,,my ,,autobiography ,illustration3 ,f4 ,max ,mller ,aged #d4 ,,my ,,autobiography ,a ,,fragment ,,by ,,the ,,rt4 ,,hon4 ,,professor ,f4 ,,max ,m,,ller1 ,k4,m4 ,,with ,,portraits ,new ,york ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons #aija ,,copyright1 #aija1 ,,by ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons ,,trow ,,directory ,,printing ,,and ,,bookbinding ,,company ,,new ,,york ,,preface ,for some years past my father had1 in the intervals of more serious work1 occupied his leisure moments in jotting down reminiscences of his early life4 ,in #ahih and #ahii he issued the two volumes of ,auld ,lang ,syne1 which contained recollections of his friends1 but very little about his own life and career4 ,in the ,introductory ,chapter to the ,autobiography he explains fully the reasons which led him1 at his advanced age1 to undertake the task of writing his own ,life1 and he began1 but alas6 too late1 to gather together the fragments that he had written at different times4 ,but even during the last two years of his life1 and after the first attack of the illness which finally proved fatal1 he would not devote himself entirely to what he considered mere recreation1 as can be seen from such a work as his ,six ,systems of ,indian ,philosophy published in ,may1 #ahhi1 and from the numerous articles which continued to appear up to the very time of his death4 ,during the last weeks of his life1 when we all knew that the end could not be far off1 the ,autobiography was constantly in his thoughts1 and his great desire was to leave as much as possible ready for publication4 ,even when he was lying in bed far too weak to sit up in a chair1 he continued to work at the manuscript with me4 ,i would read portions aloud to him1 and he would suggest alterations and dictate additions4 ,i see that we were actually at work on this up to the #aith of ,october1 and on the #bhth he was taken to his well-earned rest4 ,one of the last letters that ,i read to him was a letter from ,messrs4 ,longmans1 his lifelong publishers1 urging the publication of the fragments of the ,autobiography that he had then written4 ,my father's object in writing his ,autobiography was twofold3 firstly1 to show what he considered to have been his mission in life1 to lay bare the thread that connected all his labours2 and secondly1 to encourage young struggling scholars by letting them see how it had been possible for one of themselves1 without fortune1 a stranger in a strange land1 to arrive at the position to which he attained1 without ever sacrificing his independence1 or abandoning the unprofitable and not very popular subjects to which he had determined to devote his life4 ,unfortunately the last chapter takes us but little beyond the threshold of his career4 ,there is enough1 however1 to enable us to see how from his earliest student days his leanings were philosophical and religious rather than classical2 how the study of ,herbart's philosophy encouraged him in the work in which he was engaged as a mere student1 the ,science of ,language and ,etymology2 how his desire to know something special1 that no other philosopher would know1 led him to explore the virgin fields of ,oriental literature and religions4 ,with this motive he began the study of ,arabic1 ,persian1 and finally ,sanskrit1 devoting himself more especially to the latter under ,brockhaus and ,rckert1 and subsequently under ,burnouf1 who persuaded him to undertake the colossal work of editing the ,rig-veda4 ,the ,autobiography breaks off before the end of the period during which he devoted himself exclusively to ,sanskrit4 ,it is idle to speculate what course his life's work might have taken1 had he been elected to the ,boden ,professorship of ,sanskrit2 but he lived long enough to realize that his rejection for that chair in #ahfj1 which was so hard to bear at the time1 was really a blessing in disguise1 as it enabled him to turn his attention to more general subjects1 and devote himself to those philological1 philosophical1 religious and mythological studies1 which found their expression in a series of works commencing with his ,lectures on the ,science of ,language1 #ahfa1 and terminating with his ,contributions to the ,science of ,mythology1 #ahig1--8the thread that connects the origin of thought and language with the origin of mythology and religion40 ,as to his advice to struggling scholars1 the self-depreciation1 which1 as ,professor ,jowett said1 is one of the greatest dangers of an autobiography1 makes my father rather conceal the real causes of his success in life4 ,he even goes so far as to say1 8everything in my career came about most naturally1 not by my own effort1 but owing to those circumstances or to that environment1 of which we have heard so much of late03 or again1 8it was really my friends who did everything for me and helped me over many a stile and many a ditch40 ,no doubt in one sense this is true1 but not in the sense in which it would have been true had he1 when at the ,university1 accepted the offer which he tells us a wealthy cousin made him1 to adopt him and send him into the ,austrian diplomatic service1 and even to procure him a wife and a title into the bargain4 ,the friends who helped him1 men such as ,humboldt1 ,burnouf1 ,bunsen1 ,stanley1 ,kingsley1 ,liddell1 to mention only a few1 were men whose very friendship was the surest proof of my father's merits4 ,the real secret of his success lay not in his friends1 but in himself2--in the knowledge that his success or failure in life depended entirely on his own efforts2 in the fixity of purpose which made him refuse all offers that would lead him from the pathway that he had laid down for himself2 and in the unflagging industry with which he strove to reach the goal of his ambition4 8,my very struggles10 he writes1 8were certainly a help to me40 ,when ,i came to examine the manuscript with a view to sending it to press1 ,i found that there was a good deal of work necessary before it could be published in book form4 ,the fragments were in many cases incomplete2 there was no division into chapters1 no connexion between the various periods and episodes of his life2 important incidents were omitted2 while1 owing to the intermittent way in which he had been writing1 there were frequent repetitions4 ,my father was always most critical of his own style1 and would often1 when correcting his proof-sheets1 alter a whole page1 because a word or a phrase displeased him1 or because some new idea1 some happier mode of expression1 occurred to him2 but in the case of his ,autobiography1 the only revision that he was able to give1 was on his deathbed1 while ,i read the manuscript aloud to him4 ,my father points out how rarely the sons of great musicians or great painters become distinguished in the same line themselves4 8,it seems10 he says1 8almost as if the artistic talent were exhausted by one generation or one individual02 and ,i fear that1 in my case at all events1 the same remark applies to literary talent4 ,i have done my best to string the fragments together into one connected whole1 only making such insertions1 elisions and alterations as appeared strictly necessary4 ,any deficiency in literary style that may be noticeable in portions of the book should be ascribed to the inexperience of the editor4 ,i have thought it right to insert the last chapter1 which ,i call 8,a ,confession10 though ,i am not sure that my father intended it to be included in his ,autobiography4 ,it will1 however1 explain the attitude which he observed throughout his life1 in keeping aloof1 as far as possible1 from the arena of academic contention at ,oxford4 ,he was never chosen a member of the ,hebdomadal ,council1 he rarely attended meetings of ,convocation or ,congregation2 he felt that other people1 with more leisure at their disposal1 could be of more use there2 but he never refused to work for his ,university1 when he felt that he was able to render good service1 and he acted for years as a ,curator of the ,bodleian ,library and of the ,taylorian ,institute1 and as a ,delegate of the ,clarendon ,press4 ,with reference to the illustrations1 it may be of interest to readers to know that the portraits of my grandfather and grandmother are taken from pencil-drawings by ,adolf ,hensel1 the husband of ,mendelssohn's sister ,fanny1 herself a great musician1 who1 as my father tells us in ,auld ,lang ,syne1 really composed several of the airs that ,mendelssohn published as his ,songs without ,words4 ,the last portrait of my father is from a photograph taken soon after his arrival in ,oxford by his great friend ,thomson1 afterwards ,archbishop of ,york4 ,nothing now remains for me but to acknowledge the debt that ,i owe personally to this book4 8,work10 my father used often to say to me1 8is the best healer of sorrow4 ,in grief or disappointment1 try hard work2 it will not fail you40 ,and certainly during these three sad months1 ,i have proved the truth of this saying4 ,he could not have left me a surer comfort or more welcome distraction than the duty of preparing for press these pages1 the last fruits of that mind which remained active and fertile to the last4 ,w4 ,g4 ,,max ,m,,ller4 ,,oxford1 ,january1 #aija4 ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,,introductory #a ,,ii4 ,,childhood ,,at ,,dessau #df ,,iii4 ,,school-,,days ,,at ,,leipzig #ig ,,iv4 ,,university #aae ,v4 ,,paris #afb ,,vi4 ,,arrival ,,in ,,england #ahh ,,vii4 ,,early ,,days ,,at ,,oxford #bah ,,viii4 ,,early ,,friends ,,at ,,oxford #bgb ,,ix4 ,a ,,confession #cjh ,,index #cai ,,list ,,of ,,portraits ,f4 ,,max ,m,,ller1 ,,aged ,,four ,frontispiece ,,facing ,,page ,,my ,,father #df ,,my ,,mother #eh ,f4 ,,max ,m,,ller1 ,,aged ,,fourteen #ajf ,,aged ,,twenty #aef ,,aged ,,thirty #bfh ,,my ,,autobiography ,,chapter ,i ,,introductory ,after the publication of the second volume of my ,auld ,lang ,syne1 #ahii1 ,i had a good deal of correspondence1 of public criticism1 and of private communings also with myself1 whether ,i should continue my biographical records in the form hitherto adopted1 or give a more personal character to my recollections4 ,some of my friends were evidently dissatisfied4 8,the recollections of your friends and the account of the influence they exercised on you10 they said1 8are interesting1 no doubt1 as far as they go1 but we want more4 ,we want to know the springs1 the aspirations1 the struggles1 the failures1 and achievements of your life4 ,we want to know how you yourself look at yourself and at your past life and its various incidents40 ,what they really wanted was1 in fact1 an autobiography4 8,no one10 as a friend of mine1 not an ,irishman1 said1 8could do that so well as yourself1 and you will never escape a biographer40 ,i confess that did not frighten me very much4 ,i did not think the danger of a biography very imminent4 ,besides1 ,i had already revised two biographies and several biographical notices even during my lifetime4 ,no sensible man ought to care about posthumous praise or posthumous blame4 ,enough for the day is the evil thereof4 ,our contemporaries are our right judges1 our peers have to give their votes in the great academies and learned societies1 and if they on the whole are not dissatisfied with the little we have done1 often under far greater difficulties than the world was aware of1 why should we care for the distant future8 ,who was a greater giant in philosophy than ,hegel8 ,who towered higher than ,darwin in natural science8 ,yet in one of the best ,german reviews#a the following words of a young ,german biologist#b are quoted1 and not without a certain approval3 8,darwinism belongs now to history1 like that other curiosum of our century1 the ,hegelian philosophy4 ,both are variations on the theme1 ,how can a generation be led by the nose8 and they are not calculated to raise our departing century in the eyes of later generations40 #a ,deutsche ,rundschau1 ,feb41 #aijj1 p4 #bdi4 #b ,driesch1 ,biologisches ,centralblatt1 #ahif1 p4 #cce4 ,if ,i was afraid of anything1 it was not so much the severity of future judges1 as the extreme kindness and leniency which distinguish most biographies in our days4 ,it is true1 it would not be easy for those who have hereafter to report on our labours to discover the red thread that runs through all of them from our first stammerings to our latest murmurings4 ,it might be said that in my own case the thread that connects all my labours is very visible1 namely1 the thread that connects the origin of thought and languages with the origin of mythology and religion4 ,everything ,i have done was1 no doubt1 subordinate to these four great problems1 but to lay bare the connecting links between what ,i have written and what ,i wanted to write and never found time to write1 is by no means easy1 not even for the author himself4 ,besides1 what author has ever said the last word he wanted to say1 and who has not had to close his eyes before he could write ,finis to his work8 ,there are many things still which ,i should like to say1 but ,i am getting tired1 and others will say them much better than ,i could1 and will no doubt carry on the work where ,i had to leave it unfinished4 ,we owe much to others1 and we have to leave much to others4 ,for throwing light on such points an autobiography is1 no doubt1 better adapted than any biography written by a stranger1 if only we can at the same time completely forget that the man who is described is the same as the man who describes4 8,friends10 as ,professor ,jowett said1 8always think it necessary 7except ,boswell1 that great genius7 to tell lies about their deceased friend2 they leave out all his faults lest the public should exaggerate them4 ,but we want to know his faults1--hat is probably the most interesting part of him40 ,jowett knew quite well1 and he did not hesitate to say so1 that to do much good in this world1 you must be a very able and honest man1 thinking of nothing else day and night2 and he adds1 8you must also be a considerable piece of a rogue1 having many reticences and concealments2 and ,i believe a good sort of roguery is never to say a word against anybody1 however much they may deserve it40 ,now ,professor ,jowett has certainly done some good work at ,oxford1 but if any one were to say that he also was a considerable piece of a rogue1 what an outcry there would be among the sons of ,balliol4 ,jowett thought that the only chance of a good biography was for a man to write memoirs of himself1 and what a pity that he did not do so in his own case4 ,his friends1 however1 who had to write his ,life were wise1 and he escaped what of late has happened to several eminent men4 ,he escaped the testimonials for this1 and testimonials for another life1 such as they are often published in our days4 ,testimonials are bad enough in this life1 when we have to select one out of many candidates as best fitted for an office1 and it is but natural that the electors will hardly ever look at them1 but will try to get their information through some other channel4 ,but what are called post obit testimonials really go beyond everything yet known in funeral panegyrics4 ,of course1 as no one is asked for such testimonials except those who are known to have been friends of the departed1 these testimonials hardly ever contain one word of blame4 ,one feels ashamed to write such testimonials1 but if you are asked1 what can you do without giving offence8 ,we are placed altogether in a false position4 ,let any one try to speak the truth and nothing but the truth1 and he will find that it is almost impossible to put down anything that in the slightest way might seem to reflect on the departed4 ,the mention of the most innocent failings in an obituary notice is sure to offend somebody1 the widow or the children1 or some dear friend4 ,i thought that my ,recollections had hitherto contained nothing that could possibly offend anybody1 nothing that could not have been published during the lifetime of the man to whom it referred4 ,but no2 ,i had ever so many complaints1 and ,i gladly left out1 in later editions1 names which in many cases were really of no consequence compared with what they said and did4 ,surely every man has his faults and his little and often ridiculous weaknesses1 and these weaknesses belong quite as much to a man's character as his strength2 nay1 with the suppression of the former the latter would often become almost unintelligible4 ,i like the biographies of such friends of mine as ,dean ,stanley1 ,charles ,kingsley1 and ,baron ,bunsen4 ,but even these are deficient in those shadows which would but help to bring out all the more clearly the bright points in their character4 ,we should remember the words of ,dr4 ,wendell ,holmes3 8,we all want to draw perfect ideals1 and all the coin that comes from ,nature's mint is more or less clipped1 filed1 #8sweated1' or bruised1 and bent and worn1 even if it was pure metal when stamped1 which is more than we can claim1 ,i suppose1 for anything human40 ,true1 very true2 and what would the departed himself say to such biographies as are now but too common1--most flattering pictures no doubt1 but pictures without one spot or wrinkle8 ,in ,germany it was formerly not an uncommon thing for the author of a book to write a self-review 7,selbst-,kritik71 and these were generally far better than reviews written by friends or enemies4 ,for who knows the strong and weak points of a book so well as the author8 ,true2 but a whole life is more difficult to review and to criticize than a single book4 ,nevertheless it must be admitted that an autobiography has many advantages1 and it might be well if every man of note1 nay1 every man who has something to say for himself that he wishes posterity to know1 should say it himself4 ,this would in time form a wonderful archive for psychological study4 ,something of the kind has been done already at ,berlin in preserving private correspondences4 ,of course it is difficult to keep such archives within reasonable limits1 but here again ,i am not afraid of self-laudation so much as of self-depreciation4 ,professor ,jowett1 who did not write his own biography1 was quite right in saying that there is great danger of an autobiography being rather self-depreciatory2 there is certainly something so nauseous in self-praise that most people would shrink far more from self-praise than from self-blame4 ,there may be some kind of subtle self-admiration even in the fault-finding of an outspoken autobiographer2 but who can dive into those deepest depths of the human soul8 ,to me it seems that if an honest man takes himself by the neck1 and shakes himself1 he can do it far better than anybody else1 and the castigation1 if well deserved1 comes certainly with a far better grace from himself than if administered by others4 ,few men1 ,i believe1 know their real goodness and greatness4 ,some of the most handsome women1 so we are assured1 pass through life without ever knowing from their looking-glass that they are handsome4 ,and it is certainly true that men1 from sad experience1 know their weak points far better than their good points1 which they look on as no more than natural4 ,the ,autos1 for instance1 described by ,john ,stuart ,mill1 has no cause to be grateful to the ,autos that wrote his biography4 ,mill had been threatened by several future biographers1 and he therefore wrote the short biographical account of himself almost in self-defence4 ,but besides the truly miraculous1 and1 if related by anybody else1 hardly credible achievements of his early boyhood and youth1 his great achievements in later life1 the influence which he exercised both by his writings and still more by his personal and public character1 would have found a far more eloquent and truthful interpreter in a stranger than in ,mill himself4 ,i remember another case where a most distinguished author tried to escape the oil and the blessings1 perhaps the opposite also1 from the hands of his future biographers4 ,froude destroyed the whole of his correspondence1 and he wished particularly that all letters written to him in the fullest confidence should be burnt1--and they were4 ,i think it was a pity1 for ,i know what valuable letters were destroyed in that auto da f2 and yet when he had done all this1 he seems to have been seized with fear1 and just before he returned to ,oxford as ,regius ,professor of ,modern ,history he began to write a sketch of his own life1 which was found among his papers4 ,interesting it certainly was1 but fortunately his best friends prevented its publication4 ,it would have added nothing to what we know of him in his writings1 and would never have put his real merits in their proper light4 ,besides1 it came to an end with his youth and told us little of his real life4 ,i flattered myself that ,i had found the true way out of all these difficulties1 by writing not exactly my own life1 but recollections of my friends and acquaintances who had influenced me most1 and guided me in my not always easy passage through life4 ,as in describing the course of a river1 we cannot do better than to describe the shores which hem in and divert the river and are reflected on its waves1 ,i thought that by describing my environment1 my friends1 and fellow workers1 ,i could best describe the course of my own life4 ,i hoped also that in this way ,i myself could keep as much as possible in the background1 and yet in describing the wooded or rocky shores with their herds1 their cottages1 and churches1 describe their reflected image on the passing river4 ,but now ,i am asked to give a much fuller account of myself1 not only of what ,i have seen1 but also of what ,i have been1 what were the objects or ideals of my life1 how far ,i have succeeded in carrying them out1 and1 as ,i said1 how often ,i have failed to accomplish what ,i had sketched out as my task in life4 ,people wished to know how a boy1 born and educated in a small and almost unknown town in the centre of ,germany1 should have come to ,england1 should have been chosen there to edit the oldest book of the world1 the ,veda of the ,brahmans1 never published before1 whether in ,india or in ,europe1 should have passed the best part of his life as a professor in the most famous and1 as it was thought1 the most exclusive ,university in ,england1 and should actually have ended his days as a ,member of ,her ,majesty's most honourable ,privy ,council4 ,i confess myself it seems a very strange career1 yet everything came about most naturally1 not by my own effort1 but owing again to those circumstances or to that environment of which we have heard so much of late4 ,young1 struggling men also have written to me1 and asked me how ,i managed to keep my head above water in that keen struggle for life that is always going on in the whirlpool of the learned world of ,england4 ,they knew1 for ,i had never made any secret of it1 how poor ,i was in worldly goods1 and how1 as ,i said at ,glasgow1 ,i had nothing to depend on after ,i left the ,university1 but those fingers with which ,i still hold my pen and write so badly that ,i can hardly read my manuscript myself4 ,when ,i arrived ,i had no family connections in ,england1 nor any influential friends1 8and yet10 ,i was told1 8in a foreign country1 you managed to reach the top of your profession4 ,tell us how you did it2 and how you preserved at the same time your independence and never forsook the not very popular subjects1 such as language1 mythology1 religion1 and philosophy1 on which you continued to write to the very end of your life40 ,i generally said that most of these questions could best be answered from my books1 but they replied that few people had time to read all ,i had written1 and many would feel grateful for a thread to lead them through this labyrinth of books1 essays1 and pamphlets1 which have issued from my workshop during the last fifty years4#c #c ,as giving a clear and complete abstract of my writings ,i may now recommend ,m4 ,montcalm's ,l'origine de la ,pense et de la ,parole1 ,paris1 #aijj4 ,all ,i could say was that each man must find his own way in life1 but if there was any secret about my success1 it was simply due to the fact that ,i had perfect faith1 and went on never doubting even when everything looked grey and black about me4 ,i felt convinced that what ,i cared for1 and what ,i thought worthy of a whole life of hard work1 must in the end be recognized by others also as of value1 and as worthy of a certain support from the public4 ,had not ,layard gained a hearing for ,assyrian bulls8 ,did not ,darwin induce the world to take an interest in ,worms1 and in the ,fertilization of ,orchids8 ,and should the oldest book and the oldest thoughts of the ,aryan world remain despised and neglected8 ,for many years ,i never thought of appointments or of getting on in the world in a pecuniary sense4 ,my friends often laughed at me1 and when ,i think of it now1 ,i confess ,i must have seemed very ,quixotic to many of those who tried for this and that1 got lucrative appointments1 married rich wives1 became judges and bishops1 ambassadors and ministers1 and could hardly understand what ,i was driving at with my ,sanskrit manuscripts1 my proof-sheets and revises4 ,perhaps ,i did not know myself4 ,still ,i was not quite so foolish as they imagined4 ,true1 ,i declined several offers made to me which seemed very advantageous in a worldly sense1 but would have separated me entirely from my favourite work4 ,when at last a professorship of ,modern ,literature was offered me at ,oxford1 ,i made up my mind1 though it was not exactly what ,i should have liked1 to give up half of my time to studies required by this professorship1 keeping half of my time for the ,veda and for ,sanskrit in general4 ,this was not so bad after all4 ,people often laughed at me for being professor of the most modern languages1 and giving so much of my time and labour to the most ancient language and literature in the world4 ,perhaps it was not quite right my giving up so much of my time to modern languages1 a subject so remote from my work in life1 but it was a concession which ,i could make with a good conscience1 having always held that language was one and indivisible1 and that there never had been a break between ,sanskrit1 ,latin1 and ,french1 or ,sanskrit1 ,gothic1 and ,german4 ,one of my first lectures at ,oxford was 8,on the antiquity of modern languages10 so that ,i gave full notice to the ,university as to how ,i meant to treat my subject1 and on the whole the ,university seems to have been satisfied with my professorial work1 so that when afterwards for very good reasons1 whether financial1 theological1 or national1 ,i1 or rather my friends1 failed to secure a majority in ,convocation for a professorship of ,sanskrit1 the ,university actually founded for me a ,professorship of ,comparative ,philology1 an honour of which ,i had never dreamt1 and to secure which ,i certainly had never taken any steps4 ,here is all my secret4 ,at first1 as ,i said1 it required faith1 but it also required for many years a perfect indifference as to worldly success4 ,and here again in my career as a ,sanskrit scholar1 mere circumstances were of great importance4 ,they were circumstances which ,i was glad to accept1 but which ,i could never have created myself4 ,it was surely a mere accident that the ,directors of the ,old ,east ,india ,company voted a large sum of money for printing the six large quartos of the ,rig-veda of about a thousand pages each4 ,it was at the time when the fate of the ,company hung in the balance1 and when ,bunsen1 the ,prussian ,minister1 made himself persona grata by delivering a speech at one of the public dinners in the ,city1 setting forth in eloquent words the undeniable merits of the ,old ,company and the wonderful work they had achieved4 ,it was likewise a mere accident that ,i should have become known to ,bunsen1 and that he should have shown me so much kindness in my literary work4 ,he had himself tried hard to go to ,india to discover the ,rig-veda1 nay1 to find out whether there was still such a thing as the ,veda in ,india4 ,the same ,bunsen1 ,his ,excellency ,baron ,bunsen1 the ,prussian ,minister in ,london1 on his own accord went afterwards to see the ,chairman and the ,directors of the ,east ,india ,company1 and explained to them what the ,rig-veda was1 and that it would be a real disgrace if such a work were published in ,germany2 and they agreed to vote a sum of money such as they had never voted before for any literary undertaking4 ,though after the mutiny nothing could save them1 ,i had at least the satisfaction of dedicating the first volume of my edition of the ,rig-veda to the ,chairman and the ,directors of the much abused ,east ,india ,company1--much abused though splendidly defended also by no less a man than ,john ,stuart ,mill4 ,this is what ,i mean by friends and circumstances1 and that is the environment which ,i wished to describe in my ,recollections instead of always dwelling on what ,i meant to do myself and what ,i did myself4 ,small and large things work wonderfully together4 ,it was the change threatening the government of ,india1 and a mighty change it was1 that gave me the chance of publishing the ,veda1 a very small matter as it may seem in the eyes of most people1 and yet intended to bring about quite as mighty a change in our views of the ancient people of the world1 particularly of their languages and religions4 ,this1 too--the development of language and religion--seems of importance to some people who do not care two straws for the ,east ,india ,company1 particularly if it helps us to learn what we really are ourselves1 and how we came to be what we are4 ,in one sense biographies and autobiographies are certainly among the most valuable materials for the historian4 ,biography1 as ,heinrich ,simon1 not ,henri ,simon1 said1 is the best kind of history1 and the life of one man1 if laid open before us with all he thought and all he did1 gives us a better insight into the history of his time than any general account of it can possibly do4 ,now it is quite true that the life of a quiet scholar has little to do with history1 except it may be the history of his own branch of study1 which some people consider quite unimportant1 while to others it seems all-important4 ,this is as it ought to be1 till the universal historian finds the right perspective1 and assigns to each branch of study and activity its proper place in the panorama of the progress of mankind towards its ideals4 ,even a quiet scholar1 if he keeps his eyes open1 may now and then see something that is of importance to the historian4 ,while ,i was living in small rooms at ,leipzig1 or lodging au cinquime in the ,rue ,royale at ,paris1 or copying manuscripts in a dark room of the old ,east ,india ,house in ,leadenhall ,street1 ,i now and then caught glimpses of the mighty stream of history as it was rushing by4 ,at ,leipzig ,i saw much of ,robert ,blum who was afterwards fusill at ,vienna by ,windischgrtz in defiance of all international law1 for he was a member of the ,german ,diet1 then sitting at ,frankfurt4 ,from my windows at ,paris ,i looked over the ,boulevard de la ,madeleine1 and down on the right to the ,chambre des ,dputs1 and ,i saw from my windows the throne of ,louis ,philippe carried along by its four legs by four women on horseback1 with ,phrygian caps and red scarfs1 and ,i saw the next morning from the same windows the stretchers carrying the dead and wounded from the ,boulevards to a hospital at the back of my street4 ,in my small study at the ,east ,india ,house ,i saw several of the ,directors1 ,colonel ,sykes and others1 and heard them discussing the fate of the ,east ,india ,company and of the vast empire of ,india too1 and at the same time the private interests of those who hoped to be ,members of the new ,india ,council1 and those who despaired of that distinction4 ,i was the first to bring the news of the ,french ,revolution in ,february to ,london1 and presented a bullet that had smashed the windows of my room at ,paris1 to ,bunsen1 who took it in the evening to ,lord ,palmerston4 ,after ,i had seen the ,revolution in ,paris and the flight of the ,king and the ,duchesse d',orlans1 ,i was in time to see in ,london the ,chartist ,deputation to ,parliament1 and the assembled police in ,trafalgar ,square1 when ,louis ,napoleon served as a ,special ,constable1 and ,i heard the ,duke of ,wellington explain to ,bunsen1 that though no soldier was seen in the streets there was artillery hidden under the bridges1 and ready to act if wanted4 ,i could add more1 but ,i must not anticipate1 and after all1 to me all these great events seemed but small compared with a new manuscript of the ,veda sent from ,india1 or a better reading of an obscure passage4 ,diversos diversa iuvant1 and it is fortunate that it should be so4 ,all these things1 ,i thought1 should form part of my ,recollections1 and my own little self should disappear as much as possible4 ,even the pronoun ,i should meet the reader but seldom1 though in ,recollections it was as impossible to leave it out altogether as it would be to take away the lens from a photographic camera4 ,now ,i believe ,i have always been most willing to yield to my friends1 and ,i shall in this matter also yield to them so far that in the ,recollections which follow there will be more of my inward and outward struggles2 but ,i must on the whole adhere to my old plan4 ,i could not1 if ,i would1 neglect the environment of my life1 and the many friends that advised and helped me1 and enabled me to achieve the little that ,i may have achieved in my own line of study4 ,if my friends had been different from what they were1 should ,i not have become a different man myself1 whether for good or for evil8 ,and the same applies to our natural surroundings also4 ,and here ,i must invoke the patience of my readers1 if ,i try to explain in as few words as possible what ,i think about environment1 and what about heredity or atavism4 ,i was a thorough ,darwinian in ascribing the shaping of my career to environment1 though ,i was always very averse to atavism1 of which we have heard so much lately in most biographies4 ,even with respect to environment1 however1 ,i could not go quite so far as certain of our ,darwinian friends1 who maintain that everything is the result of environment1 or translated into biographical language1 that everybody is a creature of circumstances4 ,no1 ,i could not go so far as that4 ,environment may shape our course and may shape us1 but there must be something that is shaped1 and allows itself to be shaped4 ,i was once seriously asked by one who considers himself a ,darwinian whether ,i did not know that the ,mammoth was driven by the extreme cold of the ,pleiocene ,period to grow a thick fur in his struggle for life4 ,that he grew then a thicker fur1 ,i knew1 but that surely does not explain the whole of the ,mammoth1 with and without a thick fur1 before and after the fur4 ,it is really a pity to see for how many of these downright absurdities ,darwin is made responsible by the ,darwinians4 ,he has clearly shown how in many cases the individual may be modified almost beyond recognition by environment1 but the individual must always have been there first4 ,before we had a spaniel and a ,newfoundland dog there must have been some kind of dog1 neither so small as the spaniel nor so large as the ,newfoundland1 and no one would now doubt that these two belonged to the same species and presupposed some kind of a less modified canine creature4 ,it is equally true that every individual man has been modified by his surroundings or environment1 if not to the same extent as certain animals1 yet very considerably1 as in the case of ,kaspar ,hauser1 the man with the iron mask1 or the mutineers of the ,bounty in the ,pitcairn ,islands4 ,but there must have been the man first1 before he could be so modified4 ,now it was this very individual1 my own self in fact1 the spiritual self even more than the physical1 that interested my critics1 while ,i thought that the circumstances which moulded that self would be of far greater interest than the self itself4 ,of course all the modifications that men now undergo are nothing if compared to the early modifications which produced what we speak of as racial1 linguistic1 or even national peculiarities4 ,that we are ,english or ,german1 that we are white or black1 nay1 if you like1 that we are human beings at all1 all this has modified our self1 or our germ-plasm1 far more powerfully than anything that can happen to us as individuals now4 ,when my friends and readers assured me that an account of my early struggles in the battle of life would be useful to many a young1 struggling man1 all ,i could say was that here again it was really my friends who did everything for me1 and helped me over many a stile1 and many a ditch1 nay1 without whom ,i should never have done whatever ,i did for the ,sciences of ,language1 of ,mythology1 and ,religion1 in fact for ,anthropology in the widest sense of that word4 ,my very struggles were certainly a help to me1 even my opponents were most useful to me4 ,the subjects on which ,i wrote had hardly been touched on in ,england1 at least from the historical point of view which ,i took1 and ,i had not only to overcome the indifference of the public1 but to disarm as much as possible the prejudices often felt1 and sometimes expressed also1 against anything made in ,germany6 ,now ,i confess ,i could never understand such a prejudice among men of science4 ,was ,i more right or more wrong because ,i was born in ,germany8 ,is scientific truth the exclusive property of one nation1 of ,germany1 or of ,england8 ,if ,i say two and two make four in ,german1 is that less true because it is said by a ,german8 and if ,i say1 no language without thought1 no thought without language1 has that anything to do with my native country8 ,the prejudice against strangers and particularly against ,germans is1 no doubt1 much stronger now than it was at the time when ,i first came to ,england4 ,i had spent nearly two years in ,paris1 and there too there existed then so little of unfriendly feeling towards ,germany1 that one of the best reviews to which the rising scholars and best writers of ,paris contributed was actually called ,revue ,germanique4 ,who would now venture to publish in ,paris such a review and under such a title8 ,if there existed such an anti-,german feeling anywhere in ,england when ,i arrived here in the year #ahdf1 one would suppose that it existed most strongly at ,oxford4 ,and so it did1 no doubt1 particularly among theologians4 ,with them ,german meant much the same as unorthodox1 and unorthodox was enough at that time to taboo a man at ,oxford4 ,in one of the sermons preached in these early days at ,st4 ,mary's1 ,german theologians such as ,strauss and ,neander 7sic7 were spoken of as fit only to be drowned in the ,german ,ocean1 before they reached the shores of ,england4 ,i do not add what followed3 the story is too well known4 ,i was chiefly amused by the juxtaposition of ,strauss and ,neander1 whose most orthodox lectures on the history of the ,christian ,church ,i had attended at ,berlin4 ,neander was certainly to us at ,berlin the very pattern of orthodoxy1 and people wondered at my attending his lectures4 ,but they were good and honest lectures4 ,he was quite a character1 and ,i feel tempted to go a little out of my way in speaking of him4 ,by birth a ,jew1 he became one of the most learned ,christian divines4 ,ever so many stories were told of him1 some true1 some no doubt invented4 ,i saw him often walking to and from the ,university to give his lectures in a large fur coat1 with high black polished boots beneath1 but showing occasionally as he walked along4 ,it was told that he once sent for a doctor because he was lame4 ,the doctor on examining his feet1 saw that one boot was covered with mud1 while the other was perfectly clean4 ,the ,professor had walked with one foot on the pavement1 with the other in the gutter1 and was far too much absorbed in his ideas to discover the true cause of his discomfort4 ,he lived with his sister1 who took complete care of him and saw to his wardrobe also4 ,she knew that he wore one pair of trousers1 and that on a certain day in the year the tailor brought him a new pair4 ,great was her amazement when one day1 after her brother had gone to the ,university1 she discovered his pair of trousers lying on a chair near his bed4 ,she at once sent a servant to the ,professor's lecture-room to inquire whether he had his trousers on4 ,the hilarity of his class may be imagined4 ,the fact was it was the very day on which the tailor was in the habit of bringing the new pair of trousers1 which the ,professor had put on1 leaving his usual garment behind4 ,many more stories of his absent-mindedness were en vogue about ,dr4 ,neander1 but that this man1 a pillar of strength to the orthodox in ,germany1 who was looked up to as an infallible ,pope1 should have his name coupled with that of ,strauss certainly gave one a little shock4 ,yet it was at ,oxford that ,i pitched my tent1 chiefly in order to superintend the printing of my ,rig-veda at the ,university ,press there1 and never dreaming that a fellowship1 still less a professorship in that ancient ,tory ,university1 would ever be offered to me4 ,for me to go to ,oxford to get a fellowship or professorship would have seemed about as absurd as going to ,rome to become a ,cardinal or a ,pope2 and yet in time ,i was chosen a ,fellow of ,all ,souls1 and the first married ,fellow of the ,college1 and even a professorship was offered to me when ,i least expected it4 ,the fact is1 ,i never thought of either1 and no one was more surprised than myself when ,i was asked to act as deputy1 and then as full ,taylorian ,professor2 no one could have mistrusted his eyes more than ,i did1 when one of the ,fellows of ,all ,soul's informed me by letter that it was the intention of the ,college to elect me one of its fellows4 ,my ambition had never soared so high4 ,i was thinking of returning to ,leipzig as a ,privat-docent1 to rise afterwards to an extraordinary and1 if all went well1 to an ordinary professorship4 ,but after these two appointments at ,oxford had secured to me what ,i thought a fair social and financial position in ,england1 ,i did not feel justified in attempting to begin life again in ,germany4 ,i had not asked for a professorship or fellowship4 ,they were offered me1 and my ambition never went beyond securing what was necessary for my independence4 ,in ,germany ,i was supposed to have become quite wealthy2 in ,england people knew how small my income really was1 and wondered how ,i managed to live on it4 ,they did not suppose that ,i had chiefly to depend on my pen in order to live as a professor is expected to live at ,oxford4 ,i could not see anything anomalous in a ,german holding a professorship in ,england4 ,there were several cases of the same kind in ,germany4 ,lassen 7#ahjj-ahgf71 our great ,sanskrit professor at ,bonn1 was a ,norwegian by birth1 and no one ever thought of his nationality4 ,what had that to do with his knowledge of ,sanskrit8 ,nor was ,i ever treated as an alien or as intruder at ,oxford1 at least not at that early time4 ,as to myself1 ,i had now obtained what seemed to me a small but sufficient income with perfect independence4 ,the quiet life of a quiet student had been from my earliest days my ideal in life4 ,even at school at ,dessau1 when we boys talked of what we hoped to be1 ,i remember how my ideal was that of a monk1 undisturbed in his monastery1 surrounded by books and by a few friends4 ,the idea that ,i should ever rise to be a professor in a university1 or that any career like that of my father1 grandfather1 and other members of my family would ever be open to me1 never entered my mind then4 ,it seemed to me almost disloyal to think of ever taking their places4 ,even when ,i saw that there were no longer any ,protestant monks1 no ,benedictines1 the place of an assistant in a large library1 sitting in a quiet corner1 was my highest ambition4 ,i do not see why it should have been so1 for all my relations and friends occupied high places in the public service1 but as ,i had no father to open my eyes1 and to stimulate my ambition--he having died before ,i was four years old--my ideas of life and its possibilities were evidently taken from my young widowed mother1 whose one desire was to be left alone1 much as the world tempted her1 then not yet thirty years old1 to give up her mourning and to return to society4 ,thus it soon became my own philosophy of life1 to be left alone1 free to go my own way1 or like ,diogenes1 to live in my own tub4 ,here we see what ,i call the influence of circumstances1 of surroundings1 or as others call it1 of environment4 ,this1 however1 is very different from atavism1 as we shall see presently4 ,atavism also has been called a kind of environment1 attacking us and influencing us from the past1 and as it were1 from behind1 from the ,north in fact instead of the ,south1 the ,east1 and the ,west1 and from all the points of the compass4 ,but atavism means really a very different thing1 if indeed it means anything at all4 ,i must ease my conscience once for all on this point1 and say what ,i feel about atavism and environment4 ,environment in the shape of friends1 of locality1 and other material circumstances1 has certainly influenced my life very much1 and ,i could never see why such a hybrid word as environment should be used instead of surroundings or circumstances4 ,creatures of circumstances would be far better understood than creatures of environment2 but environment1 ,i suppose1 would sound more scientific4 ,atavism also is a new word1 instead of family likeness1 but unless carefully defined1 the word is very apt to mislead us4 ,when it is said#d that children often resemble their grandfathers or grandmothers more than their immediate parents1 and that this propensity is termed atavism1 this does not seem quite correct even etymologically1 for atavus in ,latin did not mean father or grandfather1 but at first great-great-great-grandfather1 and then only ancestors2 and what should be made quite clear is that this mysterious atavism should not be used by careful speakers1 to express the supposed influence of parents or even grandparents1 but that of more distant ancestors only1 and possibly of a whole family4 #d ,oxford ,dictionary1 s4 v42 ,j4 ,rennie1 ,science of ,gardening1 p4 #aac4 ,many biographers1 such is the fashion now1 begin their works with a long account not only of father and mother1 but of grandparents and of ever so many ancestors1 in order to show how these determined the outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written4 ,who would deny that there is some truth1 or at least some plausibility1 in atavism1 though no one has as yet succeeded in giving an intelligible account of it8 ,it is supposed to affect the moral as well as the physical peculiarities of the offspring1 and that here1 too1 physical and moral qualities often go together cannot be denied4 ,a blind person1 for instance1 is generally cautious1 but happy and quite at his ease in large societies4 ,a deaf person is often suspicious and unhappy in society4 ,in inheriting blindness1 therefore1 a man could well be said to have inherited cautiousness2 in inheriting deafness1 suspiciousness would seem to have come to him by inheritance4 ,but is blindness really inherited8 ,is the son of a father who has lost his eyesight blind1 and necessarily blind8 ,we must distinguish between atavistic and parental influences4 ,parental influences would mean the influence of qualities acquired by the parents1 and directly bequeathed to their offspring2 atavistic influences would refer to qualities inherited and transmitted1 it may be1 through several generations1 and engrained in a whole family4 ,in keeping these two classes separate1 we should only be following ,weismann's example1 who denies altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable4 ,his examples are most interesting and most important1 and many ,darwinians have had to accept his amendment4 ,besides1 we should always consider whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family or inconstant4 ,if a father is a drunkard1 surely it does not follow that his sons must be drunkards4 ,neither does it follow that all the children must be sober if the parents are sober4 ,of course1 in ordinary conversation both parental and ancestral influences seem clear enough4 ,but if a child is said to favour his mother1 because like her he has blue eyes and fair hair1 what becomes of the heritage from the father who may have brown eyes and dark hair8 ,whatever may happen to the children1 there is always an excuse1 only an excuse is not an explanation4 ,if the daughter of a beautiful woman grows up very plain1 the ,frenchman was no doubt right when he remarked1 ,c'tait alors le pre qui n'tait pas bien1 and if the son of a teetotaller should later in life become a drunkard1 the conclusion would be even worse4 ,in fact1 this kind of atavistic or parental influence is a very pleasant subject for gossips1 but from a scientific point of view1 it is perfectly futile4 ,if it is not the father1 it is the mother2 if it is not the grandmother1 it is the grandfather2 in fact1 family influences can always be traced to some source or other1 if the whole pedigree may be dug up and ransacked4 ,but for that very reason they are of no scientific value whatever4 ,they can neither be accounted for1 nor can they be used to account for anything themselves4 ,even of twins1 though very like each other in many respects1 one may be phlegmatic1 the other passionate4 ,some scientists1 such as ,weismann and others1 have therefore denied1 and ,i believe rightly1 that any acquired characters1 whether physical or mental1 can ever be inherited by children from their parents4 ,whatever similarity there is1 and there is plenty1 is traced back by him to what he calls the germ-plasm1 working on continuously in spite of all individual changes4 ,if that germ-plasm is liable to certain peculiar modifications in the father or grandfather1 it is liable to the same or similar modifications in the offspring1 that is1 if the father could become a drunkard1 so could the son1 only we must not think that the post hoc is here the same as the propter hoc4 ,if we compare the germ-plasm to the molecules constituting the stem or branches of a vine1 its grapes and leaves in their similarity and their variety would be comparable to the individuals belonging to the same family1 and springing from the same family tree4 ,but then the grape we see would not be what the grape of last year1 or the grape immediately preceding it on the same branch1 had made it1 though there can be no doubt that the antecedent possibilities of the new grape were the same as those of the last4 ,if one grape is blue1 the next will be blue too1 but no one would say that it was blue because the last grape was blue4 ,the real cause would be that the molecules of the protoplasm have been so affected by long continued generation1 that some of the peculiar qualities of the vine have become constant4 ,the child of a negro must always be a negro2 his peculiarities are constant1 though it may be quite true that the negro and other races are not different species1 but only varieties rendered constant by immense periods of time4 ,what the cause of these constant and inconstant peculiarities may be1 not even ,weismann has yet been able to explain satisfactorily4 ,the deafness of my mother and the prevalence of the misfortune in numerous members of her family acted on me as a kind of external influence1 as something belonging to the environment of my life2 it never frightened me as an atavistic evil4 ,it justified me in being cautious and in being prepared for the worst1 and so far it may be said to have helped in shaping or narrowing the course of my life4 ,fortunately1 however1 this tendency to deafness seems now to have exhausted itself4 ,in my own generation there is one case only1 and the next two generations1 children and grandchildren of mine1 show no signs of it4 ,if1 on the other hand1 my son was congratulated when entering the diplomatic service1 on being the son of his father1 it is clear that the difference between inherited and acquired qualities1 so strongly insisted on by ,weismann1 had not been fully appreciated by his friends4 ,besides1 my own power of speaking foreign languages has always been very limited1 and ,i have many times declined the compliment of being a second ,mezzofanti4#e ,i worked at languages as a musician studies the nature and capacities of musical instruments1 though without attempting to perform on every one of them4 ,there was no time left for acquiring a practical familiarity with languages1 if ,i wanted to carry on my researches into the origin1 the nature and history of language4 ,my own study of languages could therefore have been of very little use to me1 nor did my son himself perceive such an advantage in learning to converse in ,french1 ,spanish1 ,turkish1 c4 ,the facts were wrong1 and the theory of atavism perfectly unreasonable as applied to such a case4 #e ,science of ,language1 vol4 i4 p4 #bd 7#ahfa74 ,if the theory of atavism were stretched so far1 it would soon do away with free will altogether4 ,that heredity has something to do with our moral character1 no one would deny who knows the influence of our national1 nay even of racial character4 ,we are ,aryan by heredity2 we might be ,negroes or ,chinese1 and share in their tendencies4 ,animals also have their instincts4 ,only while animals1 like serpents for instance1 would never hesitate to follow their innate propensity1 man1 when he feels the power of what we may call inherited human instinct1 feels also that he can fight against it1 and preserve his freedom1 even while wearing the chains of his slavery4 ,this may have removed some of ,dr4 ,wendell ,holmes' scruples in writing his powerful story1 ,elsie ,venner1 and may likewise quiet the fears of his many critics4 ,i believe that language also--our own inherited language--exercises the most powerful influence on our reason and our will1 far more powerful than we are aware of4 ,a ,greek speaking ,greek and a ,roman speaking ,latin would certainly have been very different beings from the ,romance and ,french descendants of a ,horace or a ,cicero1 and this simply on account of the language which they had to speak1 whether ,greek1 ,latin1 ,french1 or ,spanish4 ,we cannot tell whether the original differentiation of language1 symbolized by the story of the ,tower of ,babel1 took place before or after the racial differentiation of men4 ,anyhow it must have taken place in quite primordial times4 ,without speaking positively on this point1 ,i certainly hold as strongly as ever that language makes the man1 and that therefore for classificatory purposes also language is far more useful than colour of skin1 hair1 cranial or gnathic peculiarities4 ,whether it be true that with every new language we speak we become new men1 certain it is that language prepares for us channels in which our thoughts have to run1 unless they are so powerful as to break all dams and dykes1 and to dig for themselves new beds4 ,for a long time people would not see that languages can be classified2 and as languages always presuppose speakers of language1 these speakers also can be classified accordingly4 ,it is quite true that some of these ,aryan speakers may in some cases have ,negro blood and ,negro features1 as when a ,negro becomes an ,english bishop4 ,conquered tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language of their conquerors1 but this too is exceptional1 and if we call them ,aryas1 we do not commit ourselves to any opinion as to their blood1 their bones1 or their hair4 ,these will never submit to the same classification as their speech1 and why should they8 ,nor should it be forgotten that wherever a mixture of language takes place1 mixed marriages also would most likely take place at the same time4 ,but whatever confusion may have arisen in later times in language and in blood1 no language could have arisen without speakers1 and we mean by ,aryas no more than speakers of ,aryan languages1 whatever their skulls or their hair may have been4 ,an ,octoroon1 and even a ,quadroon1 may have blonde waving hair1 but if he speaks ,english he would be classified as ,aryan1 if ,berber as a ,negro4 ,but who is injured by such a classification8 ,let blood and skulls and hair and jaws be classified by all means1 but let us speak no longer of ,aryan skulls or ,semitic blood4 ,we might as well speak of a prognathic language4 ,while fully admitting1 therefore1 the influence which family1 nationality1 race1 and language exercise on us1 it should be clearly perceived that habits acquired by our parents are not heritable1 that the sons of drunkards need not be drunkards1 as little as the sons of sober people must be sober4 ,but though biographers may agree to this in general they seem inclined1 to hold out very strongly for what are called special talents in certain families4 ,this subject is decidedly amusing1 but it admits of no scientific treatment1 as far as ,i can see4 ,the grandfather of ,felix ,mendelssohn ,bartholdy for instance1 though not a composer1 was evidently a man of genius1 a philosopher of considerable intellectual capacity and moral strength4 ,the father of the composer was a rich banker at ,berlin1 and he used to say3 8,when ,i was young ,i was the son of the great ,mendelssohn1 now that ,i am old1 ,i am the father of the great ,mendelssohn2 then what am ,i80 ,even a poor man to become a rich banker must be a kind of genius1 and so far the son may be said to have come of a good stock4 ,but the great musical talent that was developed in the third generation both in ,felix and his sisters1 failed entirely in his brother1 who1 to save his life1 could never have sung 8,god save the ,queen40 ,in the little theatrical performances of the whole family for which ,felix composed the music1 and his sister ,fanny 7,hensel7 some of the songs1 the unmusical brother--was it not ,paul8--had generally to be provided with some such part as that of a night watchman1 and he managed to get through his song with as much credit as the ,nachtwchter in the little town of ,germany1 where he sang or repeated1 as ,i well remember1 in his cracked voice3 8,hrt1 ihr ,herren1 und lasst euch sagen1 ,die ,glock' hat zwlf geschlagen2 ,wahret das ,feuer und auch das ,licht1 ,dass ,keinem kein ,schade geschicht40 8,listen1 gents1 and let me tell1 ,the clock struck twelve by its last knell2 ,watch o'er the fire and o'er the light ,that no one suffer any plight40 ,i have known in my life many musicians and their families1 but ,i remember very few instances indeed1 