ஆரியர்கள் இந்தியர்களே அது பற்றி சில கருத்துக்கள்

ஆத்மசூரியன் · ஆத்மசூரியன் Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:06 pm

First topic message reminder :

ஆங்கிலேயர்களால் பிரித்தாள்வதற்காக தோற்றுவிக்கப்பட்ட ஆரியர்களின் ஆக்கிரமிப்பு கொள்கைகள் இன்றும் நம் பாடபுத்தகங்களை ஆக்கிரமித்துள்ளது.
ஆரியர்களின் ஆக்கிரமிப்பு கொள்கைகளுக்கு எதிரான வாதங்கள் சிலவற்றை பார்போம்.

1. வேதங்கள் ஆரியர் என்ற வார்த்தையை மனிதர்கள் பின்பற்றக்கூடிய உயரிய குணங்களை உடையவர் என்றே கூறுகிறது.

2. வேதங்களில் ஆரியர் எந்த வெளிநாட்டிலிருந்தும் வந்ததாக தெரிவிக்கவில்லை.

3. 1946 ல் அம்பேத்காரல் எழுதப்பட்ட " யார் சூத்திரர்கள்" என்ற நூலில் மேற்க்கத்தியர்களால் உருவாக்கப்பட்ட ஆரியர் ஆக்கிரமிப்பு கொள்கை பல விஷயங்களை விளக்க தவறி இருக்கிறது. இது முன்னமே உருவாக்கப்பட்டு அதற்கெற்றார் போல் சூழ்நிலைகள் உருவாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளன. என்று கூறியுள்ளார்.

4. சுவாமி விவேகானந்தர் அமெரிக்காவில் ஆற்றிய சொற்பொழிவில் பின்வருமாறு கூறியுள்ளார் "உங்களது ஐரோப்பிய பண்டிதர்கள் கூறுவது போல் ஆரியர்கள் வெளிநாட்டிலிருந்து வந்து இந்தியாவிலுள்ள ஆதி குடிமக்களை வென்று அதிகாரம் செலுத்தினர் என்பது முட்டாள் தனமான பேச்சாகும். இதில் வேடிக்கையானது என்னவென்றால் எங்கள் இந்திய பண்டிதர்களும் அவர்களுக்கு ஆமாம் போடுவது தான்" .

5. அரவிந்தர் அவரது வேதங்களின் ரகசியம் எனும் நூலில் " ஆரியர் ஆக்கிரமிப்பு கொள்கை அதன் தரத்தில் மிகவும் குறைவாகவும் அதன் முக்கியதுவத்தில் நிச்சயமற்றதாகவும் உள்ளது. அதை பற்றிய எந்த ஒரு உண்மையும் முழுமையாக விவரிக்கப்படவில்லை" என்று கூறியுள்ளார்.

6. ஹரப்பா மற்றும் மோகஞ்சதரோ வில் பல ஆயிரம் வருடங்களுக்கு முன்பே நாகரிகங்கள் இருந்ததாக கூறப்படுகிறது . இதை வைதத்து பார்க்கும் பொது ஆரியர்கள் வெளிநாட்டிலிருந்து வந்து இந்த நவீன நகரங்களையும் கலாசாரங்களையும் அழித்திருப்பார் என்று கூறமுடியாது.

7. மேலும் ஹரப்பா மற்றும் மோகஞ்ச்சாதரோவில் பசுபதி எனும் சிவனை வழிபட்டுள்ளனர். அங்கு கண்டுபிடிக்கப்பட்ட சின்னங்களும் இந்து சமயம் சார்ந்ததாகவே உள்ளது. 5000 வருடங்களுக்கு முனதாகவே அதாவது ஆரியர் வந்தனர் என கூறப்படும் காலத்திற்க்கு முன்னதாகவே இந்து சமயம் இந்தியாவில் இருந்தது. எனவே வெளிநாட்டவர் இந்தியா வந்தனர் இந்து சமயத்தை பரப்பினர் என்று கூற வாய்பேயில்லை.

அன்பு தளபதி · அன்பு தளபதி Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:52 pm

almost unknown. The King of
Siam is a man of literary tastes, a man who reads and writes English, and who
would no doubt be delighted to receive, say two or three years hence — for it
will take at least that time — a letter written in his own language by two
English ladies. With this little glimpse of romance looming in the distance I
must close my letter, and beg to remain, with best wishes for perseverance and
success, yours faithfully, ‘ M. M.’

Mabel and Ellen were the
daughters of the well-known writer, Mortimer Collins, but they did not learn
Swedish, Portuguese, or Siamese !

After another month at Ray
Lodge the Max MUUers returned to Oxford^ and the
Walronds to London,
and the old house knew them no more. The weather in September of this year was
unusually hot, and evening after evening was spent on the river, not only on
the lower river, but the Cherwell, then hardly known even to boating men, was
constantly explored nearly to Islip.
‘ We carried the boat from one river to the other,’ says a letter. It was a
happy six weeks before term began, and Max Miiller, who was working at his
Veda, without any pressure of other work, greatly enjoyed the quiet — as he
tells his mother — alone with his wife and children, and a few intimate friends
who were in Oxford.

He gave two public lectures in
the October Term on

·
Joinville’s Saint Loiiisl which were much
appreciated, and formed the nucleus of the article on Joinville in Chips,
Volume in.

It was in October that Max
Miiller, finding that his friend

the Bodleian Librarian, ‘ Bodley
Coxe/ could not secure the

services of any Orientalist for
the place of Oriental Sub-

1865] Siih-Lihrarianship of
Bodleian 311

Librarian at the Bodleian,
offered himself for the post. As soon as the Vice-Chancellor announced the day
on which the ‘ nomination of Mr. Max Mtiller to the office of Sub-Librarian,
which nomination has received the sanction of the Curators, will be submitted
to the House,’ disagreeable letters and protests began to appear. One man,
signing as ‘ a Member of Convocation/ made out that Max Muller had an income of
at least ;^ 1,1 00 a year from public funds (it was really i^yoo, including his
ill-paid work on the Veda). This was answered by the Bodleian Librarian, and by
a Member of Convocation, in the following letters : —

November 4.

‘ Members of Convocation are
respectfully informed that the necessi- ties of the Bodleian Library require at
this time an Under-Librarian specially conversant with Oriental Literature.
Failing in his endeavour to secure the services of another distinguished
Orientalist, the Librarian has been allowed (with the unanimous consent of the
Curators) to submit the name of Professor Max Muller to the approval of the
House, as one who, together with his Oriental learning, combines a large
acquaintance with Modern European Literature, a department of scarcely less
importance to the interests of the Library.

‘ It may be as well to correct
three mis-statements which appear in the first of the letters now in
circulation : —

1. Professor Miiller’s salary
as Taylorian Professor is £500, not “more than £600.”

2. He has resigned the
Examinership for the Indian Civil Service.

3. His labours in editing the
Vedas, so far from being “ well paid,” entail on him a considerable pecuniary
sacrifice.

‘ H. O. CoxE, Bodley’s
Librarian.’

November 6, 1865.

‘ The letter of a Member of
Convocation contained in the Standard of October 30, furnishes us with the
keynote to the threatened opposition to Professor Max Miiller’s appointment as
Sub-Librarian to the Bodleian Library.

‘As this “distinguished scholar”
has been always too much occu- pied in the duties connected with his
Professorship to mix himself up in theological or in political controversies,
it is difficult to under- stand on what grounds he can have rendered himself
obnoxious in either of these capacities, except to those who regard every
German as a Rationalist, and every member of Gladstone’s Committee as a
Radical.

‘ It is to be hoped that
Convocation, dismissing all such irrelevant

312 Palmerston’s Death [ch. xiv

considerations, will leave it, as
on former occasions, to the Head

Librarian, who has never been
suspected of an undue bias towards

“Liberalism in politics, or
Rationalism in religion,” to determine,

with the sanction of the
Curators, what is most needed with reference

to the exigencies of an
Establishment for the efficiency of which he

is mainly responsible. ‘ Member
of Convocation/

Max Muller was elected, and
enjoyed the work very much ; but the strain of double work was too much, his
health broke down under it, and he had to resign the Librarianship after about
a year and a half. He of course ceased to be a Curator of the Bodleian (he had
been elected in 1856) when he accepted the post of Sub-Librarian.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. November i.

‘ Here people talk of nothing
but Palmerston’s death. I have never admired the man much. I was introduced to
him a couple of years ago ; he looked like a dandy, but spoke in a very
friendly way. He allowed himself to be more ruled by England than he ruled her. That has its good side, especially here where
public opinion is well regulated, but he was entirely wanting in independence
and all higher ideas of life. Stanley buried him in Westminster Abbey. I did
not go up for it.’

To Dean Stanley.

64, High Street, November 23.

‘ My dear Stanley, — Many
thanks for the second series of your Lectures ^ just received. I shall read
them as soon as I find a few quiet days, and they will recall the pleasant time
when you were settled here. If you cannot have the man, the next best thing is
to have his book, yet it is but a poor substitute. Why did you not put on your
titlepage, “Corresponding Member of the Institute of France “ ? They are rather
particular about that in Paris.

‘ The Convocation for
confirming my re-election ^ is fixed for Friday, December i, at two. Whether
there is to be a sulphurous eruption I do not know yet, but I should not be
surprised. However, you must not think of coming up. If it is to be, I have no
doubt it is meant for good. I have done nothing in the matter, and my rule in
life has always been not to struggle against storms that are gathering
overhead, but to wait, hoping they may pass, but quite prepared for the
drenching if it comes.

‘ I think I have been treated
without that fairness and consideration

^ On the Jewish Church. “^ To
his Professorship.

1865] Attacks on M. M. 313

which, as a rule, are generally
shown by Englishmen to Englishmen ; but though I may have made a mistake in
settling in England, and spending here the best years of my life, I shall always
be thankful for having passed through this school of life. There are many
things I owe to my stay in England and to my English friends, perhaps the most
precious things in a man’s life — things that cannot be taken away, and that I
shall value all the more, if the evening of my life is to be spent in my own
country. Ever yours, ‘ Max MiJller.’

To THE Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone.

High Street, November 12, 1865.

‘ I cannot allow another week
to pass without thanking you for your essay on the Providential Position of
Greece. I have read it with deep interest, and there are many things which I
should like to say about it. But I live just now in the midst of a storm which
will very likely drive me away from England \ and I cannot for the moment
concentrate my thoughts on any other subject. I am so glad that you have said
many of the things which you have said in your valedictory address. Though no
human mind can ever hope to discover or to understand the vestiges of the
Creator and Ruler of mankind in the broken strata of history, yet the very
search for them comforts and elevates the mind of man, and the sense of our own
impotence and ignorance widens and deepens our faith in the Highest Wisdom and
Power.

‘ With many thanks for the
honour you have done me in sending me

your essay.’

To HIS W^ife.

Oxford, November 28.

‘ May God watch over us, and
may we never forget how much happiness He has showered upon us ! There is
something very awful in this life, and it is not right to try to forget it. It
is well to be reminded by the trials of others of what may befall us, and what
is kept from us only by the love of our Father in heaven, not by any merit of
our own.’

Christmas was spent in London
at the grandfather’s house, but to the sorrow of the two eldest children, who
recollected the regular German Christmas of the year before with their
grandmother, there was no Christmas tree, the house being too small to give up
a room to it.

^ The opposition threatened to
his election as Sub-Librarian on account of his unorthodoxy.

CHAPTER XV

1866-1867

Easter in Paris. Sanskrit
Grammar. War between Prussia and Austria.

Cornwall. ‘ My Brother.’ Gold
medal from Duke of Anhalt. Illness.
Bournemouth. Letter on Brahma Somij, Death of niece. ‘ Parks End’
bought. Cure at Ems. Chips, Volumes I and II.

By January 2 the Max Miillers
settled quietly again in Oxford, he remaining hard at work till Easter, when
the ten days’ vacation from the Bodleian was spent in a visit to Paris. The
weather was too cold for expeditions, but many pleasant hours were spent with
congenial friends — the Mohls, the Regniers, Barthelemy-St.-Hilaire, Stanislas
Julien, Michel Br^al, and others. To Max Miiller this intercourse and ex-
change of ideas with friends occupied in work like his own was the greatest
refreshment. It was such intercourse he sorely missed in Oxford, where the men
who could at all enter into his pursuits were younger than himself, and more
like pupils, whilst his older friends, with whom his Oxford career had begun,
had almost all moved on to other spheres of work.

To HIS Mother.

TransIafio?i. Oxford, April 16.

·
Our time in Paris was very amusing. The only sad
thing was the recollection of so many friends whom one knew there, and who are
gone. I often thought of Emilie, and of Gathy, and Hagedorn, and of my life in
Paris in 1846. That is long ago, and yet I enjoy life as much as I did then,
and think the grey hairs are only an outward appearance ! ... I do not believe
in war, have never believed in it, but I am curious to see how long men of
honour and reasonable men in Germany will submit to such a scandalous
government !

Now I am busy again with my
work, and shall not get away till

i866] ‘ CJiagreen ‘ and ‘
Chagrin ‘ 315

August. I have been made an
Academician of Turin. There are only seven, and after Thiers and Cousin comes
my unworthy self.’

To E. B. Tylor, Esq.

Oxford, April 16.

‘ On my return from Paris I
found a copy of the Quarterly, and in it your excellent article on the Science
of Language. I feel not only personally very much obliged to you, but I believe
you have rendered a real service to our common studies by exciting the interest
and allaying the fears of that large and important class of Englishmen who are,
more or less, led by the Quarterly Review. A violent onslaught from that
quarter, which was by no means unlikely, might have done serious mischief, and
I therefore tender you my thanks both for what you have done, and what you have
been the means of preventing. What you say about Prepositions is true. I believe,
however, that those which are not predicative like trans will turn out to be
prenominal, local adverbs pointing to here and there. Qui vivra verra. You have
managed the Interjectionalists very well. Never did I make a greater mistake
than in taking an illustration of the Bow-wow theory from Wedgwood’s
Dictionary, which happened to be on my table, instead of quoting the same view
from a hundred other books! You have put the case very clearly, and I hope no
more paper will be wasted on this unprofitable discussion. You attribute too
much importance to my phonetic types or typical sounds ; they were left as a
mere frame, to be filled in by-and-by.’

To THE Same.

Oxford, April 19.

·
Many thanks for your article in the Fortnightly
Review. I like it very much and agree with every word of it ; only that I shall
have to write a much more determined defence of the Pooh-pooh and Bow- wow
theory than you have done, but of course only after defining the true meaning
of these theories. I cannot get over chagrin. I do not think it can be merely
leather, least of all Eastern leather ; but I confess I cannot get at the
history of the word. I believe that the chagreen leather is of Eastern origin,
but chagrin as substantive and adjective, chagrineux and chagriner — I confess
that staggers me. The question is who
first used the metaphor, if that is the origin of the word.’

Rumours of war between Austria
and Prussia were now rife, and Max Mullcr wrote to warn his mother not to
depend on seeing him and his in Germany in the summer.

3i6 Sanskrit Handbooks [ch. xv

To HIS JMOTHER.

Translation. May 27.

‘We can make no plans for the
summer whilst there are these rumours of war. Till now I firmly believed in
peace, but now I am afraid the summer will not go by without something
happening. I cannot take any interest in
these matters, unless it comes to a real popular war. Till now the people have
not wished for war, but only the JMinisters and the soldiers, and they may eat
the broth they have cooked. But how any people can submit to such a way of
governing, I cannot comprehend, and am thankful I am not there. I have at last finished my Sanskrit Grammar.
It came out last week, and it has taken a great load off my conscience.’

In 1864 Max Miiller had
arranged with Messrs. Longmans to publish a series of handbooks for the study
of Sanskrit. In his preface to the first
of the series, the first book of the Hitopadesa, he explains that these
handbooks were intended for two classes of readers : first, for those
candidates for the Indian Civil Service who desired not only to acquit them-
selves well in the examination, but to lay a good foundation for the subsequent
study of the spoken vernaculars ; and secondly, for a steadily increasing
number of scholars who wished to gain an elementary but accurate knowledge of
Sanskrit as a key to the study of Comparative Philology. For both these classes the existing works
were too diffuse, and only adapted to those who wished to make Sanskrit their
lifelong study. Max Miiller’s handbooks included the first, second, third, and
fourth books of the Hitopadesa, Benfey’s Sanskrit Dictionary, and a Sanskrit
Grammar for beginners by Max MUlIer. The text of the first book of the
Hitopadesa was prepared by Dr. Kielhorn, one of the many German Sanskrit
scholars for whom Max Miiller was instru- mental in getting appointments in
India.

The Librarian of the India
Office, in writing to thank him for the Hitopadesa, says, ‘ It is very obliging
of you, in the interest of beginners, to prepare books of this description ;
that they are very much needed is undeniable — at last it is feasible for a
student of ordinary ability to commence the study of Sanskrit without a
teacher.’

Max Miiller’s ‘sensible and
well-constructed book’ was

i866] War between Austria and
Prussia 317

praised in several reviews,
whilst his friend Professor Cowell

had from the first welcomed the
series as * an immense help to

the student. With such helps as
these Sanskrit should be as

easily acquired as any other
language. The projected series

will be invaluable.’

To HIS Mother.

Translation. O^iYO^vt, June 17.

‘ I hope that you are safe in
Chemnitz, for Dresden is not the place for you. I see that the Prussians have
marched into Saxony, and they are very likely to encounter the Austrians in the
neighbourhood of Dresden. At Chemnitz, at all events, you are not in the im-
mediate scene of the fighting — you have advice and help from the Krugs. Now
that war has really begun things will not quiet down again so very quickly ;
but in the way war is now conducted, those who live at the very theatre of war
will be far less disturbed than in former times. Sooner or later a war between
Austria and Prussia was unavoidable, and if it is but decisive, it will lead to
what all true Germans have desired for years, a united Germany. Prussia and
Austria are merely names, and stand for no more than Anhalt and Reuss. The
great thing is that the dualism of Prussia and Austria should be ended. Who
conquers, or is conquered, is of little con- sequence. Germany remains Germany,
and cannot be governed, even by a Roman Catholic Emperor, otherwise than she
allows herself to be governed. If Prussia wins, she must cease to be Prussia ;

Austria the same. So wait
quietly, no excitement, no partisanship.
Bismarck, either with or without his own consent, may become the
greatest benefactor of Germany. It is sad that your Austrian invest- ments have
fallen again ! but don’t make yourself miserable about it. How many people are in the same, or even
worse, plight ! Whatever you want, I can always give. You need have no scruples
about it, for if I don’t give it to you, I give it to others ; and I have for
years given away to others far more than I give you. What flows in so richly on
me does not belong to me, and I ought to give away a great deal more than I do.
So, as I say, don’t vex yourself about money.
Stay on quietly for the present with the Krugs. We can make no summer
plans yet. France and Switzerland are the only places where it would be quiet.
... Do not make the times worse than they are by over-anxiety.’

It was in this year that Max
Muller made the acquaintance

of Mr. John Bellows, the head of
the great printing works at

Bristol. At first the
acquaintance was only by letter, but on

meeting they were both much
attracted to each other, and

3i8 Bellozvs’ Outline
Dictionary [ch. xv

a true friendship sprang up
which continued to the last, though, being very busy men, they did not meet as
often as both desired. In sending his friend’s letters to Mrs. Max Muller, Mr.
Bellows says : —

‘ It was in 1866 that I put
before Professor Max Muller a plan

1 had for printing a skeleton
dictionary in which travellers and missionaries might record the vocabulary of
any particular language, or dialect, they wished to study. He entered heartily
into it, and compiled for it a key alphabet for the various sounds that would
have to be noted. It so happened that a Scottish firm just then offered me a
quantity of paper they had made for Confederate bank-notes during the American
War, but which they had failed to run through the blockade at Charleston. As
this was very strong and thin, I used it for the Outline Dictionary . It
answered well, I believe, as the edition all sold. It was really Professor Max
Miiller’s work, however.’

The following letters show how
minutely Professor Max Muller entered into the scheme : —

To Mr. John Bellows.

64, High Street, June 20.

‘ I cannot think of anything
better than the inverted a to represent the a ; we must not have accented
letters, otherwise no doubt the Swedish S would be preferable. I do not see
quite clearly the principle you follow in giving the various meanings of
certain words.

The book is meant for Englishmen
who must be supposed to know

the shades of meaning of each
word ; besides there is no reason to

give them all. Would it not be
best to give various meanings only

when there is a clearly defined
difference, as in Account, i narrative,

2 bill, 3 esteem ? But why give
“ coming to the throne “ under Accession ? If the missionary wants to express
that meaning he would put it under Accession, and if he wants to express “ an
acces- sion to his income “ he would place it there likewise, making a note for
his own information. Why put casual, and by injury, under Accidental ? Does
accidental ever mean by injury, except indirectly ? ‘

To THE Same.

Oxford, June 27.

‘ There is very little to alter.
I should put v, bought, all, as a familiar

English sound, before the a of
Vater. Also I should put n as

optional with fi ; in fact I
should not have admitted fi at all if I had

not been told that this type is
generally to be found in ordinary

founts. You know best whether
that is so j if not, I should leave it

i866] Battle of Koniggrdtz 319

out, and give ;/ only. I think
a little more care should be taken with the Dictionary.’

To THE Same.

July 18.

‘ I received your envelopes and
the electro-typed specimens, and am much obliged to you for them. As to your
Dictionary, I am afraid there is something wrong in getting the words ready for
press. Why should you not take any
ordinary Dictionary, and just underline in red the words which you want 1 I
have been collating your proof- sheets with Blackley and Friedlander’s
Practical German Dictionary, just published by Longmans, and I really think it
would take less time to underline that, than to collate the proof-sheets, to
say nothing of the trouble of making the corrections in the composition. I
always think that what is worth doing is worth doing well, and I feel sure that
with a little more trouble at first, much trouble afterwards may be avoided.’

Since Max Muller’s last letter
to his mother great events had taken place in Germany. The rapid advance of the
Prussians had been crowned by the great battle of Konig- gratz. Austria had given
up Venice to France, and the ‘ Seven Days’ War,’ as it was called in England,
seemed over. The excitement and interest
in England were very great.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. Oxfokb, July 8.

‘ All good Germans have long
desired what is now happening. The
methods employed might have been better, here and there, but Prussia staked her
existence to make Germany united and strong, and though I thoroughly doubt
whether the motives were throughout honest and pure, yet I rejoice over the
results. Prussia will have a yet harder war to wage, for war with France can
hardly be avoided. But in spite of all
that, Germany will at last take her right place in Europe, and that she never
could have done with the “ Bundestag “ and thirty princes. Austria will always
remain a great power in the East, but in the Protestant North an independent
power must be created, be it called Prussia or Germany. I often long now to be
back in Germany, though I could be of no use as a soldier.

Write to me very often ; I am so
busy I cannot always write to you,

but you have plenty of time, and
all you write interests me. Also

letters may get lost now, so the
more you write the better. Why do

not you and Emilie come to
England for six or eight weeks ? I do

not believe that we shall have
peace very soon ; should it come we

320 Wilhelm Midler Prize [ch.
xv

might still go to Germany in
August and September. Do not worry too much. There is always war, and always
will be, like thunder after great heat. I am very sorry for Emilie at Dessau,
in the midst of Prussians with her strong Austrian feelings. Where is Adolf,
and what has become of Fritz Stockmarr ‘ ? ‘

The following letter refers to
a communication from Max MUller’s old schoolfellow, Karl Elze, of Dessau, a
well-known Shakespearian scholar, later on Professor of English Litera- ture at
Halle. He wrote to tell his friend that a literary society in Dessau, which for
some years had been giving public lectures, had resolved to apply the money so
made to the founding of a Wilhelm Miiller Prize, to be given each year in the
three highest classes of the Dessau Gymnasium (public school) on Wilhelm
Miiller’s birthday.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. Oxford, July i6.

‘ I write whenever I have
something to write about, and from the

enclosed letter from Elze you
will see that we are not quite forgotten

in Dessau. I wrote at once to
Elze a beautifully written letter, to tell

him how pleased I was. I at once
promised him loo thalers, and

hope later on to give more, so
that perhaps in time it may form

a Wilhelm Miiller Scholarship. So
you see there is a bit of good

news. One hopes now the war will
soon be over ; well, the quicker

the better. The losses are
terrible, but so it has always been, and in

no century has Germany been so
long at peace as in this. You can

well imagine I am no admirer of
Bismarck, but I am convinced his

policy is the only one to make
Germany strong and respected by

other nations. What would have
become of Germany if France had

attacked Hanover, or Saxony, or
Hesse, and the jealousy betv/een

Prussia and Austria had made all
joint action impossible? With

Italy united, with the Colossus
of Russia and the great mass of

France, it was necessary North
Germany should be united. Austria

was opposed to this union and
must therefore suffer, but in spite of

all defeats she will always be a
great power in the East, and, if she

concentrates herself by giving up
Italy and Germany, will, one hopes,

be strong enough, in spite of
Russia, to annex Turkey, and drive

the Turks back to Asia. Those are
my hopes, but who knows

what may come } I expected that
Prussia would meet with some

great defeat, and that may still
happen, and would do Prussia good,

as thereby she would become more
thoroughly German; but these

^ Soldier cousins of Max
Miiller’s.

i866] Unsettled State of
Germany 321

things are not in our hands,
and all happens as is for the best. So do not let the grey hairs appear ! much
worse things have happened in the world than the overthrow of a dynasty. On the
whole the world is a very small grain of sand, Europe a small quarter of the
world, and Austria a very small part of Europe, and the man one calls from
habit Emperor is but a man, not so much better than the thousands who have
fallen in Bohemia. I wish I knew how to send you some money — the letters seem
to go safely enough. Stay quietly in Chemnitz. It is possible the Prussians may
have to retreat, and then Dresden might have to suffer, whilst Chemnitz is off
the track. Wish Krug joy for his
twenty-five years’ doctorate — I shall soon attain a like honour, and yet I
cannot feel myself at all old ! ‘

To E. B. Tylor, Esq.

July 6.

·
Two things have escaped me which perhaps you
will help me to

catch. I made a note of a
passage where the name Bear, for the

constellation, occurred among a
race that could not be suspected of

Aryan influences. But I lost my
reference. Secondly, I saw a paper

by Mr. Edkins on the relation
between Chinese, Mongolian, and

Tibetan, either in the
Ethnological or Anthropological Society ; but

this too I cannot find again.
The finder shall be duly rewarded.’

As the time for his holiday
drew near, Max Miiller felt more and more unwilling to risk taking his wife and
children to Germany in the unsettled state of things ; and he was conscious,
without any vanity, that he could not travel about entirely unknown, or say
what he liked unheeded. He did not wish to be obliged to express any real
opinion publicly for either Prussia or Austria, and it seemed wisest to keep
out of Germany till things were more settled. Even in his own family party
spirit ran very high. His Dessau relatives were all for Prussia, and Max
Muller’s own feelings were on that side, whereas his cousin Emilie, and,
influenced by her, his mother, were violently Austrian.

mi,- To HIS Mother. ^

Iranslation, Oxford, August 5.

·
That nothing has come of our plans is very sad.
I had gone on hoping we might get to Riigen, but the state of things is too
uncer- tain for travelling, especially with children. It looks more peaceful at
this moment, but I do not quite trust it; it is always possible that Austria
may venture on another battle. Also the new organization in the north, and the
Parliament in Frankfort, are sure to cause local

I Y

322 St. Ives, Cornwall [ch. xv

disturbances,
and as one can do nothing to help, it is better to stay away, and hope for
happier times. . . . One cannot alter matters, and when you think that Babylon and Nineveh, and Athens and

அன்பு தளபதி · அன்பு தளபதி Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:53 pm

Rome, have passed away in the course of time,
you cannot wonder so much at the Hapsburg catastrophe. Such things happen now
and again, and the world goes on afterwards as before ! ‘

Sir Benjamin Brodie and his
family, and Professor Bar- tholomew Price with his, had gone to St. Ives in
Cornwall for
the summer, and persuaded the Max MUlIers to follow their example. The one
difficulty was a house ; the few suited to visitors were all taken. At last
Lady Brodie found what was really a fisherman’s cottage close down to the
beach, small and simple, but exquisitely clean, and this was promptly secured.

Life at St. Ives was amusingly
primitive ; the butcher came once a week from Penzance,
but every house had its own poultry yard to supply deficiencies. Vegetables and
fruit were even more difficult to procure : there was one baker in St. Ives.
The town faces north ; the part where the visitors lived thirty-six years ago
was out of the town proper, which was built on a broad spit of land surrounded,
except to the south, by the sea. The town was entirely inhabited by the fishermen,
and was almost unapproachable from the smell of stale fish. Behind the cottage
which the Max Mlillers occupied the land rose to the granite moors, from the
top of which there was a wonderful view, south to Penzance
and Mount’s Bay, and back north to the Bay of St. Ives
and the coast towards Perranzabuloe. The smelling town was often braved, for
beyond it the spit of land ended in an open meadow, from which one could see on
calm days the long swell of the green waters of the Atlantic rolling in with
irre- sistible force, or on stormy days the foaming waves as they dashed and
thundered against the cliffs ; whilst the sunsets, as seen from this point,
were a constant delight. Bathing was carried on from the beach in front of the
Max Mlillers’ cottage, ‘ Primrose Villa,’ the boulders of rock fallen from the
cliff’s serving as dressing-rooms. At that time of year the moors were one
blaze of purple heather and golden gorse — in striking contrast to the grey
limestone headlands of the sea-coast. So brilliant was the colouring that, on
the

i866] Sf. Michaers Mount 323

first walk to the moors, the
eldest child, five and a half years old, who inherited all her father’s passion
for flowers, gave a cry of rapture as she saw the long stretch of heather and
gorse, ‘ Oh, Daddy, whose garden is this ? ‘ Max Miiller was delighted with the
country, examining the cromlechs and other Celtic remains with keen interest.
But his letters shall speak for themselves.

