that a third person should go with us, then, mother, we will try to find
some one.”
“Ah!” said Madame Dornthal, “if a cherished and paramount obligation did
not retain me here, you would not have far to go for some one.”
Clement took his mother’s hand and kissed it. “I thought so,” said he,
smiling. Then he continued: “We shall find some one, you may be sure, if
necessary. For the moment we will leave it; we have something else to do.”
And so to one after another the astonishing news was announced by him and
his mother: first to the professor, and then to all the other members of
the family. We will not describe their feelings individually, we will not
tell how many tears were shed, what a succession of emotions poor
Fleurange had to pass through that day. We will only say that, on the
whole, they were all much more affected than surprised. So pure an
atmosphere pervaded this unpretending household that everything beautiful
and noble was at once perceived and comprehended without difficulty. To
lose this charming sister, who had grown dearer and dearer, was too
painful to be concealed, but Madame Dornthal’s daughters, like her, were
ready for any sacrifice. Therefore the young girl felt that they entered
into her feelings, and would regret, without blaming her. This sympathy
not only increased her affection for those she was to leave, but gave
great support to her courage.
The only person who did not at first participate in this general heroism
was Mademoiselle Josephine. The knowledge of Fleurange’s resolution threw
her into a state of stupefaction that would have been comical under any
other circumstances. Her eyes wandered from one to another with a
perplexed expression of consternation, as if imploring an explanation
which would enable her to comprehend so extraordinary a fact. When, at her
usual time, she joined the family circle in the evening, she was still
speechless. She took her place among them, knitting‐work in hand, without
saying a word or looking at any one.
The professor, cautiously informed of this new separation, heard it with
resignation—a feeling that had grown upon him with respect to everything,
in consequence of the increasing conviction that he had a long time to
suffer and should never be well. Fleurange was now sitting near him.
Madame Dornthal and her daughters were at work beside the table where sat
the silent Josephine. Clement alone sat apart, talking in a low tone with
his little sister on his knee. She was in her turn asking an explanation
which no one had thought of giving her. While he was replying in a
whisper, Frida’s large eyes opened to their utmost extent, her little
mouth contracted, and a flood of tears inundated her face; then she threw
both her arms around her brother’s neck, and said in broken accents:
“O Clement! how can I do without her?—I love her so much!—I love her so
much!—”
Clement hid his face in the child’s long curls, pressed her in his arms,
and kissed her affectionately, but he could not succeed in calming her
till he promised that Gabrielle should return, and that he would bring her
back. At this assurance, the child’s tears ceased to flow, she became
quiet, and remained serious and thoughtful in her brother’s arms.
All at once Mademoiselle Josephine broke her long silence: “Siberia is a
great way off, is it not?” said she.
A general smile accompanied the reply to this question, which was the
first‐fruit of the elderly maiden’s prolonged deliberations.
“And is Clement going to Siberia, also?”
“No; he is going to St. Petersburg.”
“And how far is to St. Petersburg?”
They replied by giving her a full account of the way Fleurange would take
to reach the end of her first journey. Being enlightened on this point,
mademoiselle relapsed into her former silence, but not for a long time. A
new idea suddenly occurred to her. She snatched off her glasses hastily.
“But those two children cannot travel all alone!” she exclaimed.
Madame Dornthal and Fleurange looked up, and Clement gave a start which
disturbed the sleep into which Frida had fallen: every one became
attentive.
“No, certainly not,” said the old lady earnestly. “How would that look, I
beg to know?—Excuse me, Clement, you know how I esteem and love you; but
then, my good friend, how old are you, pray? And as to Gabrielle, besides
her age (which is equally objectionable), she has, as I have told her a
thousand times, a dangerous face—a face which will not allow her to do a
great many things permissible to others not older than she—I tell you the
truth, and defy any one to deny it.”
No one attempted it, for the thought just expressed so characteristically
was the opinion of all.
“Therefore,” continued mademoiselle, “Gabrielle must be accompanied by
some respectable person. Once more pardon, Clement; this does not imply
you can be dispensed with (you are a protector not to be easily replaced);
but, my dear friend, _les convenances_ require she should have at the same
time an elderly and reliable companion. Now, I propose that this reliable
and elderly person be—myself!—”
There was a general exclamation at these unexpected words. Every one spoke
at once, and for some moments no one could be heard. The good Mademoiselle
Josephine, however, comprehended at once that her proposition was
generally approved. But before any one uttered a word, before Clement even
had time to go and grasp her hand, Fleurange sprang forward, and, throwing
her arms around her old friend’s neck, exclaimed: “Oh! how shall I thank
you?—May God reward you for all it is his will I should owe you!”
This signified that she accepted her generous offer without any formality.
A few hours previous, her aunt, we know, had attached a condition to her
consent, and this was preoccupying Fleurange when her excellent old friend
suddenly decided the matter in so unexpected a way.
From this moment, everything was plain to Mademoiselle Josephine. The
opportunity she so greatly desired had not been long delayed. In this
extraordinary phase of Gabrielle’s life she found an opportunity of
manifesting the greatest devotedness, and of retarding still longer the
hour of separation from her beloved _protégée_. She felt comforted, and
was at once restored to her usual placid good humor. There remained,
however, more than one misconception about the whole arrangement which she
could not seem to clear up.
“Why,” said she an hour after, when, following her servant, who had come
for her with a lantern, she took Clement’s arm to go home—“why cannot we
also go to Siberia with her, if not disagreeable to this M. le Comte,
whose name I can never pronounce?”
Clement could not repress a smile at this, but there was too much
bitterness in it for him to wish to reply. She did not perceive it. She
was only thinking aloud without regard to him, and, following the course
of her reflections, she soon made another, which, far from exciting the
least temptation to smile, made Clement shudder from head to foot.
“If,” she said, after a few moments’ silence—“if this Monsieur George is
only worthy of the sacrifice she is going to make for him!—If after
leaving us all—us who love her so much—she does not hereafter discover he
does not love her as much as we!”
XLVII.
Clement left Mademoiselle Josephine at her door, and hastened back,
struggling against the new tempest excited in his breast by the words he
had just heard. Hitherto, in consequence of the impressions left by his
meeting with Count George, and the prestige he had acquired in his eyes
from the very attachment of his cousin, Clement had always regarded him as
a superior being, to whom it merely seemed right, in the unpretending
simplicity of his heart, that his humble affection should be sacrificed.
To doubt him worthy of her—to fear that, beloved by her, he could cease to
love in return, had never occurred to him, and mademoiselle had quite
unwittingly thrust a warm blade into his bleeding heart. To admit such a
thought would absolutely shake the foundations of his devotion and add
despair to abnegation. He therefore repelled the thought with a kind of
terror, and by way of reassuring himself he began to recall all the
remembrances that once were so torturing. He took pleasure in dreaming of
the devotion of which his rival was the object, the better to persuade
himself it was absolutely contrary to the nature of things he could ever
be ungrateful.
Fleurange’s reflections at the same hour were of a different nature.
Somewhat recovered from the successive emotions of the day, she could now
freely indulge in the secret joy with which her heart overflowed. She was
at last free!—free to think of George—at liberty to love him and to
confess it! The feeling so long repressed, fought against, and concealed,
could now be indulged in without restraint! A few weeks more, and she
would be with him!—She would be his!—All horror of the fate she was going
to participate in was lost in the thought of bestowing on him, in the hour
of abandonment and misfortune, all the treasures of her devotion and love,
and this appeared a sweeter realization of her dreams than if united to
him in the midst of all the _éclat_ that rank and fortune surrounded him
with!—
Ah! Madre Maddalena was right in thinking hers was not a heart called to
the supreme honor of loving God alone, of bestowing on him that ineffable
love which does not suffer the contact of any other affection, that unique
love which, if it has not always been supreme, blots out, as soon as it
springs up, all other love, as the sun causes the darkness to flee away
and return no more to its presence!... “Whosoever loveth, knoweth the cry
of this voice.”(132)
It was this voice which spoke directly to Madre Maddalena’s heart.
Fleurange did not hear it so distinctly, even while silently listening to
it apart from the noise of the world, though by no means deaf to the
divine inspirations. She was pure: she was pious and steadfast: she had a
fervent and courageous heart—a heart shut against evil, which preferred
nothing to God, but which was ardently susceptible to affection when she
could yield to it without remorse. This is doubtless the appointed way for
nearly all, even among the best, and it is the ordinary path of virtue.
But we would observe here that it is not the path of exquisite and
inexpressible happiness already referred to, and we moreover add that,
when a soul is inclined to make an idol of the object of its love, and
place it on too frail a foundation, it is not rare that
suffering—suffering whose severity is in proportion to the beauty and
purity of the soul—leads it back sooner or later to that point where it
sees the true centre to which, even unknown to ourselves, we all aspire,
and which all human passion, even the most noble and most legitimate in
the world, makes us lose sight of.
Fleurange perhaps had a confused intuition of this, and it made her look
upon the frightful conditions on which happiness was vouchsafed her as a
kind of expiation, which she accepted with joy, hoping thereby to assure
the permanence of the love that overruled all other sentiments.
After Gabrielle’s conversation with Princess Catherine, the state of the
latter underwent a salutary change. Her physical sufferings, and her grief
itself, seemed suspended. A fresh activity was aroused as soon as she
perceived a way of exerting herself for her son, and entering into almost
direct communication with him. Let us add to these motives the princess’
natural taste for the extraordinary, and we shall comprehend that
Fleurange’s heroic resolution afforded her an interesting distraction,
and, at the same time, a source of activity which was useful and
beneficial.
She made every arrangement herself. They were forced to allow her to
direct all the preparations for the long journey the young girl was going
to undertake. She and her elderly companion were to go as far as St.
Petersburg in one of the princess’ best carriages, and everything that
would enable Fleurange to bear the severe cold on the way was anxiously
prepared. At St. Petersburg, it was decided she should take up her
residence in the princess’ house until the day—the terrible day of the
departure that must follow.