where the son of a distinguished musician was a great musician himself4 ,if the children take to music at all they may become very fair musicians1 but never anything extraordinary4 ,the ,bach family may be quoted against me1 but music1 before ,sebastian ,bach1 was almost like a profession1 and could be learned like any other handicraft4 ,nor are the cases of painters being the sons of great painters1 or of poets being the sons of great poets1 more numerous4 ,it seems almost as if the artistic talent was exhausted by one generation or one individual1 so that we often see the sons of great men by no means great1 and if they do anything in the same line as their fathers1 we must remember that there was much to induce them to follow in their steps without admitting any atavistic influences4 ,for the present1 ,i can only repeat the conclusion ,i arrived at after weighing all the arguments of my friends and critics1 namely1 to continue my ,recollections much as ,i began them1 to try to explain what made me what ,i am1 to describe1 in fact1 my environment2 though as my years advance1 and my labours and plans grow wider and wider1 ,i shall1 no doubt1 have to say a great deal more about myself than in the volumes of ,auld ,lang ,syne4 ,in fact1 my ,recollections will become more and more of an autobiography1 and the ,i and the ,autos will appear more frequently than ,i could have wished4 ,in an autobiography the painter is of course supposed to be the same as the sitter1 but quite apart from the metaphysical difficulties of such a supposition1 there is the physical difficulty when the writer is an old man1 and the model is a young boy4 ,is the old man likely to be a fair judge of the young man1 whether it be himself or some one else8 ,as a rule1 old men are very indulgent1 while young men are apt to be stern and strict in their judgments4 ,the very fact that they often invent excuses for themselves shows that they feel that they want excuses4 ,the words of the ,preacher1 vii4 #af3 8,be not righteous over much2 neither make thyself over wise3 why shouldest thou destroy thyself8 ,be not over much wicked1 neither be thou foolish3 why shouldest thou die before thy time80 are evidently the words of an old man when judging of himself or of others4 ,a young man would have spoken differently4 ,he would have made no allowance2 for anything like compassion for an erring friend is as yet unknown to him4 ,in an autobiography written by an old man there is therefore a double danger1 first the indulgence of the old man1 and secondly the kindly feeling of the writer towards the object of his remarks4 ,all these difficulties stand before me like a mountain wall4 ,and it seems better to confess at once that an old man writing his own life can never be quite just1 however honest he tries to be4 ,he may be too indulgent1 but he may also be too strict and stern4 ,to say1 for instance1 of a man that he has not kept his promise1 would be a very serious charge if brought against anybody else4 ,yet my oldest friend in the world knows how many times he has made a promise to himself1 and has not only not kept it but has actually found excuses why he did not keep it4 ,the more sensitive our conscience becomes1 the more blameworthy many an act of our life seems to be1 and what to an ordinary conscience is no fault at all1 becomes almost a sin under a fiercer light4 ,this changes the moral atmosphere of youth when painted by an old man1 but the physical atmosphere also assumes necessarily a different hue4 ,whether we like it or not1 distance will always lend enchantment to the view4 ,if the azure hue is inseparable from distant mountains and from the distant sky1 we need not wonder that it veils the distant paradise of youth4 ,a man who keeps a diary from his earliest years1 and who as an old man simply copies from its yellow pages1 may give us a very accurate black and white image of what he saw as a boy1 but as in old faded photographs1 the life and light are gone out of them1 while unassisted memory may often preserve tints of their former reality4 ,there is life and light in such recollections1 but ,i am willing to admit that memory can be very treacherous also4 ,thus in my own case ,i can vouch that whatever ,i relate is carefully and accurately transcribed from the tablets of my memory1 as ,i see them now1 but though ,i can claim truthfulness to myself and to my memory1 ,i cannot pretend to photographic accuracy4 ,i feel indeed for the historian who uses such materials unless he has learnt to make allowance for the dim sight of even the most truthful narrators4 ,i doubt whether any historian would accept a statement made thirty years after the event without independent confirmation4 ,i could not give the date of the battle of ,sadowa1 though ,i well remember reading the full account of it in the ,times from day to day4 ,i can of course get at the date from historical books1 and from that kind of artificial memory which arises by itself without any memoria technica4 ,there is a favourite ,german game of cards called ,sixty-six1 and it was reported that when the ,french in #ahgj shouted ,berlin1 the then ,crown-,prince who had won the battle of ,sadowa1 or ,kniggrtz1 said3 8,ah1 they want another game of ,sixty-six60 that is they want a battle like that of ,sadowa4 ,in this way ,i shall always remember the date of that decisive battle4 ,but ,i could not give the date of the ,crimean battles nor a trustworthy account of the successive stages of that war4 ,i doubt whether even my old friend1 ,sir ,william ,h4 ,russell1 could do that now without referring to his letters in the ,times4 ,after thirty years no one1 ,i believe1 could take an oath to the accuracy of any statement of what he saw or heard so many years ago4 ,all then that ,i can vouch for is that ,i read my memory as ,i should the leaves of an old ,,ms4 from which many letters1 nay1 whole words and lines have vanished1 and where ,i am often driven to decipher and to guess1 as in a palimpsest1 what the original uncial writing may have been4 ,i am the first to confess that there may be flaws in my memory1 there may be before my eyes that magic azure which surrounds the distant past2 but ,i can promise that there shall be no invention1 no ,dichtung instead of ,wahrheit1 but always1 as far as in me lies1 truth4 ,i know quite well that even a certain dislocation of facts is not always to be avoided in an old memory4 ,i know it from sad experience4 ,as the spires of a city--of ,oxford for instance--arrange themselves differently as we pass the old place on the railway1 so that now one and now the other stands in the centre and seems to rise above the heads of the rest1 so it is with our friends and acquaintances4 ,some who seemed giants at one time assume smaller proportions as others come into view towering above them4 ,the whole scenery changes from year to year4 ,who does not remember the trees in our garden that seemed like giants in our childhood1 but when we see them again in our old age1 they have shrunk1 and not from old age only8 ,and must ,i make one more confession8 ,it is well known that ,george the ,fourth described the battle of ,waterloo so often that at last he persuaded himself that he had been present1 in fact that he had won that battle4 ,i also remember ,dr4 ,routh1 the venerable president of ,magdalen ,college1 who died in his hundredth year1 and who had so often repeated all the circumstances of the execution of ,charles ,i1 that when ,macaulay expressed a wish to see him1 he declined 8because that young man has given quite a wrong account of the last moments of the king10 which he then proceeded to relate1 as if he had been an eye-witness throughout4 ,are we not liable to the same hallucination1 though1 let us hope1 in a more mitigated form8 ,have we never told a story as if it were our own1 not from any wish to deceive1 but simply because it seemed shorter and easier to do so than to explain step by step how it reached us8 ,and after doing that once or twice1 is there not great danger of our being surprised at somebody else claiming the story as his own1 or actually maintaining that it was he who told it to us8 ,not very long ago ,i remember reading in a journal a story of the ,duke of ,wellington4 ,his servant had been sent before to order dinner for him at an out-of-the-way hotel1 and in order to impress the landlord with the dignity of his coming guest1 he had recited a number of the ,duke's titles1 which were very numerous4 ,the landlord1 thinking that the ,duke of ,vittoria1 the ,prince of ,waterloo1 the ,marquis of ,torres ,vedras1 and all the rest1 were friends invited to dine with the ,duke of ,wellington1 ordered accordingly a very sumptuous banquet to the great dismay of the real ,duke4 ,this may or may not be a very old and a very true story2 all ,i know is that much the same thing was told at ,oxford of ,dr4 ,bull1 who was ,canon of ,christ ,church1 ,canon of ,exeter1 ,prebendary of ,york1 ,vicar of ,staverton1 and lastly1 the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,bull himself4 ,dinner was provided for each of these persons1 and we are told that the reverend pluralist had to eat all the dishes on the table and pay for them4 ,this also may have been no more than one of the many 8,common-roomers0 which abounded in ,oxford when ,common ,rooms were more frequented than they are now4 ,but what ,i happen to know as a fact is that ,dean ,stanley received no less than four invitations to a hall at ,blenheim1 addressed ,a4 ,p4 ,stanley1 ,esq41 the ,rev4 ,a4 ,p4 ,stanley1 ,canon ,stanley1 ,professor ,stanley1 all evidently copied from some books of reference4 ,i may perhaps claim one advantage in trying to describe what happened to myself in my passage through life4 ,from the earliest days that ,i can recollect1 ,i felt myself as a twofold being--as a subject and an object1 as a spectator and as an actor4 ,i suppose we all talk to ourselves1 and say to our better and worse selves1 ,o thou fool6 or1 ,well done1 my boy6 ,well this inward conversation began with me at a very early time1 and left the impression that ,i was the coachman1 but at the same time the horse too which he drove and sometimes whipped very cruelly4 ,and this phase of thought1 or rather this state of feeling1 seems soon to have led me on to another view which likewise dates from a very early time1 though it afterwards vanished4 ,as a little boy1 when ,i could not have the same toys which other boys possessed1 ,i could fully enjoy what they enjoyed1 as if they had been my own4 ,there is a ,german phrase1 8,ich freue mich in deiner ,seele10 which exactly expressed what ,i often felt4 ,it was not the result of teaching1 still less of reasoning--it was a sentiment given me and which certainty did not leave me till much later in life1 when competition1 rivalry1 jealousy1 and envy seemed to accentuate my own ,i as against all other ,i's or ,thou's4 ,i suppose we all remember how the sight of a wound of a fellow creature1 nay even of a dog1 gives us a sharp twitch in the same part of our own body4 ,that bodily sympathy has never left me1 ,i suffer from it even now as ,i did seventy years ago4 ,and is there anybody who has not felt his eyes moisten at the sudden happiness of his friends8 ,all this seems to me to account1 to a certain extent at least1 for that feeling of identity with so-called strangers1 which came to me from my earliest days1 and has returned again with renewed strength in my old age4 ,the 8know thyself10 ascribed to ,chilon and other sages of ancient ,greece1 gains a deeper meaning with every year1 till at last the ,i which we looked upon as the most certain and undoubted fact1 vanishes from our grasp to become the ,self1 free from the various accidents and limitations which make up the ,i1 and therefore one with the ,self that underlies all individual and therefore vanishing ,i's4 ,what that common ,self may be is a question to be reserved for later times1 though ,i may say at once that the only true answer given to it seems to me that of the ,upanishads and the ,vedanta philosophy4 ,only we must take care not to mistake the moral ,self1 that finds fault with the active ,self1 for the ,highest ,self that knows no longer of good or evil deeds4 ,long before ,i had worked and thought out this problem as the fundamental truth of all philosophy1 it presented itself to me as if by intuition1 long before ,i could have fathomed it in its metaphysical meaning4 ,i had just heard of the death of a dear little child1 and was standing in our garden1 looking at a rose-bush1 covered in summer with hundreds of rose-buds and rose-flowers4 ,while ,i was looking ,i broke off one small withered bud from the midst of a large cluster of roses1 and after ,i had done so a question came to me1 and ,i said to myself1 ,what has happened8 ,is it only that one small bud is dead and gone1 or have not all the other roses been touched by the breath of death that fell on it8 ,have they not all suffered from the death of their sister1 for they all spring from the same stem1 they all have their life from the same source8 ,and if one rose suffers1 must not all the others suffer with it8 ,then all the buds and flowers of the cluster seemed to me to become one1 as it were a family of roses1 and each single bud seemed but the repetition of the same thing1 the manifestation of the same thought1 namely the thought of the rose4 ,but my eyes were carried still further1 and the stem from which the bunch of roses sprang was lost with other stems in a branch1 and it was that branch on which all the roses of the branchlets and stems depended1 and without which they could not flower or exist4 ,the single roses thus became identified with the branch from which they had sprung1 and by which they lived4 ,i wondered more and more1 and after another look all the branches with all their branchlets became absorbed in the stem1 and the stem was the tree1 and the tree sprang from a seed1 or as it is now called1 the protoplasm2 but beyond that seed there was nothing else that the eye could see or the mind could grasp4 ,and while this vision floated before my eyes ,i thought of my little friend1 and the home from which she had been broken off1 and the same vision which had changed the rose-bush with all its flowers1 and buds1 and branchlets1 and branches1 into a stem and a tree1 and at last into one invisible germ and seed1 seemed now to change my little friend and her brothers and sisters1 her parents too and all her family1 into one being which1 like an old oak tree1 started from an invisible stem1 or an invisible seed1 or from an invisible thought1 and that divine thought was man1 as the other divine thought had been rose4 ,perhaps ,i did not see it so fully then as ,i see it now1 and ,i certainly did not reason about it4 ,i simply felt that in the death of my little friend1 something of myself had gone1 though she was no relation1 but only a stray human friend4 ,we see many things as children which we cannot see as grown-up men and women1 for1 as ,longfellow said1 8the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts40 ,nay1 ,i feel convinced that ,he who spoke the parable of the vine had seen the same vision when ,he said3 8,i am the vine1 ye are the branches4 ,abide in ,me1 and ,i in you4 ,as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine1 no more can ye1 except ye abide in ,me40 ,and it is on this vision1 or this parable of the vine1 that immediately afterwards follows the lesson1 8,love one another1 as ,i have loved you40 ,in loving one another we are in truth loving the others as ourselves1 as one with ourselves2 and while we are loving ,him who is the vine1 we are loving the branches1 ourselves--aye1 even our own little selves4 ,such vague visions or intuitions often remain with us for life1 but while they seem to be the same1 they vary as we vary ourselves4 ,we imagine we saw their deepest meaning from the first1 but1 like a parable1 they gain in meaning every time they come back to us4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,childhood ,,at ,,dessau ,in a small town such as ,dessau was when ,i lived there as a child and as a boy1 one lived as in an enchanted island4 ,the horizon was very narrow1 and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the little oasis4 ,the ,duchy was indeed a little oasis in the large desert of ,central ,germany4 ,the landscape was beautiful3 there were rivers small and large--the ,mulde and the ,elbe2 there were magnificent oak forests2 there were regiments of firs standing in regular columns like so many grenadiers2 there were parks such as one sees in ,england only4 ,the town1 the capital of the ,duchy of ,anhalt-,dessau1 had been cared for by successive rulers--men mostly far in advance of their time--who had read and travelled1 and brought home the best they could find abroad4 ,their old castle1 centuries old1 over-awed the town2 it was by far the largest building1 though there were several other smaller places in the town for members of the ducal family4 ,all the public buildings1 theatres1 libraries1 schools1 and barracks1 had been erected by the ,dukes1 as well as several private residences intended for some of the higher officials4 ,the whole town was1 in fact1 the creation of the ,dukes2 the whole ground on which it stood had been originally their property1 but it was mostly held as freehold by those who had built their own private houses on it4 ,no one would have built a house on leasehold land1 and several of the houses were of so substantial a character that one saw they had been intended to last for more than ninety-nine years4 ,the same family often remained in their house for generations1 and the different stories were occupied by three generations at the same time--by grandparents1 parents1 and children4 ,in this small town ,i was born on ,december #f1 #ahbc4 ,my father1 ,wilhelm ,mller1 was ,librarian of the ,ducal ,library1 and one of the most popular poets in ,germany4 ,a national monument was erected to his memory at ,dessau in the year #ahia1 nearly a hundred years after his birth4 ,illustration3 ,,my ,,father ,what a blessing it would be if such a rule were followed with all great men1 who seem so great at the time of their death1 and who1 a hundred years later1 are almost forgotten1 or at all events appreciated by a small number of admirers only4 ,this ,monument- and ,society-mania is indeed becoming very objectionable1 for if for some time there has been no room for tombs and statues in ,westminster ,abbey1 there will soon be no room for them in the streets of ,london4 ,the result is that many of the people who walk along the ,thames ,embankment1 particularly foreigners1 often ask1 8,cur80 when looking at the human idols in bronze and marble put up there2 while historians1 remembering the really great men of ,england1 would ask quite as often1 8,cur non80 ,there is a curious race of people1 who1 as soon as a man of any note dies1 are ready to found anything for him--a monument1 a picture1 a school1 a prize1 a society--to keep alive his memory4 ,of course these societies want presidents1 members of council1 committees1 secretaries1 c41 and at last1 subscriptions also4 ,thus it has happened that the name of founder 7,grnder7 has assumed1 particularly in ,germany1 a perfume by no means sweet4 ,those who are asked to subscribe to such testimonials know how disagreeable it is to decline to give at least their name1 deeply as they feel that in giving it they are offending against all the rules of historical perspective4 ,i should not say that my father was one of the great poets of ,germany1 though ,heine1 no mean critic1 declared that he placed his lyric poetry next to that of ,goethe4 ,besides1 he was barely thirty-three when he died4 ,he had been a favourite pupil of ,f4 ,a4 ,wolf1 and had proved his classical scholarship by his ,homerische ,vorschule1 and other publications4 ,his poems became popular in the true sense of the word1 and there are some which the people in the street sing even now without being aware of the name of their author4 ,schubert's compositions also have contributed much to the wide popularity of his ,schne ,mllerin and his ,winterreise1 so that though it might truly be said of him that he wanted no monument in bronze or stone1 it seemed but natural that a small town like ,dessau should wish to honour itself by honouring the memory of one of its sons4 ,in the company of ,mendelssohn1 the philosopher1 and of ,f4 ,schneider1 the composer1 a monument of my father in the principal street of his native town1 and before the school in which he had been a pupil and a teacher1 could hardly seem out of place4 ,that the ,greek ,parliament voted the ,pentelican marble for the poet of the ,griechenlieder1 as it had done for ,lord ,byron1 was another inducement for his fellow citizens to do honour to their honoured poet4 ,he died when ,i was hardly four years old1 so that my recollection of him is very faint and vague1 made up1 ,i believe1 to a great extent1 of pictures1 and things that my mother told me4 ,i seem to remember him as a bright1 sunny1 and thoroughly joyful man1 delighted with our little naughtinesses4 ,one book ,i still possess which he bought for me and which was to be the first book of my library4 ,it was a small volume of ,horace1 printed by ,pickering in #ahbj4 ,it has now almost vanished among the #ab1jjj big volumes that form my library1 but ,i am delighted that ,i am still able1 at seventy-six1 to read it without spectacles4 ,i think ,i remember my father taking my sister and me on his knees1 and telling us the most delightful stories1 that set us wondering and laughing and crying till we could laugh and cry no longer4 ,he had been a fellow worker with the brothers ,grimm1 and the stories he told were mostly from their collection1 though he knew how to embellish them with anything that could make a child cry and laugh4 ,people have little idea how great and how lasting an influence such popular stories about kings and queens1 and princesses and knights1 about ogres and witches1 about men that have been changed into animals1 and about animals that talk and behave like human beings1 exercise on the imagination of young children4 ,while we listened1 a new world seemed to open before us1 and anything like doubt as to the reality of these beings never existed4 ,what was reality or unreality to young children of four and five8 ,how few people know what real reality is1 even after they have reached the age of fifty or sixty4 ,for children1 such names as reality and unreality do not exist1 nor the ideas which they express4 ,they listen to what their father tells them1 and they cannot see any difference between what he tells them of ,frederick ,barbarossa1 of ,romulus and ,remus suckled by a wolf1 or of the dwarfs that guarded the coffin of ,schneewittchen4 ,some people1 however1 have thought that from an educational point of view1 a belief in this imaginary world must be mischievous4 ,i doubt it1 and it would be easy to show that originally these stories and fables were really meant to inculcate right and good principles4 ,luther declared that he would not lose these wonderful stories of his tender childhood for any sum of money1 and ,camerarius 7,fabulae ,aesopeae1 p4 #djf1 ,lipsiae1 #aegj7 speaks of these ,german fables as filling the minds of the people1 and particularly of children1 with terror1 hope1 and religion4 ,the oldest collections in which some of these ,aesopean fables occur1 the ,pantschatantra and ,hitopadesa in ,sanskrit1 were distinctly intended for the education of princes1 and though they may make the young listeners inclined to be superstitious1 such superstitiousness is not likely to last long4 ,children delight in ,mrchen as in a kind of pantomime1 and when the curtain has fallen on that fairy world they often think of it as of a beautiful dream that has passed away4 ,the stories are certainly more impressive than the proverbs and wise saws which many of them were meant to illustrate1 without always saying1 haec fabula docet4 ,even if some of these stories touch sometimes on what may not seem to us quite correct1 it is done to make children laugh rather at the silliness than cry at the downright wickedness of some of the heroes4 ,it is by no means uncommon1 for instance1 that a good-for-nothing fellow succeeds1 while his virtuous companions fail4 ,but there is either a reason for it1 or the injustice provokes the indignation of children1 long before they have learnt that in real life also virtue does not always receive its reward1 while falsehood often prospers1 at least for a time4 ,there is no harm1 ,i think1 in a certain dreaminess in children4 ,i remember that ,i have often laughed with all my heart at ,rumpelstilzchen1 and shed bitter tears at ,brderchen and ,schwesterchen4 ,i seemed to see brother and sister driven into the wood1 the brother being changed into a deer1 and the sister sleeping with her head on his warm fur1 till at last the deer was killed by a huntsman1 and the little sister had to travel on quite alone in the forest4 ,of course in the end she became a princess1 and the brother a prince who married a queen1 and all ended in great joy and jubilation in which we all joined4 ,how good for children that they should for a time at least have lived in such a dreamland1 in which truthfulness was as a rule rewarded1 and falsehood punished in the end4 ,it was like a recollection of a ,paradise1 and such a recollection1 even if it brought out the contrast between the dream-world and the real world1 would often set children musing on what ought and what ought not to be4 ,they did not long believe in ,dornrschen and ,schneewittchen1 they learnt but too soon that ,dornrschen and ,schneewittchen belonged to another world4 ,they may even have come to learn that ,dornrschen 7thorn-rose7 and ,schneewittchen 7snow-white7 were meant originally for the sleep or death of nature in her snow-white shroud1 and the return of the sun2 but woe to the boy who on first learning these stories should have declared that they were mere bosh1 or1 as ,sir ,walter ,scott says1 the detritus of nature-myths4 ,my father's father1 whom ,i never knew1 seems not to have been distinguished in any way4 ,he was1 however1 a useful tradesman and a respected citizen of ,dessau1 and1 as ,i see1 the founder of the first lending library in that small town4 ,he married a second time1 a rich widow1 chiefly1 as ,i was told1 to enable him to give his son1 my father1 a liberal education4 ,she grew to be very old1 and ,i well remember her1 to me1 forbidding and terrifying appearance4 ,she quite belonged to a past generation1 and when ,i saw her again after having been in ,england1 she asked me whether ,i had seen ,napoleon who had been taken prisoner and sent to ,england1 but had lately escaped and resumed his throne in ,paris4 ,she evidently mixed up the two ,napoleons1 and ,i did not contradict her4 ,to me her conversation was interesting as showing how little the traditions of the people can be relied on1 and how easily1 by the side of real history1 a popular history could grow up4 ,after all1 the poems of ,charlemagne besieging ,jerusalem owed their origin very likely to some similar confusion in the minds of old women4 ,my sister and ,i were always terrified when we were sent to visit her1 for with her dishevelled grey hair1 her thin white face1 and her piercing eyes1 she was to us the old grandmother1 or the witch of ,grimm's stories2 and the language she used was such that1 if we repeated it at home1 we were severely reprimanded4 ,she knew very little about my father1 but her memory about her first husband and about her own youth and childhood was very clear1 though not always edifying4 ,her stories about ghosts1 witches1 ogres1 nickers1 and the whole of that race were certainly enough to frighten a child1 and some of them clung to me for a very long time4 ,on my mother's side my relations were more civilized1 and they had but little social intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives4 ,my mother's father was von ,basedow1 the ,president1 that is ,prime ,minister of the ,duchy of ,anhalt-,dessau1 a position in which he was succeeded by his eldest son1 my uncle4 ,he was the first man in the town2 the ,duke and he really ruled the ,duchy exactly as they pleased4 ,there was no check on them of any kind1 and yet no one1 as far as ,i know1 ever complained of any tyranny4 ,my grandfather's father again was the famous reformer of public education in ,germany4 ,he 7#agbc-agij7 had to brave the conservative and clerical parties throughout the country4 ,his home at ,hamburg was burnt in a riot1 and it was then that he migrated to ,dessau1 to become the founder of the ,philanthropinum1 and at the same time the path-breaker for men such as ,pestalozzi 7#agdf-ahbg7 and ,froebel 7#aghb-aheb74 ,considering his lifelong struggles1 he deserved a better monument at ,dessau than he has found there4 ,no doubt he was a passionate and violent man1 and his outbreaks are still remembered at ,dessau1 while his beneficial activity has almost been forgotten4 ,i was often told that ,i took after my mother's family1 whatever that may mean1 and this was certainly the case in outward appearance1 though ,i hope not in temper4 ,my great grandfather1 the ,pedagogue as he was called1 was a friend of ,goethe's1 and is mentioned in his poems4 ,my childhood at home was often very sad4 ,my mother1 who was left a widow at twenty-eight with two children1 my sister and myself1 was heart-broken4 ,the few years of her married life had been most bright and brilliant4 ,my father was a rising poet1 and such was his popularity that he was able to indulge his tastes as he liked1 whether in travelling or in making his house a pleasant centre of social life4 ,contemporaries and friends of my father1 particularly ,baron ,simolin1 a very intimate friend1 who spent the ,christmas of #ahbe in our house1 have written of the bright gaiety1 the whole-hearted enjoyment of life that reigned there1 and have told how1 though his income was to say the least of it small1 ,wilhelm ,mller's home was the rallying-point for all the cultivated1 scientific1 and artistic society of ,dessau1 who felt attracted by the simple and unaffected yet truly genial disposition of the master of the house4 ,it would be interesting to know how much an author could make at that time by his pen4 ,publishers seem to have been far more liberal then than they are now4 ,the circumstances were different4 ,the number of writers was of course much smaller1 and the sale of really popular books probably much larger4 ,anyhow1 my father1 whose salary was minute1 seems to have been able to enjoy the few years of his married life in great comfort4 ,the thought of saving money1 however1 seems never to have entered his poetical mind1 and after his unexpected death1 due to paralysis of the heart1 it was found that hardly any provision had been made for his family4 ,even the life insurance1 which is obligatory on every civil servant1 and the pension granted by the ,duke1 gave my mother but a very small income1 fabulously small1 when one considers that she had to bring up two children on it4 ,it has been a riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it4 ,however1 it was done1 and could only have been done in a small town like ,dessau1 where education was as good as it was cheap1 and where very little was expected by society4 ,we must also take into account the very low prices which then ruled at ,dessau with regard to almost all the necessaries of life4 ,i see from the old newspapers that beef sold at about threepence a pound 7two groschen71 mutton at about twopence4 ,wine was sold at seven to eight groschen a bottle1 a better sort for twelve to fourteen groschen--a groschen being about a penny4 ,people drank mostly beer1 and this was sold under ,government inspection at two to three groschen per quart4 ,fish was equally cheap1 and such1 at the beginning of the century1 was the abundance of salmon caught in the ,elbe1 and even in the ,mulde at ,dessau1 that it was stipulated as in ,scotland1 that servants should not have salmon more than twice or thrice in the week4 ,the lowest price for salmon was then twopence halfpenny a pound4 ,as a boy ,i can remember seeing the salmon in large numbers leap over a weir in the very town of ,dessau1 and though they had travelled for so many miles inland1 the fish was very good1 though not so good as ,severn salmon4 ,game also was very cheap1 and sold for not much more than mutton1 nay1 at certain times it was given away2 it could not be exported4 ,corn was sold at three shillings per ,scheffel1 and by corn was chiefly meant rye4 ,no one took wheaten bread1 and the bread was therefore called brown bread and black bread4 ,white bread was only taken with coffee1 and peasants in the villages would not have touched it1 because it was not supposed to make such strong bones as rye-bread4 ,with such prices we can understand that a salary of #cjj was considered sufficient for the highest officers of state4 ,my mother's relations1 who were all high in the public service1 my grandfather1 as ,i said1 being the ,duke's chief minister1 made life more easy and pleasant for us2 but for many years my mother never went into society1 and our society consisted of members of our own family only4 ,all ,i remember of my mother at that time was that she took her two children day after day to the beautiful ,gottesacker 7,god's ,acre71 where she stood for hours at our father's grave1 and sobbed and cried4 ,it was a beautiful and restful place1 covered with old acacia trees4 ,the inscription over the gateway was one of my earliest puzzles4 ,tod ist nicht ,tod1 ist nur ,veredlung menschlicher ,natur 7,death is not death1 'tis but the ennobling of man's nature74 ,on each side there stood a figure1 representing the genius of sleep and the genius of death4 ,all this was the work of the old ,duke1 ,leopold ,friedrich ,franz1 who tried to educate his people as he had educated himself1 partly by travel1 partly by intercourse with the best men he could attract to ,dessau4 ,illustration3 ,,my ,,mother ,at home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy4 ,i heard and thought more about death than about life1 though ,i knew little of course of what life or death meant4 ,i had but few pleasures1 and my chief happiness was to be with my mother4 ,i shared her grief without understanding much about it4 ,she was passionately devoted to her children1 and ,i was passionately fond of her4 ,what there was left of life to her1 she gave to us1 she lived for us only1 and tried very hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness4 ,she was certainly most beautiful1 and quite different from all other ladies at ,dessau1 not only in the eyes of her son1 but as it seemed to me1 of everybody4 ,then she had a most perfect voice1 and when ,i first began music she helped and encouraged me in every possible way4 ,we played quatre mains1 and soon she made me accompany her when she sang4 ,as far as ,i can recollect1 ,i was never so happy as when ,i could be with her4 ,she read so much to us that ,i was quite satisfied1 and saw perhaps less of my young friends than ,i ought4 ,when my mother said she wished to die1 and to be with our father1 ,i feel sure that my sister and ,i were only anxious that she should take us with her1 for there were few golden chains that bound us as yet to this life4 ,i see her now1 sitting on a winter's evening near the warm stove1 a candle on the table1 and a book from which she read to us in her hands1 while the spinning-wheel worked by the servant-maid in the corner went on humming all the time4 ,she read ,paul ,gerhard's translation of ,st4 ,bernard's3 8,salve caput cruentatum1 ,totum spinis coronatum1 ,conquassatum1 vulneratum1 ,arundine verberatum1 ,facies sputis illita40 8,o ,haupt voll ,blut und ,wunden1 ,voll ,schmerz und voller ,hohn6 ,o ,haupt zu ,spott gebunden ,mit einer ,dornenkron1 ,o ,haupt sonst schn gezieret ,mit hchster ,ehr und ,zier1 ,jetzt aber hoch schimpfiret3 ,gegrsset seist du mir60 ,though the ,german translation does not come near the powerful majesty of the original1 yet such was the effect produced on me that ,i saw the bleeding head before my eyes1 and cried and cried until my mother had to comfort me by assuring me that the sufferer was now in ,heaven and that it was only a song to be sung in church4 ,how deeply such scenes seem engraved on the memory2 how vividly they return when the rubbish of many years is swept away and all is again as it was then1 and the caput cruentatum looks down on us once more1 as it did then1 with the human eyes full of divine love1 so truly human that one could say with ,st4 ,bernard1 8,tuum caput huc inclina1 in meis pausa brachiis40 ,but willingly as ,i listened to these readings at home1 and full as my heart was of love to ,christ1 ,i suffered intensely when ,i was taken to church as a young boy4 ,it was a very large church1 and in winter bitterly cold4 ,even though ,i liked the singing1 the long sermon was real torture to me4 ,i could not understand a word of it1 and being thinly clad my teeth would have chattered if ,i had not been told that it was wrong 8to make a noise in church40 ,oh6 what misery is inflicted on childhood by this enforced attendance at church4 ,when a church can be warmed the suffering is less intense1 but a huge whitewashed church that feels like an ice-cellar is about the worst torture that human ingenuity could have invented to make children hate the very name of church4 ,these early impressions often remain for life1 and the worst of it is that the idea remains in the minds of children1 and of grown-up people too1 that by going to church and repeating the same prayers over and over again1 and listening to long and often dreary sermons1 they are actually doing a service to ,god 7,gottesdienst74 ,why does no new prophet arise and say in the name of ,god1 as ,david did in the name of ,jehovah1 8,sermons and long prayers #8thou didst not desire'08 ,many years later ,i had to discuss the same question with ,keshub ,chunder ,sen1 the ,indian ,reformer4 ,he wanted to know what kind of service should be adopted by his new church1 the ,brahmo ,somaj2 his friends thought of sermons1 singing1 and processions with flags and flowers through the streets4 8,no10 ,i said to him1 8service of ,god should be service of men2 if you want divine service1 let it be a real service1 such as ,god would approve of4 ,let other people go to church1 to their mosques or their temples1 but take you your own friends on certain days of the week to whatever you like to call your meeting-place1 and after a short prayer or a few words of advice send some of them to the poorest streets in the city1 others to the prisons1 others to the hospitals4 ,let them pray with all who wish to pray1 but let them speak words of true love and comfort also1 and when they can1 let them help them with their alms4 ,that would be a real ,divine ,service and a divine ,sunday for you1 and you would all come home1 it may be sadder1 but certainly wiser and better men40 ,i am afraid he did not agree with me4 ,he did not think that true religion was to visit the poor and the afflicted4 ,that might do for a practical people like the ,english1 but the ,hindu wanted something else1 he wanted some outward show and ceremony for the people1 and at the same time some silent communion with ,god4 ,who can tell what different people understand by religion8 and who can prescribe the spiritual food that is best for them8 8,only10 ,i said1 8do not call it practical to encourage millions of people to waste hours and hours in mere repetition1 and to spend millions and millions in supplying this cold comfort1 when next door to the magnificent cathedral there are squalid streets1 and squalid houses1 and squalid beds to lie and die on40 ,the religious and devotional element is very strong in ,germany1 but the churches are mostly empty4 ,a ,german keeps his religion for weekdays rather than for ,sunday4 ,when the ,german regiments marched1 and when they made ready for battle1 they did not sing ribald songs1 they sang the songs of ,luther and ,paul ,gerhard1 which they knew by heart and which strengthened them to face death as it ought to be faced4 ,fortunately1 while enforced attendance at church was apt to produce the strongest aversion in the young heart against anything that was called religion1 religious instruction both at home and at school too was excellent1 and undid much of the mischief that had been done during cold winter days4 ,true religious sentiments can be planted in the soul at home only1 by a mother better even than by a father4 ,the sense of a divine presence everywhere1 1 once planted in the heart of a child remains for life4 ,of course the child soon begins to argue1 and says to his mother that ,god cannot be at the same time in two rooms4 ,but only let a mother show to the child the rays of the sun in the sky1 in the streets1 and in every corner of the house1 and it will begin to understand that nothing can be hid from the eyes of ,him who is greater than the sun4 ,and when a child doubts whether the voice of conscience can be the voice of ,god1 and asks how he could hear that voice without seeing the speaker1 ask him only whose voice it can be that tells him not to do what he himself wishes to do1 and not to say what he could say without any fear of men2 and his idea of ,god will be raised from that of a visible being like the sun1 to the concept of a presence that never vanishes1 that is not only without1 in the sky1 in the mountains1 and in the storm1 but nearer also within1 in the sense of fear1 in the sense of shame1 and in the hope of pardon and love4 ,at school our religious teaching was chiefly historical and moral4 ,there was no difficulty in finding proper teachers for that1 and there were no attempts on the part of parents to interfere with religious instruction or to demand separate teaching for each sect4 ,it is true that religious sects are not so numerous in ,germany as they are in ,england4 ,some1 though by no means all1 children of ,roman ,catholic and ,jewish parents were allowed to be absent from religious lessons4 ,but most parents knew that the history of the ,jewish religion would be taught at school in so impartial and truly historical a spirit as never to offend ,jewish children4 ,respect for historical truth1 and an implanted sense of the reverence due to children1 would keep any teacher from making the history of the ,christian ,church1 whether before or after the ,reformation1 an excuse for offending one of the little ones committed to his care4 ,if ,jews or ,roman ,catholics wished for any special religious instruction it was given by their own priests or ,rabbis1 and was given without any interference on the part of the ,government4 ,but such was at my time the state of public feeling that ,i hardly knew at school who among my young friends were ,roman ,catholics1 or ,lutherans1 or ,reformed4 ,i must admit1 however1 that the very name of ,luther might have offended ,roman ,catholics4 ,he was represented to us as a perfect saint1 almost as inspired and infallible4 ,his hymns sung in church seemed to us little different from the ,psalms of ,david1 and ,i well remember what a shock it gave me when at ,oxford1 much later in life1 ,i heard ,luther spoken of like any other mortal1 nay1 as a heretic1 and a most dangerous heretic too4 ,when ,i was a boy ,i remember that in some places the same building had to be used for ,protestant and ,roman ,catholic services4 ,all that1 ,i am afraid1 is now changed1 and the old liberal and tolerant feeling then prevailing on all sides is now often stigmatized as indifference1 and by other ugly names4 ,it should really be called the golden age of ,christianity1 and this so-called indifference should be classed among the highest ,christian virtues1 and as the fullest realization of the spirit of ,christ4 ,thus we grew up from our earliest youth1 being taught to look upon ,christianity as an historical fact1 on ,christ and ,his disciples as historical characters1 on the ,old and ,new ,testaments as real historical books4 ,though we did not understand as yet the deeper meaning of ,christ and of ,his words1 we had at least nothing to unlearn in later times1 or to feel that our parents had ever told us what they themselves could not have held to be true4 ,our simple faith was not shaken by mere questions of criticism1 or by the problem how any human being could take upon himself to declare any book to be revealed1 unless he claimed for himself a more than human insight4 ,the simplest rules of logic should make such a declaration impossible1 whatever the sacred book may be to which it is applied4 ,granted that the ,pope was infallible1 how could the ,cardinals know that he was1 unless they claimed for themselves the same or even greater infallibility8 ,it is far more easy to be inspired than to know some one else is or was inspired2 the true inspiration is1 and always has been1 the spirit of truth within1 and this is but another name for the spirit of ,god4 ,it is truth that makes inspiration1 not inspiration that makes truth4 ,whoever knows what truth is1 knows also what inspiration is3 not only theopneustos1 blown into the soul by ,god1 but the very voice of ,god1 the real presence of ,god1 the only presence in which we1 as human beings1 can ever perceive ,him4 ,how often have ,i in later life tried to explain this to my friends in ,france and in ,england who endured mental agonies before they could arrive at the simple conclusion that revelation can never be objective1 but must always be subjective4 ,i may return to this question at a later period of my life1 when ,i had to discuss with ,renan1 at ,paris1 with ,froude1 ,kingsley1 and ,liddon1 in ,england1 and tried to show how entirely self-made some of their difficulties were4 ,at present ,i have only to explain how it was that ,i had never to extricate myself from a net in which so many honest thinkers find themselves entangled without any fault of their own2 as ,samson1 when he awoke1 found himself bound with seven green withs and had to break them with all his might before he could hope to escape from the ,philistines4 ,the ,philistines never bound me4 ,during my early school-days these difficulties did not exist1 but ,i have often been grateful in after life that the seven locks of my head have never been woven with the web4 ,i remember a number of small events in my school-life at ,dessau1 but though they were full of interest to me1 nay1 full of meaning1 and not without an influence on my later life1 they would have no meaning and no interest for others1 and may remain as if they had never been4 ,the influence which music exercised on my mind1 and1 ,i believe1 on my heart also1 ,i have related in my ,musical ,recollections4 ,the image of those passing years1 though its general tone was melancholy1 chiefly owing to my mother's melancholy1 seemed to me at the time free from all unhappiness4 ,my work at school and at home was not too heavy2 ,i was fond of it1 and very fond of books4 ,books were scarce then1 and whoever possessed a new and valuable book was expected to lend it to his friends in the little town4 ,if a man was known to possess1 say1 ,goethe's works or ,jean ,paul's works1 the consequence was that one went to him or to her to ask for the loan of them4 ,and not only books1 but paper and pens also were scarce4 ,the first steel pens came in when ,i was still in the lower school1 and bad as they were they were looked upon as real treasures by the schoolboys who possessed them4 ,paper was so dear that one had to be very sparing in its use4 ,every margin and cover was scribbled over before it was thrown away1 and ,i felt often so hampered by the scarcity of paper that ,i gladly accepted a set of copybooks instead of any other present that ,i might have asked for on my birthday or at ,christmas4 ,i am sorry to say ,i have had to suffer all my life from the inefficiency of our writing master1 or maybe from the fact that my thoughts were too quick for my pen4 ,in other subjects ,i did well1 but though ,i was among the first in each class1 ,i was by no means cleverer than other boys4 ,in the lower school work was more like conversation or like hearing news from our teachers4 ,the idea of effort did not yet exist4 ,the drudgery began1 however1 when ,i entered the upper school1 the gymnasium1 and learnt the elements of ,latin and ,greek4 ,though our teachers were very conscientious1 they tried to make our work no burden to us1 and the constant change of places in each class kept up a lively rivalry among the boys1 though ,i am not sure that it did not make me rather ambitious and at times conceited4 ,still1 ,i had few enemies1 and it seemed of much more consequence who could knock down another boy than who could gain a place above him4 ,i feel sure ,i could have done a great deal more at school than ,i did1 but it was partly my music and partly my incessant headaches that interfered with my school work4 ,i remember as a boy that certain streets were inhabited exclusively by ,jewish families4 ,a large number of ,jews had been received at ,dessau by a former ,duke2 but though he granted them leave to settle at ,dessau when they were persecuted in other parts of ,germany1 he stipulated that they should only settle in certain streets4 ,these streets were by no means the worst streets of the town2 on the contrary they showed greater comfort and hardly any of the squalor which disgraced the ,jewish quarters in other towns in ,germany4 ,as children we were brought up without any prejudice against the ,jews1 though we had1 no doubt1 a certain feeling that they were tolerated only1 and were not quite on the same level with ourselves4 ,we also felt the religious difficulty sometimes very strongly4 ,were not the ,jews the murderers of ,christ8 and had they not said3 8the blood be on us and on our children08 ,but as we were told that it was wrong to harbour feelings of revenge1 we boys soon forgot and forgave1 and played together as the best friends4 ,i remember picking up a number of ,jewish words which would not have been understood anywhere else4 ,i was hardly aware that they were ,jewish and used them like any other words4 ,but ,i once gave great offence to my friend ,professor ,bernays1 who was a ,jew4 ,he had uttered some quite incredible statement1 and ,i exclaimed1 8,sind ,sie denn ganz maschukke80--,hebrew for 8mad40 ,i meant no harm1 but he was very much hurt4 ,i knew several ,jewish families1 and received much kindness from them as a boy4 ,many of these families were wealthy1 but they never displayed their wealth1 and in consequence excited no envy4 ,all that is changed now4 ,the children of the ,jews who formerly lived in a very quiet style at ,dessau1 now occupy the best houses1 indulge in most expensive tastes1 and try in every way to outshine their non-,jewish neighbours4 ,they buy themselves titles1 and1 when they can1 stipulate for stars and orders as rewards for successful financial operations1 carried out with the money of princely personages4 ,hence the revulsion of feeling all over ,germany1 or what is called ,anti-,semitism1 which has assumed not only a social but a political significance4 ,i doubt whether there is anything religious in it1 as there was when we were boys4 ,the ,anti-,semitic hatred is the hatred of money-making1 more particularly of that kind of money-making which requires no hard work1 but only a large capital to begin with1 and boldness and astuteness in speculating1 that is in buying and selling at the right moment4 ,the sinews of war for that kind of financial warfare were mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of the present generation4 ,sometimes1 no doubt1 the capital was lost1 and in those cases it must be said that the ,jewish speculator disappears from the stage without a sigh or a cry4 ,he begins again1 and if he should have to do what his grandfather did1 walk from house to house with a bag on his back1 he does not whine4 ,one cannot blame the ,jews or any other speculators for using their opportunities1 but they must not complain either if they excite envy1 and if that envy assumes in the end a dangerous character4 ,the ,jews1 so far from suffering from disabilities1 enjoy really certain privileges over their ,christian competitors in ,germany4 ,they belong to a regnum1 but also to a regnum in regno4 ,they have1 so to say1 our ,sunday and likewise their ,sabbath4 ,jew will always help ,jew against a ,christian2 and again who can blame them for that8 ,all one can say is that they should not complain of their unpopularity1 but take into account the risk they are running4 ,no one hated the ,jews such as they were in ,dessau fifty years ago4 ,they had their own schools and synagogues1 and no one interfered with them when they built their bowers in the streets at the time of their ,feast of ,tabernacles1 and lived1 feasted1 and slept in them to keep up the memory of their sojourning in the desert4 ,they indulged in even more offensive practices1 such as1 for instance1 putting three stones in the coffins to be thrown by the dead at the ,virgin ,mary1 her husband1 and their ,son4 ,no one suspected or accused them of kidnapping ,christian children1 or offering sacrifices with their blood4 ,they were known too well for that4 ,conversions of ,jews were not infrequent1 and converted ,jews were not persecuted by their former co-religionists as they are now4 ,even marriages between ,christians and ,jews were by no means uncommon1 particularly when the young ,jewesses were beautiful or rich1 still better if they were both4 ,disgraceful as the ,anti-,semitic riots have been in ,germany and ,russia1 there can be no doubt that in this as in most cases both sides were to blame1 and there is little prospect of peace being re-established till many more heads have been broken4 ,what helped very much to keep the peace in the small town of ,dessau1 as it did all over ,germany1 nay1 all over the world1 till about the year #ahdh1 was the small number of newspapers4 ,in my childhood and youth their number was very small4 ,in ,dessau ,i only knew of one1 which was then called the ,wochenblatt1 afterwards the ,staatsanzeiger4 ,at that time newspapers were really read for the news which they contained1 not for leading or misleading articles and all the rest4 ,what a happy time it was when a newspaper consisted of a sheet1 or half a sheet in quarto1 with short paragraphs about actual events1 which had often taken place weeks and months before4 ,a battle might have been fought in ,spain or ,turkey1 in ,india or ,china1 and no one knew of it till some official information was vouchsafed by the respective ,governments or by ,jewish bankers4 ,war-correspondents or regular reporters did not exist1 and the old telegraphic dispatches were sent by wooden telegraphs fixed on high towers1 which from a distance looked like gallows on which a criminal was hanging and gesticulating with arms and feet4 ,anybody who watched these signals could decipher them far more easily than a hieroglyphic inscription4 ,the peace of ,europe1 nay1 of the whole world1 was then in the keeping of sovereigns and their ministers1 and ,prince ,metternich might certainly take some credit for having kept what he called the ,thirty ,years' ,peace4 ,shall we ever1 as long as there are newspapers1 have peace again--peace between the great nations of the world1 and peace at home between contending parties1 and peace in our mornings at home which are now so ruthlessly broken in upon1 nay1 swallowed up by those paper-giants1 most unwelcome yet irresistible callers1 just when we want to settle down to a quiet day's work8 ,it is no use protesting against the inevitable1 nor can we quite agree with those who maintain that no newspaper carries the slightest weight or exercises the smallest influence on home or foreign politics4 ,a very influential statesman and wise thinker used to say that we should never have had ,christianity if newspapers had existed at the time of ,augustus4 ,when unsuccessful littrateurs or bankrupt bankers' clerks were the chief contributors to the newspapers1 their influence might have been small2 but when ,bismarcks turned journalists1 and ,gortchakoffs prompted1 newspapers could hardly be called quantits ngligeables4 ,the horizon of ,dessau was very narrow1 but within its bounds there was a busy and happy life4 ,everybody did his work honestly and conscientiously4 ,there were1 of course1 two classes1 the educated and the uneducated4 ,the educated consisted of the members of the ,government service1 the clergy1 the schoolmasters1 doctors1 artists1 and officers2 the uneducated were the tradesmen1 mechanics1 and labourers4 ,the trade was mostly in the hands of ,jews1 it had become almost a ,jewish monopoly4 ,when one of these tradesmen went bankrupt1 there was a commotion over the whole town1 and ,i remember being taken to see one of these bankrupt shops1 expecting to find the whole house broken up and demolished1 and being surprised to see the tradesman standing whole1 and sound1 and smiling1 in his accustomed place4 ,my etymological tastes must have developed very early1 for ,i had asked why this poor ,jew was called a bankrupt1 and had been duly informed that it was because his bank had been broken1 banca rotta1 which of course ,i took in a literal sense1 and expected to see all the furniture broken to pieces4 ,the commercial relations of our ,dessau tradesmen did not extend much beyond ,leipzig1 ,berlin1 possibly ,hamburg and ,cologne4 ,if a burgher of ,dessau travelled to these or to more distant parts the whole town knew of it and talked about it1 whereas a journey to ,paris or ,london was an event worthy to be mentioned and discussed in the newspapers4 ,these old newspapers are full of curious information4 ,we find that if a person wished to travel to ,cologne or further1 he advertised for a companion1 and it was for the ,burgomaster to make the necessary arrangements for him4 ,french was studied and spoken1 particularly at ,court1 but ,english was a rare acquirement1 still more ,italian or ,spanish4 ,there was1 however1 a small inner circle where these languages were studied1 chiefly in order to read the master-works of modern literature4 ,and this was all the more creditable because there were no good teachers to be found at ,dessau1 and people had to learn what they wished to learn by themselves1 with the help of a grammar and dictionary4 ,we learnt ,french at school1 but the result was deplorable4 ,as in all public schools1 the ,french master who had to teach the language at the ,ducal ,gymnasium could not keep order among the boys4 ,he of course spoke ,french1 but that was all4 ,he did not know how to teach1 and could not excite any interest in the