LETTERS FROM BUNSEN TO MAX MÜLLER IN THE YEARS 1848 TO 1859.98 (continued 3)

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.

[pg 478]

[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.

[pg 485]

[79.]

Charlottenberg

,

Friday Morning, August 28, 1857

.

See there he remains in the centre of Germany for a month, and lets one hear and see nothing of him! Had I not soon after the receipt of your dear and instructive letter gone to Wildbad, and there fallen into indescribable idleness, I should long ago have written to Oxford; for the letter was a great delight to me. The snail had there crept out of his shell and spoke to me as the friend, but now “Your Excellency” appears again; so the snail has drawn his head in again.

Now, my dear friend, you ought to be thanked for the friendly thought of paying me a visit, and writing to me. Therefore you must know that I returned here on the 19th, in order to greet, in his father's native country, Astor, my now sixty-three years old pupil, who proposed himself for the 20th to the 25th, and who for my sake has left his money-bags in order to see me once again. And now Astor is really in Europe, and has called at Abbey Lodge; but his wife and granddaughter have stayed on in Paris or Brussels, and Astor is not yet here. This, however, has no effect on my movements, for I do not accompany him to Switzerland, where, I know, Brockhaus would send a hue and cry after me.

That the Oxford Don should ask him if I would afford him a “few hours,” shows again the English leaven. For you well know that my hermit's life is dear to me for this reason,—that it leaves me at liberty to receive here the Muses and my friends. And what have we not to talk over? The “hours” belong to the Don's gown; for you know very well that we could in a “few hours” only figure to ourselves what we have to discuss by turns. So come as soon as you can, and stay at least a week here. You will find my house to be sure rather lonely, as Henry has robbed me of the womankind, and Sternberg of Theodora; and that excellent princess keeps Emilia from me, who is faithfully nursing her benefactress in an illness that I hope is passing away. We two old people are, however, here and full of old life. Perhaps you will also still find Theodore, who, however, soon after Astor's departure will be hurrying off to Falmouth for sea-bathing, in acceptance of his brother Ernst's invitation. Laboulaye has announced himself for the 8th; Gerhard and his wife for the first or second week in September; therefore, if you do find any one, they will be friends. Besides [pg 486] Meyer, there is Dr. Sprenger, the Arabic scholar, as house friend, whose library I have at last secured for us,—a delightful man, who is my guide in the Arabian desert, so that I may be certain of bringing the children of Israel in thirty months to the Jabbok, namely, in the fifth of the eight volumes.

I can give you no better proof of my longing to see you than by saying that you shall even be welcome without your mother, who is so dear and unforgotten to us all, although we by no means give up the hope that you will bring her with you here. For I must see her again in this life. I ought to have thanked her before this for a charming letter, but I did not know where she had gone from Carlsbad; her son never sent me the address. Should she not come with you, you must pay toll for the delay, which, however, must not be longer than one year, with a photograph, for I must soon see her.

So you have looked at my Genesis! I am pleased at this. But I hope you will look at the chapters once again, when they are set in pages, after my last amendments; also at my discussions on Genesis i. 1-4, ii. 4-7, as i. and ii. of the thirty thorns (in the Appendix, p. cxxxv.) which I have run into the weak side of the Bible dragon, though less than one thirtieth of its heaviest sins. I feel as if I had got over three quarters of the work since I sent the eleven chapters and the thirty thorns into the world. My holidays last till the 21st of October. Haug is in the India House, over Minokhired and Parsi Bundehesh. If you have a moment's time, look at my quiet polemic against you and Burnouf in favor of Buddha, in reference to the Nirvâna. Koeppen has given me much new material, although he is of your opinion. I am quite convinced that Buddha thought on this point like Tauler and the author of the “German Theology;” but he was an Indian and lived in desperate times. A thousand thanks for the dove which you sent me out of the ark of the Rig-Veda. I had sinned against the same hymn by translating it according to Haug, as I had not courage enough to ask you for more. And that leads me to tell you with what deep sympathy and melancholy pleasure your touching idyl has filled me. You will easily believe me that after the first five minutes I saw you vividly behind the mask. I thank you very much for having ordered it to be sent to me. I am very glad that you have written it, for I would far rather see you mixing in the life of the present and future, with your innate freshness and energy. I must end. All love from me and Fanny to your incomparable mother. So to our speedy meeting. Truly yours.