All this was transmitted by the princess to the Marquis Adelardi, whom she
charged to receive and protect Gabrielle. Moreover, he must find means of
announcing to George the unexpected alleviation Heaven granted to his
misfortunes.
As to the steps to be taken in order to obtain the necessary permission
for the accomplishment of this strange lugubrious marriage, and for the
newly‐made wife to accompany her condemned husband, the princess thought
the most successful course would be to obtain for Gabrielle an audience of
the empress.
“Either I am very much deceived,” wrote the princess, “or her heart will
be touched by such heroic devotion, by Gabrielle’s appearance, and the
charm there is about her, and perhaps even by a remnant of pity for my
poor George. Something tells me this pity still survives the favor he
showed himself unworthy of, and that the day will perchance come when I
can appeal to her with success. Obtain my son’s pardon!—behold him
again!—Yes, in spite of everything, I hope, I believe, I may say I feel
sure, that sooner or later this happiness will be granted me, unless so
much sorrow shortens my life. Nevertheless, the effect of this terrible
sentence, should he incur its penalty only for a day, will never be
effaced. I feel it. My hopes for him have all vanished, never to return.
How, then, could I hesitate to accept Gabrielle’s generous sacrifice—to
accept it at first with a transport of enthusiasm which, I confess, I was
seized with when, with indescribable words and accents, she so
unexpectedly begged my consent on her knees, but afterwards deliberately,
and, in consideration of the strange and painful circumstances in which we
are situated, with sincere gratitude?”
“No doubt,” she added, with an instinctive and natural feeling, never
wholly or for a long time dormant—“no doubt, when the time comes which I
look forward to with hope—the time when he will be restored to me, other
regrets will revive. But then, his condemnation, only too certain, puts an
end to all hope in that direction. The conspirator acquitted, or even
pardoned, might win a heart in which love perhaps still pleads his cause;
but the haughty Vera will never bestow a thought on the returned exile
from Siberia. I resign myself, therefore—and, after all, Gabrielle is
charming, and, as far as I know, he never loved any one else as well. You
will perhaps say that a quick fire is soon extinguished in George’s heart.
I know that well, but it is very certain that this young girl’s devotion
is calculated to foster the love she has inspired, and even to revive it
if deadened by the revolutionary tempest he has passed through. As for me,
I know, if anything can make me endure this fearful separation, it is the
thought that this beautiful and noble creature, who is better fitted than
any one else to preserve him from despair, will be with him in his exile.”
In the princess’ eyes, Gabrielle was, in spite of the pure generosity of
her love, only a _pis‐aller_, or rather she was only something relatively
to herself. She overwhelmed her to‐day with attentions and caresses as
before she abruptly dismissed her, and as she would be quite ready to do
again if a sudden turn of fortune brought about chances more favorable to
her wishes. But, even if all these sentiments were evident, they could not
change Gabrielle’s determination or diminish her courage. Her fate was
already united in heart to George’s. Everything but this thought, and the
anticipated joys and sacrifices connected with it, became indifferent to
her. Calm and serene, she made all the preparations for her departure
without haste or anxiety, and was equally mindful of her dear old friend,
for whom she reserved the rich furs and all the other things which the
princess had been careful to provide for herself as a protection against
the cold.
The days, however, passed rapidly away, and as the time of separation
approached, more courage was required for those she was to leave behind
than for herself.
And when the farewell hour at length arrived, and she knelt in church with
Clement, to utter a last prayer, the All‐Seeing Eye saw to which of the
two belonged at that moment the palm of devotedness and sacrifice.
Part Fourth. The Immolation.
L’amour vrai, c’est l’oubli de soi.
XLVIII.
Our travellers were already far away, having pursued their journey for
more than twelve days without stopping. In spite of the increasing
severity of the weather, Fleurange and her companion went as far as
Berlin, and even beyond, without suffering from the cold—thanks to the
numerous precautions taken by the princess to protect them from it. But at
Königsberg they were obliged to leave the comfortable carriage in which
they had travelled thus far, for they wished, above all things, to travel
fast, and they had the Strand to cross (the only way to St. Petersburgh at
that season), that is to say, the narrow tongue of sandy soil that extends
along the Baltic as far as the arm of the sea which separates Prussia from
Courland like a wide canal, and then forms the basin or inland lake of
Kurishe Haff. This bounds the Strand at the right, whereas at the left its
dreary coast is shut in between the sea and the high dunes of sand which
ward off the winds from the scattered habitations of this desolate region,
all situated so as to face the lake and turn their backs on the sea.
The princess’ carriage remained, therefore, at Königsberg, to await the
return of Fleurange’s travelling companions. She took with her, however,
the rich furs, so warm and light, with which she had been provided, to
wrap around Mademoiselle Josephine, in spite of her resistance. As for
herself, she reserved a cloak of sufficiently thick material to protect
her from the cold, not wishing to accustom herself to comforts she must
afterwards be deprived of.
The change from one carriage to another was promptly effected, and the
small calèche in which they were closely seated was soon on its way over
the Strand towards Memel, which they hoped to reach the same evening.
Clement, in front, gazed with secret horror on the desolate aspect of
nature. Everything around him seemed a fitting prelude to that Inferno of
ice towards which he was escorting her whom he would gladly have sheltered
from too rude a summer breeze.
The weather was not as cold as on the previous day. The gray clouds
charged with rain seemed to indicate a sudden thaw, and through them the
sun, veiled as before a coming storm, cast a pale light over the dark
waves and the sandy shore. The postilion, to favor his horses, rode so
close to the water that the waves broke over their pathway. To the right
rose the dismal sand‐hills, and on that side, as well as before them,
nothing was to be seen but sand as far as the eye could reach; to the
left, nothing but the tumultuous and threatening waves. Not a house far or
near, not a tree, not a blade of grass, not a living creature, save now
and then some sea‐birds skimming wildly over the waves, adding another
melancholy feature to the dreariness of the scene, which with the storm
was a sufficiently exact image of the mental condition of him who was
regarding it.
As to Fleurange, instead of looking around, she closed her eyes, the
better to wander in imagination among the cherished scenes of the past and
those she looked forward to. She beheld again the blue waters of the
Mediterranean, and the radiant sky whose azure they reflect, and the
graceful undulations of the mountains veiled in a pearly mist; then
Florence, sparkling and poetical in the golden rays of departing light,
and beside her she heard a voice murmuring words once dangerous to hear,
but now delicious to recall and repeat to herself. How much she then
suffered in struggling against her own impulses! Recalling those
sufferings, how could she fear those she was about to brave?—sufferings
repaid by the immense happiness of loving!—of loving without fear!—loving
without remorse!—Besides, they were both young.—His mother’s hopes might
be realized.—Yes, perhaps some day they would again behold, and together,
that charming region, and then in the restored brilliancy of his former
position, with her beside him, he would be convinced, convinced beyond
doubt, that that was not the attraction which had won her, but really
himself, and only him, whom she loved!
Yes, she was now happy; no fears troubled her; she was full of hope; and,
as it is said of the only great and true love that it “believes it may and
can do all things,”(133) so earthly love which is its pale but faithful
reflection, made every earthly happiness appear possible and certain to
Fleurange, inasmuch as the greatest of all was in store for her.
Clement was still absorbed in silent contemplation, and Fleurange in her
sweet dreams, when Mademoiselle Josephine awoke from the drowsiness
favored by the ample furs in which she was wrapped, which not only
excluded the air but the sight of outward objects. She looked up and
around for the first time that morning, and gave a sudden start of
surprise.
“Ah! mon Dieu! mon Dieu!—” she cried with alarm. “Gabrielle, what is
that?”
Fleurange, suddenly recalled from the land of dreams to what was passing
around her, replied: “It is the sea. Did you not notice it before?”
“The sea!—the sea!—” repeated Mademoiselle Josephine, as if stupefied.
“No, I had not seen it, and never imagined we should go on the sea in a
carriage.—What a country! What a journey!” murmured she to herself,
endeavoring to conceal the terror she had not ceased to feel as they
proceeded on their way and found everything so different from France, and
consequently the more alarming. But in her way she made an act of heroism
in trying to overcome the surprise and fear caused by so many strange
sights. She was especially desirous of not being troublesome to her
companions. “Besides,” thought she, “if these two children are not afraid,
I must at least appear as brave as they.” Nevertheless, she could not help
repeating with astonishment: “Going on the sea in a carriage—it is really
very singular!”
Fleurange laughed. “Here, dear mademoiselle, look on this side, and you
will see we are not on the sea, but only on the shore.”
“Very near it, however, for we are riding through the water.”
“It is only the waves that break on the shore and then recede. There, you
see the land, now.”
Mademoiselle felt somewhat reassured. She looked to the right, she looked
to the left, she looked before her, then turned her eyes towards the
gloomy immensity of the sea beside which they were riding.
“Oh! how dismal, how repulsive it is,” she exclaimed, at last.
Fleurange now gazed around. Her thoughts were no longer wandering. “The
scene is indeed singularly gloomy,” said she. “The leaden sky—that mock
sun—the dark waters of that melancholy sea, and the interminable sand.
Yes, the whole region is frightful!” And she slightly shuddered.
“I have always been told,” said mademoiselle, “that the sea was glorious;
but it seems it was a traveller’s tale for the benefit of those who never
go from home.”
“No, no,” cried Fleurange, “do not say so. The sea is really beautiful
where it is as blue as the heavens above, and where its shores are
luxuriant with trees, plants, and flowers; but not here, I acknowledge.”
And, in spite of herself, the sweet impression of her recent dreams,
caused by the contrast, entirely vanished. Her heart sank. She became
silent, and for a long time none of the three travellers spoke.