boys1 who insisted on pronouncing ,french as if it were ,german4 ,the poor man's life was made a burden to him4 ,his name was ,noel1 and he had all the pleasing manners of a ,frenchman1 but that served only to rouse the antagonism of the young barbarians4 ,the result was that we learnt very little1 and ,i was sent to an old ,jew to learn ,french and a little ,english4 ,that old ,jew1 called ,levy ,rubens1 was a perfect gentleman4 ,he probably had been a commercial traveller in his early days1 though no one knew exactly where he came from or how he had learnt languages4 ,he had taught my father and grandfather and he was delighted to teach the third generation4 ,he certainly spoke ,french and ,english fluently1 but with the strongest ,jewish accent1 and this was inherited by all his pupils at ,dessau4 ,i feel ashamed when ,i think of the tricks we played the old man--putting mice into his pockets1 upsetting inkstands over his table1 and placing crackers under his chairs4 ,but he never lost his temper2 he never would have dared to punish us as we deserved2 but he went on with his lesson as if nothing had happened4 ,he took his small pay1 and was satisfied when his lessons were over and he could settle down to his long pipe and his books4 ,he lived quite alone and died quite alone1 a hardworking1 honest1 poor ,jew1 not exactly despised or persecuted1 but not treated with the respect which he certainly deserved1 and which he would have received if he had not been a ,jew4 ,our public school was as good as any in ,germany4 ,these small duchies generally followed the example of ,prussia1 and they carried out the instructions issued by the ,ministry of ,education at ,berlin according to the very letter4 ,besides1 several of the reigning dukes had taken a very warm and personal interest in popular education1 and at the beginning of the century the eyes of the whole of ,germany1 nay1 of ,europe1 were turned towards the educational experiments carried on by my great-grandfather1 ,basedow1#f at the so-called ,philanthropinum at ,dessau under the patronage of the ,duke and of several of the more enlightened sovereigns of ,europe1 such as the ,empress ,catherine of ,russia1 the ,king of ,denmark1 the ,emperor ,joseph of ,austria1 ,prince ,adam ,czartoryski1 c4 ,even after ,basedow's death the interest in education was kept alive in ,dessau1 and all was done that could be done in so small a town to keep the different schools--elementary1 middle-class1 and high schools--on the highest possible level of efficiency4 #f ,johann ,bernhard ,basedow1 von seinem ,urenkel1 ,f4 ,m4 ,m4 7,essays1 ,band ,,iv74 ,bathing was a very healthful recreation1 though ,i very nearly came to grief from trusting to my seniors4 ,they could swim and ,i could not yet4 ,but while bathing with two of my friends in a part of the river which was safe1 they swam along and asked me to follow them4 ,having complete confidence in them ,i jumped in from the shore1 but very soon began to sink4 ,my shouts brought my friends back1 and they rescued me1 not without some difficulty1 from drowning4 ,in an ,english school the influence of the master is1 of course1 more constant1 because one of the masters is always within call1 while in ,germany he is visible during school-hours only4 ,if a master is fond of his pupils1 and takes an interest in them individually1 he can do them more good than parents at home1 or the teacher at a day school4 ,the boys at a ,german school are1 no doubt1 a very mixed crew1 but that cannot be helped4 ,this mixture of classes may be a drawback in some respects1 but from an educational point of view the sons of very rich parents are by no means more valuable than the poor boys4 ,far from it4 ,many of the evils of schoolboy life come from the sons of the rich1 while the sons of poor parents are generally well behaved4 ,but for all that1 there was a rough and rude tone among some of the boys at school1 arising from defects in the education at home1 and this sometimes embittered what ought to be the happiest time of life1 particularly in the case of delicate boys4 ,the son of a ,minister has often to sit by the side of the son of a wealthy butcher1 and the very fact that he is the son of a gentleman often exposes the more refined boy to the bullying of his muscular neighbour4 ,i was fortunate at school4 ,i could hold my own with the boys1 and as to the masters1 several of them had known my father or had been his pupils1 and they took a personal interest in me4 ,i remember more particularly one young master who was very kind to me1 and took me home for private lessons and for giving me some good advice4 ,there was something sad and very attractive about him1 and ,i found out afterwards that he knew that he was dying of consumption1 and that besides that he was liable to be prosecuted for political liberalism1 which at that time was almost like high treason4 ,i believe he was actually condemned and sent to prison like many others1 and he died soon after ,i had left ,dessau4 ,his name was ,dr4 ,hnicke1 and he was the first to try to impress on me that ,i ought to show myself worthy of my father1 an idea which had never entered my mind before1 nay1 which at first ,i could hardly understand1 but which1 nevertheless1 slumbered on in my mind till years afterwards it was called out and became a strong influence for the whole of my life4 ,i still have some lines which he wrote for my album4 ,they were the well-known lines from ,horace1 which1 at the time1 ,i had great difficulty in construing1 but which have remained graven in my memory ever since3 8,fortes creantur fortibus et bonis1 ,est in iuvencis est in equis patrum ,virtus nec imbellem feroces ,progenerant aquilae columbam4 ,doctrina sed vim promovet insitam1 ,rectique cultus pectora roborant2 ,utcunque defecere mores1 ,dedecorant bene nata culpae40 ,in my childhood ,i had to pass through the ordinary illnesses1 but it was the faith in our doctor that always saved me4 ,the doctor was to my mind the man who was called in to make me well again1 and while my mother was agitated about her only son1 ,i never dreamt of any danger4 ,the very idea of death never came near me till my grandfather died 7#ahce71 but even then ,i was only about twelve years old1 and though ,i had seen much of him1 particularly during the years that my mother lived again in his house1 yet he was too old to take much share in his grandchildren's amusements4 ,he left a gap1 no doubt1 in our life1 but that gap was filled again with new figures in the life of a boy of twelve4 ,he was only sixty-one years old when he died1 and yet my idea of him was always that of a very old man4 ,everything was done for him1 his servant dressed him every morning1 he was lifted into his carriage and out of it1 and he certainly lived the life of an invalid1 such as ,i should not consent to own to at seventy-six4 ,he made no secret that he cared more for the son of his son who was the heir1 and was to perpetuate the name of von ,basedow1 than for the son of his daughter4 ,he was very fond of driving and of shooting1 and he frequently took my cousin out shooting with him4 ,when my cousin came home with a hare he had shot1 ,i confess ,i was sometimes jealous1 but ,i was soon cured of my wish to go with my grandfather into the forest4 ,once when ,i was with him in his little carriage1 my grandfather1 not being able to see well1 had the misfortune to kill a doe which had come out with her two little ones4 ,the misery of the mother and afterwards of her two young ones1 was heart-rending1 and from that day on ,i made up my mind never to go out shooting1 and never to kill an animal4 ,and ,i have kept my word1 though ,i was much laughed at4 ,it may be that later in life and after my grandfather's death ,i had little opportunity of shooting1 but the cry of the doe and the whimpering of the young ones who tried to get suck from their dead mother have remained with me for life4 ,my grandfather1 though he aged early1 remained in harness as ,prime ,minister to the end of his life1 and it was his great desire to benefit his country by new institutions4 ,it was he who1 at the time when people hardly knew yet what railroads meant1 succeeded in getting the line from ,berlin to ,halle and ,leipzig to pass by ,dessau4 ,he offered to build the bridge across the ,elbe and to give the land and the wood for the sleepers gratis1 and what seemed at the time a far too generous offer has proved a blessing to the duchy1 making it as it were the centre of the great railway connecting ,berlin1 ,leipzig1 ,magdeburg1 the ,elbe1 ,hanover1 ,bremen1 nay1 ,cologne also1 the ,rhine1 and ,western ,europe4 ,he was in his way a good statesman1 though we are too apt to measure a man's real greatness by the circumstances in which he moves4 ,as far back as ,i can remember ,i was a martyr to headaches4 ,no doctor could help me1 no one seemed to know the cause4 ,it was a migraine1 and though ,i watched it carefully ,i could not trace it to any fault of mine4 ,the idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue4 ,it came and went1 and if it was one day on the right side it was always the next time on the left1 even though ,i was free from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight1 or even longer4 ,it was strange also that it seldom lasted beyond one day1 and that ,i always felt particularly strong and well the day after ,i had been prostrate4 ,for prostrate ,i was1 and generally quite unable to do anything4 ,i had to lie down and try to sleep4 ,after a good sleep ,i was well1 but when the pain had been very bad ,i found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had peeled off4 ,in this way ,i often lost two or three days in a week1 and as my work had to be done somehow1 it was often done anyhow1 and ,i was scolded and punished1 really without any fault of my own4 ,after all remedies had failed which the doctor and nurses prescribed 7and ,i well remember my grandmother using massage on my neck1 which must have been about #ahcc to #ahce7 ,i was handed over to ,hahnemann1 the founder of homeopathy4 ,hahnemann 7born #agee7 had been practising as doctor at ,dessau as early as #aghj--that is somewhat before my time--but had left it1 and when in #ahbj he had been prohibited by the ,government from practising and lecturing at ,leipzig1 he took refuge once more in the neighbouring town of ,coethen4 ,from there he paid visits to ,dessau as consulting physician1 and after ,i had explained to him as well as ,i could all the symptoms of my chronic headache1 he assured my mother that he would cure it at once4 ,he was an imposing personality--a powerful man with a gigantic head and strong eyes and a most persuasive voice4 ,i can quite understand that his personal influence would have gone far to effect a cure of many diseases4 ,people forget too much how strong a curative power resides in the patient's faith in his doctor1 in fact how much the mind can do in depressing and in reinvigorating the body4 ,i shall never forget in later years consulting ,sir ,andrew ,clarke1 and telling him of ever so many1 to my mind1 most serious symptoms4 ,i had lost sleep and appetite1 and imagined myself in a very bad state indeed4 ,he examined me and knocked me about for full three quarters of an hour1 and instead of pronouncing my doom as ,i fully expected1 he told me with a bright look and most convincing voice that he had examined many men who had worked their brains too much1 but had never seen a man at my time of life so perfectly sound in every organ4 ,i felt young and strong at once1 and meeting my old friend ,morier on my way home1 we ate some dozens of oysters together and drank some pints of porter without the slightest bad effect4 ,in fact ,i was cured without a pill or a drop of medicine4 ,and who does not know how1 if one makes up one's mind at last to have a tooth pulled out1 the pain seems to cease as soon as we pull the bell at the dentist's8 ,however1 ,hahnemann did not succeed with me4 ,i swallowed a number of his silver and gold globules1 but the migraine kept its regular course1 right to left and left to right1 and this went on till about the year #ahfj4 ,then my doctor1 the late ,mr4 ,symonds of ,oxford1 told me exactly what ,hahnemann had told me--that he would cure me1 if ,i would go on taking some medicine regularly for six months or a year4 ,he told me that he and his brother had made a special study of headaches1 and that there were ever so many kinds of headache1 each requiring its own peculiar treatment4 ,when ,i asked him to what category of headaches mine belonged1 ,i was not a little abashed on being told that my headache was what they called the ,alderman's headache4 8,surely10 ,i said1 8,i don't overeat1 or overdrink40 ,i had thought that mine was a mysterious nervous headache1 arising from the brain4 ,but no1 it seemed to be due to turtle soup and port wine4 ,however1 the doctor1 seeing my surprise1 comforted me by telling me that it was the nerves of the head which affected the stomach1 and thus produced indirectly the same disturbance in my digestion as an aldermanic diet4 ,whether this was true or was only meant as a solatium ,i do not know4 ,but what ,i do know is1 that by taking the medicine regularly for about half a year1 the frequency and violence of my headaches were considerably reduced1 while after about a year they vanished completely4 ,i was a new being1 and my working time was doubled4 ,one lesson may be learnt from this1 namely1 that the ,english system of doctoring is very imperfect4 ,in ,england we wait till we are ill1 then go to a doctor1 describe our symptoms as well as we can1 pay one guinea1 or two1 get our prescription1 take drastic medicine for a month and expect to be well4 ,my ,german doctor1 when he saw the prescription of my ,english doctor1 told me that he would not give it to a horse4 ,if after a month we are not better we go again2 he possibly changes our medicine1 and we take it more or less regularly for another month4 ,the doctor cannot watch the effect of his medicine1 he is not sure even whether his prescriptions have been carefully followed2 and he knows but too well that anything like a chronic complaint requires a chronic treatment4 ,the important thing1 however1 was that my headaches yielded gradually to the continued use of medicine2 it would hardly have produced the desired effect if ,i had taken it by fits and starts4 ,all this seems to me quite natural2 but though my ,english doctor cured me1 and my ,german doctors did not1 ,i still hold that the ,german system is better4 ,most families have their doctor in ,germany1 who calls from time to time to watch the health of the old and young members of the family1 particularly when under medical treatment1 and receives his stipulated annual payment1 which secures him a safe income that can be raised1 of course1 by attendance on occasional patients4 ,perhaps the ,chinese system is the best2 they pay their doctor while they are well1 and stop payment as long as they are ill4 ,i know the unanswerable argument which is always thrown at my head whenever ,i suggest to my friends that there are some things which are possibly managed better in ,germany than in ,england4 ,if my remarks refer to the study and practice of medicine ,i am asked whether more men are killed in ,england than in ,germany2 if ,i refer to the study and practice of law ,i am assured that quite as many murderers are hanged in ,england as in ,germany2 and if ,i venture to hint that the study of theology might on certain points be improved at ,oxford1 ,i am told that quite as many souls are saved in ,england as in ,germany1 nay1 a good many more4 ,as ,i cannot ascertain the facts from trustworthy statistics1 ,i have nothing to reply2 all ,i feel is that most nations1 like most individuals1 are perfect in their own eyes1 but that those are most perfect who are willing to admit that there is something to be learnt from their neighbours4 ,but to return to ,hahnemann4 ,he was very kind to me1 and ,i looked up to him as a giant both in body and in mind4 ,but he could not deliver me from my enemy1 the ever recurrent migraine4 ,the cures1 however1 both at ,dessau and at ,coethen1 where he had been made a ,hofrath by the reigning ,duke1 were very extraordinary4 ,hahnemann remained in ,coethen till #ahce1 and in that year1 when he was eighty1 he married a young ,french lady1 ,melanie d',hervilly1 and was carried off by her to ,paris1 where he soon gained a large practice1 and died in #ahdc1 that is at the age of eighty-eight4 ,much of his success1 ,i feel sure1 was due to his presence and to the confidence which he inspired4 ,how do ,i know that ,sir ,andrew ,clarke1 seeing that ,i was in low spirits about my health1 did not think it right to encourage me1 and by encouraging me did certainly make me feel confident about myself1 and thus raised my vitality1 my spirits1 or whatever we like to call it8 8,thy faith hath made thee whole0 is a lesson which doctors ought not to neglect4 ,how little we know the effect of the environment in which we grow up4 ,my old granny has drawn deeper furrows through my young soul than all my teachers and preachers put together4 ,i am not going to add a chapter to that most unsatisfactory of all studies1 child-psychology4 ,it is an impossible subject4 ,the victim--the child--cannot be interrogated till it is too late4 ,the influences that work on the child's senses and mind cannot be determined2 they are too many1 and too intangible4 ,the observers of babies1 mostly young fathers proud of their first offspring1 remind me always of a very learned friend of mine1 who presented to the ,royal ,society most laborious pages containing his lifelong observations on certain deviations of the magnetic needle1 and who had forgotten that in making these observations he always had a pair of steel spectacles on his nose4 ,however1 ,i have nothing to say against these observations1 nor against their more or less successful interpretations4 ,but the real harm begins when people imagine that in studying the ways of infants they can discover what man was like in his original condition1 whether as a hairy or a hairless creature4 ,to imagine that we can learn from the way in which children begin to use our old words1 how the primitive language of mankind was formed1 seems to me like imagining that children playing with counters would teach us how and for what purpose the first money was coined4 ,there is no doubt a grain of truth in this infantile psychology1 but it requires as many caveats as that which is called ethnological psychology1 which makes us see in the savages of the present day the representation of the first ancestors of our race1 and would teach us to discover in their superstitions the antecedents of the mythology and religion of the ,aryan or ,semitic races4 ,the same philosophers who constantly fall back on heredity and atavism in order to explain what seems inexplicable in the beliefs and customs of the ,brahmans1 ,greeks1 or ,romans1 seem quite unconscious of the many centuries that must needs have passed over the heads of the ,patagonians of the present day as well as of the ,greeks at the time of ,homer4 ,they look upon the ,patagonians as the tabula rasa of humanity1 and they forget that even if we admitted that the ancestors of the ,aryan race had once been more savage than the ,patagonians1 it would not follow that their savagery was identical with that of the people of ,tierra del ,fuego4 ,why should not the distance between ,patagonian and ,vedic ,rishis have been at least as great as that between ,vedic ,rishis and ,homeric bards8 ,if there are ever so many kinds of civilized life1 was there only one and the same savagery8 ,to take1 for instance1 the feeling of fear2 is it likely that we shall find out whether it is innate in human nature or acquired and intensified in each generation1 by shaking our fists in the face of a little baby1 to see whether it will wink or shrink or shriek8 ,some children may be more fearless than others1 but whether that fearlessness arises from ignorance or from stolidity is again by no means easy to determine4 ,a burnt child fears the fire1 an unburnt child might boldly grasp a glowing coal1 but all this would not help us to determine whether fear is an innate or an acquired tendency or habit4 ,all ,i can say for myself is that my young life and even my later years were often rendered miserable by the foolish stories of one of my grandmothers1 and that ,i had to make a strong effort of will before ,i could bring myself to walk across a churchyard in the dark4 ,this shows how much our character is shaped by circumstances1 even when we are least aware of it4 ,i did not believe in ghosts and ,i was not a coward1 but ,i felt through life a kind of shiver in dark passages and at the sound of mysterious noises1 and the mere fact that ,i had to make an effort to overcome these feelings shows that something had found its way into my mental constitution that ought never to have been there1 and that caused me1 particularly in my younger days1 many a moment of discomfort4 ,all such experiences constitute what may be called the background of our life4 ,my first ideas of men and women1 and of the world at large1 that is of the unknown world1 were formed within the narrow walls of ,dessau1 for ,dessau was still surrounded by walls1 and the gates of the city were closed every night1 though the fears of a foreign enemy were but small4 ,of course the views of life prevailing at ,dessau were very narrow1 but they were wide enough for our purposes4 ,though we heard of large towns like ,dresden or ,berlin1 and of large countries like ,france and ,italy1 my real world was ,dessau and its neighbourhood4 ,we had no interests outside the walls of our town or the frontiers of our duchy4 ,if we heard of things that had happened at ,leipzig or ,berlin1 in ,paris or ,london1 they had no more reality for us than what we had read about ,abraham1 or ,romulus and ,remus1 or ,alexander the ,great4 ,to us the pulse of the world seemed to beat in the ,haupt- und ,residenzstadt of ,dessau1 though we knew perfectly well how small it was in comparison with other towns4 ,and this1 too1 has left its impression on my thoughts all through life1 if only by making everything that ,i saw in later life in such towns as ,leipzig1 ,berlin1 ,paris1 and ,london1 appear quite overwhelmingly grand4 ,boys brought up in any of these large towns start with a different view of the world1 and with a different measure for what they see in later life4 ,i do not know that they are to be envied for that1 for there is pleasure in admiration1 pleasure even in being stunned by the first sight of the life in the streets of ,paris or ,london4 ,i certainly have been a great admirer all my life1 and ,i ascribe this disposition to the small surroundings of my early years at ,dessau4 ,and so it was with everything else4 ,having admired our ,cavalier-,strasse1 ,i could admire all the more the ,boulevards in ,paris1 and ,regent ,street in ,london4 ,having enjoyed our small theatre1 ,i stood aghast at the ,grand ,opera1 and at ,drury ,lane4 ,this power of admiration and enjoyment extended even to dinners and other domestic amusements4 ,having been brought up on very simple fare1 ,i fully enjoyed the dinners which the ,old ,east ,india ,company gave1 when we sat down about #djj people1 and1 as ,i was told1 four pounds was paid for each guest4 ,i mention this because ,i feel that not only has the ,spartan diet of my early years given me a relish all through life for convivial entertainments1 even if not quite at four pounds a head1 but that the general self-denial which ,i had to exercise in my youth has made me feel a constant gratitude and sincere appreciation for the small comforts of my later years4 ,i remember the time when ,i woke with my breath frozen on my bedclothes into a thin sheet of ice4 ,we were expected to wash and dress in an attic where the windows were so thickly frozen as to admit hardly any light in the morning1 and where1 when we tried to break the ice in the jug1 there were only a few drops of water left at the bottom with which to wash4 ,no wonder that the ablutions were expeditious4 ,after they were performed we had our speedy breakfast1 consisting of a cup of coffee and a semmel or roll1 and then we rushed to school1 often through the snow that had not yet been swept away from the pavement4 ,we sat in school from eight to eleven or twelve1 rushed home again1 had our very simple dinner1 and then back to school1 from two to four4 ,how we lived through it ,i sometimes wonder1 for we were thinly clad and often wet with rain or snow2 and yet we enjoyed our life as boys only can enjoy it1 and had no time to be ill4 ,one blessing this early roughing has left me for life--a power of enjoying many things which to most of my friends are matters of course or of no consequence4 ,the background of my life at ,dessau and at ,leipzig may seem dark1 but it has only served to make the later years of my life all the brighter and warmer4 ,the more ,i think about that distant1 now very distant past1 the more ,i feel how1 without being aware of it1 my whole character was formed by it4 ,the unspoiled primitiveness of life at ,dessau as it was when ,i was at school there till the age of twelve1 would be extremely difficult to describe in all its details4 ,everybody seemed to know everybody and everything about everybody4 ,everybody knew that he was watched1 and gossip1 in the best sense of the word1 ruled supreme in the little town4 ,gossip was1 in fact1 public opinion with all its good and all its bad features4 ,still the result was that no one could afford to lose caste1 and that everybody behaved as well as he could4 ,i really believe that the private life of the people of ,dessau at the beginning of the century was blameless4 ,the great evils of society did not exist1 and if now and then there was a black sheep1 his or her life became a burden to them4 ,everybody knew what had happened1 and society being on the whole so blameless1 was all the more merciless on the sinners1 whether their sins were great or small4 ,so from the very first my idea was that there were only two classes--one class quite perfect and pure as angels1 the other black sheep1 and altogether unspeakable4 ,there was no transition1 no intermediate links1 no shading of light and dark4 ,a man was either black or white1 and this rigid rule applied not only to moral character1 but intellectual excellence also was measured by the same standard4 ,a work of art was either superlatively beautiful1 or it was contemptible4 ,a man of science was either a giant or a humbug4 ,some people spoke of ,goethe as the greatest of all poets and philosophers the world had ever known2 others called him a wicked man and an overvalued poet4#g #g ,that this was not only the case at ,dessau1 may be seen by a number of contemporary reviews of ,goethe's works republished some years ago and the exact title of which ,i cannot find4 ,it is dangerous1 no doubt1 to go through life with so imperfect a measure1 and ,i have for a long time suffered from it1 particularly in cases where ,i ought to have been able to make allowance for small failings4 ,but as ,i had been brought up to approach people with a complete trust in their rectitude1 and with an unlimited admiration of their genius1 it took me many years before ,i learnt to make allowance for human weaknesses or temporary failures4 ,i have lost many a charming companion and excellent friend in my journey through life1 because ,i weighed them with my rusty ,dessau balance4 ,i had to learn by long experience that there may be a spot1 nay1 several spots on the soft skin of a peach1 and yet the whole fruit may be perfect4 ,i acted very much like the merchant who tested a whole field of rice by the first handful of grains1 and who1 if he found one or two bad grains1 would have nothing to do with the whole field4 ,i had to learn what was1 perhaps1 the most difficult lesson of all1 that a trusted friend could not always be trusted1 and yet need not therefore be altogether a reprobate4 ,what was most difficult for me to digest was an untruth3 finding out that one who professed to be a friend had said and done most unfriendly things behind one's back4 ,still1 in a long life one finds out that even that may not be a deadly sin1 and that if we are so loth to forgive it1 it is partly because the falsehood affected our own interests4 ,thus only can we explain how a man whom we know to have been guilty of falsehoods towards ourselves may be looked upon as perfectly honest1 straightforward1 and trustworthy1 by a large number of his own friends4 ,we see this over and over again with men occupying eminent positions in ,church and ,state4 ,we see how a prime minister or an archbishop is represented by men who know him as a liar and a hypocrite1 while by others he is spoken of as a paragon of honour and honesty1 and a true ,christian4 ,my narrow ,dessau views became a little widened when ,i went to school at ,leipzig2 still more when ,i spent two years and a half at the ,university of ,leipzig1 and afterwards at ,berlin4 ,still1 during all this time ,i saw but little of what is called society1 ,i only knew of people whom ,i loved and of people whom ,i disliked4 ,there was no room as yet for indifferent people1 whom one tolerates and is civil to without caring whether one sees them again or not4 ,of the simplest duties of society also ,i was completely ignorant4 ,no one ever told me what to say and what to do1 or what not to say and what not to do4 ,what ,i felt ,i said1 what ,i thought right ,i did4 ,there was1 in fact1 in my small native town very little that could be called society4 ,one lived in one's family and with one's intimate friends without any ceremony4 ,it is a pity that children are not taught a few rules of life-wisdom by their seniors4 ,i know that the ,jews do not neglect that duty1 and ,i remember being surprised at my young ,jewish friends at ,dessau coming out with some very wise saws which evidently had not been grown in their own hot-houses1 but had been planted out full grown by their seniors4 ,the only rules of worldly wisdom which ,i remember1 came to me through proverbs and little verses which we had either to copy or to learn by heart1 such as3 8,wer einmal lgt1 dem glaubt man nicht ,und wenn er auch die ,wahrheit spricht40 8,morgenstunde hat ,gold im ,munde40 8,kein ,faden ist so fein gesponnen1 ,er kommt doch endlich an die ,sonnen40 8,jeder ist seines ,glckes ,schmied40 ,some lines which hung over my bed ,i have carried with me all through life1 and ,i still think they are very true and very terse3 8,im ,glck nicht jubeln und im ,sturm nicht zagen1 ,das ,unvermeidliche mit ,wrde tragen1 ,das ,rechte thun1 am ,schnen sich erfreuen1 ,das ,leben lieben und den ,tod nicht scheuen1 ,und fest an ,gott und bessere ,zukunft glauben1 ,heisst leben1 heisst dem ,tod sein ,bitteres rauben40 ,still1 all this formed a very small viaticum for a journey through life1 and ,i often thought that a few more hints might have preserved me from the painful process of what was called rubbing off one's horns4 ,again and again ,i had to say to myself1 8,that would have done very well at home1 but it was a mistake for all that40 ,my social rawness and simplicity stuck to me for many years1 just as the ,dessau dialect remained with me for life2 at least ,i was assured by my friends that though ,i had spoken ,french and ,english for so many years1 they could always detect in my ,german that ,i came from ,dessau or ,leipzig4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,school-,,days ,,at ,,leipzig ,it was certainly a poor kind of armour in which ,i set out from ,dessau4 ,my mother1 devoted as she was to me1 had judged rightly that it was best for me to be with other boys and under the supervision of a man4 ,i had been somewhat spoiled by her passionate love1 and also by her passionate severity in correcting the ordinary naughtinesses of a boy4 ,so having risen from form to form in the school at ,dessau1 ,i was sent1 at the age of twelve1 to ,leipzig1 to live in the house of ,professor ,carus and attend the famous ,nicolai-,schule with his son1 who was of the same age as myself and who likewise wanted a companion4 ,it was thought that there would be a certain emulation between us1 and so1 no doubt1 there was1 though we always remained the best of friends4 ,the house in which we lived stood in a garden and was really an orthopaedic institution for girls4 ,there were about twenty or thirty of these young girls living in the house or spending the day there1 and their joyous company was very pleasant4 ,of course the names and faces of my young friends have1 with one or two exceptions1 vanished from my memory1 but ,i was surprised when a few years ago 7#ahie7 ,i was staying with ,madame ,salis-,schwabe at her delightful place on the ,menai ,straits1 and discovered that we had known each other more than fifty years before in the house of ,professor ,carus at ,leipzig4 ,though we had met from time to time1 we never knew of our early meeting at ,leipzig1 till in comparing notes we discovered how we had spent a whole year in the same house and among the same friends4 ,hers has been a life full of work and entirely devoted to others4 ,to the very end of her days she was spending her large income in founding schools on the system recommended by ,froebel1 not only in ,england1 but in ,italy4 ,she died at ,naples in #ahif1 while visiting a large school that had been founded by her with the assistance of the ,italian ,government4 ,her own house in ,wales was full of treasures of art1 and full of memorials of her many friends1 such as ,bunsen1 ,renan1 ,mole1 ,ary ,scheffer1 and many more4 ,how far her charity went may be judged by her being willing to part with some of the most precious of ,ary ,scheffer's pictures1 in order to keep her schools well endowed1 and able to last after her death1 which she felt to be imminent4 ,public schools are nearly all day schools in ,germany4 ,the boys live at home1 mostly in their own families1 but they spend six hours every day at school1 and it is a mistake to imagine that they are not attached to it1 that they have no games together1 and that they do not grow up manly or independent4 ,most schools have playgrounds1 and in summer swimming is a favourite amusement for all the boys4 ,there were two good public schools at ,leipzig1 the ,nicolai ,school and the ,thomas ,school4 ,there was plenty of esprit de corps in them1 and often when the boys met it showed itself not only in words but in blows1 and the discussions over the merits of their schools were often continued in later life4 ,i was very fortunate in being sent to the ,nicolai ,school1 under ,dr4 ,nobbe as head master4 ,he was at the same time ,professor at the ,university of ,leipzig1 and is well known in ,england also as the editor of ,cicero4 ,he was very proud that his school counted ,leibniz#h among its former pupils4 ,he was a classical scholar of the old school4 ,during the last three years of our school life we had to write plenty of ,latin and ,greek verse1 and were taught to speak ,latin4 ,the speaking of ,latin came readily enough1 but the verses never attained a very high level4 ,besides ,nobbe we had ,forbiger1 well known by his books on ancient geography1 and ,palm1 editor of the same ,greek ,dictionary which1 in the hands of ,dr4 ,liddell1 has reached its highest perfection4 ,then there was ,funkhnel1 known beyond ,germany by his edition of the ,orations of ,demosthenes1 and his studies on ,greek orators4 ,we were indeed well off for masters1 and most of them seemed to enjoy their work and to be fond of the boys4 ,our head master was very popular4 ,he was a man of the old ,german type1 powerfully built1 with a large square head1 very much like ,luther1 and1 strange to say1 when in #ahci a great ,luther festival was celebrated all over ,germany1 he published a book in which he proved that he was a direct descendant of ,luther4 #h ,his own spelling of his name4 ,the school was carried on very much on the old plan of teaching chiefly classics1 but teaching them thoroughly4 ,modern languages1 mathematics1 and physical science had a poor chance1 though they clamoured for recognition4 ,latin and ,greek verse were considered far more important4 ,in the two highest forms we had to speak ,latin1 and such as it was it seemed to us much easier than to speak ,french4 ,hebrew was also taught as an optional subject during the last four years1 and the little ,i know of ,hebrew dates chiefly from my school-days4 ,schoolboys soon find out what their masters think of the value of the different subjects taught at school1 and they are apt to treat not only the subjects themselves but the teachers also according to that standard4 ,hence our modern language and our physical science masters had a hard time of it4 ,they could not keep their classes in order1 and it was by no means unusual for many of the boys simply to stay away from their lessons4 ,the old mathematical master1 before beginning his lesson1 used to rub his spectacles1 and after looking round the half empty classroom1 mutter in a plaintive voice3 8,i see again many boys who are not here to-day40 ,when the same old master began to lecture on physical science1 he told the boys to bring a frog to be placed under a glass from which the air had been extracted by an air-pump4 ,of course every one of the twenty or thirty boys brought two or three frogs1 and when the experiment was to be made all these frogs were hopping about the lecture-room1 and the whole army of boys were hopping after them over chairs and tables to catch them4 ,no wonder that during this tumult the master did not succeed with his experiment1 and when at last the glass bowl was lifted up and we were asked to see the frog1 great was the joy of all the boys when the frog hopped out and escaped from the hands of its executioner4 ,such was the wrath excited by these new-fangled lectures among the boys that they actually committed the vandalism of using one of the forms as a battering-ram against the enclosure in which the physical science apparatus was kept1 and destroyed some of the precious instruments supplied by ,government4 ,severe punishments followed1 but they did not serve to make physical science more popular4 ,we certainly did very well in ,greek and ,latin1 and read a number of classical texts1 not only critically at school1 but also cursorily at home1 having to give a weekly account of what we had thus read by ourselves4 ,i liked my classics1 and yet ,i could not help feeling that there was a certain exaggeration in the way in which every one of them was spoken of by our teachers1 nay1 that as compared to ,german poets and prose writers they were somewhat overpraised4 ,still1 it would have been very conceited not to admire what our masters admired1 and as in duty bound we went into the usual raptures about ,homer and ,sophocles1 about ,horace and ,cicero4 ,many things which in later life we learn to admire in the classics could hardly appeal to the taste of boys4 ,the directness1 the simplicity and originality of the ancient1 as compared with modern writers1 cannot be appreciated by them1 and ,i well remember being struck with what we disrespectful boys called the cheekiness of ,horace expecting immortality 7non omnis moriar7 for little poems which we were told were chiefly written after ,greek patterns4 ,we had to admit that there were fewer false quantities in his ,latin verses than in our own1 but in other respects we could not see that his odes were so infinitely superior to ours4 ,his hope of immortality has certainly been fulfilled beyond what could have been his own expectations4 ,with so little of ancient history known to him1 his idea of the immortality of poetry must have been far more modest in his time than in our own4 ,he may have known the past glories of the ,persian ,empire1 but as to ancient literature1 there was nothing for him to know1 whether in ,persia1 in ,babylonia1 in ,assyria1 or even in ,egypt1 least of all in ,india4 ,literary fame existed for him in ,greece only1 and in the ,roman ,empire1 and his own ambition could therefore hardly have extended beyond these limits4 ,the exaggeration in the panegyrics passed on everything ,greek or ,latin dates from the classical scholars of the ,middle ,ages1 who knew nothing that could be compared to the classics1 and who were loud in praising what they possessed the monopoly of selling4 ,successive generations of scholars followed suit1 so that even in our time it seemed high treason to compare ,goethe with ,horace1 or ,schiller with ,sophocles4 ,of late1 however1 the danger is rather that the reaction should go too far and lead to a promiscuous depreciation even of such real giants as ,lucretius or ,plato4 ,the fact is that we have learnt from them and imitated them1 till in some cases the imitations have equalled or even excelled the originals1 while now the taste for classical correctness has been wellnigh supplanted by an appetite for what is called realistic1 original1 and extravagant4 ,with all that has been said or written against making classical studies the most important element in a liberal education1 or rather against retaining them in their time-honoured position1 nothing has as yet been suggested to take their place4 ,for after all1 it is not simply in order to learn two languages that we devote so large a share of our time to the study of ,greek and ,latin2 it is in order to learn to understand the old world on which our modern world is founded2 it is in order to think the old thoughts1 which are the feeders of our own intellectual life1 that we become in our youth the pupils of ,greeks and ,romans4 ,in order to know what we are1 we have to learn how we have come to be what we are4 ,our very languages form an unbroken chain between us and ,cicero and ,aristotle1 and in order to use many of our words intelligently1 we must know the soil from which they sprang1 and the atmosphere in which they grew up and developed4 ,i enjoyed my work at school very much1 and ,i seem to have passed rapidly from class to class4 ,i frequently received prizes both in money and in books1 but ,i see a warning attached to some of them that ,i ought not to be conceited1 which probably meant no more than that ,i should not show when ,i was pleased with my successes4 ,at least ,i do not know what ,i could have been conceited about4 ,what ,i feel about my learning at school is that it was entirely passive4 ,i acquired knowledge such as it was presented to me4 ,i did not doubt whatever my teachers taught me1 ,i did not1 as far as ,i can recollect1 work up any subject by myself4 ,i find only one paper of mine of that early time1 and1 curiously enough1 it was on mythology2 but it contains no inkling of comparative mythology1 but simply a chronological arrangement of the sources from which we draw our knowledge of ,greek mythology4 ,i see also from some old papers1 that ,i began to write poetry1 and that twice or thrice ,i was chosen at great festivities to recite poems written by myself4 ,in the year #ahci three hundred years had passed since ,luther preached at ,leipzig in the ,church of ,st4 ,nicolai1 and the tercentenary of this event was celebrated all over ,germany4 ,my poem was selected for recitation at a large meeting of the friends of our school and the notables of the town1 and ,i had to recite it1 not without fear and trembling4 ,i was then but sixteen years of age4 ,in the next year1 #ahdj1 ,leipzig celebrated the invention of printing in #addj4 ,it was on this occasion that ,mendelssohn wrote his famous ,hymn of ,praise4 ,i formed part of the chorus1 and ,i well remember the magnificent effect which the music produced in the ,church of ,st4 ,thomas4 ,again a poem of mine was selected1 and ,i had to recite it at a large gathering in the ,nicolai-,schule on ,july #ah1 #ahdj4 ,on ,december #bc another celebration took place at our school1 at which ,i had to recite a ,latin poem of mine1 ,in ,schillerum4 ,lastly1 there was my valedictory poem when ,i left the school in #ahda1 and a ,latin poem 8,ad ,nobbium10 our head master4 ,i have found among my mother's treasures the far too often flattering testimonial addressed to her by ,professor ,nobbe on that occasion1 which ends thus3 8,i rejoice at seeing him leave this school with testimonials of moral excellence not often found in one of his years--and possessed of knowledge in more than one point1 first-rate1 and of intellectual capacities excellent throughout4 ,may his young mind develop more and more1 may the fruits of his labours hereafter be a comfort to his mother for the sorrows and cares of the past40 ,it was rather hard on me that ,i had to pass my examination for admission to the ,university 7,abiturienten-,examen7 not at my own school1 but at ,zerbst in ,anhalt4 ,this was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the ,anhalt ,government4 ,the schools in ,anhalt were modelled after the ,prussian schools1 and laid far more stress on mathematics1 physical science1 and modern languages than the schools in ,saxony4 ,i had therefore to get up in a very short time several quite new subjects1 and did not do so well in them as in ,greek and ,latin4 ,however1 ,i passed with a first class1 and obtained my scholarship1 small as it was4 ,it was only the other day that ,i received a letter from a gentleman who was at school at ,zerbst when ,i came there for my examination4 ,he reminds me that among my examiners there were such men as ,dr4 ,ritter1 the two ,sentenis1 and ,professor ,werner1 and he says that he watched me when ,i came upstairs and entered the locked room to do my paper work4 ,my friend's career in life had been that of ,director of a ,life ,insurance ,company1 probably a more lucrative career than what mine has been4 ,illustration3 ,f4 ,max ,mller ,aged #ad4 ,during my stay at ,leipzig1 first in the house of ,professor ,carus1 and afterwards as a student at the ,university1 my chief enjoyment was certainly music4 ,i had plenty of it1 perhaps too much1 but ,i pity the man who has not known the charm of it4 ,at that time ,leipzig was really the centre of music in ,germany4 ,felix ,mendelssohn was there1 and most of the distinguished artists and composers of the day came there to spend some time with him and to assist at the famous ,gewandhaus ,concerts4 ,i find among my letters a few descriptions of concerts and other musical entertainments1 which even at present may be of some interest4 ,i was asked to be present at some concerts where quartettes and other pieces were performed by ,mendelssohn1 ,hiller1 ,kaliwoda1 ,david1 and ,eckart4 ,liszt also made his triumphant entry into ,germany at ,leipzig1 and everybody was full of expectation and excitement4 ,his concert had been advertised long before his arrival4 ,it was to consist of an ,overture of ,weber's2 a ,cavatina from ,robert le ,diable1 sung by ,madame ,schlegel2 a ,concerto of ,weber's1 to be played by ,liszt1 the same which ,i had shortly before heard played by ,madame ,pleyel2 ,beethoven's ,overture to ,prometheus2 ,fantasia on ,la ,juive2 ,schubert's ,ave ,maria and ,serenade1 as arranged by ,liszt4 ,i was the more delighted because ,i had myself played some of these pieces4 ,but suddenly there appeared a placard stating that ,liszt1 on hearing that tickets were sold at one thaler 7three shillings71 had declared he would play a few pieces only and without an orchestra4 ,in spite of that disappointment1 the whole house was full1 the staircase crowded from top to bottom1 and when we had pushed our way through1 we found that about #cjj places had been retained for one and a half thalers 7four shillings and sixpence71 while tickets at the box-office were sold for two thalers 7six shillings74 ,nevertheless1 ,i managed to get a very good place1 by simply not seeing a number of ladies who were pushing behind me4 ,when ,liszt appeared there was a terrible hissing--he looked as if petrified1 glanced like a demon at the public1 but nevertheless began to play the ,scherzo and ,finale of the ,pastoral ,symphony4 ,then there burst out a perfect thunder of applause1 and all seemed pacified1 while ,madame ,schmidt sang a song accompanied by a certain ,mr4 ,kermann4 ,as soon as that was over1 a new storm of hisses arose1 which was meant for this ,mr4 ,kermann1 who was a pupil1 but at the same time the man of business of ,liszt4 ,he and three other men had made all arrangements1 and ,liszt knew nothing about them1 as he cared very little for the money1 which went chiefly to his managers4 ,a ,fantasia by ,liszt followed1 and lastly a ,galop ,chromatique--but the public would not go away1 and at length ,liszt was induced to play ,une grande ,valse4 ,it was no doubt a new experience2 but ,i could not go into ecstasies like others1 for after all it was merely mechanical1 though no doubt in the highest perfection4 ,the day after ,liszt advertised that his original ,programme would be played1 but at six o'clock ,professor ,carus1 with whom ,i lived1 was called to see ,liszt1 who was said to be ill2 the fact being he had only sold fifty tickets at the raised prices4 ,many strangers who had come to ,leipzig to hear him went away1 anything but pleased with the new musical genius4 ,at one concert1 where he appeared in ,magyar costume1 the ladies offered him a golden laurel wreath and sword4 ,he had just published his arrangement of ,adelaida1 which he promised to play in one of the concerts4 ,another very musical family at ,leipzig was that of ,professor ,frge4 ,he was a rich man1 and had married a famous singer1 ,frulein ,schlegel4 ,one evening the ,sonnambula was performed in their house1 which had been changed into a theatre4 ,she acted the ,sonnambula1 and her singing as well as her acting was most finished and delightful4 ,mendelssohn was much in their house1 and made her sing his songs as soon as they were written and before they were published4 ,they were great friends1 the bond of their friendship being music4 ,he actually died when playing while she was singing4 ,people talked as they always will talk about what they cannot understand1 but they evidently did not know either ,mendelssohn or ,madame ,frge4 ,the house of ,professor ,carus was always open to musical geniuses1 and many an evening men like ,hiller1 ,mendelssohn1 ,david1 ,eckart1 c41 came there to play1 while ,madame ,carus sang1 and sang most charmingly4 ,i too was asked sometimes to play at these evening parties4 ,i see that ,ernst gave a concert at ,leipzig1 and no doubt his execution was admirable4 ,still1 ,i could not understand what ,david meant when he declared that after hearing ,ernst he would throw his own instrument into the fire4 ,mendelssohn1 who was delighted with ,liszt--and no one could judge him better than he--gave a soire in honour of him4 ,about #djj people were invited--,i among the rest1 being one of the tenors who sang in the ,oratorio that ,hiller was then rehearsing for the first performance4 ,i think it was the ,destruction of ,babylon4 ,there was a complete orchestra at ,mendelssohn's party1 and we heard a symphony of ,schubert 7posthumous71 ,mendelssohn's psalm 8,as the hart pants10 and his overture ,meeresstille und glckliche ,fahrt4 ,after that there was supper for all the guests1 and then followed a chorus from his ,st4 ,paul1 and a triple concerto of ,bach1 played on three pianofortes by ,mendelssohn1 ,liszt1 and ,hiller4 ,it was a difficult piece--difficult to play and difficult to follow4 ,lastly1 ,liszt played his new fantasia on ,lucia di ,lammermoor1 and his arrangement of the ,erlknig4 ,all was really perfect2 and hearing so much music1 ,i became more and more absorbed in it4 ,i even gave some concerts with ,grabau1 a great violoncellist1 at ,merseburg1 and at a ,count ,arnim's1 a very rich nobleman near ,merseburg1 who had invited ,liszt for one evening and paid him #ajj ducats4 ,this seemed at that time a very large sum1 almost senseless4 ,as a ducat was about nine shillings1 it was after all only #de1 which would not seem excessive at present for an artist such as ,liszt4 ,i also heard ,thalberg at ,leipzig4 ,they all came to see ,mendelssohn1 and ,i believe did their best to please him4 ,at that time my idea of devoting myself altogether to the study of music became very strong2 and as ,professor ,carus married again1 ,i proposed to leave ,leipzig1 and to enter the musical school of ,schneider at ,dessau4 ,but nothing came of that1 and ,i think on the whole it was as well4 ,while at school at ,leipzig ,i had but little opportunity of travelling1 for my mother was always anxious to have me home during the holidays1 and ,i was equally anxious to be with her and to see my relations at ,dessau4 ,generally ,i went in a wretched carriage from ,leipzig to ,dessau4 ,it was only seven ,german miles 7about thirty-five ,english miles71 but it took a whole day to get there2 and during part of the journey1 when we had to cross the deep and desert-like sands1 walking on foot was much more expeditious than sitting inside the carriage4 ,but then we paid only one thaler for the whole journey1 and sometimes1 in order to save that1 ,i walked on foot the whole way4 ,that also took me a whole day2 but when ,i tried it the first time1 being then quite young and rather delicate in health1 ,i had to give in about an hour before ,i came to ,dessau1 my legs refusing to go further1 and my muscles being cramped and stiff from exertion1 ,i had to sit down by the road4 ,during one vacation ,i remember exploring the valley of the ,mulde with some other boys4 ,we travelled for about a fortnight from village to village1 and lived in the simplest way4 ,a more ambitious journey ,i took in #ahda with a friend of mine1 ,baron von ,hagedorn4 ,he was a curious and somewhat mysterious character4 ,he had been brought up by a great-aunt of mine1 to whom he was entrusted as a baby4 ,no one knew his parents1 but they must have been rich1 for he possessed a large fortune4 ,he had a country place near ,munich1 and he spent the greater part of the year in travelling about1 and amusing himself4 ,he had been brought up with my mother and other members of our family1 and he took a very kind interest in me4 ,i see from my letters that in #ahda he took me from ,dessau to ,coethen1 ,brunswick1 and ,magdeburg4 ,at ,brunswick we saw the picture gallery1 the churches1 and the tomb of ,schill1 one of the ,german volunteers in the ,war of ,independence against ,france4 ,we also explored ,hildesheim1 saw the rose-tree planted1 as we were told1 by ,charlemagne2 then proceeded to ,gttingen1 and saw its famous library4 ,we passed through ,minden1 where the ,fulda and ,werra join1 and arrived late at ,cassel4 ,from ,cassel we explored ,wilhelmshhe1 the beautiful park where thirty years later ,napoleon ,,iii was kept as a prisoner4 ,hagedorn1 with all his love of mystery and occasional exaggeration1 was certainly a good friend to me4 ,he often gave me good advice1 and was more of a father to me than a mere friend4 ,he was a man of the world2 and he forgot that ,i never meant to be a man of the world1 and therefore his advice was not always what ,i wanted4 ,he was also a great friend of my cousin who was married to a ,prince of ,dessau1 and they had agreed among themselves that ,i should go to the ,oriental ,academy at ,vienna1 learn ,oriental languages1 and then enter the diplomatic service4 ,as there were no children from the ,prince's marriage1 ,i was to be adopted by him1 and1 as if the princely fortune was not enough to tempt me1 ,i was told that even a wife had been chosen for me1 and that ,i should have a new name and title1 after being adopted by the ,prince4 ,to other young men this might have seemed irresistible4 ,i at once said no4 ,it seemed to interfere with my freedom1 with my studies1 with my ideal of a career in life2 in fact1 though everything was presented to me by my cousin as on a silver tray1 ,i shook my head and remained true to my first love1 ,sanskrit and all the rest4 ,hagedorn could not understand this2 he thought a brilliant life preferable to the quiet life of a professor4 ,not so ,i4 ,he little knew where true happiness was to be found1 and he was often in a very melancholy mood4 ,he did not live long1 but ,i shall never forget how much ,i owed him4 ,when ,i went to ,paris1 he allowed me to live in his rooms4 ,they were1 it is true1 au cinquime1 but they were in the best quarter of ,paris1 in the ,rue ,royale ,st4 ,honor1 opposite the ,madeleine1 and very prettily furnished4 ,this kept me from living in dusty lodgings in the ,quartier ,latin1 and the five flights of stairs may have strengthened my lungs4 ,i well remember what it was when at the foot of the staircase ,i saw that ,i had forgotten my handkerchief and had to toil up again4 ,but in those days one did not know what it meant to be tired4 ,whether my friends grumbled1 ,i cannot tell1 but ,i myself pitied some of them who were old and gouty when they arrived at my door out of breath4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,university ,in order to enable me to go to the ,university1 my mother and sister moved to ,leipzig and kept house for me during all the time ,i was there--that is1 for two years and a half4 ,in spite of the res angusta domi1 ,i enjoyed my student-life thoroughly1 while my home was made very agreeable by my mother and sister4 ,my mother was full of resource1 and she was wise enough not to interfere with my freedom4 ,my sister1 who was about two years older than myself1 was most kind-hearted and devoted both to me and to our mother4 ,there was nothing selfish in her1 and we three lived together in perfect love1 peace1 and harmony4 ,my sister enjoyed what little there was of society1 whereas ,i kept sternly aloof from it4 ,she was much admired1 and soon became engaged to a young doctor1 ,dr4 ,a4 ,krug1 the son of the famous professor of philosophy at ,leipzig1 whose works1 particularly his ,dictionary of ,philosophy1 hold a distinguished place in the history of ,german philosophy4 ,he was a thorough patriot1 and so public spirited that he thought it right to leave a considerable sum of money to the ,university1 without making sufficient provision for his children4 ,however1 the young married couple lived happily at ,chemnitz1 and my sister was proud in the possession of her children4 ,it was the sudden death of several of these children that broke her heart and ruined her health2 she died very young4 ,standing by the grave of her children1 she said to me shortly before her death1 8,half of me is dead already1 and lies buried there2 the other half will soon follow40 ,of society1 in the ordinary sense of the word1 ,i saw hardly anything4 ,i am afraid ,i was rather a bear1 and declined even to invest in evening dress4 ,i joined a student club which