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 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.).