To Mr. Bellows.

St. Ives, September.

‘ I have not been able to see
much of Cornwall
yet, owing to various reasons : my own health, my wife’s health, and the
weather. How- ever, we are both well again ; and in spite of the weather we
have spent three days at the Lizard. Gew Graze, Pigeon Hugo, Kynance, and the
coast as far as Cadgewith are full of interest. As soon as the weather settles
a little, we mean to go to the Land’s End. If
possible, we shall do Carnbrea, when I hope to see your friend Mr. Michell,
though I am afraid we are not up to descending into the mine. What you say
about the accent in Cornish is very true. I did not know about the German
miners, and I wonder whether one could find an historical account of them
anywhere. The legends and stories of Cornwall
are purely German — very little of Cornish left there. The names of places
deserve a careful study. Mere etymology will not do it ; you want first of all
to ascertain their primitive form. As to “Carack luz en kuz\” please remember
that I am not a Cornish scholar. I
consider your argument against the modern form of kuz, instead of the Cornish
cuit, Welsh coed, as quite true. So far I go with you, and this seems to me to
dispose of the meaning commonly given to “ Carack luz en kuz,” the hoar rock in
the wood. What it really meant I cannot tell ; I do not see that you prove the
meaning of bay for the word ktlz, or of holy for Mz, unless you have some
further evidence. Mere possibilities will not help much. Nor do I see that you
prove that the Mount was a burial-place. If you can establish the meaning of bay
for kuz it will be very important, but even to have shown that it could not
have meant wood, is quite sufficient to guard against the extraordinary
conclusions founded on that name. One more quesdon, What is the earliest date
for the name “ Carack luz en kuz,” or of the pilchard song in which it occurs ?
‘

To THE Same.

St. Ives, September 13.

‘The weather is sadly against
us here. We saw the Land’s End, and walked along the coast to the Logan, with a fearful sea
rolling at ^ An old name for St. Michael’s Mount.

Y a

324 Articles on Cornwall [ch. xv

our side. It was magnificent.
We went down Botollock Mine, which to my mind is as grand as anything I
recollect. We have only one more week here. I wish I could stay here longer, it
is a delightful neighbourhood and full of interest. Now and then one feels very
near the old world. How careless people are about Celtic antiquities; while
they send men-of-war to fetch home the lions and bulls of Nineveh, farmers are allowed to pull down
cromlechs and caves, and use the stones for pig-styes.’

To THE Same.

St. Ives, September 18.

‘ The fates have been sadly
against me during my stay in Cornwall.

First I was laid up with cold,
&c., and afterwards the weather has been

so uncertain that I have only
just been able to see what was absolutely

necessary. However, in spite of
all, I am so delighted with Cornwall,

that I am sure to come again,
and if I could I should gladly give up

Oxford and settle here, in a cottage by the
sea-shore, and finish my

edition and translation of the
Veda, which I am afraid I shall never be

able to finish at Oxford. The air here is
so invigorating, and life so

easy, natural, and
uninterrupted by society, that one feels up to any

amount of work. I tremble when
I think of the hurry and flurry of

Oxford, and the distraction and lassitude
which it entails. . . . The

growth of the modern name and
legend of Marazion is very curious.

... I wish somebody would take
up the history of Cornish names of

places. There are so many names
of fields, and lanes, and stones, to

say nothing of houses and
villages, which would yield an ample harvest.

... I should like to know the
meaning of Perran, and St. Perran, and

his various aliases. Can it
mean *’ miner “ or “ smelter “ } He seems

a saint of Cornish growth, and
I expect a saint who never had flesh

or bone, as little as his
companion, St. Chywiddan, i. e. White house,

or Smelting house. Do you
happen to know anything about their

meaning and origin, beyond what
is found in Hunt’s Cornish Tales ? ‘

So delighted was Max Miiller with
all he saw and heard

in Cornwall — for he was never tired of the
tales of Cornish

saints, giants, and fairies that
he learnt from various Cornish

people with whom he came in
contact — that he began, almost

as soon as he returned to Oxford, to write the
paper on

‘ Cornish Antiquities,’ which was
published the following year

in the Quarterly. Another, on the
question, ‘ Were there

Jews in Cornwall ? ‘ also appeared in a periodical of
the next

year, and provoked long
discussions ; whilst a third paper, ‘ On

the Insulation of St. Michael’s
Mount,’ was read before the

i

i866] Max Midler’s * Brother’
325

Ashmolean Society in Oxford in the autumn of
1867. AH

three papers were republished
in the two first editions of

Chips.

To Mr. John Bellows.

September 29.

‘ . . . I send you what I have
written down about St. Michael’s Mount. I wonder whether you will be able to
read it, and I want much to know what you think about it before I send it to be
printed. I have taken possession of some
remarks of yours, to which, how- ever, I would gladly attach your name if you
will let me do so. ... I am in no hurry about printing it. I am pining after
St. Ives, and Cornish rocks, and fresh sea-breezes.’

Just after his return to Oxford, Max Miiller received intelligence that an
impostor, calling himself his brother, was going about in London getting money from those whom he could
take in. The story was always the same : he had been robbed on his way over
from Germany, and had not
enough to pay his ticket to Oxford.
As the man or men continued the same fraud for several years. Max Miiller at
length put a notice in the Times, mentioning that he had never had a brother.
This stopped the impostor in London
after a time, but a few years later the same trick was tried in one of the
Australian colonies, and Max received letters from several people who had been
duped by him. The imposture continued on and off for quite five years, and
there is still a large packet of letters from his victims marked in Max
Muller’s hand, ‘ My Brother.’

To HIS Mother.

Translation. October 7.

‘ The Professors in Berlin are wretchedly
paid, and whenever I hear of affairs there, I feel I should never be able to
fit in there. I am not rich here, but independent. I think I should long ago
have been in prison had I stayed in Germany
; here in England
I can do what I will. People abuse me, but they cannot bite, and everybody
barks at his own door.’

To Professor Lepsius.

Translation. Oxford, October 14.

‘ . . . The things that happen in
Prussia — or shall I say Germany ? —

occupy one’s head and one’s
heart. What would Bunsen have thought

of it all ? Many a thing has
happened differently to what we should

326 Gold Medal from Duke of
Dessau [ch. xv

have wished, but that it has
happened, and that it has advanced so far, and will advance still more and
more, makes it well worth while to have lived to see it come to pass. There
will have to be further struggles, but a glorious beginning has been made ! ‘

It w^as in this autumn that Max
Miiller received a fine gold medal from his old Duke, Leopold of Dessau, who,
knowing that Orders are not worn in England, except at Court, had this medal
struck expressly for the student whose career he had watched with interest from
his earliest childhood. On the obverse of the medal is the head of the Duke,
who was a very handsome man, and on the reverse, within a broad wreath of oak
and laurel leaves, the inscription : —

‘ Fiar Verdienst um Kunst und
Wissenschaft dem Professor Dr. Max Muller, 1866.’

(‘To Professor Dr. Max Miiller,
1866, for services to Art and Science.’) It was the first recognition he
received, except from learned societies, and was greatly prized, and always
kept on his table.

To Mr. John Bellows.

Oxford, Noveinber 8.

‘ It is very kind of you to
lend me your Cornish Dictionary ; I shall take great care of it, and return it
as soon as I get my own copy. It seems a very useful book, and carefully put
together, only the Sanskrit comparisons are horrible. I wish Mr. Williams would
publish his Celtic Grammar, but confine himself to Celtic. I guessed the riddle
of the Nine Maidens as soon as I began to read your letter. I saw the stones,
and I wish I had known about the missing stone, and where to find it. As to the
legend, it would grow up naturally enough. If you once have the nine maidens
and turned into stones, the dancing on a Sunday, &c., will come by itself.
I think I could match that easily by German legends. You see that even the two
pipers were soon added by popular fancy. I wish I could find out whether I am
right in supposing that the two pipers, and the two stones that flank the
Men-an-tol, point to the equinoctial points, and served to fix the great annual
festivals. There are certainly tombs on St. Michael’s Mount, and I read an
ancient charter which allows people to be buried on the mainland, but still
requires the dues to be paid to the Priory. I feel sure an attempt should be
made to declare all real antiquities, in Cornwall
and elsewhere, national property. I have collected a few cases of vandalism. If
you meet with any in your readings, please let me know.’

1 866] Indian MSS. 327

To THE Same.

Oxford, November 14,

·
You have traced the extracts from the Sikh MSS.
beautifully, and before I say more about it, let me ask you where you get that
beautiful tracing-paper, and how much it is per quire. Well, there is very
litde known about the Sikh language. We possess several MSS. of their sacred book, the Granlh, and of some
minor works, all treating of the Sikh religion. The language is the Penjabi as
spoken about 1500 A.D., a corruption of Sanskrit, like Hindi and the rest. The alphabet, too, is Devanagari, only
curiously misapplied. By means of Sanskrit on the one side, and Hindi on the other,
one could make out passages here and there, but that was a slow process. So I
wrote through a friend of mine to some of the Sikh priests at Umritsir, asking
them to write out a Sanskrit translation of some portions of their sacred code.
They sent me instead a Hindi and Penjabi translation, and by means of it, and
with the help of some friends who are good Hindi scholars, I made out some
interesting passages. I have now written again for a literal Sanskrit
translation, and when I get it I hope to publish a few specimens of the sacred
writings of the Sikhs. Every book that has formed the foundation of a large
religious movement ought to be accessible to scholars and theologians. It has
taken me twenty years now to bring out the first edition of the sacred book of
the Brahmans, the Veda ; so I am afraid life is too short to embark on a second
undertaking of the same kind — the one representing the oldest, the other the
most modern phase of religious thought in India — the one 1,500 years before,
the other 1,500 after, our era. I should be very glad some day to see Sir
Thomas Phillips’s collection ; I know it is wonderfully rich. I wish some
collector, like him, would rescue what there is still to be rescued of the
ancient literature of India.
Manuscripts in India,
being made of vegetable paper, do not last much longer than 400 years. It was
the duty of every rajah to keep a library and a staff of librarians, whose work
it was to recopy each manuscript as soon as it began to show signs of decay. As
soon as these rajahs were pensioned off, the first retrenchment they made in
their establishments was the suppression of these libraries and librarians.
They were not even allowed to present their libraries to the East India Company
! Well, the result is that at the present moment literary works, which have
been preserved for more than a thousand years, are crumbling away.

In a few places, where there
exists still among the natives an interest

in their ancient Hterature,
manuscripts are copied and some of them

printed and lithographed. But the
great bulk of Sanskrit literature

(larger than the literature of Greece) is
allowed to perish, whereas

328 The Veda [ch. xv

a few thousand pounds might
preserve all that is worth preserving.
If the interest which is now taken in the early history of mankind, in
the origin of religions, mythological and philosophical ideas, con- tinues for
the next hundred or two hundred years, the Sanskrit MSS. would be valued hereafter, like the Codex
Alexandrinus or Sinai- ticus. Many of them will be unique. And strange to say
the same manuscripts which in the hot and dry climate of India are so perishable are
perfectly safe as soon as they are deposited in a European library. But no one
takes an interest in these matters, and while people shudder at the supposed
vandalism of Omar in de- stroying the Alexandrian Library, the same unconscious
vandalism takes place unheeded under our eyes. I have not forgotten my Cornish
articles ; but I want to get rid, not only of the Jews, but also of the
Saracens. Yours very truly.’

TO HIS WIFE.

OXFORD, DECEMBER 9.

‘ LIFE AT MAY BE VERY NICE
FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOTHING TO DO,

OR THINK THEY HAVE NOTHING
TO DO, AND NO ACCOUNT TO GIVE OF THEIR DAYS AND HOURS. BUT I HAVE NOT LEARNT
LIFE SO. I STILL HAVE A GREAT WORK TO DO, AND I OFTEN FEEL THAT I MIGHT HAVE
DONE A GREAT DEAL MORE, IF I HAD KEPT THE ONE OBJECT OF MY LIFE MORE STEADILY
IN VIEW. I SOMETIMES WISH YOU WOULD HELP
ME MORE IN DOING THAT, AND INSIST ON MY WORKING HARDER AT THE VEDA AND NOTHING ELSE.
1 HOPE I SHALL FINISH THAT WORK, AND I FEEL CONVINCED, THOUGH I SHALL NOT LIVE
TO SEE IT, THAT THIS EDITION OF MINE AND THE TRANSLATION OF THE VEDA WILL
HEREAFTER TELL TO A GREAT EXTENT ON THE FATE OF INDIA, AND ON THE GROWTH OF
MILLIONS OF SOULS IN THAT COUNTRY. IT IS THE ROOT OF THEIR RELIGION, AND TO
SHOW THEM WHAT THAT ROOT IS, IS, I FEEL SURE, THE ONLY WAY OF UPROOTING ALL
THAT HAS SPRUNG FROM IT DURING THE LAST 3,000 YEARS. IF THOSE THOUGHTS PASS THROUGH ONE’S MIND,
ONE DOES GRUDGE THE HOURS AND DAYS AND WEEKS THAT ARE SPENT IN STAYING IN
PEOPLE’S HOUSES, AND ONE FEELS THAT WITH THE MANY BLESSINGS SHOWERED UPON ONE,
ONE OUGHT TO BE UP AND DOING WHAT MAY BE GOD’S WORK.’

To HIS Mother.

Translation. London, December 16.

‘ We stayed from Thursday to
Saturday with the Belgian Minister,

M. Van de Weyer, who has a
beautiful place not far from Taplow. He

is a very cultivated man and an
experienced statesman, and was a

hbrarian in Holland when the revolution broke out ; then
he became

one of Leopold’s Ministers. He
married a rich American, and they

live in great luxury. We had the
same rooms Princess Alice had

t867] Bournemouth

329

when she last paid them a long
visit. It is very near Windsor
and the Queen often drives over to see them.’

The Christmas was spent in London with the
grandfather, the last the Max Miillers were to spend away from their own home
till their children were grown up.

Max Miiller had been far from
well whilst in London, and on his return to Oxford was laid up with so severe a bronchial attack,
accompanied by great prostration, that his medical attendant and friend, Mr.
Symonds, was seriously anxious about him, and took him to London for further advice. He was ordered to
leave Oxford at
once for a milder climate. The weather
was so severe that a journey to the Riviera was thought too great a risk, and
just after the middle of January Max with his wife and children settled at
Bournemouth, his old friend Professor Cowell undertaking his work as Sub-
Librarian at the Bodleian, and occupying his house in Oxford, till it was fit
for him to return home. At first he was almost entirely confined to the house,
but as the weather improved and he gained strength he was able to enjoy the
walks in the sheltered pine woods, which then stretched between the Bourne and
Boscombe, or quiet rides with some relatives of his wife living at Bournemouth
; and constant talks with one of these relatives, the banker Mr. Glyn,
afterwards Lord Wolverton, was a great resource, as he was not fit for any hard
mental work, and had been ordered by his doctor to leave his books in Oxford.
Both Max Miiller and Mr. Glyn were ardent Liberals, and great admirers of Mr.
Gladstone, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was in the habit year by year
of talking over his Budget with Mr. Glyn, and a favourite point of discussion
was whether the nation would accept Mr. Gladstone some day as Prime Minister.
Mr. Glyn was in those days inclined to doubt it. One point on which the uncle
and nephew disagreed entirely was in their estima- tion of Louis Napoleon, whom
Mr. Glyn admired, as he attributed the commercial prosperity of France
to his good government. Max Miiller, on the other hand, who had often been in Paris, and knew how the
respectable middle class kept entirely aloof of the Government, which they
looked on as thoroughly evil, had no admiration for the adventurer.

330 Brahma Somdj [ch. xv

It was many weeks before Max
Miiller at all recovered his usual health and strength ; and though he began
his translation of the Rig-veda, of which the prospectus had been published in
January, he soon found that he was only up to lighter work, and he began to
prepare his articles on Corn- wall for the Press. The first, on ‘ Cornish
Antiquities,’ had been intended for the North British Review. When written he
sent it to his friend Mr. Bellows, a Cornishman by birth, for revision, and in
his letter mentions that he had a half- promise from a member of Parliament
that he would prepare a Bill on the proper preservation of national monuments.
It had been a real sorrow to him in Cornwall to see how the interesting Celtic
remains were left entirely at the mercy of indifferent landowners and ignorant
farmers, who had no scruples in using the fine stones for gateposts and farm
buildings ; in some cases, as with the ancient wells, pulling them down
entirely to build them up in modern style, or as they described it, ‘fitty.’
Nothing more is to be found about this half-promise in any of the letters, and
it was not till about 1873 that Lord Avebury, then Sir John Lubbock, introduced
his Ancient Monuments Bill, which was not finally passed till 1882.

The second article, ‘Are there
Jews in Cornwall?’
came

out in Macmillans Magazine in
the April of this year. The

third article, ‘ On the Insulation
of St. Michael’s Mount,’ was

not published till it appeared
in the third volume of CJiips

from a German Workshop in 1870.

BEFORE HE LEFT OXFORD, MAX
MIILLER HAD HEARD FROM THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S, ASKING HIM TO FURNISH A LIST OF
BOOKS THAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST AND USE TO HIS NEPHEW. DR. MILMAN, THE NEW
BISHOP OF CALCUTTA.
ON FURNISHING THE LIST MAX MIILLER FORWARDED A LETTER ON THE BRAHMA SOMAJ, OR
BODY OF PURE THEISTS IN INDIA, WRITTEN TO HIM BY SATYENDRA NATH TAGORE, HIMSELF
A FAITHFUL ADHERENT OF THE BRAHMA SOMAJ, WHO WAS THE FIRST NATIVE TO PASS THE
EXAMINATION FOR THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE. AS MAX MIILLER WAS INTIMATELY
ACQUAINTED LATER WITH KESHUB CHUNDER SEN AND MOZOOMDAR, LEADERS OF THE SOMAJ,
AND ALWAYS TOOK THE DEEPEST INTEREST IN THE WHOLE MOVEMENT, AS BEING, HE FELT,
THE REAL STEPPING-STONE

1867] SATYENDRA NDTH TAGORE
331

TO CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA, THE
LETTER IS GIVEN IN THE APPENDIX. IT
PRESENTS THE REAL TEACHING OF THE SOMAJ AT THAT TIME AS EXPLAINED BY A HIGHLY
EDUCATED AND ENLIGHTENED FOLLOWER.

To THE Dean of St. Paul’s.

64, High Street, Oxford,

January, 1867.

·
I enclose a letter from an Indian friend of
mine, Satyendra Nath Tagore, which may possibly interest you, and which, if you
like, you may forward to the Bishop, It will give him an insight into the
religious aspirations of the best people in India at the present moment. The
writer is the grandson of Dwarka Nath Tagore, whom you may remember in London, some twenty years
ago, a very shrewd and amiable man. His grandson came over to pass the Civil
Service Examination, and, to the great dismay of the authorities, came out as
No. 6. He was about twenty when I knew him in England,
and he was then at the head of the so-called Brahma Somaj, which is making very
considerable progress among the lower classes in India. The movement began with
Rammohun Roy, and him, too, you may have seen. His idea was to go back to the
earliest form of the Indian religion, as preserved in the Vedas, and to
surround the Vedas with all the defences of a revealed book. What he took for
the Veda was not the original collection, but the more modern philosophical
appen- dices, Upanishads. After his death the movement languished, I re- member
my young friend telling me : “ Rammohun Roy put us on a wrong track — he was a
trimmer. We have entirely broken with the Veda.” They have certainly put an end
to idolatry, they have broken with caste, and they hold the essential points of
natural religion. I need not tell you that I find it difficult to meet his
argu- ments, and to remove his doubts with regard to some points of the
Christian religion which are his stumbling-blocks. I have not written to him
for some time, simply because I feel I cannot grapple with him, and he is not a
man to be satisfied with words. I know some other men of a similar character in
India
— one, a convert, a man more like the martyrs of old than anybody I ever saw.
What I feel very deeply when I have to argue with such men, is that the Chris-
tianity which conquered the world was very different from our hardened and
formularized Christianity, and that the old tree will never bear transplanting
into a new soil, though the young seed would probably grow up on Indian soil
into as wonderful a tree as anything we have seen as yet in the history of Europe.
India wants Apostles
enjoying all the freedom of St. Paul ; but what
would the Elders at Jerusalem
say to that ?

332

Nehemiah Goreh

[CH. XV

‘Please return Satyendra Nath
Tagore’s letter to me when you have done with it.’

To THE Dean of St. Paul’s (Dr.
Milman).

Staunton
House, Bournemouth,

February 26.

‘ Dear Mr. Dean, — I see no objection whatever to Tagore’s letter being
copied and shown to men who take an interest in the religious future of India,
as he says himself I may make any use of it. I am particularly glad that Lord
Cranborne should have seen it, if, as you say, he takes an interest in affairs
of religion. I have myself the strongest belief in the growth of Christianity
in India, There is no
country so ripe for Christianity as India, and yet the difficulties
seem enormous. The case of

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Nehemiah
Goreh is a most interesting one ; it ought to be typical, and yet it seems to
be exceptional, and he became a Christian without, nay, in spite of, the
missionaries. I have never yet seen a
missionary or a civil servant who does not consider himself infinitely superior
to any Hindu, and yet this Nehe- miah Goreh has suffered more for his
Christianity, and of his own free will, than any man I know in England or
Germany. Such a man, and many like him, wants sympathy and love, and that is
what they never find. Advice, reproof, and a good deal of de haut en las patro-
nizing the natives receive, no doubt, from missionaries, but respectful and
loving treatment I doubt whether they ever receive. The idea that a man like
Nehemiah Goreh could be in any respect his superior never enters a missionary’s
mind, yet I confess I felt far more awed by that modest and honest convert than
by many a bishop and archbishop. Twelve men such as Nehemiah might do more in India than
hundreds of missionaries. I hope my health is getting better. I am not accustomed to be ill, and it makes
me very unhappy not to be able to work. My chief complaint is want of strength.
I am to stay here till May.’

The end of March brought great
sorrow to Max Mijller in the news of the death of his sister’s eldest daughter,
nineteen years of age, after a few days’ illness. It may be remembered that she
had spent part of the summer of 1863 with the Max Miillers on the Starnberger See.
She had grown up into a beautiful girl and was the joy and pride of her
parents. Max Miiller wished to go at once to his mother and sister, but his
doctor would not sanction the journey, and absence again added to his sorrow.

;?^’

*(ll^.

1867] Death of Max Midler’s
Niece 333

To HIS Mother.

Translation. Bournemouth,
April 8.

‘ Augusta’s letter has touched me again deeply.
May God give her strength to bear this sorrow. I have spent the whole week in
great anxiety and grief, and whenever I feel a little better I think I ought to
have gone to you. And yet my doctor says I must still take the greatest care,
and I feel myself that I only get on slowly, and the smallest change in the
weather brings back the swelling and inflamma- tion of the throat, and I might
have been more of an anxiety than a help to you.’

It was during this spring that
his friend Mr. Bellows brought out the Outline Dictionary mentioned earlier in
this chapter, to which Max Muller contributed a valuable preface.

To INIr. Bellows.

Oxford, May 3.

‘ I received to-day a dozen
copies of the Outline Dictionary, and was very much pleased to see the book
out. I shall try to make the best use I can of these copies. I shall send one
to Lepsius, Berlin Academy ;

Monsieur Bell, French Academy
; Bishop of Melanesia, and the Bishop of New Zealand. The book strikes me as
very convenient, just the right shape, and I should think missionaries would be
very thankful to have such a book if they knew of it. I begin to feel so much
better, now that the weather is mild, and work is again a great delight.’

Through the past winter Max
Miiller’s thoughts had been much occupied by the idea of a possible change in
his life. The University authorities at Cambridge had founded a
Chair of Sanskrit, and he was doubtful whether he ought or ought not to stand
for election. Six years sooner he would have felt no doubt on the question, but
he had now turned his attention more to general philology and the problems of
mythology. He had lived too for nearly twenty years in Oxford, and both he and his wife were deeply
attached to the place, and had many valued friends there. The following letter
shows how the matter had been decided for him : — .

Bournemouth,
April 16, 1867.

‘ My dear Kingsley, — I am not
sufficiently up in the Luxemburg

question to undertake an article
for Eraser, but I have written to

a friend of mine, an Englishman
who knows a good deal about these

334 Chips from a German
Workshop [ch. xv

matters. I hope and trust the
matter will be settled peaceably. Germany has enough to do at home, and though I
rejoice in a united and strong Germany,
I do not like to see the drill-sergeant Govern- ment strengthened more than can
be helped. The absence of England
from the councils of Europe is sadly felt just
now, A man must dare to have friends, and dare to have enemies — and so must a
people. The natural ally of England is Germany,
that is to say, a united, sensibly governed, Protestant, Northern
Germany. England
and Germany will represent
the Teutonic element in Europe, with all that
is good and bad in it ; and, if united by common objects, they will stand like
a breakwater between the Romans and Roman Catholics in the West and South, and
the Slavs and Greeks in the East and North.
You want a good statesman in whom the country trusts, a man like Pitt or
Sir Robert Peel. Gladstone has a foreign policy,
but matters must get much worse before people in England
will find out what they possess in Gladstone.
He ought to retire like Camillus, and wait till greater times call for greater
men.

‘ Cox is a hard-working man. He
wants a little sunshine — to throw off the prickles and grow into flower.

‘ My Cambridge plans are at an end. I had long
made up my mind not to stand against Cowell. He has now decided to become a
candidate. You could not get a better man. The Master of Trinity, I hear, is
favourable to him. Do what you can for him, you may do it safely. Ever yours
affectionately.’

The follovi^ing letter contains
the first mention of the work by which perhaps Max Miiller became best known to
the general public, Chips from a German Workshop. On receipt of Mr. Longman’s
answer he set to work at once on the collection and revision of his articles.
The work came out in the autumn, when the fine preface was written. ‘ It was
through the preface to the Chips that I first learnt to know and love Max
Miiller,’ wrote one who felt he owed nearly all that was good in him to Max
MuUer’s teaching.

To W. Longman, Esq.

Bournemouth,
April 20, 1867.

‘ Dear Sir, — I have been looking
through my essays, and I mean to revise and republish them. The first volume
would contain essays on Religion, Mythology, and Traditions.

‘ Afterwards there would be a
second volume on Languasfe and

Literature. As a general title
I thought of Chips from a German

•^nJ

■s.

■s.

1867] ^ Parks End’ bought 335

Workshop. Would you feel
inclined to take these essays on the same terms as the second volume of my
Lectures ? They will be ready for October, I think. Yours very truly, ‘ M. M.’

On one of the last days of
April the Max Mtillers returned to Oxford, and the same day they saw the
announcement of the sale by auction, in a day or two, of the house Professor
Goldwin Smith had built for himself across the Parks— which had already been
laid out and planted, and were no longer the bare fields, with the Museum in
their midst, of five years before. The house in High Street was damp, cold, and
becoming too small, and on finding that ‘ Parks End,’ which was only a
bachelor’s house, could easily be enlarged, Max Muller resolved to bid for it.
It was a bright sunny day when he and his wife first went over their future
home, the lilacs were in full bloom, and the little place looked its best. Not a single house then stood to the north of
‘ Parks End ‘ — on the north side of what is now called Norham Gardens were
cultivated fields — the nearest houses were in Park Town, and only two houses
existed each side of * Parks End.’ Directly the house was bought plans were
made for adding a drawing- room, and what Mr. Goldwin Smith afterwards
irreverently called a ‘ baby-hutch,’ and the work was at once begun, as his
wife was resolved that Max Muller should leave High Street before the winter
set in.

The lectures announced for this
term were on the poem

of the Nibclungen, on which he
had lectured sixteen years

before.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. 64, High Street,
May 3.

‘ You will hardly guess what has
kept me from writing sooner. We

have bought a house, and I wanted
to tell you all about it. . . . You

must not be anxious about me. I
am really well again : our doctor

thinks me much stronger in every
way. I have given up the Bodleian,

and shall not have so much work.
The new house is really very

charming, and the children are
delighted with it. It is the best built

house here in every way ; all the
chief rooms look south, and as it

faces the Parks we can never have
any house built in front of us. We

must add to it, for it is too
small, but we are able to pay the whole out

of our savings without borrowing
anything. We have had very happy

years here, and the children are
so strong and healthy ; we shall be

336 Birth of only Son [ch. xv

sorry to leave this house, but
we are glad to have a larger and better house, and more out of the town.’

Since her daughter’s great
sorrov^ the old mother had

resolved to give up her rooms
in Dresden and
move to

Chemnitz,
a change v^hich her son had long urged her to

make.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. 64, High Street,
May 19.

‘ Your rooms in Dresden must look very
sad and bare, and whenever I think of poor Auguste my heart is very heavy. It
is such a hopeless trial, and one sees nothing to make up for what they have
lost. It is well that you have settled to move to Chemnitz, and though you will
miss Dresden,
few mothers have the comfort of spending their last years with their children
and children’s children. You can thank God for this, in spite of the many
afflictions and trials He has laid on you, and then you will forget the many
little disagreeables and misunder- standings which constant living together
must bring. I cannot under- stand why you make yourself so anxious about money.
I hope I shall always be able to give you as much as you want. I give away
every year a fixed proportion of my income, and if it does not go to you it
goes to others. The question is therefore only, whether I give it to you, or to
others who perhaps need it less than you do. You should make no difficulty
about such matters ; there are cares enough in life without making new ones for
ourselves.’

On June 9 Max Miiller’s
youngest child and only son was born, and though he had professed to be quite
satisfied with his three little girls, his letters show how he rejoiced at the
birth of what is called in Germany the ‘ Stammhalter.’

To HIS Cousin, Captain von
Basedow.

Trajislalion. 64, High
Street,///;/^ 30, 1867.