The Strand, about twelve or fourteen leagues in length, was divided into
several stages by post‐stations on the other side of the sand‐hills,
whence were brought fresh horses. A carriage could not approach the
stations on account of the deep sand, and when they paused a few moments
to exchange horses, the travellers were only made aware of a neighboring
habitation by a peal of the horn which responded afar off to that of the
postilion as he announced his approach. While they were thus halting at
the last stage, Fleurange noticed Clement’s anxious look towards the sea
and the threatening sky. The wind grew stronger and stronger, and the
waves mounted higher. A violent storm was evidently at hand. She beckoned
to him, and said in a tone inaudible to her companion: “We are going to
have bad weather, are we not?”
“Yes,” replied he, in the same tone. “It will be dark in about an hour,
and I fear we may find the crossing rough and difficult. I do not say this
on your account,” added he, with a somewhat forced smile. “I know well I
am not allowed to tremble for you, however great the danger, but I fear
you may find it difficult by‐and‐by to reassure your poor friend.”
He mounted to his seat again, ordered the postilion to hurry, and the
little calèche set off as speedily as possible to avoid the enormous waves
which threatened to upset them. In spite of their haste, night came on,
and the storm set in before they arrived at the ferry across the arm of
the sea which connects the Kurische Haff with the Baltic. The passage was
short but dangerous. They could not stop an instant, for, though well
sheltered here, the sea rose higher and higher, and the large boat that
was to take the carriage across was difficult to manage in bad weather.
They therefore rapidly descended the bank to the boat, and Mademoiselle
Josephine was roused from the drowsiness produced by the motion of the
carriage, by a sudden and violent shock, accompanied by cries and
vociferations mingled with the roar of the sea and the frightful howling
of the wind.
“O Jesus, my Saviour!” prayed the poor demoiselle, clasping her hands with
terror: “the time, then, has come for us to die!”
The rain fell in torrents. The waves broke over the boat. Darkness added
its horrors to the danger, which, to her inexperienced eyes, appeared to
be extreme. The sweet voice of her young companion vainly sought to
encourage her. By the light of the lanterns carried from side to side to
light the boatman, she soon distinguished Clement standing beside the
carriage, holding up a sail with a firm hand to screen them on the side
most exposed to the waves.
“Poor Clement,” she exclaimed, “it is all over with us, then.”
“No, not quite, unfortunately,” replied Clement. “It will be at least half
an hour before we reach the shore.”
“The shore!—the shore!—He imagines, then, we shall reach it alive?” said
mademoiselle, hiding her face on Fleurange’s shoulder.
“Yes, yes,” replied the latter, pressing her in her arms. “Dear friend,
there is no danger, I assure you. Believe me, I am only alarmed to see you
so terrified.”
“Pardon me, child,” said the other, raising her head. “I resolved you
should know nothing about it. But this time, Gabrielle, you cannot say we
are not crossing the sea in a carriage,” continued she, with renewed alarm
as she felt the increased motion of the waves.
Fleurange embraced her, repeating the same reassuring words. The poor old
lady made no reply, she was trying to overcome her terror by a genuine act
of heroism. “Danger or not, it is like what I have always imagined a
terrible tempest, destructive of human life. But then,” murmured she still
lower, “God overrules all, and nothing happens without his consent.”
Her physical nature was weak, but her soul was strong, and piety, a
support in every trial, served now to calm her. She began to pray
mentally, and did not utter another word till they reached the shore.
XLIX.
But a far greater danger awaited our travellers beyond Memel, whence they
continued their journey the following day in sledges. The first,
containing their baggage, preceded them several hours in advance to
announce their arrival at the post‐stations; the second somewhat resembled
a clumsy boat on runners, surmounted by a hood, and protected by a boot of
thick fur. It was in this sledge Fleurange and her companion were stowed
away. They were obliged to lie nearly down to avoid the piercing wind. The
third vehicle, entirely uncovered, was very light, and so small that it
barely contained Clement, in front of whom sat a young fellow wrapped in a
caftan, strong and vigorous, but with a slender form quite adapted to the
seat he occupied and the sledge he drove. With this light equipage Clement
went like the wind, sometimes preceding the other sledge as a guide, and
then returning to accompany it and watch over its safety.
The cold had become as intense as ever within a few hours. The pouring
rain of the previous night after several days of thawing weather, alarming
at that season, caused great gullies in the road, and endangered the
passage over the rivers, at that time of the year, on the ice. Though
scarcely four o’clock, the short day was nearly ended, and daylight was
declining when our travellers came to the river they were obliged to cross
in order to reach the small town of Y——. It was a deep, rapid stream,
which at the beginning of every winter was encumbered with thick cakes of
floating ice before the surface of its waters was congealed, and which, at
the approach of spring, was also the first to resume its course and break
the icy fetters that confined its current. This river was therefore almost
always difficult to pass over, and very often dangerous, and, when the
travellers came to the only place where it could be crossed, they felt
they had reason to be anxious about the thaw. As soon as Clement cast his
eyes on the river, he thought there were really some alarming indications.
He at once saw there was no time to be lost, and drove directly on to the
ice. Then he stopped, and hurriedly said to the young guide: “I think we
should let the heaviest sledge go first: we will follow, if we can.”
“Yes, if we can,” said the other.
The order was instantly given, and the sledge that contained Fleurange and
her companion passed rapidly on. But it had scarcely gone ten or twelve
feet from the shore before an ominous cracking was heard. The frightened
driver stopped. Clement imperiously ordered him to proceed without a
second’s delay. But, instead of obeying, the driver, seized with fear,
jumped out on the ice and sprang back to the shore he had just left. This
jar increased the breaking of the ice which had already commenced. That
next the shore gave way and began to move with the current, leaving an
open gulf between the land and the still solid ice where our travellers
remained. Great promptness of decision was necessary at a moment of such
sudden and extreme danger, and orders as prompt as the judgment.
“Descend, Gabrielle,” said Clement, with authority.
The young girl instantly sprang from the sledge. Clement took Mademoiselle
Josephine in his arms and placed her beside Fleurange.
“Get into my sledge, Gabrielle,” said he calmly, but very quickly. “As
soon as you are safe, the sledge shall return for your friend. There is
time, but you must not hesitate.”
“I do not hesitate,” said Fleurange. “I shall remain myself: she shall be
saved first.”
Clement shuddered. But there was not time to contest the point. Besides,
he knew from the tone of Fleurange’s voice that her decision was
irrevocable, and he yielded without another word. He placed poor
mademoiselle, who was incapable of comprehending what was transpiring, in
the light sledge, gave the order—obeyed at once—and it darted off. The
sound of the bells on the horses’ necks was heard for a few moments, and
then died away.
Fleurange and Clement were left alone. Night was gathering around them.
Not far off could be heard the slow cracking of the ice beneath the heavy
weight of the sledge at the edge of the first opening. The noise
increased, and the ice broke away the second time. The huge mass, thus
detached, quivered, then, like the first, slowly descended the river,
carrying the sledge with it. The opening became frightfully large. Clement
looked before him to see if he could venture, by taking Fleurange in his
arms, to cross on foot the long interval that separated them from the
opposite shore. But it was too dark to distinguish the path, and, if they
left that, death was inevitable. They might lose the only chance of being
saved—by awaiting the return of the sledge. And yet they could not remain
long where they were. The ice was already loosening around them. In a few
moments there was another cracking, and it gave way before them. The
fragment on which they stood became a kind of floating island. Clement saw
at a glance the only course to be taken. He did not hesitate. He seized
Fleurange in his arms, and, by the uncertain light of the snow, sprang
boldly across the opening before them. They were once more on the solid
ice, but who could tell how long it would be so? Who knew whether the
sledge would succeed in reaching them again? Perhaps it was swallowed up
in the impenetrable darkness, or left on the ice broken up around it.
Otherwise it should have returned.
These thoughts crowded into Clement’s mind faster than they can be
written. Fleurange, silent but courageous, was equally sensible of their
danger. She bent down her head and silently prayed. Leaning thus against
Clement, her hair brushing his very face, she might have heard the rapid
pulsations of his heart and felt the trembling of the arm that supported
her, and the hand that pressed her own. But he did not utter a word. His
sensations were strange. A desire to save her doubled his strength and
courage, and quickened all his faculties. At the same time, he was
conscious of a transport he could not control—that she was there alone
with him, that they were to die together, and she would never be able to
fulfil the odious design of her journey!
But this moment of selfish love and despair was short. His thoughts
returned to her—her alone. He must save her—save her at whatever cost. But
how? It seemed as if an hour had passed away. It was useless to hope for
the return of the sledge.—He thought he felt the ice quiver anew beneath
his feet.—He looked at the dark current behind. Should he jump into the
water, and endeavor to regain the shore they had left, but now no longer
visible?—He hesitated a moment—no, that would expose her to certain death,
and a more speedy one than now threatened them. It would be better to
remain where they were, and endure the fearful suspense to the end.
They therefore remained motionless for some minutes more of silent agony.
Notwithstanding her courage, the young girl’s strength began to fail. Her
sight grew dim. There was a strange hum in her ears. Then her head fell on
her cousin’s shoulder.
“Oh! I am dying,” murmured she. “May God restore you to your mother,
Clement!”
At this moment of supreme anguish, Clement raised his eyes to heaven, and
the cry of love and despair that rose from his heart was a prayer as
ardent and pure as was ever uttered by childlike faith. He felt he was
heard. Yes, almost at the same instant.—Was he mistaken? Afar off, so far
he could hardly catch the sound, he thought he heard the jingle of bells.
He listened without breathing.—O Divine Goodness! is it true?—Yes, yes,
there is no longer any doubt. The sound becomes more distinct. It
approaches.—It is really the sledge.—It is coming rapidly; it reaches
them; it stops; it is really there!
“Blessed be God! she is saved!” was Clement’s cry. But Fleurange, overcome
by weakness and terror, was already senseless in his arms.
