354 is impossible, [pg 467] but 1181 is the historical chronological beginning of a kingdom in Kashmir. Semiramis invaded India under a Sthavirapati (probably only a title), about 1250. This time must therefore fall in the interregnum (120 years, after Megasthenes). The history of the war with Assyria (Asura?) is smothered by pushing forward the Abhîra, that is, the Naval War on the Indus (Diodorus).

I pass over the approximate restoration of the first three periods. I have given you a scanty abstract of my treatise, which I naturally only look upon as a frame-work. But if the frame-work be right, and of this I feel convinced, if I have discovered the true grooves and the system—then the unfalsified remains of traditions in the Vedas must afford further confirmation. The Kali can be fixed for about 1150/1190 by powerful synchronisms. The three earlier ages can be approximately restored. One thus arrives, by adding 200 + 300 + 120 (=620) to each of the earlier and thus separated periods, to the beginning of the Tretâ (foundation of the Bharata kingdom beginning with Puru). This leads to the following computation.

I. Anarchy before Puru200 years.

II. From Puru to Bharata's father, 10 reigns of 20 years200 years.

From Bharata to Agamîdha's son, 6 reigns 120 years.

End of II.300 years.

——

III. From Kuru to Bahlika (migration towards Bactria?) 10 reigns200 years.

(Parikshit) apparently 6-7 reigns120 years.

——

End of the oldest Indian kingdom, before Kali 1340 years.

1182 years.

——

Beginning of Tretâ = 2522 B. C. (2234 Zoroaster invaded Babylon from Media) Second dynasties in Babylon1100 years.

——

3622 years.

We have still to account for the time of the settlement in the Punjab and formation of kingdoms there. This gives as the beginning approximately = 4339 B. C.

[pg 468]

And now I am very anxious to hear what you have made out, or whether you have let the whole matter rest as it is. I have postponed everything, in order to clear up the way as far as I can. I shall try to induce Weber to visit me in the Whitsun holidays, to look into the details for me, that I may not lay myself open to attack. Before that I shall have received Haug's entirely new translation of the first Fargard, which I shall print as an Appendix, with his annotations. My Chinese restoration has turned out most satisfactory.

I may now look forward to telling them: (1.) The rabbinical chronology is false, it is impossible; it has every tradition opposed to it, most of all so the biblical—therefore away with it! (2.) Science has not to turn back, but now first to press really forward, and to restore: the question is not the fixing of abstract speculative formulas, but the employing of speculation and philology for the reconstruction of the history of humanity, of which revelation is only a portion, though certainly the centre if we believe in our moral consciousness of God.

This is about what I shall say, as my last word, in the Preface to the sixth volume of “Egypt.” Volumes IV. and V. are printed. Deo soli gloria.

[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.