·
My dear Adolf, — You will already have heard
that at last a little son has appeared here, and I wish to ask you to be one of
his god- fathers. Both G. and I wish the boy not to be exclusively English,
and, like his name Wilhelm Grenfell, so his godfathers should be of both
countries. He can then later on choose his own home, and like the old proverb
uhi bene ihi patria. His other godparents are cousins of G.’s. Of course we
should prefer that you should come here your- self, but if that can’t be, write
if you will accede to our wish, and let me have your answer as soon as
possible, as the little heathen is already three weeks old. Here, thank God,
all goes on well, but after

1867] Ems 337

all the sorrow we have had, we
cannot feel very joyful. The last few years have brought many changes, but one
must not lose courage. In August I think
of going to Germany, and hope I shall find you all well at Dessau. Much love
from us both to your wife, your mother, Tante Julie, Rosalia, Berndt and his
wife, the Stockmarrs, and any old friends who still remember me. Always in true
affection, ‘ Max.’

Though very much stronger, it
was thought wise for Max Miiller to take the waters at Ems this summer, and as
soon as his wife could move she and their four children went to stay with the
mother-aunt near Maidenhead, and Max started for Ems, where his mother and
sister and her husband joined him as his guests ; and a happy month was passed
together, he doing everything in his power to lighten the cloud of sorrow
resting on his sister and Dr. Krug.

To HIS Wife.

Ems, August 19.

‘We have had a beautiful walk
this afternoon, and I have often wished you here ; you would enjoy it so much,
and I should enjoy it all so much with you. And yet what a pleasure it is to
see mother so well, at least for her age, and able to enjoy all with us. And
those poor Krugs — it is quite sad to see them happy, and always that fearful
grief in their hearts. How often one thinks of Marie, and how she would have
delighted in seeing all this beautiful scenery, and being with us. . . . Krug
speaks so freely about those who are no more ;

I can only listen, for what can
one say ? Our view of death is wrong, no doubt, because our view of life is
wrong : there is nothing to be feared in this beautiful world of God’s own
making and ordering. But parting is a
wrench, even for a few weeks, and nothing can take away the pang of that long
parting with those whom we have truly loved. How one grows together ; how you
and the children, every one of them, cling to me, and are part and parcel of
myself. To lose one of them, even though one may submit to God’s will, must
tear a wound which can never disappear again, however time may soothe the first
agony. We ought to be so grateful. I do not think of real happiness God can
give more than has been given us : how can one ask for more, or wish for
anything ? I should like to sit quiet, to rest and be thankful, not to move,
lest something should move and fall.

I do long for you all, but it was
right to give up something of our

happiness : the more you give
away the more is given you ; that

seems to me a law of our
spiritual life. ... All send you their best

love, and wish you and the
children were here ; and they say it is so

I Z

338 Ems [cH. XV

good of you to let me go alone.
Krug thinks it will be very good for me here. The evenings are glorious. We
have supper in the garden at nine — the river running by, all lighted up, and
in the distance lights on the hills, and then the bright stars above. People do
enjoy them- selves here; there are more than 2,000 here, music everywhere,
splendid roses, fine halls — I am sorry to say gambling, too.’

To THE Same.

Ems, August 27.

‘ One look up to heaven, and
all this dust of the high-road of life vanishes. Yes ! one look up to heaven
and even that dark shadow of death vanishes. We have made the darkness of that
shadow ourselves, and our thoughts about death are very ungodly. God has willed
it so ; there is to be a change, and a change of such magnitude that even if
angels were to come down and tell us all about it, we could not understand it,
as little as the new-born child would understand what human language could tell
about the present life. Think what the birth of a child, of a human soul, is ;
and when you have felt the utter impossibility of fathoming that mystery, then
turn your thoughts upon death, and see in it a new birth, equally unfathomable,
but only the continuation of that joyful mystery which we call a birth. It is
all God’s work ; and where is there a flaw or a fault in that wonder of all
wonders, God’s ever-working work ? If people talk of the miseries of life, are
they not all man’s own work .? Would not the carrying out of one single
commandment of Christ, “ Love one another,” change the whole aspect of this
world, and sweep away prisons and work- houses, and envying and strife and all
the strongholds of the devil? Two
thousand years have nearly passed, and people have not yet understood that one
single command of Christ, “ Love one another.” We are as perfect heathens in
that one respect as it is possible to be.
No ! this world might be heaven on earth, if we would but carry out
God’s work and God’s commandments — and so it will be hereafter.

We must submit, but we must feel
that it is a great blessing to be able

to submit, to be able to trust
that infinite Love which embraces us on

all sides, which speaks to us
through every flower and every worm,

which always shows us beauty and
perfection, which never mars, never

destroys, never wastes, never
deceives, never mocks. And would that

loving Father begin such a work
in us, as is now going on, and then

destroy it, leave it unfinished ^
No, what is will be ; what really is in

us will always be ; we shall be
because we are. Many things which

are now will change, many things
in us which we take to be our very

own will change ; but what we
really are we shall always be ; and if

love forms really part of our
very life, that love, changed, it may be,

1867] Thoughts on Death

339

purified, sanctified, will be
in us and remain with us through that greatest change, which we call death. The
pangs of death will be the same for all that, just as the pangs of childbirth
seem ordained by- God, in order to moderate the exceeding joy that a child is
born into the world. And as the pain is forgotten when the child is born, so it
will be after death — the joy will be commensurate to the sorrow. The sorrow is
but the effort necessary to raise ourselves to that new and higher state of
being ; and without that supreme effort or agony, the new life that waits for
us is beyond our horizon, beyond our con- ception. It is childish to try to
anticipate ; we cannot know anything about it ; we are meant to be ignorant ;
and, though we may imagine heaven and hell, even the Divina Commedia of a great
poet and thinker is but child’s play and nothing else. Here, as everywhere
else, the purity of Christ’s teaching appears. A teacher whose every word is believed
is sorely tempted to promise rewards in a future life, and to paint in glowing
colours the Jerusalem
the Golden that is to receive those who believe in Him. Christ says, “ What no
eye has seen,” and thus shows the truth of His vision, and the honesty in His
dealing with His fellow creatures. No illusions, no anticipations, only that
certainty, that quiet rest in God, that submissive expectation of the soul,
which knows that all is good, all comes from God, all tends towards God, To say
more is to deceive ourselves and others. But though M’e may thus look forward
to what is to come, I quite agree with you that it is wrong to look away from
this life, or to treat it as an imperfect or contemptible state. This life is
as perfect as God would make it, and it is an incredible pride if we are to
master and criticize this beautiful work of God. We have spoilt it first, and
taken away its very sunshine and warmth — love — and then we complain that it
is cold. Poverty is hard to bear, but a cheerful and contented mind does not
feel the burden ; and how much poverty might be alleviated, if we wished to do
it ! Illness is hard to bear, but it raises us above the cares of this life ;
it reconciles us to that parting which must come sooner or later; it makes
death easy, which those who are rich and strong dread as the greatest of evils.
Unkindness is hard to bear, but it leads us to examine ourselves, to weigh our
own motives, to value all the more those loving hearts who return our love, and
to look forward to a better time when we shall be known such as we are.’

To THE Same.

Ems, August 31.

‘ We had such a beautiful
evening. We drove to a forest between Ems and the Rhine, where we could see the
whole neighbourhood, and all the windings of the river about Ehrenbreitstein
and Coblentz.

Z 3

340 Bonn [cH. XV

There was a Franciscan
monastery with the fourteen stations of the

Passion, arranged with such
real taste and thought, and at the end

a chapel and a beautiful
church, all built by the present incumbent, an

old man, who is his own
architect, and has begged together the funds

for the church, which is built
in a very old and simple Byzantine style ;

and the walls and altar and
pulpit are covered with crystals and stones

and slags found in the
neighbourhood, so that the interior is glittering

with light. Though the
experiment is difficult and apt to degenerate

into mere stage effect, there
is so much originality and thought about

it, that one can enjoy it all,
and feel with the old man who spent his

life and energy in erecting
that sacred place. As we drove home the

first line of the new moon was
visible, and Jupiter shone in all his

beauty.’

To THE Same.

September 2.

‘ You have no idea how
beautiful this valley is — the smooth wooded hills all around, and the river
reflecting the undulating landscape, and the beautiful clear sky, and the
varying tints and the brilliant stars. Life seems so light and easy here. Then
it is very amusing to watch all the strange people from every part of the world
— Orientals and Greeks and Wallachians, to say nothing of French, EngUsh,
Americans, and Jews.

·
I had a kind of semi-official application to ask
me whether I would not settle in Prussia. They would give me 3,000 thalers
(£450), and I need not trouble much about lecturing, either at Berlin or
Bonn. I said that for the present I was
tied, but that, if I settled in Germany, I should prefer to live independently
without taking any office, and make what I wanted by writing. I could not quite
make out from whom it came, but Professor Bernays told me the offer was
serious, and he is a friend of the Minister of Public Instruction.’

To Professor Bernays.

Translation. Lustgarten, Ems,
September, Wednesday.

‘ I hope to get to Bonn on
Friday night, on my return to England, and to stay till Saturday afternoon, and
then start straight to London via Cologne. I trust to find you in Bonn, my best
friend, for I long to have some spiritual intercourse with you before I leave.
I also want to see Brandis. I shall put up at the “ Stern “ ; Morier may be
there too. What you mentioned about the German plans the other day has occupied
me much, but, as I told you before, it seems to me best to remain in Oxford for
a few more years. I do not deny that I should like to spend the evening of life
in German air, but I stopped long ago wishing for certain things and making
plans ; Heaven has so far guided me so mercifully. Hoping to see you soon, ever
yours.’

1867] Move to ‘Parks End’ 341

Directly Max Miiller returned
to England, the move to ‘ Parks End ‘ began. The roof was already on the new
part of the house, which was boarded off from the old part, in which the whole
party, tightly packed, spent the winter.
When once settled, his wife wrote to a relative : —

Parks End, October 9,

‘ You can enter into the
delight it is to Max to look round and to feel that he has bought this house
with his own hard work. I am sure it is a much greater delight than any house
left to one could give.’

To HIS Mother.

Translation. Parks End, October
9.

‘ Do not lose heart, but thank
God for all that is left you ; that is the chief thing, and so I wish you joy
of your birthday and of your new home. May God give you many peaceful and happy
hours there, and strength to bear whatever He sends. How happy our time was
together in the summer, and how seldom does everything succeed so well as our
stay in Ems. It is true, the sad recollections were always there as a
background ; but what life is without such recollections ? But we must go on, and comfort comes only
when we know whose hand sends the sorrow. I hope, in spite of all your fear and
difii- culties, that your move is safely over, and that you do not dislike your
new home.’

On his own birthday this year,
his forty-fourth, he writes to his mother : —

Translation. December 6.

‘ Thank you for all your good
wishes. I feel always as if there is hardly anything left to wish for. I can
only pray God to preserve all I have ! The children are all well and bright ;
the boy grows fast.’

To his sister he writes a few
days later : — •

Translation. December 9.

·
I often feel how much more happiness has been
given me than I deserve ; and when I think of all you have lost, I often feel
how all that we call our own is only lent us for a short time, and how we
cannot, from day to day, call anything ours. This Christmas time will bring you
and poor Krug renewed sorrow. But try and remember how much is left you, and do
not let the years you yet have together pass in mere sorrow ; the years do not
come again.’

The allusion in the following
letter is to the intention

Max Miiller had already
expressed of dedicating the second

342 Visitors at ^ Parks End’
[ch. xv

volume of Chips to Bernays, who
was at first too modest to

accept it.

To Professor Bernays.

Translation. Parks End,
December 15.

‘ My dearest Friend, — I had
long looked forward to giving you a public recognilion of my friendship and
gratitude. Though our meetings have not been frequent of late, yet they have
left the memory of many beautiful and stimulating hours, and I hope indeed that
a lucky star will perhaps once more bring us close to each other for a longer
period. What I miss most here in Oxford
is stimulating intercourse in literary and scientific circles. That is entirely
wanting, especially in my special branch of study. Altogether the Englishman
seems to me to have no interest for the “ Becoming “ or “ Growing” ; it is all
to be tangible and ready made. All dialectic is wanting in the true sense of
the word. However, there are deep shadows every- where, and I do not want to
forget the bright sides of English life, and I am afraid that I should find it
somewhat difficult to get accustomed again to the rather narrow German
trousers. As matters stand now, I feel bound to stay in England as long
as my father-in-law is alive ; what comes after we will leave to that guidance
which so far has led me so beautifully. A house on the Rhine and a
Professorship at Bonn
would be great attractions later on. Berlin
would never tempt me ;

it requires too many sacrifices
to the Non-L . Here in Oxford,

I must say, everything is done to
make up for what has been done

amiss. I have been relieved from
Modern Literature, and they are

thinking now of founding for me a
Professorship of Comparative

Philology, also of raising my
salary if possible, and so I hope to get

again more time for my own work.
I feel very well, thank God, this

winter, and I hope to get on
famously with my labours for the Veda^

Max Mijiler found that the
change to ‘ Parks End ‘ gave him more rest and leisure for uninterrupted work.
In High Street he had been, as it were, in the gangway, and was liable to
constant interruptions. Visitors to Oxford,
with half an hour to spare, would drop in unexpectedly, more especially
foreigners and Americans, with or without introductions. The distance across the Parks to his house
was a barrier to such unexpected invasions, and, though he had more room in his
new home to welcome and entertain his friends, his daily life was quieter and
more regular.

Among Max Muller’s papers there
was found a small

memorandum, ‘ Our first
luncheon party at “ Parks End,”

1867] Mr. Gladstone 343

December, 1867/ with the names
of Mr. Jowett, Bob Lowe, Huxley, H. Graham, Rev. W. Rogers.

To THE Right Hon. W, E. Gladstone (who was anxious to discuss the law of
copyright with Max Miiller and Dean Liddell).

Parks End, December 30.

‘Dear Mr. G., — I shall be at
home to-morrow at 2 p.m., and delighted to hear any news about the Greeks and
their schoolmasters, the Phoenicians. If you arrive by the 1.57 up-train, your
best plan would be to take a fly at the station, and tell the driver to drive
to the house that formerly belonged to Mr. Goldwin Smith. That is the house I
now live in, at least one-half of it, for the new half which I have added is
not yet habitable. I shall ask the Dean to come to luncheon a little after two
to meet you. Dr. Scott is not in Oxford,
so far as I know. Yours sincerely.’

Mr. Gladstone’s signature heads
the long list of distinguished guests that Max MUller had the honour of
welcoming to his house during the next thirty years.

CHAPTER XVI

1868-1869

Death of sister. Visit of
mother. Letter to Duke of Argyll. LL.D. at Cambridge. Professorship of Comparative
Philology. Visits to Frog- more, Fulham, and Gloucester. Isle of
Wight. Tennyson. Illness of children. Member of French Institute.
Translations frojn the Vedic Hymns, Vol. I. Soden. Kiel. Denmark.

A FEW days after Mr.
Gladstone’s visit Max Miiller wrote to him as follows : —

To THE Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone.

Parks End, January 5.

‘ ... I do not think that many
fresh deities were introduced by the Phoenicians into Greece. The
influence they exercised on the Greeks was more like that which the Greek
colonists exercised on the Italians.
Jupiter was not Zeus, nor Juno Hera, nor Saturnus Kronos. There was a
conviction among the Greeks and the Italians that their gods must be the same,
and hence any point of similarity was caught at in order to identify different
deities. Something of the same kind seems to have taken place when the
Phoenicians taught the Greeks their ABC. But while the names of the letters in
Greek are simply Phoenician, Alpha, Beta, &c., I do not know of any names
of Greek deities that demand a Phoenician etymology. It is true there is no
satisfactory etymology of Poseidon, but there are hundreds, nay thousands, of
words in Greek, as in English, which have no satis- factory etymology, but
which no one would think of deriving from Semitic sources. , . . The subject is
a very important one, and I expect will excite some interest. . . .’

Early in February Max Miiller, who had suffered so much
the previous year at the loss of his niece, was called on to bear a much
heavier sorrow in the death of his only sister. She was ill but a day or two,
and the first intimation of any anxiety was the telegram with the news of her
death. It was

i868] Death of Sister 345

a terrible shock, and Max
Muller was quite prostrated by the blow, which seemed all the harder to bear,
as his wife had to leave him a day or two later, owing to the alarming illness
of her mother-aunt and two of her sister’s children.

To HIS IMOTHER.

Trajislation. Parks End,
February i6.

Poor
mother, who would have thought that you must yet bear such a loss, after all
the sorrow which God has sent you in your life ? And yet it was His will, and
He will send the strength to bear it. He has taught us that death is not so
terrible as it appears to most men — it is but a separation for a few short
days, and then, too, eternity awaits us.
For all the sorrow, I can only think, it is well with her ; she is
spared much, many a heavy burden is taken from her. She had a happy youth, and
in spite of many sorrows, in all that makes the true happi- ness of life, hers
was a happy marriage. The children to whom her heart clung are gone before her,
and I think she was glad to follow. I
have been reading such beautiful hymns of Paul Gerhardt’s on Death and Life —
you will know them — but in the grief and sorrow God has sent us, one really
feels how true, how deep, how beautiful they are. Yet life goes on, and its
duties must be carried out. To-morrow I must begin my lectures; I could not do
so this week. Try to trust in God, throw your grief on Him ; He will help you
to bear it. My only thought is how I can
get you here as soon as possible.
Perhaps you can find some one to travel with you, and I will meet you at
Dover, My doctor still says I must not venture on the sea passage. I feel well,
and cannot believe the trouble

அன்பு தளபதி · அன்பு தளபதி Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:57 pm

·
in my throat is of any consequence. Bring your
maid with you, shut up your rooms, do everything you can to come soon.’

To THE Same.

Translation.

‘ You must come to me and spend
the last years of your life with me. You will find here all those who in life
are the nearest to you.

Dear Auguste knew, as she closed
her eyes, that you would not be

left alone in the world. But what
will poor Krug do ? It goes to my

heart when I think of him and all
he has suffered this last year. How

different life is to what one
thought it when young, how all around

us falls together till we
ourselves fall together. How meaningless and

vain everything seems on earth,
and how closely the reality of the life

beyond approaches us. Many days
were beautiful here, but the

greater the happiness the more
bitter the thought that it all passes

away, that nothing remains of
earthly happiness but a grateful heart

346 Visit from his Mother [ch.
xvi

and faith in God, who knows
best what is best for us. May God strengthen and keep you. Even with my wife
and children life seems so empty to me, and I keep saying, “ My dear Auguste !
“ How delightful it was being together last summer. Oh, God, who could have
foreseen this ! Write to me as soon as you can, my poor mother. I wish I had you here.’

To HIS Wife.

Parks End, February 24.

‘ I had a sad, very sad letter
from my mother. My thoughts are always with her, and I can hardly bring myself
to believe that we have really lost our dear good Auguste. She was my oldest
friend and companion, and everything in my early life was connected with her.

Now that she is gone, all those
pleasant recollections on which one

dwells, one hardly knows when,
but yet which constantly pass through

one’s mind, are altogether
changed, all life and reality taken out of

them ; one’s own life brought
more clearly before one’s mind, as what

it really is, a short stay in a
foreign land. And there is still so much

left us, so much to be happy and
thankful for ; and yet here, too, the

thought always rushes across
one’s brightest hours, it cannot last — it

is only for a few years — and
then it must be given up. Let us work

as long as it is day, let us try
to do our duty, and be very thankful for

God’s blessings which have been
showered upon us so richly ; but let

us learn also always to look
beyond and learn to be ready to give up

everything, as my poor mother has
had to give up almost everything

that makes life happy, and yet
she can say, “ Thy will be done.” ‘

To THE Same.

March 31.

‘ It is true that I have plenty
of happiness, but great happiness makes one think so often that it cannot last,
and that one will have some day to give up all to which one’s heart clings so.
A few years sooner or later, but the time will come, and come quicker than one
expects. Therefore I believe it is right to accustom oneself to the thought
that we can none of us escape death, and that all our happi- ness here is only
lent us. But at the same time we can thankfully enjoy all that God gives us,
and few have more reason to say this than I.’

As soon as she felt able to
travel, his mother came over to her son and stayed through the summer, but
preferred return- ing for the winter to her own rooms in Chemnitz.

The following is one of the
first letters of a correspondence

i868] Date of Human Language
347

with the Duke of Argyll which
continued to within a short time of the Duke’s death : —

To THE Duke of Argyll.

Oxford, February 24.

‘ . . . I only wish I could
send a more satisfactory answer, but, as far as I can judge, every attempt at
translating the periods of natural growth or structure into the language of
definite solar chronology has proved a failure. The history of language opens a
vista which makes one feel almost giddy if one tries to see the end of it, but
the measur- ing rod of the chronologist seems to me entirely out of place.
Those who have eyes to see will see the immeasurable distance between the first
historical appearance of language and the real beginnings of human speech :
those who cannot see will oscillate between the wildly large figures of the
Buddhists or the wildly small figures of the Rabbis, but they will never lay
hold of what by its very nature is indefinite.

‘ The earliest historical
appearance of human language takes place in Egypt. Whatever the date of the
earliest hieroglyphic inscription may be, that is the earliest date of Egyptian
language. I am not satisfied as yet as to the soundness of Egyptian historical
chronology. The Semitic languages make
their first historical appearance in the cuneiform inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar,
or, it may be, of some more ancient Babylonian and Assyrian monarchs. In real
literature there is nothing Semitic more ancient than the earhest portions of
the Old Testament.

‘ Of Aryan language the first
literary relic is the Veda. With the evidence now before us, and after a
careful consideration of all objec- tions, one may honestly say that the Hymns
of the Veda could not be more modern than 1200 b. c. I believe they are older,
and my belief is chiefly founded on the nature of the Vedic Sanskrit as
compared with the Sanskrit of the laws of Manu, the Mahdbhdraia, &c. I
shall just quote one instance. According to all Sanskrit grammars, that
language, so rich in other forms, is without any trace of a conjunctive mood.
And this is perfectly true if we take into account the ordinary Sanskrit only.
But the Veda is full of conjunctives, and they are the same conjunctives as
those we find in Greek. Greek has a medial form of most verbs, so has Sanskrit.
Greek has a first aorist in the medium, so has Sanskrit. That first aorist in
Greek is a compound form, (Tv\j/dfiT]v, and is formed by an auxiliary verb that
yields (ra-firjv, just as I loved is formed by an auxiliary verb, viz. by did.
The Sanskrit aorist is formed by the same auxiliary verb, so that f/SfiK-a-a-To
is represented by Sanskrit ajdik-sa-ta. The conjunctive of the first aorist in
Greek takes the personal terminations of the present, and .

348 The Augment [ch. xvi

loses the augment. The same in
Sanskrit, at least in the Vedic Sanskrit, where corresponding to deU-crrj-Tai
we should find dik-sa-ie.

‘ If we take this one form, we
might call it in one sense almost a work of art, though it is only a product of
that art which may be called the art of nature, and which preserves amongst an
infinity of possible forms those only that are really good, really adapted for
the work they have to do. These conjunctives of the medial aorist exist in
Homer and in the Veda. They must have existed before Greek was Greek and
Sanskrit was Sanskrit, for they are formed out of materials which exist neither
in Greek nor in Sanskrit. In the same manner mais and mai must have been formed
before Italian was Italian or French French, for neither of these dialects have
the materials out of which mat or mais could have been formed. But how little
should we gain if we argued as some geologists do ! It has taken so many
centuries before the Latin magis dwindled down to mai and mais, therefore it
cannot have taken less time to change the original type of deLK-o-Tj-Tai and dik-sa-te
into these two forms. It is far better to look at these forms and find out how
much even their typical ancestor presupposed, how much wear and tear was
necessary before such a compound could become possible as we see fixed in that
grammatical system which preceded Sanskrit and Greek. In that compound we have
at least four elements. We have the augment, and no language, not even the most
ancient, has as yet betrayed the secret as to the material out of which the
augment was formed. Secondly, we have
the personal termination rai or te, clearly a pronoun of the third person, but
diff”erent from the pronouns of the third person such as we find them in
Sanskrit or Greek. Thirdly, an auxiliary verb ^ra, the Sanskrit as, to be, in
as-mt, ia-fii, &c., which loses its initial vowel as it does in Latin sum
for es-iim. This as meant originally to breathe (in Sanskrit as-u, ‘ breath ‘),
and before it dwindled down to what we call an auxiliary verb, a mere verbal
copula, again how many centuries must have passed } Can we measure them by the
distance that divides the Latin status from stato and ete ? I doubt it, yet we
can see deeper and deeper into the shaft from which the ore of human speech is
brought, and discover level after level that must have been left behind before
the pure metal, and before such amalgamates could have been produced as those
which we see in such a conjunctive as dik-sa-te. After that amalgamate is
formed, and after it has been coined into a definite grammatical token, begins
the phonetic decay, the influence, it may be, of diet, climate, and all the
rest ; and only after all this can we account for the fact that in the Homeric
poems we find a form like deiK-arj-rai, and in the Hymns of the Veda a form
like dik-sa-ie.

i868] LL.D. Cambridge 349

‘ In all these considerations
the question how a root dik came to mean “ to show “ and nothing else has not
been touched upon, though that again can only have been the result of a sifting
process of which we can hardly form an adequate idea. If there was proof that
it had taken 10,000 years to form out of given radical elements that wonder-
ful system of grammar which was quite finished before Sanskrit became Sanskrit
and Greek Greek, I should feel no surprise. Before that date we should still
have the formation of roots. What we commonly call the history of language is
from the very beginning nothing but a history of decay — the period of youth
and growth is past before we know of any language.’

In the month of January, Max
Miiller had received an invitation from Cambridge
to deliver the Rede Lecture in the course of the summer. The Vice-Chancellor,in
transmitting the invitation, observed that these lectures were generally scien-
tific rather than literary, but that Mr. Ruskin had been the lecturer of the
previous year, adding, ‘ Your subject, however, is a science, whatever the
Royal or any other Institution may say to the contrary.’ Max Miiller accepted
the invitation, and in writing again in April to fix the day, the Vice-Chan-
cellor told him that the University wished to offer him the degree of LL.D.
Accordingly, the last week in May, Max Miiller and his wife visited Cambridge,
where they were the guests of Dr. Thompson, Master of Trinity. Commodore Maury,
the American hydrographer, and Dr. W. Wright, the Arabic scholar, received the
degree of LL.D. the same day. The Public
Orator, Dr. G. W. Clark, thus presented Max Miiller :—

‘ Sequitur deinde Max Miiller,
Taylorianus apud Oxonienses Pro- fessor, qui, cum iuvenis admodum, consiliis et
auspicio celeberrimi viri Christiani de Bunsen, se in Britanniam transtulisset,
banc sibi sedem et novam patriam elegit, atque ita profecit ut si loquentem
audiveris, non dubites in Anglia natum, si magnitudinem operum respexeris,
Germanum esse cognoscas.

‘ Ad id vero potissimum navavit
operam, ut Philologiam doceret, non cam quae circa verborum argutias
commoretur, sed illam quae, Unguis Teutonicis, Graeca, Latina, Sanscritica,
inter se collatis, com- munem omnium originem exquirat, incunabula gentium
recludat, historiam quibusvis annalibus antiquiorem certioremque evolvat.

‘ Quid multa ? eras, ipso
audito, quanta facundia difficillimas res expedire possit, omnes iudicaturi
estis.’

350 Rede Lecture [ch. xvi

Translation.

‘ I would next speak of Max
Miiller, the Taylorian Professor in Oxford, who having while still a youth,
with the advice and under the auspices of that illustrious man Christian von
Bunsen, come over to Britain, has chosen this land for a new home and country,
and has made such progress that, having heard him speak, you think he must have
been born in England, whereas, if you consider the importance and quantity of
his works, you are quite sure that he must be a German. The work he has devoted
himself to especially has been the work of teaching Philology, not that branch
of it which is con- cerned with the niceties and subtleties of words, but that
which, by the comparison of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and German languages,
investigates their common origin, discovers the cradle of the nations, and
unfolds a history more ancient and more certain than that contained in any
written annals. What need of further words !
To-morrow, when you have heard him speak, you will all be able to judge
with what eloquence he can make the most difficult subjects clear and plain.’

The next day Max Miiller
delivered the Rede Lecture to a very large audience. It will be found in Vol.
IV of Chips, first edition. In the middle of the lecture, Commodore Maury, who
sat behind the lecturer’s wife, leant over and said in a loud whisper, ‘ I must
tell you, it’s just elegant ! ‘

During the winter months a
movement had been going on in Oxford
for the foundation of a Chair of Comparative Philology, which was carried out
in the May Term, with the proviso in the statute of foundation that Max Miiller
was to be the first Professor, if he would accept the post. He was deeply
gratified by this mark of esteem from the resident members of the University,
and it relieved him of the duties of the Chair of Modern Languages, added to
his salary, and enabled him to devote all his time and energies to his own line
of studies. His inaugural lecture was delivered in the October Term. ‘
Professor Max Miiller,’ says a contemporary notice, ‘ enjoys the high honour —
an honour the more signal as he is a foreigner — of occupying the first
Professorship ever founded at Oxford by the University Corporation itself; all
previous Professorships having been established either by royal benefactions or
private announcements.’

Early in June Max Miiller paid his
first visit to their Royal

1868] First Visit to Frogmore
351

Highnesses Prince and Princess
Christian, then living at Frogmore. These visits were always a rest and
refreshment to him, a delightful contrast to his quiet life of hard work, and
the gracious friendly feeling always shown to him and his called forth his
lively gratitude to the last.

To HIS Wife.

Frogmore House, Jime i.