He bore her to the sledge, and as he placed her within, but half conscious
of what was occurring, he pressed her once more to his heart with
unrestrained tenderness, and said: “Adieu, dear Gabrielle. Regret not that
I die here. God is good. He spares me the sorrow of living without you.”
And he added, in a lower tone: “Gabrielle, I have loved you more than
anything else in the world. I can acknowledge it now, for death is at
hand.” Then he stepped back, and ordered the young guide to hurry away.
His first words had only been indistinctly heard by Fleurange, as in a
dream; but she clearly understood this precise order. It brought her at
once to herself.
“Away!” she exclaimed. “Away without you! What do you mean?”
“It must be so,” said Clement. “The sledge can only hold you and the
guide. Any additional weight would be dangerous. Go, without an instant’s
delay.”
“Never!” said Fleurange resolutely. “Clement, we will all three die here,
rather than leave you!”
“You must go!” repeated Clement energetically. “Go, I tell you! The sledge
will return for me.”
“It will be impossible to cross a third time,” said the young conductor.
Clement knew it. He only replied by imperiously ordering him to start.
Fleurange, no less firm than Clement, rose and checked the hand that held
the reins. The driver at once jumped down from his seat. “Do you know how
to drive?” said he.
“Yes.”
“Well, I know how to swim. Here, get in quick.—Keep that for me,”
continued he, hastily taking off his caftan and throwing it into the
sledge. “Do not be uneasy. I shall get it again to‐morrow. I know the way
and am familiar with the river.”
And without hesitating he plunged into the dark current, while Clement
sprang to his seat in the sledge.
With a boldness that is the only chance of safety in such a case, he
forced the horses into a gallop. They thus traversed with giddy rapidity
the considerable distance that separated them from the other shore. The
ice, jarred by the two former trips, cracked beneath the horse’s feet. To
slacken their course an instant would have submerged them in the river,
but the sledge flew rather than ran on the ice, and the hand that guided
it was firm. They arrived at the goal in less than half an hour, and
Fleurange, pale, exhausted, and chilled, fell into the arms of her dear
old friend.
The latter was quietly awaiting them in a warm, well‐lighted room at the
post‐station, and supper had been ordered, but Fleurange was neither able
to talk nor eat. Mademoiselle saw that instant repose was absolutely
necessary. She only persuaded her to take some hot mulled wine before
going to sleep, and then went to join Clement in another room, where she
learned, for the first time, all the danger she, as well as the rest, had
escaped.
After the experience of the past day, Mademoiselle Josephine resolved
never to manifest any astonishment at whatever might occur in this strange
journey. She would go in a balloon without wincing, as readily as in a
sledge, at Clement’s slightest injunction, for he seemed more and more to
merit boundless confidence.
Perhaps, at the end of this terrible day, Clement did not give himself so
much credit. He recalled what he had dared say to Fleurange in the height
of their danger, and anxiously wondered if she heard and understood the
words that rose from his heart at the moment death seemed so inevitable.
Was she conscious when he uttered that last farewell? He did not know, and
it was natural he should await the following day with anxiety.
But he was then reassured by finding his cousin as calm and frank as ever.
She evidently had not understood, and probably not heard his words, or
thought them sufficiently explained by the intensity of emotion naturally
irrepressible at such a moment of extreme danger. The young girl was
forced to rest a whole day to recover from her exhaustion. But it was
their last halting‐place, and, when they resumed their journey, it was not
to stop again till they arrived at its end.
To Be Continued.
Sayings Of John Climacus.
If any one has conceived a real hatred of the world, he is emancipated by
this very hatred from all sadness. But if he shall cherish an attachment
to things that are visible, he carries about with him a source of sadness
and melancholy.
It is impossible that they who apply their whole mind to the science of
salvation, should not make advancement. Some are permitted to perceive
their progress, whilst from others, by a particular dispensation of
Providence, it is altogether concealed.
He who strenuously labors to conquer his passions, and to draw nearer and
nearer to God, believes that every day in which he has to suffer no
humiliation is to him a grievous loss.
Repentance is the daughter of hope, and the enemy of despair.
Before the commission of sin, the devil represents God as infinitely
merciful; but after its perpetration, as inexorable and without pity.
A mother will sometimes hide herself from her child, to watch its
eagerness in seeking her, and she is exceedingly pleased to observe it
seeking for her with sorrow and anxiety. By this means she wins its love,
and binds it inseparably to her heart, that it may never be alienated from
her in affection. “He that hath ears to hear,” saith our Lord, “let him
hear.”
Meekness is an immutability of soul, which ever continues the same,
whether amidst the injuries or the applaudits of men.
Dante’s Purgatorio. Canto Fifth.
[NOTE.—In this Canto, Dante introduces three other spirits, who
relate the manner of their departure from the body, and recommend
themselves to his prayers, that their penal sufferings may be
alleviated.
The first of these penitents is Jacopo del Cassero, a townsman of
Fano in Romagna, who, flying towards Padua from the vengeance of
one of the tyrannous Este family, was waylaid and murdered in the
marshes near Oriago.
The second is Buonconte, son of Guido di Montefeltro. He was a
fellow‐soldier with Dante in the battle of Campaldino, and there
slain; but what became of his body was never known until this
imaginary narration.
The third is the noble lady of Sienna, Pia de’ Tolommei, whose
story, told by Dante in three lines, has formed the subject of a
five‐act tragedy, recently illustrated in this country by the
genius of Ristori.—TRANS.]
Already parted from those shades, I went
Following the footsteps of my Guide, when one
Behind me towards my form his finger bent,
Exclaiming—“See! no ray falls from the sun
To the left hand of him that walks below!
And sure! he moveth like a living man.”
Mine eyes I turned, at hearing him say so,
And saw them with a gaze all wonder scan
Now me, still me, and now the broken light
My body caused. The Master then to me:
“Why let thy wonder keep thee from the height
To drag so slowly? what concerns it thee
What here is whispered? only follow thou
After my steps, and let the crowd talk on:
Stand like a tower, firm‐based, that will not bow
Its head to breath of winds that soon are gone.
The man o’er whose thought second thought hath sway,
Wide of his mark, is ever sure to miss,
Because one force the other wears away.”
What could I answer but—“I come”—to this?
I said it something sprinkled with the hue
Which, in less faults, excuseth one from blame;
Meanwhile across the mountain‐side there drew,
Just in our front, a train that as they came
Sang _Miserere_, verse by verse. When they
Observed my form, and noticed that I gave
No passage through me to the solar ray,
Into a long, hoarse “O!” they changed their stave.
And two, as envoys, ran up with demand,
“In what condition is it that ye go?”
And my Lord said—“Return ye to the band
Who sent you towards us, and give them to know
This body is true flesh. If they delayed
At sight,—I deem so, of the shadow here
Thereby sufficient answer shall be made:
Him let them reverence,—it may prove dear.”
I never saw a meteor dart so quick
Through the serene at midnight, or a gleam
Of lightning flash at sunset, through a thick
Piled August cloud, but these would faster seem
As they retreated; having joined the rest,
Back like an unreined troop towards us they sped.
“This throng is large by whom we thus are pressed,
And come to implore of thee,” the Poet said—
“Therefore keep on, and as thou mov’st attend.”
“O soul who travellest, with the very frame
Which thou wert born with, to thy blessed end,
Stay thy step somewhat!”—crying thus they came.
“Look if among us any thou dost know,
That thou of him to earth mayst tidings bear.
Stay—wilt thou not? ah! wherefore must thou go?
We to our dying hour were sinners there:
And all were slain: but at the murderous blow,
Warned us an instant light that flashed from heaven,
And all from life did peacefully depart,
Contrite, forgiving, and by Him forgiven
To look on Whom such longing yearns our heart.”
“None do I recognize,” I answered, “even
Scanning your faces with mine utmost art;
But whatsoe’er, ye blessed souls! I may
To give you comfort, speak, and I will do;
Yea, by that peace which leads me on my way
From world to world such guidance to pursue.”
JACOPO DI FANO.
“Without such protestation,” one replied,
“Unless thy will a want of power defeat,
In thy kind offices we all confide;
Whence I, sole speaking before these, entreat
If thou mayst e’er the territory see
That lies betwixt Romagna and the seat(134)
Where Charles hath sway, that thou so courteous be
As to implore the men in Fano’s town
To put up prayers there earnestly for me
That I may purge the sins that weigh me down.
There I was born; but those deep wounds of mine
Through which my life‐blood issued, I received
Among the children of Antenor’s line,(135)
Where most secure my person I believed:
’Twas through that lord of Este I was sped
Who past all justice had me in his hate.
O’ertook at Oriaco, had I fled
Towards Mira, still where breath is I might wait.
But to the marsh I made my way instead,
And there, entangled in the cany brake
And mire, I fell, and on the ground saw spread,
From mine own veins outpoured, a living lake.”
BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO.
Here spake another: “O may that desire
So be fulfilled which to the lofty Mount
Conducts thy feet as thou shalt bring me nigher
To mine by thy good prayers. I am the Count
Buonconte: Montefeltro’s lord was I.
Giovanna cares not, no one cares for me;
Therefore with these I go dejectedly.”
And I to him: “What violence took thee,
Or chance of war, from Campaldino then
So far that none e’er knew thy burial‐place?”
“O,” answered he, “above the hermit’s glen(136)
A stream whose course is Casentino’s base,
Springs in the Apennine, Archiano called.
There, where that name is lost in Arno’s flood,
Exhausted I arrived, footsore and galled,
Pierced in my throat, painting the plain with blood.
Here my sight failed me and I fell: the last
Word that I spake was Mary’s name, and then
From my deserted flesh the spirit passed.
The truth I tell now, tell to living men;
God’s Angel took me, but that fiend of Hell
Screamed out: ’Ha! thou from heaven, why robb’st thou me?
His soul thou get’st for one small tear that fell,
But of this offal other work I’ll see.’