[pg 487]

George will have arrived in London yesterday with wife and child; his darling Ella has a serious nervous affection, and they are to try sea air. He is much depressed.

[80.]

Charlottenberg

,

February 17, 1858

.

Your affectionate letter, my dear friend, has touched me deeply. First your unaltered love and attachment, and that you have perfectly understood me and my conduct in this affair. Naturally my fate will be very much influenced by it. I must be every year in Berlin: this year I shall satisfy myself with the last three weeks after Easter. In 1859 (as I shall spend the winter in Nice) I shall take my seat, when I return in April across the Alps. But later (and perhaps from 1859) I must not only live in Prussia, which is prescribed by good feeling and by the constitution, but I must stay for some time in Berlin. They all wish to have me there. God knows how little effort it costs me not to seek the place of Minister of Instruction, to say nothing of declining it, for everything is daily going more to ruin. But it could only be for a short time, and Bethmann-Hollweg, Usedom, and others can do the right thing just as well, and have time and youth to drag away the heavy cart of a Chinese order of business, which now consumes nine tenths of the time of a Prussian minister (who works twelve hours a day).

What I wish and am doing with my “Biblework,” you will see between the lines of my first volume; other people, twelve months later, when my first volume of the Bible documents “comes out:” and even then they will not see where the concluding volume tends,—the world's history in the Bible, and the Bible in the world's history. Already in the end of 1857 I finished all of the first volume: the stereotyping goes on fearfully slow. You will receive one of the first copies which goes across the Channel; and you will read it at once, will you not? I am delighted that you are absorbed in Eckart: he is the key to Tauler, and there is nothing better, except the Gospel of St. John. For there stands still more clearly than in the other gospel writings, that the object of life in this world is to found the Kingdom of God on earth (as my friends the Taipings understand it also). Of this, Eckart and his scholars had despaired, just as much as Dante and his parody, Reineke Fuchs. You will find already many pious ejaculations of this kind in my two volumes of “God in History;” but I have deferred the closing [pg 488] word till the sixth book, where our tragedy will be revealed, in order to begin boldly with a new epos. I send you to-day four sheets by book-post, “The Aryans in Asia;” for I cannot finish it without your personal help. You will find that you have already furnished a great portion of the matter. The same hymn which I translated with difficulty and trouble from Haug's literal translation (in strophes which you however do not recognize?) (Ps. li.), you have translated for me, in your own graceful manner, on a fly-sheet, and sent to me from Leipzig. Of course I shall use this translation in place of my own. I therefore venture to request that you will do the same with regard to the other examples which I have given. If you wish to add anything new, it will suit perfectly, for everything fits in at the end of the chapter: the number of the pages does not come into consideration in the present stage. You will receive the leaves on Saturday; it would be delightful if you could finish them in the course of the following week, and send them back to me. (We have a contract here with France, which gives us a sort of book-post.) I expect next week the continuation of the Brahmanism and Buddha. I should like to send both to you. The notes and excursus will only be printed at the close of the volume, therefore not before May. The rest (Books V., VI.) will be printed during the summer, to appear before I cross the Alps. In this I develop the tragedy of the Romano-Germanic world, and shall both gain many and lose many friends by it. I have read your brilliant article on Welcker with great delight. I possess it. Have you sent it (if only anonymously) to the noble old man? He has deserved it. The article makes a great noise, and will please him very much. In fact, everything would give me undisturbed pleasure, did I not see (even without your telling me, which, however, you have done, as is the sacred duty between friends) that you are not happy in yourself. Of one thing I am convinced,—you would be just as little so, even less, in Germany, and least of all among the sons of the Brahmans. If you continue to live as you do now, you would everywhere miss England,—perhaps also Oxford, if you went to London. Of this I am not clear: in general a German lives far more freely in the World-city than in the Don-city, where every English idiosyncrasy strengthens itself, and buries itself in coteries. Unfortunately I have neither read “Indophilus” nor “Philindus:” please tell me the numbers of the “Times.” I can get a copy of the “Times” here from [pg 489] the library from month to month. Trevelyan is an excellent man, occasionally unpractical and mistaken, always meaning well and accessible to reason. But does any one study in London? Dubito! But I don't understand the plan of an Oriental College. Perhaps it is possible to undertake London without giving up Oxford entirely. The power of influencing the young men, who after ten or twenty years will govern the land, is far greater in Oxford or Cambridge than in London. I am curious about your “German Reading Book.”