‘ I came here in good time last
night, though after a long and hot journey. When I arrived at Frogmore the
Prince and Princess were just coming back from a walk, and they asked me at
once to take a walk with them in the garden, which just now is in great
beauty. We passed the Mausoleum, and
when we came back sat down and had a long and animated discussion, all in
German, though the Prince speaks English very well. We then went in to get
ready for dinner, and dined at half-past eight : no one present but the Prince,
the Princess, Lady Susan Melville, and myself. One of the servants was in
Scotch attire, but no bagpipes \ Nothing could be pleasanter. The Princess kindly inquired after you and
the children, and is of course wrapped up in her own boy’^, whom I have not yet
seen. After dinner, Lady Susan left, and
we went up a small staircase to the smoking-room, the Princess sitting down in
an armchair and the Prince asking me to smoke. This, however, I could not bring
myself to do till the Princess had left. I sat up till nearly twelve with the
Prince. He is a true Schleswig-Holsteiner, very quiet but very determined, and
very frank. He has fine blue eyes, and is a decidedly handsome man. His
photographs do not do him justice.’

To HIS Children.

Frogmore, y«7/^ 2.

‘ My dear little Girls, — I
have just come back from a beautiful drive through Windsor Forest. We drove in
an open carriage —

Prince and Princess Christian,
Lady Susan Melville, and your daddy.

There was a long avenue of
rhododendrons all in flower, and we

drove through it, and you never
saw so many beautiful flowers

together. And then the Prince
took me to see the house where all

the dogs live that belong to the
Queen. It was like the Zoological

Gardens, but all the animals were
diff”erent kinds of dogs — greyhounds

and deerhounds, like old Oscar,
and Teckels, like those mama had at

■^ Bagpipes were a horror to
Max Miiller.

·
Prince Christian Victor, who died the day after
Max Miiller.

352 Life of Bimsen [ch. xvi

Ray Lodge ; and some very
scarce but valuable dogs, called “mops “ in German : there are only three of
them left in England, and the Queen takes great care of them. Prince Christian
is a German prince, and he married Princess Helena, a daughter of the Queen ;
and they are very happy together, just like mama and papa, only they are very
rich and have a beautiful house and garden ; and they have one little boy, a
little older than our boykin, and he is a very handsome little fellow, ■with
large blue eyes and rosy cheeks.’

To Professor Lepsius.

Translation. Parks ‘E’U’d, June
i8.

‘My honoured Friend, — . . .
Bunsen’s Life has gone straight to my heart, as it has with you. Oh, if we
could even in this life forget all that is unessential, all that makes it so
hard for us to recognize true greatness and goodness in the character of those
with whom this life brings us into contact for a little while ! How much we
lose by making little things so important, and how rarely do we think highly
enough of what is essential and lasting ! Bunsen surely was one of the greatest
spirits of our times ! Where are the greater ones ? To have known him, belongs to those things
which have bestowed upon my life the greatest value and the greatest charm. I should
much like to hear from you where something reliable and trustworthy may be
found with regard to Egyptian mythology. Is Bunsen’s opinion about a Phoenician
origin well founded ? Are not there any real Egyptian gods ? And can their
origin and their development be traced ? . . . Some time ago I wrote for the
Times a notice of Bunsen’s Life, but until Parliament rises there is not much
hope of its appearing ; it has been clipped a good deal, and I think a little
later on I shall pubUsh it unmutilated.’

To M. Renan.

Parks End, y««^ 26.

‘ My dear Friend, — I can truly
feel for you in the loss which you have suffered ; it will sooner or later come
to all of us. But life is different after we have lost our father and mother. I
have my mother staying with me, and should enjoy her presence here very much if
it were not for the sad cause which brought her here — the death of my only
sister, with whom she used to live in Germany.

With every one of these losses
life seems to become more unreal,

there is less and less to live
for, to care for ; and if one still cares

for one’s work, it is because it
makes one forget life as it is, and life

as we thought it was or might be.
... I hear your new work is nearly

i868] Visit to Fulham 353

finished and I am curious to
see what you think of St. Paul.
I hope you have seen Jowett’s book on the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans
; it is very good, original, and honest. I am able at last to work again, and I
hope my health is quite re-established. I am printing my first translation of
the Rig-veda ; I sent you a specimen the other day, and hope to send you the
first volume by September. I am also
reprinting my Chips, which have just been preached against in Westminster
Abbey.’

To THE Same.

Parks End, 1868.

‘ You speak in far too
laudatory terms of my own work, and I am afraid it will only raise the bile of
certain people. I was amused by what you said about the Concessions aux Negres.
You are right to a certain extent, but the same applies to all countries. If you
want to carry people along with you, you must begin where you find them,
otherwise you run on like an engine without any carriages attached to it. The
best proof that I do not concede too much is that the science of religion has
been preached against in West- minster Abbey by a real bishop. However, they do
not mean to burn me yet, and I hope I shall still convince the Bishop that we
heretical Germans are far better Christians than the most orthodox of bishops.
I am printing my translation of the Veda. I had called it in my preface a
Traduction raisonn^e, if one may use such an expression, and I am glad to find
you use that very word in your Rapports. I have also finished my edition of the
Prdtisdkhya, in which I was forestalled by Regnier. His edition is really
excellent, and I cannot sufficiently regret that he should have been taken away
from Sanskrit. The school
of Burnouf will become
extinct with him. After carefully
examining every line of his Prdtisdkhya while printing my own, I am bound to
say there is not another Sanskrit scholar living who would have done his work
as well as Regnier, It is bad enough that the throne should be usurped, but why
Chairs of Sanskrit or Hebrew.? However, I am afraid I am talking treason, and
with Ewald’s^ example before me I ought to be careful.’

Another pleasant visit paid
this year was to the Bishop of London and Mrs. Tait, at Fulham, on one
afternoon of which Max Mliller and his wife were taken to the Volunteer Camp at
Wimbledon, and watched the shooting for the
Queen’s Prize. Since the Ray Lodge days he had ceased himself to be an active
Volunteer.

^ He had refused in 1867 to
take the oath of allegiance to Prussia and was pensioned off.

I A a

354 Visit to Gloucester [ch.
xvi

Soon after this Max Mliller
made a short visit to Gloucester and its neighbourhood, guided by his friend
Mr. Bellows. Of this visit Mr. Bellows
writes: —

‘When at your house in 1868 I
found Professor Max Miiller had some thought of visiting the Phillips Library
at Cheltenham to examine the Oriental MSS. it contained, and I asked him to
come to Gloucester for a few days, when he could do this, besides joining one
of our field excursions of the Cotteswold Club to Berkeley Castle, &c. : a
little programme that was soon after carried out. I recollect that to impress
him the more favourably with our Gloucestershire scenery I told him of an old
friend of ours, James Atkins, a well- known botanist, having come to Painswick
several years before to spend a fortnight, and that he was so pleased with the
Cotswold Hills that he had stayed there ever since.

‘ Professor Max Miiller smiled,
and rejoined, “ Do you know that that was what happened to me, here at Oxford !
/ came here to spend a fortnight, and I have been here ever since ! “

‘ I first ventured to write to
Professor Max Miiller on some philological matter — I am not sure what, but I
think something about the old Cornish language, about which I wanted to beg his
help. When I came to know him personally I was irresistibly attracted by the
power of sympathy that was his most striking characteristic, as I am sure
others will admit that it was, and the secret of the charm that made him a
leader of men. This power of sympathy he possessed in a larger degree than any
other person I have ever met, except Count Tolstoi : for greatly as they
differed in their other gifts, as well as in their entire environments, Max
Miiller and Tolstoi were alike in this.

·
Even the high attainments Professor Max Miiller
unquestionably possessed did not so affect those with whom he came in contact
as did this force of sympathy, to which he owed his broad-mindedness, and his
insight into the essence of religion itself: I will not say of the religions of
the East merely, but the general relation of the soul of man to the truth, in
which all these are included. I need only refer to his preface to Chips from a
German Workshop as a noble example of his sympathy for men of widely differing
modes of thought. It reads like an expansion of the nineteenth psalm, where the
universality of the sunlight and sunheat in the outward creation is shown as
the correlative to the uncreated light and power that is unlimited in its
operation, by time or space. And now he is gone, and no one will ever again
take his place. This very thought is assurance, for it means that he fills a
place in another state of existence for which he alone was created.’

i868] Stay at Bonchiirch 355

One of the visits paid under
Mr. Bellows’ guidance was to Mr. Bryan Hodgson, who, as Resident at Nepal, had
acquired an extensive acquaintance with the tribes and languages of the
Himalayan slopes. Mr. Hodgson lived to a great age, and died in 1895. It is
from his researches that our know- ledge of Northern Buddhism is chiefly
derived. He formed a valuable collection of above 300 MSS., a few of which he
gave to the Bodleian.

To PvIr. Bryan Hodgson.

Parks End, August 25, 1868.

·
My dear Hodgson, — What would I give for your
quiet Vihar at Alderley — your otium cum digniiate — doing exactly as you like,
read- ing or writing what you like, without being driven to publish and
republish, without lectures, without printer’s devils, &c. &c. I can
assure you I am sometimes nearly beside myself with all I have to attend to ;
to say nothing of mere Grihastha matters, which are sometimes troublesome too.
However, it cannot be helped, and I only mention it as my excuse for not having
written to you before. I have looked at your papers and the drawing, and I
think it would be a great pity if those carefully executed sketches were not published.
Then as to my lecture (“ Stratification of Language “) I cannot think that we
differ so much. I have frequently availed myself of lexicographic evidence. But
grammatical evidences have, as you know, a different value, and for the object
I had in view in my lecture the grammatical structure of language was of the
greatest importance.’

In the autumn a new edition of
both volumes of the Lcchires on Language was called for. It was the fifth
edition of Vol. I, the second of Vol. II. The new edition of two volumes was of
3,000 copies. At the same time a large second edition of Chips, Vols. I and II,
was published, and Max Miiller found that his writings in this one year had
brought in above ;^i, 200.

Except the short visits
mentioned, the summer had been

spent in work at Oxford, and as
soon as his mother returned

to Germany, he took his wife and
children to Bonchurch, and

gave himself up to rest and
outdoor life for a fortnight. Long

walks were taken with his wife in
all directions, and all parts

of the beautiful island were
explored. One delightful day was

given to Carisbrooke, where the
rector, Mr. James, an early

Oxford friend, received the Max
Miillers, showing them the

A a 2

356 Vt’stt to Tennyson [ch. xvi

Castle and the fine Roman
villa, which had not been long excavated.

Another expedition, in which
their eldest child shared, was to Freshwater, where a night was spent with Mr.
and Mrs. Tennyson. The poet was in
rather a silent mood till after the ladies withdrew, when, over their pipes, he
read out some of his latest poems to Max Miiller, his rich deep voice sound-
ing through the house till far into the small hours.

To HIS Mother (for her
birthday).

Translation. Bonchurch, October
9.

‘ Each birthday, even the
happiest, has its sad side. It is a station nearer death ; but whilst in youth
and the full enjoyment of life this thought seems terrible, it loses much of
its terror as one gets older, for the parting from the few whom we leave behind
is made up for by the hope of rejoining the many who are gone before us. So,
though this birthday must be very sad to you, you must accustom yourself more
and more to the thought that here is not our abiding city, that all that we
call ours here is only lent, not given us, and that if the sorrow for those we
have lost remains the same, we must yet acknow- ledge with gratitude to God the
great blessing of having enjoyed so many years with those whom He gave us as
parents, or children, or friends. One forgets so easily the happy years we have
had with those who were the nearest to us. Even these years of happiness,
however short they may have been, were only given us, we had not deserved them.
I know well there is no comfort for this pain of part- ing ; the wound always
remains, but one learns to bear the pain, and learns to thank God for what He
gave, for the beautiful memories of the past, and the yet more beautiful hope
for the future. If a man has lent us anything for several years, and at last
takes it back, he expects gratitude, not anger, and if God has more patience
with our weakness than men have, yet murmurs and complaints for the life which
He measured out to us as is best for us, are not what He expected from us. A.
spirit of resignation to God’s will is the only comfort, the only relief under
the trials God lays upon us, and with such a spirit the heaviest as well as the
lightest trials of life are not only bearable, but useful, and gratitude to God
and peace in life and in death remain untroubled. May this quiet and peaceful
resignation beautify and brighten the evening of your life, that is the one
wish I have for your sixty-eighth birthday. . . . We were yesterday at Fresh-
water, where Tennyson has his house, and he invited us (G. and Ada) to stay
with him. It was very interesting.’

i868] Education in India 357

The following letter was
written to the Duke of Argyll soon after his appointment as Secretary of State
for India
: —

To THE Duke of Argyll.

Oxford, December 16.

·
... As for more than twenty years my principal
work has been devoted to the ancient literature of India, I cannot but feel a deep and
real sympathy for all that concerns the higher interests of the people of that
country. Though I have never been in India, I have many friends there, both
among the civilians and among the natives, and I believe I am not mistaken in
supposing that the publication in England of the ancient sacred writings of the
Brahmans, which had never been published in India, and other contributions from
different European scholars towards a better knowledge of the ancient
literature and religion of India, have not been without some effect on the
intellectual and religious movement that is going on among the more thoughtful
members of Indian society. I have sometimes regretted that I am not an
Englishman, and able to help more actively in the great work of educating and
improving the natives. But I do rejoice that this great task of governing and
benefiting India should have fallen to one who knows the greatness of that task
and all its oppor- tunities and responsibilities, who thinks not only of its
political and financial bearings, but has a heart to feel for the moral welfare
of those millions of human beings that are, more or less directly, committed to
his charge.

‘India
has been conquered once, but India
must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by
education. Much has been done for
education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would
hardly be enough.

‘ The results of the
educational work carried on during the last twenty years are palpable
everywhere. They are good and bad, as was to be expected. It is easy to find
fault with what is called Young Bengal, the product of English ideas grafted on
the nadve mind.

But Young Bengal, with all its
faults, is full of promise. Its bad

features are apparent everywhere,
its good qualities are naturally

hidden from the eyes of careless
observers. . . . India
can never be

anglicized, but it can be
reinvigorated. By encouraging a study of

their own ancient literature, as
part of their education, a national

feeling of pride and self-respect
will be reawakened among those

who influence the large masses of
the people. A new national litera-

ture may spring up, impregnated
with Western ideas, yet retaining its

native spirit and character. The
two things hang together. In order

to raise the character of the
vernaculars, a study of the ancient

m

358 Illness of Children [ch.
xvi

CLASSICAL LANGUAGE IS
ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY : FOR FROM IT THESE MODERN DIALECTS HAVE BRANCHED OFF, AND
FROM IT ALONE CAN THEY DRAW THEIR VITAL STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. A NEW NATIONAL
LITERATURE WILL BRING WITH IT A NEW NATIONAL LIFE AND NEW MORAL VIGOUR. AS TO
RELIGION, THAT WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF. THE MISSIONARIES HAVE DONE FAR MORE THAN
THEY THEMSELVES SEEM TO BE AWARE OF, NAY, MUCH OF THE WORK WHICH IS THEIRS THEY
WOULD PROBABLY DISCLAIM. THE CHRISTIANITY OF OUR NINETEENTH CENTURY WILL HARDLY
BE THE CHRISTIANITY OF INDIA.
BUT THE ANCIENT RELIGION OF INDIA
IS DOOMED — AND IF CHRISTIANITY DOES NOT STEP IN, WHOSE FAULT WILL IT BE ? ‘

The following letter alludes to
a little indulgence Max Muller allowed himself more than once. The forests
round Dessau
are famous for their wild boar, and through his cousin^ Baroness Stolzenberg,
he was able occasionally to secure one from the ducal forester. The arrival of
the first one entire made a sensation at the Oxford Railway Station, and a mes-
sage was sent up that a dead ‘ Bear ‘ had arrived there for Professor Max
MUller. The dinner given to eat the haunch was a great success, and one head of
a house was observed to enjoy three helpings.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. Parks End,
December 20.

·
Yesterday we had a large dinner-party, the
Vice-Chancellor, &c., and had the haunch of wild boar, which was excellent.
We had already lived a week on the boar, which was a very good one, and arrived
in good condition. A young man in London
who comes here sometimes to work for me brought it in its skin. The skin is
being dressed as a mat, the head we have sent to my father-in-law, and the rest
we are slowly eating up. It has amused me having it, and brought back old
days.’

The first months of 1869
brought great anxiety to Max Miiller and his wife. Early in January they went
with their two eldest girls to stay with a cousin at Taplow, where, after a few
days, their eldest child sickened with scarlet fever.

The alarm was very great, as
there was a large party of young cousins living in the house, and the whole
family moved at once, the mother and her sick child alone remaining isolated on
the top floor of a huge country house. Max Miiller, who had already returned to
Oxford, had the
younger children .

1869] Member of French
Institute 359

with
him, and could not therefore go to his wife and sick child for fear of
infection. It was a very severe case, and the eldest child was only slowly
recovering when the second little girl developed the terrible illness, and was
brought back to be nursed with her sister. Max Miiller suffered acutely from
the anxiety, which lasted nearly two months, greatly aggravated too by the
feeling that they had driven the whole family from their home. Mercifully the
infection did not spread. The second child lay for more than a fortnight at
death’s door. One night, when her case
seemed hopeless, the father

அன்பு தளபதி · அன்பு தளபதி Fri Mar 11, 2011 1:59 pm

came to see her, but the
lengthy process of disinfection made it impossible for him to repeat the visit,
as his lectures had begun. His daily letters were the one support of his wife.

‘ How little one thinks that these heavy trials and
afBictions may come upon us any day. One lives on as if life were to last for
ever, and as if we should never part with those who are most dear to us. Life
would be intolerable were it otherwise, but how little one is prepared for what
life really is.’

January 24.

‘ I am longing to see you and
our dear litde Ada.
I am afraid you do not tell me all, and I cannot tell you how I feel for your
solitude in all this fearful anxiety. There is but one help and one comfort in
these trials, that is to know by whom they are sent. If one knows that nothing
can happen to us without Him, one does not feel quite helpless even under the
greatest terrors of this life. I tremble always when I open your letters.’

One ray of sunshine came to
brighten this time of gloom, in Max Miiller’s election as a Foreign Member of
the French Institute, the youngest man ever elected. The choice lay between him
and Theodor Mommsen, who was some years his senior. In writing to congratulate
him, Max Miiller’s child- like friend, Stanislas Julien, the great Sinologue,
says: ‘et maintenant vous pouvez porter I’habit brode ‘ — the beautiful dress
invented for the members of the Institute by Richelieu, and which Max Miiller,
before he was made a Privy Councillor, always wore at Court by the Queen’s
permission.

To Max JMUller.

Paris, i^” viars.

‘ J’ai ^t^ heureux, Monsieur,
de concourir a votre nomination

comme associ^ Stranger de
I’lnstitut. Prdcisement I’^t^ dernier j’avais

360 Letter from Guizot [ch. xvi

lu vos Lectures k la British
Insiihition sur la science et la formation du langage, et j’avais dtd
extr6mement frappd de I’^l^vation, de la profondeur et de I’abondance des iddes
que vous y avez expos^es. Je ne suis pas
un juge competent de vos travaux sur les V/das, mais je me f^licite d’avoir un
peu contribu^ a vous en fournir les materiaux, et je vous remercie d’en avoir
gardd le souvenir, Mon seul regret est de ne vous avoir pas acquis vous-meme a
la France.
C’est une fortune que j’envie un peu a I’Angleterre,. tout en lui en faisant mon
compliment. Recevez, Monsieur et savant confrere, I’assurance de ma
consideration la plus distingu^e. ‘ Guizot.’

Traftslation.

‘I was glad, Monsieur, to
contribute to your nomination as a Foreign Member of the Institute. It was only
last year that I read your Lectures at the British Institution on the “ Science
and Formation of Language,” and I was very much struck with the elevation, the
depth, and the richness of the ideas which you there brought forward. I am not
a competent judge of your labours on the Rig-veda, but I con- gratulate myself
in having contributed a little in furnishing you with materials for it, and I
thank you for remembering this. IVIy one regret is, not to have secured you
yourself for France.
It is a piece of good fortune for which I envy, though at the same time I con-
gratulate, England.
Receive, Monsieur and learned confrere, the assurance of my highest esteem. ‘
Guizot.’

To HIS Wife.

February 14.

‘ One does not like to think of
anything, or feel happy about anything, till this illness of the children is
quite over ; yet you will see from the enclosed letters that I have felt very
happy to-day when I heard that I had been elected one of the eight Foreign
Members of the Academy. It has been my ambition, I might almost say my foolish
ambition through life, to be some day what I saw Humboldt was, when as a mere
boy I first called on him in Paris, a Foreign Member of the French Institute;
and now the thing has come to pass, and I do feel very happy about it. Still,
what is that till we know that our little Mary is out of danger, and that we
may look forward to a happy meeting ? ‘

March 15.

‘ I assure you when I think of
what might have been, I seem to have no room for any feeling but that of
unceasing thankfulness. “ Forget not all
His benefits.” One ought to keep up the recollection of these great blessings,
for daily life is so very apt to wash it away.’

1869] Dr. Kielhorn 361

Early in January Max Miiller
received a pressing invita- tion from Professor Huxley, who had just been made
President of the Ethnological Society, to lecture on the ethnological aspects
of Indian Philology.

To Professor Huxley.

Parks Y.v.t>, January 8,
1869.

‘ It is very difficult to say
no to such pleading as yours. But I have made a vow to undertake nothing new
till what I have now in hand is finished, and it would be dishonest not to keep
it. I am truly glad that you have taken the Ethnological Society in hand. I have not followed all the squabbles there
seem to have been, but I feel certain that something ought to be done to raise
the character of ethnological or anthropological research, and there is no one
who can do it as well as you. I shall willingly help you hereafter when I am a
little freer, but there are three books in the Press that must be finished
first — (i) the first volume of the translation of the Rig- veda, (2) the
Prdtisdkhya, the oldest work on phonetics (this is printed), and (3) the fifth
volume of the text of the Rig-veda, with the native commentaries. I hope this
will all be done before the year is out, but even then I have promised Longman
two more volumes of Chips.

‘ I should be so glad if you
would come to Oxford
from a Saturday to Monday and stay with us. Term begins towards the end of
January ; if you could let me know a week before, I could then make sure of
some friends who would be glad to meet you.’

Among the many young Germans
whom Max Miiller was able to assist to positions in India
few became more distin- guished, or have done better work for Sanskrit
scholarship, than Dr. Kielhorn, now Professor at Gottingen. The following is one of the many
letters that passed between them : —

To Dr. Kielhorn.

Translation. ‘Parks’E^d,
January 10.

‘ . . . I am delighted with
your photograph, you look so well, and the old Pundit at your side looks a
veritable Guru ^ in the true sense of the word, I am glad that the Government
is giving a grant for the purchase of MSS. I had already proposed this matter
when Lord Elgin was Governor, and advised the Government not to make the matter
too public, as that raises the price of MSS. at once. Well, a beginning is
made.

‘ I have finished the
Prdtisdkhya, and the translation is progressing.

·
Teacher.

362 Religion of the Hindus [ch.
xvi

I have sent you and Biihler my
second edition of Chips through the Government, also to Dr. Wilson.

‘ Kind regards to Biihler. I
have not heard from him for a very long time, but have just received his
Apastamba, which gives me much pleasure ; it is an old friend of mine. What do
you think of a Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum ? Could that be done in Bombay ? Bhao Dagi is sure to have much material. It
ought really to be begun soon.’

To THE Duke of Argyll.

Taplow Covkt, January 14, 1869.

·
It is certainly true that the religion of the
Hindus, as far as we can gather it from their sacred hymns in the Veda, is free
from every- thing that strikes us as degrading in the present state of religion
and morality in India.
But between the ancient religion of India and the religious worship of
the present generation there have been several falls and several rises.
Buddhism, in the sixth century before our era, was a reaction against the
corruptions that had crept into the ancient religion even at that early time.
Then Buddhism, starting with the highest aspirations, degenerated into
monasticism and hypocrisy, and a most rigorous form of the old Brahmanic
religion took possession of India,
and drove Buddhism out of every corner of the country. Since that time there
have been several religious reforms, though of a more local character, and this
makes it very difficult to generalize and treat the whole religious life of India
as one organic body of religious thought. Yet so much may be said with perfect
truth, that if the religion of India
could be brought back to that simple form which it exhibits in the Veda, a
great reform would be achieved. Something would be lost, for some of the later
metaphysical speculations on religion, and again the high and pure and almost
Christian morality of Buddha, are things not to be found in the Veda. But, as
far as the popular conceptions of the deity are concerned, the Vedic religion,
though childish and crude, is free from all that is so hideous in the later
Hindu Pantheon. ^

‘ With regard to the inevitable
decay of religion, a difference ought to be made between two classes of
religion, natiojial and personal. There
are ancient religions, like that of Greece, and that of India too, which grow
up like national languages, when it is impossible to speak of individual
influences, because all individual influence is determined by the silent and
almost unconscious approval or dis- approval of the community. In these
religions I think we can watch for a time a decided progress, a gradual
elimination of what is bad, i.e. what is not acceptable to the national
conscience.

1869] M. M!s Prdtisdkhya, etc.
363

·
But religions, like Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and
Christianity too, belong to a different class. They start with a high ideal
con- ceived by a representative man, representative either of a nation or of
the whole of humanity, and that high ideal is hardly ever realized ; it has to
adapt itself to larger circles and lower levels, and can only be kept from
utter degeneration by constant efforts at reform.’

To M. Michel Br6al.

Parks End, February 19.

‘ I knew you would be pleased
at the result of the last election, but I was glad all the same to receive your
congratulations, and to know that you approve of the choice of that
distinguished body, which no doubt before long will count you among its
members. To me it is the highest honour that could possibly be bestowed upon
me. I believe I may honestly say it has
been through life the only object of what you may call a foolish ambition. That
I should obtain it so soon I did not expect, and I am afraid my success will
secure me many di’psus, but I have long learned that no one does us so much
service as our dipsiis, nos a?nis les ennemis, and I do not think my head will
be quite turned, as I know too well that “ merit is the good opinion which our
friends have of us,” as Lord Palmerston used to say. I hope I shall have the
pleasure of seeing you and making the acquaintance of Madame Breal before this
year is over. As soon as three books of
mine which are now in the Press are finished, I hope to present them in person
to the Academy. The Prdtisdkhya is finished, the first volume of the
translation is printed as far as page 224, and there is a third little book
printing, which is to be a surprise. I hope when I and my wife come to Paris, we shall find you
in the full enjoyment of all the pleasures and treasures of a Grihastha. ]\Iany
thanks for your Ide’es laientes du Lajigage, which I read at once with the
greatest pleasure, as I do everything you write. You know how to prepare your
meats, and do not expect your readers to eat raw flesh. M. Brachet’s Granwiar
is out. Now that Parliament is sitting, there is little chance of getting a
review, but I shall see what I can do. M. Harris is hard at work translating my
Chips. There is an Italian translation coming out of my lecture on “
Stratification.” I need not say that the lecture is quite at your service, if
you think a French translation would interest people in France. Schleicher’s death is a
very great loss to us, more even than Bopp’s, who had finished his work.’

Max Miiller found that
incessant work was the only help

in these months of anxiety,
and, as is shown in the various

364 Comparative Mythology [ch.
xvi

letters, he had been far from
idle. The first volume of Trans- lations from the Vcdic Hymns came out in May.
His lectures this term were on * Sanskrit Grammar as a Foundation for
Philological Research.’ In the following letter to Sir George Cox, he upholds
Sanskrit and Comparative Philology as the necessary foundation for a study of
Comparative Mythology : —

Parks End, March 3, 1869.

‘ . . . I should like to see
you and talk the matter of Comparative Mythology over with you. I cannot help
feeling that you work at this subject under great difficulties, and I sometimes
doubt whether you ought to give your principal energies to that subject. I
speak to you quite openly, for I believe you would be offended if I did
not. The most minute criticism of
etymological coincidences seems to me the only safe foundation of Comparative
Mythology. When there is no etymological foundation I should not venture to
take a step, however clear the material coincidences of character,
circumstances, and the general dhiouement might be. I believe you have done
good service by pointing out the necessity of admitting a common origin, even
when the evidence of the common nomenclature is wanting, but I doubt whether
with those principles it is safe to enter upon the treatment of the whole
subject. The dangers are very great, and much harm may be done. And when you come
to fables or stories of modern date, the dangers become still greater. Here
there is an immense literature to master first, i. e. the historical and purely
historical evidence of the migration of fables. When the ground has so far been
cleared, there comes the labour of tracing back really old common Aryan stories
to their roots, whether mythical or proverbial.
If therefore you ask me, I tell you openly, do not make Comparative
Mythology the principal work of your life, unless you make up your mind first
to study Sanskrit and Comparative Philology. I believe you can do far more real
and important work in other fields of research, though I should be very sorry
if we were not from time to time to get hints and impetus from you on a subject
where you certainly have seen beyond the horizon of other scholars. I am just
printing a curious collection of Buddhist stories contained in Buddhaghosha’s
commentary on the Dhammapada, and therefore not later than about a.d. 400.’

Early in April he had all his
children safe under his roof

again, and it was soon evident
that any summer plans must

be made with reference to their
health. The doctor prescribed

a foreign bath, and it was
finally settled that after Com-

1869] Translation of Veda 365

memoration the whole family
should go to Soden in the Taunus, where Max Muller’s mother would join them.