Thou know’st how vapors gathering in the air
Mount to the cold and there condensed distil
Back into water. That Bad Will which ne’er
Seeks aught but evil joined his evil will,
With intellect, and, from the great force given
By his fell nature, moved the mist and wind
And o’er the valley drew the darkened heaven,
Covering it with clouds as day declined
From Pratomagno far as the great chain,(137)
So that the o’erburdened air to water turned:
Then the floods fell, and every rivulet’s vein
Swelled with the superflux the soaked earth spurned.
When to large streams the mingling torrents grew
Down to the royal river with such force
They rushed that no restraint their fury knew.
Here fierce Archiano found my frozen corse
Stretched at its mouth, and into Arno’s wave
Dashed it and loosened from my breast the sign,
Which when mine anguish mastered me I gave,
Of holy cross with my crossed arms: in fine,
O’er bed and bank my form the streamlet drave
Whirling, and with its own clay covered mine.”
PIA DE’ TOLOMEI.
“O stay! when thou shalt walk the world once more,
And have repose from that long way of thine,”—
Said the third spirit, following those before,
“Remember Pia! for that name was mine:
Sienna gave me birth: Maremma’s fen
Was my undoing: he knows that full well
Who ringed my finger with his gem and then,
After espousal,—_took me there to dwell_.”
Sanskrit And The Vedas.(138)
“But in justice, I am bound to say that Rome has the merit of
having first seriously attended to the study of Indian
literature.”—CARDINAL WISEMAN: _Connection between Science and
Revealed Religion_.
“The first missionaries who succeeded in rousing the attention of
European scholars to the extraordinary discovery (Sanskrit
literature) that had been made were the French Jesuit
missionaries.”—MAX MÜLLER: _Lectures on the Science of Language_.
What manner of language is the Sanskrit?
By what people or nation was it spoken?
When? and where?
What are its literary monuments?
Whence comes it—granting it to be as ancient a tongue as is
represented—that neither in Greek, Roman, nor, indeed, in any ancient
literature, is it ever mentioned, and that we only read of it in modern
works, scarce a century old?
Such questions as these are frequently asked, even at the present day.
Forty years ago, it is doubtful if there were ten persons in this country
able to reply to them satisfactorily, and more than doubtful if a single
scholar could have been found capable of translating the simplest Sanskrit
sentence. Within that period, however, philological science in general,
and Sanskrit in particular, have made long and rapid strides among us, and
we now have scores of scholars fully awake to the importance of
cultivating the resources of this wonderful tongue, as the origin or
common source of the European family of languages, in which our own
English is included.
At the head of these scholars stands, without dispute, Prof. William
Dwight Whitney, whose, linguistic acquirements and philosophical treatment
of difficult philological problems have earned for him a very high and
well‐merited reputation. Nor is this opinion a merely patriotic and
partial estimate. Prof. Whitney’s merits as a Sanskrit scholar and
comparative philologist are fully acknowledged, not only in this country,
but by the eminent Orientalists of Europe. The first periodical of Germany
and of the world for the comparative study of languages (_Zeitschrift für
vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete des Deutschen, Griechischen
und Lateinischen_, Berlin, 1872), in a late number recognizes, in the most
flattering manner, Prof. Whitney’s high rank in the philological republic
of letters, and refers in complimentary terms to the fact that he is well
known in Germany as the editor of the Sanskrit text of the _Atharva Veda_.
We may here incidentally note, in the same number of the _Zeitschrift_,
another gratifying recognition of advanced American scholarship. We refer
to a review of Prof. March’s _Comparative Grammar of the Anglo‐Saxon_,
from the pen of Moritz Heyne, the well‐known author of the _Brief
Comparative Grammar of the Old German Dialects_, and editor of the
celebrated editions of the Mœso‐Gothic Bible of Ulphilas, and of the
Anglo‐Saxon poem of Beowulf. The German reviewer credits Prof. March’s
work with extensive and original investigation, great erudition in the
Anglo‐Saxon texts, and valuable contributions to the grammar of the
language. He adds, that the study of Anglo‐Saxon is pursued with more zeal
and success in the United States than in England. Solid commendation like
this, from such a source, speaks well for American progress in the field
of philological science.
During the past twenty years, Prof. Whitney has published numerous essays
on Sanskrit literature which, limited to the special circulation of
scientific or literary periodicals, have not fallen under the notice of
the general reading public. Many of these articles he has now collected
and published in a volume,(139) edited by himself. Four of the essays are
on the Vedas and Vedic literature, one on the Avesta (commonly called the
Zend‐Avesta), and seven upon various philological topics, including two
reviews of Max Müller’s _Lectures on Language_, which are admirable
specimens of temperate and careful criticism, guided by sound scholarship.
Prof. Whitney’s first paper on the Vedas (originally published in the
_Journal of the American Oriental Society_, vol. iii., 1853) opens thus:
“It is a truth now well established, that the Vedas furnish the
only sure foundation on which a knowledge of ancient and modern
India can be built up. They are therefore at present engrossing
the larger share of the attention of those who pursue this branch
of Oriental study. Only recently, however, has their paramount
importance been fully recognized: it was by slow degrees that they
made their way up to the consideration in which they are now held.
Once it was questioned whether any such books as the Vedas really
existed, or whether, if they did exist, the jealous care of the
Brahmans would ever allow them to be laid open to European eyes.
This doubt dispelled, they were first introduced to the near
acquaintance of scholars in the West by Colebrooke.”
Not stopping to raise a question as to just reclamation in favor of Sir
William Jones for a portion at least of the credit of the introduction of
the Vedas to the “acquaintance of scholars in the West,” which, perhaps
Professor Whitney means to solve in advance by a distinction between
acquaintance and “near acquaintance,” we would observe that this
comprehensive statement as to the introduction of the Vedas to European
scholars takes for granted the previous interesting history of the modern
discovery of the existence of the Sanskrit and of Vedic literature. We use
the expression “takes for granted” in no invidious sense.
The author was writing for scholars who, he had a right to assume, were
already acquainted with the objective history of his subject‐matter, and
were probably informed as to the details of the gradual steps by which the
certainty of the existence of a great language and a rich literature long
buried in darkness was at length brought to light. His concern was with
the internal, not the external, history of Sanskrit. Now, it is upon this
external history that we propose to say something, returning to Prof.
Whitney’s work when we reach the subject of the Vedas.
It is not necessary that our readers should, to any extent, be linguists
or philologists in order to become deeply interested in the relation of
the modern discovery of a language so old that it had ceased to be spoken
and was a dead language hundreds of years before the Christian era—a
language to which cannot with any certainty be assigned the name of the
nation or people who spoke it, and which is at once the most ancient of
all known tongues, living or dead, and, despite all modern research, still
prehistoric.
To our Catholic readers, the narration of this discovery is full of
interest; for in it they will recognize an additional version of the
familiar story of the enlightened intelligence, piety, and self‐sacrifice
of our devoted missionaries who, combining active zeal for knowledge with
apostolic zeal for souls, amid privation and suffering, even in distant
and savage lands, with one hand built up the walls of Zion, while with the
other they erected temples to science.
In order fully to appreciate the bearing and importance of the revelation
of Sanskrit to Europe, it is essential that we should first look a moment
upon the condition of European comparative philology at the end of the
XVIth and commencement of the XVIIth centuries. A short digression will
suffice for this.
The Hebrew language was, from the earliest period of Christianity, settled
upon by almost common consent of the learned as the primitive tongue. It
was generally admitted by scholars that the sole great and essential
linguistic problem to be solved was this:
“As Hebrew is undoubtedly the mother of all languages, how are we
to explain the process by which Hebrew became split into so many
dialects, and how can these numerous dialects, such as Greek and
Latin, Coptic, Persian, Turkish, be traced back to their common
source, the Hebrew?”
Upon this hopelessly insoluble problem an amazing amount of remarkable
ingenuity and solid erudition were, for hundreds of years, hopelessly
wasted, for, at this day, instead of Hebrew, Sanskrit is recognized as
being the oldest of all known languages. How came this about? Reply to
this inquiry will at the same time answer the questions proposed at the
outset of this article.
The result of labor on the problem, “How could all languages be traced
back to the Hebrew?” was of course unsatisfactory. No solution could be
obtained. None indeed was possible.
At last it was suggested, why _should_ all languages be derived from the
Hebrew? and with investigation thus taken off its false route, the
question was in a fair way to be successfully treated. Leibnitz vigorously
denied the claims set up for Hebrew, and said: “There is as much reason
for supposing Hebrew to have been the primitive language of mankind, as
there is for adopting the view of Goropius, who published a work at
Antwerp in 1580 to prove that Dutch was the language spoken in Paradise.”
More than this, he indicated the necessity of applying to language as well
as to any other science the principle of a sound inductive process, and in
this he was greatly aided by the Jesuit missionaries in China.
“It stands to reason,” he said, “that we ought to begin with
studying the modern languages which are within our reach, in order
to compare them with one another, to discover their differences
and affinities, and then to proceed to those which have preceded
them in former ages, in order to show their filiation and their
origin, and then to ascend step by step to the most ancient
tongues, the analysis of which must lead to the only trustworthy
conclusions.”
But Leibnitz, while properly disputing the justice of the claims of Hebrew
as the mother‐tongue, knew of none other for which a similar claim might
be advanced. It is doubtful if he ever heard of Sanskrit, although he
lived until 1716, a full century after one, at least, of our missionaries
had mastered Sanskrit and all the Vedas.
Sanskrit
is the ancient language of the Hindus, and had ceased to be a spoken
language three centuries before the Christian era. The sacred Vedas, the
oldest literary productions of the Hindus, and even the laws of Manu and
the Purânas, later works, are written in a dialect still older than the
Sanskrit, of which it is the parent, and are assigned by different
scholars to periods varying from twelve hundred to two thousand years B.C.