formed part of the ,burschenschaft1 but which in order to escape prosecution adopted the title of ,gemeinschaft4 ,i went there in the evening to drink beer and smoke1 and ,i made some delightful acquaintances and friendships4 ,what fine characters were there1 often behind a very rough exterior6 ,my dearest friend was ,prowe1 of ,thorn in ,east ,prussia--so honest1 so true1 so straightforward1 so over-conscientious in the smallest things4 ,he was a classical scholar1 and later on entered the ,prussian educational service4 ,as a master at the principal school at ,thorn his time was fully occupied1 and of course he was cut off there from the enlivening influences of literary society4 ,still he kept up his interest in higher questions1 and published some extremely valuable books on ,copernicus1 a native of ,thorn1 for which he received the thanks of astronomers and historians1 and flattering testimonials from learned societies4 ,we met but seldom later in life1 and my own life in ,england was so busy and full that even our correspondence was not regular4 ,but ,i met him once more at ,ems with a charming wife1 and decidedly happy in his own sphere of activity4 ,these early friendships form the distant landscape of life on which we like to dwell when the present ceases to absorb all our thoughts4 ,our memory dwells on them as a golden horizon1 and there remains a constant yearning which makes us feel the incompleteness of this life4 ,after all1 the number of our true friends is small2 and yet how few even of that small number remain with us for life4 ,there are other faces and other names that rise from beyond the clouds which more and more divide us from our early years4 ,there were some wild spirits among us who fretted at the narrow-minded policy which went by the name of the ,metternich system4 ,repression was the panacea which ,metternich recommended to all the governments of ,germany1 large and small4 ,no doubt the system of keeping things quiet secured to ,germany and to ,europe at large a thirty years' peace1 but it could not prevent the accumulation of inflammable material which1 after several threatenings1 burst forth at last in the conflagration of #ahdh4 ,among my friends ,i remember several who were ready for the wildest schemes in order to have ,germany united1 respected abroad1 and under constitutional government at home4 ,splendid fellows they were1 but they either ended their days within the walls of a prison1 or had to throw up everything and migrate to ,america4 ,what has become of them8 ,some have risen to the surface in ,america1 others have yielded to the inevitable and become peaceful citizens at home2 nay1 ,i am grieved to say1 have even accepted service under ,government to spy on their former friends and fellow-dreamers4 ,but not a few saw the whole of their life wrecked either in prison or in poverty1 though they had done no wrong1 and in many cases were the finest characters it has been my good fortune to know4 ,they were before their time1 the fruit was not ripe as it was in #ahga1 but ,germany certainly lost some of her best sons in those miserable years2 and if my father escaped this political persecution1 it was probably due to the influence of the reigning ,duke and the ,duchess1 a ,princess of ,prussia1 who knew that he was not a dangerous man1 and not likely to blow up the ,german ,diet4 ,i myself got a taste of prison life for the offence of wearing the ribbon of a club which the police regarded with disfavour4 ,i cannot say that either the disgrace or the discomfort of my two days' durance vile weighed much with me1 as my friends were allowed free access to me1 and came and drank beer and smoked cigars in my cell--of course at my expense--but what ,i dreaded was the loss of my stipendium or scholarship1 which alone enabled me to continue my studies at ,leipzig1 and which1 as a rule1 was forfeited for political offences4 ,on my release from prison ,i went to the ,rector of the ,university and explained to him the circumstances of the case--how ,i had been arrested simply for membership of a suspected club4 ,i assured him that ,i was innocent of any political propaganda1 and that the loss of my stipendium would entail my leaving the ,university4 ,much to my relief1 the old gentleman replied3 8,i have heard nothing about this2 and if ,i do1 how am ,i to know that it refers to you1 there are many ,mllers in the ,university80 ,fortunately the distinctive prefix ,max had not yet been added to my name4 ,i must confess that ,i and my boon companions were sometimes guilty of practices which in more modern days1 and certainly at ,oxford or ,cambridge1 would be far more likely to bring the culprits into collision with the authorities than mere membership of societies in which comparatively harmless political talk was indulged in4 ,duelling was then1 as it is now1 a favourite pastime among the students2 and though not by nature a brawler1 ,i find that in my student days at ,leipzig ,i fought three duels1 of two of which ,i carry the marks to the present day4 ,i remember that on one occasion before the introduction of cabs we hired all the sedan-chairs in ,leipzig1 with their yellow-coated porters1 and went in procession through the streets1 much to the astonishment of the good citizens1 and annoyance also1 as they were unable to hire any means of conveyance till a peremptory stop was put to our fun4 ,not content with this exploit1 when the first cabs were introduced into ,leipzig1 thirty or forty being put on the street at first1 ,i and my friends secured the use of all of them for the day1 and proceeded out into the country4 ,the inhabitants who were eagerly looking forward to a drive in one of the new conveyances were naturally annoyed at finding themselves forestalled1 and the result was that a stop was put to such freaks in future by the issue of a police regulation that nobody was allowed to hire more than two cabs at a time4 ,very innocent amusements1 if perhaps foolish1 but very happy days all the same2 and it must be remembered that we had just emerged from the strict discipline of a ,german school into the unrestricted liberty of ,german university life4 ,it is in every respect a great jump from a ,german school to a ,german university4 ,at school a boy even in the highest form1 has little choice4 ,all his lessons are laid down for him2 he has to learn what he is told1 whether he likes it or not4 ,few only venture on books outside the prescribed curriculum4 ,there is an examination at the end of every half-year1 and a boy must pass it well in order to get into a higher form4 ,boys at a public school 7gymnasium71 if they cannot pass their examination at the proper time1 are advised to go to another school1 and to prepare for a career in which classical languages are of less importance4 ,i must say at once that when ,i matriculated at ,leipzig1 in the summer of #ahda1 ,i was still very young and very immature4 ,i had determined to study philology1 chiefly ,greek and ,latin1 but the fare spread out by the professors was much too tempting4 ,i read ,greek and ,latin without difficulty2 ,i often read classical authors without ever attempting to translate them2 ,i also wrote and spoke ,latin easily4 ,some of the professors lectured in ,latin1 and at our academic societies ,latin was always spoken4 ,i soon became a member of the classical seminary under ,gottfried ,hermann1 and of the ,latin ,society under ,professor ,haupt4 ,admission to these seminaries and societies was obtained by submitting essays1 and it was no doubt a distinction to belong to them4 ,it was also useful1 for not only had we to write essays and discuss them with the other members1 generally teachers1 and with the professor1 but we could also get some useful advice from the professor for our private studies4 ,in that respect the ,german universities do very little for the students1 unless one has the good fortune to belong to one of these societies4 ,the young men are let loose1 and they can choose whatever lectures they want4 ,i still have my ,collegien-,buch1 in which every professor has to attest what lectures one has attended4 ,the number of lectures on various subjects which ,i attended is quite amazing1 and ,i should have attended still more if the honorarium had not frightened me away4 ,every professor lectured publice and privatim1 and for the more important courses1 four lectures a week1 he charged ten shillings1 for more special courses less or nothing4 ,this seems little1 but it was often too much for me2 and if one added these honoraria to the salary of a popular professor1 his income was considerable1 and was more than the income of most public servants4 ,i have known professors who had four or five hundred auditors4 ,this gave them #bej twice a year1 and that1 added to their salary1 was considered a good income at that time4 ,all this has been much changed4 ,salaries have been raised1 and likewise the honoraria1 so that ,i well remember the case of ,professor von ,savigny1 who1 when he was chosen ,minister of ,justice at ,berlin1 declared that he would gladly accept if only his salary was raised to what his income had been as ,professor of ,law4 ,of course1 professors of ,arabic or ,sanskrit were badly off1 and ,privatdocenten 7tutors7 fared still worse1 but the professores ordinarii1 particularly if they lectured on an obligatory subject and were likewise examiners1 were very well off4 ,in fact1 it struck me sometimes as very unworthy of them to keep a famulus1 a student who had to tell every one who wished to hear a distinguished professor once or twice1 that he would not allow him to come a third time4 ,one great drawback of the professorial system is certainly the small measure of personal advice that a student may get from the professors4 ,unless he is known to them personally1 or has gained admission to their societies or seminaries1 the young student or freshman is quite bewildered by the rich fare in the shape of lectures that is placed before him4 ,some students1 no doubt1 particularly in their early terms1 solve this difficulty by attending none at all1 and there is no force to make them do so1 except the examinations looming in the distance4 ,but there are many young men most anxious to learn1 only they do not know where to begin4 ,i open my old ,collegien-,buch and ,i find that in the first term or ,semester ,i attended the following lectures1 and ,i may say ,i attended them regularly1 took careful notes1 and read such books as were recommended by the professors4 ,i find #a4 ,the first book of ,thucydides ,gottfried ,hermann4 #b4 ,on ,scenic ,antiquities ,the same4 #c4 ,on ,propertius ,p4 ,m4 ,haupt4 #d4 ,history of ,german ,literature ,the same4 #e4 ,the ,ranae of ,aristophanes ,stallbaum4 #f4 ,disputatorium 7in ,latin7 ,nobbe4 #g4 ,aesthetics ,weisse4 #h4 ,anthropology ,lotze4 #i4 ,systems of ,harmonic ,composition ,fink4 #aj4 ,hebrew ,grammar ,frst4 #aa4 ,demosthenes ,westermann4 #ab4 ,psychology ,heinroth4 ,this was enough for the summer half-year4 ,except ,greek and ,latin1 the other subjects were entirely new to me1 and what ,i wanted was to get an idea of what ,i should like to study4 ,it may be interesting to add the other ,semesters as far as ,i have them in my ,collegien-,buch4 #ac4 ,aeschyli ,persae ,hermann4 #ad4 ,on ,criticism ,the same4 #ae4 ,german ,grammar ,haupt4 #af4 ,walther von der ,vogelweide ,the same4 #ag4 ,tacitus1 ,agricola1 and ,de ,oratoribus ,the same4 #ah4 ,on ,hegel ,weisse4 #ai4 ,disputatorium 7,latin7 ,nobbe4 #bj4 ,modern ,history ,wachsmuth4 #ba4 ,sanskrit ,grammar ,brockhaus4 #bb4 ,latin ,society ,haupt4 ,then follows the summer term of #ahdb4 #bc4 ,pindar ,hermann4 #bd4 ,nibelungen ,haupt4 #be4 ,nala ,brockhaus4 #bf4 ,history of ,oriental ,literature ,the same4 #bg4 ,arabic ,grammar ,fleischer4 #bh4 ,latin ,society ,haupt4 #bi4 ,plauti ,trinumus ,becker4 ,winter term1 #ahdb4 #cj4 ,prabodha ,chandrodaya ,brockhaus4 #ca4 ,history of ,indian ,literature ,the same4 #cb4 ,aristophanes' ,vespae ,hermann4 #cc4 ,plauti ,rudens ,the same4 #cd4 ,greek ,syntax ,the same4 #ce4 ,juvenal ,becker4 #cf4 ,metaphysics and ,logic ,weisse4 #cg4 ,philosophy of ,history ,the same4 #ch4 ,greek and ,latin ,seminary ,hermann ,klotze4 #ci4 ,latin ,society ,haupt4 #dj4 ,philosophical ,society ,weisse4 #da4 ,philosophical ,society ,drobisch4 ,summer term1 #ahdc4 #db4 ,greek and ,latin ,seminary ,hermann ,klotze4 #dc4 ,philosophical ,society ,drobisch4 #dd4 ,philosophical ,society ,weisse4 #de4 ,soma-deva ,brockhaus4 #df4 ,hitopadesa ,the same4 #dg4 ,history of ,greeks and ,romans ,wachsmuth4 #dh4 ,history of ,civilization ,the same4 #di4 ,history after the ,fifteenth ,century ,flathe4 #ej4 ,history of ,ancient ,philosophy ,niedner4 ,winter term1 #ahdc-d4 #ea4 ,rig-veda ,brockhaus4 #eb4 ,elementa ,persica ,fleischer4 #ec4 ,greek and ,latin ,seminary ,hermann ,klotze4 ,here my ,collegien-,buch breaks off1 the fact being that ,i was preparing to go to ,berlin to hear the lectures of ,bopp and ,schelling4 ,it will be clear from the above list that ,i certainly attempted too much4 ,i ought either to have devoted all my time to classical studies exclusively1 or carried on my philosophical studies more systematically4 ,i confess that1 delighted as ,i was with ,gottfried ,hermann and ,haupt as my guides and teachers in classics1 ,i found little that could rouse my enthusiasm for ,greek and ,latin literature1 and ,i always required a dose of that to make me work hard4 ,everything seemed to me to have been done1 and there was no virgin soil left to the plough1 no ruins on which to try one's own spade4 ,hermann and ,haupt gave me work to do1 but it was all in the critical line--the genealogical relation of various ,,mss41 or1 again1 the peculiarities of certain poets1 long before ,i had fully grasped their general character4 ,what ,latin vowels could or could not form elision in ,horace1 ,propertius1 or ,ovid1 was a subject that cost me much labour1 and yet left very small results as far as ,i was personally concerned4 ,one clever conjecture1 or one indication to show that one ,,ms4 was dependent on the other1 was rewarded with a ,doctissime or ,excellentissime1 but a paper on ,aeschylus and his view of a divine government of the world received but a nodding approval4 ,they certainly taught their pupils what accuracy meant2 they gave us the new idea that ,,mss4 are not everything1 unless their real value has been discovered first by finding the place which they occupy in the pedigree of the ,,mss4 of every author4 ,they also taught us that there are mistakes in ,,mss4 which are inevitable1 and may safely be left to conjectural emendation2 that ,,mss4 of modern date may be and often are more valuable than more ancient ,,mss41 for the simple reason that they were copied from a still more ancient ,,ms41 and that often a badly written and hardly legible ,,ms4 proves more helpful than others written by a calligraphist1 because it is the work of a scholar who copied for himself and not for the market4 ,all these things we learnt and learnt by practical experience under ,hermann and ,haupt1 but what we failed to acquire was a large knowledge of ,greek and ,latin literature1 of the character of each author and of the spirit which pervaded their works4 ,i ought to have read in ,latin1 ,cicero1 ,tacitus1 and ,lucretius2 in ,greek1 ,herodotus1 ,thucydides1 ,plato1 and ,aristotle2 but as ,i read only portions of them1 my knowledge of the men themselves and their objects in life remained very fragmentary4 ,for instance1 my real acquaintance with ,plato and ,aristotle was confined to a few dialogues of the former and some of the logical works of the latter4 ,the rest ,i learnt from such works as ,ritter and ,preller's ,historia ,philosophiae ,graecae et ,romanae ex fontium locis contexta1 and from the very useful lectures of ,niedner on the history of ancient philosophy4 ,however1 ,i thought ,i had to do what my professors told me1 and shaped my reading so that they should approve of my work4 ,this must not be understood as in any way disparaging my teachers4 ,such an idea never entered my head at the time4 ,people have no idea in ,england what kind of worship is paid by ,german students to their professors4 ,to find fault with them or to doubt their ipse dixit never entered our minds4 ,what they said of other classical scholars from whom they differed1 as ,hermann did from ,otfried ,mller1 or ,haupt from ,orelli1 was gospel1 and remained engraved on our memory for a long time4 ,once when attending ,hermann's lectures1 another student who was sitting at the same table with me made disrespectful remarks about old ,hermann4 ,i asked him to be quiet1 and when he went on with his foolish remarks1 ,i could only stop him by calling him out4 ,as soon as the challenge was accepted he had of course to be quiet1 and a few days after we fought our duel without much damage to either of us4 ,i only mention this because it shows what respect and admiration we felt for our professor1 also because it exemplifies the usefulness of duelling in a ,german university1 where after a challenge not another word can be said or violence be threatened even by the rudest undergraduate4 ,a duel for a ,greek conjecture may seem very absurd1 but in duels of this kind all that is wanted is really a certain knowledge of fencing1 care being taken that nothing serious shall happen4 ,and yet1 though that is so1 the feeling of a possible danger is there1 and keeps up a certain etiquette and a certain proper behaviour among men taken from all strata of society4 ,nor can ,i quite deny that when ,i went in the morning to a beautiful wood in the neighbourhood of ,leipzig1 certain misgivings were difficult to suppress4 ,i saw myself severely wounded1 possibly killed1 by my antagonist1 and carried to a house where my mother and sister were looking for me4 ,this went off when ,i met the large assembly of students1 beautifully attired in their club uniforms1 the beer barrels pushed up on one side1 the surgeon and his instruments waiting on the other4 ,there were ever so many1 thirty or forty couples ,i think1 waiting to fight their duels that morning4 ,some fenced extremely well1 and it was a pleasure to look on2 and when one's own turn came1 all one thought of was how to stand one's ground boldly1 and how to fence well4 ,some of the combatants came on horseback or in carriages1 and there was a small river close by to enable us to escape if the police should have heard of our meeting4 ,for popular as these duels are1 they are forbidden and punished1 and the severest punishment seemed always to be the loss of our uniforms1 our arms1 our flags1 and our barrels of beer4 ,however1 we escaped all interference this time1 and enjoyed our breakfast in the forest thoroughly1 nothing happening to disturb the hilarity of the morning4 ,not being satisfied with what seemed to me a mere chewing of the cud in ,greek and ,latin1 ,i betook myself to systematic philosophy1 and even during the first terms read more of that than of ,plato and ,aristotle4 ,i belonged to the philosophical societies of ,weisse1 of ,drobisch1 and of ,lotze1 a membership in each of which societies entailed a considerable amount of reading and writing4 ,at ,leipzig1 ,professor ,drobisch represented the school of ,herbart1 which prided itself on its clearness and logical accuracy1 but was naturally less attractive to the young spirits at the ,university who had heard of ,hegel's ,idea and looked to the dialectic process as the solution of all difficulties4 ,i wished to know what it all meant1 for ,i was not satisfied with mere words4 ,there is hardly a word that has so many meanings as ,idea1 and ,i doubt whether any of the raw recruits1 just escaped from school1 and unacquainted with the history of philosophy1 could have had any idea of what ,hegel's ,idea was meant for4 ,yet they talked about it very eloquently and very positively over their glasses of beer2 and anybody who came from ,berlin and could speak mysteriously or rapturously about the ,idea and its evolution by the dialectic process1 was listened to with silent wonder by the young ,saxons1 who had been brought up on ,kant and ,krug4 ,the ,hegelian fever was still very high at that time4 ,it is true ,hegel himself was dead 7#ahca71 and though he was supposed to have declared on his deathbed that he left only one true disciple1 and that that disciple had misunderstood him1 to be a ,hegelian was considered a sine qua non1 not only among philosophers1 but quite as much among theologians1 men of science1 lawyers1 artists1 in fact1 in every branch of human knowledge1 at least in ,prussia4 ,if ,christianity in its ,protestant form was the state-religion of the kingdom1 ,hegelianism was its state-philosophy4 ,beginning with the ,minister of ,instruction down to the village schoolmaster1 everybody claimed to be a ,hegelian1 and this was supposed to be the best road to advancement4 ,though ,altenstein1 who was then at the head of the ,ministry of ,instruction1 began to waver in his allegiance to ,hegel1 even he could not resist the rush of public and of official opinion4 ,it was he who1 when a new professor of philosophy was recommended to him either by ,hegel himself or by some of his followers1 is reported to have said3 8,gentlemen1 ,i have read some of the young man's books1 and ,i cannot understand a word of them4 ,however1 you are the best judges1 only allow me to say that you remind me a little of the ,french officer who told his tailor to make his breeches as tight as possible1 and dismissed him with the words3 #8,enfin1 si je peux y entrer1 je ne les prendrai pas4' ,this seems to me very much what you say of your young philosopher4 ,if ,i can understand his books1 ,i am not to take him40 ,this ,hegelian fever was very much like what we have passed through ourselves at the time of the ,darwinian fever2 ,darwin's natural evolution was looked upon very much like ,hegel's dialectic process1 as the general solvent of all difficulties4 ,the most egregious nonsense was passed under that name1 as it was under the name of evolution4 ,hegel knew very well what he meant1 so did ,darwin4 ,but the empty enthusiasm of his followers became so wild that ,darwin himself1 the most humble of all men1 became quite ashamed of it4 ,the master1 of course1 was not responsible for the folly of his so-called disciples1 but the result was inevitable4 ,after the bow had been stretched to the utmost1 a reaction followed1 and in the case of ,hegelianism1 a complete collapse4 ,even at ,berlin the popularity of ,hegelianism came suddenly to an end1 and after a time no truly scientific man liked to be called a ,hegelian4 ,these sudden collapses in ,germany are very instructive4 ,as long as a ,german professor is at the head of affairs and can do something for his pupils1 his pupils are very loud in their encomiums1 both in public and in private4 ,they not only exalt him1 but help to belittle all who differ from him4 ,so it was with ,hegel1 so it was at a later time with ,bopp1 and ,curtius1 and other professors1 particularly if they had the ear of the ,minister of ,education4 ,but soon after the death of these men1 particularly if another influential star was rising1 the change of tone was most sudden and most surprising2 even the sale of their books dwindled down1 and they were referred to only as landmarks1 showing the rapid advance made by living celebrities4 ,perhaps all this cannot be helped1 as long as human nature is what it is1 but it is nevertheless painful to observe4 ,i had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with ,hegelianism through ,professor ,christian ,weisse at ,leipzig1 who1 though he was considered a ,hegelian1 was a very sober ,hegelian1 a critic quite as much as an admirer of ,hegel4 ,he had a very small audience1 because his manner of lecturing was certainly most trying and tantalizing4 ,but by being brought into personal contact with him one was able to get help from him wherever he could give it4 ,though ,weisse was convinced of the truth of ,hegel's ,dialectic ,method1 he often differed from him in its application4 ,this ,dialectic ,method consisted in showing how thought is constantly and irresistibly driven from an affirmative to a negative position1 then reconciles the two opposites1 and from that point starts afresh1 repeating once more the same process4 ,pure being1 for instance1 from which ,hegel's ideal evolution starts1 was shown to be the same as empty being1 that is to say1 nothing1 and both were presented as identical1 and in their identity giving us the new concept of ,becoming 7,werden71 which is being and not-being at the same time4 ,all this may appear to the lay reader rather obscure1 but could not well be passed over4 ,so far ,weisse followed the great thinker1 and ,i possess still1 in his own writing1 the picture of a ladder on which the intellect is represented as climbing higher and higher from the lowest concept to the highest--a kind of ,jacob's ladder on which the categories1 like angels of ,god1 ascend and descend from heaven to earth4 ,we must remember that the true ,hegelian regarded the ,ideas as the thoughts of ,god4 ,hegel looked upon this evolution of thought as at the same time the evolution of ,being1 the ,idea being the only thing that could be said to be truly real4 ,in order to understand this1 we must remember that the historical key to ,hegel's ,idea was really the ,neo-,platonic or ,alexandrian ,logos4 ,but of this ,logos we ignorant undergraduates1 sitting at the feet of ,prof4 ,weisse1 knew absolutely nothing1 and even if the ,idea was sometimes placed before us as the ,absolute1 the ,infinite1 or the ,divine1 it was to us1 at least to most of us1 myself included1 vox et praeterea nihil4 ,we watched the wonderful evolutions and convolutions of the ,idea in its ,dialectic development1 but of the ,idea itself or himself we had no idea whatever4 ,it was all darkness1 a vast abyss1 and we sat patiently and wrote down what we could catch and comprehend of the ,professor's explanations1 but the ,idea itself we never could lay hold of4 ,it would not have been so difficult if the ,professor had spoken out more boldly4 ,but whenever he came to the relation of the ,idea to what we mean by ,god1 there was always even with him1 who was a very honest man1 a certain theological hesitation4 ,hegel himself seems to shrink occasionally from the consequence that the ,idea really stands in the place of ,god1 and that it is in the self-conscious spirit of humanity that the ideal ,god becomes first conscious of himself4 ,still1 that is the last word of ,hegel's philosophy1 though others maintain that the ,idea with ,hegel was the thought of ,god1 and that human thought was but a repetition of that divine thought4 ,with ,hegel there is first the evolution of the ,idea in the pure ether of logic from the simplest to the highest category4 ,then follows ,hegel's ,philosophy of ,nature1 that is1 the evolution of the ,idea in nature1 the ,idea having by the usual dialectic process negatived itself and entered into its opposite 7,anderssein71 passing through a new process of space and time1 and ending in the self-conscious human soul4 ,thus nature and spirit were represented as dominated by the ,idea in its logical development4 ,nature was one manifestation of the ,idea1 ,history the other1 and it became the task of the philosopher to discover its traces both in the progress of nature and in the historical progress of thought4 ,and here it was where the strongest protests began to be heard4 ,physical ,science revolted1 and ,historical ,research soon joined the rebellion4 ,professor ,weisse also1 in spite of his great admiration for ,hegel1 protested in his ,lectures against this idealization of history1 and showed how often ,hegel1 if he could not find the traces he was looking for in the historical development of the ,idea1 was misled by his imperfect knowledge of facts1 and discovered what was not there1 but what he felt convinced ought to have been there4 ,nowhere has this become so evident as in ,hegel's ,philosophy of ,religion4 ,the conception was grand of seeing in the historical development of religion a repetition of the ,dialectic ,progress of the ,idea4 ,but facts are stubborn things1 and do not yield even to the supreme command of the ,idea4 ,besides1 if the historical facts of religion were really such as the ,dialectic ,process of the ,idea required1 these facts are no longer what they were before #ahca1 and what would become then of the ,idea which1 as he wrote in his preface to his ,metaphysics1 could not possibly be changed to please the new facts8 ,it was this part of ,weisse's lectures1 it was the protest of the historical conscience against the demands of the ,idea1 that interested me most4 ,i see as clearly the formal truth as the material untruth of ,hegel's philosophy4 ,the thorough excellence of its method and the desperate baldness of its results1 strike me with equal force4 ,though ,i did not yet know what kind of thing or person the ,idea was really meant for1 ,i knew myself enough of ancient ,greek philosophy and of ,oriental religions to venture to criticize ,hegel's representation and disposition of the facts themselves4 ,i could not accept the answer of my more determined ,hegelian friends1 ,tant pis pour les faits1 but felt more and more the old antagonism between what ought to be and what is1 between the reasonableness of the ,idea1 and the unreasonableness of facts4 ,i found a strong supporter in a young ,privat-,docent who at that time began his brilliant career at ,leipzig1 ,dr4 ,lotze4 ,he had made a special study of mathematics and physical science1 and felt the same disagreement between facts and theories in ,hegel's ,philosophy of ,nature which had struck me so much in reading his ,philosophy of ,religion4 ,i joined his philosophical society1 and ,i lately found among my old papers several essays which ,i had written for our meetings4 ,they amused me very much1 but ,i should be sorry to see them published now4 ,it is curious that after many years ,i1 as a ,delegate of the ,university ,press at ,oxford1 was instrumental in getting the first ,english translation of ,lotze's ,metaphysics published in ,england2 and it is still more curious that ,mark ,pattison1 the late ,rector of ,lincoln1 should have opposed it with might and main as a useless book which would never pay its expenses4 ,i stood up for my old teacher1 and ,i am glad to say to the honour of ,english philosophers1 that the translation passed through several editions1 and helped not a little to establish ,lotze's position in ,england and ,america4 ,he died in #ahha4 ,it is extraordinary how the young minds in ,german universities survive the storms and fogs through which they have to pass in their academic career4 ,i confess ,i myself felt quite bewildered for a time1 and began to despair altogether of my reasoning powers4 ,why should ,i not be able to understand1 ,i asked myself1 what other people seemed to understand without any effort8 ,we speak the same language1 why should we not be able to think the same thought8 ,i took refuge for a time in history--the history of language1 of religion1 and of philosophy4 ,there was a very learned professor at ,leipzig1 ,dr4 ,niedner1 who lectured on the ,history of ,greek ,philosophy1 and whose ,manual for the ,history of ,philosophy has been of use to me through the whole of my life4 ,socrates said of ,heraclitus3 8,what ,i have understood of his book is excellent1 and ,i suppose therefore that even what ,i have not understood is so too2 but one must be a ,delian swimmer not to be drowned in it40 ,i tried for a long time to follow this advice with regard to ,hegel and ,weisse1 and though disheartened did not despair4 ,i understood some of it1 why should not the rest follow in time8 ,thus1 ,i never gave up the study of philosophy at ,leipzig and afterwards at ,berlin1 and my first contributions to philosophical journals date from that early time1 when ,i was a student in the ,university of ,leipzig4 ,my very earliest1 though very unsuccessful1 struggles to find an entrance into the mysteries of philosophy date even from my school-days4 ,i remember some years before1 when ,i was quite young1 perhaps no more than fifteen years of age1 listening with bated breath to some professors at ,leipzig who were talking very excitedly about philosophy in my presence4 ,i had no idea what was meant by philosophy1 still less could ,i follow when they began to discuss ,kant's ,kritik der reinen ,vernunft4 ,one of my friends1 whom ,i looked up to as a great authority1 confessed that he had read the book again and again1 but could not understand the whole of it4 ,my curiosity was much excited1 and once1 while he was taking a walk with me1 ,i asked him very timidly what ,kant's book was about1 and how a man could write a book that other men could not understand4 ,he tried to explain what ,kant's book was about1 but it was all perfect darkness before my eyes2 ,i was trying to lay hold of a word here and there1 but it all floated before my mind like mist1 without a single ray of light1 without any way out of all that maze of words4 ,but when at last he said he would lend me the book1 ,i fell on it and pored over it hour after hour4 ,the result was the same4 ,my little brain could not take in the simplest ideas of the first chapters--that space and time were nothing by themselves2 that we ourselves gave the form of space and time to what was given us by the senses4 ,but though defeated ,i would not give in2 ,i tried again and again1 but of course it was all in vain4 ,the words were here and ,i could construe them1 but there was nothing in my mind which the words could have laid hold on4 ,it was like rain on hard soil1 it all ran off1 or remained standing in puddles and muddles on my poor brain4 ,at last ,i gave it up in despair1 but ,i had fully made up my mind that as soon as ,i went to the ,university ,i would find out what philosophy really was1 and what ,kant meant by saying that space and time were forms of our sensuous intuition4 ,i see that1 accordingly1 in the summer of #ahda1 ,i attended lectures on ,aesthetics by ,professor ,weisse1 on ,anthropology by ,lotze1 and on ,psychology by ,professor ,heinroth1 and ,i slowly learnt to distinguish between what was going on within me1 and what ,i had been led to imagine existed outside me1 or at least quite independent of me4 ,but before ,i had got a firm grasp of ,kant1 of his forms of intuition1 and the categories of the understanding1 ,i was thrown into ,hegelianism4 ,this1 too1 was at first entire darkness1 but ,i was not disheartened4 ,i attended ,professor ,weisse's lectures on ,hegel in the winter of #ahda-b1 and again in the winter of #ahdb-c ,i attended his lectures on ,logic and ,metaphysics1 and on the ,philosophy of ,history4 ,he took an interest in me1 and ,i felt most strongly attracted by him4 ,soon after ,i joined his ,philosophical ,society1 and likewise that of ,professor ,drobisch4 ,in these societies every member1 when his turn came1 had to write an essay and defend it against the professor and the other members of the society4 ,all this was very helpful1 but it was not till ,i had heard a course of lectures on the ,history of ,philosophy1 by ,professor ,niedner1 that my interest in ,philosophy became strong and healthy4 ,while ,weisse was a leading ,hegelian philosopher1 and ,drobisch represented the opposite philosophy of ,herbart1 ,niedner was purely historical1 and this appealed most to my taste4 ,still1 my philosophical studies remained very disjointed4 ,at last ,i was admitted to ,lotze's ,philosophical ,society also1 and here we chiefly read and discussed ,kant's ,kritik4 ,lotze was then quite a young man1 undecided as yet himself between physical science and pure philosophy4 ,weisse was certainly the most stirring lecturer1 but his delivery was fearful4 ,he did not read his lectures1 as many professors did1 but would deliver them extempore4 ,he had no command of language1 and there was a pause after almost every sentence4 ,he was really thinking out the problem while he was lecturing2 he was constantly repeating his sentences1 and any new thought that crossed his mind would carry him miles away from his subject4 ,it happened sometimes in these rhapsodies that he contradicted himself1 but when ,i walked home with him after his lecture to a village near ,leipzig where he lived1 he would readily explain how it happened1 how he meant something quite different from what he had said1 or what ,i had understood4 ,in fact he would give the whole lecture over again1 only much more freely and more intelligibly4 ,i was fully convinced at that time that ,hegel's philosophy was the final solution of all problems2 ,i only hesitated about his philosophy of history as applied to the history of religion4 ,i could not bring myself to admit that the history of religion1 nor even the history of philosophy as we know it from ,thales to ,kant1 was really running side by side with his ,logic1 showing how the leading concepts of the human mind1 as elaborated in the ,logic1 had found successive expression in the history and development of the schools of philosophy as known to us4 ,weisse was strong both in his analysis of concepts and in his knowledge of history1 and though he taught ,hegel as a faithful interpreter1 he always warned us against trusting too much in the parallelism between ,logic and ,history4 ,study the writings of the good philosophers1 he would say1 and then see whether they will or will not fit into the ,procrustean bed of ,hegel's ,logic4 ,and this was the best lesson he could have given to young men4 ,how well founded and necessary the warning was ,i found out myself1 the more ,i studied the religion and philosophies of the ,east1 and then compared what ,i saw in the original documents with the account given by ,hegel in his ,philosophy of ,religion4 ,it is quite true that ,hegel at the time when he wrote1 could not have gained a direct or accurate knowledge of the principal religions of the ,east4 ,but what ,i could not help seeing was that what ,hegel represented as the necessity in the growth of religious thought1 was far away from the real growth1 as ,i had watched it in some of the sacred books of these religions4 ,this shook my belief in the correctness of ,hegel's fundamental principles more than anything else4 ,at that time ,herbart's philosophy1 as taught by ,drobisch at ,leipzig1 came to me as a most useful antidote4 ,the chief object of that philosophy is1 as is well known1 the analysing and clearing1 so to speak1 of our concepts4 ,this was exactly what ,i wanted1 only that occupied as ,i was with the problems of language1 ,i at once translated the object of his philosophy into a definition of words4 ,henceforth the object of my own philosophical occupations was the accurate definition of every word4 ,all words1 such as reason1 pure reason1 mind1 thought1 were carefully taken to pieces and traced back1 if possible1 to their first birth1 and then through their further developments4 ,my interest in this analytical process soon took an historical1 that is etymological1 character in so far as ,i tried to find out why any words should now mean exactly what1 according to our definition1 they ought to mean4 ,for instance1 in examining such words as ,vernunft or ,verstand1 a little historical retrospect showed that their distinction as reason and understanding was quite modern1 and chiefly due to a scientific definition given and maintained by the ,kantian school of philosophy4 ,of course every generation has a right to define its philosophical terms1 but from an historical point of view ,kant might have used with equal right ,vernunft for ,verstand1 and ,verstand for ,vernunft4 ,etymologically or historically both words have much the same meaning4 ,vernunft1 from ,vernehmen1 meant originally no more than perception1 while ,verstand meant likewise perception1 but soon came to imply a kind of understanding1 even a kind of technical knowledge1 though from a purely etymological standpoint it had nothing that fitted it more for carrying the meaning1 which is now assigned to it in ,german in distinction to ,vernunft1 than understanding had as distinguished from reason4 ,it requires1 of course1 a very minute historical research to trace the steps by which such words as reason and understanding diverge in different directions1 in the language of the people and in philosophical parlance4 ,this teaches us a very important distinction1 namely that between the popular development of the meaning of a word1 and its meaning as defined and asserted by a philosopher or by a poet in the plenitude of his power4 ,etymological definition is very useful for the first stages in the history of a word4 ,it is useful to know1 for instance1 that deus1 ,god1 meant originally bright1 bright whether applied to sky1 sun1 moon1 stars1 dawn1 morning1 dayspring1 spring of the year1 and many other bright objects in nature1 that it thus assumed a meaning common to them all1 splendid1 or heavenly1 beneficent1 powerful1 so that when in the ,veda already we find a number of heavenly bodies1 or of terrestrial bodies1 or even of periods of time called ,devas1 this word has assumed a more general1 more comprehensive1 and more exalted meaning4 ,it did not yet mean what the ,greeks called or gods1 but it meant something common to all these 1 and thus could naturally rise to express what the ,greeks wanted to express by that word4 ,there was as yet no necessity for defining deva or 1 when applied to what was meant by gods1 but of course the most opposite meanings had clustered round it4 ,while a philosophical ,greek would maintain that meant what was one and never many1 a poetical ,greek or an ordinary ,greek would hold that it meant what was by nature many4 ,but while in such a case philosophical analysis and historical genealogy would support each other1 there are ever so many cases where etymological analysis is as hopeless as logical analysis4 ,who is to define romantic1 in such expressions as romantic literature4 ,etymologically we know that romantic goes back finally to ,rome1 but the mass of incongruous meanings that have been thrown at random into the caldron of that word1 is so great that no definition could be contrived to comprehend them all4 ,and how should we define ,gothic or ,romanic architecture1 remembering that as no ,goths had anything to do with pointed arches1 neither were any ,romans responsible for the flat roofs of the ,german churches of the ,saxon emperors4 ,enough to show what ,i meant when ,i said that ,professor ,drobisch1 in his ,lectures on ,herbart1 gave one great encouragement in the special work in which ,i was already engaged as a mere student1 the ,science of ,language and ,etymology4 ,if ,herbart declared philosophy to consist in a thorough examination 7,bearbeitung7 of concepts1 or conceptual knowledge1 my answer was1 ,only let it be historical1 nay1 in the beginning1 etymological2 ,i was not so foolish as to imagine that a word as used at present1 meant what it meant etymologically4 ,deus no longer meant brilliant1 but it should be the object of the true historian of language to prove how ,deus1 having meant originally brilliant1 came to mean what it means now4 ,for a time ,i thought of becoming a philosopher1 and that sounded so grand that the idea of preparing for a mere schoolmaster1 teaching ,greek and ,latin1 seemed to me more and more too narrow a sphere4 ,soon1 however1 while dreaming of a chair of philosophy at a ,german ,university1 ,i began to feel that ,i must know something special1 something that no other philosopher knew1 and that induced me to learn ,sanskrit1 ,arabic1 and ,persian4 ,i had only heard what we call in ,german the chiming1 not the striking of the bells of ,indian philosophy2 ,i had read ,frederick ,schlegel's explanatory book ber die ,sprache und ,weisheit der ,indier 7#ahjh71 and looked into ,windischmann's ,die ,philosophie im ,fortgange der ,weltgeschichte 7#ahbg-ahcd74 ,these books are hardly opened now--they are antiquated1 and more than antiquated2 they are full of mistakes as to facts1 and mistakes as to the conclusions drawn from them4 ,but they had ushered new ideas into the world of thought1 and they left on many1 as they did on me1 that feeling which the digger who prospects for minerals is said to have1 that there must be gold beneath the surface1 if people would only dig4 ,that feeling was very vague as yet1 and might have been entirely deceptive1 nor did ,i see my way to go beyond the point reached by these two dreamers or explorers4 ,the thought remained in the rubbish-chamber of my mind1 and though forgotten at the time1 broke forth again when there was an opportunity4 ,it was a fortunate coincidence that at that very time1 in the winter of #ahda1 a new professorship was founded at ,leipzig and given to ,professor ,brockhaus4 ,uncertain as ,i was about the course ,i had to follow in my studies1 ,i determined to see what there was to be learnt in ,sanskrit4 ,there was a charm in the unknown1 and1 ,i must confess1 a charm also in studying something which my friends and fellow students did not know4 ,i called on ,professor ,brockhaus1 and found that there were only two other students to attend his lectures1 one ,spiegel1 who already knew the elements of ,sanskrit1 and who is still alive in ,erlangen1#i as a famous professor of ,sanskrit and ,zend1 though no longer lecturing1 and another1 ,klengel2 both several years my seniors1 but both extremely amiable to their younger fellow student4 ,klengel was a scholar1 a philosopher1 and a musician1 and though after a term or two he had to give up his study of ,sanskrit1 he was very useful to me by his good advice4 ,he encouraged me and praised me for my progress in ,sanskrit1 which was no doubt more rapid than his own1 and he confirmed me in my conviction that something might be made of ,sanskrit by the philologist and by the philosopher4 ,it should not be forgotten that at that time there was a strong prejudice against ,sanskrit among classical scholars4 ,the number of men who stood up for it1 though it included names such as ,w4 von ,humboldt1 ,f4 and ,a4 ,w4 von ,schlegel1 was still very small4 ,even ,herder's and ,goethe's prophetic words produced little effect4 ,it is said that when the ,government had been persuaded1 chiefly by the two ,humboldts1 to found a chair of ,sanskrit at the ,university of ,wrzburg1 and had nominated ,bopp as its first occupant1 the philological faculty of the ,university protested against such a desecration1 and the appointment fell through4 ,it is true1 no doubt1 that in their first enthusiasm the students of ,sanskrit had uttered many exaggerated opinions4 ,sanskrit was represented as the mother of all languages1 instead of being the elder sister of the ,aryan family4 ,the beginning of all language1 of all thought1 of all religion was traced back to ,india1 and when ,greek scholars were told that ,zeus existed in the ,veda under the name of ,dyaus1 there was a great flutter in the dovecots of classical scholarship4 ,many of these enthusiastic utterances had afterwards to be toned down4 ,how we did enjoy those enthusiastic days1 which even in their exaggerated hopes were not without some use4 ,problems such as the beginning of language1 of thought1 of mythology and religion1 were started with youthful hope that the ,veda would solve them all1 as if the ,vedic ,rishis had been present at the first outburst of roots1 of concepts1 nay1 that like ,pelops and other descendants of ,zeus1 those ,vedic poets had enjoyed daily intercourse with the gods1 and had been present at the mutilation of ,ouranos1 or at the over-eating of ,kronos4 ,we may be ashamed to-day of some of the dreams of the early spring of man's sojourn on earth1 but they were enchanting dreams1 and all our thoughts of man's nature and destiny on earth were tinged with the colours of a morning that threw light over the grey darkness which preceded it4 ,it was delightful to see that ,dyaus meant originally the bright sky1 something actually seen1 but something that had to become something unseen4 ,all knowledge1 whether individual or possessed by mankind at large1 must have begun with what the senses can perceive1 before it could rise to signify something unperceived by the senses4 ,only after the blue aether had been perceived and named1 was it possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active1 as an agent1 as a god4 ,dyaus or ,zeus might thus be called the most sublime1 he who resides in the aether1 1 the heavenly one1 or and 1 the highest1 and at last ,iupiter ,optimus ,maximus1 a name applied even to the true ,god4 ,when ,zeus had once become like the sky1 all seeing or omniscient 771 would he not naturally be supposed to see1 not only the good1 but the evil deeds of men also1 nay1 their very thoughts1 whether pure or criminal8 ,and if so1 would he not be the avenger of evil1 the watcher of oaths 771 the protector of the helpless 778 ,yet1 if conceived1 as for a long time all the gods were conceived and could only be conceived1 namely1 as human in their shape1 should we not necessarily get that strange amalgamation of a human being doing superhuman work--hurling the thunderbolt1 shouting in thunder1 hidden by dark clouds1 and smiling in the serene blue of the sky with its brilliant scintillations8 ,all this and much more became perfectly intelligible1 the step from the visible to the invisible1 from the perceived to the conceived1 from nature to nature's gods1 and from nature's god to a more sublime unseen and spiritual power4 ,all this seemed to pass before our very eyes in the ,veda1 and then to be reflected in ,homer and ,pindar4 #i ,herr ,geheimrath von ,spiegel now lives at ,munich4 ,some details of this restored picture of the world of gods and men in early times1 nay1 in the very spring of time1 may have to be altered1 but the picture1 the eidyllion remained1 and nothing could curb the adventurous spirit and keep it from pushing forward and trying to do what seemed to others almost impossible1 namely1 to watch the growth of the human mind as reflected in the petrifactions of language4 ,language itself spoke to us with a different voice1 and a formerly unsuspected meaning4 ,we knew1 for instance1 that ewig meant eternal1 but whence eternal4 ,nothing eternal was ever seen1 and it seemed to the philosopher that eternal could be expressed by a negation only1 by a negation of what was temporary4 ,but we now learnt that ewig was derived in word and therefore in thought from the ,gothic aiwar1 time4 ,ewigkeit was therefore originally time1 and 8for all time0 came naturally to mean 8for all eternity40 ,eternity also came from aeternus1 that is aeviternus1 for time1 i4 e4 for all time1 and thus for eternity1 while aevum meant life1 lifetime1 age4 ,but now came the question1 if aevum shows the growth of this word1 and its origin1 and how it arrives in the end at the very opposite pole1 life and time coming to mean eternity1 could we not by the same process discover the origin and growth of such short ,greek words as and ae8 ,it seems almost impossible1 yet remembering that aevum meant originally life1 we find in ,vedic ,sanskrit eva1 course1 way1 life1 the same as aevum1 while the ,sanskrit yush1 likewise derived from i1 to go1 forms its locative yushi4 yushi1 or originally yasi1 would mean 8in life1 in time10 and turned into ,greek would regularly become then ae1 lifelong1 or ever4 ,it was not difficult to find fault with this and other etymologies1 and to ask for an explanation of and 1 as derived from the same word yus4 ,it is curious that people will not see that etymologies1 and particularly the gradual development in the form and meaning of words1 can hardly ever be a matter of mathematical certainty4 ,historical1 nay1 even individual1 influences come in which prevent the science of language from becoming purely mechanical4 ,pott1 and ,curtius1 and others stood up against ,bopp and ,grimm1 maintaining that there could be nothing irregular in language1 particularly in phonetic changes4 ,if this means no more than that under the same circumstances the same changes will always take place1 it would be of course a mere truism4 ,the question is only whether we can ever know all the circumstances1 and whether there are not some of these circumstances which cause what we are apt to call irregularities4 ,when ,bopp said that ,sanskrit d corresponds to a ,greek 1 but often also to a ,greek 1 ,i doubt whether this is often the case4 ,all ,i say is1 if deva corresponds to 1 we must try to find the reason or the circumstances which caused so unusual a correspondence4 ,if no more is meant than that there must be a reason for all that seems irregular1 no one would gainsay that1 neither ,bopp nor ,grimm1 and no one ever doubted that as a principle4 ,but to establish these reasons is the very difficulty with which the ,science of ,language has to deal4 ,there is no word that has not an etymology1 only if we consider the distance of time that separates us from the historical facts we are trying to account for1 we should sometimes be satisfied with probabilities and not always stipulate for absolute certainty4 ,many of ,bopp's1 ,grimm's1 and ,pott's etymologies have had to be surrendered1 and yet our suzerainty over that distant country which they conquered1 over the ,aryan home1 remains4 ,if there is an etymology containing something irregular1 and for which no reason has as yet been found1 we must wait till some better etymology can be suggested1 or a reason be found for that apparent irregularity4 ,if the etymological meaning of duhitar1 daughter1 as milkmaid1 is doubted1 let us have a better explanation1 not a worse2 but the general picture of the early family among the ,aryans 8somewhere in ,asia0 is not thereby destroyed4 ,the father1 ,sk4 pitar1 remains the protector or nourisher1 though the i for a in pater and is irregular4 ,the mother1 mtar1 remains the bearer of children1 though m is no longer used in that sense in any of the ,aryan languages4 ,pati is the lord1 the strong one--therefore the husband2 vadh1 the yoke-fellow1 or the wife as brought home1 possibly as carried off by force4 ,vis or vesa is the home1 or vicus1 what was entered for shelter4 ,svasura1 1 ,socer1 the father-in-law1 is the old man of the svas1 the famuli1 or the family1 or the clients1 though the first s is irregular1 and can be defended only on the ground of mistaken analogy4 ,bhrtar1 frater1 brother1 was the supporter2 svastar1 soror1 sister1 the comforter1 c4 ,what do a few objections signify8 ,the whole picture remains1 as if we could look into the vesa1 the the veih1 the home1 the village of the ancient ,aryans1 and watch them1 the svas1 the people1 in their mutual relations4 ,even compound words1 such as vis-pati1 lord of a family or a village1 have been preserved to the present day in the ,lithuanian ,veszpats1 lord1 whether ,king or ,god4 ,it is enough for us to see that the relationship between husband and wife1 between parents and children1 between brothers and sisters1 nay1 even between children-in-law and parents-in-law1 had been recognized and sanctified by names4 ,that there are1 and always will be1 doubts and slight differences of opinion on these prehistoric thoughts and words1 is easily understood4 ,we were pleased for a long time to see in vidua1 widow1 the ,sanskrit vidua1 i4 e4 without a man or a husband4 ,we now derive vi-dhav1 widow1 from vidh1 to be separated1 to be without 7cf4 vido in divido1 and ,sk4 vidh71 but the picture of the ,aryan family remains much the same4 ,when these and similar antiquities were for the first time brought to light by ,bopp1 ,grimm1 and ,pott1 what wonder that we young men should have jumped at them1 and shouted with delight1 more even than the diggers who dug up ,babylonian palaces or ,egyptian temples6 ,no one did more for these antiquarian finds and restorations than ,a4 ,kuhn1 a simple schoolmaster1 but afterwards a most distinguished member of the ,berlin ,academy4 ,how often did ,i sit with him in his study as he worked1 surrounded by his ,greek1 ,latin1 and ,sanskrit books4 ,in later times also1 when ,i had made some discoveries myself as to the mythological names or beings identical in ,vedic and ,greek writings1 how pleasant was it to see him rub his hands or shake his head4 ,long before ,i had published my identifications they were submitted to him1 and he communicated to me his own guesses as ,i communicated mine to him4 ,kuhn would never appropriate what belonged to anybody else1 and even in cases where we agreed1 he would always make it clear that we had both arrived independently at the same result4 ,it is in the nature of things that every new generation of scholars should perfect their tools1 and with these discover flaws in the work left by their predecessors4 ,still1 what is the refined chiselling of later scholars compared with the rough-hewn stones of men like ,bopp or ,grimm8 ,if the ,cyclopean stones of the ,pelasgians are not like the finished works of art by ,phidias1 what would the ,parthenon be without the walls ascribed to the ,cyclops8 ,it is the same in all sciences1 and we must try to be just1 both to the genius of those who created1 and to the diligence of those who polished and refined4 ,for all this1 however1 ,i met with but small sympathy and encouragement at ,leipzig2 nay1 ,i had to be very careful in uttering what were supposed to be heretical or unscholarlike opinions in the seminary of ,gottfried ,hermann1 or in the ,latin society of ,haupt4 ,the latter particularly1 though he knew very well how much light had been spread on the growth of language by the researches of ,bopp1 ,grimm1 and ,pott1 and though ,grimm was his intimate friend of whom he always spoke with real veneration1 could not bear his own pupils dabbling in this subject4 ,and of course at that time my knowledge of comparative philology was a mere dabbling4 ,if he could discover a false quantity in any etymology1 great was his delight1 and his sarcasm truly withering1 particularly as it was poured out in very classical ,latin4 ,gottfried ,hermann was a different character4 ,he saw there was a new light and he would not turn his back to it4 ,he knew how lightly his antagonist1 ,otfried ,mller1 valued ,sanskrit in his mythological essays1 and he set to work1 and in one of his last academical programs actually gave the paradigms of ,sanskrit verbs as compared with those of ,greek4 ,he saw that the coincidences between the two could not be casual1 and if they were so overwhelming in the mere termination of verbs1 what might we not expect in words and names1 even in mythological names8 ,he by no means discouraged me1 nay1 he was sorry to lose me1 when in my third year ,i went to ,berlin4 ,he showed me great kindness on several occasions1 and when the