Before leaving home Max Muller
heard from his friend Dr. John Muir, from Edinburgh, that he had received the
first volume of his Translations from the Ve die Hymns, ‘in which you show a
great deal of minute learning. But if you go into everything in the same
elaborate way in future, you will require to live to the age of Methuselah to
finish your task. I cannot but express
the wish that you had translated more and annotated less ; that you had given
what the world expected from you, a translation at once scholarlike and
elegant, and entering into the spirit of Vedic antiquity, exhibiting in short
the results of profound research without much display of the apparatus of learning.’
The same com- plaint was made by many other subscribers, and Max Muller soon
found that his plan of translation was far too elaborate. A second volume was published, but not till
many years later, as Vol. XLVT of the Sacred Books of the East, the volume
already published, of which Dr. Muir complains, being reprinted with many
additional Hymns as Vol. XXXII of that series, in place of another work of
which Max Muller was disappointed. Some
idea may be gained of the enormous labour bestowed on this volume of
translations from the long list of works on the Veda which Max Muller had
consulted, and to which he fully admits his indebtedness. The list fills six
pages octavo. Max Muller held that the first translators of the Veda should be
decipherers, ‘ bound to justify every word of the translation in exactly the
same way in which decipherers of hieroglyphic or cuneiform inscriptions justify
any step they take.’

In another letter Dr. John Muir
expresses the wish that more light should be thrown on Buddha, and trusts that
Max Muller intends to write more about him. This wish was fulfilled next year
by the translation from the Pali of Buddha’s Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue, the
book he alludes to in the letter to M. Breal as ‘ a surprise.’

To M. Regnier (former tutor to
the Comte de Paris, and a distinguished Sanskritist).

Parks End, Oxford, May 13, 1869.

‘ My dear Friend, — It is
really very provoking to know that you

/

366 Coquerel’s Apostles’ Creed
[ch. xvi

are in England, and
that it is impossible to effect a meeting. I have a lecture every day, and
during the Whitsuntide holidays we have friends staying with us, and even if I
could leave them for a day, I am kept here because the Archbishop of
Canterbury, who is the Visitor of our College (All Souls), will be here from
Saturday till Tuesday, and all the Fellows have to be in attendance. I cannot
ask you to give me a day as I know how much your presence is valued by your old
friends, but if you should by any fortunate chance find yourself free for a
day, it would be a great treat to me and my wife to receive you at our house
and show you our children, who, I am thankful to say, are either getting
stronger or are really quite well again. Sun- shine seems to have returned to
our house with the spring, and at present there are few clouds to be seen, at
least no more than we all want to make the sky really beautiful.

·
I shall be busy here till about the end of June,
and I hope then to go to Paris,
though I am afraid I shall find few of my friends there. My plan was to take lodgings at St. Germain
or some other place near Paris,
and to settle there for some months with my wife and four children, taking our
English nurse and a Swiss bonne with us. But this plan has become somewhat
doubtful because my mother wishes to spend the summer with us in England, and in that case I should probably go
to Paris alone and stay only for a fortnight,
and then go to fetch my mother from Germany. Could you or Madame
Regnier give us any hint as to where and how to settle ourselves near Paris, if we carry out
our original plan ?

‘I am now printing my last
volume (second edition, Sanskrit Grammar), of which I enclose the title.
Prdtisdkhya and Rig-veda (translation) are finished, and I look forward with
great pleasure to presenting my “ thrins “ to the Academy.

*I had a letter from M. Guizot,
which I value more than many

a cordon and crachat^

Shortly before leaving for Germany, Max
MUller offered Messrs. Longmans a translation of Coquerel’s Apostles Qrcd, an
offer that was rejected, as Mr. Longman did not consider the book sufficiently
orthodox. Against this opinion Max Miiller protests in the following letter : —

Oxford, June 24.

‘ My dear Longman, — I am sorry
to hear that you think Coquerel’s book would not sell, though, if it were of so
startling a character as you imagine, I should think that it would excite some
interest, and have even a commercial success.

‘ But allow me to say, that
though I should not venture to criticize

1869] La Bible dans Vlnde 367

your judgement as far as the
commercial success of the book is con- cerned, I must protest most strongly
against the judgement you have formed of its religious character.

‘ The book is written in a
liberal, but in a deeply religious spirit, teaching men to distinguish between
the dead crust and the living kernel of Christianity, and warning them against
throwing away what is true, eternal, and divine, because in course of time it
has been sur- rounded and almost hidden by what is conventional, changeable, and
human. It is an interpretation and historical vindication of the antiquated,
almost unintelligible, and certainly widely misunderstood language of the
so-called Apostles’ Creed, a document which, I feel sure, no educated man and
no clergyman in England
would take to be the work of the Apostles. The book is written throughout in
the most correct language, and there are passages in it which the most eloquent
of our bishops need not be ashamed of in the pulpit.

‘ I write this, not because I
wish you to publish the MS., but because I shall be truly sorry if you think I
had offered you a book to publish w^hich would shock people far more than
anything you have published.’

To THE Dean of Westminster.

Parks Y.iht), June 29, 1869.

·
My dear Stanley,
— That book of Jacolliot’s ^ is as silly, shallow, impudent a composition as
ever I saw. It is sad to think that people can still be taken in with such a
book. Would you believe that Gladstone
was reading it in the midst of the Irish debate ! The book quotes from the Veda
I The extracts are no more from the Veda than from the Koran. I felt so
disgusted that I could read no more ; and then people ask me to review such a
book — they might as well ask me to fight a shoe-black !

·
What I sent you as a first instalment of the Veda
is real and old — of course no one will read that ! Nor do I care. I meant to
write an unreadable book, and I believe I have succeeded.

‘ But I shall soon send you
something that is readable — a col- lection of Buddha’s own sayings. I believe
the final struggle between Buddhism and Christianity, whenever that comes to
pass, will be a hard one, and will end in a compromise — there is a
prophecy! that will have to be tested
some thousand years hence — therefore, at all events, it is safe. But I am quite
serious, and I know you would not refuse Buddha admittance at Westminster, after you have read his Xo’yta.
How small the Irish Church looks from a more (ex)centric point of view, and
that is the real charm and the real blessing of researches into the ancient
history of thought and faith ; they make one feel happy, quiet, and strong,
like Scotch mountain air.’

^ La Bible dans PInde.

368 Soden [ch. xvi

To THE Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone.

Parks ‘E^D,July 9, 1869.

‘ Dear Mr. Gladstone, — “ Do
not speak to the man at the helm “ may, I suppose, be translated freely into “
Do not write to the Prime INIinister.” If I break this useful rule, it is only
for one word of explanation. The volume which I took the liberty to send to you
is hardly meant to be read ; I know it is perfectly unreadable, except for
Sanskrit scholars. It is, in fact, but the underground foundation on which the
pillars are to rest which are to support the bridge on which people hereafter
may walk across from the nineteenth century after to the nineteenth century
before our era. At the same time I may say that the few Vedic Hymns which I
have translated, or rather de- ciphered, in the first volume, are genuine
relics of the earliest phase of human thought within our reach. Jacolliot’s book,
La Bible dans TInde, which I looked at, is beneath criticism, it is simply
untrue. The author has been deceived, has deceived himself, and tries to
deceive others. I am sorry that my
ticket for Antwerp
is taken for next Thursday, and that I shall not be able to avail myself of
your kind invitation to breakfast, or to carry off the book which you say is
waiting for me.’

The book by Jacolliot, La Bible
dans Hndc, alluded to in the letters to Dean Stanley and Mr. Gladstone, was a
mere imposture, the author purporting to have found the essential features of
the Biblical narrative, the Garden of Eden, Flood, &c., given in the sacred
books of the Brahmans. Max Miiller was in London
one day during the debates on the Disestab- lishment of the Irish Church,
when he heard a quick footstep behind him, and some one touched him on the
shoulder. It was Mr. Gladstone. ‘ Oh, why,’ exclaimed the Prime Minister, ‘
have you not told us of these wonderful discoveries in India ? ‘ and
then poured forth, in the middle of St. James’s Street, his wonder and
admiration oi La Bible dans tLnde^ which he had been studying, when any less
versatile statesman would have been entirely absorbed in his great Irish
measure. It took some time, not only in St. James’s Street, but by letter, before
Mr. Gladstone would give up his belief in Jacolliot’s nonsense.

The stay at Soden, dull in some
ways, was made interesting

to Max MUller by finding an old
friend, Professor Hertz,

whom he had not seen since they
were students together at

Leipzig. He was watching over a young
daughter dying of

decline, and, before they left
Soden, Max followed his friend’s

I

1869] Kiel 369

child
to her last resting-place. His deep sympathy was a help and stay to the poor
parents, and till he joined his loved child some years later, Professor Hertz
often wrote, recalling the time at Soden and the intercourse with the friend of
his youth. It was at Soden also that Max Miiller first heard from Dr. Appleton,
of St. John’s College, his plans for starting the
Academy. Max Muller had taken his whole party for an excursion to the ruins of
Cronberg, on one of the hills of the Taunus range, and his children were
revelling in the enjoyment of a complete day of holiday with their father,
whose incessant work made such a treat a rare one. Dinner in the open air was
just over, when Dr. Appleton was seen to descend from the coach running between
Soden and Cronberg. He had arrived at Soden to find Max Muller gone out for the
day, and, absorbed in his own schemes, did not hesitate to follow him and
entirely engross him for the rest of the day, to the dismay of his children.
When once started, Max Muller was a constant contributor to the Academy, till
it changed hands, and entirely altered its character as a literary paper about two
years before his death. From Soden the party went to Kiel,
where the Platt-Deutsch poet Klaus Groth, with whom Max had formed an intimate
friendship during the poet’s visit to England
a few years before, had secured a de- lightful apartment for them in one of the
pretty villas that line the shores of the beautiful harbour of Kiel.
It stood at the entrance to Dusternbrook, a fine beech forest, the trees of
which hung over the water of the harbour. The garden of the villa ran down to
the water, which is scarcely salt, and has little or no tide. Here a happy six
weeks was spent, varied by long day excursions with Klaus Groth and his
charming wife to all the most beautiful spots round Kiel. A two days’ visit was paid to Plauen and the lakes of Holstein
in one direction, whilst in another they visited Husum, ‘ the grey town on the
grey (North) sea,’ with its flat coast and dykes as in Holland, to make
acquaintance with Theodor Sturm, another Platt-Deutsch poet. Later on, before
leaving Kiel, Max Muller and his wife went to Copenhagen, with which they were delighted, enjoying the
treasures of the Museum
of Northern
Antiquities, and the beautiful pictures of native
Danish art in .

I B b

370 German Philological
Congress [ch. xvi

the palaces. They also visited Elsinore,
and looked across to Sweden
; the sea, the day they visited Elsinore, was
alive with vessels waiting for a favourable wind to take them through the Sound
into the Cattegat. The Max Mullers returned to Kiel
by the Belts, and stayed a night at Schleswig
to see the cathedral with its wonderful wood carvings of the fifteenth century.

During the stay at Kiel, the German Philological Congress held their annual
meeting there, attended by people from all parts of Europe.
Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College, was present, M. Jules Oppert from Paris, and many others,
and it gave Max Muller an opportunity of meeting many engaged in like studies
with himself. He read his paper on Buddhist Nihilism referred to before (p.
192) and made his first speech in German at the farewell banquet.

Many evenings during the visit
to Kiel were spent either at Klaus Groth’s house, or at Forsteck, an exquisite
place belong- ing to Herr Meyer, a Hamburg merchant, commanding a view of the
broadest portion of the great Kieler Bucht, or estuary, where, at the time of
the Crimean War, the whole English Baltic Fleet lay for weeks. On these
occasions Klaus Groth always read out some of his Platt-Deutsch poems, which,
to English ears, are more intelligible read aloud than when read to oneself:
the strange spelling misleading the eye. The pleasure of the time at Kiel was greatly added to
by the pre- sence of a cousin, Captain, now General, Stockmarr, with his wife
and daughter, who joined many of the expeditions. ‘ We have had many happy
hours together,’ writes Max to another cousin, whom he tried to draw to Kiel ;
but at that time the railway communication between Kiel and places on the
Baltic shore was too complicated for short visits, especially where children
were of the party. It was for this reason that his old friend Dr. Prowe, from
Thorn in East Prussia,
was unable to comply with Max’s earnest wish for a meeting.

Early in October the whole party,
including the mother,

returned to Oxford, the two eldest children thoroughly
restored

to health. The lectures announced
for this term were a con-

tinuation of the course on
Sanskrit Grammar. Among the

many letters waiting his return
was an invitation from the

1869] Translation of Veda 371

Khedive of Egypt to be present at the opening of the Suez Canal, but he had to decHne the honour, as taking
him away too long from his work.

To Professor Benfey.

Translation. Parks End, Oxford, November 7, 1869.

‘ Dear Colleague, — Having
returned to England some three weeks ago, I had so many letters to answer that
I only now find time to thank you for your valuable present. I have, so far,
only glanced at your History of Philology, but even this glance has shown me
how much material you have again accumulated in this work, and how useful and
instructive your book is in every way. I hope soon to have time to read it
quietly, but I feel I must not delay in sending you my best thanks.

‘ My path did not lead me, alas
! past Gottingen this time, and my hope of
meeting you perchance at Kiel,
at the Philological Congress, was not fulfilled. . . .

‘ IMy first volume of the Veda
translation has, I hope, reached you, and I should be glad to receive your
opinion about it. According to my judgement there is only 07ie scientifically
justifiable method of in- terpreting the Veda, viz. to settle completely every
word which raises the least doubt. The work is slow and laborious, but if it is
not done you never come to a conclusion, and the same questions turn up again
and again. Of course, for you and me there are certain things which do not need
proofs, but we also made our way slowly through all this, therefore, why not
save others this trouble ? why not cut off, once for all, all unfounded
objections at the outset ?

‘ I hope to send you soon a
book on Buddha ; that makes me think of your review of my Essays : accept my
best thanks. . . . Alas ! I have to get a new edition of my Sanskrit Grammar
ready, which I should like to have done with. . . .’

The Christmas was passed in Oxford, a real German Christmas, with a tree, to which a
few Germans in Oxford
were invited, and at which the various German dishes and sweet- meats, imported
by the old mother, bore a conspicuous part.

B b a

CHAPTER XVII

1870

Lectures on the Science of
Religion. Keshub Chunder Sen. Franco- German War. LL.D. at Edinburgh. Letters to Dean Stanley.

To ‘the Enghsh People.’ Work
for Sick and Wounded. North

Wales. Letters to Dr. Abeken and
Mr. Gladstone. Chips, Vol. IIL

This year, that was to be so
full of stirring events, opened quietly for Max Miiller, who began at once to
prepare the lectures he had undertaken to give at the Royal Institution in
February and March on the ‘ Science of Religion.’

To Dean Stanley.

January 19.

‘ I return Clark’s
^ letter. I quite feel with you that a man like Clark
ought not to be satisfied with simply withdrawing ; he ought to work and fight,
and not look to others to carry a new Reformation.

I do not know much of him, but
all I do know of him makes me like him very much. His words would carry weight
with many people. It might seem bold and imprudent in Temple, but still I think it would be right
if, as a Bishop, he answered Clark’s letter,
and told him publicly that the Old Testament was not originally written in the
language of the nineteenth century, but in old, heavy, poetical Oriental
phraseology, and that, unless his difficuldes extend far beyond the limits
indicated by him, he might well continue to read the Ten Commandments, and
afterwards preach a sermon, and tell his congregation, if they need to be told,
that God never stood on a hill and opened His mouth to tell them in Hebrew what
the still small voice had told Moses, and other prophets too, nay, everybody
who would but listen to that voice, viz. that there are laws independent of man,
nay, in spite of man, yet irresistibly present in the human conscience. . . .
Then why not say, “God spake these words and said “ ? Is our nineteenth-century
language so much better, and is it .

^ Public Orator at Cambridge.

1870] Lectures on the Science
of Religion 373

altogether free from imagery or
idolism ? I shall have to say much stronger things in my lectures, and I am not
afraid. People know that there are far greater difficulties that must be met —
downright atheism among the high and the low. It is so, I assure you, and you
probably know it better than I. And then to hear people fight about Colenso’s
difficulties, as if true religion had anything to do with them, is
disheartening. However, let us look to Rome
and that hideous ‘ performance which passes all mythology, and be
thankful. Ever yours.’

அன்பு தளபதி · அன்பு தளபதி Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:01 pm

The very title of the lectures
at the Royal Institution excited opposition and criticism, many people
objecting to the possibility of a scientific study of religions. They were,
however, very well attended, but Max Miiller purposely post- poned the
publication, hoping to make the lectures more complete, as it had been
impossible to deal fully with so vast a subject in the narrow limits of four
lectures. They were first published in 1873, and then only slightly enlarged,
as Max Miiller had found he could not give the necessary time to perfect them ;
but as they had been pirated in America,
he was driven in self-defence to print them in England. The subject was
subsequently carried out in his Hibbert and Gifford Lectures.

On March 20 he writes to tell
his wife he had been offered the degree of LL.D. at Edinburgh, ‘ I really ought
to take care not to have my head turned with all the honours ; there is really
nothing left that I care for now, and I sometimes think the course must soon be
run and all the work over.’

The visit to Edinburgh had to be postponed to the summer,
partly on account of the lectures, partly because his old mother was still with
him.

To HIS Wife.

Frogmore, March 31.

‘ One line to say that I
arrived safe. At the station a carriage was waiting for me, but the Prince is
in London, and
will only, be back in time for dinner. I am in my old room again, and all the
servants seem to be the same as before, which is a good sign. Love to the
mother, and kisses for the children. The Prince has just called me away.’

^ The Doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception of the Virgin.

374 Keshiih Chunder Sen [ch.
xvn

To THE Same.

Frogmore, April i.

‘ We have just come back from London, where we had a
very interesting luncheon at the Deanery. No one there but Keshub Chunder Sen
and the Prince and I. We soon got into a warm discussion, and it was curious to
see how we almost made him confess himself a Christian. He will come to Oxford, and then I hope
to see more of him. He is not as handsome as Satyendranath Tagore, but very
intelligent and pleasing. Last night we had a dinner-party — the Dean of
Windsor and Mrs. Wellesley, Colonel and Mrs. Gordon, who is a sister of Peel,
the Fellow of All Souls, and Mr. Ruthven.
We used to know him in the Berkshire Volunteers. The Princess is very
kind, and asked after you and the children.’

This was Max Muller’s first
acquaintance with Keshub Chunder Sen, which ripened into real friendship, and
they corresponded till the death of the latter in 1884. Unfortunately all Max
Miiller’s letters to Keshub Chunder Sen, touching on the important work of the
Brahma Somaj, seem to have been lost or destroyed.

Two public lectures were given
at Oxford in
the May Term — ‘ On the Origin of Mythology,’ and ‘ On the Migration of
Fables.’ The latter was repeated on June 3 at the Royal Institution. Max
Miiller writes to his wife, who was nursing her father : —

Deanery, Westminster, Jime 4.

‘ I believe my lecture (“ On the
Migration of Fables “) went off very

well ; the place was as full as
it could hold. But I lost all heart for

it when you were not there. I
must go to Oxford
to-day, as Keshub

Chunder Sen waits for me at the
station,

‘ Dr. Scott has accepted the
Deanery of Rochester, and Jowett will be Master of Balliol. I am truly glad,
for though it comes late it will make up for many years of disappointment. Few
people know what it is to see the work which one could do best taken away from
one, and few people make allowance for it, and how it embitters one. I do like to see things come right in the
end, though I know they are always right even if we do not see it. I do not
think that Jowett’s friends have always thought of what he has suffered, and I
trust he will have many years to enjoy his Mastership.’

1870] Iberians — Basks 375

To Professor Freeman.

June, 1870.

‘ I have read your second and
third lectures \ and I have no remarks to make beyond what I said about your
first lecture, that I hope they will be taken to heart. I sometimes wonder that
it should be necessary to say these things again and again, but I believe the
confusion in the popular mind arises chiefly from a confusion of ter- minology,
using a terminology which was meant for linguistic pur- poses for historical or
physiological work. Let people classify blood as much as they like, only let
them use their own bottles for that, and not bottles that were labelled for the
purpose of holding lan- guages. I confess to my mind blood is an irrational and
ungraspable quantity, but if people like to dabble in it, let them have their
san- guinary amusement. I also confess that I consider all historical notices
as to race extremely precarious until you come to writers of our own century.
Before Caesar no one knew the difference between a Celt and a German, as little
as many of our missionaries know the difference between a Hottentot and
Bushman, or between a Tatar and IMongolian. Nearly all that is built on the
statements of the ancients as to race, is built on sand ; it may be very
learned, but it will not stand a breath of harsh criticism. One thing I cannot
understand. Who has invented the Iberians? I see them of late cropping out
here, there, and everywhere. Whoever brought them to England first? It is by no means easy
to get a clear idea what the ancients meant by the Iberians in Spain, and
whether that name may be used synonymously with Bask. But the historical
Iberians or Ebro-people of Spain
never came to England,
except at the time of the Armada. or thereabouts. And least of all would they
explain the black colouring matter among the English, for according to Napier
and Prichard the Basks are fair, their eyes blue, grey, bluish, and light
brown, never dark brown. Some observations are different, and give us twenty-five
brown against twenty-one blue eyes, and this is used as an argument in favour
of a theory that the Basks came from two distinct ethnological stems. In some
places the people with blonde hair form a decided majority. As to the skulls,
the confusion is equally great; see Pruner Bey, Sur les crd?ies basques, 1867.
Then what use can the Iberians be in England ? People who believe that
the Iberians came to England
to introduce a dark pigment, will soon believe that the Buddhists came over
from India to build Stonehenge.’

And now for nearly a year to
come Max Miiller’s heart and thoughts were to be absorbed by the great
Franco-German ^ ‘ History of the Cathedral Church of Wells.’

376 Franco-German War [ch. xvn

War. When able to fix his
attention on his work he went on with the fifth vokime of the Rig-veda, and was
busy in preparing a third volume of Chips for the Press, of which an edition of
3,000 was printed ; while this year also saw the publication of his translation
of the Dhammapada.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. July 17, 1870.

·
These last experiences are terrible ; one cannot
bear to think of it. A murderous attack just because it seems necessary to the
Emperor to make himself popular with his army. The feeling in England is strong against France. I do
not for a moment doubt the result. Germany may lose some battles, but Germany
cannot be killed. The present devil’s brood in France will fall after one lost
battle. There is perhaps nothing better for the ultimate consolidation of
Germany than this war, for no one who speaks German, be he Hanoverian or Saxon,
can hold himself aloof It is the last chance for Austria. If she is great
enough to forget the past and to join Prussia against France her future is
secured ; if she follows Beust’s policy now she is done for. Who knows how long
this war may last ? I should like to live to see the end. The enthusiasm in
Germany must be tremendous ; all the young Germans in England are leaving, and
I would gladly go with them. All my plans are, of course, upset. I hoped to go
to Ems in August, and then we might have met, but one cannot think of that now.
It is not really necessary, but it did me such good before that I would have
used it as a precaution. Now we shall stay quietly here. On August i I have to
go to Edinburgh to be made an honorary doctor. I put it off once, and cannot do
so again. Later on we may go to the sea, but that is uncertain. My assistant.
Dr. Thibaut, received a tele- graphic despatch to-day, and is already on the
way to Rastadt, which of course disturbs my work a good deal.’

The following letter adverts to
a scheme that Max MUller had much at heart at one time, but it led to no
practical results in England : —

To William Longman, Esq.

Oxford, July 12.

·
What I talked about with Mr. Cox was not a
volume of essays, but something very different. I shall try to explain it to
you as shortly as I can.

‘ In Germany the plan has been
adopted for some years of pub-

1870] ‘ Series of Essays ‘ 377

lishing a continuous series of
lectures and essays, and it seems to have answered well, and gradually to take
the place of monthly and quarterly journals.

·
In a Monthly or Quarterly you must print many
articles which are mere padding ; the publisher has to pay for them, and the
buyer has to pay for them, though neither one nor the other wants to have them.
For instance, if a man wants to have my four lectures on the “ Science of
Religion “ he must pay loj., and then he has to cut them out, and they look
untidy.

‘ Now if there existed a “
series of essays,” each essay might be sold for \s. or less, and people would
then be able to get what they really want. Those who now subscribe to
Quarterlies would sub- scribe to the whole series ; those who want the Physical
Science only would take those numbers only which treat of Physical Science,
&c.

‘ You would want about six
names to represent the different branches of knowledge, who should be
responsible for the character of the essays, and give a character to the
series. I have spoken to Huxley and others, and find a general concurrence.

‘ You will probably object that
it would be troublesome and expensive as a matter of publishing. But, on the
other hand, it gives you a constant means of advertising. The series itself
would hardly require more advertising than a Quarterly : you would give a
string of tides from time to time.

‘ I should propose as a title
for the series “ Our Time, a series of essays and lectures, under the
editorship of i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.” One series in Germany, “Populare Vortrage,”
has reached to several hun- dreds of essays. In France you have something like
it in the Revue des Cours Litte’raires, only that that is published every
month, while my plan is to publish whenever there is fresh material.

‘ I am not a man of business, but
I thought that Mr. Cox might

act as a general editor,
supported by six special editors, whose names

would be a guarantee with the
pubUc’

To THE Dean of Westminster.

Parks End, Oxford, July 24.

‘ I send you a copy of my
lectures on the “ Science of Religion.” I do not wish to publish them now, but
I had sixteen copies taken, of which yours is one. By-and-by they will form
part of a larger work, if life and strength last long enough to enable me to
carry out a plan for which all my studies have formed the preparation.

‘ My heart is too full to say
anything about this terrible war.

I believe it is a cup that
could not pass. France cannot break a

378 LL.D. Edinburgh [ch. xvn

united and strong Germany, and
the reckless gambler who usurps the throne of France took advantage of this
national jealousy to save himself from his inevitable end for a few years
longer. But the misery it brings to thousands of happy homes passes all
description ! This war can only end
either in the destruction of Germany, or in a revenge without a parallel in
history.’

To THE Same.

Parks End, Oxford, /w/j^ 26,
1870.

‘ I feel by no means quite
happy about the “ Traitd de paix entre la France et la Prusse.” If it is
genuine, however, then neutraUty on the part of England would be criminal. Even
Turkey came forward to assist her enemy Greece when it became a question of
putting down brigandage. England and Germany hunted down one Corsican — they
ought to combine for the same purpose now. You may have watched the feelings of
those who lost a husband, a brother, a son, or a friend in the tragedy of
Marathon ; multiply that feeling by millions, and you may imagine then what the
state of Germany must be at the present moment, when every family trembles for
the life of those whom they love most, and who are to be mowed down by the
French cannon, simply because one great criminal has been driven mad and
desperate. War in Germany is different from war in England. It was easy for the
Duke of Wellington to preach modera- tion at Paris. He had to revenge defeat,
but no outrages, whilst every German soldier that marches into Paris (and I
trust I shall live to see it !) has to revenge the blood of brothers, and tears
such as only a mother can shed. I should like to see England, not Russia, as
the friend and ally of Germany in this holy war.’

At the end of July Max Miiller
went to Edinburgh, to receive the degree of LL.D. at the same time as his
friend Dr. Acland. The few days’ holiday refreshed and cheered him, weighed
down as he was by the thought of the war, and all that was at stake for his
native country. He wrote to his wife : —

Edinburgh, y«/j/ 31.

‘ This town is glorious and
inspiriting, the true capital of England, far more royal than London. Were I
King, I should reside here and leave London to be the great harbour and
emporium of the country.’

The following is Professor
Macpherson’s speech in presenting Max Muller for the degree of LL.D. :—

1870] Professor Macphersons
Speech 379

‘ I have now to present to you
in the name of the Senatus, as one deemed worthy of the same degree, another
very eminent Professor in the University of Oxford — Max Miiller. I do not
think it necessary to mention any of the numerous University honours which he
has received, or to give you a catalogue of the great Hterary and scientific
societies that have sought to do themselves honour by enrolling him amongst
their members. His name is too well known among us to require such an
enumeration. Those who have not had the pleasure of listening to his delightful
lectures in this city know him well through his writings. In the University of
Oxford he has done more, probably, than any other man to establish the study of
modern languages in what used to be considered the throne of the dead languages
; and he did so at a period when he was engaged in giving to the world writings
which were composed in a language which was dead long before Greek and Latin, I
may say, were born. When England was engaged in the Crimean War, it was Max
MuUer who supplied English ignorance by wridng upon the languages of the seat
of war.

When philologists were beating
about, seeking here and there some

solution or explanation of the
endless facts which had been accumu-

lating for half a century, it was
Max IMiiller who came forward with

his Science of Language. And now,
when England is agitated with

discussions on religious faiths
and religious doctrines. Max Miiller

again steps forward with his
Science of Religion, his lectures upon

which bear all the impress of his
learning and his genius, and breathe

a spirit of religious love and
toleration, which, if it could be extended

to other religious discussions,
would take from them the reproach of

acrimony which has so often been
cast upon them. It is a remarkable

circumstance, considering the great
stake which Britain has in the

East, that it was left to Max
Miiller to bring in a worthy shape before

the world the text of the
Rig-veda — the value of which is acknow-

ledged by all scholars and by all
thinkers throughout the world. As

to the manner in which he has
done so, a verdict of approval has been

pronounced by the scholars of all
Europe ; and as to his acquaintance

with Eastern religious systems,
the best testimony to that is the

appreciation which his work has
received from the Brahmins of India,

who revere the name of Max
Miiller, thank him for his labours, and

regard him as the great exponent
of their religious doctrines in

Europe. With regard to his
qualifications for the performance of

such a task, I know of no man who
could have combined with these

qualities the power of
generalization which he possesses, the power of

detecting truth beneath the
accumulations of mythology and beneath

the decay of tongues, the power
of educing principle and order where

apparently there is nothing but
confusion and chaos. It is the

380 Work for Sick and Wounded
[ch. xvn

combination of these
qualifications which has enabled him to render such incomparable service to the
Science of Comparative Philology and Comparative Mythology, and which has made
him conspicuous both as a discoverer and as a presenter in the most interesting
and popular form of the results of the labours and discoveries of others. No man has done so much to raise these to the
dignity of a science ; no man has done so much to popularize topics which
formerly were considered fit for discussion only in the closet ; and he has
done this without departing from the method of severe scientific treatment : he
has done it by the charm of the manner in which, in a pure and lucid English
which the natives of his adopted country do sincerely envy while they rejoice
to read it, he presents an endless array of facts in new and surprising
combinations. In a word, his edition of the Rtg- veda, his lectures upon the “
Science of Language,” and his lectures upon the “ Science of Religion,” place
him in the very foremost rank of scholars and of thinkers, whether as regards
extent of knowledge, or force and originality of speculation.’