Thus, the dialects of Sanskrit spoken by the people of India three hundred
years B.C. may be said to have been to the Vedic Sanskrit what Italian now
is to the Latin. These dialects, modified by admixture with the languages
of the various conquerors of India, the Arabic, Persian, Mongolic, and
Turkish, and changed also by grammatical corruption, yet survive in the
modern Hindí, Hindustání, Mahratta, and Bengálée.
Specimens of the dialects spoken by the people of the northern, eastern,
and southwestern regions of India have come down to us in the inscriptions
of the Buddhist King Piyadasi (third century B.C.), and in the account of
the victory over Antiochus which King Asoka (206 B.C.) had graven on the
rocks of Dhauli, Girnar, and Kapurdigiri. These inscriptions have been
deciphered by Burnouf, Norris, Wilson, and others, and are found to be in
the Prakrit (common), not the Sanskrit (perfect) or exclusive dialect.
From these facts the best Oriental scholars draw the conclusion that, at
the periods of Piyadasi and Asoka, the Sanskrit, if spoken at all, was
then already confined to the educated caste of Brahmans, having been a
living language at some remote previous period (most probably between the
VIIIth and IVth centuries B.C.), spoken by all classes of that race which
emigrated from Central India into Asia, and the language so spoken is that
to which modern Orientalists give the name of Aryan. For it will be borne
in mind that the term Sanskrit is no indication of the people or race who
originally spoke the language so called: it merely indicates the
estimation in which it is held by their successors, and signifies “the
perfect language.”
Meantime, during all these centuries, Sanskrit continued to be preserved
as the classic tongue and literary vehicle of Brahmanic thought and study,
and we are told on good authority that, “even at the present day, an
educated Brahman would write with greater fluency in Sanskrit than in
Bengálée.” It is now well established that Sanskrit is certainly not the
parent, but the eldest brother or _chef de famille_ of the large groups of
Greek, Latin, Celtic, Slavonic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian families from
which all the modern European tongues (Basque excepted) are derived (we
omit mention of the Oriental branches). When we write the Sanskrit words
_mader_, _pader_, _dokhter_, _sunu_, _bruder_, _mand_, _lib_, _nasa_,
_vidhuva_, _stara_, we very nearly write the corresponding English terms,
and see in them their English descendants through Mœso‐Gothic and German.
The Sanskrit and Greek equivalents of _I am_, _thou art_, _he is_, are
almost identical:
_Sanskrit_: asmi, asi, asti.
_Greek_: esmi, eis, esti.
We find the Sanskrit _dinâra_ in the Latin _denarius_; _ayas_ in
Sanskrit—passing through the Gothic _ais_ to English _iron_; and _plava_,
in Sanskrit, a ship appearing in the Greek _ploion_ (ship), Slavonic
_ploug_, and English _plough_; for the Aryans said the ship ploughed the
sea, and the plough sailed across the field. In like manner, similar
illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely to the extent of volumes,
showing not hazardous and doubtful etymological similarities, but clear,
distinct, and sharp‐cut affinities by clearly traceable descent.
“Who was the first European that knew of Sanskrit, or that acquired a
knowledge of Sanskrit, is difficult to say,” remarks Prof. Max Müller.
Very true. But it is not at all difficult to reach the certainty that that
European, whatever might have been his name, was a Catholic missionary.
Soon after S. Francis Xavier began to preach the Gospel in India (1542),
we hear of our missionaries acquiring not only the current dialects of the
country, but also the classical Sanskrit language; of their successfully
studying the theological and philosophical literature of the exclusive
priestly class; and of their challenging the Brahmans to public
disputations. If the example of their labors, humility, sufferings, and
piety were not sufficient to win souls, they always, where it was needed,
had science at their command, and were at once scholars, linguists,
mathematicians, and astronomers as well as lowly messengers of the glad
tidings of salvation.
Prominent among the most remarkable of these men stands
Robert De’ Nobili.
A nephew of Cardinal de’ Nobili and a relative of Pope Julius the Third
and of the great Bellarmine, he was nobly born and tenderly reared. He
went a missionary to the Indies in 1603, and began his public labors at
Madura in 1606. Being a man of superior education, cultivation, and
refinement, he soon perceived the reasons which kept all the natives of
high caste—especially the Brahmans—from joining the communities of
Christian converts formed by the common people of the country. He saw that
the Brahmans could be successfully met and argued with only by a Brahman,
and he at once resolved on the heroic project of fitting himself by long
study and almost incredible labor to become a Brahman in outward
appearance, language, and accomplishments, and thus obtain access to the
noblest, most learned, and most accomplished men in India. The task was
full of difficulty. For years he devoted himself to his silent work,
acquiring in secret the dialects of Tamil and Telugu, and the language and
literature of Sanskrit and the Vedas. When in time he felt himself strong
enough in Brahmanic learning and accomplishments to meet them in argument
and debate, he publicly appeared arrayed in their costume, wearing the
cord, bearing the exclusive frontal mark, and submitting to the rigid
observance of their diet (eating nothing but rice and vegetables) and
their complicated requirements of caste. So exhaustive had been his
studies, so thorough was his preparation, and so admirable his talent,
that his success was perfect. The Brahmans whom he met found in him their
master even in their own exclusive field of literature, philosophy, and
religion. Müllbauer (_Geschichte der katholischen Missionen Ostindiens_)
says they were afraid of him. As a devoted and successful missionary, his
life is full of interest; but we have to do with him here only as the
first known European Sanskrit scholar. After forty‐two years of missionary
labor in that exhausting climate, worn out, infirm, and blind, Robert de’
Nobili died, aged eighty years, at Melapour, on the coast of Coromandel.
The distinguished Professor of Sanskrit at the English university of
Oxford, Max Müller, pays the following earnest tribute to the acquirements
of this admirable missionary and scholar:
“A man who could quote from Manu, from the Purânas, and even from
such works as the Apastamba‐sûtras, which are known even at
present to only those few Sanskrit scholars who can read Sanskrit
MSS., must have been far advanced in a knowledge of the sacred
language and literature of the Brahmans; and the very idea that he
came, as he said, to preach a new or a fourth Veda, which had been
lost, shows how well he knew the strong and weak points of the
theological system which he came to conquer.”
Religious bigotry has sought to fix upon de’ Nobili the forgery of the
Ezour‐Veda; but the examination of the charge by distinguished English
(Protestant) Orientalists has only resulted in bringing out into brighter
relief that devoted missionary’s remarkable acquirements and admirable
virtues. Francis Ellis, Esq., a distinguished Orientalist, discovered the
Sanskrit original of the Ezour at Pondicherry, and made an elaborate
report upon it, which was published at the time, in the _Asiatick_ (_sic_)
_Researches_ (vol. xiv., Calcutta, 1822), from which we cite the following
short extract:
“Robertus de Nobilibus is well known both to Hindus and
Christians, under the Sanskrit title of Tatwa‐Bodha Swami, as the
author of many excellent works in Tamil, on polemical theology. In
one of these, the _Atma‐Nirnaya‐vivecam_, he contrasts the
opinions of the various Indian sects on the nature of the soul,
and exposes the fables with which the Purânas abound relative to
the state of future existence, and in another, _Punergeuma
Acshepa_, he confutes the doctrine of the metempsychosis. Both
these works, in style and substance, greatly resemble the
controversial part of the Pseudo Vedas; but these are open attacks
on what the author considered false doctrines and superstitions,
and no attempt is made to veil their manifest tendency, or to
insinuate the tenets they maintain under a borrowed name or in an
ambiguous form. The style adopted by Robertus de Nobilibus is
remarkable for a profuse admixture of Sanskrit terms; those to
express doctrinal notions and abstract ideas he compounds and
recompounds with a facility of invention that indicates an
intimate knowledge of the language whence they are derived; and
there can be no doubt, therefore, that he was fully qualified to
be the author of those writings. If this should be the fact,
considering the high character he bears among all acquainted with
his name and the nature of his known works, I am inclined to
attribute to him the composition only, not the forgery, of the
Pseudo Vedas.”
But the result of further examination has decided that the Ezour‐Veda was
not even written by de’ Nobili, but by one of his native converts. It is
plain, from the testimony of Mr. Ellis, that he was not a man to seek the
cover of the anonymous or the ambiguous, in order to attack the
superstitions of Buddhism. This he did openly and boldly. Max Müller
decides that “there is no evidence for ascribing the work to Robert.”
The example of Robert de’ Nobili was sedulously followed up by other
members of his Order.
Roth, another Jesuit, appeared in 1664, master of Sanskrit, and
successfully disputed with the Brahmans. Yet another, Hanxleder, who went
to India in 1669, labored for more than thirty years in the Malabar
mission, composed works of instruction, compiled dictionaries, and wrote
works in prose and verse. Many of his writings are preserved at Rome.
Among the most prominent of the Jesuit missionaries in the field of modern
Oriental and Sanskrit literature was Father Constant Beschi, who went out
to India in 1700. He made himself master of Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu,
and wrote moral works in Sanskrit which are still preserved and highly
prized by the Brahmans. The natives called him the great Viramamouni.
Scores of other missionaries might be named, equally devoted, equally
learned. But they acquired science, Sanskrit, and Oriental erudition as a
means, not an end. They sought no worldly distinction, no literary
reputation. They had but one engrossing object and thought here
below—their mission of charity and of love.