time came to take my degree of ,m4,a4 and ,ph4,d41 he1 as ,dean of the ,faculty1 invited me to return to ,leipzig1 offering me an exhibition to cover the expenses of the ,degree4 ,illustration3 ,f4 ,,max ,m,,ller ,aged ,twenty ,my wish to go to ,berlin arose partly from a desire to hear ,bopp1 but yet more from a desire to make the acquaintance of ,schelling4 ,my inclination towards philosophy had become stronger and stronger2 ,i had my own ideas about the mythological as a necessary form of ancient philosophy1 and when ,i saw that the old philosopher had advertised his lectures or lecture on mythology1 ,i could not resist1 and went to ,berlin in #ahdd4 ,i must say at once that ,professor ,bopp1 though he was extremely kind to me1 was at that time1 if not old--he was only fifty-three--very infirm4 ,in his lectures he simply read his ,comparative ,grammar with a magnifying glass1 and added very little that was new4 ,he lent me some manuscripts which he had copied in ,latin in his younger days1 but ,i could not get much help from him when ,i came to really difficult passages4 ,this1 ,i confess1 puzzled me at the time1 for ,i looked on every professor as omniscient4 ,the time comes1 however1 when we learn that even at fifty-three a man may have forgotten certain things1 nay1 may have let many books and new discoveries even in his own subject pass by1 because he has plenty to do with his own particular studies4 ,we remember the old story of the professor who1 when charged by a young and rather impertinent student with not knowing this or that1 replied3 8,sir1 ,i have forgotten more than you ever knew40 ,and so it is indeed4 ,human nature and human memory are very strong during youth and manhood1 but even at fifty there is with many people a certain decline of mental vigour that tells chiefly on the memory4 ,things are not exactly forgotten1 but they do not turn up at the right time4 ,they just leave a certain knowledge of where the missing information can be found2 they leave also a kind of feeling that the ground is not quite safe and that we must no longer trust entirely to our memory4 ,in one respect this feeling is very useful1 for instead of writing down anything1 trusting to our memory as we used to do1 we feel it necessary to verify many things which formerly were perfectly clear and certain in our memory without such reference to books4 ,i remember being struck with the same thing in the case of ,professor ,wilson1 the well-known ,oxford ,professor of ,sanskrit4 ,he was kind enough to read with me1 and ,i certainly was often puzzled1 not only by what he knew1 but also by what he had forgotten4 ,i feel now that ,i misjudged him1 and that his open declaration1 8,i don't know1 let us look it up10 really did him great honour4 ,i still have in my possession a portion of ,pnini's ,vedic grammar translated by him4 ,i put by the side of it my own translation1 and he openly acknowledged that mine1 with the passages taken from the ,veda1 was right4 ,there was no humbug about ,wilson4 ,he never posed as a scholar2 nay1 ,i remember his saying to me more than once1 8,you see1 ,i am not a scholar1 ,i am a gentleman who likes ,sanskrit1 and that is all40 ,he certainly did like ,sanskrit1 and he knew it better than many a professor1 but in his own way4 ,he had enjoyed the assistance of really learned ,pandits1 and he never forgot to record their services4 ,but he had himself cleared the ground--he had really done original work4 ,in fact1 he had done nothing but original work1 and then he was abused for not having always found at the first trial what others discovered when standing on his shoulders4 ,again1 he was found fault with for not having had a classical education4 ,his education was1 ,i believe1 medical1 but when once in the ,indian ,civil ,service1 he made himself useful in many ways1 educational and otherwise4 ,when he left ,india he was ,master of the ,mint4 ,such a man might not know ,greek and ,latin like ,f4 ,a4 von ,schlegel1 or any other professor1 but he knew his own subject1 and it is simply absurd if classical scholars imagine that anybody can carry on his ,greek and ,latin and at the same time make himself a perfect scholar in ,sanskrit4 ,such a feeling is natural among small schoolmasters1 but it is dying out at last among real scholars4 ,i have known very good ,sanskrit scholars who knew no ,greek at all1 and very little ,latin4 ,and ,i have also known ,greek scholars who knew no ,sanskrit and yet attempted comparisons between the two4 ,when ,lepsius was made a ,member of the ,berlin ,academy1 ,lachmann1 who ought to have known better1 used to say of him3 8,he knows many things which nobody knows1 but he also is ignorant of many things which everybody knows40 ,such remarks never speak well for the man who makes them4 ,another disadvantage from which the aged scholar suffers is that he is blamed for not having known in his youth what has been discovered in his old age1 and is still violently assailed for opinions he may have uttered fifty years ago4 ,when quite a young man ,i wrote1 at ,baron ,bunsen's request1 a long letter on the ,turanian ,languages4 ,it was published in #ahed1 but it still continues to be criticized as if it had been published last year4 ,of course1 considering the rapid advance of linguistic studies1 a great part of that letter became antiquated long ago2 but at the time of its first appearance it contained nearly all that could then be known on these allophylian1 that is1 non-,aryan and non-,semitic languages2 and ,i may1 perhaps1 quote the opinion of ,professor ,pott1 no mean authority at that time1 who1 after severely criticizing my letter1 declared that it belonged to the most important publications that had appeared on linguistic subjects for many years4 ,and yet1 though ,i have again and again protested that ,i could not possibly have known in #ahed what has been discovered since as to a number of these ,turanian languages1 everybody who writes on any of them seems to be most anxious to show that in #ahid he knows more than ,i did in #ahed4 ,no astronomer is blamed for not having known the planet ,neptune before its discovery in #ahdf1 or for having been wrong in accounting for the irregularities of ,saturn4 ,but let that pass2 ,i only share the fate of others who have lived too long4 ,after all1 all our knowledge1 whatever show we may make of it1 is very imperfect1 and the more we know the better we learn how little it is that we do know1 and how much of unexplored country there is beyond the country which we have explored4 ,we must judge a man by what he has done--by his own original work4 ,there are many scholars1 and very useful they are in their own way1 but if their books are examined1 one easily finds the stores from which they borrowed their materials4 ,they may add some notes of their own and even some corrections1 particularly corrections of the authors from whom they have borrowed most2 but at the end where is the fresh ore that they have raised2 where is the gold they have extracted and coined8 ,there are cases where the original worker is quite forgotten1 whereas the retailers flourish4 ,well1 facts are facts1 whether known or not known1 and the triumphal chariot of truth has to be dragged along by many hands and many shoulders4 ,,chapter ,v ,,paris ,my stay in ,paris from ,march1 #ahde1 to ,june1 #ahdf1 was a very useful intermezzo4 ,it opened my mind and showed me a new world2 showed me1 in fact1 that there was a world besides ,germany1 though even of ,germany and ,german society ,i had seen as yet very little4 ,i had been working away at school and university1 but with the exception of my short stay in ,berlin1 ,i had little experience of men and manners outside the small sphere of ,dessau and ,leipzig4 ,i had been at ,berlin some nine months when1 in ,december1 #ahdd1 my old friend ,baron ,hagedorn came to see me1 and invited me to spend some time with him in ,paris4 ,he had his own apartments there1 and promised to look after me4 ,at the same time my cousin1 ,baroness ,stolzenberg1 whom ,i have mentioned before as wishing me to enter the ,austrian diplomatic service1 offered to send me to ,england at her expense as a teacher4 ,i hesitated for some days between these two offers4 ,i knew that my own patrimony had been nearly spent at ,leipzig and ,berlin1 and the time had come for me to begin to support myself2 and how was ,i to do that in ,paris8 ,on the other hand1 ,i had long felt that for continuing my ,sanskrit studies a stay in ,paris1 and later perhaps in ,london also1 was indispensable4 ,i had also to consider the feelings of my mother1 whose whole heart was absorbed in her only son4 ,however1 ,sanskrit1 and my love of an independent life won the day1 and ,i decided to accept ,hagedorn's proposal4 ,my mind once made up1 ,i wanted to be off at once1 but ,hagedorn could not fix the exact time when he would be free to leave1 and told me to keep myself in readiness to start whenever he found himself free to go4 ,i accordingly went to stay with my mother and my married sister at ,chemnitz1 and indulged in idleness and the unwonted dissipations of parties1 dances1 and long skating expeditions4 ,at last1 feeling ,i could not afford to wait any longer1 ,i went off to ,dessau to see ,hagedorn1 and found to my great disappointment that he was detained by important legal business in connection with his property near ,munich1 and could not yet fix a date for his departure4 ,so it was settled that ,i was to go on to ,paris without him1 and instal myself in his apartment1 #be1 ,rue ,royale ,st4 ,honor4 ,i got my passport wherein ,i was carefully described with all my particular marks1 and started off on my foreign travels4 ,at first all went well4 ,i stopped a few days at ,bonn1 and again at ,brussels1 where ,i had my first experience of hearing a foreign language spoken round me1 and found that my ,french was sadly deficient4 ,but from ,brussels on1 my experiences were anything but agreeable4 ,the journey to ,paris took twenty-four hours1 and we travelled day and night without any stop for meals4 ,most of the passengers were well provided with food and wine1 but had it not been for the kindness of some old ladies1 my fellow-travellers1 ,i should really have starved4 ,when we crossed the frontier the luggage of all passengers was carefully examined4 ,but the douanier1 in trying to open my portmanteau1 broke the lock1 and then began a fearful cursing and swearing4 ,i was perfectly helpless4 ,i could hardly understand what the ,french douaniers said1 still less make them understand what ,i had to say4 ,they had done the damage1 but would do nothing to remedy it4 ,the train would not wait1 and ,i should certainly have been left behind if the other travellers had not taken my part1 and ,i was allowed to go on to ,paris4 ,i looked a mere boy1 very harmless1 not at all the clever smuggler the officials took me to be4 ,if they had forced the portmanteau open they would have found nothing but the most essential wearing apparel and a few books and papers all in ,sanskrit4 ,but my miseries were not yet over1 on the contrary1 they became much worse4 ,on my arrival in ,paris ,i got a fiacre and told the man to drive to #be1 ,rue ,st4 ,honor2 ,royale ,i considered of no importance2 but1 alas6 at the right number of the ,rue ,st4 ,honor1 the concierge stared at me1 telling me that no ,baron ,hagedorn lived there4 ,try ,faubourg ,st4 ,honor1 they said1 but here the same thing happened4 ,and all this was on a rainy afternoon1 ,i being tired out with travelling and fasting1 and perfectly overwhelmed by the immensity of ,paris4 ,i knew nobody at ,paris1 having trusted for all such things to ,baron ,hagedorn1 in fact ,i was au dsespoir4 ,then as ,i was driving along the ,boulevard des ,italiens1 looking out of window1 ,i saw a familiar figure--a little hunchback whom ,i had known at ,dessau1 where he studied music under ,schneider4 ,it was ,m4 ,gathy1 a man well known by his musical writings1 particularly his ,dictionary of ,music4 ,i shrieked ,gathy6 ,gathy6 and he was as much surprised when he recognized the little boy from ,dessau1 as ,i was when in this vast ,paris ,i discovered at last a face which ,i knew4 ,i jumped out of my carriage1 told ,gathy all that had happened to me1 being all the time between complete despair and perfect delight4 ,he knew ,hagedorn and his rooms very well4 ,it was the ,rue ,royale ,st4 ,honor4 ,the concierge was quite prepared for my arrival1 and took us both to the rooms which were au cinquime1 but large and extremely well furnished4 ,i was so tired that ,i lay down on the sofa1 and called out in my best ,french1 ,donnez-moi quelque chose manger et boire4 ,this was not so easily done as said1 but at last1 after toiling up and down five flights of stairs1 he brought me what ,i wanted2 ,i restored myself in the true sense of the word1 and then began to discuss the most necessary matters with ,m4 ,gathy4 ,he was the most charming of men1 half ,german1 half ,french1 full of esprit1 and1 what was more important to me1 full of real kindness and love4 ,as soon as ,i saw him ,i felt ,i was safe1 and so ,i was1 though ,i had still some battles to fight4 ,first of all1 ,i had taken but little money with me1 looking upon ,hagedorn as my banker4 ,fortunately ,i remembered the name of one of his friends1 about whom ,hagedorn had often spoken to me and who was in ,rothschild's ,bank4 ,i went there to find that he was away1 but another gentleman there told me that ,i could have as much as ,i liked till ,hagedorn or his friend came back4 ,so ,i was lucky1 unlucky as ,i had been before4 ,the next step ,i had to consider was what ,i should do for my breakfast1 luncheon1 and dinner4 ,breakfast ,i could have at home1 but for the other meals ,i had to go out and get what ,i wanted wherever ,i could4 ,it was not always what ,i wanted1 for it had to be cheap1 and even a dinner deux francs in the ,palais ,royal seemed to me extravagant4 ,i became more knowing by-and-by1 and discovered smaller and simpler restaurants1 where ,frenchmen dined and had arranged for a less showy but more wholesome diet4 ,the impression that my first experience of life in one of the great capitals of the world made on me is still fresh in my memory4 ,my principal amusement at first was to go on voyages of discovery through the town4 ,the beauty of the city itself1 and the rush and crowd in the streets delighted me1 and ,i remember specially a few days after my arrival1 when ,i went to watch 8le tout ,paris0 going out to the races at ,longchamps1 that ,i was so struck by the difference between these streets full of equipages of all sorts1 ladies in resplendent dresses1 and well-groomed gentlemen1 and the quiet streets that ,i had been accustomed to in ,dessau and ,leipzig1 that ,i could hardly keep myself from laughing out loud4 ,however1 when the novelty wore off there was another contrast that struck me1 and made me more inclined to cry this time than to laugh1 and that was1 that while at home ,i knew almost every face ,i passed1 here in these crowds ,i was a stranger and knew no one1 and ,i suffered cruelly from the solitude at first4 ,i began my work1 however1 at once1 and on the third day after my arrival ,i was at the ,bibliothque ,royale armed with a letter of introduction from ,humboldt1 and the very next day was already at work collating the ,,mss4 of the ,kathaka ,upanishad4 ,i had also to devote some hours daily to the study of ,french2 for1 much as ,i grudged these hours1 ,i fully realized that in order to get full advantage from my stay in ,paris1 ,i must first master ,french4 ,next came the great question1 how to make the acquaintance of ,burnouf4 ,i did not know the world4 ,i did not know whether ,i should write to him first1 in what language1 and to what address4 ,i knew ,burnouf from his books1 and ,i felt a desperate respect for him4 ,after a time ,gathy discovered his address for me1 and ,i summoned up courage to call on him4 ,my ,french was very poor as yet1 but ,i walked in and found a dear old gentleman in his robe de chambre1 surrounded by his books and his children--four little daughters who were evidently helping him in collecting and alphabetically arranging a number of slips on which he had jotted down whatever had struck him as important in his reading during the day4 ,he received me with great civility1 such as ,i had not been accustomed to before4 ,he spoke of some little book which ,i had published1 and inquired warmly after my teachers in ,germany1 such as ,brockhaus1 ,bopp1 and ,lassen4 ,he told me ,i might attend his lectures in the ,collge de ,france1 and he would always be most happy to give me advice and help4 ,i at once felt perfect trust in the man1 and was really aux cieux to have found such an adviser4 ,he was1 indeed1 a fine specimen of the real ,french savant4 ,he was small1 and his face was decidedly ,german1 with the tte carre which one sees so often in ,germany1 only lighted up by a constant sparkle1 which is distinctively ,french4 ,i must have seemed very stupid to him when ,i tried to explain to him what ,i really wanted to do in ,paris4 ,he told me himself afterwards that he could not make me out at first4 ,i wanted to study the ,veda1 but ,i had told him at the same time that ,i thought the ,vedic hymns very stupid1 and that ,i cared chiefly for their philosophy1 that is1 the ,upanishads4 ,this was really not true1 but it came up first in conversation1 and ,i thought it would show ,burnouf that my interest in the ,veda was not simply philological1 but philosophical also4 ,no doubt at first ,i chiefly copied the ,upanishads and their commentaries1 but ,burnouf was not pleased4 8,we know what is in the ,upanishads10 he used to say1 8but we want the hymns and their native comments40 ,i soon came to understand what he meant2 ,i carefully attended his lectures1 which were on the hymns of the ,rig-veda and opened an entirely new world to my mind4 ,we had the first book of the ,rig-veda as published by ,rosen1 and ,burnouf's explanations were certainly delightful4 ,he spoke freely and conversationally in his lectures1 and one could almost assist at the elaboration of his thoughts4 ,his audience was certainly small2 there was nothing like ,renan's eloquence and wit4 ,but ,burnouf had ever so many new facts to communicate to us4 ,he explained to us his own researches1 he showed us new ,,mss4 which he had received from ,india1 in fact he did all he could to make us fellow workers4 ,often did he tell us to look up some passage in the ,veda1 to compare and copy the commentaries1 and to let him have the result of our researches at the next lecture4 ,all this was very inspiriting1 particularly as ,burnouf1 upon examining our work1 was very generous in his approval1 and quite ready1 if we had failed1 to point out to us new sources that should be examined4 ,he never asserted his own authority1 and if ever we had found out something which he had not known before1 he was delighted to let us have the full credit for it4 ,after all1 it was a new and unknown country1 that had to be explored and mapped out1 and even a novice might sometimes find a grain of gold4 ,his select class contained some good men4 ,there were ,barthlemy ,st4 ,hilaire1 the famous translator of ,aristotle1 and for a time ,minister of ,foreign ,affairs in ,france1 the ,abb ,bardelli1 ,r4 ,roth1 ,th4 ,goldstcker1 and a few more4 ,barthlemy ,st4 ,hilaire was a personal friend of ,burnouf1 and came to the ,collge de ,france not so much to learn ,sanskrit as to hear ,burnouf's lucid exposition of ancient ,indian religion and philosophy4 ,bardelli was a regular ,italian ,abb1 studying ,sanskrit at ,paris1 but chiefly interested in ,coptic4 ,he was1 like ,st4 ,hilaire1 much my senior1 but we became great friends1 and he once confided to me what had certainly puzzled me--his reasons for becoming an ecclesiastic4 ,he had been deeply in love with a young lady2 his love was returned1 but he was too poor to marry1 and she was persuaded and almost forced to marry a rich man4 ,dear old ,abb1 always taking snuff while he told me his agonies1 and then finishing up by saying that he became a priest so as to put an end for ever to his passion4 ,who would have suspected such a background to his jovial face8 ,i don't know how it was that people1 much my seniors1 so often confided to me their secret sufferings4 ,i may have to mention some other cases1 and ,i feel that after my friends are gone1 and so many years have passed over their graves1 there is no indiscretion in speaking of their confidences4 ,it may possibly teach us to remember how much often lies buried under a grave bright with flowers4 ,i saw ,bardelli's own grave many years later in the famous cemetery at ,pisa4 ,r4 ,roth and ,th4 ,goldstcker were both strenuous ,sanskrit scholars4 ,both owed much to ,burnouf1 ,roth even more than ,goldstcker1 though the latter has perhaps more frequently spoken of what he owed to ,burnouf4 ,roth was my senior by several years1 and engaged in much the same work as myself4 ,but we never got on well together4 ,it is curious from what small things and slight impressions our likes and dislikes are often formed4 ,i have heard men give as a reason for disliking some one1 that he had forgotten to pay half a cab-fare4 ,so in ,roth's case1 ,i never got over a most ordinary experience4 ,he and two other young students and myself1 having to celebrate some festal occasion1 had ordered a good luncheon at a restaurant4 ,to me with my limited means this was a great extravagance1 but ,i could not refuse to join4 ,roth1 to my great surprise and1 ,i may add1 being very fond of oysters1 annoyance1 took a very unfair share of that delicacy1 and whenever ,i met him in after life1 whether in person or in writing1 this incident would always crop up in my mind2 and when later on he offered to join me in editing the ,rig-veda1 ,i declined1 perhaps influenced by that early impression which ,i could not get rid of4 ,i blame myself for so foolish a prejudice1 but it shows what creatures of circumstance we are4 ,with ,goldstcker ,i was far more intimate4 ,he was some years older than myself and quite independent as far as money went4 ,he knew how small my means were1 and would gladly have lent me money4 ,but through the whole of my life ,i never borrowed from my friends1 or in fact from anybody1 though ,i was forced sometimes when very hard up for ready money1 and when ,i knew that money was due to me but had not arrived when ,i expected it1 to apply to some friend for a temporary advance4 ,i will try and recall the lines in which ,i once applied to ,gathy for such a loan4 ,versuch' ich's wohl1 mein herzgeliebter ,gathy1 ,mit schmeichelndem ,sonnet ,sie anzupumpen8 ,ich bitte nicht um schwere ,goldesklumpen1 ,ich bitte nur um etliche ,ducati4 ,auch zahl' ich wieder ultimo ,monati4 ,auf ,wiedersehn bei ,morel und ,frascati ,und ,nachsicht fr den ,brief1 den allzu plumpen6 ,zwar reiche ,nabobs sind die braven ,inder1 ,doch arme ,teufel die ,indianisten6 ,reich sind hienieden schon die ,heiden-,kinder1 ,doch selig werden nur die armen ,christen6 ,reimsucher bin ich1 doch kein ,reimefinder1 ,und sans critique sind all die ,sanscritisten4 ,this kind of negotiating a loan ,i have to confess to1 but the idea of borrowing money1 without knowing when ,i could repay it1 never entered my mind4 ,relations who could have helped me ,i had none1 and nothing remained to me but to work for others4 ,indeed my want of money soon began to cause me very serious anxiety in ,paris4 ,little as ,i spent1 my funds became lower and lower4 ,i did not1 like many other scholars1 receive help from my ,government4 ,i had mapped out my course for myself1 and instead of taking to teaching on leaving the ,university1 had settled to come to ,paris and continue my ,sanskrit studies1 and it was in my own hands whether ,i should swim or sink4 ,it was1 indeed1 a hard struggle1 far harder than those who have known me in later life would believe4 ,all ,i could do to earn a little money was to copy and collate ,,mss4 for other people4 ,i might indeed have given private lessons1 but ,i have always had a strong objection to that form of drudgery1 and would rather sit up a whole night copying than give an hour to my pupils4 ,my plan was as follows3 to sit up the whole of one night1 to take about three hours' rest the next night1 but without undressing1 and then to take a good night's rest the third night1 and start over again4 ,it was a hard fight1 and cannot have been very good for me physically1 but ,i do not regret it now4 ,often did ,i go without my dinner1 being quite satisfied with boiled eggs and bread and butter1 which ,i could have at home without toiling down and toiling up five flights of stairs that led to my room4 ,sometimes ,i went with some of my young friends hors de la barrire1 that is1 outside ,paris1 outside the barrier where the octroi has to be paid on meat1 wine1 c4 ,here the food was certainly better for the price ,i could afford to pay1 but the society was sometimes peculiar4 ,i remember once seeing a strange lady sitting not very far from me1 who was the well-known ,louve of ,eugne ,sue's ,mystres de ,paris4 ,one of my companions on these expeditions was ,karl de ,schloezer1 who was then studying ,arabic in ,paris4 ,he was always cheerful and amusing1 and a delightful companion4 ,he knew much more of the world than ,i did1 and often surprised me by his diplomatic wisdom4 8,let us stand up for each other10 he said one day2 8you say all the good you can of me1 ,i saying all the good ,i can of you40 ,i became very fierce at the time1 charging him with hypocrisy and ,i do not know what4 ,he1 however1 took it all in good part1 and we remained friends all the time he was at ,paris1 and indeed to the day of his death4 ,he was very fond of music1 but ,i was1 perhaps1 the better performer on the pianoforte4 ,he had invited me1 a violin1 and violoncello1 to play some of ,mozart's and ,beethoven's ,sonatas4 ,alas6 when we found that he murdered his part1 ,i sat down and played the whole evening1 leaving him to listen1 not1 ,i fear1 in the best of moods4 ,he took his revenge1 however2 and the next time he asked me and the two other musicians to his room1 we found indeed everything ready for us to play1 but our host was nowhere to be found4 ,he maintained that he had been called away2 ,i am certain1 however1 that the little trick was played on purpose4 ,he afterwards entered the ,prussian diplomatic service and was the protg of the ,princess of ,prussia1 afterwards the ,empress of ,germany4 ,that was enough to make ,bismarck dislike him1 and when ,schloezer served as ,secretary of ,legation under ,bismarck as ,ambassador at ,st4 ,petersburg1 he committed the outrage of challenging his chief to a duel4 ,bismarck declined1 nor would it1 according to diplomatic etiquette1 have been possible for him not to decline4 ,later on1 however1 ,schloezer was placed en disponibilit1 that is to say1 he was politely dismissed4 ,he had to pay a kind of farewell visit to ,bismarck1 who was then omnipotent4 ,being asked by ,bismarck what he intended to do1 and whether he could be of any service to him1 ,schloezer said very quietly1 8,yes1 your ,excellency1 ,i shall take to writing my ,memoirs1 and you know that ,i have seen much in my time which many people will be interested to learn40 ,bismarck was quiet for a time1 looking at some papers1 and then remarked quite unconcernedly1 8,you would not care to go to the ,united ,states as ,minister80 8,i am ready to go to-morrow10 replied ,schloezer1 and having carried his point1 having in fact outwitted ,bismarck1 he started at once for ,washington4 ,bismarck knew that ,schloezer could wield a sharp pen1 and there was a time when he was sensitive to such pen-pricks4 ,they did not see much of each other afterwards1 but1 owing to the protection of the ,empress1 ,schloezer was later accredited as ,prussian envoy to the ,pope1 and died too soon for his friends in beautiful ,italy4 ,one of my oldest friends at ,paris was a ,baron d',eckstein1 a kind of diplomatic agent who knew everybody in ,paris1 and wrote for the newspapers1 ,french and ,german4 ,he had1 ,i believe1 a pension from the ,french ,government1 and was1 as a ,roman ,catholic1 strongly allied with the ,clerical ,party4 ,this did not concern me4 ,what concerned me was his love of ,sanskrit and the ancient religion of ,india4 ,he would sit with me for hours1 or take me to dine with him at a restaurant1 discussing all the time the ,vedas and the ,upanishad and the ,vedanta philosophy4 ,there are several articles of his written at this time in the ,journal ,asiatique1 and ,i was especially grateful to him1 for he gave me plenty of work to do1 particularly in the way of copying ,sanskrit ,,mss4 for him1 and he paid me well and so helped me to keep afloat in ,paris4 ,knowing as he did everybody1 he was very anxious to introduce me to his friends1 such as ,george ,sand1 ,lamennais1 the ,comtesse d',agoult 7,daniel ,stern71 ,lamartine1 ,victor ,hugo1 and others2 but ,i much preferred half an hour with him or with ,burnouf to paying formal visits4 ,i heard afterwards many unkind things about ,baron d',eckstein's political and clerical opinions1 but though in becoming a convert to ,roman ,catholicism he may have shown weakness1 and as a political writer may have been influenced by his near friends and patrons1 ,i never found him otherwise than kind1 tolerant1 and trustworthy4 ,his life was to have been written by ,professor ,windischmann1 but he too died2 and who knows what may have become of the curious memoirs which he left8 ,at the time of the ,february revolution in #ahdh1 he was in the very midst of it4 ,he knew ,lamartine1 who was the hero of the day1 though of a few days only4 ,he attended meetings with ,lamartine1 ,odilon1 ,barrot1 and others1 and he assured me that there would be no revolution1 because nobody was prepared for it4 ,lamartine who had been asked by his friends1 all of them royalists and friends of order1 whether he would1 in case of necessity1 undertake to form a ministry under the ,duchesse d',orlans as regent1 scouted such an idea at first1 but at last promised to be ready if he were wanted4 ,the time came sooner than he expected1 and the ,duchesse d',orlans counted on him when she went to the ,chamber and her ,regency was proclaimed4 ,lamartine was then so popular that he might have saved the situation4 ,but the mob broke into the ,chamber1 shots were fired1 and there was no ,lamartine4 ,the ,duchesse d',orlans had to fly1 and fortunately escaped under the protection of the ,duc de ,nemours1 the only son of ,louis ,philippe then in ,paris1 and the dynasty of the ,orlans was lost--never to return4 ,baron d',eckstein lost many of his influential friends at that time1 possibly his pension also1 but he had enough to live upon1 and he died at last as a very old man in a ,roman ,catholic monastery1 a most interesting and charming man1 whose memoirs would certainly have been very valuable4 ,but to return to ,burnouf1 ,i never can adequately express my debt of gratitude to him4 ,he was of the greatest assistance to me in clearing my thoughts and directing them into one channel4 8,either one thing or the other10 he said4 8,either study ,indian philosophy and begin with the ,upanishads and ,sankara's commentary1 or study ,indian religion and keep to the ,rig-veda1 and copy the hymns and ,syana's commentary1 and then you will be our great benefactor40 ,a great benefactor6 that was too much for me1 a mere dwarf in the presence of giants4 ,but ,burnouf's words confirmed me more and more in my desire to give myself up to the ,veda4 ,burnouf told me not only what ,vedic ,,mss4 there were at the ,bibliothque ,royale1 he also brought me his own ,,mss4 and lent them to me to copy1 with the condition1 however1 that ,i should not smoke while working at them4 ,he himself did not smoke1 and could not bear the smell of smoke1 and he showed me several of his ,,mss4 which had become quite useless to him1 because they smelt of stale tobacco smoke4 ,i did all ,i could to guard these sacred treasures against such profanation4 ,another and even more useful warning came to me from ,burnouf4 8,don't publish extracts from the commentary only10 he said2 8if you do1 you will publish what is easy to read1 and leave out what is difficult40 ,i certainly thought that extracts would be sufficient1 but ,i soon found out that here also ,burnouf was right1 though there was always the fear that ,i should never find a publisher for so immense a work4 ,this fear ,i confided to ,burnouf1 but he always maintained his hopeful view4 8,the commentary must be published1 depend upon it1 and it will be10 he said4 ,so ,i stuck to it and went on copying and collating my ,sanskrit ,,mss41 always trusting that a publisher would turn up at the proper time4 ,i had1 of course1 to do all the drudgery for myself1 and ,i soon found out that it was not in human nature1 at least not in my nature1 to copy ,sanskrit from a ,,ms4 even for three or four hours without mistakes4 ,to my great disappointment ,i found mistakes whenever ,i collated my copy with the original4 ,i found that like the copyists of classical ,,mss4 my eye had wandered from one line to another where the same word occurred1 that ,i had left out a word when the next word ended with the same termination1 nay that ,i had even left out whole lines4 ,hence ,i had either to collate my own copy1 which was very tedious1 or invent some new process4 ,this new process ,i discovered by using transparent paper1 and thus tracing every letter4 ,i had some excellent papier vgtal made for me1 and1 instead of copying1 traced the whole ,sanskrit ,,ms4 ,this had the great advantage that nothing could be left out1 and that when the original was smudged and doubtful ,i could carefully trace whatever was clear and visible through the transparent paper4 ,at first ,i confess my work was slow1 but soon it went as rapidly as copying1 and it was even less fatiguing to the eyes than the constant looking from the ,,ms4 to the copy1 and from the copy to the ,,ms4 ,but the most important advantage was1 that ,i could thus feel quite certain that nothing was left out1 so that even now1 after more than fifty years1 these tracings are as useful to me as the ,,ms4 itself4 ,there was room left between the lines or on the margin to note the various readings of other ,,mss42 in fact1 my materials grew both in extent and in value4 ,still there remained the question of a publisher4 ,to print the ,rig-veda in six volumes quarto of about a thousand pages each1 and to provide the editor with a living wage during the many years he would have to devote to his task1 required a large capital4 ,i do not know exactly how much1 but what ,i do know is that1 when a second edition of the text of the ,veda in four volumes was printed at the expense of the ,maharajah of ,vizianagram1 it cost that generous and patriotic prince four thousand pounds1 though ,i then gave my work gratuitously4 ,while ,i was working at the ,bibliothque ,royale1 ,humboldt had used his powerful influence with the king of ,prussia1 ,frederick ,william ,,iv1 to help me in publishing my edition of the ,rig-veda in ,germany4 ,nothing1 however1 came of that plan2 it proved too costly for any private publisher1 even with royal assistance4 ,then came a vague offer from ,st4 ,petersburg4 ,boehtlingk1 the great ,sanskrit scholar1 as a member of the ,imperial ,russian ,academy1 invited me to come to ,st4 ,petersburg and print the ,veda there1 in collaboration with himself1 and at the expense of the ,academy4 ,burnouf and ,goldstcker both warned me against accepting this offer1 but1 hopeless as ,i was of getting my ,veda published elsewhere1 ,i expressed my willingness to go on condition that some provision should be made for me before ,i decided to migrate to ,russia1 as ,i possessed absolutely nothing but what ,i was able to earn myself4 ,boehtlingk1 ,i believe1 suggested to the ,academy that ,i should be appointed ,assistant ,keeper of the ,oriental ,museum at ,st4 ,petersburg1 but his colleagues did not apparently consider so young a man1 and a mere ,german scholar1 a fit candidate for so responsible a post4 ,boehtlingk wished me to send him all my materials1 and he would get the ,,mss4 of the ,rig-veda and of ,syana's commentary from the ,library of the ,east ,india ,company1 and ,paris4 ,no definite proposition1 however1 came from the ,imperial ,academy1 but an announcement of ,boehtlingk's appeared in the papers in ,january1 #ahdf1 to the effect that he was preparing1 in collaboration with ,monsieur ,max ,mller of ,paris1 a complete edition of the ,rig-veda4 ,all this1 ,i confess1 began to frighten me4 ,for me1 a poor scholar1 to go to ,st4 ,petersburg without any official invitation1 without any appointment1 seemed reckless1 and though ,i have no doubt that ,boehtlingk would have done his best for me1 yet even he could only suggest private lessons1 and that was no cheerful outlook4 ,the ,academy would do nothing for me unless ,i joined ,boehtlingk1 but at last offered to buy my materials1 on which ,i had spent so much labour and the small fund at my disposal4 ,if the ,academy could have got the necessary ,,mss4 from ,paris and ,london1 ,i should have been perfectly helpless4 ,boehtlingk could have done the whole work himself1 in some respects better than ,i1 because he was my senior1 and besides1 he knew ,pnini1 the old ,indian grammarian who is constantly referred to in ,syana's ,commentary1 better than ,i did4 ,with all these threatening clouds around me1 my decision was by no means easy4 ,it was ,burnouf's advice that determined me to remain quietly in ,paris4 ,he warned me repeatedly against trusting to ,boehtlingk1 and promised1 if ,i would only stay in ,paris1 to give me his support with ,guizot1 who was then ,minister for ,foreign ,affairs1 and very much interested in ,oriental studies4 ,boehtlingk seems never to have forgiven me1 and he and several of his friends were highly displeased at my ultimate success in securing a publisher for the ,rig-veda in ,england4 ,their language was most unbecoming1 and they tried1 and actually urged other ,sanskrit scholars1 to criticize my edition1 though ,i must say to their credit that they afterwards confessed that it was all that could be desired4 ,many years later1 ,boehtlingk published a violent attack on me1 entitled ,f4 ,max ,mller als ,mythendichter1 but ,i thought it unnecessary to take up the dispute1 and preferred to leave my friends to judge for themselves between me and this propounder of accusations1 the legitimacy of which he was utterly unable to establish4 ,however1 as ,i discovered later that he accused me of having acted discourteously towards the ,imperial ,academy of ,st4 ,petersburg1 with whom ,i had never had any direct dealings1 and stated that he had prevented that illustrious body from ever making me a corresponding member1 ,i thought it right to offer an explanation to the ,secretary1 and ,i have in my possession his reply1 in which he wrote that there was no foundation whatever for ,professor ,boehtlingk's statements4 ,however1 the outcome of it was that ,i did not go to ,st4 ,petersburg1 but went on with my work at the ,library in ,paris1 till one day ,i found it necessary to run over to ,london1 to copy and collate certain ,,mss41 and there ,i found the long-sought-for benefactors1 who were to enable me to carry out the work of my life4 ,of course1 during my stay in ,paris there was no idea of my going into society1 or of buying tickets for theatres or concerts4 ,i went out to dinner at some small restaurant1 but otherwise ,i remained at home1 and viewed ,paris life from my high windows1 looking out on the ,chambre des ,dputs on one side1 the ,madeleine close to me on the left1 and the ,porte ,st4 ,martin far away at the end of the ,boulevards4 ,baron d',eckstein1 as ,i have said1 was willing to introduce me into society1 but ,i refused his kind offers4 ,in fact1 ,i was more or less of a bear1 and ,i now regret having missed meeting many interesting characters1 and having kept aloof from others1 because my interests were absorbed elsewhere4 ,burnouf asked me sometimes to his house2 so did a ,monsieur ,troyer1 who had been in ,india and published some ,sanskrit texts1 and whose daughter1 the ,duchesse de ,wagram1 made much of me1 as she was very fond of music4 ,there were some ,german families also1 some rich1 some poor1 who showed me great kindness4 ,i was too much oppressed with cares and anxieties about my life and my literary plans to think much of society and enjoyment4 ,even of the students and student life ,i saw but little1 though ,i was actually attending lectures with them4 ,i must say1 however1 that the little ,i did see of student life in ,paris gave me a very different idea from what is generally thought of their vagaries and extravagances4 ,a ,frenchman1 if he once begins to work1 can work and does work very hard4 ,i remember seeing several instances of this1 but it is possible that ,i may have seen the pick of the ,quartier ,latin only4 ,one who was then a young man1 preparing for the ,church1 but already with an eye to higher flights1 was ,renan4 ,at first he still looked upon all young ,germans with suspicion1 but this feeling soon disappeared4 ,i remember him chiefly at the ,bibliothque ,royale1 where he had a very small place in the ,oriental ,department4 ,hase1 the ,greek scholar1 ,reinaud1 the ,arabist1 and ,stanislas ,julien1 the ,sinologue1 were librarians then4 ,hase1 a ,german by birth1 was most obliging1 but he was greatly afraid of speaking ,german1 and insisted on our always speaking ,french to him4 ,often did he call ,renan to fetch ,,mss4 for me3 8,renan10 he would call out very loudly1 8allez chercher1 pour ,monsieur ,max ,mller1 le manuscrit sanscrit1 numro 44410 and then followed a pause1 till he had translated 8#afcg0 into ,french4 ,in later years ,renan and ,i became great friends1 but we ,german scholars were often puzzled at his great popularity1 which certainly was owing to his style more even than to his scholarship4 ,some time later1 when ,i was already established in ,england1 we had a little controversy1 and ,i printed a rather fierce attack on his ,grammaire ,smitique4 ,but we were intimate enough for me to show him my pamphlet1 and when he wrote to me1 8,pardonnez-moi1 je n'ai pas compris ce que vous vouliez dire10 ,i suppressed the pamphlet1 though it was printed1 and we remained friends for life4 ,he translated my first article on ,comparative ,mythology1 and ,i had a number of most interesting letters from him4 ,it was his wife who did the translation1 while he revised it4 ,that ,french pamphlet is very scarce now2 my own pamphlet was entirely suppressed2 even ,i myself can find no copy of it among the rubbish of my early writings1 and what ,i regret most1 ,i threw away his letters1 not thinking how interesting they would become in time4 ,with all my work1 however1 ,i found time to attend some lectures at the ,collge de ,france1 and to make the acquaintance of some distinguished ,french savants of the ,institut4 ,i went there with ,burnouf1 or ,stanislas ,julien1 or ,reinaud1 little dreaming that ,i should some day belong to the same august body4 ,many of my young ,french friends1 who afterwards became ,membres de l',institut1 rose to that dignity much later4 ,i was made not only a corresponding1 but a real member of the ,acadmie des ,inscriptions et ,belles ,lettres in #ahfi1 before my friends1 such as ,g4 ,perrot #ahgd1 ,michel ,bral #ahge1 ,gaston ,paris #ahgf1 and ,jules ,oppert #ahha1 occupied their well-merited academical fauteuils4 ,the struggle when ,i was elected in #ahfi was a serious one2 it was between ,mommsen and myself1 between classical and ,oriental scholarship1 and for once ,oriental scholarship carried the day4 ,mommsen1 however1 was elected in #ahie1 and there can be little doubt that his strong and outspoken political antipathies had something to do with the late date of his election4 ,i am sorry to say that one result of my seeing so little of ,french life was that my ,french did not make such progress as ,i expected4 ,though ,i was able to express myself tant bien que mal1 ,i have always felt hampered in a long conversation4 ,of course1 the ,french themselves have always been polite enough to say that they could not have detected that ,i was a ,german1 but ,i knew better than that1 and never have ,i1 even in later years1 gained a perfect conversational command of that difficult language4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,arrival ,,in ,,england ,while working in ,paris ,i constantly felt the want of some essential ,,mss4 which were at the ,library of the ,east ,india ,company in ,london1 and my desire to visit ,england consequently grew stronger and stronger2 but ,i had not the wherewithal to pay for the journey1 much less for a stay of even a fortnight in ,london4 ,at last 7,june1 #ahdf7 ,i thought that ,i had scraped together enough to warrant my starting4 ,at that time ,i had never seen the sea1 and ,i was very desirous of doing so4 ,i well remember my unbounded rapture at my first sight of the silver stream1 and like ,xenophon's ,greeks ,i could have shouted1 1 4 ,once on board my rapture soon collapsed and was succeeded by that well-known feeling of misery which ,i have so frequently experienced since then1 and ,i huddled myself up in a corner of the deck4 ,there a young fellow-traveller saw the poor bundle of misery1 and tried to comfort me1 and brought me what he thought was good for me1 not1 however1 without a certain merry twinkle in his eye and a few kindly jokes at my expense4 ,we landed at the docks in ,london1 a real drizzly day1 rain and mist1 and such a crowd rushing on shore that ,i missed my cheerful friend and felt quite lost4 ,in addition to all this a porter had run away with my portmanteau1 which contained my books and ,,mss41 in fact all my worldly goods4 ,at that moment my young friend reappeared1 and seeing the plight ,i was in1 came to my assistance4 8,you stay here10 he said1 8and ,i will arrange everything for you20 and so he did4 ,he fetched a four-wheeler1 put my luggage on the top1 bundled me inside1 and drove with me through a maze of ,london streets to his rooms in the ,temple4 ,then1 still knowing nothing about me1 he asked me to spend the night in his rooms1 gave me a bed and everything else ,i wanted for the night4 ,the next morning he took me out to look for lodgings1 which we found in ,essex ,street1 a small street leading out of the ,strand4 ,the room which ,i took was almost entirely filled by an immense four-post bed4 ,i had never seen such a structure before1 and during the first night that ,i slept in it1 ,i was in constant fear that the top of the bed would fall and smother me as in the ,german ,mrchen4 ,when the landlady came in to see me in the morning1 after asking how ,i had slept1 the first thing she said was1 8,but1 sir1 don't you want another #8pillar'80 ,i looked bewildered1 and said3 8,why1 what shall ,i do with another pillar8 and where will you put it80 ,she then touched the pillows under my head and said1 8,well1 sir1 you shall have another #8pillar' to-morrow40 8,how shall ,i ever learn ,english10 ,i said to myself1 8if a #8pillar' means really a soft pillow80 ,but to return to my unknown friend1 he came every day to show me things which ,i ought to see in ,london1 and brought me tickets for theatres and concerts1 which he said were sent to him4 ,his name was ,william ,howard ,russell1 endeared to so many1 high and low1 under the name of 8,billy0 ,russell1 the first and most brilliant war-correspondent of ,the ,times during the ,crimean ,war4 ,he remained my warm and true friend through life1 and even now when we are both cripples1 we delight in meeting and talking over very distant days4 ,i had come over to ,london expecting to stay about a fortnight1 but ,i had been there working at the ,library in ,leadenhall ,street for nearly a month1 and my work was far from done1 when ,i thought that ,i ought to call and pay my respects to the ,prussian ,minister1 ,baron ,bunsen4 ,i little thought at the time when ,i was ushered into his presence that this acquaintance was to become the turning-point of my life4 ,if ,i owed much to ,burnouf1 how can ,i tell what ,i owed to ,bunsen8 ,i was amazed at the kindness with which from the very first he received me4 ,i had no claim whatever on him1 and ,i had as yet done very little as a scholar4 ,it is true that he had known my father in ,italy1 and that ,humboldt1 with his usual kindness1 had written him a strong letter of recommendation on my behalf1 but that was hardly sufficient reason to account for the real friendship with which he at once honoured me4 ,baroness ,bunsen1 in the life of her husband1 writes3 8,the kindred mind1 their sympathy of heart1 the unity in highest aspirations1 a congeniality in principles1 a fellowship in the pursuit of favourite objects1 which attracted and bound ,bunsen to his young friend 7i4 e4 myself71 rendered this connexion one of the happiest of his life40 ,i am proud to think it was so4 ,at first the chief bond between us was that ,i was engaged on a work which as a young man he had proposed to himself as the work of his life1 namely1 the editio princeps of the ,rig-veda4 ,often has he told me how1 at the time when he was prosecuting his studies at ,gttingen1 the very existence of such a book was unknown as yet in ,germany4 ,the name of ,veda had no doubt been known1 and there was a halo of mystery about it1 as the oldest book of the world4 ,but what it was and where it was to be found no one could tell4 ,mr4 ,astor1 a pupil of ,bunsen's at ,gttingen1 had arranged to take ,bunsen to ,india to carry on his researches there4 ,but ,bunsen waited and waited in ,italy1 till at last1 after maintaining himself by giving private lessons1 he went to ,rome1 was taken up by ,brandes and ,niebuhr1 the ,prussian ,ambassador there1 became the friend of the future ,frederick ,william ,,iv1 and thus gradually drifted into diplomacy1 giving up all hopes of discovering or rescuing the ,rig-veda4 ,people have hardly any idea now1 how1 in spite of the ,east ,india ,company conquering and governing ,india1 ,india itself remained a terra incognita1 unapproachable by the students of ,england and of ,europe4 ,that there were literary treasures to be discovered in ,india1 that the ,brahmans were the depositaries of ancient wisdom1 was known through the labours of some of the most eminent servants of the ,east ,india ,company4 ,it had been known even before1 through the interesting communications of ,roman ,catholic missionaries in ,india1 that the manuscripts themselves1 at least those of the ,veda1 were not forthcoming4 ,even as late as the times of ,sir ,w4 ,jones1 ,colebrooke1 and ,professor ,wilson1 the ,brahmans were most unwilling to part with ,,mss4 of the ,veda1 except the ,upanishads4 ,professor ,wilson told me that once1 when examining the library of a native ,rjah1 he came across some ,,mss4 of the ,rig-veda1 and began turning them over2 but 8,i observed10 he said1 8the ominous and threatening looks of some of the ,brahmans present1 and thought it wiser to beat a retreat40 ,dr4 ,mill had known of a gentleman who had a very sacred hymn of the ,veda1 the ,gayatri1 printed at ,calcutta4 ,the ,brahmans were furious at this profanation1 and when the gentleman died soon after1 they looked upon his premature death as the vengeance of the offended gods4 ,colebrooke1 however1 was allowed to possess himself of several most valuable ,vedic ,,mss41 and he found ,brahmans quite ready to read with him1 not only the classical texts1 but also portions of the ,veda4 8,they do not even10 he writes1 8conceal from us the most sacred texts of the ,veda40 ,his own essays on the ,veda appeared in the ,asiatic ,researches as early as #ahja4 ,but people went on dreaming about the ,veda1 instead of reading ,colebrooke's essays4 ,it was curious1 however1 that at the time when ,i prepared my edition of the ,rig-veda1 ,vedic scholarship was at a very low ebb in ,bengal itself1 and there were few ,brahmans there who knew the whole of the ,rig-veda by heart1 as they still did in the ,south of ,india4 ,manuscripts were never considered in ,india as of very high authority2 they were always over-ruled by the oral traditions of certain schools4 ,however1 such manuscripts1 good and bad1 but mostly bad1 existed1 and after a time some of them reached ,england1 ,france1 and even ,germany4 ,portions of those in ,berlin and ,paris ,i had copied and collated1 so that ,i could show ,bunsen the very book which he had been in search of in his youth4 ,this opened his heart to me as well as the doors of his house4 8,i am glad10 he said1 8to have lived to see the ,veda4 ,whatever you want1 let me know2 ,i look upon you as myself grown young again40 ,and he did help me1 as only a father can help his son4 ,perhaps he expected too much from the ,veda1 as many other people did at that time1 and before the verba ipsissima were printed4 ,as the oldest book that ever was composed1 the ,veda was supposed to give us a picture of what man was in his most primitive state1 with his most primitive ideas1 and his most primitive language4 ,everybody interested in the origin and the first development of language1 thought1 religion1 and social institutions1 looked forward to the ,veda as a new revelation4 ,all such dreams1 natural enough before the ,veda was known1 were dispersed by my laying sacrilegious hands on the ,veda itself1 and actually publishing it1 making it public property1 to the dismay of the ,brahmans in ,india1 and to the delight of all ,sanskrit scholars in ,europe4 ,the learned essays of ,colebrooke in ,india1 and the extracts published by ,rosen1 the ,oriental librarian of the ,british ,museum1 might indeed have taught people that the ,veda was not a book without any antecedents1 that it would not tell us the secrets of ,adam and ,eve1 or of ,deukalion and ,pyrrha4 ,i myself had both said and written that the ,veda1 like an old oak tree1 shows hundreds and thousands of circles within circles2 and yet ,i was afterwards held responsible for having excited the wildest hopes among archaeologists1 when ,i had done my best1 if not to destroy them1 at all events to reduce them to their proper level4 ,schelling seemed quite disappointed when ,i showed him some of the translations of the hymns of the ,rig-veda2 and ,bunsen1 who was still under ,schelling's influence1 had evidently expected a great many more of such philosophical hymns as the famous one beginning3 8,there was not nought nor was there aught at that time40 ,to the scholar1 no doubt1 the ,veda remained and always will remain the oldest of real books1 that has been preserved to us in an almost miraculous way4 ,by book1 however1 as ,i often explained1 ,i mean a book divided into chapters and verses1 having a beginning and an end1 and handed down to us in an alphabetic form of writing4 ,china may have possessed older books in a half phonetic1 half symbolic writing2 ,egypt certainly possessed older hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri2 ,babylon had its cuneiform monuments2 and certain portions of the ,old ,testament may have existed in a written form at the time of ,josiah1 when ,hilkiah1 the high priest1 found the law book in the sanctuary 7#b ,kings xxii4 #h74 ,but the ,veda1 with its ten books or ,mandalas1 its #ajag hymns or ,suktas1 with every consonant and vowel and accent plainly written1 was a different thing4 ,it may safely be called a book4 ,no doubt it existed for a long time1 as it does even at present1 in oral tradition1 but as it was in tradition1 so it was when reduced to writing1 and in either form ,i doubt whether any other real book can rival it in antiquity4 ,more important1 however1 than the purely chronological antiquity of the book1 is the antiquity or primitiveness of the thoughts which it contains4 ,if the people of the ,veda did not turn out to be quite such savages as was hoped and expected1 they nevertheless disclosed to us a layer of thought which can be explored nowhere else4 ,the ,vedic poets were not ashamed of exposing their fear that the sun might tumble down from the sky1 and there are no other poets1 as far as ,i know1 who still trembled at the same not quite unnatural thought4 ,nor do ,i find even savages who still wonder and express their surprise that black cows should produce white milk4 ,is not that childish enough for any ancient or modern savage8 ,mere chronology is here of as little avail as with modern savages1 whose customs and beliefs1 though known as but of yesterday1 are represented to us as older than the ,veda1 older than ,babylonian cylinders1 older than anything written4 ,when certain modern savages recognize the relationship of paternity1 maternity1 and consanguinity1 this is called very ancient4 ,if they admit traditional restrictions as to marriage1 food1 the treatment of the dead1 nay1 even a life to come1 this too1 no doubt1 may be very old2 but it may be of yesterday also4 ,there are even quite new gods1 whose genesis has been watched by living missionaries4 ,the great difficulty in all such researches is to distinguish between what is common to human nature1 and what is really inherited or traditional4 ,all such questions have only as yet been touched upon1 and they must wait for their answer till real scholars will take up the study of the language of living savages1 in the same scholarlike spirit in which they have taken up the study of ,vedic and ,babylonian savages4 ,but we must have patience and learn to wait4 ,it has been a favourite idea among anthropologists that the savage races inhabiting parts of ,india give us a correct idea of what the ,aryans of ,india were before they were civilized4 ,it may safely be said of this as of other mere ideas1 that it may be true1 but that there is no evidence to show that it is true4 ,at all events it takes much for granted1 and neglects1 as it would seem1 the very lessons which the theory of evolution has taught us4 ,it is the nature of evolution to be continuous1 and not to proceed per saltum4 ,therein lies the beauty of genealogical evolution that we can recognize the fibres which connect the upper strata with the lower1 till we strike the lowest1 or at least that which contains what seem to be the seeds and germs of early thoughts1 words1 and acts4 ,we can trace the most modern forms of language back to ,sanskrit1 or rather to that postulated linguistic stratum of which ,sanskrit formed the most prominent representative1 just as we can trace the ,french ,dieu back to ,latin ,deus and ,sanskrit ,devas1 the brilliant beings behind the phenomena of nature2 and again behind them1 ,dyaus1 the brilliant sky1 the ,greek ,zeus1 the ,roman ,iovis and ,iuppiter1 the most natural of all the ,aryan gods of