Max MUller always felt at
Edinburgh, and later at Glasgow, the stimulating influence of intercourse with
men ready to talk on the subjects in which they were engaged, and to which they
had devoted their lives, and contrasted it with the fear of ‘ talking shop ‘
that prevails in England. On his return he was again absorbed in the war, and
all the work in his house for the sick and wounded.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. August 14.

‘You can fancy all our thoughts
are with Germany, and I wish I were there. Such a triumph of a good cause has
seldom been seen in history. Where are Adolf and Fritz ^ ? I hope on the Rhine,
perhaps already in France. The English are quite amazed at these results, and
not quite pleased, but that does not matter. G. collects and works. She has
collected already £100, and shrinks from no trouble. Here large collections are
being made. That Emilie is still so angry with Germany astonishes me ; the
heart of every German must beat with joy, and all must be forgotten that
recalls the old misery.’

To E. A. Freeman, Esq.

August 14.

‘ I ought to have written to
you before, but you may imagine where

all my thoughts are just now.
Though I never doubted of ultimate

·
Soldier cousins.

1870] Bismarck 381

success, I was afraid of
reverses in the beginning. Now I expect the war will soon be over, and what I
looked forward to for the last eighteen years almost every day as I opened the
paper — the downfall of the Empire — has come to pass at last. A more
demoralized and demoralizing government than that of Louis Napoleon, history I
be- lieve has seldom known. There will be a national bankruptcy too, I have no
doubt, and millions of French money will be found in the English funds. Peace
will be easy, for Germany wants no conquests, not even Alsace and Lorraine ;
the land is fine enough, but the people are not worth having. Perhaps France
will in future be less eager to guarantee the status quo of Germany ! Now about
the Illyrians ; though I do not hke to quote my own books, I think I can answer
your questions best if for the Illyrians I refer you to a tolerably full
account of them in my Survey of Languages, second edition, pp. 50-60, and as to
the untrustworthiness of classical authorities for ethnological purposes, to a
note in my Lectures on the Science of Language, Volume I, p. 130.’

To THE Dean of Westminster.

Parks End, Oxford, August 23,
1870.

‘Yes, these are great days,
almost overpowering events. If all goes well, and if the author of this
atrocious war is punished, people even in England will believe again that there
is a God in history;

அன்பு தளபதி · அன்பு தளபதி Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:04 pm

I tremble for the Crown Prince
— the French will fight with fury when they fight pro aris et focis, and not
for glory and empire. I think we ought on the whole to be satisfied with the
state of public feeling in England. Unfortunately Gladstone’s mind has taken
hold of the idea of neutrality, and squeezed it and defined it till it means
abdication of the right of judging between right and wrong, between war and
murder. This is a most demoralizing policy, but it cannot be helped now. All
Uberal and independent thinkers are caught in Gladstone’s ministerial net. I
wish Goldwin Smith were in England — some such man is wanted just now.

‘ I do not wonder that there is
a feeling of mistrust with regard

to Bismarck. In home politics
he is as bad as Lord would

be, if he were Prime Minister.
But one may oppose a man as

a Minister without despising him,
and the same Minister, however

self-willed and tyrannical at
home, may be the right man as Foreign

Minister. I do not love Bismarck,
but I feel prepared to defend every

step he has taken since 1866
against all comers. He seems to have

been sans reproche, though no
doubt also sans peur. If he was a bird

of the same feather as Benedetti,
why should he have opposed the

Emperor if, by merely shutting
his eyes, he could have got all he

382 Letters to ‘ the English
People * [ch. xvii

could possibly want for
Germany, and at the same time entangle England and France in a war ? If
Bismarck is to blame in his foreign policy, every German patriot shares his
blame. We wanted to be united, and we have had the naivete to think, as the
French papers say, that we could arrange our internal affairs without
consulting France. If France thinks she has a right to interfere at Rome, at
Madrid, and now at Berlin too, she must learn that this cannot be.

France has been cruelly treated
by the Emperor — how extraordinary

that there should be no man to
take his place, and to save France 1

‘ We have collected about £120
at Oxford, though nearly everybody is away. My wife has a regular workshop
going on all day long, making bandages, &c. &c. Did Lady Augusta
receive my book for Princess Louise, or came it too late ? ‘

To THE Same.

Parks End, Oxford, Atigust 30.

‘. . . I cannot tell you how
this war crushes me. I sometimes feel as if I could bear it no longer and must
be off. What savages we are in spite of all these centuries ! But surely the
Teutonic race is better than the Latin and Slavonic, and the Protestants are
better Christians than the Romans; and the German cause is surely thoroughly
righteous, and the French thoroughly unrighteous. I always think of the simple
soldiers — those who were everything at home, and are nothing in the field of
battle — unknown, unnoticed, and probably better and braver than emperors and
kings and generals. I cannot get my thoughts away from them.’

On August 29 Max Mtiller wrote
the first of his five letters in the Times addressed ‘ to the English People.’
They were reprinted, together with letters from Mommsen, Strauss, and Carlyle,
in a small volume, early in 1871, and sold for the good of the Victoria
Institute for German Widows and Orphans.
The first letter was called forth by a violent attack made by his old
and honoured friend, Sir Harry Verney, on the policy of Germany, accusing
Bismarck of having been willing to accept Holland, and give up Belgium and
Switzerland to France. Such had been more or less Benedetti’s scheme, but it is
well known now that Bismarck
did not listen to these ideas. Max Miiller was no admirer of Bismarck, but he felt bound, much as he
disliked the unconstitutional proceedings that had marked his internal
government, to protest against this attack on his public honour.

1870] Dr. Aheken 383

To Dr. Abeken (then acting as Bismarck’s secretary) ^
Translatio7i. Oxford,
September 9.

‘ I send you enclosed cuttings,
but doubt whether you will receive

them in these chaotic times. If
you do receive my letter, it is to tell

you that here also a German heart
beats full of pride and joy, and

often with pain, when it thinks
of the friends who have dreamt of this

great time of Germany’s
elevation, but who have not lived to see it

realized/

To HIS Mother.

TransJaiwn. Septefnher 11.

·
What great times we live in I though so far
away, I can hardly keep myself quiet ; one lives on newspapers and telegrams.
And then I had so much work that had to be done, that I was at last quite
exhausted from excitement and work, and went alone for a week to Brighton. The sea
air and bathing did me great good, and I came back on Thursday. G.’s father was
here on a visit, so G. could not go with me, though she needs change, and I
think in a few days we shall make a little tour together in Wales. You have no
idea how hard G. has worked. She will tell you all she has collected. ... The
feeling in Germany must be very sad, in spite of the mighty results, for what
terrible sorrow there must be throughout the country 1 Here in England feelings
are much divided. I have fought fiercely in the Times, and I think it has told.
The best part of the nation is for Germany, but the aristocracy has strong
sympathy with France. People are amazed
at the gigantic resources of Germany, and the utter moral rottenness of France.
Well, in the next few weeks Paris will be won ; then our troops will march
home. Alsace and Lorraine will be governed militarily, and in France they can
then slaughter themselves as they like.’

To MoNCURE Conway, Esq.

September 14.

‘ My wife has been collecting as
much as she could get, and I know

from letters received that her
collection has done real good to the

sufferers in different hospitals.
You know that German hospitals are

full of French wounded, and I
believe if any distinction is made

between the French and German
wounded in these hospitals, it is in

favour of the French. Anyhow, in
the presence of death, nationality

‘ Dr. Abeken had been a great
friend of Baron Bunsen, at whose house Max Miiller had learnt to know and
estimate this upright, single- minded man at his right value.

384 King of Prussia [ch.

XVII

vanishes and humanity takes its
place. My wife begs me to say that she will gladly forward any sum however
small. She has more appeals than she can respond to. I should pay no attention
to news- paper rumours as to what the Germans mean to do with regard to the
conditions of peace. The King’s behaviour towards the Emperor is mistaken
chivalry towards a fallen enemy, nothing more. I think, however, that there
ought to be a formal abdication, or a formal decree of a Constituent Assembly
transferring the sovereign power from the Emperor to the Provisional
Government, or to a President ; otherwise it seems impossible to make a treaty
of peace. I believe the general opinion in Germany requires no territorial
aggrandizement, but the military authorities will probably require a better
strategic frontier line, which Germany asked for at the Congress of Vienna, but
which she could not obtain then, owing to the intrigues of Austria and Russia.
If the inhabitants of that district are devoted to France, and cannot bear the
idea of belonging again to Germany, they are free to emigrate. Surely
patriotism has made greater sacrifices than this.’

During September Max Miiller
heard from his old friend Stanislas Julien, the famous Sinologue, in a state of
almost childish panic at the approach of the German armies. He had recently
lost his wife. Max Miiller at once offered him an asylum under his roof; but
the old man, though viveinent toiiche at his friend’s invitation, resolved to
stay and guard his precious library and house, on which he had spent large
sums, and he went through all the sufferings of the siege. But it undermined
his health, and he died about two years later.

To MoNCURE Conway, Esq.

Parks End, Sepfemher 16, 1870.

‘ I read your letter with great
interest. I believe you are quite right

in your estimate of Bismarck, but
I think you underrate the capacities

of the King. The King is a
strange mixture ; he was a mere soldier,

but he learnt much during his
long stay in Bunsen’s house. He M’ill

never be guilty of such folly as
to reinstate Napoleon ; but the situation

is difficult. Suppose Paris
surrendered, which I trust it will do after

the first shot, what can the
German army do but go into winter

quarters in Alsace and Lorraine ?
There may be a provisional treaty

of peace, but it seems to me
that, as the Constituent Assembly is con-

voked, it can be ratified by that
Assembly and its delegates only. If

the Constituent Assembly should
fail, then nothing remains but to

convoke the Legislative Assembly
and the Senate, both of which still

1870] Imperialism in France 385

exist both de jure and de
facto. I confess I cannot understand the enthusiasm for the French Republic. A
republic is perhaps the most perfect form of government, but also the most
difficult. There are good and there are bad republics, and the present French
Republic seems to me the most imperfect political organization that can be
imagined. I should prefer the Russian or the Chinese regime to the present
state of things in France. It seems to me that the en- thusiastic admirers of
this republic, which has nothing but the name of a republic, exceed in folly
the old Legitimists, to whom a King, however foolish and wicked, is a kind of
idol to be worshipped with unquestioning devotion. It is very possible that
Alsace might recover itself and become German, but I doubt whether it is wise
to weaken France at the very moment that Germany becomes so much more powerful.
As to making France harmless, that can never be done, and I doubt whether, for
the sake of Germany, it is desirable. I hope Moltke will take as little as
possible, and Bismarck will make it quite clear that what is taken is taken for
strategic purposes only, and not for the sake of aggrandizement, and in order
to recover some few millions who formerly were Germans. I hope you will publish
your impressions of the war and Bismarck.’

To THE Same.

Parks End, September i8, 1870.

‘ I did not know that the
description of the battle of Rezonville in the Daily News was yours, and I am
glad to hear that we shall have it in a more permanent form in next Eraser. I
do not expect that anybody will see such fighting again, though, from what I
see in the French papers, there will be, I fear, some mad attempt of fighting
in and around Paris. The worst effect of Imperialism is that it has stunted a
whole generation, and there is hardly one man who towers a head above the mob.
They have no statesmen, and Jules Favre himself is reported to have declared
that he could not make peace because his life would not be safe I Is that
statesmanlike or soldierlike ?

Pr^vot Paradol would not have
said that ! It is fearful to see such

a country as France so entirely
demoralized, abandoned, ruined ; it

will take generations to build
her up again. Circumstances so ex-

ceptional as the present state of
France would seem to justify exceptional

measures on the part of the other
Powers. England will not act

alone, and unfortunately there is
no cordial feeling between England

and the United States. Besides,
Mr. Motley is, I suppose, no longer

Minister. What I should like to
see would be a journey of Mr. Glad-

stone and Motley to the head
quarters of the King of Prussia. They

I C C

386 Visit to North Wales [ch.
xvn

would be able to arrange a
peace without a single threat, for Germany- is as anxious for peace as France
is, and they might lay the founda- tions of a league between the three Teutonic
Powers that would be a guarantee of peace for centuries. France would listen to
America, Germany to England, and England and America would be drawn together
again by the good work which they would do in common. Bismarck is quite powerful enough to make
Germany feel ashamed of any wish of territorial aggrandizement ; and all that
Moltke wants are the house-door, the bolt and keys of Germany. I shall have to
run away from Oxford for a few weeks before term begins, and I hope to be off
by Tuesday for North Wales.’

To THE Dean of Westminster.

Carnarvon, September 30, 1870.

‘ My dear Stanley, — I was so
overdone that I ran away to Wales. We
had splendid weather, and enjoyed our rambles immensely. Alas 1 the English
Government is weaker than I expected ; they do not seem to perceive that, since
the destruction of the Western Empire, nothing like the present events has
happened. Germany would be thankful for a little friendly coercion, but what
Germany expected was a recogni- tion of the righteousness of her cause, a fact
now admitted by France, but not yet by England, except by Lord Russell. This
kind of neutrality demoralizes England, and blunts the edge of her moral
conscience. I expected something very different from Gladstone.’

The end of September the Max
Miillers, both tired out with work for the sick and wounded, spent a delightful
fortnight in North Wales, climbing Cader Idris and Snowdon, and exploring each
lovely valley.

Scarcely had they settled
quietly at home than the work began again, and Max M tiller found himself
involved on all sides in long correspondence on the subject filling his heart
as well as his thoughts.

To Dr. Abeken.

Trayislation. Parks End,
Oxford, October 6, 1870.

‘Dear Sir and Friend, — . . .
Gladstone is the soul of the

Cabinet, a man of slow
resolution, but of inflexible will if once the

resolution has been made. As far
as I know him, he is on our side,

not from natural sympathy, but
from conviction, from a feeling of

right and of duty. He was the
only Minister who recognized our

right in the Danish question, and
who called the Treaty of London

1870] Alsace and Lorraine 387

a bad continuation of the Vienna
treaties. His sympathies are more Latin than Teutonic, as you know, and the
commercial prosperity of France had so dazzled him, that he declared hardly a
year ago that France would grow to be the Queen of Europe. It will be difficult
for him and for many Englishmen to take in the new position of the world calmly
and from the right point of view ; but he is nearly the only English statesman
whose stern uprightness I have never doubted, and who is so entirely guided by
noble motives even where he makes mistakes.

‘ I intend writing to
Gladstone, somewhat to this effect : —

‘ I. The thought of conquest of
territory and the acquisition of non- German subjects is foreign to us.

‘2. It is a fate which Germany
has not brought about, that has brought Alsace and Lorraine into the possession
of the German army.

‘ 3. No prince and no statesman
in Germany is strong enough to give up again for any price a possession so
dearly bought.

‘ 4. The settling of the
boundary requires no Congress or diplomatic understanding. It is a purely
military question, and in consequence can only be decided by a Military
Commission. Germany does not wish for any Frenchmen, nor for one inch of
country, only what is indispensable to her future security.

‘ I am writing this in a great
hurry to catch the post.

‘ Well, once more : do not give
any weight to the anti-German out- breaks of the English Press ; they come
mostly from a French and Old- Danish source.

‘ The republican sympathies are
absurd, and only help us and do no harm. Sir H. Verney has improved, but not
enough yet: he is getting old.

‘ The collections in England
are beautiful, larger than for their own patriotic funds after the Crimean War.
A recognition on the side of Germany, especially before the French do so, would
have a good effect, and might be a good occasion of mentioning some useful
truths.’

To THE Right Hon. W, E.
Gladstone.

Parks End, October 6, 1870.

‘ My dear Mr. Gladstone, — If you
knew what an effort it has been

to me not to write to you on some
of the events of the last months,

you would require no assurance of
my readiness to answer, as well as

I can, the inquiries contained in
your letter of October 4, which

I received this morning. I have
no hesitation in asserting that the

conquest of territory inhabited
by people that are not German in

national sentiment is an idea
repugnant to the German mind. Count

Bismarck, whose power arises
chiefly from his accurate knowledge of

the German character, and who is
simply carrying out with the

c c a

388 Alsace and Lorraine [ch.
xvn

prudence and courage of a
statesman what all German patriots have been yearning for during the last fifty
years, would never venture on a war of conquest. The tradition that Alsace and
Lorraine belonged once to Germany has never been forgotten by the people.
German statesmen claimed these provinces in 1815, but Russia supported France
in resisting their claim. One of our most popular German poets, Max von
Schenkendorf, who died in 181 7, wrote: —

“ Doch dort in den Vogesen

Liegt ein verlornes Gut,

Da gilt es, deutsches Blut

Vom Hollenjoch zu losen.”

But an offensive war against
France, to recover that “ lost patrimony,” would have been impossible in
Germany.

‘ Events, however, have
happened for which Germany is not re- sponsible. France has attacked Germany
with the avowed purpose of annexing German soil. The French army has been
beaten back, and the German army, in pursuing the enemy, finds itself in actual
possession of Alsace and Lorraine. The sacrifices on the part of Germany have
been enormous : there is hardly a German family from the Vistula to the Rhine
which is not in mourning. It is a mercy that there have been no German
reverses, and that the atrocities of former French invasions have not been
repeated. There would have been a feeling of righteous anger and fury before
which no stone would have remained upon another at Paris. It is a mercy that
this feeling of revenge does not exist. But a new current of national feeling
has sprung up in Germany, which rests simply on facts, and which no King, no
Minister, would be able to resist. Alsace, they say, is ours, and our sons
shall not have died in vain. The thousands and thousands of German hearts that
lie buried in Alsace and Lorraine have made that soil German once more. Were
Prussia to yield Strassburg and Alsace, she would cease to be Prussia.

‘ In answer to your first
question, therefore, I have no doubt that Count Bismarck did say what M. Jules
Favre reported him to have said, that, whether the inhabitants of Alsace hate
us or no, we shall hold Alsace for Germany.

‘ You say “ it would surprise you
to find that I thought these people

could properly be annexed to
Germany, if their heart is in France as their

country.” My answer is this. To
conquer a province for the sake of

territorial aggrandizement, and
to annex people who do not Nvish to be

annexed, would be an outrage of
the moral sense of Europe. This

is what France intended to do. To
hold a hostile province which has

been conquered in a defensive
war, and with it the people who inhabit

that province, is an evil, I
grant, but it may be a necessary evil, and it

1870] Alsace and Lorraine 389

can never be a crime. Anyhow, a
culprit who is sent to prison has no right to complain that he is being
annexed. I say nothing of the language of Alsace and Lorraine, for the
annexation, if it takes place, does not take place on linguistic grounds. I say
nothing of the friendly or unfriendly feeling of the people, for the annexation
is not advocated on sentimental grounds.

‘ The annexation is the result
of a war forced upon Germany, and the occupation of French territory must be
justified on military and strategic grounds. Germany is determined to make
herself as safe against France as she can make herself, and no Power in Europe
would gainsay her right, nay, her duty, to do what she considers best for her
future security.

‘ The frontier line that is to
protect Germany against France can hardly be considered a matter to be settled
by a Congress of diplo- matists : it can be properly settled by a Military
Commission only. Count Bismarck knows
perfectly well that a disaffected province is no addition to the strength of a
country, but he would probably bow to the judgement of Count Moltke in
determining the positions that seem best to secure the safety of Germany. On
such points, however, the opinion of military authorities from other countries
might justly claim to be heard, and might induce the German strategists to draw
the line so as to include as little as possible of purely French soil, and to
annex as few as possible of purely French inhabitants. The question of
Luxemburg might possibly be reopened and facilitate arrangements in Alsace and
Lorraine. I believe that the statements of the hostile feeling pervading all classes
of society in Alsace are exaggerated. It is true that I judge from the accounts
published by German travellers ; but they were published before the war, and
when no one thought of annexation. As to accurate statistics, they are to be
found in R. Bockh, Der Deutschen Volkszahl und Sprachgebte(,’S>tTLY\w, 1870.
The German portion of Alsace comprises half a million inhabitants, that of
Lorraine 297,500, of which one-ninth part has become French during the last two
centuries. The German inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine, though they were
never considered as the equals of true Frenchmen, have no doubt been greatly
humoured by the French Government ; and as long as France was “ La Grande
Nation,” and Germany no nation at all, it was easy to rouse a feeling of pride
among the Alsacians, not against Germany, which did not exist, but against the
petty nationalities of Baden, Hesse, Wurtemberg, Bavaria, &c. In future, when France will be no longer “ La
Grande Nation,” though always “une grande nation,” the idea of being a German,
and not a Frenchman, will be less intolerable than heretofore.

‘ And if there are people in
the annexed portions of Alsace and

390 Military Conference [ch.
xvn

Lorraine who cannot bear the
idea of belonging to Germany, surely it is not too much to expect from their
patriotism that they should follow the example of thousands of German families
which emigrated to Philadelphia when Alsace was annexed to France. When the
flower of a nation is ready to die for their country, those who have the option
of emigrating from Alsace to France proper are not so greatly to be pitied.

‘ My great anxiety through all
this war has been the unfriendly feeling that is springing up between England
and Germany. The whole future of the world seems to me to depend on the
friendship of the three Teutonic nations, Germany, England, and America. If
Germany is estranged from England, she must become the ally of France and
Russia, which would mean another century of imperiaHsm and despotism. Can
nothing be done to heal the breach ? ‘

To Dr. Abeken.

Translation. October 7, 1870.

‘ . . . The idea of a Congress
is ridiculous, but it is much liked, especially among the diplomatists, though
Gladstone does not care for it. . . . He would like to treat the matter more
from a military point of view. A Military Commission would deal with the
question in a more technical way, and there would be less talk about France’s
dishonour, and such-like phrases. Should the question about Luxem- burg come up
again, it would be a most natural thing to invite the Powers concerned to a
Military Conference. Of course I understand nothing of all these matters, and I
only speak as a member of the Parlia- ment of “ public opinion.” The only thing
for which I feel useful, and perhaps have been of use, is to keep up the good
feeling between England and Germany. If this is also your purpose, please
consider me at your service at any time. Ever yours.

‘ Is there no quicker way to
Versailles than via Berlin ? ‘

To HIS Mother.

Translation. October 9.

‘ Though you wish for no
congratulations on your birthday, I must

still write to you, to comfort
you in your loneliness. Many, many who

used to meet you on this day with
joy, are gone before you, and you

miss their presence which you so
enjoyed. But they are lost to your

sight only, not to your heart,
and that which really belonged to you

in them, can never be lost to
you. Our life here is not our own

work, and we know that it is best
for us all, just as it is. We ought

to bear it, and we must bear it ;
and the more patiently, yes, the more

1870] Feeling in Germany
against England 391

joyfully we accommodate
ourselves to it, the better for us. We must take life as it is, as the way
appointed for us, and that must lead to a certain goal. Some go sooner, some
later, but we all go the same way, and all find the same place of rest.
Impatience, gloom, murmurs, and tears do not help us, do not alter anything,
and make the road longer, not shorter. Quiet resignation, thankfulness, and
faith help us forwards, and alone make it possible to perform the duties which
we all, each in his own sphere, have to fulfil. May God, who has laid many
burdens on you, give you the courage to bear them quietly to the end. The
darker the night, the brighter the stars in the heavens.

‘ We have had a delightful time
in North Wales, walking every- where, as if we were as young as ten years ago.
I wish Emilie had come to England, as she could not go to Paris ; though, if
she has no feeling for this wonderful uprising of the German Fatherland, we
should not have had much peace together, for I can think of hardly anything
else, and G. is more German even than I am. Even for you it must be glorious to
have lived to see these great events. The sacrifice is great and terrible, but
it has not been in vain. Peace cannot be far off. The French are already
becoming reasonable, and should be thankful to have a province like Alsace,
only half French and once entirely German, which they can give up without shame
; the shame for them is in quite a different direction, not in the punishment,
but in the light-hearted folly of which they must now pay the cost.

‘ We have still a little money
by us, if anything special is wanted, and plenty of warm things for the winter.
The collections in England have been splendid. Why do the people in Germany
abuse England so ? They could not expect England to go to war, and that export
of arms is nothing. Such snarling is unworthy of Germany.’

To THE Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone.

Parks End, October 9.

‘ Dear Mr. Gladstone, — I wish
the French could be made to see that there is no dishonour in taking the
punishment which this war has brought on them. If Jules Favre can bring himself
to call the war criminal, can he wish the crime to go unpunished, or does he
think that such a crime can be atoned for by a mere fine ? Jules Favre and all
who protested against the war may well say, “ Delicta maiorum immeritus lues,
Romane,” &c., &c.’

392 Siege of Parts [ch. xvn

To Mr. Bellows.

Parks End, October ii.

*I was glad to hear so
promising an account of your little Max.
I have a little boy some three years old, and I imagine, just like you,
there is nothing like him. I am sorry to hear of the interruption of your Dictionary.
I shudder when I think of Paris. I spent some happy years there, and have still
several old friends living there, and to think of that town being bombarded !
And yet what is the German army to do ? and is not every one of the thousands
of people that have been killed more precious than the whole of Paris ? ‘

To Dr. Abeken.

Translation. Parks End, Oxford,
October ii, 1870.

‘ Dear Sir and Friend, — ... It
is clearer than ever to me, that if you wish for a common understanding with
England, you will find it best secured on a military basis. That Germany has a
right to secure her position strategically is granted. It remains to demon-
strate, (i) that there is no other means to such security but the annexation of
Alsace and a part of Lorraine ; (2) that the fortresses, which threatened Germany
formerly, will not become a menace to France henceforth.

‘ There are in England also
some voices in favour of a ple’biscite in the parts to be annexed. To me it
seems an un-German comedy, which however might be acted in Alsace with good
prospect of success, “ by desire.”

‘ The French refugees are very
numerous in England, and they make mischief in all circles of society. Germany
is too great to enter upon a paper war. Also with regard to the export of arms,
nothing can be done before Parliament meets.’

To THE Same.

Translation. Oxford, Parks End,
October 25.

‘First of all, many thanks for
your valuable letter. I had not

expected an answer from you, for
I know what you have on your

shoulders now, but it was a great
satisfaction to me to know that

I was not mistaken, and that with
regard to England our goal is

the same. Much might be said with
regard to the paths to this goal,

but there is no time for that
now. Here the situation of things is

a very difficult one. Lord
Granville is neither a Clarendon nor

a Palmerston, but he has the best
intentions, and is amiable to every-

body. He has many French friends,
and of course the French are

everywhere in London now. The
Times is very kind at present. It

1870] Second Letter to ‘the
People of England’ 393

has printed a letter of mine
to-day, which I enclose. It is meant for England, of course, or I should have
used stronger language. The speech of Du Bois-Raymond is much too strong for
English readers, and would only rouse ill feelings.

‘ You know, perhaps, that a
French loan has to-day been launched on the English market. You know, of
course, also that a German loan would have great success here. Though it does
Prussia much credit that she seeks for no foreign loans, yet in so doing she
forgoes much of the sympathy which in England, as everywhere else, is felt for
one’s debtors. Many of the most eager friends of the French are interested in
the French funds — hinc mtiliae lacrymae ! . . .

‘ If I can be of any help, do
make use of me. My influence on the Times is, however, nil\ they only print
what suits them. All I can do is to make what I write palatable.’

The second letter to ‘ the
People of England,’ in the Times of October 22, was in answer to M. Aries
Dufour’s appeal to the English nation to save Alsace and Lorraine. The three
last letters were answers to ‘ Scrutator’s ‘ letters in the Times. It is an open secret now who was the inspirer
of ‘ Scrutator’s ‘ letters. ‘ The hands were the hands of Esau, but the voice
was the voice of Jacob ; ‘ and before he wrote his last letter Max Miiller felt
very certain that he ‘ was called on to withstand in argument one of the most
powerful athletes of our time.’

It is impossible now not to see
how much of the present ill feeling in Germany against England dates from the
year 1870. Without swerving- an inch from the position of neutrality rightly
observed by the English Government, the justice of the cause for which Germany
was fighting, and the reckless wickedness of the French in attacking her, might
have been acknowledged by those in power, whereas Mr. Gladstone’s preference
for the Romance over the Teutonic nations was well known in Germany, and the
general apathy, if not anti- pathy, of the English to the German cause was
universally attributed in Germany to his influence.

The third volume of Chips came
out in the autumn, a very large edition being printed. A second edition of Max
Miiller’s Sanskrit Grammar also was brought out. Both were well received. One
review states that : —

·
Every paper in INIr. ]\Iax Miiller’s third
volume of Chips from a German Workshop is valuable. Applied to them, the term
exhaustive

394 Chips, Vol. Ill — Sanskrit
Grammar [ch. xvn

has really a meaning. Mr. Max
Miiller always draws from a full cask.
He does not write, as so many now do, because he is expected to say
something, but because he has something to say. The subject does not make him,
he makes the subject. His range, too, is some- thing enormous.’

The Globe considered that : —

‘A more delightful volume has
not been published for a very long time. Bearing marks on almost every page of
the profoundest scholar- ship, it is absolutely free from all taint of that
pedantry which is the besetting sin of most German writers.’

Of the Sanskrit Grammar a
review^er says : —

‘ It has been the aim of Mr.
Miiller to produce a work which should combine the clearness of Bopp with the
accuracy of Colebrooke and the native writers whom that great scholar took as
his model. In this his success has been so great that the Sanskrit Grammar for
Beginners is by far the best book that can be put into the hands of a student.
In a word, it combines Oriental fullness and accuracy with the European method.
It says much, both for the progress of Sanskrit in this country, and for the
value of Mr. Miiller’s own labours, that this admirable Grammar has already
reached a second edition.’