Nevertheless, the day of
Sanskrit For Europe,
long delayed, was now fast approaching. Its revelation to the West is
generally ascribed to Sir William Jones. This assumption may be stated to
be incorrect without in the slightest degree detracting from the merits of
that distinguished English scholar. For more than a century before Sir
William Jones went to India, the published letters of the Jesuit
missionaries had established the existence and general characteristics of
that remarkable tongue, the Sanskrit; and in 1740 (November 23), Father
Pons, then at Karikal [Madura], addressed a letter to Father Duhalde,
giving what Professor Max Müller describes as “a most interesting and, in
general, a very accurate description of the various branches of Sanskrit
literature; of the four Vedas, the grammatical treatises, the six systems
of philosophy, and the astronomy of the Hindus. _He anticipated, on
several points, the researches of Sir William Jones._”
The letter in question was, in fact, an essay; and Father Pons so speaks
of it. It fills sixteen closely printed octavo pages, and refers to the
fact, not mentioned by Prof. Müller, that it is one of a succession of
communications upon the same subject, inasmuch as he mentions a treatise
written by himself on Sanskrit versification, transmitted to Europe the
previous year, and specifies a Sanskrit grammar (_Kramadisvar_) which he
sent two years before. Although Adelung, in his _Mithridates_, mildly
censures both Father Pons and Sir W. Jones for exaggerating the value of
Sanskrit, the exposition made by the former of the wealth of the Sanskrit
language and literature is, to this day, held by distinguished scholars to
be “very accurate.”
The Pons‐Duhalde letter is often referred to, but seldom quoted. We will
therefore here cite a few short passages from it, which may give the
reader some idea of the nature of the communication and an early estimate
of the value of Sanskrit. We translate: “The Brahmans have always been,
and still are, the only class who devote themselves to the cultivation of
the sciences as a matter of hereditary descent. They originally descend
from seven illustrious penitents, whose progeny, in course of time, was
multiplied infinitely, etc. They are exclusively consecrated to learning,
and a Brahman who strictly adheres to the rule of his order should devote
himself solely to religion and study; but, in course of time, many have
fallen into a very lax life.
“These sciences are inaccessible to all the other castes of people, to
whom it is permitted to communicate certain compositions, grammar, poetry,
and moral sayings.”
“The grammar of the Brahmans may fairly be classed in the rank of works of
science. Never were analysis and synthesis more happily employed than in
their grammatical works on the Sanskrit language. I am satisfied that this
language, so admirable in its harmony, its wealth, and its energy, was at
some remote period the spoken tongue of the country inhabited by the first
Brahmans.”
Parenthetically, and also by way of comparison, let us look for a moment
at the impression made by Sanskrit upon two other distinguished scholars
from among those who were earliest in the field—Sir William Jones and
Frederick von Schlegel.
At the outset of his researches, the first declared that, whatever its
antiquity, it was a language of most wonderful structure, more perfect
than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined
than either, yet bearing to both of them a strong affinity. “No
philologer,” he adds, “could examine the Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin,
without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which,
perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so
forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and Celtic had the same
origin with the Sanskrit. The old Persian may be added to the same
family.” And Frederick von Schlegel (_Essay on the Language and Philosophy
of the Indians_) says: “The similarity between Sanskrit, on the one hand,
and Latin and Greek, Teutonic and Persian, on the other, is found not only
in a great number of roots possessed by them in common, but it also
extends to the inner structure and grammar. The remarkable coincidence is
not merely such an accidental one as may be explained by an admixture of
language, but an essential one which points distinctly to a common
descent. Comparison further shows that the Indian (Sanskrit) tongue is the
more ancient, the others younger and derived from it.”
But to return to our missionaries. The interest excited in Europe by the
remarkable letter of Father Pons was purely one of surprise and
speculation, inasmuch as Western scholars were without the means of
testing the value of the great linguistic discovery. Sanskrit grammars,
dictionaries, and even vocabularies were then unknown in any European
tongue. This want, however, was soon supplied by another missionary, John
Philip Wesdin, more widely known as Father Paulinus a Santo‐Bartolomeo. He
spent thirteen years in India, and subsequently published (1790) at Rome,
under the auspices of the Propaganda, several works on Sanskrit grammar
and upon the history, theology, and religion of the Hindus.
Referring to his numerous publications (_vielen Schriften_), no less an
authority than Adelung qualifies them as indispensable to a knowledge of
Sanskrit as also to the other languages of India (welche zur Kentniss
sowohl dieser Sprache als auch Indiens überhaupt unentbehrlich sind); and
he adds (writing in 1806): “Peradventure has no European up to this time
so deeply penetrated into this language as he.”(140) Of his first Sanskrit
grammar, published at Rome in 1790,(141) Prof. Max Müller says: “Although
this grammar has been severely criticised, and is now hardly ever
consulted, it is but fair to bear in mind that the first grammar of any
language is a work of infinitely greater difficulty than any later
grammar.”
In this connection we must not omit some mention of that prodigy of
linguistic industry and erudition, the Spanish Jesuit, Don Lorenzo Hervas
y Pandura, who, in the midst of his missionary labors, collected specimens
of more than three hundred languages.(142) This of itself was a gigantic
work, and its rich results furnished to Adelung an important portion of
the material of his _Mithridates_. Hervas, moreover, prepared grammars for
more than forty languages, and is the founder of the true method of
ascertaining lingual affinity by grammatical analysis, rather than by
etymology, always more or less deceptive. Klaproth’s enunciation of this
principle established by Hervas is so felicitous that we cannot refrain
from citing it here: “Words are the stuff or matter of language, and
grammar its fashioning or form.”
Concerning Hervas we need say no more than to add the noble tribute to his
memory and his merits to be found in the pages of Max Müller’s _Lectures
on the Science of Language_, p. 140:
“He proved by a comparative list of declensions and conjugations
that Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, and Amharic are
all but dialects of one original language, and constitute one
family of speech, the Semitic. He scouted the idea of deriving all
the languages of mankind from Hebrew. He had perceived clear
traces of affinity in Hungarian, Lapponian, and Finnish—three
dialects now classed as members of the Turanian family. He had
proved that Basque was not, as was commonly supposed, a Celtic
dialect, but an independent language, spoken by the earliest
inhabitants of Spain, as proved by the names of the Spanish
mountains and rivers. Nay, one of the most brilliant discoveries
in the history of the science of language, the establishment of
the Malay and Polynesian family of speech, extending from the
Island of Madagascar east of Africa, over 208° of longitude, to
the Easter Islands west of America, _was made __ by Hervas long
before it was announced to the world by Humboldt_.”
English literature has made us familiar with the name of Sir William Jones
as the European originator of the cultivation of Sanskrit. The merits of
Sir William Jones are not a subject of doubt or contest. Full justice has
been done them. But when we come to settle the question of priority of
successful and distinguished labor in the field of Sanskrit, the names and
transcendent services of the humble and self‐sacrificing missionaries,
Robert de’ Nobili, Roth, Hanxleder, Beschi, Pons, Paulinus a Santo‐
Bartolomeo, Hervas, and scores of others, their predecessors and
companions, must ever be gratefully remembered.
The Triumph Of Sanskrit.
Through the publications of the Asiatic Society at Calcutta, European
scholars were now furnished with facilities for the study of Sanskrit, and
it would be difficult to say which of the two, the language or the
literature, excited the deeper or more lasting interest.
The absolute identity of grammatical forms of Greek and Latin with
Sanskrit was at once recognized, and it was evident that these three
languages sprang from one common source. The revelation created one of the
greatest literary sensations ever known in Europe. The theory that upheld
Hebrew as the mother tongue—already seriously damaged—now received its
death‐blow. Classical scholars shook their heads sceptically. Theologians
were troubled. Ethnographers were all at sea. Etymologists and
lexicographers were dumfounded. The philosophers of the day, each one of
whom had his own little system of the universe to take care of, saw their
theories ruthlessly upset; and Lord Monboddo, who had just finished his
great work in which he derives mankind from a couple of apes, and all the
dialects of the world from the language of the Egyptian gods, was
petrified with astonishment. His Egyptian theory, his men with tails, and
his monkeys without tails, were all equally doomed to destruction. To his
credit, though, it must be said that he soon afterward accepted the
situation with commendable intelligence and alacrity.
Other pet theories and other deeply ingrained prejudices of many scholars
of the best education were shocked and scandalized at the claims set up
for Sanskrit. The idea that the classical languages of Greece and Rome
could be intimately related to a jargon of mere savages—as they supposed
the natives of India to be—was to the last degree repugnant to these
gentlemen, and they went great lengths in assertion, absurd argument,
irony, and ridicule, to escape the, alas! too inevitable and horribly
unpleasant conclusion that Greek and Latin were of the same linguistic
kith and kin as the language of the black inhabitants of India. The
distinguished Scotch philosopher, Dugald Stewart, by way of protest
against the claims set up for Sanskrit, even went so far as to deny that
any such language existed or ever had existed, and wrote his famous essay
to prove that those arch forgers and liars, the Brahmans, had manufactured
the dialect on the model of the Greek and the Latin, and that the whole
thing, language, literature, and all, was a piece of daring invention and
bold imposture.
How deeply rooted were the prejudices, and how stubborn the ignorance,
even among scholars and men of literary pursuits, in favor of the Hebrew
and against the reception of Sanskrit in its place, may be judged from the
representative fact, that so late as the ninth day of August, 1832, we
find no less a man than Coleridge making this entry in his note‐book: “The
claims of the Sanskrit for priority to the Hebrew as a language are
ridiculous.”
The first European scholar of distinction who dared boldly accept the
facts and conclusions of Sanskrit scholarship was Frederick von Schlegel.
He began his study of the language with verbal tuition from Sir Alexander
Hamilton, continued it at Paris with the aid of M. Langles, custodian of
Oriental MSS. in the Imperial Library at Paris, and subsequently had the
advantage of the rich collection in the British Museum. The result was his
_Language and Wisdom of the Indians_, published in 1808. It embraced in
one glance the languages of India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and Germany,
riveted them together by the name of Indo‐Germanic (by common consent of
scholars since changed to Indo‐European), and became the foundation of the
science of language. Appearing only two years after the publication of the
first volume of Adelung’s _Mithridates_, “it is separated from that work,”
says Prof. Müller, “by the same distance which separates the Copernican
from the Ptolemæan system,” and this work of Schlegel, he adds, “has truly
been called the discovery of a new world.”
