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