I maintain one thing,—you are not happy; and that comes from your bachelor life. The progress of your Vedic work delights me: but how much in it is still a riddle! Thus, for instance, the long hymn (2 Ashtaka, third Adhyâya, Sûkta viii. CLXIV.) p. 125. The hymn is first of all, as can be proved, beyond verse 41 not genuine; but even this older portion is late, surely already composed on the Sarasvatî. The Veda is already a finished book (verse 39), Brahma and Vishnu are gods (35, 36). The whole is really wearisome, because it wishes to be mysterious without an idea. (See 4 Ashtaka, seventh Adhyâya, vol. iii. p. 463.) Is not Brahma there a god like Indra?

I depend on your marking all egregious blunders with a red pencil. Many such must still have remained, leaving out of view all differences of opinion. Tell me as much as you can on this point in a letter, for on the Continent only notes for press are allowed to go as a packet. (But of these you can bring in as much as you wish: the copy is a duplicate.) At the end I should much like to write something about the present impossibility of enjoying the Rig-Veda, and of the necessity of a spiritual key. But I do not quite know, first of all, whether one can really enter upon the whole: there is much that is conventional and mortal by the side of what is imperishable. An anthology in about two or three volumes would find a rapid sale, and would only benefit a more learned and perfect edition. If you have arrived at the same conclusion, I will blow the trumpet.

George greets you heartily, as do his mother and sisters. Perhaps I shall move in April, 1859, to Bonn; here I shall not stay. Deus providebit. With truest affection, yours.

Best remembrance to your mother. Have you read my preface to “Debit and Credit?” I have poured out my heart about Kingsley in the Introduction to the German “Hypatia,” and told him that everybody must say to himself, sooner or late, “Let the dead bury the dead.”

[pg 490]

[81.]

Charlottenberg

,

July 31, 1858

.

With threefold joy, my loved friend, have I heard the news through your great admirer Mme. Schwabe, of your charming intention of delighting us in August with a visit. First, on account of the plan itself: then because I can now compress into a few lines the endless letter I have so long had in my thoughts, to develop it in conversation according to my heart's desire; thirdly, because really since yesterday the day has come when the one half of the concluding volume (iii.) of “God in History” has gone to press, so that its appearing is secured. A letter to you, and a like debt to Lepsius, therefore open the list. And now before anything else receive my hearty thanks for your friendly and instructive letter, and what accompanied it in Vedicis. It came just at the right time, and you will see what use I made of it in the work.

And now here first come my congratulations. Nothing could be more agreeable and suitable; it is personally and nationally an honor, and an unique acknowledgment. I can only add the wish that you may enjoy the dignity itself as short a time as possible, and take leave as soon as possible of the Fellow-celibates of All Souls'. Your career in England wants nothing but this crowning-point. How prosperous and full of results has it been! Without ceasing to be a German, you have appropriated all that is excellent and superior in English life, and of that there is much, and it will last for life. I imagine you will bring your historical Chrestomathy with you, and propose to you, as you most probably give something out of the Heliand and Ulphilas, to reserve my Woluspa for the next edition, as I have just established the first tenable text of this divine poem, on which the brothers Grimm would never venture. I have had this advantage, of working on the good foundation of my studies (with a Danish translation) of 1815 from Copenhagen. Neither Magnusson, nor Munch, nor Bergmann has given the text of the only MS. (Cod. Regius); one has disfigured it with the latest interpolations, another with unauthorized transpositions. I have at last worked out the unity of the Helgi and the Sigurd songs with each other, and the oldest purely mythological stratum (the solar tragedy) of both, as an important link in the chain of evidence, for the reality of the God-Consciousness of mankind and its organic laws. What people will say to the “results” (Book VI.) which fall into one's hands, I do not know.