To E. A. Freeman, Esq.

அன்பு தளபதி · அன்பு தளபதி Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:05 pm

November 12.

·
I thought it possible that my new volume of
Chips might tempt you to a review. I am not going to write any captatio benevoleniiae,
though I am going to ask a favour. In the two essays “ Are there Jews in
Cornwall ? “ and “ St. Michael’s Mount,” I have had to work through a good deal
of matter with which no one is so familiar as you, viz. ecclesiastical
antiquities. I want very much to know from some competent person whether I am
right or wrong. Therefore the favour I ask is this : if you should review my
book, would you look at these two essays more particularly, and give me the
benefit of your criticism on any points where I may have gone wrong? I meant to have written to you to ask your
advice on these essays before they were printed, but I know you are a busy man,
and there- fore did not wish to take up any of your time. In the essay on “
Cornish Antiquities “ you will find, I think, that we hold the same opinions on
English Ethnology.

‘ I am quite miserable about
Gladstone. England will never have

such an opportunity again. Now it
is lost, irretrievably lost. With

Germany as a friend, the Black
Sea question would have been solved

amicably, and the German vote in
America would have kept the Irish

1870] Mr. Gladstone’s Romance
Sympathies 395

vote in order, so as to prevent
mischief about the Alabama. Now the sin is sinned ! ‘

To THE Right Hon. W, E.
Gladstone.

Parks End, November 12, 1870.

‘ My dear Mr. Gladstone, — I am
surprised to hear that my new volume of Chips from a German Workshop has not
yet reached you. I have written to my
publisher, but I hope that by this time the volume may be already in your
hands. No doubt the mihtary authorities, who maintain that the south-western
frontier of Germany is not secure without taking in part of Alsace and
Lorraine, ought to be fully persuaded that they do not deceive themselves and
render their hue of defence less secure than it is at present. I, of course,
know nothing of military science, but I have great confidence in the calm
judgement of Moltke. It was for that very reason that I thought a Military
Conference the only scheme that could lead to practical results, though, as
long as cession of territory was excluded on prin- ciple, discussion would have
been useless. I am afraid that now a conference of military authorities is no
longer possible. I have often watched with wonder a pointsman on a crowded
railway station, who holds in his hands the fates of thousands, and who by a
movement of his hand, hardly perceptible to others, sends one train to the
right and the other to the left. ... I feel as if two trains, both holding dear
friends, had just started, though not in the direction in which I hoped they
would have gone.’

To E. A. Freeman, Esq.

November 27, 1870.

*My dear Freeman, — . . . I
want to know whether I am right in declining Dr. Bannister’s arguments. Could a
man at that time have held land under a Jew ? What is the most likely meaning
of lejeu ? not le Jut/, surely ? I meant Gladstone’s Roman and Romance
sympathies for France, and his utter inability to appreciate the character of
the struggle now going on between Germany and France. He is fully convinced in his heart that every
German is a heretic sive Protestant, a barbarian, and a villain. He might make
a few charitable exceptions in favour of two or three Germans whom he happens
to know, and who have had the benefit of a tub, physical and intellectual, in
England. Happily the feeling towards England in really influential quarters in
Germany is good. Bismarck’s papers have never joined in the anti-English
barking of the newspapers.

The talk about the exportation
of arms is silly. I wish the French

had bought their arms in
Germany. The sooner there is an end of

39^ First Visit to Hazvarden
[ch. xvn

that kind of international law
the better. Let everybody sell what he can, and let everybody capture what he
can; everything else is mere deception and hypocrisy. If Gladstone had ever to
confess that he was the writer of the article in the Edinburgh, it might make
mischief, for even Bismarck is only a man. But what the real states- men in
Germany want is an alliance offensive and defensive with England : there is no
better way for securing peace in Europe.
France and Russia are the disturbers of the peace ; but, with the
English fleet and the German army as the police of Europe, no cock would dare
to crow at Paris, no bear would growl at St. Petersburg. England might have had the alliance of
Germany for the asking, and at that very time the writer in the Edinburgh
Review calls the King of Prussia a hypocrite, Bismarck a villain, and the
German people half-civilized brutes ! ‘

To his mother Max M tiller writes:
—

Translation. November 29.

·
I never said I should like to be a Frenchman,
but that I should like to see France strong again, for strong neighbours are
good for keeping a country up to the mark, and keep it from arrogance.’

Early in December Max Miiller
paid the first of several pleasant visits to Havv^arden Castle. He woke early
in the morning to find a white world, and looking through the window saw Mr.
Gladstone making his way alone through the snow to early morning church. He
willingly braved the elements later in the day to secure a quiet talk with the
Prime Minister.

To HIS Wife.

Ha WARDEN Castle, December 10,
1870.

‘ I shall not have much time
before breakfast, but I just wanted to let you know that here I am, quite safe.
A fine large place, full of people. The Bernstorffs are not here ; too busy in
London. General Burnside was here, dined, and then went off to New York for a
week. He is a fine fellow — just like a strong, tall, English general — and he
is truly German, and has told Mr. Gladstone some useful truths. Frederick Peel
is here and Mr. Haywood, all very pleasant.
No talk yet with Mr. Gladstone, except about University matters, but the
fight will come, I expect.’

December 11.

‘ There is so much snow that
everybody had to stay in. However,

Mr. G. and I took a walk through
the snow and talked it all over,

and I told him that any German
statesman who gave up Strassburg

1870] Vmtors at H award en 397

deserved to be hanged, and he
shook himself a litde, but I think he begins to see that we Germans are not
such ogres as he thought.

G. is an old friend of
Abeken’s, but had lost sight of him/

To Dr. Abeken.

Translation. Oxford, Parks End,
December 13, 1870.

‘ Dear Friend, — Your letter of
December 5 arrived here in good time last Friday, just when I was leaving for
Hawarden Castle, where Gladstone had invited me. Count BernstorfF was to be
there, but could not get away from London. General Burnside was there, a good
ally of the German cause. Above all, however, I must tell you that Mr.
Gladstone and Mrs. Gladstone keep your name in friendly and grateful memory;
both send their kindest regards to you, and Mr. Gladstone expressed repeatedly
how sad, though unavoidable, it was in this earthly existence, that the
personal inter- course with men whom we had learnt to love and value highly had
to be broken off. It was most fortunate that I could communicate to G. the
greater part of your letter ; it made a great impression on him. As I told you before, Gladstone’s sympathies
are by no means for Germany, neither is he familiar with the German language or
litera- ture, or the German character or ways ; also the French refugees have
taken great hold upon him. He distrusts Germany, especially Prussia, and
certain unceremonious demonstrations have put him into a bad humour. But he
would like to be persuaded, that is clear to me, and if once he perceives the
justice of the German claims he is sure to be loyal to his perceptions. The Due
de Grammont has mystified him so much, that Gladstone confessed him to be
unreliable. Bene- detti’s letter in the Standard made it easy for me to refute
the Duke by means of the Count. If Benedetti keeps his promise of continuing
the letters, the only thing remaining of the two cats will be the tails !

·
Our conversation dealt chiefly with the
provinces to be surrendered.

According to G., all our
feeling of human dignity is outraged by forcing even one single being to give
up his nationality. Of course I could only rejoin that our feelings would be
still more outraged by shooting down even one man, and that in order to avoid
this alternative, i.e. war, the surrender of certain provinces with their
inhabitants has to be taken into consideration. Then followed the question of
the real or apparent necessity of the Vosges frontier. I could only reply that this was a question
for experts in military and strategic history, and had been discussed
continually since 1648, and that friend as well as foe, German as well as
Frenchmen, were per- fectly at one on this point.

·
The question is whether a short representation
of this matter, with

398 Dislike of England in
Germany [ch. xvn

which every lieutenant of the
Prussian Staff is capable of dealing, would be adequate now. At the close I
could only add that at the present juncture of affairs, and in the present mood
of the German people and army, a statesman who allows himself to be compelled
to surrender Strassburg by threats and not by force would be considered guilty
of high treason. G. replied that the greatest mistakes of the statesmen of our
century lay in giving greater consideration to the phy- sical than to the moral
powers, and that the realization of the German wishes would become a misfortune
for Germany. Of course I could only reply that Germany had the right and was in
duty bound to decide the question, and that she alone would have to bear the
consequences and the responsibility. Many interesting conversations followed,
but I do not know whether they are of any interest to you. Gladstone, of course, only spoke for himself,
and he remarked several times : “ This is my opinion. What the Cabinet thinks
is quite a different question.” He considers the feeling in England not at all
unfriendly towards Germany, and I must confess that the German Press seems to
me much more hostile than the English. How comes this ? In England it is
supposed that the German Press says nothing which is not sanctioned by highest
authority. This is a general opinion, very difficult to correct. If Germany
wishes an under- standing with England in the future, both sides must agree to
work for it. The opponents of a German-English alliance do not fail to work
against it. I told Gladstone clearly that the only sure guarantee for the peace
of Europe consisted in combined action between Germany and England, and if the
fleet of England and the army of Germany took up again their old fraternal
relations no cock in France would crow, no bear in the East would growl. I, of
course, remarked in our conversations that he must consider me zfranc-tireur, as
I had never worn a uniform and never would wear one, and that the happiness of
two sister nations, in whose union the happiness of mankind consisted, was my
earnest wish. There were several members of Parliament present, and also some
other influential people, and I had sometimes to maintain a sharp conflict, but
“ the losses on our side were not important.”

‘ I threw in occasionally a
hint that hostile relations between Germany and England would force the former
to found a formidable navy, also that the German vote in America had up to the
present neutralized the Irish vote. I stayed at Hawarden till last night, and,
though I have accomplished nothing, we have certainly parted friends.

‘ I heard from the German Embassy
that a messenger was leaving

next Thursday, and that he might
take a letter. This gives me an

opportunity of sending you a
volume, at the end of which you will

1870] Letter to Fontane 399

find about eighty letters to
Bunsen : some of them, I think, might interest you.

‘ My wife sends her kindest
regards. We wish you a bright Christmas, bright through that which alone can
give us true joy, i. e. the con- sciousness of having done our duty and having
attained great things. Should you think
that the sincere gratitude of one unknown might be welcome to our great dux and
auspex, I ask you, should the opportunity occur, to give expression of my
feelings of admiration and gratitude to Count Bismarck ; you will do it so much
better than I could do it myself.’

Besides several relatives, many
of Max MUller’s school and University friends were taking active part in the
great war, as the following letter to Fontane, the novelist, shows : —

Translation, Parks End,
December 20, 1870.

‘ My dear Fontane, — Nothing
for a long time has given me greater pleasure than your letter. I had indeed
seen in the papers that you had escaped with a whole skin, but I am glad to
hear at first hand that you have returned to Berlin well and strong, and that
all goes well with you. The feeling here against Germany is bad, and from pure
ignorance ; in Germany the feeling seems even worse against England, and from
the same cause. It makes one wild, and I have hardly any other thought than how
one can help to cure this evil. Help as
far as you can ! ‘

To HIS Mother.

Translation. Oxford, December 20.

‘ One gets no rest with this
terrible war, and there seems small hope yet of peace. I had a most interesting
visit at Gladstone’s from December 9-12. It was a great honour, and it is
possible it has done some good. He wrote the whole time, so we had to stay in
the house, and many were the discussions. Bismarck is much disliked in England
: he does mad things, and who knows what enemies he may make. Well, I have done my best, and heard much
that was interesting.

Also I get some news from
Versailles, but that is between us.’

To Professor Bernays.

Translation. Parks End,
December 21, 1870.

‘ My dearest Friend, — I feel
with you the horrors of this time, and

though I am so proud of the
heroism of the German nation, I am

nevertheless ashamed to think how
often the world looked upon the

great spiritual victories of the
Fatherland with scorn and indifference,

40O Klaus Groth^s Quickborn
[ch. xvn

and now is on her knees because
we have learnt to aim our bullets with accuracy and skill. However, I trust
that the wild beast will soon retire, and that the spirit in Germany will
attain the upper hand. At all events, Nemesis has arisen with all grandeur, and
to have lived to see the fall of Imperialism is a comfort to me. I was somewhat
entangled in controversy which was more of an ethical than political nature. My
adversary was Gladstone, but we have parted friends. The feeling in England is not good, for many
reasons ; but it seems to me that the German feeling towards England is still
more childish. Till Germany and England
recognize that they are sister-nations, there will be no calm in Europe. We all
must help to that as far as we can. I have constructed the new volume of my
Chips with that thought underlying it. . . . Renan is in Paris, Mohl told me,
who is in London. London is crowded with Frenchmen, which creates much sympathy
with France, especially in Society. Here in Oxford every- thing is quiet and
calm, and I am decorating the Christmas tree for my four children. My work
proceeds slowly, for there is hardly any time for anything but for the reading
of newspapers. And what are you doing ? Pattison is well, always the same. —
Always in old friendship, yours.’

To Professor Klaus Groth.

Translation. Oxford, December 22,
1870.

‘ Your Quickborn, received
to-day, reminds me of my letter-debts, which I would gladly have paid long ago,
but one lives in such a tumult, one can neither read nor write, from the
quantities to read in the papers. So, first of all, my thanks for this new sign
of life and affection. I shall make my way through it, as it is now vacation.

I hope you have received the
third volume of my Chips, which now

and again will remind you of me.
I have read your dedication to

the Crown Prince with delight, and
what you write of Bismarck is

cheering and encouraging. Yes,
the times are great, but I wish the

deluge of blood were over, or the
animal in man will become all-

powerful, and we shall never come
to our senses. However fine and

elevating may be the heroic
courage of the German nation, killing

does not belong to the fine and
free arts. God grant an honourable

and lasting peace may reward the
countless sacrifices made by the

nation. For a time I felt alarmed
for Kiel and its inhabitants. Your

letter, which I translated at
once and sent to the Times, was never

published. The English like deeds
and stories of horror, and their

taste is for highly-spiced and
peppered articles ! I hope you need not

report the same of Holstein. I
have had to fight a good deal in the

1870] Delegate of University
Press 401

English papers. I hope that is
now over. I hope you and yours are well, and that the clouds over your
happiness are passing away : it grieves me to think that the sunshine is not so
bright there as two years ago. But all that belongs to the small evils of life,
and one learns, with such terrible evils all round one, to bear the little ones
more easily. Shall we meet this year ? I hope so, but one dare make no plans.
On the whole, it goes well with us ; the children are well. I am at times plagued with colds, as lately
when Stockhausen was in Oxford, and sang beautifully, and I had to stay in bed
I I saw him the next morning : he looked well, and was in splendid voice.
To-day some venison and Marzipan arrived here, doubtless from Forsteck.

Has your wife received the new
edition of Deutsche Liebe? Now

farewell, and may our paths
meet in 1871/

In November of this year Max
Muller had been elected a Delegate of the University Press. In July, 1883, he was
made a Perpetual Delegate. He resigned in 1896, finding that he could no longer
spare the time from his private work and ever-increasing correspondence ;
partly also from a growing feeling of the great responsibility resting on the
Delegates in conducting such an important business, a responsibility which he
felt he was not strong enough or young enough to face any longer.

To Matthew Arnold, Esq.

Oxford, December 27, 1870.

‘ My dear Arnold, — I wanted to
read your book before writing to thank you for it, and having read it, I can
thank you all the more honestly. It requires much courage to write about
religious questions, because almost every word you touch is oily and
befingered, and it is difficult to handle them without besmutting one’s hands.
But it is all the more necessary to rescue the old words, to dust them, and rub
them clean, and then show them to the world in their original purity and
splendour, as you have done. Your justification of St. Paul is most successful,
and I expect it will tell more than many learned controversies. You know that
the inevitable decay of words forms part of the science of language, and
therefore your chapter on the vicissitudes of the Pauline phraseology interests
me all the more. It is but a chapter of modern mythology, but a very important
one.

I send you by book post a copy of
some introductory lectures of mine,

on the Science of Religion. I
have only had sixteen copies struck off,

and I send one to you, because if
you look at them, you will see at

I D d

402 Etymological Meaning of
Words

once what my object was in
delivering them. It will take several years before I publish what I want to say
on the whole subject, but in the meantime I wanted you to know that we are
working in the same mine, I on a very low level as yet, you on a high level,
but on the whole with the same purpose. There was one expression in your book
with which I could not agree. The etymology of words is not a merely fanciful
argument ; the etymological meaning, if accurately elaborated, is a most
important historical element. There was a time when the etymological meaning of
a word represented what really was to the early framers of language the most
striking feature of an object, or the most important characteristic of a new
conception. To put an etymology in the place of a definition, is no doubt
foolish, but in the history of thought etymology holds a most important place.
Plato’s chaff is only directed against those who would use etymology instead of
a definition ; that there could be a historical element in etymology was beyond
Plato’s horizon. At the same time I do not defend R.’s etymologies. I send you
the new edition of Deutsche Liebe, because the translation of your poem strikes
me as really successful, I was glad to hear that you feel more kindly towards
Bunsen; Froude wrote to me to tell me the same. Yours very truly.’

CHAPTER XVIII

1871

King of Burma. Correspondence
with Abeken and Gladstone. Taine’s Lectures. Peace Festival. Letter from Crown
Prince. Death of father-in-law. Ems. Interviews with Emperor and Crown
Prince. Dr. Stainer. New edition of
Lectures on Lajiguage.

The year opened gloomily for
France and Germany, and even for many in England, who were watching the great
contest with beating hearts. Max Miiller found little rest, and the
correspondence with Mr. Gladstone and Dr. Abeken at Versailles was actively
carried on. January found him preparing a second edition of Volume III of
C-^z/^j-, of which the first edition of 3,000 copies was nearly sold out.

Max MUller received about this
time a Burmese letter from the Minister for Foreign Affairs at Mandalay,
conveying the thanks of Mindoon Min, the enlightened King of Burma, for his
translation of the Dhammapada, and expressing his great pleasure in hearing of
the desire of the learned Professors of Europe and America to know more about
the doctrines of Buddha, and ending with a promise to print the three ‘
Beedaghats ^ ‘ in Pali, and send copies for distribution to the English
Commissioner. If this work was ever begun, it was doubtless stopped by the
accession to the throne of the savage Thebaw, and the subsequent conquest and
annexation of Burma by the English. It was reserved for King Chula- langkorn,
the present enlightened King of Siam, to print the whole Tripitaka.

To Sir Charles Murray (Minister
at Lisbon).

Parks End, Oxyorh, Ja?iuary,
1871.

‘ IMy dear Sir, — I should have
answered your letter before, but Christmas brings many duties and distractions
to a man with a family ^ Pitakas, the sacred canon of Buddhism.

D d 2

404 Metaphor [ch. xvm

of young children, who at the
same time enjoys the privilege of Christmas dinners in College, and has to
perform important duties at College meetings. The Warden, to whom I mentioned
your letter, told me he would write to you and send me his letter, but he has
not done so. I believe his chief object
was to remind you of your portrait for our hall.

‘Now with regard to “metaphor” :
that seems to me an inexhaustible

subject, and one that can be
approached from many points. No

single writer could treat it with
anything like completeness, and every

contribution, however special,
would be useful. The array of lan-

guages which you can either
command or call to your assistance is

ample for making a successful
attack, and I should think that the

library of the Academy at Lisbon
would give you the opportunity for

verifying any statements for
which you do not like to trust to your

memory. A book on metaphor, even
in English alone, could be

made not only very instructive,
as revealing the secret working of the

national mind, but very amusing,
particularly if the languages of the

people and their slang
expressions are taken into account — a stunner,

a fizzer, a brick, &c. I have
myself treated the subject of metaphor

in its most general aspects in
the eighth lecture of my second series,

and as you may not have that
volume by you, I send you a copy, the

Foreign Office having kindly
relaxed the extreme rigour of their

recent rule against sending
anything in the Ambassador’s bag. How

such a treatise on metaphor
should be arranged is more than I could

venture to suggest. If it was
arranged according to the principal

subjects from which metaphors are
borrowed, it would become interest-

ing as a study of national
character, for “ out of the abundance of the

heart the mouth speaketh.” But
any collection carefully made, with

reference to authorities, so
that it might be used and quoted by sub-

sequent writers, would
certainly be well received.

*If at any time my services can
be of any use to you in your

literary researches, please to
command them at all times in the name

of the Mallard \ Yours
faithfully,

‘ Max MUller.’

To Dr. Abeken.

Translation. Oxford, Parks
‘Y.^ti, January 3, 187 1.

·
Dear Friend, — Many thanks for your last letter.
I greatly value your full answers to my letters, when your whole time and
strength belongs to the sacred cause of the Fatherland, when your heart, your
head, and your hands are sure to find litde time and rest. If I could only do
more here ! The desire to do so is not wanting. I have again had an interesting
correspondence with Gladstone. I sent him the

·
The All Souls crest. Sir C. Murray had been a
Fellow of the College.

1871] Work for Sick and Wounded
405

pamphlet by Seidewitz (1867),
Prussia s Rights wilh regard to Luxemburg, and as he wrote to me that the last
Luxemburg telegrams had made him less hopeful about a better understanding, I
communicated to him in English form your opinions with regard to Luxemburg. His
answer of December 29 was good. He knew of no answer then to Lord Granville’s
letter, which had been sent via Berlin, but he admitted that there is no doubt
that military urgency might justify, in given circumstances, a Power actually
at war in taking into its own hands provisionally the settlement of certain
ques- tions, which could only be finally disposed of by a joint authority. The Whigs are very angry at Lord Stanley’s
famous interpretation of the Luxemburg affair. . . .

‘ It seems to me it is
necessary to think of the future even more than of the present, and I confess
that all my hopes of a great future for Europe are based on the alliance of the
two great Teutonic sister- nations on the Continent and in the isles.
Everything else seems artificial and only temporary ; this alone is organic and
lasting. But it is indeed a hard task. In England the war has now become a
party question : the Tories will make it a reason for their attack on the
Government. That is good on the whole; it will lead to a com- bination of Tories
and Radicals, and so the great Liberal party — the support of the Government —
will be forced to take up a firm position with regard to foreign policy. Even a
change of Government, though not probable at present, would not do any harm,
for it would con- centrate English power and English opinion. It would be wiser
if Germany did not underestimate England’s military and naval power, and thus
weaken the desire for an English alliance. England’s fleet is stronger than
ever, her people are strong and patriotic, her credit is the best in the world.
(That makes me think the German loan in England ought to have been introduced
differently — a better god- mother, and a fatter or finer child !)

‘My wife sends kindest regards.
She is German through and through, and she and my three girls, the youngest
only six years old, work indefatigably for the wounded. Henry Acland is
doubtful about the German cause, but he was much pleased with your thought
about him, and he reciprocates your kind messages.

‘ I consider Count Bismarck’s
message to me the greatest reward for the little I have been able to do.’

To Professor Bernays.

Translation. Parks Y.^Ti, January
5, 1871.

‘ I should have answered your
last letter before this, if I had not

waited to send you a copy of the
Letters on the War, which arrived

4o6 Bismarck’s Thanks to M. M.
[ch. xvm

to-day at last, and was sent
off at once. You will see in them the character of the controversy between me
and Gladstone, even without having the letters written by “ Scrutator “ at
hand. I am quite convinced that Gladstone’s accomplice has muddled a good deal,
for Gladstone, in spite of all his weaknesses, is after all a very fine fellow.
One does not become Prime Minister of England without having a very strong
back. His sympathies, alas ! are altogether Norman, not Saxon, but his feeling
for what is right is stronger than all his other feelings. It is not true to say that he could have
prevented the war, for, in spite of his great majority, he would have become
impossible for his office, had he threatened France, or tried to interfere in
the struggle between France and Germany. Now matters stand very differently in
England. The war has become a party
question : the Tories, with the extreme Liberals, will attack the Ministry on
the basis of foreign policy. This will force the powerful Liberal party to a
decided and recognized policy, and that is best for us. The German feeling
towards England is incomprehensible to me, and the Government does not in the
least encourage it. The war-power of England is greater than it has ever been —
the fleet is ready to strike, the whole nation is patriotic, and the wealth is
colossal. It is worth while to have such an ally, and Germany, conscious of her
own greatness, ought to speak as peer to peer, not as a hysterical housewife to
a housemaid. Well, we will hope for the best.

‘ Just think, I have received
the warmest thanks from Bismarck from Versailles ! ‘

To HIS Mother.

Translation. January 7, 1871.

‘ I have sent you a little book
with my letters on the war. I lately received from Versailles, through Abeken,
most grateful thanks from Bismarck. I will copy the letter for you : “ First,
my thanks for what you have done and are doing for Germany, for our holy cause
! This expression of gratitude is not from me alone. I write in the name of
Count Bismarck, who spoke to me only yesterday with a full and thankful
recognition of your great and influential activity during this time, which he
has heard of through the newspapers. He is rejoiced to have such an ally.” What
can one desire more ? ‘

To THE Same.

Translation. January 15, 187 1.

‘ The news of John’s ^ death
was a great shock : what misery for

his poor mother. . . . The
whole land must be full of mourning — even

^ His cousin, John von Basedow,
shot hy franc-tireurs.

1871] Gasparin s Pamphlet 407

here one cannot enjoy life,
when one reads every day of these battles, and one sees no hope of peace. Here
in England sympathies are much divided ; pity is naturally on the side of
France, and Bismarck’s policy has alienated many people in England. But, on the
whole, all goes well. The screams in the papers signify little : much of it
comes from French refugees, who swarm in London. The better classes are
inclined to Germany, but not to Bismarck ! I am not an admirer of his, highly
as I prize the work he has done for Germany, and truly as I recognize that the
whole aim of his life has been the welfare of his Fatherland. Such work cannot
always be carried out with perfectly clean hands. On the other hand, I cannot
agree with the German abuse of the French nation. The French as a nation fight
bravely, and show that they are by no means so depraved and perishing as the
writers in the German papers think. At all events I hate such hector- ing, as
if the Germans were the general guardians of morality, and privileged
possessors of all virtues. If this war goes on long, all Europe will be a
desert, and one must be ashamed of mankind. The wild beasts behave better.’

To THE Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone.

January 29.

·
... As long as one reads the pages of Comte de
Gasparin’s pamphlet, one seems to live in a pure and bracing atmosphere, one
begins to breathe freely, one’s heart expands, everything around seems bright
and full of hope. But we cannot live on mountain-tops, we must live and work in
the low cloudy valleys, and when one is brought again face to face with real
life and real men, the heart fails and all hopes vanish. I knew there were such
men in France as the writer of this pamphlet. There is the true and noble ring
of the old French mettle in all his words and all his thoughts. If a country
can still produce such men, it need not despair about its fate. I feel quite
ashamed when I see German writers speak of the whole of France as one vast Babylon,
implying at the same time that Heaven has granted to us the exclusive privilege
of all virtue and godliness. The only pity is that in France the good men
withdraw from the front of political life ; Gambetta rules, while Gasparin
retires to Switzerland.

‘ Count Gasparin’s scheme seems
to me quite perfect. It gives in reality far more to Germany than she will get
by annexing Alsace and Lorraine. It would be a blessing to Germany, to France,
to Europe.

‘ But can it be ? First of all,
there is a large and at present very

powerful party in Germany, which
is no longer accessible to any

arguments. We must take men as
they are, and we must take nations

as they are ; and a nation
flushed with victory and crushed by grief is

4o8 Goldwin Smith on the War [ch.
xvm

not like a nation in its right
mind. It is with nations as with indi- viduals. How often do we see a friend
rushing into misery, whom we might save if we could hold him by the arm, or
make him listen to reason. That fight against the irrational and unconquerable
powers of life is the most distressing; yet I do not say that reason should not
fight against unreason : I only fear that in this case the fight is hopeless
from the beginning.

‘
Suppose Germany and France placed their fate in the hands of Count Gasparin,
what could he do? Could he persuade the Great Powers to guarantee the
neutrality of Alsace ? Such a guarantee implies a readiness to go to war for
the sake of others. If it does not mean that, it means nothing. Does that
readiness exist in England ? Is there
any party in England strong enough to carry such a measure, and to commit the
country to such contingencies ? Depend upon it, Germany would

அன்பு தளபதி · அன்பு தளபதி Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:08 pm

demand very stringent
guarantees, for Lord Stanley’s words after the conclusion of the treaty for the
neutrality of Luxem- burg have been a terrible lesson. I should consider
England capable of the most generous and heroic eflforts, but from what I see
of the temper of the people, and the strange attraction between the most
opposite political centres, I have grave doubts as to the possibility of such a
guarantee receiving the approval of Parliament.

‘ Then comes the question about
Russia, and whatever the personal character of the present Czar may be, no
Pvussian statesman would help to heal that sore to which he trusts as the best
security for the success of the Russian policy of the future.

‘Count Gasparin’s pamphlet has
no doubt been sent to Count Bismarck. If not, I should gladly send it through
Dr. Abeken. It is a masterpiece in every sense.

*If Alsace is too small by
itself, why not make it a Canton of Switzerland ? It would thus join an
established political system, and enjoy the traditional prestige of Swiss
neutrality. But I have no hope.’

The growth of feeling in
England against Germany and for France, was often a sore trial to Max Miiller,
but he was refreshed from time to time by sympathetic letters from many English
friends, and especially from Mr. Goldwin Smith, at that time living at Ithaca
in the United States, who took a wide, unprejudiced, historical view of the
whole question.

He was always for the annexation
of Alsace and Lorraine,

‘ provided a good natural
frontier could be formed,’ and con-

sidered the bombardment of Paris
‘a disagreeable necessity’ ;

whilst he asked, in a letter to
Max Miiller, ‘ what demon had

1871] Feeling about Strassburg
409

entered into his countrymen,
that when they are delivered by a wonderful display of German heroism, and at
vast expense of German blood, from the peril which has always been hanging over
them, . . . they, instead of blessing, curse their deliverers ? ‘

To THE Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone.