nature4 ,this is real evolution1 a real causal nexus between the present and the past4 ,it used to be called history or pragmatic history1 whether we take history in the sense of the description of evolution1 or in that of evolution itself4 ,history has generally to begin with the present1 to go back to the past1 and to point out the palpable steps by which the past became again and again the present4 ,evolution1 on the contrary1 prefers to begin with the distant past1 to postulate formations1 even if they have left no traces1 and to speak of those almost imperceptible changes by which the postulated past became the perceptible present1 as not only necessary1 but as real4 ,perhaps the difference is of no importance1 but the historical method seems certainly the more accurate1 and the more satisfactory from a purely scientific point of view4 ,in all such evolutionary researches language has always been the most useful instrument1 and the study of the science of language may truly be said to have been the first science which was treated according to evolutionary or historical principles4 ,here1 too1 no doubt1 intermediate links which must have existed1 are sometimes lost beyond recovery1 and when we arrive at the very roots of language1 we feel that there may have been whole aeons before that radical period4 ,here science must recognize her inevitable horizons1 but here again no surviving literary monument could carry us so far as the ,veda4 ,hence its supreme importance for ,aryan philology--for the philology of the most important languages of historical mankind4 ,other languages1 whether ,babylonian or ,accadian1 whether ,hottentot or ,maori1 may be1 for all we know1 much more ancient or much more primitive2 but1 as scientific explorers1 we can only speak of what we know1 and we must renounce all conjectures that go beyond facts4 ,in all these researches no one took a livelier interest and encouraged me more than ,bunsen4 ,when some of my translations of the ,vedic hymns seemed fairly satisfactory1 ,i used to take them to him1 and he was always delighted at seeing a little more of that ancient ,aryan torso1 though at the time he was more specially interested in ,egyptian chronology and archaeology4 ,often when ,i was alone with him did we discuss the chronological and psychological dates of ,egyptian and ,aryan antiquity4 ,kind-hearted as he was1 ,bunsen could get very excited1 nay1 quite violent in arguing1 and though these fits soon passed off1 yet it made discussions between ,his ,excellency the ,prussian ,minister and a young ,german scholar somewhat difficult4 ,at that time much less was known of the earliest ,egyptian chronology than is now4 ,but ,i was never much impressed by mere dates4 ,if a king was supposed to have lived #e1jjj years before our era1 8,what is that to us80 ,i used to say1 8,he sits on his throne in vacuo1 and there is nothing to fix him by1 nothing contemporary which alone gives interest to history4 ,in ,india we have no dates2 but whatever dates and names of kings and accounts of battles the ,egyptian inscriptions may give us1 as a book there is nothing so old in ,egypt as the ,veda in ,india4 ,besides1 we have in the ,veda thoughts2 and in the chronology of thought the ,veda seems to me older than even the ,book of the ,dead40 ,as to the actual date of the ,veda1 ,i readily granted that chronologically it was not so old as the pyramids1 but supposing it had been1 would that in any way have increased its value for our studies8 ,if we were to place it at #ejjj ,b4 ,c41 ,i doubt whether anybody could refute such a date1 while if we go back beyond the ,veda1 and come to measure the time required for the formation of ,sanskrit and of the ,proto-,aryan language ,i doubt very much whether even #e1jjj years would suffice for that4 ,there is an unfathomable depth in language1 layer following after layer1 long before we arrive at roots1 and what a time and what an effort must have been required for their elaboration1 and for the elaboration of the ideas expressed in them4 ,our battles waxed sometimes very fierce1 but we generally ended by arriving at an understanding4 ,as a young man1 ,bunsen had clearly perceived the importance of the ,veda for an historical study of mankind and the growth of the human mind1 but he was not discouraged when he saw that it gave us less than had been expected4 8,it is a fortress10 he used to say1 8that must be besieged and taken1 it cannot be left in our rear40 ,but he little knew how much time it would take to approach it1 to surround it1 and at last to take it4 ,it has not been surrendered even now1 and will not be in my time4 ,it is true there are several translations of the whole of the ,rig-veda1 and their authors deserve the highest credit for what they have done4 ,people have wondered why ,i have not given one of them in my ,sacred ,books of the ,east4 ,i thought it was more honest to give1 in co-operation with ,oldenburg1 specimens only in vols4 xxxii and xlvi of that series1 and let it be seen in the notes how much uncertainty there still is1 and how much more of hard work is required1 before we can call ourselves masters of the old ,vedic fortress4 ,bunsen's interest in my work1 however1 took a more practical turn than mere encouragement4 ,it was no good encouraging me to copy and collate ,sanskrit ,,mss4 if they were not to be published4 ,he saw that the ,east ,india ,company were the proper body to undertake that work4 ,bunsen's name was a power in ,england1 and his patronage was the very best introduction that ,i could have had4 ,it was no easy task to persuade the ,board of ,directors--all strictly practical and commercial men--to authorize so considerable an expenditure1 merely to edit and print an old book that none of them could understand1 and many of them had perhaps never even heard of4 ,bunsen pointed out what a disgrace it would be to them1 if some other country than ,england published this edition of the ,sacred ,books of the ,brahmans4 ,professor ,wilson1 ,librarian of the ,company1 also gave my project his support1 and at last1 not quite a year after my arrival in ,england1 after a long struggle and many fears of failure1 it was settled that the ,east ,india ,company were to bear the cost of printing the ,veda1 and were meanwhile to enable me to stay in ,london1 and prepare my work for press4 ,i had already been working five years copying and collating1 and my first volume of the ,rig-veda was progressing1 but it was only when all was settled that ,i realized how much there was still to do1 and that ,i should have very hard work indeed before the printing could begin4 ,i must enter into some details to show the real difficulties ,i had to face4 ,i felt convinced that the first thing to do was to publish a correct text of the ,rig-veda4 ,that was not so difficult1 though it brought me the greatest kudos4 ,the ,,mss4 were very correct1 and the text could easily be restored by comparing the ,pada and ,sanhit texts1 i4 e4 the text in which every word was separated1 and the text in which the words were united according to the rules of ,sandhi4 ,anybody might have done that1 yet this1 as ,i said1 was the part of my work for which ,i have received the greatest praise4 ,when my edition of the ,rig-veda containing text and commentary was nearly finished1 another scholar1 who had assisted me in my work1 and who had always had the use of my ,,mss41 my ,indices1 in fact of the whole of my apparatus criticus1 published a transcript of the text in ,latin letters1 and thus anticipated part of the last volume of my edition4 ,his friends1 who were perhaps not mine1 seemed delighted to call him the first editor of the ,rig-veda1 though they ceased to do so when they discovered misprints or mistakes of my own edition repeated in his4 ,he himself was far above such tactics4 ,he knew1 and they knew perfectly well that1 whatever the vulgus profanum may think1 my real work was the critical edition of ,syana's commentary on the ,rig-veda4 ,i had determined that this also should be edited according to the strictest rules of criticism4 ,i knew what an amount of labour that would involve1 but ,i refused to yield to the pressure of my colleagues to proceed more quickly but less critically4 ,syana quotes a number of ,sanskrit works which1 at the time when ,i began my edition1 had not yet been edited4 ,such were the ,nirukta1 the glossary of the ,rig-veda2 the ,aitareya-brhmana1 a very old explanation of the ,vedic sacrifice2 the svalyana ,stras1 on the ceremonial2 and sundry works of the same character4 ,syana generally alludes very briefly only to these works and presupposes that they are known to us1 so that a short reference would suffice for his purposes4 ,to find such references and to understand them required1 however1 not only that ,i should copy these works1 which ,i did1 but that ,i should make indices and thus be able to find the place of the passages to which he alluded4 ,this ,i did also1 but over and over again was ,i stopped by some short enigmatical reference to ,pnini's grammar or ,yaska's glossary1 which ,i could not identify4 ,all these references are now added to my edition1 and those who will look them up in the originals1 will see what kind of work it was which ,i had to do before a single line of my edition could be printed4 ,how often was ,i in perfect despair1 because there was some allusion in ,syana which ,i could not make out1 and which no other ,sanskrit scholar1 not even ,burnouf or ,wilson1 could help me to clear up4 ,it often took me whole days1 nay1 weeks1 before ,i saw light4 ,a good deal of the commentary was easy enough4 ,it was like marching on the high road1 when suddenly there rises a fortress that has to be taken before any further advance is to be thought of4 ,in the purely mechanical part other men could and did help me4 ,but whenever any real difficulty arose1 ,i had to face it by myself1 though after a time ,i gladly acknowledged that here1 too1 their advice was often valuable to me4 ,in fact ,i found1 and all my assistants seemed to have found out the same1 that if they were useful to me1 the work they did for me was useful to them1 and ,i am proud to say that nearly all of them have afterwards risen to great prominence in ,sanskrit scholarship4 ,from time to time ,i also worked at interpreting and translating some of the ,vedic hymns1 though ,i had always hoped that this part of the work would be taken up by other scholars4 ,bunsen was also my social sponsor in ,london1 and my first peeps into ,english society were at the ,prussian ,legation4 ,he often invited me to his breakfast and dinner parties1 and when ,i saw for the first time the magnificent rooms crowded with ministers1 and dukes1 and bishops1 and with ladies in their grandest dresses1 ,i was as in a dream1 and felt as if ,i had been lifted into another world4 ,men were pointed out to me such as ,sir ,robert ,peel1 the ,duke of ,wellington1 ,van der ,weyer1 the ,belgian ,minister1 ,thirlwall1 ,bishop of ,st4 ,david's and author of the ,history of ,greece1 ,archdeacon ,hare1 ,frederick ,maurice1 and many more whom ,i did not know then1 though ,i came to know several of them afterwards4 ,anybody who had anything of his own to produce was welcome in ,bunsen's house1 and among the men whom ,i remember meeting at his breakfast parties1 were ,rawlinson1 ,layard1 ,hodgson1 ,birch1 and many more4 ,those breakfast parties were then quite a new institution to me1 and it is curious how entirely they have gone out of fashion1 though ,sir ,harry ,inglis1 ,member for ,oxford1 ,gladstone1 ,member for ,oxford1 ,monckton ,milnes 7afterwards ,lord ,houghton71 kept them up to the last1 while in ,oxford they survived perhaps longer than anywhere else4 ,they had one great advantage1 people came to them quite fresh in the morning2 but they broke too much into the day1 particularly when1 as at ,oxford1 they ended with beer1 champagne1 and cigars1 as was sometimes the case in undergraduates' rooms4 ,how ,i was able to swim in that new stream1 ,i can hardly understand even now4 ,i had been quite unaccustomed to this kind of society1 and was ignorant of its simplest rules4 ,bunsen1 however1 was never put out by my gaucheries1 but gave me friendly hints in feeling my way through what seemed to me a perfect labyrinth4 ,he told me that ,i had offended people by not returning their calls1 or not leaving a card after having dined with them1 paying the so-called digestion-visit to them4 ,how should ,i know8 ,nobody had ever told me1 and ,i thought it obtrusive to call4 ,nor did ,i know that in ,england to touch fish with a knife1 or to help yourself to potatoes with a fork1 was as fatal as to drop or put in an h4 ,nor did ,i ever understand why to cut crisp pastry on your plate with a knife was worse manners than to divide it with a fork1 often scattering it over your plate and possibly over the table-cloth4 ,i must confess also that fish-knives always seemed to me more civilized than forks in dividing fish1 but fish-knives did not exist when ,i first came to ,england4 ,the really interesting side of all this is to watch how customs change--come in and go out--and by what a slow and imperceptible process they are discarded4 ,let us hope it is by the survival of the fittest4 ,when ,i first went to ,oxford everybody took wine with his neighbours1 now it is only at such conservative colleges as my own--,all ,souls--that the old custom still survives4 ,but then we have not even given up wax candles yet1 and we look upon gas as a most objectionable innovation4 ,another great difficulty ,i had was in writing letters and addressing my friends properly as ,sir1 or ,mr4 ,smith1 or ,smith4 ,i was told that the rule was very simple and that you addressed everybody exactly as they addressed you4 ,what was the consequence8 ,when ,i received an invitation to dine with the ,bishop of ,oxford who addressed me as 8,my dear ,sir10 ,i wrote back 8,my dear ,sir10 and said that ,i should be very happy4 ,how ,samuel ,wilberforce must have chuckled when he read my epistle4 ,but how is any stranger to know all the intricacies of social literature1 particularly if he is wrongly informed by the highest authorities4 ,i must confess that even later in life ,i have often been puzzled as to the right way of addressing my friends4 ,there is no difficulty about intimate friends1 but as one grows older one knows so many people more or less intimately1 and according to their different characters and stations in life1 one often does not know whether one offends by too great or too little familiarity4 ,i was once writing to a very eminent man in ,london who had been exceedingly friendly to me at ,oxford1 and ,i addressed him as 8,my dear ,professor ,h40 ,at the end of his answer he wrote1 8,don't call me ,professor40 ,all depends on the tone in which such words are said4 ,i imagined that living in fashionable society in ,london1 he did not like the somewhat scholastic title of ,professor which1 in ,london particularly1 has always a by-taste of diluted omniscience and conceit4 ,i accordingly addressed him in my next letter as 8,my dear ,sir10 and this1 ,i am sorry to say1 produced quite a coldness and stiffness1 as my friend evidently imagined that ,i declined to be on more intimate terms with him1 the fact being that through life ,i have always been one of his most devoted admirers4 ,i did my best to conform to all the ,british institutions1 as well as ,i could1 though in the beginning ,i must no doubt have made fearful blunders1 and possibly given offence to the truly insular ,briton4 ,bunsen seemed to delight in asking me whenever he had ,princes or other grandees to lunch or dine with him4 ,one day he took me with him to stay at ,hurstmonceux with ,archdeacon ,hare1 and a delightful time it was4 ,there were books in every room1 on the staircase1 and in every corner of the house1 and the ,archdeacon knew every one of them1 and as soon as a book was mentioned1 he went and fetched it4 ,he generally knew the very place at which the passage that was being discussed1 occurred1 and excelled even the famous dog1 which at one of these literary breakfast parties--,i believe in ,hallam's house--was ordered on the spur of the moment to fetch the fifth volume of ,gibbon's ,history1 and at once climbed up the ladder and brought down from the shelf the very volume in which the disputed passage occurred4 ,he had been taught this one trick of fetching a certain volume from the shelves of the library1 and the conversation was turned and turned till it was brought round to a passage in that very volume4 ,the guests were1 no doubt1 amazed1 but as it was before the days of ,darwin and ,lubbock1 it led to no more than a good laugh4 ,i was surprised and delighted at the honesty with which the ,archdeacon admitted the weak points of the ,anglican system1 and the dangers which threatened not only the ,church1 but the religion of ,england4 ,the real danger1 he evidently thought1 came from the clergy1 and their hankering after ,rome4 8,they have forgotten their history10 he said1 8and the sufferings which the sway of a ,roman priesthood has inflicted for centuries on their country40 ,i think it was he who told me the story of a young ,romanizing curate1 who declared that he could never see what was the use of the laity4 ,one day when ,i called on ,bunsen with my books1 and ,i frequently called when ,i had something new to show him1 he said3 8,you must come with me to ,oxford to the meeting of the ,british ,association40 ,this was in #ahdg4 ,of course ,i did not know what sort of thing this ,british ,association was1 but ,bunsen said he would explain it all to me1 only ,i must at once sit down and write a paper4 ,he1 ,bunsen1 was to read a paper on the 8,results of the recent ,egyptian ,researches in reference to ,asiatic and ,african ,ethnology and the ,classification of ,languages10 and he wanted ,dr4 ,karl ,meyer and myself to support him1 the former with a paper on ,celtic ,philology1 and myself with a paper on the ,aryan and ,aboriginal ,languages of ,india4 ,i assured him that this was quite beyond me4 ,i had hardly been a year in ,england1 and even if ,i could write1 ,i knew but too well that ,i could not read a paper before a large audience4 ,however1 ,bunsen would take no refusal4 8,we must show them what we have done in ,germany for the history and philosophy of language10 he said1 8and ,i reckon on your help40 ,there was no escape1 and to ,oxford ,i had to go4 ,i was fearfully nervous1 for1 as ,prince ,albert was to be present1 ever so many distinguished people had flocked to the meeting1 and likewise some not very friendly ethnologists1 such as ,dr4 ,latham1 and ,mr4 ,crawford1 known by the name of the ,objector ,general4 ,our section was presided over by the famous ,dr4 ,prichard1 the author of that classical work1 ,researches into the ,physical ,history of ,mankind1 in five volumes1 and it was he who protected me most chivalrously against the somewhat frivolous objections of certain members1 who were not over friendly towards ,prince ,albert1 ,chevalier ,bunsen1 and all that was called ,german in scholarship4 ,all1 however1 went off well4 ,bunsen's speech was most successful1 and it is a pity that it should be buried in the ,transactions of the ,british ,association for #ahdg4 ,at that time it was considered a great honour that his speech should appear there in extenso4 ,when ,bunsen declared that he would not give it1 unless ,dr4 ,meyer's paper and my own were published in the ,transactions at the same time1 there was renewed opposition4 ,i was so little proud of my own essay1 that ,i should much rather have kept it back for further improvement1 but printed it was in the ,transactions1 and much canvassed at the time in different journals4 ,i have always been doubtful about the advantages of these public meetings1 so far as any scientific results are concerned4 ,everybody who pays a guinea may become a member and make himself heard1 whether he knows anything on the subject or not4 ,the most ignorant men often occupy the largest amount of time4 ,some people look upon these congresses simply as a means of advertising themselves1 and ,i have actually seen quoted among a man's titles to fame the fact that he had been a member of certain congresses4 ,another drawback is that no one1 not even the best of scholars1 is quite himself before a mixed audience4 ,whereas in a private conversation a man is glad to receive any new information1 no one likes to be told in public that he ought to have known this or that1 or that every schoolboy knows it4 ,then follows generally a squabble1 and the best pleader is sure to have the laughter on his side1 however ignorant he may be of the subject that is being discussed4 ,but ,dr4 ,prichard was an excellent president and moderator1 and though he had unruly spirits to deal with1 he succeeded in keeping up a certain decorum among them4 ,dr4 ,prichard's authority stood very high1 and justly so1 and his ,researches into the ,physical ,history of ,mankind still remain unparalleled in ethnology4 ,his careful weighing of facts and difficulties went out of fashion when the theory of evolution became popular1 and every change from a flea to an elephant was explained by imperceptible degrees4 ,he dealt chiefly with what was perceptible1 with well-observed facts1 and many of the facts which he marshalled so well1 require even now1 in these post-,darwinian days ,i should venture to say1 renewed consideration4 ,like all great men1 he was wonderfully humble1 and allowed me to contradict him1 who ought to have been proud to listen and to learn from him4 ,but though ,i cannot say that the result of these meetings and wranglings was very great or valuable1 ,i spent a few most delightful days at ,oxford1 and ,i could not imagine a more perfect state of existence than to be an undergraduate1 a fellow1 or a professor there4 ,a kind of silent love sprang up in my heart1 though ,i hardly confessed it to myself1 much less to the object of my affections4 ,i knew ,i had to go back to be a ,university tutor or even a master in a public school in ,germany1 and that was a hard life compared with the freedom of ,oxford4 ,to be independent and free to work as ,i liked1 that was everything to me1 but how ,i ever succeeded in realizing my ideal1 ,i hardly know4 ,at that time ,i saw nothing but a life of drudgery and severe struggle before me1 but ,i did not allow myself to dwell on it2 ,i simply worked on1 without looking either right or left1 behind or before4 ,while at ,oxford on this my first flying visit1 ,i had a room in ,university ,college1 the very college in which my son was hereafter to be an undergraduate4 ,my host was ,dr4 ,plumptre1 the ,master of the ,college1 a tall1 stiff1 and to my mind1 very imposing person4 ,he was then ,vice-,chancellor1 and ,i believe ,i never saw him except in his cap and gown and with two bedels walking before him1 the one with a gold1 the other with a silver poker in his hands4 ,we have no ,esquire bedels any longer6 ,all the professors1 too1 and even the undergraduates1 dressed in their mediaeval academic costume1 looked to me very grand1 and so different from the ,german students at ,leipzig or still more at ,jena1 walking about the streets in pink cotton trousers and dressing-gowns4 ,it seemed to me quite a different world1 and ,i made new discoveries every day4 ,being with ,bunsen ,i was invited to all the official dinners during the meeting of the ,british ,association1 and here1 too1 the ,vice-,chancellor acted his part with becoming dignity4 ,he never unbent2 he never indulged in a joke or joined in the laughter of his neighbours4 ,when ,i remarked on his immovable features1 ,i was told that he slept in starched sheets--and ,i believed it4 ,at one of these dinners1 ,prince ,louis ,lucien ,bonaparte caused a titter during a speech about the freedom which people enjoyed in ,england4 8,in ,france10 he said1 8with all the declamations about ,libert1 galit1 ,fraternit1 there is very little freedom1 and1 with all the trees of libert which are being planted along the boulevards1 there is very little of real liberty to be found there60 8,but you in ,england10 he finished1 8you have your old tree of liberty1 which is always flowering and showering peas on the whole world40 ,he wanted to say peace4 ,we tried to look solemn but failed1 and a suppressed laugh went round till it reached the ,vice-,chancellor4 ,there it stopped4 ,he was far too well bred to allow a single muscle of his face to move4 8,he throws a cold blanket on everything10 my neighbour said2 and my knowledge of ,english was still so imperfect that ,i accepted many of these metaphorical remarks in their literal sense1 and became more and more puzzled about my host4 ,it was evidently a pleasure to my friends to see how easily ,i was taken in4 ,on the walls of the houses at ,oxford ,i saw the letters ,f4 ,p4 about ten feet from the ground4 ,of course it was meant for ,fire ,plug1 but ,i was told that it marked the height of the ,vice-,chancellor1 whose name was ,frederick ,plumptre4 ,my visit to ,oxford was over all too soon1 and ,i returned to ,london to toil away at my ,sanskrit ,,mss4 in the little room that had been assigned to me in the ,old ,east ,india ,house in ,leadenhall ,street4 ,that building1 too1 in which the reins of the mighty ,empire of ,india were held1 mostly by the hands of merchants1 has vanished1 and the place of it knoweth it no more4 ,however1 ,i thought little of ,india1 ,i only thought of the library at the ,east ,india ,house1 a real ,eldorado for an eager ,sanskrit student1 who had never seen such treasures before4 ,i saw little else there1 ,i only remember seeing ,tippoo ,sahib's tiger which held an ,english soldier in his claws1 and was regularly wound up for the benefit of visitors1 and then uttered a loud squeak1 enough to disturb even the most absorbed of students4 ,i felt quite dazed by all the books and manuscripts placed at my disposal1 and revelled in them every day till it became dark1 and ,i had to walk home through ,ludgate ,hill1 ,cheapside1 and the ,strand1 generally carrying ever so many books and papers under my arms4 ,i knew nobody in the city1 and no one knew me2 and what did ,i care for the world1 as long as ,i had my beloved manuscripts8 ,in ,march1 #ahdh1 ,i had to go over to ,paris to finish up some work there1 and just came in for the revolution4 ,from my windows ,i had a fine view of all that was going on4 ,i well remember the pandemonium in the streets1 the aspect of the savage mob1 the wanton firing of shots at quiet spectators1 the hoisting of ,louis ,philippe's nankeen trousers on the flag-staff of the ,tuileries4 ,when bullets began to come through my windows1 ,i thought it time to be off while it was still possible4 ,then came the question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts1 c41 belonging to the ,east ,india ,company1 to the train4 ,the only railway open was the line to ,havre1 which had been broken up close to the station1 but further on was intact1 and in order to get there we had to climb three barricades4 ,i offered my concierge five francs to carry my box1 but his wife would not hear of his risking his life in the streets2 ten francs--the same result2 but at the sight of a louis d'or she changed her mind1 and with an 8,allez1 mon ami1 allez toujours10 dispatched her husband on his perilous expedition4 ,arrived in ,london ,i went straight to the ,prussian ,legation1 and was the first to give ,bunsen the news of ,louis ,philippe's flight from ,paris4 ,bunsen took me off to see ,lord ,palmerston1 and ,i was able to show him a bullet that ,i had picked up in my room as evidence of the bloody scenes that had been enacted in ,paris4 ,so even a poor scholar had to play his small part in the events that go to make up history4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,early ,,days ,,at ,,oxford ,it had been settled that my edition of the ,rig-veda should be printed at the ,oxford ,university ,press1 and ,i found that ,i had often to go there to superintend the printing4 ,not that the printers required much supervision1 as ,i must say that the printing at the ,university ,press was1 and is1 excellent--far better than anything ,i had known in ,germany4 ,in providing copy for a work of six volumes1 each of about #ajjj pages1 it was but natural that lapsus calami should occur from time to time4 ,what surprised me was that several of these were corrected in the proof-sheets sent to me4 ,at last ,i asked whether there was any ,sanskrit scholar at ,oxford who revised my proof-sheets before they were returned4 ,i was told there was not1 but that the queries were made by the printer himself4 ,that printer was an extraordinary man4 ,his right arm was slightly paralysed1 and he had therefore been put on difficult slow work1 such as ,sanskrit4 ,there are more than #cjj types which a printer must know in composing ,sanskrit4 ,many of the letters in ,sanskrit are incompatible1 i4 e4 they cannot follow each other1 or if they do1 they have to be modified4 ,every d1 for instance1 if followed by a t1 is changed to t2 every dh loses its aspiration1 becomes likewise t1 or changes the next t into dh4 ,thus from budh ta1 we have ,buddha1 i4 e4 awakened4 ,in writing ,i had sometimes neglected these modifications1 but in the proof-sheets these cases were always either queried or corrected4 ,when ,i asked the printer1 who did not of course know a word of ,sanskrit1 how he came to make these corrections1 he said3 8,well1 sir1 my arm gets into a regular swing from one compartment of types to another1 and there are certain movements that never occur4 ,so if ,i suddenly have to take up types which entail a new movement1 ,i feel it1 and ,i put a query40 ,an ,english printer might possibly be startled in the same way if in ,english he had to take up an s immediately following an h4 ,but it was certainly extraordinary that an unusual movement of the muscles of the paralysed arm should have led to the discovery of a mistake in writing ,sanskrit4 ,in spite of the extreme accuracy of my printer1 however1 ,i saw1 that after all it would be better for myself1 and for the ,veda1 if ,i were on the spot1 and ,i decided to migrate from ,london to ,oxford4 ,my first visit had filled me with enthusiasm for the beautiful old town1 which ,i regarded as an ideal home for a student4 ,besides1 ,i found that ,i was getting too gay in ,london1 and in order to be able to devote my evenings to society1 ,i had to get up and begin work soon after five4 ,may1 therefore1 saw me established for the first time in ,oxford1 in a small room in ,walton ,street4 ,the moving of my books and papers from ,london did not take long4 ,at that time my library could still be accommodated in my portmanteau1 it had not yet risen to #ab1jjj volumes1 threatening to drive me out of my house4 ,a happy time it was when ,i possessed no books which ,i had not read1 and no one sent books to me which ,i did not want1 and yet had to find a place for in my rooms1 and to thank the author for his kindness4 ,i at once found that my work went on more rapidly at ,oxford than in ,london1 though if ,i had expected to escape from all hospitality ,i certainly was not allowed to do that4 ,accustomed as ,i was to the ,spartan diet of a ,german convictorium1 or a dinner at the ,palais ,royal deux francs1 the dinners to which ,i was invited by some of the ,fellows in ,hall1 or in ,common ,room1 surprised me not a little4 ,the old plate1 the old furniture1 and the whole style of living1 impressed me deeply1 particularly the after-dinner railway1 an ingenious invention for lightening the trouble of the guests who took wine in ,common ,room4 ,there was a small railway fixed before the fireplace1 and on it a wagon containing the bottles went backwards and forwards1 halting before every guest till he had helped himself4 ,that railway1 ,i am afraid1 is gone now2 and what is more serious1 the pleasant1 chatty evenings spent in ,common ,room are likewise a thing of the past4 ,married ,fellows1 if they dine in ,hall1 return home after dinner1 and junior ,fellows go to their books or pupils4 ,in my early ,oxford days1 a married ,fellow would have sounded like a solecism4 ,the story goes that married ,fellows were not entirely unknown1 and that you could hold even a fellowship1 if you could hold your tongue4 ,young people1 however1 who did not possess that gift of silence1 had often to wait till they were fifty1 before a college living fell vacant1 and the quinquagenarian ,fellow became a young husband and a young vicar4 ,what impressed me1 however1 even more than the great hospitality of ,oxford1 was the real friendliness shown to an unknown ,german scholar4 ,after all1 ,i had done very little as yet1 but the kind words which ,bunsen and ,dr4 ,prichard had spoken about me at the meeting of the ,british ,association1 had evidently produced an impression in my favour far beyond what ,i deserved4 ,i must have seemed a very strange bird1 such as had never before built his nest at ,oxford4 ,i was very young1 but ,i looked even younger than ,i was1 and my knowledge of the manners of society1 particularly of ,english society1 was really nil4 ,few people knew what ,i was working at4 ,some had a kind of vague impression that ,i had discovered a very old religion1 older than the ,jewish and the ,christian1 which contained the key to many of the mysteries that had puzzled the ancient1 nay1 even the modern world4 ,frequently1 when ,i was walking through the streets of ,oxford1 ,i observed how people stared at me1 and seemed to whisper some information about me4 ,tradespeople did not always trust me1 though ,i never owed a penny to anybody2 when ,i wanted money ,i could always make it by going on faster with printing the ,rig-veda1 for which ,i received four pounds a sheet4 ,this seemed to me then a large sum1 though many a sheet took me at first more than a week to get ready1 copy1 collate1 understand1 and finally print4 ,if ,i was interested in any other subject1 my exchequer suffered accordingly--but ,i could always retrieve my losses by sitting up late at night4 ,poor as ,i was1 ,i never had any cares about money1 and when ,i once began to write in ,english for ,english journals1 ,i had really more than ,i wanted4 ,my first article in the ,edinburgh ,review appeared in ,october1 #ahea4 ,at that time the idea of settling at ,oxford1 of remaining in this academic paradise1 never entered my head4 ,i was here to print my ,rig-veda and work at the ,bodleian2 that ,i should in a few years be an ,m4,a4 of ,christ ,church1 a ,fellow of the most exclusive of colleges1 nay1 a married ,fellow--a being not even invented then--and a professor of the ,university1 never entered into my wildest dreams4 ,i could only admire1 and admire with all my heart4 ,everything seemed perfect1 the gardens1 the walks in the neighbourhood1 the colleges1 and most of all the inhabitants of the colleges1 both ,fellows and undergraduates4 ,my ideas were still so purely continental that ,i could not understand how the ,university could do such a thing as incorporate a foreign scholar--could1 in fact1 govern itself without a ,minister of ,education to appoint professors1 without a ,royal ,commissioner to look after the undergraduates and their moral and political sentiments4 ,and here at ,oxford ,i was told that the ,government did not know ,oxford1 nor ,oxford the ,government1 that the only ruling power consisted in the ,statutes of the ,university1 that professors and tutors were perfectly free so long as they conformed to these statutes1 and that certainly no minister could ever appoint or dismiss a professor1 except the ,regius professors4 8,if we want a thing done10 my friends used to explain to me1 8we do it ourselves1 as long as it does not run counter to the statutes40 ,but ,oxford changes with every generation4 ,it is always growing old1 but it is always growing young again4 ,there was an old ,oxford four hundred years ago1 and there was an old ,oxford fifty years ago4 ,to a man who is taking his ,m4,a4 degree1 ,oxford1 as it was when he was a freshman1 seems quite a thing of the past4 ,by the public at large no place is supposed to be so conservative1 so unchanging1 nay1 so stubborn in resisting new ideas1 as ,oxford2 and yet people who knew it forty or fifty years ago1 like myself1 find it now so changed that1 when they look back they can hardly believe it is the same place4 ,even architecturally the streets of the ,university have changed1 and here not always for the better4 ,architects unfortunately object to mere imitation of the old ,oxford style of building2 they want to produce something entirely their own1 which may be very good by itself1 but is not always in harmony with the general tone of the college buildings4 ,i still remember the outcry against the ,taylor ,institution1 the only ,palladian building at ,oxford1 and yet everybody has now grown reconciled to it1 and even ,ruskin lectured in it1 which he would not have done1 if he had disapproved of its architecture4 ,he would never lecture in the ,indian ,institute1 and wrote me a letter sadly reproving me for causing ,broad ,street to be defaced by such a building1 when ,i had had absolutely nothing to do with it4 ,he was very loud in his condemnation of other new buildings4 ,he abused even the ,new ,museum1 though he had a great deal to do with it himself4 ,he had hoped that it would be the architecture of the future1 but he confessed after a time that he was not satisfied with the result4 ,in his days we still had the old ,magdalen ,bridge1 the ,bodleian unrestored1 and no trams4 ,ruskin was so offended by the new bridge1 by the restored ,bodleian1 and by the tram-cars1 that he would go ever so far round to avoid these eyesores1 when he had to deliver his lectures2 and that was by no means an easy pilgrimage4 ,there was1 of course1 no use in arguing with him4 ,most people like the new ,magdalen ,bridge because it agrees better with the width of ,high ,street2 they consider the ,bodleian well restored1 particularly now that the new stone is gradually toning down to the colour of the old walls1 and as to tram-cars1 objectionable as they are in many respects1 they certainly offend the eye less than the old dirty and rickety omnibuses4 ,the new buildings of ,merton1 in the style of a ,london police-station1 offended him deeply1 and with more justice1 particularly as he had to live next door to them when he had rooms at ,corpus4 ,these new buildings could not be helped at ,oxford4 ,the stone1 with which most of the old colleges were built1 was taken from a quarry close to ,oxford1 and began to peel off and to crumble in a very curious manner4 ,artists like these chequered walls1 and by moonlight they are certainly picturesque1 but the colleges had to think of what was safe4 ,my own college1 ,all ,souls1 has ever so many pinnacles1 and we kept an architect on purpose to watch which of them were unsafe and had to be restored or replaced by new ones4 ,every one of these pinnacles cost us about fifty pounds1 and at every one of our meetings we were told that so many pinnacles had been tested1 and wanted repairing or replacing4 ,many years ago1 when ,i was spending the whole ,long ,vacation at ,oxford1 ,i could watch from my windows a man who was supposed to be testing the strength of these pinnacles4 ,he was armed with a large crowbar1 which he ran with all his might against the unfortunate pinnacle4 ,i doubt whether the walls of any ,roman castellum could have resisted such a ram4 ,i spoke to some of the ,fellows1 and when the builder made his next report to us1 we rather objected to the large number of invalids4 ,he was not to be silenced1 however1 so easily1 but told us with a very grave countenance that he could not take the responsibility1 as a pinnacle might fall any day on our ,warden when he went to chapel4 ,this1 he thought1 would settle the matter4 ,but no1 it made no impression whatever on the junior ,fellows1 and the number of annual cripples was certainly very much reduced in consequence4 ,it is true that ,oxford has always loved what is old better than what is new1 and has resisted most innovations to the very last4 ,a well-known liberal statesman used to say that when any measure of reform was before ,parliament1 he always rejoiced to see an ,oxford petition against it1 for that measure was sure to be carried very soon4 ,it should not be forgotten1 however1 that there always has been a liberal minority at ,oxford4 ,it is still mentioned as something quite antediluvian1 that ,oxford1 that is the ,hebdomadal ,council1 petitioned against the ,great ,western ,railway invading its sacred precincts2 but it is equally true that not many years later it petitioned for a branch line to keep the ,university in touch with the rest of the world4 ,many things1 of course1 have been changed1 and are changing every year before our very eyes2 but what can never be changed1 in spite of some recent atrocities in brick and mortar1 is the natural beauty of its gardens1 and the historical character of its architecture4 ,whether ,friar ,bacon1 as far back as the thirteenth century1 admired the colleges1 chapels1 and gardens of ,oxford1 we do not know2 and even if we did1 few of them could have been the same as those which we admire to-day4 ,we must not forget that ,greene's ,honourable ,history of ,friar ,bacon does not give us a picture of what ,oxford was when seen by that famous philosopher1 who is sometimes claimed as a ,fellow of ,brasenose ,college1 probably long before that ,college existed2 but what is said in that play in praise of the ,university1 may at least be taken as a recollection of what ,greene saw himself1 when he took his degree as ,bachelor of ,arts in #aegh4 ,in his play of the ,history of ,friar ,bacon1 ,greene introduces the ,emperor of ,germany1 ,henry ,,ii1 #abab-ej1 as paying a visit to ,henry ,,iii of ,england1 #abaf-gc1 and he puts into his mouth the following lines1 which1 though they cannot compare with ,shelley's or ,mat ,arnold's1 are at all events the earliest testimony to the natural attractions of ,oxford4 ,anyhow1 ,shelley's and ,mat ,arnold's lines are well known and are always quoted1 so that ,i venture to quote ,greene's lines1 not for the sake of their beauty1 but simply because they are probably known to very few of my readers3 8,trust me1 ,plantagenet1 these ,oxford schools ,are richly seated near the river-side3 ,the mountains full of fat and fallow deer1 ,the battling#aj pastures lade with kine and flocks1 ,the town gorgeous with high built colleges1 ,and scholars seemly in their grave attire40 #aj ,will it be believed that the battels 7bills7 in ,college are connected with this word8 ,the mountains round ,oxford we must accept as a bold poetical licence1 whether they were meant for ,headington ,hill or ,wytham ,woods4 ,the ,german traveller1 ,hentzner1 who described ,oxford in #aeih1 is more true to nature when he speaks of the wooded hills that encompass the plain in which ,oxford lies4 ,but while the natural beauty of ,oxford has always been admired and praised by strangers1 the doctors and professors of the old ,university have not always fared so well at the hands of ,english and foreign critics4 ,i shall not quote from ,giordano ,bruno1 who visited ,england in #aehc-e1 and calls ,oxford 8the widow of true science#aa10 but ,milton surely cannot be suspected of any prejudice against ,oxford4 ,yet he writes in #afef in a letter to ,richard ,jones3 8,there is indeed plenty of amenity and salubrity in the place when you are there4 ,there are books enough for the needs of a ,university3 if only the amenity of the spot contributed so much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does to pleasant living1 nothing would seem wanting to the happiness of the place40 #aa ,opere1 ed4 ,wagner1 i4 p4 #agi4 ,these ill-natured remarks about the ,oxford ,dons seem to go on to the very beginning of our century4 ,the buildings and gardens are praised1 but by way of contrast1 it would seem1 or from some kind of jealousy1 their inhabitants are always treated with ridicule4 ,not long ago a book was published1 ,memoirs of a ,highland ,lady4 ,though published in #ahih1 it should be remembered that the memoirs go back as far as #ahji4 ,nor should it be forgotten that at that time the authoress was hardly more than thirteen years of age1 and certainly of a very girlish1 not to say frivolous1 disposition4 ,she stayed some time with the then ,master of ,university1 ,dr4 ,griffith1 and for him1 it must be said1 she always shows a certain respect4 ,but no one else at ,oxford is spared4 ,she arrived there at the time of ,lord ,grenville's installation as ,chancellor of the ,university4 ,though so young1 she was taken to the ,theatre1 and this is her description of what she saw and heard3--8,it was a shock to me2 ,i had expected to be charmed with a play1 instead of being nearly set to sleep by discourses in ,latin from a pulpit4 ,there were some purple1 and some gold1 some robes and some wigs1 a great crowd1 and some stir at times1 while a deal of humdrum speaking and dumb show was followed by the noisy demonstrations of the students1 as they applauded or condemned the honours bestowed2 but in the main ,i tired of the heat and the mob1 and the worry of these mornings1 and so1 depend upon it1 did poor ,lord ,grenville1 who sat up in the chair of state among the dignitaries1 like the ,grand ,lama in his temple guarded by his priests40 ,one thing only she was delighted with1 that was the singing of ,catalani at one of the concerts4 ,yet even here she cannot repress her remark that she sang 8,gott safe the ,king40 ,she evidently was a flippant young lady or child1 and with her sister1 who afterwards joined her at ,oxford1 seems to have found herself quite a fish out of water in the grave society of the ,university4 ,the room in the ,master's ,lodge which appalled her most and seems to have been used as a kind of schoolroom1 was the ,library1 full of ,divinity books1 but without curtains1 carpet1 or fireplace4 ,here they had lessons in music1 drawing1 arithmetic1 history1 geography1 and ,french4 8,and the ,master10 she adds1 8opened to us what had been till then a sealed book1 the ,new ,testament1 so that this visit to ,oxford proved really one of the fortunate chances of my life40 ,this speaks well for the young lady1 who in later life seems to have occupied a most honoured and influential position in ,scotch society4 ,but ,oxford society evidently found no favour in her eyes4 ,her uncle and aunt1 as she tells us1 were frequently out at dinner with other ,heads of ,houses1 for there was1 of course1 no other society4 ,these dinners seem to have been very sumptuous1 though their own domestic life was certainly very simple4 ,for breakfast they had tea1 and butter on their bread1 and at dinner a small glass of ale1 college home-brewed ale4 8,how fat we got60 she exclaims4 ,the ,master seems to have been a man of refined taste1 fond of drawing1 and what was called poker-painting2 he was given also to caricaturing1 and writing of squibs4 ,the two young ladies were evidently fond of his society1 but of the other ,oxford society she only mentions the ultra-,tory politics1 and the stupidity and frivolity of the ,heads of ,houses4 8,the various ,heads10 she writes1 8with their respective wives1 were extremely inferior to my uncle and aunt4 ,more than half of the ,doctors of ,divinity were of humble origin1 the sons of small gentry or country clergy1 or even of a lower grade4 ,many of these1 constant to the loves of their youth1 brought ladies of inferior manners to grace what appeared to them so dignified a station4 ,it was not a good style2 there was little talent1 and less polish1 and no sort of knowledge of the world4 ,and yet the ignorance of this class was less offensive than the assumption of another1 when a lady of high degree had fallen in love with her brother's tutor1 and got him handsomely provided for in the ,church1 that she might excuse herself for marrying him4 ,of the lesser clergy1 there were young witty ones--odious2 young learned ones--bores2 and elderly ones--pompous2 all1 however1 of all grades1 kind and hospitable4 ,but the ,christian pastor1 humble1 gentle1 considerate1 and self-sacrificing1 had no representative1 as far as ,i could see1 among these dealers in old wines1 rich dinners1 fine china1 and massive plate40 8,the religion of ,oxford appeared in those days to consist in honouring the ,king and his ,ministers1 and in perpetually popping in and out of chapel4 ,chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer1 beaten on every staircase half an hour before by a scout4 ,the education was suited to ,divinity4 ,a sort of supervision was said to be kept over the young1 riotous community1 and to a certain extent the ,proctors of the ,university and the ,deans of the different colleges did see that no very open scandal was committed4 ,there were rules that had in a general way to be obeyed1 and lectures that had to be attended1 but as for care to give high aims1 provide refining amusements1 give a worthy tone to the character of responsible beings1 there was none ever even thought of4 ,the very meaning of the word #8education' did not appear to be understood4 ,the college was a fit sequel to the school4 ,the young men herded together2 they lived in their rooms1 and they lived out of them1 in the neighbouring villages1 where many had comfortable establishments4444 ,all sorts of contrivances were resorted to to enable the dissipated to remain out all night1 to shield a culprit1 to deceive the dignitaries40 ,this was in #ahji1 and even later4 ,and yet with all this1 and while we are told that those who attended lectures were laughed at1 it seems strange that the best divines1 and lawyers1 and politicians of the first half of our century1 some of whom we may have known ourselves1 must have been formed under that system4 ,we can hardly believe that it was as bad as here described1 and we must remember that much of the ,memoirs of this ,scotch lady can have been written from memory only1 and long after the time when she and her sister lived at ,university ,college4 ,life there1 no doubt1 may have been very dull1 as there were no other young ladies at ,oxford1 and it cannot have been very amusing for these young girls to dine with sixteen ,heads of ,houses1 all in wide silk cassocks1 scarves and bands1 one or two in powdered wigs1 so that1 as we are told1 they often went home crying4 ,all intercourse with the young men was strictly forbidden1 though it seems to have been not altogether impossible to communicate1 from the garden of the ,master's ,lodge1 with the young men bending out of the college windows1 or climbing down to the gardens4 ,one of these young men1 who was at ,university ,college at the same time1 might certainly not have been considered a very desirable companion for these two ,scotch girls4 ,it was no other than ,shelley4 ,what they say of him does not tell us much that is new1 yet it deserves to be repeated4 8,mr4 ,shelley10 we read1 8afterwards so celebrated1 was half crazy4 ,he began his career with every kind of wild prank at ,eton4 ,at ,university he was very insubordinate1 always infringing some rule1 the breaking of which he knew could not be overlooked4 ,he was slovenly in his dress1 and when spoken to about these and other irregularities1 he was in the habit of making such extraordinary gestures1 expressive of his humility under reproof1 as to overset first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing tutor4 ,when he proceeded so far as to paste up atheistical squibs on the chapel doors1 it was considered necessary to expel him privately1 out of regard to ,sir ,timothy ,shelley1 the father1 who came up at once4 ,he and his son left ,oxford together40 ,no one would recognize in this picture the ,university of ,oxford1 as it is at present4 ,nous avons chang tout cela might be said with great truth by the ,heads of ,houses1 the ,professors1 and ,fellows of the present day4 ,and yet what the ,highland lady1 or rather the ,highland girl1 describes1 refers to times not so long ago but that some of the men we have known might have lived through it4 ,how this change came about ,i cannot tell1 though ,i can bear testimony to a few survivals of the old state of things4 ,the ,oxford of #ahdh was still the ,oxford of the ,heads of ,houses and of the ,hebdomadal ,board4 ,that board consisted almost entirely of ,heads of ,houses1 and a most important board it was1 considering that the whole administration of the ,university was really in its hands4 ,the colleges1 on the other hand1 were very jealous of their independence2 and even the authority of the ,proctors1 who represented the ,university as such1 was often contested within the gates of a college4 ,it is wonderful that this old system of governing the ,university through the ,heads of ,houses should have gone on so long and so smoothly4 ,having been trusted by the ,fellows of his own society with considerable power in the administration of his own college1 it was supposed that the ,head would prove equally useful in the administration of the ,university4 ,a ,head of a ,house became at once a member of the ,council4 ,and1 on the whole1 they managed to drive the coach and horses very well4 ,but often when ,i had to take foreigners to hear the ,university ,sermon1 and they saw a most extraordinary set of old gentlemen walking into ,st4 ,mary's in procession1 with a most startling combination of colours1 black and red1 scarlet and pink1 on their heavy gowns and sleeves1 ,i found it difficult to explain who they were4 8,are they your professors80 ,i was asked4 8,oh1 no10 ,i said1 8the professors don't wear red gowns1 only ,doctors of ,divinity and of ,civil ,law1 and as every ,head of a ,house must have something to wear in public1 he is invariably made a ,doctor40 ,i remember one exception only1 and at a much later time1 namely1 the ,master of ,balliol1 who1 like ,canning at the ,congress of ,vienna1 considered it among his most valued distinctions never to have worn the gown of a ,d4,c4,l4 or ,d4,d4 ,it is well known that when ,marshal ,blcher was made a ,doctor at ,oxford he asked1 in the innocence of his heart1 that ,general ,gneisenau1 his right-hand man1 might at least be made a chemist4 ,he certainly had mixed a most effective powder for the ,french army under ,napolon4 8,but10 my friend would ask1 8have you no ,senatus ,academicus1 have you no faculties of professors such as there are in all other ,christian universities80 8,yes and no10 ,i said4 8,we have professors1 but they are not divided into faculties1 and they certainly do not form the ,senatus ,academicus1 or the highest authority in the ,university40 ,it seems very strange1 but it is nevertheless a fact1 that as soon as a good tutor is made a professor1 he is considered of no good for the real teaching work of the colleges4 ,his lectures are generally deserted2 and ,i could quote the names of certain professors who afterwards rose to great eminence1 but who at ,oxford were simply ignored and their lecture-rooms deserted4 ,the real teaching or coaching or cramming for examination is left to the tutors and ,fellows of each college1 and the examinations also are chiefly in their hands4 ,many undergraduates never see a professor1 and1 as far as the teaching work of the ,university is concerned1 the professorships might safely be abolished4 ,and yet1 as ,i could honestly assure my foreign friends1 the best men who take honour degrees at ,oxford are quite the equals of the best men at ,paris or ,berlin4 ,the professors may not be so distinguished1 but that is due to a certain extent to the small salaries attached to some of the chairs4 ,england has produced great names both in science and philosophy and scholarship1 but these have generally drifted to some more attractive or lucrative centres4 ,when ,i first came to ,oxford one professor received #dj a year1 another #a1ejj1 and no one complained about these inequalities4 ,a certain amount of land had been left by a king or bishop for endowing a certain chair1 and every holder of the chair received whatever the endowment yielded4 ,the mode of appointing professors was very curious at that time4 ,often the elections resembled parliamentary elections1 far more regard being paid to political or theological partisanship than to scientific qualifications4 ,every ,m4,a4 had a vote1 and these voters were scattered all over the country4 ,canvassing was carried on quite openly4 ,travelling expenses were freely paid1 and lists were kept in each college of the men who could be depended on to vote for the liberal or the conservative candidate4 ,imagine a professor of medicine or of ,greek being elected because he was a liberal6 ,some appointments rested with the ,prime ,minister1 or1 as it was called1 the ,crown2 and it was quoted to the honour of the ,duke of ,wellington1 that he1 when ,chancellor of the ,university1 once insisted that the electors should elect the best man1 and they had to yield1 though there were electors who would declare their own candidate the best man1 whatever the opinion of really qualified judges might be4 ,all this election machinery is much improved now1 though an infallible system of electing the best men has not yet been discovered4 ,one single elector1 who is not troubled by too tender a conscience1 may even now vitiate a whole election2 to say nothing of the painful position in which an elector is placed1 if he has to vote against a personal friend or a member of his own college1 particularly when the feeling that it is dishonourable to disclose the vote of each elector is no longer strong enough to protect the best interests of the ,university4 ,it took me some time before ,i could gain an insight into all this4 ,the old system passed away before my very eyes1 not without evident friction between my different friends1 and then came the difficulty of learning to understand the working of the new machinery which had been devised and sanctioned by ,parliament4 ,reformers arose even among the ,heads of ,houses1 as1 for instance1 ,dr4 ,jeune1 the ,master of ,pembroke ,college1 who was credited with having rajeuni l'ancienne universit4 ,but he was by no means the only1 or even the chief actor in ,university reform4 ,many of my personal friends1 such as ,dr4 ,tait1 afterwards ,archbishop of ,canterbury1 the ,rev4 ,h4 ,g4 ,liddell1 afterwards ,dean of ,christ ,church1 ,professor ,baden-,powell1 and the ,rev4 ,g4 ,h4 ,s4 ,johnson1 afterwards ,dean of ,wells1 with ,stanley and ,goldwin ,smith as ,secretaries1 did honest service in the various ,royal and ,parliamentary ,commissions1 and spent much of their valuable time in serving the ,university and the country4 ,i could do no more than answer the questions addressed to me by the ,commissioners