[pg 491]

I have been obliged to postpone the journey to Italy from September to November. October (the 23d) is the great crisis for Prussia, and I ought not to forsake the Fatherland then, and have willingly agreed not to do so. A brighter, better day is approaching. May God give his blessing. Every one must help; it is the highest time.

But nothing disturbs me from the work of my life. The fourth volume of the “Biblework” goes to press the day after to-morrow; on the 1st of September, the fifth (Documents I. a). I have now finished my preliminary work for the Old Testament in the main points, and only reserved the last word before the stereotyping; so I begin at once on the New Testament and Life of Jesus. The friendly and clever notice of the first volume of the “Biblework” in the “Continental Review” gave me and my whole family great pleasure: and Bernays is here since yesterday (for August and September), which helps the printing of the Pentateuch very much, as I always sent him a last revise, and now all can be worked off here. I finish with Haug in the beginning of September; he will go probably to Poonah with his very sensible bride. Charles and Theodore are well. I expect George this week with Emilia for a visit. My family greet you. Bernays sighs. He has again made some beautiful discoveries; that of Aristotle (about the tragedies) I have carried further philosophically. Suggest to that good Arthur Stanley (to whom I have sent my “Biblework”) to send me his “Palestine.” I cannot get it here, and should like to say something about it.

With most true love, yours.

[82.]

Charlottenberg

,

July 23, 1859

.

My sons knew too well what delight they would give me through their confidential communication, which has already given us all a foretaste of the delight of your visit with your bride, and meanwhile has brought me your expected and affectionate letter.

I have felt all these years what was the matter with you, and I sympathize with your happiness as if it concerned one of my own children. I therefore now, my loved friend, wish you all the more happiness and blessing in the acquisition of the highest of life's prizes, because your love has already shown the right effect and strength, in that you have acquired courage for [pg 492] finishing at this present time your difficult and great work on the Vedas. The work will also give you further refreshment for the future, whilst the editing of the Veda still hangs on your hands.

Therefore let us all wish you joy most heartily (my wife has received the joyful news in Wildbad), and accept our united thanks beforehand for your kind intention of visiting us shortly with your young wife. By that time we shall all be again united here. Your remarkable mother will alone be wanting. Beg your bride beforehand to feel friendly towards me and towards us all. You know how highly I esteem her two aunts, though without personal acquaintance with them, and how dear to me is the cultivated, noble, Christian circle in which the whole family moves. I have as yet carried out my favorite plan with a good hope of success; six months in Charlottenberg on the true spiritually historical interpretation of the Old Testament, in the first volumes of the second division of the work (the so-called documents); six months of the winter on the “Life of Jesus,” and what in my view immediately joins on to that. The first volume of the Bible documents is printed, the Pentateuch. You will see that I have handled Abraham and Moses as freely here as I did Zoroaster and Buddha in my last work; the explanation of the books and the history from Joram to Zedekiah is as good as finished.

We shall keep peace; Napoleon and Palmerston understand each other, and Palmerston is the only statesman in England and Europe who conceives rightly the Italian question. Russia follows him. I still hope by the autumn to be able to bless the God of free Italy beside Dante's and Machiavelli's graves. With us (Prussia) matters move fairly forwards; here they have been fools, and begin to feel ashamed of themselves. So a speedy and happy meeting.

Your heartily affectionate friend,

Bunsen.