Parks End, February 2.

‘ Before thanking you for your
letter, I wrote to Mr. Delane to ask him whether he would allow me to write a
review of Count Gasparin’s pamphlet, and thus bring his ideas before the
English public. I have his reply to-day, and he simply declines. He evidently
considers the matter as settled. I have sent the pamphlet to Dr. Abeken. Un-
fortunately there were some remarks in it which are sure to offend Count
Bismarck, particularly where he tells him that by his decision about Alsace he
has to prove whether he possesses mere hahilete or political genius. However,
the real difficulty is that even Count Bismarck is not strong enough, supposing
he was influenced by the future rather than by the present, to oppose the
military party, and I believe the feeling in Germany is so strong that for any
statesman now to give up Strassburg would be simply to abdicate. There is a
poetry about Strassburg which is stronger than all prose. Nations have their
rough- hewn destinies to fulfil; at present I see no help. I just see the
morning papers : I do not believe in the conditions of peace ; it would be a
challenge to Nemesis, and people in Germany have not read history to no
purpose. But it is hard to mediate between intoxi- cation and madness.’

To HIS Mother.

Translation. February 7.

‘ The feeling in England is
less excited. They must yield to the inevitable. So I have not packed up, but
have had to let people know I could live in Germany as well as, if not better
than, here ! I have not anything to complain of, and continue to have most
interesting letters from Gladstone, the Prime Minister. He is a very clever and
honourable man, and would willingly do his best, but he has a difficult
position.’

The following letter is given
by permission, as showing the feeling of an unbiassed historian on the recent
events : —

SOMERLEAZE, WeLLS, SOMERSET,

February 19, 1871.

‘My DEAR MtJLLER, — I have got a
wild scheme in my head, in

which you may possibly be able to
help me. It seems pretty certain

4T0 Freeman on the War [ch. xvm

that the German troops are to
march into Paris. Now that is a thing which does not happen much above once in
a thousand years, and a thing for which I have been earnestly longing ever
since 976. For the first time in my
life, I wish to see a military spectacle.
I have said ever since 1851, that, if L. N. Buonaparte was to be
guillotined, and they would only send me word, I would come and see the show,
in whatever part of the world I might be. And this show will be quite as
satisfactory as the other. But is it possible ?
Is it safe ? I do not doubt that you have means of finding out ; you
doubtless know some of the swells at Versailles or somewhere. If you could give me a lift, I should be
deeply obliged. If I could get to see the Emperor’s triumph without
jeopardizing mine own self, I should greatly enjoy it, and I might make something
of it for the public advantage. If I did go, I should hke to get Bryce, Pindar,
or somebody to come with me.

‘ I hope you have by this time
seen both my Pall Mall letters. To my utter amazement, the Tivies has gone and
reprinted the second of them. That paper has hitherto made it a fixed rule
never to mention me or any writing of mine, or to let my name appear, except at
the Mid-Somerset election, when they could not well help it. What does this
mean ?

‘ I am sending for the Academy,
as I see you have been writing in it.

Do you altogether forbid me to
say “ Kikero “ ?

·
Yours very truly, Edward A. Freeman.’

To Dr. Abeken.

Translation. Parks End,
February 20, 187 1.

‘ Dear Friend, — I enclose the
letter of a friend of Germany, Mr.
Freeman. I do not know if his name is familiar to you. He is one of the
best historians and public men in England — a man like Treitschke,
indefatigable with his pen, and always to the point and incisive. He has been
faithful to our cause to the end, from solid true conviction. His letter will
show you his desire, and I thought it worth while to send it just as it is. You
know the English too well to think that a man like Mr. Freeman would keep
anything in the background. He is one who has belonged to us from a deep
conviction ; he keeps himself, however, quite independent, and the only thing
it is possible to do for him is a kindness hke the one he asks for. We need all
the help in England which we can procure by honest means. I often ponder now
over the change of affairs at the death of Peter III, and I still hope that we
may win the battle of Burkersdorf, though it be only on the diplomatic
battle-field, but may we win it before it is too late. Do not underestimate
England :

1871] Jewish Thought in Greek
Mythology 411

she has only twenty million
inhabitants — but they are EngHshmen, and they come from Schleswig-Holstein.’

The answer to Mr. Freeman’s
request was as follows : —

March lo, 1871.

·
My dear Freeman, — I had a letter from my friend
at Versailles : he says it was impossible to write, for nothing was settled
from hour to hour about the entry, in fact there has been no entree
trioviphale. It is curious that, in spite of all provocation, my friend — and
he reflects Bismarck, I believe, most faithfully — clings to the idea of a
friendship between England and Germany as the only safety for the future. Have you seen “Scrutator’s” book? I have not,
but I heard from a friend this morning that it is simply libellous, and that
legal action should be taken. If so, I am certain that Gladstone had nothing to
do with it, but that it is , pur et simple!

The following letter shows
that, amidst all the excitement of the times, Max MUlIer did not allow his work
to flag : —

To THE Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone.

Parks End, February 21, 1871.

·
You will think me very unreasonable, I am
afraid, if just now I trouble you with a question about Homeric Mythology and
Religion, I should not venture to do so, did I not think that you or your son
could answer my inquiry by a simple Yes or No. The fact is, I am preparing a
new edition of my Lectures on the Science of Language, and as they are to be
stereotyped, I have to revise them carefully once more. When I came to the
passage in my Second Series where I had tried in a few lines to explain your
view of the origin of Greek Mythology, I did not know what to do. From reading
your book I certainly thought that you admitted an early stratum of Jewish
thought, on which, by metamorphic and other processes, the religion and
mythology of Homer were built up. In a letter which you did me the honour to
address to me, you proposed a different theory, or at least you gave me a new
insight into your views on the subject.

You seem to admit there an
independent origin for the religious

and mythological opinions of the
Greeks and the Jews, and to be

satisfied with the admission of a
later contact betv/een Aryan and

Semitic ideas. Under these
circumstances I thought the best plan

would be, if you allowed me, to
print in a note some extracts from

your letter, and I therefore send
you the original, that you may look

at it once more, and tell me
whether you object to my proposal. In

either case, whether you say Yes
or No, I must request you to

412 Abeken’s Views of England
[ch. xvm

return me the letter, for I
hope my children will hereafter value it as

much as myself

‘ PS. — I sent Count Gasparin’s
pamphlet to Dr. Abeken, but I have not heard from him lately. I am almost
afraid my last letters, which I sent through the English Post Office, and not
as before through the Prussian courier, may not have reached him. I feel as
strongly as ever that Count Gasparin’s proposal is the right one, but I cannot
believe that at present it is possible. Though I am an extreme Radical in
University politics, I was glad that Professor Fawcett’s amendment was rejected
; it would have weakened our position in the conflict which is coming. But I
feel convinced that the sooner the last trace of protection is removed from the
study of Theology at Oxford
the better. At All Souls our Fellowship Examination is entirely in Modern
History and Law, and no clergyman ought to have any chance of being elected ;
yet out of fifteen fellows elected under the new Statute, four are clerical.
They won in a fair and open field.

‘M.M.’

From Dr. Abeken.

Translation. February 21, 1871.

‘ It is a decisive week on
which we have entered. The armistice ends with the end of the week, unless
there is a guarantee for peace. It would
be a terrible misfortune if war had to begin again; the indignation of our army
would be greater than ever. At this moment Thiers is sitting with Prince
Bismarck for their first exchange of views in the same salon in which, at the
beginning of November, he was discussing an armistice. He might then have had
just the same conditions as now, and what must he feel when he thinks what his
country might have been spared, had he or his colleagues then listened to
reason ! We too should have been spared much, if false- hood and vanity had
then been less powerful in France.
People tell us to be moderate ; they forget what moderation is required if,
after our new efforts and sacrifices, we make no harder conditions than we made
in November. You say, “ Make peace with France
and make peace with England.”
No one can long for it more truly than we.
Every alliance is repulsive to us except friendship with England.

But the tone of the debates in
Parliament, nay, even the tone of the

Queen’s Speech, which tries to
deal equal measure to both sides, and

for that very reason deals
unequal measure, cannot advance peace

and friendship. What might England have
done, what misery might

England have prevented, if, at the
beginning of the war, it had

possessed the moral courage to
call Good good. Wrong wrong,

Right right. Crime criminal ! It
has turned out well for us that

England did not act, now that the
world has witnessed this new act

1871] Letters on the War 413

in the solemn drama of history.
The French sentiments of the people of Alsace
and Lorraine
prove to me all the more strongly that we are in duty bound to bring back this
German race to the German Empire. We have to cure them of a fearful disease,
that future generations, though blushing at the disgrace of their forefathers,
may grow up to a healthy life. It is inconceivable how, while German language
and German morals remained unchanged, the love for the old German Fatherland
has become almost extinct. Thmk of the Protestants of Alsace, of the
Evangelical clergy of Alsace
! How can they be so blind as not to see that the fate of the Evangelical Church
in Alsace depends on their union with Germany, while union with France implies
its certain extinction? The Roman Catholics in Germany
are not so blind ; and their leaders, whose home is not in Germany, but at Rome,
do all they can to prevent the union of Alsace
with Protestant Germany.’

To Dr. Abeken.

Translation. Parks End,
February 24, 187 1.

·
Dear Friend, — I received your letter this
morning, and I am indeed glad to hear that the Crown Prince remembers me so
kindly. I wrote to him at once, and enclose the letter, asking you to look
through it and hand it to the Crown Prince with a copy of the Letters on the
War. I send the book by post, just as it is; there was no time to have it
bound. I have also written to Gladstone, after having received your letter :
alas I the Protestant argument has no effect on him. Lord Shaftesbury is the
man for that; he has already done something in the matter, but his views are
very narrow. Public opinion is getting more moderate in England. The only thing
now is to wait — perhaps our enemies may do good service to us.

‘ I sent you a pamphlet of
Count Gasparin. Gladstone is delighted with it, as you may have heard ; the
spirit of it is good. I could not help telling Gladstone that Russia would
never think of helping to heal the wound : many plans for the future are built
on the reopening of this wound.

‘ With regard to Freeman, do
what you can ; ... he has a powerful, indefatigable pen, and is German through
and through. Could you not persuade old Carlyle to write or to say something very
amiable ? ‘

To THE Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone.

Parks End, February 27, 1871.

‘ My dear Mr. Gladstone, — I
received your letter this morning,

and I look forward with great
interest to the short Memorandum to

which you refer. I believe there
is no scholar occupied with the

414 Views on the Peace [ch. xvm

study of the growth and
spreading of religious ideas, who has not had to modify some of his own
opinions on the subject during the last ten years. The evidence has become so
much larger and richer and deeper, that we are forced, whether we like it or
not, to assume a new standpoint in order to command the whole field that is
open before us. I sent you the extract from Abeken’s letter as it stood, but I
marked it private, private as it were, even to you, intended for the
dispassionate spectator of the grand drama of history, not for the Prime
Minister of England. Otherwise I could not have left what Abeken said about
Moral Courage without incurring the charge of impertinence. I have told him
what I think on the subject, and that it is easy to be wise post factum. With
the same intention, I sent you his frank confession about the state of feeling
in Alsace and Lorraine. I admit it was a
surprise to me, and I could quote statements from recent travellers in those
provinces that would lead to different con- clusions. But before all things it
is right that the truth should be known, and I wanted you in particular to know
it. Lord Granville possesses, no doubt, information on the subject of public
feeling in Alsace and Lorraine from independent sources, and he would not quote
Abeken against Abeken, in discussing the dangers which this Peace may bring on
Europe. The difficulties are doubtless very great, yet blood, language, and
religion are three powerful allies in the struggle which will now begin. Yours
sincerely.’

To THE Same. February 28.

‘Dear Mr. Gladstone, — Accept
my best thanks for the Memo- randum, of which you sent me a copy. I should be
very happy to discuss some points with you in more peaceful times ; this Peace
is no peace. Yet do not judge the statesmen of Germany too harshly. After the sad experience which they have had
of the French, they cannot bring themselves to believe that a people who could
not forgive Sadowa, would ever forget Sedan. It is their duty to think, first
of all, of the safety of the country committed to their care. They are
convinced that war will begin again whatever they do, or at all events they
think that the only chance of peace is the hopelessness of a new attack on the
part of France.

‘ As you told me in your letter
that a new Bill on Clerical Fellowships

would soon be presented to
Parliament, I have taken the liberty to

send you a few remarks on the
subject of Fellowships in general. I

have watched their working now
for more than twenty-two years, being

in fact one of the oldest
residents at Oxford, and I confess I should

like to see these magnificent
resources of the University more usefully

applied than they are at present.
My remarks on Fellowships in

1871] M. Renan — M. Taine 415

general I should be quite
prepared to send to the T’mes, if you thought it could be of any use.’

To M. Renan.

Oxford, March 7, 1871.

‘ I was so pleased to hear that
you and Madame Renan had not suffered during the last months, and that you are
well enough to resume your work. Let us forget, or let us at least be silent on
the past ; it has been too horrible. I know you are as strongly French as I am
German, but that does not prevent both of us, I think, from feeling deeply the
shame and degradation which that war has brought on the race to which we belong
as men. We feel ashamed if we are told that our ancestors, our most distant
ancestors, were simious; is there one race of animals so savage, so brutal, as
man can be ? nor does there seem to be any hope of progress or improvemicnt
with regard to our ideas respecting war. We all share the guilt of it, we are
all ready to take part in it, and we are actually proud of our efficiency in
manslaughter. I know of one redeeming feature only in war : it shows that there
are some things for which men are ready to die ; that there is in man the gift
of martyrdom, which I suppose the brutes do not possess ; but, apart from that,
we must all hide our faces in shame and grief. No doubt the best you and Madame
Renan can do, is to go away for a time so as to have complete change. In a few
weeks more England
will be lovely in the warmth and colours of spring. We shall certainly be at Oxford till June, and my wife asks me to tell you and
Madame Renan that she hopes you will come and stay with us at Oxford. There are two rooms at your disposal,
you would find plenty of work at the Bodleian Library, and nothing could give
her and me greater pleasure than to have you quietly staying here as long as
you are able. If you would only let us know a few days before when we may
expect you, you will find everything ready for you. I had a letter from M.
Taine to-day ; I hope the University will invite him to give us a course of
lectures. I did not venture to propose you, for, though we are advancing, we
advance slowly. He would lecture in French on some period of French Literature.
It is not settled yet, but I hope it will succeed.’

To HIS Mother.

Translation. March ro.

‘ One begins to live quietly
again, now that peace is made : it was a fearful time, and one keeps thinking,
who knows when it may begin again ? The joy in Germany must be immense. The Crown
Prince sent me word I ought, as an old friend, to have sent him a copy of my
Letters on the War. I have done so now, and I wrote a beautiful letter too ! ‘

4i6 Lecture on Mythology [ch.
xvm

On March 31 Max Miiller
delivered an evening lecture at the Royal Institution on Mythology, which was,
as usual, largely attended. It was some years before this that his friend Lord
Strangford wrote : ‘ Here (in England)
there is no school
of Philology, and I do
not quite hold Max Miiller guiltless for not having founded one, instead of
going off into Comparative Mythology.’

As the Professorship of Modern
European Languages had been abolished when Max Miiller accepted the new Chair
of Comparative Philology, it was resolved from time to time to invite
celebrated foreigners to lecture on some foreign language or literature, and
this year the Curators were anxious to secure the services of M. Taine. The
following letter gives an account of the scheme, with some hints on lecturing :
—

To M. Taine.

Oxford, March 17, 1871.

‘ I hasten to answer your kind
letter as far as I can. First, as to the time. The fact is that our Summer Term
is over the first week of June, and very little work is done during the last
week. Therefore if you could begin before Whit-Sunday, you would probably have
a better audience. Your course of lectures is the first beginning of a new
experiment, and everything will depend on your success. Oxford is an extremely difficult place to
lecture in, because all audiences are very mixed. You have young students, you
have fellows and tutors, you have Professors, and for your lectures ladies
also, I think. It is difficult to hit where there are so many targets.

I do not expect that you will
have many young students, and you may

therefore aim a little higher. I
should lecture as if I were addressing

a highly educated lady, not
taking much for granted, making every-

thing clear by a full statement
of facts, but then drawing out the very

best lessons that the facts will
yield. For that purpose your philo-

sophers and moralists would be
more useful, perhaps, than your

dramatists, but I dare say you
are right in selecting the latter. My

only fear is that the classical
dramatic writers are a little too well

known, and that they may not
prove sufficiently attractive. A picture

of the thoughts and manners of
the times in which they lived would

remedy that defect, and you would
know better than anybody else

how to place before us the
political and intellectual stage on which

Racine and Moli^re were
themselves the actors. Lastly, as to the

language: it has been decided,
not without some opposition, that

iSyi] M. Taine’s Lectures 417

the lectures should be given in
French. But, of course, many of your hearers would have difficulty in
following, and therefore a slow and very distinct delivery would be a matter of
great consequence. The lectures are open to every member of the University, and
the invitation to lecture comes to you from the Vice-Chancellor, in the name of
the University. The lectures are delivered at the Taylor Institution, because
the funds for paying the Lecturer come out of Sir Robert Taylor’s bequest. It
is not an easy task which you are undertaking, but I feel very sanguine as to
its success. If you want any further information I shall be most happy to give
it.’

M. Taine accepted the
invitation, and arrived in Oxford soon after the above letter was written.

Though M. Taine was not
actually the guest of the Max Miillers, residing in their house, he was
constantly with them, and, after he had received the degree of Honorary D.C.L.,
they gave a very large party, at which they gathered together all the leading
spirits in Oxford to meet the distinguished foreigner, who charmed everybody by
his easy and agreeable conversation. The next morning the appalling news of
some of the worst deeds of the Commune was in the papers, and the brilliant Frenchman
was an altered being; he was wounded to the heart by the savage acts of his
countrymen, and seemed as if unable to look any one in the face. Happily his
lectures were already finished, and he left immediately, deeply commiserated by
Max Muller, to whom he acknow- ledged that it was far worse than the
humiliation inflicted by the war with Germany.

To Rev. G. Cox.

‘ I looked at Gladstone’s book
Homeric Synchrofti’sm — it is very disappointing. So great a man, so imperfect
a scholar ! He has no idea how shaky the ground is on which he takes his stand.
The reading of those ethnic names in the hieroglyphic inscriptions varies with
every year and with every scholar. I do not blame them : their studies are and
must be tentative, and they are working in the right direction. But the use
which Gladstone makes of their labours is to me really painful, all the more so
because it is cleverly done, and I believe bona fide.’

During the month of April Max
MUller accepted the

invitation of the committee who
were arranging the German

I E e

4i8 German Peace Festival [ch.
xvm

Peace Festival in London, to
deliver the address on that occasion. The Festival took place on May i, and was
a brilliant success. The music, the artistic tableaux vivants, the expression
of deep gratitude, of exultant patriotism, tempered by the thought of all that
the victory had cost the Father- land, can never be forgotten by any of those
present. Max Muller’s speech throughout struck the right note, and he could
feel from the first how he carried his audience with him. The translation,
which is given in the Appendix, had the benefit of being corrected by him.

To HIS Mother.

Translation. Oxford, May 3.

‘ My speech will be printed,
and I will send you a copy. It has been much discussed in the English papers.
It was not an easy task. The audience
was a very mixed one. The Ambassador was there, and the republicans, &c.
Yes, it went off very well, and I am glad I undertook it. The next day Lord
Granville, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, asked me to dinner. To-day I
received a most kind letter from the Crown Prince, written by himself. ... It
was very good of him, for doubtless he has many letters to write.’

By gracious permission of His
Majesty the German Emperor the letter from the Crown Prince is inserted here :
—

Berlin, i. Mai 1871.

‘ Ich habe mit aufrichtigem
Danke und ganz besonderem Interesse Ihre Letters on the War entgegengenommen,
welche Sie die Freund- lichkeit hatten, mir zu iibersenden.

‘ Mit der einmiitigen Hingebung
unseres Volkes wahrend der grossen Zeit, die wir durchkampft, steht in schonem
Einklang die patriotische Haltung, welche unsere deutschen Briider, oft unter
den schwierigsten Verhaltnissen und mit Opfern aller Art, bewahrt, und durch
die sie sich fiir immer einen Anspruch auf die Dankbarkeit des Vaterlandes
erworben haben.

‘ Dass die Erfahrungen, welche
die Deutschen in England wahrend unseres ruhmvollen Krieges gemacht, nicht
immer erfreulich waren, ist mir freilich bekannt. Griinde der verschiedensten
Art kommen zusammen, um eine Verstimmung zu erzeugen, die hiiben und driiben
von alien einsichtigen und patriotischen Mannern gleich schmerzlich empfunden
ist.

‘ Meine feste und
zuversichtliche Hoffnung bleibt es aber, dass

dieselbe bald jenem herzlichen
Einvernehmen wieder Platz machen

1871] Letter from the Crown
Prince 419

wird, welches die Natur unserer
gegenseitigen Beziehungen und Interessen verlangt. Dieses Ziel wollen wir
verfolgen, unbeirrt durch Aufregungen und Eindriicke des Augenblicks,
iiberzeugt, dass es fiir das Gedeihen beider Lander ebenso heilsam wie fiir den
Frieden Europas unerlasslich ist.

‘ Sie haben Ihrerseits niemals
aufgehort, in diesem Geiste thatig zu sein, und es ist mir deshalb Bediirfniss,
Ihnen meine dankbare Anerkennung fiir Ihr erfolgreiclies Wirken hierdurch
auszusprechen.

‘ Ihr wohlgeneigter Friedrich
Wilhelm, Kronprinz/

Translation. Berlin, May i, 187
1.

·
I have received with much interest and sincere
thanks your Letters on the War, which you so kindly sent to me. The courageous
devotion of our people during all the great time of the war is in beautiful
harmony with the patriotic feeling which our German brethren every- where have
shown, often under the most difficult circumstances, and which they have proved
by sacrifices of all kinds, thus securing for themselves for ever the gratitude
of the Fatherland. I know also, only too well, that the experiences of the
Germans in England during our glorious war were not always happy ones. Reasons
of all kinds combined to produce a discord which makes itself felt as painfully
here as in England, by all really discerning and patriotic men.

·
My firm and confident hope, however, remains,
that this discord will soon give way again to the hearty understanding which is
the natural expression of our mutual relations and interests. Let us struggle
towards this goal, unhindered by the excitements and im- pressions of the
moment, convinced that this common understanding is as necessary for the
development of both countries, as it is indispensable for the peace of Europe.

‘ You, for your part, have never
ceased to act in this spirit, and

I therefore feel impelled to give
expression to my grateful recognition

of your successful efforts. Your
well-wisher,

‘ Frederick William, Crown
Prince.’

The end of May^ Max writes to
his mother : ‘ The scenes in Paris are awful, and one thinks what these furies
would have done in Germany if they had got there.’

During the latter part of the war
Max Muller had carried

on an interesting correspondence
with the venerable diplo-

matist Lord Stratford de
Redclifife, whose sympathies were

entirely German. It has not been
possible to recover Max

Muller’s letters. Lord Stratford
sent him a poem at the

close of the war in praise of
Germany, which was published

E e 2

420 Death of Father -in-Law —
Ems [ch. xvm

in Germany in a collection of
poems on the war, and had a large circulation.

Only a month after the Peace
Festival Max MUller lost his father-in-lawj after a very short illness. As he
had already settled to visit Ems again this summer for the waters, he resolved
to start as soon as he could, and take his wife for a change, and his little
boy with him. They joined his mother at Chemnitz, from which place he wrote to
Dr. Abeken, telling him of his plans, and adding, ‘From year to year we seem to
visit the dead more than the living, and the old happy, beautiful times of
meeting do not return.’ Shortly before leaving England Max Miiller had received
a visit from a German, consulting him on the advisability of starting a general
subscription among Germans living out of Germany for a monument in
commemoration of the war. Max explains his views in the following letter. We
know how thoroughly they were realized by the great Germania on the banks of
the Rhine.

To Professor Bernays.

Translation. Oxford, Jiine 12.

‘ I write by return ; Mr. Lang
called with a verbal recommendation from Count Bernstorfif. I liked the idea,
but I told him at once that the impulse must come from Germany. He told me a
little while ago that all went well in Germany : a million has been promised in
Mayence alone. His plan has the fullest approval from the highest classes. I
have not written to him, but to Dr. Heine, who sent me a description of the
monument in question ; I wrote some encouraging words to him. Let the man work
!

‘ A monument only in Berlin is
one-sided. I should like to see a German monument on the banks of the German
river, protected by a German fortress ; and he who does not understand the “
German Michael * “ can hold to the archangel instead. So you see, I think :

Let it grow — should it prove
to have no substantial foundation it will fade of itself.’

During the stay at Ems the
Emperor came there to drink the waters, and Max MUller had the honour of dining
with his Imperial Majesty, whom he had last seen in 1849 at Bunsen’s house in
London, a refugee from the revolution in Berlin. The Emperor was most gracious
and cordial, and thanked Max for his letters to the Times. But it was the ^
Nickname for the German soldier.

1871] The Old Emperor 421

meeting again with the Crown
Prince — ‘ Unser Fritz,’ as the troops called him — which gave him the most
unfeigned pleasure, and he has described in Atild Lang Syne the affectionate
welcome accorded him on the occasion, to the surprise of the great officers and
officials present. Abeken, too, was at Ems, and the friends met for the last
time. The troops were returning from
France, and many a regiment turned up the Lahn valley to greet their Emperor
and Prince. On these occasions the town supplied refresh- ments, whilst the
visitors subscribed for cigars and waited on the returning heroes.

Max Miiller and his wife were
among the few admitted to the railway station to see the Crown Prince off for
Munich, where he was to hold a great review of the South German troops. The
following note to Dr. Abeken alludes to the dinner with the Emperor : —

Translation.

‘ Before I leave Ems I must
thank you most heartily once more. I
know it is not easy to jump over the magic ring which encircles crowned heads
everywhere, but with your support it all went capitally. It will always be for me a “ historical
moment.” I wish the Emperor could read my speech at the London Peace Festival,
so that he should know how highly I value the honour which he has bestowed upon
me.’

Contemporary Letter.

‘Monaco,’ ‘Ems, July 20, 187 1.

‘ I know you will be interested
in hearing that Max dined with the

Emperor on Monday, at 4.30. Max
and the poet Von Redwitz were

the only civiUans present, and
IMax the only man without any

decoration or order ! They were a
party of eighteen. The Emperor

began by saying to Max : “ I know
of your great fame as an Oriental

scholar : what made you take to
that line of study ? “ Max told him

he first heard of Sanskrit as a
boy from the Duchess of Dessau, the

Emperor’s cousin ; and they
talked about her, and then of his life in

England. Everything was so
simple, and yet, as they sat at table,

Max said, as he listened to the
kindly, simple words of the Kaiser, he

felt, “ Here is a man who
hereafter will hold a place second only in

German history to Charlemagne.”
After dinner the Emperor talked

to him again, about Bunsen. IMax
called him “ a true German

Ambassador.” “ But not very
practical,” rejoined the Kaiser. “ No,”

422 Interview with the Crown
Prince [ch. xvm

said Max, “ but prophetic.” “
Yes,” said the Kaiser, in the most hearty way, “ if he had Hved, how he would
have rejoiced now, how happy he would have been ! “ Tuesday evening came the
Crown Prince. We saw him arrive, looking hardly older than eight years ago ;
but his countenance, always so good, had gained depth and experience, and he
was, indeed, as our friends the Bradleys said, “ a noble fellow, the very type
of a hero.” He sent for Max early yesterday, and he had an hour’s intensely
interesting talk with him. When Max got there he was told to wait, as some one
was with the Prince, but he had hardly sat down in the ante-room, when the door
was thrown open, and in came the Prince, both hands stretched out : “But,
Maximilianus, why do you wait here .^ I have no secrets that you cannot hear 1
Now sit down, put down your hat. We asked for you everywhere in England and
could not see you ; and now I find you here in Ems, and I may take your
greetings to my wife, may I not ? “ Then they plunged into the war, and the
Prince openly said how he had hated it ; and when Max said something about all
he had done, he said : “ Oh, no compliments, please ; I only did my duty.” Then
he discussed the union of North and South Germany, and how to unite Catholics
and Protestants ; and said he feared they were not ready yet for a new
Reformation in Bavaria : “ It wants more than a mere dogma to effect that, it
must spring from the hearts of the people,” and he added with deep feeling, “ and
have we Protestants of the North so much to offer them : have we advanced in
religion the last 300 years?” He talked of his very hearty reception everywhere
in England, and spoke of various people there with an insight into their
characters and opinions that was remarkable. “ We dined at Gladstone’s, and “
(with a knowing laugh) “ we talked a great deal about Art and Literature!’ He
then told Max how deeply grateful he felt for the efforts he had made to keep
up a union in feeling between Germany and England, and added: “You must forgive
my not thanking you directly for your letters on the war ; and when I did
write, I had not time to say half I wished, I have so much to do.” He ended by
hoping Max would return home in time for both him and the Princess to see him,
and added : “ It is twenty years since we first met.” He left at three o’clock
yesterday afternoon. We went to see him off, and he sent for us, coming almost
to the door of his room to meet me, and he shook hands in the most hearty way,
and as I rose from my curtsy, he said, looking at Boy, “ But what then is
that?” Max said he was the youngest German sailor, and the Prince shook hands
with the small thing ; and then talked to me of our visit to Potsdam, and of
Oxford, and told me he had my photograph. He talked to us two till the train
was ready, when he again shook hands with us both.

iSyi] Str J. Stainer’s ‘Harmony
‘ 423

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