and by my friends1 and this is really all the share ,i had at that time in the reform of the ,university1 or what was called ,germanizing the ,english ,universities4 ,at one time such was the unpopularity of these reformers in the ,university itself that one of them asked one of the junior professors to invite him to dinner1 because the ,heads of ,houses would no longer admit him to their hospitable boards4 ,certainly to have been a member of the much abused ,hebdomadal ,board1 and a ,head of a ,college in those pre-reform days must have been a delightful life4 ,before the days of agricultural distress the income of the colleges was abundant2 the authority of the ,heads was unquestioned in their own colleges2 not only undergraduates1 but ,fellows also had to be submissive4 ,no junior ,fellow would then have dared to oppose his ,head at college meetings4 ,if there was by chance an obstreperous junior1 he was easily silenced or requested to retire4 ,the days had not yet come when a ,master of ,trinity ventured to remark that even a junior ,fellow might possibly be mistaken4 ,colleges seemed to be the property of the ,heads1 and in some of them the ,fellows were really chosen by them1 and the rest of the ,fellows after some kind of examination4 ,the management of ,university affairs was likewise entirely in the hands of the ,heads of ,colleges1 and it was on rare occasions only that a theological question stirred the interest of non-resident ,m4,a4s1 and brought them to ,oxford to record their vote for or against the constituted authorities4 ,men like the ,dean of ,christ ,church1 ,dr4 ,gaisford1 the ,warden of ,wadham1 ,dr4 ,parsons1 and the ,provost of ,oriel1 ,dr4 ,hawkins1 were in their dominions supreme1 till the rebellious spirit began to show itself in such men as ,dr4 ,jeune1 ,professor ,baden-,powell1 ,a4 ,p4 ,stanley1 ,goldwin ,smith and others4 ,nor were there many very flagrant abuses under the old rgime4 ,it was rather the want of life that was complained of4 ,it began to be felt that ,oxford should take its place as an equal by the side of foreign ,universities1 not only as a high school1 but as a home of what then was called for the first time 8original research40 ,there can be no question that as a teaching body1 as a high school at the head of all the public schools in ,england1 ,oxford did its duty nobly4 ,a man who at that time could take a ,double ,first was indeed a strong man1 well fitted for any work in after life4 ,he would not necessarily turn out an original thinker1 a scholar1 or a discoverer in physical science1 but he would know what it was to know anything thoroughly4 ,to take honours at the same time in classics and mathematics required strength and grasp1 and the effort was certainly considerable1 as ,i found out when occasionally ,i read a ,greek or ,latin author with a young undergraduate friend4 ,what struck me most was the accurate knowledge a candidate acquired of special authors and special books1 but also the want of that familiarity with the language1 ,greek or ,latin1 which would enable him to read any new author with comparative ease4 ,the young men whom ,i knew at the time they went in for their final examination1 were certainly well grounded in classics1 and what they knew they knew thoroughly4 ,the personal relations existing between undergraduates and their tutors were very intimate4 ,a tutor took a pride in his pupils1 and often became their friend for life4 ,the teaching was almost private teaching1 and the idea of reading a written lecture to a class in college did not exist as yet4 ,it was real teaching with questions and answers2 while lectures1 written and read out1 were looked down upon as good enough for professors1 but entirely useless for the schools4 ,the social tone of the ,university was excellent4 ,many of the tutors and of the undergraduates came of good families1 and the struggle for life1 or for a college living1 or college office1 was not1 as yet1 so fierce as it became afterwards4 ,college tutors toiled on for life1 and certainly did their work to the last most conscientiously4 ,there was perhaps little ambition1 little scheming or pushing1 but the work of the ,university1 such as the country would have it1 was well done4 ,if the ,honour-,lists were small1 the number of utter failures also was not very large4 ,for a young scholar1 like myself1 who came to live at ,oxford in those distant days1 the peace and serenity of life were most congenial1 though several of my friends were among the first who began to fret1 and wished for more work to be done and for better use to be made of the wealth and the opportunities of the ,university4 ,my impression at that time was the same as it has been ever since1 that a reform of the ,universities was impossible till the public schools had been thoroughly reformed4 ,the ,universities must take what the schools send them4 ,there is every year a limited number of boys from the best schools who would do credit to any ,university4 ,but a large number of the young men who are sent up to matriculate at ,oxford are not up to an academic standard4 ,unless the colleges agree to stand empty for a year or two1 they cannot help themselves1 but have to keep the standard of the matriculation examination low1 and in fact do1 to a great extent1 the work that ought to have been done at school4 ,think of boys being sent up to ,oxford1 who1 after having spent on an average six years at a public school1 are yet unable to read a line of ,greek or ,latin which they have not seen before4 ,yet so it was1 and so it is1 unless ,i am very much misinformed4 ,it is easy for some colleges who keep up a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class men2 the real burden falls on the colleges and tutors who have to work hard to bring their pupils up to the standard of a pass degree1 and few people have any idea how little a pass degree may mean4 ,those tutors have indeed hard work to do and get little credit for it1 though their devotion to their college and their pupils is highly creditable4 ,fifty years ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is now1 because candidates were not allowed to pass in different subjects at different times1 but the whole examination had to be done all at once1 or not at all4 ,i had naturally made it a rule at ,oxford to stand aloof from the conflict of parties1 whether academical1 theological1 or political4 ,i had my own work to do1 and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude my opinions1 which naturally were different from those prevalent at ,oxford4 ,most people like to wash their dirty linen among themselves2 and though ,i gladly talked over such matters with my friends who often consulted me1 ,i did not feel called upon to join in the fray4 ,i lived through several severe crises at ,oxford1 and though ,i had some intimate friends on either side1 ,i remained throughout a looker on4 ,seldom has a ,university passed through such a complete change as ,oxford has since the year #ahed4 ,and yet the change was never violent1 and the ,university has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated and reinvigorated4 ,it has been said that our constitution has now become too democratic1 and that a ,university should be ruled by a ,senatus rather than by a ,juventus4 ,this is true to a certain extent4 ,there has been too much unrest1 too constant changes1 and a lack of continuity in the studies and in the government of the ,university4 ,every three years a new wave of young masters came in1 carried a reform in the system of teaching and examining1 and then left to make room for a new wave which brought new ideas1 before the old ones had a fair trial4 ,senior members of the ,university1 heads of houses and professors1 have no more voting power than the young men who have just taken their degrees1 nay1 have in reality less influence than these young ,masters1 who always meet together and form a kind of compact phalanx when votes are to be taken4 ,there was even a ,non-placet club1 ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the reforming party1 or threatened to change any established customs1 whether beneficial or otherwise to the ,university4 ,the ,university1 as such1 was far less considered than the colleges1 and money drawn from the colleges for ,university purposes was looked upon as robbery1 though of course the colleges profited by the improvement of the ,university1 and the interests of the two ought never to have been divided1 as little as the interests of an army can be divided from the interests of each regiment4 ,when ,i came to ,oxford there was still practically no society except that of the ,heads of ,houses1 and there were no young ladies to grace their dinners4 ,each head took his turn in succession1 and had twice or three times during term to feed his colleagues4 ,these dinners were sumptuous repasts1 though they often took place as early as five4 ,to be invited to them was considered a great distinction1 and1 though a very young man1 ,i was allowed now and then to be present1 and ,i highly appreciated the honour4 ,the company consisted almost entirely of ,heads of ,houses1 ,canons1 and ,professors2 sometimes there was a sprinkling of distinguished persons from ,london1 and even of ladies of various ages and degrees4 ,i confess ,i often sat among them1 as we say in ,german1 verrathen und verkauft4 ,after dinner ,i saw a number of young men streaming in1 and thought the evening would now become more lively4 ,but far from it4 ,these young men with white ties and in evening dress stood in their scanty gowns huddled together on one side of the room4 ,they received a cup of tea1 but no one noticed them or spoke to them1 and they hardly dared to speak among themselves4 ,this1 as ,i was told1 was called 8doing the perpendicular10 and they must have felt much relieved when towards ten o'clock they were allowed to depart1 and exchange the perpendicular for a more comfortable position1 indulging in songs and pleasant talk1 which ,i sometimes was invited to join4 ,at that time ,i remember only very few houses outside the circle of ,heads of ,houses1 where there was a lady and a certain amount of social life--the houses of ,dr4 ,acland1 ,dr4 ,greenhill1 ,professor ,baden-,powell1 ,professor ,donkin1 and ,mr4 ,greswell4 ,in their houses there was less of the strict academical etiquette1 and as they were fond of music1 particularly the ,donkins1 ,i spent some really delightful evenings with them4 ,nay1 as ,i played on the pianoforte1 even the ,heads of ,houses began to patronize music at their evening parties1 though no gentleman at that time would have played at ,oxford4 ,i being a ,german1 and ,professor ,donkin being a confirmed invalid1 we were allowed to play1 and we certainly had an appreciative1 though not always a silent1 audience4 ,in one respect1 the old system of ,oxford ,fellowships was still very perceptible in the society of the ,university4 ,no ,fellows were allowed to marry1 and the natural consequence was that most of them waited for a college living1 a professorship or librarianship1 which generally came to them when they were no longer young men4 ,headships of colleges also had so long to be waited for that most of them were generally filled by very senior and mostly unmarried men4 ,besides1 headships were but seldom given for excellence in scholarship1 science1 or even divinity1 but for the sake of personal popularity1 and for business habits4 ,some of the ,fellows gave pleasant and1 as ,i thought1 very ,lucullic dinners in college2 and ,i still remember my surprise when ,i was asked to the first dinner in ,common ,room at ,jesus ,college4 ,my host was ,mr4 ,ffoulkes1 who afterwards became a ,roman ,catholic1 and then an ,anglican clergyman again4 ,the carpets1 the curtains1 the whole furniture and the plate quite confounded me1 and ,i became still more confounded when ,i was suddenly called upon to make a speech at a time when ,i could hardly put two words together in ,english4 ,the ,city society was completely separated from the ,university society1 so that even rich bankers and other gentlemen would never have ventured to ask members of the ,university to dine4 ,considering the position then held by the ,heads of ,houses1 ,i feel ,i ought to devote some pages to describing some of the most prominent of them4 ,at my age ,i may well hold to the maxim seniores priores1 and will therefore begin with ,dr4 ,routh1 the centenarian ,president of ,magdalen1 as1 though1 the headship of a house seems to be an excellent prescription for longevity1 there was no one to dispute the venerable doctor's claim to precedence in this respect4 ,he was then nearly a hundred years old1 and he died in his hundredth year1 and obtained his wish to have the ,c1 anno centesimo1 on his gravestone1 for1 though tired of life1 he often declared1 so ,i was told1 that he would not be outdone in this respect by another very old man1 who was a dissenter2 he never liked to see the ,church beaten4 ,i might have made his personal acquaintance1 some friends of the old ,president offering to present me to him4 ,but ,i did not avail myself of their offer1 because ,i knew the old man did not like to be shown as a curiosity4 ,when ,i saw him sitting at his window he always wore a wig1 and few had seen him without his wig and without his academic gown4 ,he was certainly an exceptional man1 and ,i believe he stood alone in the whole history of literature1 as having published books at an interval of seventy years4 ,his edition of the ,enthymemes and ,gorgias of ,plato was published in #aghd1 his papers on the ,ignatian ,epistles in #ahed4 ,his ,reliquia ,sacra first appeared in #ahad1 and they are a work which at that time would have made the reputation of any scholar and divine4 ,his editions of historical works1 such as ,burnet's ,history of his own ,time and the ,history of the reign of ,king ,james1 show his considerable acquaintance with ,english history4 ,i have already mentioned how he used to speak of events long before his time1 such as the execution of ,charles ,i1 as if he had been present2 nor did he hesitate to declare that even ,bishop ,burnet was a great liar4 ,he certainly had seen many things which connected him with the past4 ,he had seen ,samuel ,johnson mounting the steps of the ,clarendon building in ,broad ,street1 and though he had not himself seen ,charles ,i when he held his ,parliament at ,oxford1 he had known a lady whose mother had seen the king walking round the ,parks at ,oxford4 ,however1 we must not forget that many stories about the old ,president were more or less mythical1 as indeed many ,oxford stories are4 ,i was told that he actually slept in wig1 cap and gown1 so that once when an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle of his ,college1 he put his head out of window in an incredibly short time1 fully equipped as above4 ,many of these stories or 8,common-,roomers0 as they were called1 still lived in the ,common ,rooms in my time1 when the ,fellows of each ,college assembled regularly after dinner1 to take wine and dessert1 and to talk on anything but what was called ,shop1 i4 e4 ,greek and ,latin4 ,no one inquired about the truth of these stories1 as long as they were well told4 ,in a place like ,oxford there exists a regular descent1 by inheritance1 of good stories4 ,i remember stories told of ,dr4 ,jenkins1 as ,master of ,balliol1 and afterwards transferred to his successor1 ,mr4 ,jowett4 ,bodleian stories descended in like manner from ,dr4 ,bandinell to ,mr4 ,coxe1 and will probably be told of successive librarians till they become quite incongruous4 ,i am old enough to have watched the descent of stories at ,oxford1 just as one recognizes the same furniture in college rooms occupied by successive generations of undergraduates4 ,to me they sometimes seem threadbare like the old ,turkish carpets in the college rooms1 but ,i never spoil them by betraying their age1 and1 if well told1 ,i can enjoy them as much as if ,i had never heard them before4 ,dr4 ,hawkins1 ,provost of ,oriel1 was quite a representative of ,old ,oxford1 and a well-known character in the ,university4 ,i had been introduced to him by ,baron ,bunsen1 and he showed me much hospitality4 ,i was warned that ,i should find him very stiff and forbidding4 ,his own ,fellows called him the ,east-wind4 ,but though he certainly was condescending1 he treated me with great urbanity4 ,he had a very peculiar habit2 when he had to shake hands with people whom he considered his inferiors1 he stretched out two fingers1 and if some of them who knew this peculiarity of his1 tendered him two fingers in return1 the shaking of hands became rather awkward4 ,one of the ,fellows of his college told me that1 as long as he was only a ,fellow1 he never received more than two fingers2 when1 however1 he became ,head ,master of a school1 he was rewarded with three fingers1 or even with the whole hand1 but1 as soon as he gave up this place1 and returned to live in college1 he was at once reduced to the statutable two fingers4 ,i don't recollect exactly how many fingers ,i was treated to1 and ,i may have shaken them with my whole hand4 ,anyhow1 ,i am quite conscious now of how many times ,i must have offended against academic etiquette4 ,how1 for instance1 is a man to know that people who live at ,oxford during term-time never shake hands except once during term8 ,i doubt1 in fact1 whether that etiquette existed when ,i first came to ,oxford1 but it certainly had existed for some time before ,i discovered it4 ,dr4 ,jenkins1 ,master of ,balliol1 was also the hero of many anecdotes4 ,it was of him that it was first told how he once found fault with an undergraduate because1 whenever he looked out of window1 he invariably saw the young man loitering about in the quad2 to which the undergraduate replied3 8,how very curious1 for whenever ,i cross the quad1 ,i always see you1 ,sir1 looking out of window40 ,he had a quiet humour of his own1 and delighted in saying things which made others laugh1 but never disturbed a muscle of his own face4 ,one of his undergraduates was called ,wyndham1 and he had to say a few sharp words to him at 8handshaking10 that is1 at the end of term4 ,after saying all he wanted1 he finished in ,latin3 8,et nunc valeas ,wyndhamme10--the last two syllables being pronounced with great emphasis4 ,the ,master's regard for his own dignity was very great4 ,once1 when returning from a solitary walk1 he slipped and fell4 ,two undergraduates seeing the accident ran to assist him1 and were just laying hands on him to lift him up1 when he descried a ,master of ,arts coming4 8,stop10 he cried1 8stop1 ,i see a ,master of ,arts coming down the street40 ,and he dismissed the undergraduates with many thanks1 and was helped on to his legs by the ,m4,a4 ,accidents1 or slips of the tongue1 will happen to everybody1 even to a ,head of a ,house4 ,one of these old gentlemen1 ,dr4 ,symons1 of ,wadham1 when presiding at a missionary meeting1 had to introduce ,sir ,peregrine ,maitland1 a most distinguished officer1 and a thoroughly good man4 ,when dilating on the ,christian work which ,sir ,peregrine had done in ,india1 he called him again and again ,sir ,peregrine ,pickle4 ,the effect was most ludicrous1 for everybody was evidently well acquainted with ,roderick ,random1 and ,sir ,peregrine had great difficulty in remaining serious when the ,chairman called on ,sir ,peregrine ,pickle once more to address his somewhat perplexed audience4 ,but whatever may be said about the old ,heads of ,houses1 most of them were certainly gentlemen both by birth and by nature4 ,they are forgotten now1 but they did good in their time1 and much of their good work remains4 ,if ,i consider who were the ,dean and ,canons and ,students ,i met at ,christ ,church when ,i first became a member of the ,house1 ,i should have to give a very different account from that given by the ,highland lady in her ,memoirs4 ,the ,dean of ,christ ,church1 who received me1 who proposed me for the degree of ,m4,a41 and afterwards allowed me to become a member of the ,house1 was ,dr4 ,gaisford1 a real scholar1 though it may be of the old school4 ,he was considered very rough and rude1 but ,i can only say he showed me more of real courtesy in those days than anybody else at ,oxford4 ,he was1 ,i believe1 a little shy1 and easily put out when he suspected anybody1 particularly the young men1 of want of consideration4 ,i can quite believe that when an undergraduate1 in addressing him1 stepped on the hearthrug on which he was standing1 he may have said3 8,get down from my hearthrug10 meaning1 8keep at your proper distance40 ,i can only say that ,i never found him anything but kind and courteous4 ,it so happened that he had been made a ,member of the ,bavarian ,academy1 and ,i1 though very young1 had received the same distinction as a reward for my ,sanskrit work1 and the ,dean was rather pleased when he heard it4 ,when ,i asked him whether he would put my name on the books of the ,house1 he certainly hesitated a little1 and asked me at last to come again next day and dine with him4 ,i went1 but ,i confess ,i was rather afraid that the ,dean would raise difficulties4 ,however1 he spoke to me very nicely1 8,i have looked through the books10 he said1 8and ,i find two precedents of ,germans being members of the ,house1 one of the name of ,wernerus1 and another of the name of ,nitzschius10 or some such name4 8,but10 he continued1 smiling1 8even if ,i had not found these names1 ,i should not have minded making a precedent of your case40 ,people were amazed at ,oxford when they heard of the ,dean's courtesy1 but ,i can only repeat that ,i never found him anything but courteous4 ,most of the ,heads of ,houses asked me to dine with them by sending me an invitation4 ,the ,dean alone first came and called on me4 ,i was then living in a small room in ,walton ,street in which ,i worked1 and dined1 and smoked4 ,my bedroom was close by1 and ,i generally got up early1 and shaved and finished my toilet at about #aa o'clock4 ,i had just gone into my bedroom to shave1 my face was half covered with lather1 when my landlady rushed in and told me the ,dean had called1 and my dogs were pulling him about4 ,the fact was ,i had a ,scotch terrier with a litter of puppies in a basket1 and when the ,dean entered in full academical dress1 the dogs flew at him1 pulling the sleeves of his gown and barking furiously4 ,covered with lather as ,i was1 ,i had to rush in to quiet the dogs1 and in this state ,i had to receive the ,very ,rev4 the ,dean1 and explain to him the nature of the work that brought me to ,oxford4 ,it was certainly awkward1 but in spite of the disorder of my room1 in spite also of the tobacco smoke of which the ,dean did not approve1 all went off well1 though1 ,i confess1 ,i felt somewhat ashamed4 ,in the same interview the ,dean asked me about an ,icelandic ,dictionary which had been offered to the press by ,cleasby and ,dasent4 8,surely it is a small barbarous island10 he said1 8and how can they have any literature80 ,i tried1 as well as ,i could1 to explain to the ,dean the extent and the value of ,icelandic literature1 and soon after the press1 which was then the ,dean1 accepted the ,dictionary which was brought out later by ,dr4 ,vigfusson1 in a most careful and scholarlike manner4 ,it might indeed safely be called his ,dictionary1 considering how many dictionaries are called1 not after the name of the compiler or compilers1 but after that of their editor4 ,this ,dr4 ,vigfusson was quite a character4 ,he was perfectly pale and bloodless1 and had but one wish1 that of being left alone4 ,he came to ,oxford first to assist ,dr4 ,dasent1 to whom ,cleasby1 when he died1 had handed over his collections2 but afterwards he stayed1 taking it for granted that the ,university would give him the little he wanted4 ,but even that little was difficult to provide1 as there were no funds that could be used for that purpose1 however uselessly other funds might seem to be squandered4 ,that led to constant grumbling on his part4 ,ever so many expedients were tried to satisfy him1 but none quite succeeded4 ,at last he fell ill and died1 and when he was a patient at the ,acland ,home1 where the nurses did all they could for him1 he several times said to me when ,i sat with him1 that he had never been so happy in his life as in that ,home4 ,i sometimes blame myself for not having seen more of him at ,oxford4 ,but he always seemed to me full of suspicions and very easily offended1 and that made any free intercourse with him difficult and far from pleasant4 ,perhaps it was my fault also4 ,he may have felt that he might have claimed a professorship of ,icelandic quite as well as ,i1 and he may have grudged my settled position in ,oxford1 my independence and my freedom4 ,whenever we did work together1 ,i always found him pleasant at first1 but very soon he would become wayward and sensitive1 do what ,i would1 and ,i had to let him go his own way1 as ,i went mine4 ,i remember dining with the famous ,dr4 ,bull1 ,canon of ,christ ,church1 who certainly managed to produce a dinner that would have done credit to any ,french chef4 ,he was one of the last pluralists1 and many stories were told about him4 ,one story1 which however was perfectly true1 showed at all events his great sagacity4 ,a well-known banker had been for years the banker of ,christ ,church4 ,dr4 ,bull who was the ,college ,bursar had to transact all the financial business with him4 ,no one suspected the banking house which he represented4 ,dr4 ,bull1 however1 the last time he invited him to dinner1 was struck by his very pious and orthodox remarks1 and by the change of tone in his conversation1 such as might suit a ,canon of ,christ ,church1 but not a luxurious banker from ,london4 ,without saying a word1 ,dr4 ,bull went to ,london next day1 drew out all the money of the college1 took all his papers from the bank1 and the day after1 to the dismay of ,london1 the bank failed1 the depositors lost their money1 but ,christ ,church was unhurt4 ,another of the ,canons of ,christ ,church at that time had spent half a century in the place1 and read the lessons there twice every day4 ,of course he knew the prayer-book by heart1 and as long as he could see to read there was no harm in his reading4 ,but when his eyesight failed him and he had to trust entirely to his memory1 he would often go from some word in the evening prayer to the same word in the marriage service1 and from there to the burial service1 with an occasional slip into baptism4 ,the result of it was that he was no longer allowed to read the service in ,chapel except during ,long ,vacation when the young men were away4 ,i frequently stayed at ,oxford during vacation1 and thought of course that the evening service would never end1 till at last ,i was asked to name the child1 and then ,i went home4 ,one ,sunday ,i remember going to chapel1 and after prayers had begun the following conversation took place1 loud enough to be heard all through the chapel4 ,enter old ,canon preceded by a beadle4 ,he goes straight to his stall1 and finding it occupied by a well-known ,d4,d4 from ,london1 who is deeply engaged in prayer1 he stands and looks at the interloper1 and when that produces no effect1 he says to the beadle3 8,tell that man this is my stall2 tell him to get out40 ,beadle3 8,dr4 ,a4's compliments1 and whether you would kindly occupy another stall40 ,d4,d43 8,very sorry2 ,i shall change immediately40 ,old ,canon settles in his stall1 prayers continue1 and after about ten minutes the ,canon shouts3 8,beadle1 tell that man to dine with me at five40 ,beadle3 8,dr4 ,a4's compliments1 and whether you would give him the pleasure of your company at dinner at five40 ,d4,d43 8,very sorry1 ,i am engaged40 ,beadle3 8,d4,d4 regrets he is engaged40 ,old ,canon3 8,oh1 he won't dine60 ,the cathedral was very empty1 and fortunately this conversation was listened to by a small congregation only4 ,i can1 however1 vouch for it1 as ,i was sitting close by and heard it myself4 ,bodley's ,library1 too1 was full of good stories1 though many of them do not bear repeating4 ,when ,i first began to work there1 ,dr4 ,bandinell was ,bodleian ,librarian4 ,working in the ,bodleian was then like working in one's private library4 ,one could have as many books and ,,mss4 as one desired1 and the six hours during which the ,library was open were a very fair allowance for such tiring work as copying and collating ,sanskrit ,,mss4 ,i well remember my delight when ,i first sat down at my table near one of the windows looking into the garden of ,exeter4 ,it seemed a perfect paradise for a student4 ,i must confess that ,i slightly altered my opinion when ,i had to sit there every day during a severe winter without any fire1 shivering and shaking1 and almost unable to hold my pen1 till kind ,mr4 ,coxe1 the sub-librarian1 took compassion on me and brought me a splendid fur that had been sent him as a present by a ,russian scholar1 who had witnessed the misery of the ,librarian in this ,siberian ,library4 ,now all this is changed4 ,the ,library is so full of students1 both male and female1 that one has difficulty in finding a place1 certainly in finding a quiet place2 and all sorts of regulations have been introduced which have no doubt become necessary on account of the large number of readers1 but which have completely changed1 or as some would say1 improved the character of the place4 ,as to one improvement1 however1 there can be no two opinions4 ,the ,library and the reading-room1 the so-called ,camera1 are now comfortably warmed1 and students may in the latter place read for twelve hours uninterruptedly1 and not be turned out as we were by a warning bell at four o'clock4 ,and woe to you if you failed to obey the warning4 ,one day an unfortunate reader was so absorbed in his book that he did not hear the bell1 and was locked in4 ,he tried in vain to attract attention from the windows1 for it was no pleasant prospect to pass a night among so many ghosts4 ,at last he saw a solitary woman1 and shouted to her that he was locked in4 8,no10 she said1 8you are not4 ,the ,library is closed at four40 ,whether he spent the night among the books is not known4 ,let us hope that he met with a less logical person to release him from his cold prison4 ,dr4 ,bandinell ruled supreme in his library1 and even the ,curators trembled before him when he told them what had been the invariable custom of the ,library for years1 and could not be altered4 ,and1 curiously enough1 he had always funds at his disposal1 which is not the case now1 and whenever there was a collection of valuable ,,mss4 in the market he often prided himself on having secured it long before any other library had the money ready4 ,now and then1 it is true1 he allowed himself to be persuaded by a plausible seller of rare books or ,,mss41 but generally he was very wary4 ,he was not always very courteous to visitors1 and still less so to his under-librarians4 ,the ,oriental under-librarian ,professor ,reay1 in particular1 who was old and somewhat infirm1 had much to suffer from him1 and the language in which he was ordered about was such as would not now be addressed to any menial4 ,and yet ,professor ,reay belonged to a very good family1 though ,dr4 ,bandinell would insist on calling him ,ray1 and declared that he had no right to the e in his name4 ,in revenge some people would give him an additional i and call him ,dr4 ,bandinelli1 which made him very angry1 because1 as he would say to me1 8he had never been one of those dirty foreigners40 ,silence was enjoined in the library1 but the librarian's voice broke through all rules of silence4 ,i remember once1 when ,professor ,reay had been looking for ever so long to find his spectacles without which he could not read the ,arabic ,,mss41 and had asked everybody whether they had seen them1 a voice came at last thundering through the library3 8,you left your spectacles on my chair1 you old ----1 and ,i sat on them60 ,there was an end of spectacles and ,arabic ,,mss4 after that4 ,there were two men only of whom ,dr4 ,bandinell and ,h4 ,o4 ,coxe also were afraid1 ,dr4 ,pusey1 who was one of the ,curators1 and later on1 ,jowett1 the ,master of ,balliol4 ,there was a vacancy in the ,oriental sub-librarianship1 and a very distinguished young ,hebrew scholar1 ,william ,wright1 afterwards ,professor at ,cambridge1 was certainly by far the best candidate4 ,but as ill-luck--,i mean ill-luck for the ,library--would have it1 he had given offence by a lecture at ,dublin1 in which he declared that the people of ,canaan were ,semitic1 and not1 as stated in ,genesis1 the children of ,ham4 ,no one doubts this now1 and every new inscription has confirmed it4 ,still a strong effort was made to represent ,dr4 ,wright as a most dangerous young man1 and thus to prevent his appointment at ,oxford4 ,the appointment was really in the hands of ,dr4 ,bandinell2 and after ,i had frankly explained to him the motives of this mischievous agitation against ,dr4 ,wright1 and assured him that he was a scholar and by no means given to what was then called 8free-handling of the ,old ,testament10 he promised me that he would appoint him and no one else4 ,however1 poor man1 he was urged and threatened and frightened1 and to my great surprise the appointment was given to some one else1 who at that time had given hardly any proofs of independent work as a ,semitic scholar1 though he afterwards rendered very good and honest service4 ,i did not disguise my opinion of what had happened2 and for more than a year ,dr4 ,bandinell never spoke to me nor ,i to him1 though we met almost daily at the library4 ,at last the old man1 evidently feeling that he had been wrong1 came to tell me that he was sorry for what had happened1 but that it was not his fault3 after this1 of course1 all was forgotten4 ,dr4 ,wright had a much more brilliant career opened to him1 first at the ,british ,museum1 and then as professor at ,cambridge1 than he could possibly have had as sub-librarian at ,oxford4 ,he always remained a scholar1 and never dabbled in theology4 ,some very heated correspondence passed at the time1 and ,i remember keeping the letters for a long while4 ,they were curious as showing the then state of theological opinion at ,oxford2 but ,i have evidently put the correspondence away so carefully that nowhere can ,i find it now4 ,let it be forgotten and forgiven4 ,many1 if not all1 of the stories that ,i have written down in this chapter may be legendary1 and they naturally lose or gain as told by different people4 ,who has not heard different versions of the story of a well-known ,canon of ,christ ,church in my early days1 who1 when rowing on the river1 saw a drowning man laying hold of his boat and nearly upsetting it4 8,providentially10 he explained1 8,i had brought my umbrella1 and ,i had presence of mind enough to hit him over the knuckles4 ,he let go1 sank1 and never rose again40 ,nobody1 ,i imagine1 would have vouched for the truth of this story1 but it was so often repeated that it provided the old gentleman with a nickname1 that stuck to him always4 ,i could add more ,oxford stories1 but it seems almost ill-natured to do so1 and ,i could only say in most cases relata refero4 ,when ,i first came here ,oxford and ,oxford society were to me so strange that ,i probably accepted many similar stories as gospel truth4 ,my young friends hardly treated me quite fairly in this respect4 ,i had many questions to ask1 and my friends evidently thought it great fun to chaff me and to tell me stories which ,i naturally believed1 for there were many things which seemed to me very strange1 and yet they were true and ,i had to believe them4 ,the existence of ,fellows who received from #cjj to #hjj a year1 as a mere sinecure for life1 provided they did not marry1 seemed to me at first perfectly incredible4 ,in ,germany education at ,public ,schools and ,universities was so cheap that even the poorest could manage to get what was wanted for the highest employments1 particularly if they could gain an exhibition or scholarship4 ,but after a man had passed his examinations1 the country or the government had nothing more to do with him4 8,swim or drown0 was the maxim followed everywhere2 and it was but natural that the first years of professional life1 whether as lawyers1 medical men1 or clergymen1 were years of great self-denial4 ,but they were also years of intense struggle1 and the years of hunger are said to have accounted for a great deal of excellent work in order to force the doors to better employment4 ,to imagine that after the country had done its duty by providing schools and universities1 it would provide crutches for men who ought to learn to walk by themselves1 was beyond my comprehension1 particularly when ,i was told how large a sum was yearly spent by the colleges in paying these fellowships without requiring any quid pro quo4 ,having once come to believe that1 and several other to me unintelligible things at ,oxford1 ,i was ready to believe almost anything my friends told me4 ,there are some famous stone images1 for instance1 round the ,theatre and the ,ashmolean ,museum4 ,they are hideous1 for the sandstone of which they are made has crumbled away again and again1 but even when they were restored1 the same brittle stone was used4 ,they are in the form of ,hermae1 and were planned by no less an architect than ,sir ,christopher ,wren4 ,when ,i asked what they were meant for1 ,i was assured quite seriously that they were images of former ,heads of ,houses4 ,i believed it1 though ,i expressed my surprise that the stone-mason who made new heads1 when the old showed hardly more than two eyes and a nose1 and a very wide mouth1 should carefully copy the crumbling faces1 because1 as ,i was informed1 he had been told to copy the former gentlemen4 ,it was certainly a very common amusement of my young undergraduate friends to make fun of the ,heads of ,houses4 ,they did not seem to feel that shiver of unspeakable awe for them of which ,bishop ,thorold speaks2 nay1 they were anything but respectful in speaking of the ,doctors of ,divinity in their red gowns with black velvet sleeves4 ,if it is difficult for old men always to understand young men1 it is certainly even more difficult for young men to understand old men4 ,there is a very old saying1 8,young men think that old men are fools1 but old men know that young men are40 ,though very young myself1 ,i came to know several of the old ,heads of ,houses1 and though they certainly had their peculiarities1 they did by no means all belong to the age of the ,dodo4 ,they were enjoying their otium cum dignitate1 as befits gentlemen1 scholars1 and divines1 and they certainly deserved greater respect from the undergraduates than they received4 ,at the annual ,encaenia1 a great deal of licence was allowed to the young men2 and ,i know of several strangers1 especially foreigners1 who have been scandalized at the riotous behaviour of the undergraduates in the ,theatre1 the ,oxford ,aula1 when the ,vice-,chancellor stood up to address the assembled audience4 ,my first experience of this was with ,dr4 ,plumptre1 who1 as ,i have said1 was very tall and stately2 when his first words were not quite distinct1 the undergraduates shouted1 8,speak up1 old stick40 ,when the ,warden of ,wadham1 the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,symons1 was showing some pretty young ladies to their seats in the ,theatre1 he was threatened by the young men1 who yelled at the top of their voices1 8,i'll tell ,lydia1 you wicked old man40 ,now ,lydia was his most excellent spouse4 ,at first the remarks of the undergraduates at the ,encaenia1 or rather ,saturnalia1 were mostly good-natured and at least witty2 but they at last became so rude that distinguished men1 whom the ,university wished to honour by conferring on them honorary degrees1 felt deeply offended4 ,sir ,arthur ,helps declared that he came to receive an honour1 and received an insult4 ,well do ,i remember the ,rev4 ,dr4 ,salmon1 who was asked where he had left his lobster sauce2 ,dr4 ,wendell ,holmes was shouted at1 whether he had come across the ,atlantic in his 8,one ,hoss ,shay02 the ,right ,hon4 ,w4 ,h4 ,smith1 ,first ,lord of the ,admiralty1 was presented with a ,pinafore1 and ,lord ,wolseley with a ,black ,watch4 ,there was a certain amount of wit in these allusions1 and the best way to take the academic row and riot was ,tennyson's1 who told me on coming out that 8he felt all the time as if standing on the shingle of the sea shore1 the storm howling1 and the spray covering him right and left40 ,after a time1 however1 these ,saturnalia had to be stopped1 and they were stopped in a curious way1 by giving ladies seats among the undergraduates4 ,it speaks well for them that their regard for the ladies restrained them1 and made them behave like gentlemen4 ,the reign of the ,heads of ,houses1 which was in full force when ,i first settled in ,oxford1 began to wane when it was least expected4 ,there had1 however1 been grumblings among the ,fellows and ,tutors at ,oxford1 who felt themselves aggrieved by the self-willed interference of the ,heads of ,colleges in their tutorial work1 and1 it may be1 resented the airs assumed by men who1 after all1 were their equals1 and in no sense their betters1 in the ,university4 ,society distinctly profited when ,fellows and ,tutors were allowed to marry1 and when several of the newly-elected of the ,heads of ,houses1 having wives and daughters1 opened their houses1 and had interesting people to dine with them from the neighbourhood and from ,london4 ,the ,deanery of ,christ ,church was not only made architecturally into a new house1 but under ,dr4 ,liddell1 with his charming wife and daughters1 became a social centre not easily rivalled anywhere else4 ,there one met not only royalty1 the young ,prince of ,wales1 but many eminent writers1 artists1 and political men from ,london1 ,gladstone1 ,disraeli1 ,richmond1 ,ruskin1 and many others4 ,another bright house of the new era was that of the ,principal of ,brasenose1 ,dr4 ,cradock1 and his cheerful and most amusing wife4 ,there one often met such men as ,lord ,russell1 ,sir ,george ,c4 ,lewis1 young ,harcourt1 and many more4 ,she was the true ,dresden china marquise1 with her amusing sallies1 which no doubt often gave offence to grave ,heads of ,houses and sedate ,professors4 ,no one knew her age1 she was so young2 and yet she had been maid of honour to some ,queen1 as ,i told her once1 to ,queen ,anne4 ,having been maid of honour1 she never concealed her own peculiar feelings about people who had not been presented4 ,when she wanted to be left alone1 she would look out of window1 and tell visitors who came to call1 8,very sorry1 but ,i am not at home to-day40 ,queen's ,college also1 under ,dr4 ,thomson1 the future ,archbishop of ,york1 was a most hospitable house4 ,mrs4 ,thomson presided over it with her peculiar grace and genuine kindness1 and many a pleasant evening ,i spent there with musical performances4 ,but here1 too1 the old leaven of ,oxford burst forth sometimes4 ,of course1 we generally performed the music of ,handel and other classical authors2 ,mendelssohn's compositions were still considered as mere twaddle by some of the old school4 ,at one of these evenings1 the old organist of ,new ,college1 with his wooden leg1 after sitting through a rehearsal of ,mendelssohn's ,hymn of ,praise1 which ,i was conducting at the pianoforte1 walked up to me1 as ,i thought1 to thank me2 but no1 he burst out in a torrent of real and somewhat coarse abuse of me1 for venturing to introduce such flimsy music at ,oxford4 ,i did not feel very guilty1 and fortunately ,i remained silent1 whether from actual bewilderment or from a better cause1 ,i can hardly tell4 ,illustration3 ,f4 ,max ,mller ,aged #cj4 ,long before ,commissions came down on ,oxford a new life seemed to be springing up there1 and what was formerly the exception became more and more the rule among the young ,fellows and ,tutors4 ,they saw what a splendid opportunity was theirs1 having the very flower of ,england to educate1 having the future of ,english society to form4 ,they certainly made the best of it1 helped1 ,i believe1 by the so-called ,oxford ,movement1 which1 whatever came of it afterwards1 was certainly in the beginning thoroughly genuine and conscientious4 ,the ,tutors saw a good deal of the young men confided to their care1 and the result was that even what was called the 8fast set0 thought it a fine thing to take a good class4 ,i could mention a number of young noblemen and wealthy undergraduates who1 in my early years1 read for a first class and took it2 and my experience has certainly been that those who took a first class came out in later life as eminent and useful members of society4 ,not that eminence in political1 clerical1 literary1 and scientific life was restricted to first classes1 far from it4 ,but first-class men rarely failed to appear again on the surface in later life4 ,it may be true that a first class did not always mean a first-class man1 but it always seemed to mean a man who had learned how to work honestly1 whether he became ,prime ,minister or ,archbishop1 or spent his days in one of the public offices1 or even in a counting-house or newspaper office4 ,i felt it was an excellent mixture if a young man1 after taking a good degree at ,oxford1 spent a year or two at a ,german ,university4 ,he generally came back with fresh ideas1 knew what kind of work still had to be done in the different branches of study1 and did it with a perseverance that soon produced most excellent results4 ,of course there was always the difficulty that young men wished to make their way in life1 that is to make a living4 ,the ,church1 the bar1 and the hospital1 absorbed many of those who in ,germany would have looked forward to a ,university career4 ,in my own subject more particularly1 my very best pupils did not see their way to gaining even an independence1 unless they gave their time to first securing a curacy1 or a mastership at school2 and they usually found that1 in order to do their work conscientiously1 they had to give up their favourite studies in which they would certainly have done excellent work1 if there had been no dira necessitas4 ,i often tried to persuade my friends at ,oxford to make the fellowships really useful by concentrating them and giving studious men a chance of devoting themselves at the ,university to non-lucrative studies4 ,but the feeling of the majority was always against what was called derisively ,original ,research1 and the fellowship-funds continued to be frittered away1 payment by results being considered a totally mistaken principle1 so that often1 as in the case of the new septennial fellowships1 there remained the payment only1 but no results4 ,still all this became clear to me at a much later time only4 ,my first years at ,oxford were spent in a perfect bewilderment of joy and admiration4 ,no one can see that ,university for the first time1 particularly in spring or autumn1 without being enchanted with it4 ,to me it seemed a perfect paradise1 and ,i could have wished for myself no better lot than that which the kindness of my friends later secured for me there4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,early ,,friends ,,at ,,oxford ,i was still very young when ,i came to settle at ,oxford1 only twenty-four in fact2 and1 though occasionally honoured by invitations from ,heads of ,houses and ,professors1 ,i naturally lived chiefly with undergraduates and junior ,fellows1 such as ,grant1 ,sellar1 ,palgrave1 ,morier1 and others4 ,grant1 afterwards ,sir ,alexander ,grant and ,principal of the ,university of ,edinburgh1 was a delightful companion4 ,he had always something new in his mind1 and discussed with many flashes of wit and satire4 ,he possessed an aristocratic contempt for anything commonplace1 or self-evident1 so that one had to be careful in conversing with him4 ,but he was generous1 and his laugh reconciled one to some of his sharp sallies4 ,how little one anticipates the future greatness of one's friends4 ,they all seem to us no better than ourselves1 when suddenly they emerge4 ,grant had shown what he could do by his edition of ,aristotle's ,ethics4 ,he became one of the ,professors at the new ,university at ,bombay and contributed much to the first starting of that ,university1 so warmly patronized by ,sir ,charles ,trevelyan4 ,on returning to this country he was chosen to fill the distinguished place of ,principal of the ,edinburgh ,university4 ,more was expected of him when he enjoyed this otium cum dignitate1 but his health seemed to have suffered in the enervating climate of ,india1 and1 though he enjoyed his return to his friends most fully and spending his life as a friend among friends1 he died comparatively young1 and perhaps without fulfilling all the hopes that were entertained of him4 ,but he was a thoroughly genial man1 and his handshake and the twinkle of his eye when meeting an old friend will not easily be forgotten4 ,sellar was another ,scotchman whom ,i knew as an undergraduate at ,balliol4 ,when ,i first came to know him he was full of anxieties about his health1 and greatly occupied with the usual doubts about religion1 particularly the presence of evil or of anything imperfect in this world4 ,he was an honest fellow1 warmly attached to his friends2 and no one could wish to have a better friend to stand up for him on all occasions and against all odds4 ,he afterwards became happily married and a useful ,professor of ,latin at ,edinburgh4 ,i stayed with him later in life in ,scotland and found him always the same1 really enjoying his friends' society and a talk over old days4 ,he had begun to ail when ,i saw him last1 but the old boy was always there1 even when he was miserable about his chiefly imaginary miseries4 ,soon after ,i had left him ,i received his last message and farewell from his deathbed4 ,we are told that all this is very natural and what we must be prepared for--but what cold gaps it leaves4 ,my thoughts often return to him1 as if he were still among the living1 and then one feels one's own loneliness and friendlessness again and again4 ,palgrave roused great expectations among undergraduates at ,oxford1 but he kept us waiting for some time4 ,he took early to office life in the ,educational ,department1 and this seems to have ground him down and unfitted him for other work4 ,he had a wonderful gift of admiring1 his great hero being ,tennyson1 and he was more than disappointed if others did not join in his unqualified panegyrics of the great poet4 ,at last1 somewhat late in life1 he was elected ,professor of ,poetry at ,oxford1 and gave some most learned and instructive lectures4 ,his knowledge of ,english ,literature1 particularly poetry1 was quite astounding4 ,i certainly never went to him to ask him a question that he did not answer at once and with exhaustive fullness4 ,some of his friends complained of his great command of language1 and even ,tennyson1 ,i am told1 found it sometimes too much4 ,all ,i can say is that to me it was a pleasure to listen to him4 ,i owe him particular thanks for having1 in the kindest manner1 revised my first ,english compositions4 ,he was always ready and indefatigable1 and ,i certainly owed a good deal to his corrections and his unstinted advice4 ,his ,golden ,treasury has become a national possession1 and certainly speaks well both for his extensive knowledge and for his good taste4 ,lastly there was ,morier1 of whom certainly no one expected when he was at ,balliol that he would rise to be ,british ,ambassador at ,st4 ,petersburg4 ,his early education had been somewhat neglected1 but when he came to ,balliol he worked hard to pass a creditable examination4 ,he was a giant in size1 very good-looking1 and his manners1 when he liked1 most charming and attractive4 ,being the son of a diplomatist there was something both ,english and foreign in his manner1 and he certainly was a general favourite at ,oxford4 ,his great desire was to enter the diplomatic service1 but when that was impossible1 he found employment for a time in the ,education ,office4 ,but society in ,london was too much for him1 he was made for society1 and society was delighted to receive him4 ,but it was difficult for him at the same time to fulfil his duties at the ,education ,office1 and the result was that he had to give up his place4 ,things began to look serious1 when fortunately ,lord ,aberdeen1 a great friend of his father1 found him some diplomatic employment2 and that once found1 ,morier was in his element4 ,he was often almost reckless2 but while several of his friends came altogether to grief1 he managed always to fall on his feet and keep afloat while others went down4 ,as an undergraduate he came to me to read ,greek with me1 and ,i confess that with such mistakes in his ,greek papers as instead of 1 ,i trembled for his examinations4 ,however1 he did well in the schools1 knowing how to hide his weak points and how to make the best of his strong ones4 ,i travelled with him in ,germany1 and when the ,schleswig-,holstein question arose1 he wrote a pamphlet which certainly might have cost him his diplomatic career4 ,he asked me to allow it to be understood that the pamphlet1 which did full justice to the claims of ,holstein and of ,germany1 had been written by me4 ,i received many compliments1 which ,i tried to parry as well as ,i could4 ,fortunately ,lord ,john ,russell stood by ,morier1 and his prophecies did certainly turn out true4 8,don't let the ,germans awake from their slumbers and find a work ready made for them on which they all agree40 ,but the signatories of the treaty of ,london did the very thing against which ,morier had raised his warning voice1 as the friend of ,germany as it was1 though perhaps not of the ,germany that was to be4 ,schleswig-,holstein meer-umschlungen became the match1 7the ,schwefel-hlzchen71 that was to light the fire of ,german unity1 a unity which for a time may not have been exactly what ,england could have wished for1 but which in the future will become1 we hope1 the safety of ,europe and the support of ,england4 ,morier's later advance in his diplomatic career was certainly most successful4 ,he possessed the very important art of gaining the confidence of the crowned heads and ministers he had to deal with4 ,bismarck1 it is true1 could not bear him1 and tried several times to trip him up4 ,even while ,morier was at ,berlin1 as a ,secretary of ,legation1 ,bismarck asked for his removal1 but ,lord ,granville simply declined to remove a young diplomatist who gave him information on all parties in ,germany1 and to do so had to mix with people whom ,bismarck did not approve of4 ,besides1 ,morier was always a persona grata with the ,crown ,prince and the ,crown ,princess1 and that was enough to make ,bismarck dislike him4 ,later in life ,bismarck accused him of having conveyed private information of the military position of the ,germans to the ,french ,guards1 such information being derived from the ,english ,court4 ,the charge was ridiculous4 ,morier was throughout the war a sympathizer with ,germany as against ,france4 ,the ,english ,court had no military information to convey or to communicate to ,morier1 and ,morier was too much of a diplomatist and a gentleman1 if by accident he had possessed any such information1 to betray such a secret to an enemy in the field4 ,bismarck was completely routed1 though his son seemed inclined to fasten a duel on the ,english diplomatist4 ,morier rose higher and higher1 and at last became ,ambassador at ,st4 ,petersburg4 ,when ,i laughed and congratulated him he said1 8,he must be a great fool who does not reach the top of the diplomatic tree40 ,that was too much modesty1 and yet modesty was not exactly his fault2 but he agreed with me as to quam parva sapientia regitur mundus4 ,nothing could seem more prosperous than my friend ,morier's career2 but few people knew how utterly miserable he really was4 ,he had one son1 in many respects the very image of his father1 a giant in stature1 very handsome1 and most attractive4 ,in spite of all we said to him he would not send his son to a public school in ,england1 but kept him with him at the different embassies1 where his only companions were the young attachs and secretaries4 ,he had a private tutor1 and when that tutor declared that young ,morier was fit for the ,university1 his father managed to get him into ,balliol1 recommending him to the special care of the ,master4 ,he actually lived in the ,master's house for a time1 but enjoyed the greatest liberty that an undergraduate at ,oxford may enjoy4 ,his father was wrapped up in his boy1 but at the same time tried to frighten him into hard work1 or at least into getting through the examinations4 ,all was in vain2 young ,morier was so nervous that he could never pass an examination4 ,what might be expected followed1 and the father had at last to remove him to begin work as an honorary attach at his own embassy4 ,i liked the young man very much1 but my own impression is that his nervousness quite unfitted him for serious work4 ,the end was beyond description sad4 ,he went to ,south ,africa in the police force1 distinguished himself very much1 came back to ,england1 and then on his second voyage to the ,cape died suddenly on board the steamer4 ,i have seldom seen such utter misery as his father's4 ,he loved his son and the son loved his father passionately1 but the father expected more than it was physically and mentally possible for the son to do4 ,hence arose misunderstandings1 and yet beneath the surface there was this passionate love1 like the love of lovers4 ,when ,i saw my old friend last1 he cried and sobbed like a child3 his heart was really broken4 ,he went on for a few years more1 suffering much from ill health1 but really killed at last by his utter misery4 ,i knew him in the bright morning of his life1 at the meridian of his great success1 and last in the dark night when light and life seems gone1 when the moon and all the stars are extinguished1 and nothing remains but patient suffering and the hope of a brighter morn to come4 ,how little one dreamt of all this when we were young1 and when an ambassador1 nay1 even a professor1 seemed to us far beyond the reach of our ambition4 ,i could go on mentioning many more names of men with whom ,i lived at ,oxford in the most delightful intimacy1 and who afterwards turned up as bishops1 archbishops1 judges1 ministers1 and all the rest4 ,true1 it is quite natural that it should be so with a man who1 as ,i did1 began his ,english life almost as an undergraduate among undergraduates4 ,nearly all ,englishmen who receive a liberal education must pass either through ,oxford or through ,cambridge1 and ,i was no doubt lucky in making thus early the acquaintance of a