Omitting mention of the labors of many distinguished French and German
laborers in the same field, we may close our record of the services
rendered by Catholic scholars to the cause of Sanskrit literature by
reference to the remarkable course of lectures on “Science and Revealed
Religion,” delivered by the Reverend (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, at
Rome, in 1835,(143) only two years and six months after the memorable
entry of Coleridge in his note‐book.
Sanskrit Literature And The Vedas.
It was perfectly natural that the fresh enthusiasm of the earliest
Sanskrit scholars should have carried them into what is now looked upon as
an undue estimate and hyperbolic praise of their new discovery and
acquisition. And this early enthusiasm was neither short in duration nor
limited in extent.
A tidal wave of admiration swept over European scholarship with the
appearance of _Sacontala, or The Fatal Ring_ (Calcutta, 1789), certainly a
beautiful specimen of dramatic art and admirable poetry by Kalidasa, the
Indian Shakespeare, who is assigned to the period of Vikrama the Great
(B.C. 56). Sir William Jones very judiciously selected this masterpiece of
Indian literature for translation as a first specimen, and, although in
prose, it so delighted a French scholar, Chézy, that it induced him first
to learn Sanskrit and then to publish a French version of it. This was
followed by no less than four German translations, prose and verse, a
Danish translation, and an additional English translation (the best) in a
mingling of verse and prose (following the original) by Monier Williams.
Goethe was enraptured with the _Sacontala_, and it drew from him the
celebrated verse:
“Willt Du die Blüthe des Frühen, die Früchte des Späteren Jahres,
Willt Du, was reizt und entzückt, willt Du was sättigt und
nährt,
Willt Du den Himmel, die Erde mit einem Namen begreifen,
Nenn ich, Sacontala, Dich, und so ist Alles gesagt.”(144)
A. W. von Schlegel finds in it so striking a resemblance to our romantic
drama that we might, he says, be inclined to suspect we owe this
resemblance to the predilection for Shakespeare entertained by Sir William
Jones, if the fidelity of his translation were not confirmed by other
learned Orientalists. And Alex. von Humboldt says of Kalidasa that
“tenderness in the expression of feeling, and richness of creative fancy,
have assigned to him his lofty place amongst the poets of all nations.”
Voltaire went into ecstasies over a French translation of the Ezour‐Veda,
a Sanskrit poem in the style of the Purânas, quite an inferior production,
written in the XVIIth century by a native convert of Robert de’ Nobili.
This French translation was published by Voltaire under the title,
“L’Ezour‐Vedam, traduit du Sanscritam par un Brame,” and he stated his
belief that the original was four centuries older than Alexander, and that
it was the most precious gift for which the West had been indebted to the
East.
Adelung, as we have seen, found fault with Sir William Jones and Father
Pons for overrating the claims of Sanskrit, and subsequent critics have
gone so far as to assert that its literary and scientific value is very
slight. Among the latest of these are M. Jules Oppert(145) and Prof. Key
of University College, London. Their objections and arguments are met and
discussed by Prof. Whitney in the seventh essay of his volume, in a tone
so moderate and a treatment so thorough as to present a more than
satisfactory vindication of the claims of Indo‐European philology and
ethnology to the serious attention and close study of every scholar. We
are not aware that either Prof. Key or M. Oppert has cited the fact that,
when the Indian rajah Rammohun Roy found the distinguished Sanskrit
scholar Rosen at work in the British Museum upon an edition of the hymns
of the Veda, he expressed his surprise at so useless an undertaking. It
was not that the Indian philosopher looked upon all Vedic literature as
worthless. On the contrary, he was of the opinion that the Upanishads were
worthy of becoming the foundation of a new religion. The rajah most
probably did not also consider the fact that, whatever might be the
intrinsic literary merit of the Vedic hymns, they were none the less
valuable to the comparative grammarian and philologist. For the purposes
of grammatical construction, it is perfectly immaterial whether or not a
text has the fire of genius or the inspiration of poetry.
And here it may be mentioned that Rammohun Roy, the descendant on both the
paternal and maternal side of the highest caste Brahmans, and familiar
with the whole body of Vedic and Sanskrit literature, indirectly bears
high testimony to one of the grandest results obtained by European study
of Sanskrit literature. _That result is the exposure of Brahmanism as a
gross imposture._ Against any attack on its social and religious errors,
the Brahmans formerly entrenched themselves in the pretended warrant of
high antiquity and the authority of the sacred works. “Thus say the Vedas”
was a sufficient justification for any claim, and “That is not in the
Vedas” an unanswerable argument against any objection. Although they threw
every possible obstacle in the way of Europeans who strove to obtain a
knowledge of Sanskrit and access to the Vedas, by refusing to teach them
and by withholding the sacred books, these difficulties were finally
overcome, and when the Vedas were read and understood it became apparent
that fully one‐half of the social and religious institutions of
Brahmanism, as it existed down to the commencement of the present century,
were not only without a shadow of authority in the Vedas, but absolutely
opposed to the spirit and letter of its law. Thus, it is certain that
nothing of the great characteristic feature of Brahmanism—the system of
castes—can be found in the Vedas. The belief in the transmigration of
souls and in the doctrines flowing from it has no existence there. And the
Suttee, or system of widow immolation, the singular mingling of
pantheistic philosophy with gross superstition, and the worship of the
triad Brahma, Vishnu, and Civa, are all equally without Vedic foundation.
Robert de’ Nobili discovered all this at an early period, and it was only
when he first fought the Brahmans with their own weapons—the Vedas—that
they were, for the first time, silenced. Rammohun Roy had his eyes opened
at an early age to the idolatrous system of the Hindus, came out from
among them, and openly attacked its pretensions. “I endeavored to show,”
he says, “that the idolatry of the Brahmans was contrary to the practice
of their ancestors, and to the principles of the ancient works and
authorities which they profess to revere and obey.”
Prof. Whitney, referring to the same subject, says: “Each new phase of
belief has sought in them (the sacred texts) its authority, has claimed to
found itself upon them, and to be consistent with their teachings; and the
result is that the sum of doctrine accepted and regarded as orthodox in
modern India is incongruous beyond measure, a mass of inconsistencies”: a
summing up that might, we regret to say, be truthfully made of a Christian
country of far higher civilization than that of India.
Not stopping to discuss what has been called the “standing reproach”
against Indian literature, that it is barren of historical and
geographical results, nor to point out much that is of high value and
interest to every scholar, we will close by an inquiring comment as to the
following statement made by Prof. Whitney at p. 22. He is speaking of the
Vedic texts, and says: “So thorough and religious was the care bestowed
upon their preservation that, notwithstanding their mass and the thousands
of years which have elapsed since their collection, _hardly a single
various reading, so far as yet known, has been suffered to make its way
into them after their definite and final settlement_.”
We have italicized the passage which we wish to make the subject of our
inquiry, for, unless we are mistaken, two instances may be pointed out in
which the texts in question have been garbled or seriously tampered with.
We find the first instance in the developments growing out of the
discussion as to whether there are three Vedas or four Vedas (Goverdhan
Caul on the “Literature of the Hindus,” _Asiatic Researches_, Calcutta,
1788, vol. i., p. 340, and Sir William Jones’ _Works_, vol. iv. p. 93
(edition of 1807)). Even down to the present day, Indian scholars
sometimes speak of three Vedas, sometimes of four. According to Indian
tradition, Brahma has four mouths, each of which uttered a Veda. Yet most
ancient writers speak of but three Vedas, Rig, Yajush, and Sama, from
which it is inferred that the Atharva was written after the three first.
The Atharva is spoken of and called the Veda of Vedas in the eleventh book
of Manu, and the designation affirms the assertion of Dara Shecuh, in the
preface to his Upanishad, that the first three Vedas are named separately,
because the Atharvan is a corollary from them all, and contains the
quintessence of them all. But this verse of Manu, which occurs in a modern
copy of the work brought from Benares, is entirely omitted in the best
copies, so that, as Manu himself in other places names only three Vedas,
_we must believe this line to be an interpolation_ by some admirer of the
Atharva.
The second instance to be specified is furnished by Prof. Whitney himself,
at pages 53, 54, and 55, where he gives a translation of a hymn from the
concluding book of the Rig‐Veda (x. 18), describing the early Vedic
funeral services. When the attendants leave the bier, the men go first,
while the director of the ceremony says:
“Ascend to life, old age your portion making, each after each,
advancing in due order;
May Twashtar, skilful fashioner, propitious, cause that you here
enjoy a long existence.”
The women next follow, the wives at their head:
“These women here, not widows, blessed with husbands,
May deck themselves with ointment and perfume;
Unstained by tears, adorned, untouched with sorrow,
The wives may first ascend unto the altar.”
The wife of the deceased is then summoned away the last:
“Go up unto the world of life, O woman!
Thou liest by one whose soul is fled; come hither!
To him who grasps thy hand, a second husband,
Thou art as wife to spouse become related.”
In commenting upon this hymn, Prof. Whitney notes its “discordance with
the modern Hindu practice of immolating the widow at the grave of her
husband,” and adds: “Nothing could be more explicit than the testimony of
this hymn against the antiquity of the practice. It finds, indeed, no
support anywhere in the Vedic scriptures.” And now we come to the “various
reading,” for Prof. Whitney concludes the passage with this statement:
“Authority has been sought, however, for the practice, in a fragment of
this very hymn, rent from its natural connection, and a little altered; by
the change of a single letter, the line which is translated above, ‘The
wives may first ascend unto the altar,’ has been made to read, ‘The wives
shall go up into the place of the fire.’ ”
We heartily welcome this work of Prof. Whitney, and thank him for it as a
solid contribution to literature and to philological science, honorable to
himself, and reflecting credit on American scholarship.
The House That Jack Built.
By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”
In Two Parts.