number of men who later in life became deservedly eminent4 ,the only drawback was that1 knowing my friends very intimately1 ,i did not perhaps later preserve on all occasions that deference which the dignity of an ambassador or of an archbishop has a right to demand4 ,thomson was a dear friend of mine when he was still a fellow of ,queen's ,college4 ,we worked together1 as may be seen by my contributions to his ,laws of ,thought1 and the translation of a ,vedic hymn which he helped me to make4 ,i think he had a kind of anticipation of what was in store for him4 ,though for a time he had to be satisfied1 even when he was married1 with a very small ,london living1 he soon rose in the ,church1 at a time when clergymen of a liberal way of thinking had not much chance of ,crown preferment4 ,but having gone at the head of a deputation to ,lord ,palmerston1 to inform him that ,gladstone's next election as member for ,oxford was becoming doubtful1 owing to all the bishoprics being given to the ,low ,church party--the party of ,lord ,shaftesbury--,palmerston remembered his stately and courteous bearing1 and when the see of ,gloucester fell vacant1 gave him that bishopric to silence ,gladstone's supporters4 ,this was a very unexpected preferment at ,oxford1 but ,thomson made such good use of his opportunity that1 when the ,archbishopric of ,york became vacant1 and ,palmerston found it difficult to make his own or ,lord ,shaftesbury's nominee acceptable to the ,queen1 he suggested that any one of the lately elected bishops approved of by the ,crown might go to ,york1 and some one else fill the see thus vacated4 ,it so happened that ,thomson's name was the first to be mentioned1 and he was made ,archbishop1 probably one of the youngest ,archbishops ,england has ever known4 ,he certainly fulfilled all expectations and proved himself the people's ,archbishop1 for he was himself the son of a small tradesman1 a fact of which he was never ashamed1 though his enemies did not fail to cast it in his teeth4 ,i confess ,i felt at first a little awkward with my old friend who formerly had discussed every possible religious and philosophical problem quite freely with me1 and was now ,his ,grace the ,lord ,archbishop1 with a palace to inhabit and an income of about #aj1jjj a year4 ,however1 though as a ,german and as a friend of ,bunsen ,i was looked upon as a kind of heretic1 ,i never made the ,archbishop blush for his old friend1 and ,i always found him the same to the end of his life1 kind1 courteous1 and ready to help1 though it is but fair to remember that an ,archbishop of ,york is one of the first subjects of the ,queen1 and cannot do or say everything that he might like to do or to say4 ,when ,i had to ask him to do something for a friend of mine1 who as a clergyman had given great offence by his very liberal opinions1 he did all he could do1 though he might have incurred great obloquy by so doing4 ,but when ,i think of these men1 friends and acquaintances of mine1 whom ,i remember as young men1 very able and hard working no doubt1 yet not so entirely different from others who through life remained unknown1 it is as if ,i had slept through a number of years and dreamt1 and had then suddenly awoke to a new life4 ,some of my friends1 ,i am glad to say1 ,i always found the same1 whether in ermine or in lawn sleeves2 others1 however1 ,i am sorry to say1 had become something1 the old boy in them had vanished1 and nothing was to be seen except the bishop1 the judge1 or the minister4 ,it was not for me to remind them of their former self1 and to make them doubt their own identity1 but ,i often felt the truth of ,matthew ,arnold's speeches1 who1 in social position1 never rose beyond that of inspector of schools1 and who often laughed when at great dinners he found himself surrounded by their ,graces1 their ,excellencies1 and my ,lords1 recognizing faces that sat below him at school and whose names in the class lists did not occupy so high a place as his own4 ,not that ,matthew ,arnold was dissatisfied2 he knew his worth1 but1 as he himself asked for nothing1 it is strange that his friends should never have asked for something for him1 which would have shown to the world at large that he had not been left behind in the race4 ,it strikes one that while he was at ,oxford1 few people only detected in ,arnold the poet or the man of remarkable genius4 ,i had many letters from him1 but ,i never kept them1 and ,i often blame myself now that in his1 as in other cases1 ,i should have thrown away letters as of no importance4 ,then suddenly came the time when he returned to ,oxford as the poet1 as the ,professor of poetry1 nay1 afterwards as the philosopher also1 placed high by public opinion among the living worthies of ,england4 ,what was sometimes against him was his want of seriousness4 ,a laugh from his hearers or readers seemed to be more valued by him than their serious opposition1 or their convinced assent4 ,he trusted1 like others1 to persiflage1 and the result was that when he tried to be serious1 people could not forget that he might at any time turn round and smile1 and decline to be taken au grand srieux4 ,people do not know what a dangerous game this ,french persiflage is1 particularly in ,england1 and how difficult it becomes to exchange it afterwards for real seriousness4 ,those early ,oxford days were bright days for me1 and now1 when those young and old faces1 whether undergraduates or archbishops1 rise up again before me1 ,i being almost the only one left of that happy company1 ,i ask again1 8,did they also belong to a mere dreamland1 they who gave life to my life1 and made ,england my real home80 ,when ,i first saw them at ,oxford1 ,i was really an undergraduate1 though ,i had taken my ,doctor's degree at ,leipzig4 ,i lived1 in fact1 my happy university life over again1 and it would be difficult to say which academical years ,i enjoyed more1 those at ,leipzig and ,berlin1 or those at ,oxford4 ,there were intermediate years in ,paris1 but during my stay there ,i saw but little of students and student life4 ,i was too much oppressed with cares and anxieties about my present and future to think much of society and enjoyment4 ,at ,oxford1 these cares had become far less1 and ,i could by hard work earn as much money as ,i wanted1 and cared to spend4 ,in ,paris1 ,i was already something of a scholar and writer2 at ,oxford ,i became once more the undergraduate4 ,this young society into which ,i was received was certainly most attractive1 though that it contained the germs of future greatness never struck me at the time4 ,what struck me was the general tone of the conversation4 ,of course1 as ,lord ,palmerston said of himself when he was no longer very young1 8boys will be boys10 but there never was anything rude or vulgar in their conversation1 and ,i hardly ever heard an offensive remark among them4 ,most of my friends came from ,balliol1 and were serious-minded men1 many of them occupied and troubled by religious1 philosophical1 and social problems4 ,what puzzled me most was the entire absence of duels4 ,occasionally there were squabbles and high words1 which among ,german students could have had one result only--a duel4 ,but at ,oxford1 either a man apologized at once or the next morning1 and the matter was forgotten1 or1 if a man proved himself a cad or a snob1 he was simply dropped4 ,i do not mean to condemn the students' duels in ,germany altogether4 ,considering how mixed the society of ,german universities is1 and the perfect equality that reigns among them--they all called each other 8thou0 in my time--the son of a gentleman required some kind of protection against the son of a butcher or of a day-labourer4 ,boxing and fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students1 so that there remained nothing to a young student who wanted to escape from the insults of a young ruffian1 but to call him out4 ,as soon as a challenge was given1 all abuse ceased at once1 and such was the power of public opinion at the universities that not another word of insult would be uttered4 ,in this way much mischief is prevented4 ,besides1 every precaution is taken to guard against fatal accident1 and ,i believe there are fewer serious accidents on the mensura than in the hunting-field in ,england4 ,when ,i was at ,leipzig1 where we had at least four hundred duels during the year1 only two fatal accidents happened1 and they were1 indeed1 accidents1 such as will happen even at football4 ,of course duels can never be defended1 but for keeping up good manners1 also for bringing out a man's character1 these academic duels seem useful4 ,however small the danger is1 it frightens the coward and restrains the poltroon4 ,for all that1 what has taken place in ,england may in time take place in ,germany also1 and men will cease to think that it is impossible to defend their honour without a piece of steel or a pistol4 ,the last thing that a ,german student desires to do in a duel is to kill his adversary4 ,hence pistol duels1 which are generally preferred by theological students1 because they cannot easily get a living if their face is scarred all over1 are generally the most harmless1 except perhaps for the seconds4 ,before closing this chapter1 ,i should like to say a few words on the impressions which the theological atmosphere of ,oxford in #ahdh produced on me1 and which even now fills me with wonder and amazement4 ,when ,i came to ,oxford1 ,i was strongly recommended to ,stanley on one side1 and to ,manuel ,johnson on the other1--a curious mixture4 ,johnson1 the ,observer1 was extremely kind and hospitable to me4 ,he was a genial man1 full of love1 possibly a little weak1 but thoroughly honest1 nay1 transparently so4 ,i met at his house nearly all the leaders of the ,high ,church movement1 though ,i never met ,newman himself1 who had then already gone to reside at his retreat at ,littlemore4 ,on the other hand1 ,stanley received me with open arms as a friend of ,bunsen1 ,frederick ,maurice1 and ,julius ,hare1 and as ,i came straight from the ,february revolution in #ahdh1 he was full of interest and curiosity to know from me what ,i had seen in ,paris4 ,at first ,i knew nothing1 and understood nothing of the movement1 call it ecclesiastical or theological1 that was going on at ,oxford at that time4 ,i dined almost every ,sunday at ,johnson's house1 and at his dinners and ,sunday afternoon garden parties ,i met men such as ,church1 ,mozley1 ,buckle1 ,palgrave1 ,pollen1 ,rigaud1 ,burgon1 and ,chrtian1 who inspired me with great respect1 both for their learning and for what ,i could catch of their character4 ,stanley1 on the other hand1 ,froude1 and ,jowett1 proved themselves true friends to me in making me feel at home1 and initiating me into the secrets of the place4 ,there was1 however1 a curious reticence on both sides1 and it was by sudden glimpses only that ,i came to understand that these two sets were quite divided1 nay1 opposed1 and had very different ideals before them4 ,i had been at a ,german university1 and the historical study of ,christianity was to me as familiar as the study of ,roman history4 ,professors whom ,i had looked up to as great authorities1 implicitly to be trusted1 such as ,lotze and ,weisse at ,leipzig1 ,schelling and ,michelet at ,berlin1 had1 after causing in me a certain surprise at first1 left me with the firm conviction that the ,old and ,new ,testament were historical books1 and to be treated according to the same critical principles as any other ancient book1 particularly the sacred books of the ,east of which so little was then known1 and of which ,i too knew very little as yet2 enough1 however1 to see that they contained nothing but what under the circumstances they could contain1 traditions of extreme antiquity collected by men who gathered all they thought would be useful for the education of the people4 ,anything like revelation in the old sense of the word1 a belief that these books had been verbally communicated by the ,deity1 or that what seemed miraculous in them was to be accepted as historically real1 simply because it was recorded in these sacred books1 was to me a standpoint long left behind4 ,to me the questions that occupied my thoughts were to what date these books1 such as we have them1 could be assigned1 what portions of them were of importance to us1 what were the simple truths they contained1 and what had been added to them by later collectors4 ,well do ,i remember when1 before going to ,oxford1 ,i spoke to ,bunsen of the preface to my ,rig-veda1 and used the expression1 8the great revelations of the world10 he1 perfectly understanding what ,i meant1 warned me in his loud and warm voice1 8,don't say that at ,oxford40 ,i could see no harm1 nor ,bunsen either1 nor his son who was an ,oxford man and a clergyman of the ,church of ,england2 but ,i was told that ,i should be misunderstood4 ,i knew far too little to imagine that ,i had a right to speak of what was fermenting and growing within me4 ,during my stay at ,leipzig and ,berlin1 and afterwards in my intercourse with ,renan and ,burnouf1 the principles of the historical school had become quite familiar to me1 but the application of these principles to the early history of religion was a different matter4 ,how far the ,old and the ,new ,testament would stand the critical tests enunciated by ,niebuhr was a frequent subject of controversy1 during the time ,i spent at ,paris1 between young ,renan and myself4 ,though ,i did not go with him in his reconstruction of the history of the ,jews and the ,jewish religion1 and of the early ,christians and the ,christian religion1 ,i agreed with him in principle1 objecting only to his too free and too idyllic reconstruction of these great religious movements4 ,besides1 before all things1 ,i was at that time given to philosophical studies1 chiefly to an inquiry into the limits of our knowledge in the ,kantian sense of the word1 the origin of thought and language1 the first faltering and half-mythological steps of language in the search for causes or divine agents4 ,all this occupied me far more than the age of the ,fourth ,gospel and its position by the side of the ,synoptic ,gospels4 ,i had talked with ,schelling and ,schopenhauer1 and little as ,i appreciated or understood all their teachings1 there were certain aspirations left in my mind which led me far away beyond the historical foundations of ,christianity4 ,what can we know8 was the question which ,i often opposed to ,renan at the very beginning of our conversations and controversies4 ,that there were great truths in the teaching and preaching of ,christ1 ,renan was always ready to admit1 but while it interested me how the truths proclaimed by ,christ could have sprung up in ,his mind and at that time in the history of the human race1 ,renan's eyes were always directed to the evidence1 and to what we could still know of the early history of ,christianity and its ,founder4 ,i could not deny that1 historically speaking1 we knew very little of the life1 the work1 and the teachings of ,christ2 but for that very reason ,i doubted our being justified in giving our interpretation and reconstruction to the fragments left to us of the real history of the life and teaching of ,christ4 ,to this opinion ,i remained true through life4 ,i claimed for each man the liberty of believing in his own ,christ1 but ,i objected to ,renan's idyllic ,christ as ,i objected to ,niebuhr's filling the canvas of ancient ,roman history with the figures of his own imagination4 ,naturally1 when ,i came to ,oxford1 ,i thought these things were familiar to all1 however much they might admit of careful correction4 ,nor have ,i any doubt that to some of my friends who were great theologians1 they were better known than to a young ,oriental scholar like myself4 ,but unless engaged in conversation on these subjects1 and this was chiefly the case with my friends of the ,stanley party1 ,i did not feel called upon to preach what1 as ,i thought1 every serious student knew quite as well and probably much better than myself1 though he might for some reason or other prefer to keep silence thereon4 ,what was my surprise when ,i found that most of these excellent and really learned men were much more deeply interested in purely ecclesiastical questions1 in the validity of ,anglican orders1 in the wearing of either gowns or surplices in the pulpit1 in the question of candlesticks and genuflections4 8,what has all this to do with true religion80 ,i once said to dear ,johnson4 ,he laughed with his genial laugh1 and blowing the smoke of his cigar away1 said1 8,oh1 you don't understand60 ,but ,i did understand1 and a great deal more than he expected4 ,truly religious men1 ,i thought1 might please themselves with incense and candlesticks1 provided they gave no offence to their neighbours4 ,it seemed to me quite natural also that men like ,johnson1 with a taste for art1 should prefer the ,roman ritual to the simple and sometimes rather bare service of the ,anglican ,church1 but that things such as incense and censers1 surplice and gown1 should be taken as they are1 as paraphernalia1 the work of human beings1 the outcome of personal and local influences1 as church-service1 no doubt1 but not as service of ,god4 ,god has to be served by very different things1 and there is the danger of the formal prevailing over the essential1 the danger of idolatry of symbols as realities1 whenever too much importance is attributed to the external forms of worship and divine service4 ,the validity of ,anglican orders was often discussed at the ,observatory1 and ,i no doubt gave great offence by openly declaring in my imperfect ,english that ,i considered ,luther a better channel for the transmission of the ,holy ,ghost than a ,caesar ,borgia or even a ,wolsey4 ,anyhow ,i could not bring myself to see the importance of such questions1 if only the heart was right and if the whole of our life was in fact a real and constant life with ,god and in ,god4 ,that is what ,i called a truly religious and truly ,christian life4 ,what struck me particularly1 both on the ,newman side1 and among those whom ,i met at ,jowett's and ,froude's1 was a curious want of openness and manliness in discussing these simple questions1 simple1 if not complicated by ecclesiastical theories4 ,when ,newman at ,iffley was spoken of1 it was in hushed tones1 and when rumours of his going over to ,rome reached his friends at ,oxford1 their consternation seemed to be like that of people watching the deathbed of a friend4 ,i am sorry ,i saw nothing of ,newman at that time2 when ,i sat with him afterwards in his study at ,birmingham1 he was evidently tired of controversy1 and unwilling to reopen questions which to him were settled once for all1 or if not settled1 at all events closed and relinquished4 ,i could never form a clear idea of the man1 much as ,i admired his sermons2 his brother and his own friends gave such different accounts of him4 ,that even at ,littlemore he was still faithful to his own national ,church1 anxious only to bring it nearer to its ancient possibly ,roman type1 can hardly be doubted4 ,when he wrote from ,littlemore to his friend ,de ,lisle1 he had no reason to economize the truth4 ,de ,lisle hoped that ,newman would soon openly join the ,church of ,rome1 but ,newman answered3 8,you must allow me to be honest with you in adding one thing4 ,a distressing feeling arises in my mind that such marks of kindness as these on your part are caused by a belief that ,i am ever likely to join your communion 444 ,i must assure you then with great sincerity that ,i have not the shadow of an internal movement known to myself towards such a step4 ,while ,god is with me where ,i am1 ,i will not seek ,him elsewhere4 ,i might almost say in the words of ,scripture1 #8,we have found the ,messias6'4440 ,how true this is1 and yet the same ,newman went over to the unreformed ,church1 because the ,archbishop of ,canterbury had sanctioned ,bunsen's proposal of an ,anglo-,german bishopric of ,jerusalem1 quite forgetful of the fact that ,synesius also had been bishop of ,ptolemais4 ,again ,i say1 ,what have such matters to do with true religion1 such as we read of in the ,new ,testament1 as an ideal to be realized in our life on earth8 ,and it so happened that at the same time ,i knew of families rendered miserable through ,newman's influence1 of young girls1 daughters of narrow-minded ,anglicans1 hurried over to ,rome1 of young men at ,oxford with their troubled consciences which under ,newman's direct or indirect guidance could end only in ,rome4 ,newman's influence must have been extraordinary2 the tone in which people who wished to free themselves from him1 who had actually left him1 spoke of him1 seemed tremulous with awe4 ,i would give anything to have known him at that time1 when ,i knew him through his disciples only4 ,they were caught in various ways4 ,i know of one1 a brilliant writer1 who had been entrusted by ,newman with writing some of the ,lives of the ,saints4 ,he did it with great industry1 but in the course of his researches he arrived at the conviction that there was hardly anything truly historical about his ,saints and that the miracles ascribed to them were insipid1 and might be the inventions of their friends2 such legends1 he felt1 would take no root on ,english soil1 at all events not in the present generation4 ,in consequence he informed ,newman that he could not keep his promise1 or that1 if he did so1 he must speak the truth1 tell people what they might believe about these ,saints1 and what was purely fanciful in the accounts of their lives4 ,and what was ,newman's answer8 ,he did not respect the young man's scruples1 but encouraged him to go on1 because1 as he said1 people would never believe more than half of these ,lives1 and that therefore some of these unsupported legends also might prove useful1 if only as a kind of ballast4 8,i rejoice to hear of your success10 he writes1 ,august #ba1 #ahdc4 8,as to ,st4 ,grimball1 of course we must expect such deficiencies2 where matter is found1 it is all gain1 and there are plenty of ,lives to put together1 as you will see1 when you see the whole list4 8,i am rather for inserting 7of course discreetly and in way of selection7 the miracles for which you have not good evidence4 7#a7 ,they are beautiful1 you say1 and will tell in the narrative4 7#b7 ,next you can say that the evidence is weak1 and this will be bringing credit for the others where you say the evidence is strong4 ,people will never go so far as your narrative4 ,cut it down to what is true1 and they will disbelieve a part of it2 put in these legends and they will compound for the true at the sacrifice of what may be true1 but is not well attested40 ,i confess ,i cannot quite follow4 ,if a man like ,newman believed in these saints and their miracles1 his pleading would become intelligible1 but it seems from this very letter that he did not1 and yet he tried to persuade his young friend to go on and not to gather the tares1 8lest haply he might root up the wheat with them4 ,let both grow together until the harvest40 ,i do not like to judge1 but ,i doubt whether this kind of teaching could have strengthened the healthy moral fibre of a man's conscience and have led him to depend entirely on his sense of truth4 ,and yet this was the man who at one time was supposed to draw the best spirits of ,oxford with him to ,rome4 ,this was the man to whom some of the best spirits at ,oxford confessed all they had to confess1 and that could have been very little1 and of whom they spoke with a subdued whisper as the apostle who would restore all faith1 and bring back the ,anglican sheep to the ,roman fold4 ,i saw and heard all that was going on1 the hopes deferred1 the secret visits to ,littlemore1 the rumours and more than rumours of ,newman's defection4 ,such was the devotion of some of these disciples that they expected day by day a great catastrophe or a great victory1 for after the publication of so many letters written at the time by ,wiseman1 ,manning1 ,de ,lisle1 and others1 there can be little doubt that a great conversion or perversion of ,england to the ,romish ,church was fully expected4 ,de ,lisle writes3 8,england is now in full career of a great ,religious ,revolution1 this time back to ,catholicism and to the ,roman ,see as its true centre 444 the best friends of ,rome in the ,anglican ,church are obliged still to be guarded40 ,such words admit of one meaning only1 and if ,newman had been followed by a large number of his ,oxford friends1 the results for ,england might really have been most terrible4 ,but here1 no doubt1 the ,english national feeling came in4 ,what ,england had suffered under ,roman ecclesiastical rule had not yet been entirely forgotten1 and the idea that a foreign potentate and a foreign priesthood should interfere with the highest interests of the nation1 was fortunately as distasteful as ever1 not only to a large party of the clergy1 but to a still larger party of the laity also4 ,it seemed to me very curious that so many of ,newman's followers did not see the unpatriotic character of their agitation4 ,either subjection to ,rome or civil war at home was the inevitable outcome of what they discussed very innocently at the ,observatory1 and little as ,i understood their schemes for the future1 ,i often felt surprised at what sounded to me like very unpatriotic utterances4 ,another thing that struck me as utterly un-,english and has often been dwelt on by the historians of this movement1 was the curiously secret character of the agitation4 ,what has an ,englishman to fear when he openly protests against what he disapproves of in ,church or ,state8 ,but ,newman's friends at ,oxford behaved really1 as has been often said1 like so many naughty schoolboys1 or like conspirators1 yet they were neither4 ,a very similar charge1 however1 was brought against the liberal party4 ,they also seemed to think that they were out of bounds1 and were doing in secret what they did not dare to do openly4 ,it is well known that one friend of ,newman's1 who afterwards became a ,roman ,catholic1 had a small chapel set up in his bedroom in college1 with pictures and candles and instruments of flagellation4 ,no one was allowed to see this room1 till one evening when the flagellant had retired after dinner and fallen asleep1 the servants found him lying before the altar4 ,nothing remained to him then but to exchange his comfortable college rooms for the less comfortable cell of a ,roman monastery1 and little was done by his new friends to make the evening of his life serene and free from anxiety4 ,these things were known and talked about in ,oxford1 and generally with anything but the seriousness that the subject seemed to me to require4 ,again at the ,observatory a point was made of having games in the garden such as boccia on a ,sunday afternoon1 thus evading the strict observance of the ,sabbath1 without openly trying to restore to it the character which it had in ,roman ,catholic countries4 ,german theology was talked about as a kind of forbidden fruit1 as if it was not right for them to look at it1 to taste it1 or to examine it4 ,even years later people were afraid to meet ,professor ,ewald1 ,bishop ,colenso1 and other so-called heretics at my house4 ,they even fell on poor ,ewald at an evening party4 ,ewald was staying with me and working hard at some ,hebrew ,,mss4 at the ,bodleian4 ,he was then already an old man1 but in his appearance a powerful and venerable champion4 ,he is the only man ,i remember who1 after copying ,hebrew ,,mss4 for twelve hours at the ,bodleian with nothing but a sandwich to sustain him1 complained of the short time allowed there for work4 ,he came home for dinner very tired1 and when the conversation or rather the disputation began between him and some of our young liberal theologians1 he spoke in short pithy sentences only4 ,he considered himself perfectly orthodox1 nay1 one of the pillars of religion in ,germany1 and laid down the law with unhesitating conviction4 ,as far as ,i can remember1 he was answering a number of questions about ,st4 ,paul1 and what he thought of ,christ1 of the ,kingdom of ,christ1 and the ,life to come1 and being pestered and driven into a corner by his various questioners1 and asked at last how he knew ,st4 ,paul's secret thoughts1 he not knowing how to express himself in fluent ,english1 exclaimed in a loud voice1 8,i know it by the ,holy ,ghost40 ,here the conversation naturally stopped1 and poor ,ewald was allowed to finish his dinner in peace4 ,he had been ,professor at ,bonn1 when ,pusey came there as a young man to study ,hebrew after he had been appointed ,canon of ,christ ,church and ,professor of ,hebrew1 and he expressed to me a wish to see ,dr4 ,pusey4 ,i told him it would not be easy to arrange a meeting1 considering how strongly opposed ,dr4 ,pusey was to ,ewald's opinions4 ,personally ,i always found ,pusey tolerant1 and his kindness to me was a surprise to all my young friends4 ,but the fact was1 we moved on different planes1 and though he knew my religious opinions well1 they only excited a smile1 and he often said with a sigh1 8,i know you are a ,german40 ,his own idea was that he was placed at ,oxford in order to save the younger generation from seeing the abyss into which he himself had looked with terror4 ,he had read more heresy1 he used to say1 than anybody1 and he wished no one to pass through the trials and agonies through which he had passed1 chiefly1 ,i should think1 during his stay at a ,german university4 ,the historical element was wanting in him1 nay1 like ,hegel1 he sometimes seemed to lay stress on the unhistorical character of ,christianity4 ,my idea1 on the contrary1 was that ,christianity was a true historical event1 prepared by many events that had gone before and alone made it possible and real4 ,even the abyss1 if there were such an abyss1 was1 as it seemed to me1 meant to be there on our passage through life1 and was to be faced with a brave heart4 ,but to return to my first experiences of the theological atmosphere of ,oxford1 ,i confess ,i felt puzzled to see men1 whose learning and character ,i sincerely admired1 absorbed in subjects which to my mind seemed simply childish4 ,i expected ,i should hear from them some new views on the date of the gospels1 the meaning of revelation1 the historical value of revelation1 or the early history of the ,church4 ,no1 of all this not a word4 ,nothing but discussions on vestments1 on private confession1 on candles on the altar1 whether they were wanted or not1 on the altar being made of stone or of wood1 of consecrated wine being mixed with water1 of the priest turning his back on the congregation1 c4 ,i could not understand how these men1 so high above the ordinary level of men in all other respects1 could put aside the fundamental questions of ,christianity and give their whole mind to what seemed to me rightly called in the newspapers 8mere millinery40 ,i sought information from ,stanley1 but he shrugged his shoulders and advised me to keep aloof and say nothing4 ,this ,i was most willing to do2 ,i cared for none of these things4 ,my mind was occupied with far more serious problems1 such as ,i had heard explained by men of profound learning and honest purpose in the great universities of ,germany2 these troubles arose from questions which seemed to me to have no connexion with true religion at all4 ,even the differences between the reformed and unreformed churches were to me mere questions of history1 mere questions of human expediency4 ,i did not consider ,roman ,catholics as heretics--,i had known too many of them of unblemished character in ,germany4 ,i might have regretted the abuses which called for reform1 the excrescences which had disfigured ,christianity like many other religions1 but which might be tolerated as long as they did not lead to toleration for intolerance4 ,luther might no longer appear to me in the light of a perfect saint1 but that he was right in suppressing the time-honoured abuses of the ,roman ,church admitted with me of no doubt whatsoever4 ,large numbers always had that effect on me1 and when ,i saw how many good and excellent men were satisfied with the unreformed teaching of the ,roman ,church1 ,i felt convinced that they must attach a different meaning to certain doctrines and ecclesiastical practices from what we did4 ,i had learned to discover what was good and true in all religions1 and ,i could fully agree with ,macaulay when he said1 8,if people had lived in a country where very sensible people worshipped the cow1 they would not fall out with people who worship saints40 ,i know that many of my friends on both sides looked upon me as a latitudinarian1 but my conviction has always been that we could not be broad enough4 ,they looked upon me as wishing to keep on good terms with high and low and broad1 and ,i made no secret of it1 that ,i thought ,i could understand ,pusey as well as ,stanley1 and assign to each his proper place4 ,stanley was of course more after my own heart than ,pusey1 but ,pusey too was a man who interested me very much4 ,i saw that he might become a great power whether for good or for evil in ,england4 ,he was1 in fact1 a historical character1 and these were always the men who interested me4 ,he was fully aware of his importance in ,england1 and the great influence which his name exercised4 ,that influence was not always exercised in the right way1 so at least it seemed to me1 particularly when it was directed against such friends of mine as ,kingsley1 ,froude1 or ,jowett4 ,once1 ,i remember1 when he had come to my house1 ,i ventured to tell him that he could not have meant what he had said in declaring that the ,god worshipped by ,frederic ,maurice was not the same as his ,god4 ,curious to say1 he relented1 and admitted that he had used too strong language4 ,to me everything that was said of ,god seemed imperfect1 and never to apply to ,god ,himself but only to the idea which the human mind had formed of ,him4 ,to me even the ,hindu1 if he spoke of ,brahman or ,krishna1 seemed to have aimed at the true ,god1 in spite of the idolatrous epithets which he used2 then how could a man like ,frederic ,maurice be said to have worshipped a different ,god1 considering that we all can but feel after ,him in the dark1 not being able to do more than exclude all that seems to us unworthy of ,deity8 ,a very important element in the ecclesiastical views of some of my friends was1 no doubt1 the artistic4 ,if ,johnson leant towards ,rome1 it was the more ornate and beautiful service that touched and attracted him4 ,i sat near to him in ,st4 ,giles' ,church2 he told me what to do and what not to do during service4 ,in spite of the ,prayer-book1 it is by no means so easy as people imagine to do exactly the right thing in church1 and ,i had of course to learn a number of prayers and responses by heart4 ,to me the service1 as it was in my parish church1 seemed already too ornate1 accustomed as ,i had been to the somewhat bare and cold service in the ,lutheran ,church at ,dessau4 ,but ,johnson constantly complained about the monotonous and mechanical performances of the clergy4 ,he had a strong feeling for all that was beautiful and impressive in art1 and he wanted to see the service of ,god in church full both of reverence and beauty4 ,johnson's private collection of artistic treasures was very considerable1 and ,i learnt much from the ,italian engravings and ,dutch etchings which he possessed and delighted in showing4 ,i often spent happy hours with him examining his portfolios1 and wondered how he could afford to buy such treasures4 ,but he knew when and where to buy1 and ,i believe when his collection was sold after his death1 it brought a good deal more than it had cost him4 ,another collection of art was that of ,dr4 ,wellesley1 the ,principal of ,new ,inn ,hall1 who was a friend of ,johnson's and had collected most valuable antiquities during his long stay in ,italy4 ,he was the son of the ,marquis of ,wellesley1 a handsome man1 with all the refinement and courtesy of the old ,english gentleman4 ,though not perhaps very useful in the work of the ,university1 he was most pleasant to live with1 and full of information in his own line of study1 the history of art1 chiefly of ,italian art4 ,the beautiful services of the ,roman ,church abroad1 and particularly at ,rome1 certainly exercised a kind of magic attraction on many of the friends of ,wiseman and ,newman1 though one wonders that the sunny grandeur of ,st4 ,peter's at ,rome should ever have seemed more impressive than the sombre sublimity and serene magnificence of ,westminster ,abbey4 ,unfortunately1 the introduction of a more ornate service1 even of harmless candlesticks and the often very useful incense1 had always a secret meaning4 ,they were used as symbols of something of which the people had no conception1 whereas in the early ,church they had been really natural and useful4 ,in the midst of all this commotion1 and chiefly secret commotion1 ,i felt a perfect stranger2 ,i saw the bright and dark sides1 but ,i confess ,i saw little of what ,i called religion4 ,though my own religious struggles lay behind me1 still there were many questions which pressed for a solution1 but for which my friends at ,oxford seemed either indifferent or unprepared4 ,my practical religion was what ,i had learnt from my mother2 that remained unshaken in all storms1 and in its extreme simplicity and childishness answered all the purposes for which religion is meant4 ,then followed1 in the ,universities of ,leipzig and ,berlin1 the purely historical and scientific treatment of religion1 which1 while it explained many things and destroyed many things1 never interfered with my early ideas of right and wrong1 never disturbed my life with ,god and in ,god1 and seemed to satisfy all my religious wants4 ,i never was frightened or shaken by the critical writings of ,strauss or ,ewald1 of ,renan or ,colenso4 ,if what they said had an honest ring1 ,i was delighted1 for ,i felt quite certain that they could never deprive me of the little ,i really wanted4 ,that little could never be little enough2 it was like a stronghold with no fortifications1 no trenches1 and no walls around it4 ,suppose it was proved to me that1 on geological evidence1 the earth or the world could not have been created in six days1 what was that to me8 ,suppose it was proved to me that ,christ could never have given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into the swine1 what was that to me8 ,let ,colenso and ,bishop ,wilberforce1 let ,huxley and ,gladstone fight about such matters2 their turbulent waves could never disturb me1 could never even reach me in my safe harbour4 ,i had little to carry1 no learned impedimenta to safeguard my faith4 ,if a man possesses this one pearl of great price1 he may save himself and his treasure1 but neither the tinselled vestments of a ,cardinal1 nor the triple tiara that crowns the ,head of the ,church1 will serve as life-belts in the gales of doubt and controversy4 ,my friends at ,oxford did not know that1 though with my one jewel ,i seemed outwardly poor1 ,i was really richer and safer than many a ,cardinal and many a ,doctor of ,divinity4 ,a confession of faith1 like a prayer1 may be very long1 but the prayer of the ,publican may have been more efficient than that of the ,pharisee4 ,after a time ,i made an even more painful discovery3 ,i found men1 who were considered quite orthodox1 but who really were without any belief4 ,they spoke to me very freely1 because they imagined that as a ,german ,i would think as they did1 and that ,i should not be surprised if they looked on me as not quite sincere4 ,it was not only honest doubt that disturbed them4 ,they had done with honest doubt1 and they were satisfied with a kind of ,voltairian philosophy1 which at last ended in pure agnosticism4 ,but even that1 even professed agnosticism1 ,i could understand1 because it often meant no more than a confession of ignorance with regard to ,god1 which we all confess1 and need not necessarily amount to the denial of the existence of ,deity4 ,but that ,voltairian levity which scoffs at everything connected with religion was certainly something ,i did not expect to meet with at ,oxford1 and which even now perplexes me4 ,of course1 ,i should never think of mentioning names1 but it seemed to me necessary to mention the fact1 to complete the curious mosaic of theological and religious thought that existed at ,oxford at the time of my arrival4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,a ,,confession ,one confession ,i have to make1 and one for which ,i can hardly hope for absolution1 whether from my friends or from my enemies4 ,i have never done anything2 ,i have never been a doer1 a canvasser1 a wirepuller1 a manager1 in the ordinary sense of these words4 ,i have also shrunk from agitation1 from clubs and from cliques1 even from most respectable associations and societies4 ,many people would call me an idle1 useless1 and indolent man1 and though ,i have not wasted many hours of my life1 ,i cannot deny the charge that ,i have neither fought battles1 nor helped to conquer new countries1 nor joined any syndicate to roll up a fortune4 ,i have been a scholar1 a ,stubengelehrter1 and voil tout6 ,much as ,i admired ,ruskin when ,i saw him with his spade and wheelbarrow1 encouraging and helping his undergraduate friends to make a new road from one village to another1 ,i never myself took to digging1 and shovelling1 and carting4 ,nor could ,i quite agree with him1 happy as ,i always felt in listening to him1 when he said3 8,what we think1 or what we know1 or what we believe1 is in the end of little consequence4 ,the only thing of consequence is what we do40 ,my view of life has always been the very opposite6 ,what we do1 or what we build up1 has always seemed to me of little consequence4 ,even ,nineveh is now a mere desert of sand1 and ,ruskin's new road also has long since been worn away4 ,the only thing of consequence1 to my mind1 is what we think1 what we know1 what we believe6 ,to ,ruskin's ears such a sentiment was downright heresy1 and ,i know quite well that it would be condemned as extremely dangerous1 if not downright wicked1 by most people1 particularly in ,england4 ,my friend1 ,charles ,kingsley1 preached muscular ,christianity1 that is1 he was always up and doing4 ,another old friend of mine1 ,carlyle1 preached all his life that 8it was no use talking1 if one would not do40 ,there is an old proverb in ,german1 too1 8,die nicht mit thaten1 ,die nicht mit rathen02 actually denying the right of giving advice to those who had not taken a part in the fight4 ,however1 though ,i have not been a doer1 a faiseur1 as the ,french would say1 ,i do not wish to represent myself as a mere idle drone during the long years of my quiet life4 ,nor did ,i stand quite alone in looking on a scholar's life--even when ,i was living in a garret au cinquime--as a paradise on earth4 ,did not ,emerson write1 8,the scholar is the man of the age08 ,did not even ,mazzini1 who certainly was constantly up and trying to do1 did not even he confess that men must die1 but that the amount of truth they have discovered does not die with them8 ,and ,carlyle8 ,did he ever try to get into ,parliament8 ,did he ever accept directorates8 ,did he join either the ,chartists or the ,special ,constables in ,trafalgar ,square8 ,as in a concert you want listeners as well as performers1 so in public life1 those who look on are quite as essential as those who shout and deal heavy blows4 ,nature has not endowed everybody with the requisite muscle to be a muscular ,christian4 ,but it may be said1 that even if ,carlyle and ,ruskin were absolved from doing muscular work in ,trafalgar ,square1 what excuse could they plead for not walking in procession to ,hyde ,park1 climbing up one of the platforms and haranguing the men and women and children8 ,i suppose they had the feeling which the razor has when it is used for cutting stones3 they would feel that it was not exactly their mtier4 ,arguing when reason meets reason is most delightful1 whether we win or lose2 but arguing against unreason1 against anything that is by nature thick1 dense1 impenetrable1 irrational1 has always seemed to me the most disheartening occupation4 ,majorities1 mere numerical majorities1 by which the world is governed now1 strike me as mere brute force1 though to argue against them is no doubt as foolish as arguing against a railway train that is going to crush you4 ,gladstone could harangue multitudes2 so could ,disraeli2 all honour to them for it4 ,but think of ,carlyle or ,ruskin doing so6 ,stroking the shell of a tortoise1 or the cupola of ,st4 ,paul's1 would have been no more attractive to them than addressing the discontented1 when in their hundreds and their thousands they descended into the streets4 ,all ,i claim is that there must be a division of labour1 and as little as ,wayland ,smith was useless in his smithy1 when he hardened the iron in the fire for making swords or horse-shoes1 was ,carlyle a man that could be spared1 while he sat in his study preparing thoughts that would not bend or break4 ,but ,i cannot even claim to have been a man of action in the sense in which ,carlyle was in ,england1 or ,emerson in ,america4 ,they were men who in their books were constantly teaching and preaching4 8,do this60 they said2 8,do not do that60 ,the ,jewish prophets did much the same1 and they are not considered to have been useless men1 though they did not make bricks1 or fight battles like ,jehu4 ,but the poor ,stubengelehrte has not even that comfort4 ,only now and then he gets some unexpected recognition1 as when ,lord ,derby1 then ,secretary of ,state for ,india1 declared that the scholars who had discovered and proved the close relationship between ,sanskrit and ,english1 had rendered more valuable service to the ,government of ,india than many a regiment4 ,this may be called a mere assertion1 and it is true that it cannot be proved mathematically1 but what could have induced a man like ,lord ,derby to make such a statement1 except the sense of its truth produced on his mind by long experience8 ,however1 ,i can only speak for myself1 and of my idea of work4 ,i felt satisfied when my work led me to a new discovery1 whether it was the discovery of a new continent of thought1 or of the smallest desert island in the vast ocean of truth4 ,i would gladly go so far as to try to convince my friends by a simple statement of facts4 ,let them follow the same course and see whether ,i was right or wrong4 ,but to make propaganda1 to attempt to persuade by bringing pressure to bear1 to canvass and to organize1 to found societies1 to start new journals1 to call meetings and have them reported in the papers1 has always been to me very much against the grain4 ,if we know some truth1 what does it matter whether a few millions1 more or less1 see the truth as we see it8 ,truth is truth1 whether it is accepted now or in millions of years4 ,truth is in no hurry1 at least it always seemed to me so4 ,when face to face with a man1 or a body of men1 who would not be convinced1 ,i never felt inclined to run my head against a stone wall1 or to become an advocate and use the tricks of a lawyer4 ,i have often been blamed for it1 ,i have sometimes even regretted my indolence or my quiet happiness1 when ,i felt that truth was on my side and by my side4 ,i suppose there is no harm in personal canvassing1 but as much as ,i disliked being canvassed1 did ,i feel it degrading to canvass others4 ,i know quite well how often it happened at a meeting when either a measure or a candidate was to be carried1 that the voters had evidently been spoken to privately beforehand1 had in the conscience of their heart promised their votes4 ,the facts and arguments at the meeting itself might all be on one side1 but the majority was in favour of the other4 ,men whose time was of little value had been round from house to house1 a majority had been compacted into an inert unreasoning mass2 and who would feel inclined to use his spade of reason against so much unreason8 ,some people1 more honest than the rest1 after the mischief was done1 would say1 8,why did you not call8 why did you not write letters80 ,i may be quite wrong1 but ,i can only say that it seemed to me like taking an unfair advantage1 unfair to our opponents1 and almost insulting to our friends4 ,still1 from a worldly point of view1 ,i was no doubt wrong1 and it is certainly true that ,i was often left in a minority4 ,my friends have told me again and again that if a good measure or a good man is to be carried1 good men must do some dirty work4 ,if they cannot do that1 they are of no use1 and ,i doubt not that ,i have often been considered a very useless man by my political and academic friends1 because ,i trusted to reason where there was no reason to trust to4 ,i was asked to write letters1 to address and post letters1 to promise travelling expenses or even convivial entertainments at ,oxford1 to get leaders and leaderettes inserted in newspapers4 ,i simply loathed it1 and at last declined to do it4 ,if a measure is carried by promise1 not by argument1 if an election is carried by personal influence1 not by reason1 what happens is very often the same as what happens when fruit is pulled off a tree before it is ripe4 ,it is expected to ripen by itself1 but it never becomes sweet1 and often it rots4 ,a premature measure may be carried through the ,house by a minister with a powerful majority1 but it does not acquire vitality and maturity by being carried2 it often remains on the ,statute-book a dead letter1 till in the end it has to be abolished with other rubbish4 ,however1 ,i have learnt to admire the indefatigable assiduity of men who have slowly and partially secured their converts and their recruits1 and thus have carried in the end what they thought right and reasonable4 ,i have seen it particularly at ,oxford1 where undergraduates were indoctrinated by their tutors1 till they had taken their degree and could vote with their betters4 ,i take all the blame and shame upon myself as a useless member of ,congregation and ,convocation1 and of society at large4 ,i was wrong in supposing that the walls of ,jericho would fall before the blast of reason1 and wrong in abstaining from joining in the braying of rams' horns and the shouts of the people4 ,i was fortunate1 however1 in counting among my most intimate friends some of the most active and influential reformers in ,university1 ,church1 and ,state1 and it is quite possible that ,i may often have influenced them in the hours of sweet converse2 nay1 that standing in the second rank1 ,i may have helped to load the guns which they fired off with much effect afterwards4 ,i felt that my open partnership might even injure them more than it could help them2 for was it not always open to my opponents to say that ,i was a ,german1 and therefore could not possibly understand purely ,english questions8 ,besides1 there is another peculiarity which ,i have often observed in ,england4 ,people like to do what has to be done by themselves4 ,it seemed to me sometimes as if ,i had offended my friends if ,i did anything by myself1 and without consulting them4 ,besides1 my position1 even after ,i had been in ,england for so many years1 was always peculiar2 for though ,i had spent nearly a whole life in the service of my adopted country1 though my political allegiance was due and was gladly given to ,england1 still ,i was1 and have always remained1 a ,german4 ,and next to ,germany1 which was young and full of ideals when ,i was young1 there came ,india1 and ,indian thought which exercised their quieting influence on me4 ,from a very early time ,i became conscious of the narrow horizon of this life on earth1 and the purely phenomenal character of the world in which for a few years we have to live and move and have our being4 ,as students of classical and other ,oriental history we come to admire the great empires with their palaces and pyramids and temples and capitols4 ,what could have seemed more real1 more grand1 more likely to impress the young mind than ,babylon and ,nineveh1 ,thebes and ,alexandria1 ,jerusalem1 ,athens1 and ,rome8 ,and now where are they8 ,the very names of their great rulers and heroes are known to few people only and have to be learnt by heart1 without telling us much of those who wore them4 ,many things for which thousands of human beings were willing to lay down their lives1 and actually did lay them down1 are to us mere words and dreams1 myths1 fables1 and legends4 ,if ever there was a doer1 it was ,hercules1 and now we are told that he was a mere myth6 ,if one reads the description of ,babylonian and ,egyptian campaigns1 as recorded on cuneiform cylinders and on the walls of ancient ,egyptian temples1 the number of people slaughtered seems immense1 the issues overwhelming2 and yet what has become of it all8 ,the inroads of the ,huns1 the expeditions of ,genghis ,khan and ,timur1 so fully described by historians1 shook the whole world to its foundations1 and now the sand of the desert disturbed by their armies lies as smooth as ever4 ,what ,india teaches us is that in a state advancing towards civilization1 there must be always two castes or two classes of men1 a caste of ,brahmans or of thinkers1 and a caste of ,kshatriyas1 who are to fight2 possibly other castes also of those who are to work and of those who are to serve4 ,great wars went on in ,india1 but they were left to be fought by the warriors by profession4 ,the peasants in their villages remained quiet1 accepting the consequences1 whatever they might be1 and the ,brahmans lived on1 thinking and dreaming in their forests1 satisfied to rule after the battle was over4 ,and what applies to military struggles seems to me to apply to all struggles--political1 religious1 social1 commercial1 and even literary4 ,let those who love to fight1 fight2 but let others who are fond of quiet work go on undisturbed in their own special callings4 ,that was1 as far as we can see1 the old ,indian idea1 or at all events the ideal which the ,brahmans wished to see realized4 ,i do not stand up for utter idleness or sloth1 not even for drones1 though nature does not seem to condemn even hoc genus altogether4 ,all ,i plead for1 as a scholar and a thinker1 is freedom from canvassing1 from letter-reading and letter-writing1 from committees1 deputations1 meetings1 public dinners1 and all the rest4 ,that will sound very selfish to the ears of practical men1 and ,i understand why they should look upon men like myself as hardly worth their salt4 ,but what would they say to one of the greatest fighters in the history of the world8 ,what would they say to ,julius ,caesar1 when he declares that the triumphs and the laurel wreaths of ,cicero are as far nobler than those of warriors as it is a greater achievement to extend the boundaries of the ,roman intellect than the domains of the ,roman people8 ,,index ,abiturienten1 ,examination at ,zerbst1 #ajf ,acland1 ,dr41 #bde ,admiration1 power of1 #ij ,aitareya-brhmana1 #bjc ,all ,souls' ,fellowship1 #bc -- -- pinnacles1 #bbe1 #bbf ,altenstein1 ,minister of ,instruction1 #aca ,anglican system1 #bji -- orders1 #bia ,anhalt-,dessau1 ,duchy of1 #df ,antiquities hid in etymologies1 #aeb-aed ,anti-,semitism1 #gj1 #ga ,arnim1 ,count1 #aaj ,arnold1 ,matthew1 #bhb-bhc ,artistic element in the ,oxford movement1 #cjc1 #cjd ,aryan speakers may differ in blood1 #cb -- and aboriginal languages of ,india1 ,m4 ,m4's paper on1 #baj1 #baa ,aryans of ,india1 #aig ,aryas1 meaning of1 #cb ,asvalyana ,stras1 #bjc ,atavism1 #ag1 #be1 #bf1 #bg1 #cj ,atavistic influences1 #bg ,autobiography1 object of ,m4 ,m4 in writing his1 vi ,autos1 the1 #ce ,babies1 studying1 #hf ,bach family1 #cd ,baden-,powell1 ,professor1 #bch1 #bde ,bandinell1 ,dr41 #bei-bfa ,bardelli1 ,abb1 #agj ,basedow1 von1 ,president1 #ed -- the ,pedagogue1 #ee1 #gf ,bathing1 #gg ,bernays1 ,professor1 #fi ,bibliothque ,royale1 #afg ,biographies1 too lenient1 #b -- best kind of history1 #ad ,bismarck1 #age ,blcher1 ,marshal1 #bce ,blum1 ,robert1 #ae ,boden ,professorship of ,sanskrit1 vii ,bodleian ,library1 #beh1 #bei ,boehtlingk1 #aha1 #ahb1 #ahc ,books1 scarcity of1 #fg ,bopp1 #abe1 #acb1 #adh1 #aea1 #aef -- his lectures1 #aef1 #aeg ,brahmo ,somaj1 service for the1 #fa ,breakfast parties1 #bje ,british ,association at ,oxford1 #baj1 #bae ,brockhaus1 ,professor1 #adg ,buckle1 #bhg ,bull1 ,dr41 #dj1 #bee1 #bef ,bunsen1 ,baron1 #e1 #ac1 #af -- first visit to1 #aij1 #aia -- his kindness1 #aic1 #aii1 #bba ,burgon1 #bhg ,burnouf1 #afg1 #afi1 #agh1 #agi-ahb1 #bhh ,camerarius1 #ea ,canon of ,christ ,church1 an old1 #bef-beh ,canvassing1 #cab1 #cac ,carlyle1 #caj1 #caa ,carus1 ,professor1 #ih1 #aji ,chartist ,deputation1 #af ,chrtian1 #bhg ,christianity1 historical teaching of1 in ,germany1 #fe1 #bhg1 #bia -- an historical event1 #cjj ,church1 ,dr41 #bhg ,church1 not for young children1 #fj ,circumstances1 influence of1 #bd ,clarke1 ,sir ,andrew1 #hb1 #hf ,classics1 exaggerated praise of the1 #aja1 #ajb -- -- reactions from1 #ajc -- nothing takes their place1 #ajc ,colebrooke1 #aib ,colenso1 #bih1 #cje ,collegien-,buch1 #aba1 #abc-abe ,comparative ,philology1 ,professorship of1 #ab ,congregation and ,convocation1 why ,m4 ,m4 kept away from1 #cad1 #cae ,conscience1 the voice of1 #fc ,coxe1 ,mr41 #beh ,cradock1 ,dr4 and ,mrs41 #bfg ,crawford1 ,mr41 the ,objector ,general1 #baa ,curtius1 #acb1 #aea ,darwin1 #b1 #aa1 #ag1 #aca ,david1 #ajg1 #aji ,deafness in ,m4 ,m4's family1 #bi ,de ,lisle1 #bic1 #bif ,dessau1 ,dukes of1 #df -- cheapness of life at1 #ef1 #eg -- ,gottesacker at1 #eg -- only two classes at1 #gc -- trade of1 #gc -- public school at1 #gf -- its walls1 #hi -- ,m4 ,m4's world1 #hi -- simplicity of life at1 #ib -- -- effect on the character1 #ib1 #if -- moral sayings1 #if ,devas1 1 #add ,dieu1 ,deus1 ,devas1 #aig ,donkin1 ,professor1 #bdf ,double ,first1 #bdj ,drobisch1 #abi1 #adj1 #adb1 #ade ,duels at ,university1 #aai1 #abh1 #abi1 #bhd1 #bhf ,dyaus1 ,zeus1 ,iovis1 #aig ,early life1 roughing it1 #ia ,east ,india ,company1 #ad ,east ,india ,house1 #af1 #bae ,eckart1 #ajg1 #aji ,eckstein1 ,baron d'1 #agf1 #agg 8,edinburgh ,review10 first article in1 #bbb ,egyptian chronology1 #aii 8,elsie ,venner10 #ca ,emerson1 #caj ,encaenia1 #bfe1 #bff -- jokes at1 #bfe ,english and ,german ,doctors1 #hd1 #he ,environment1 #ag1 #ah1 #be ,ernst1 #aaj ,eternal1 ewig1 #aej1 #aea ,etymologies1 #aeb ,evolution1 #aih ,ewald1 #bih1 #bii1 #cje ,fairy tales1 influence of1 #ej-eb ,fear1 the feeling of1 #hh ,feast of ,tabernacles1 #ga ,fellowships1 old system of1 #bdf1 #bdg1 #bfc ,forbiger1 #ii ,french master at ,dessau1 #ge ,french ,revolution1 #af1 #baf ,friar ,bacon1 #bbg ,frge1 ,professor1 #aji -- his wife and ,mendelssohn1 #aji ,froude1 ,j4 ,a41 #h1 #bhg ,funkhnel1 #ii ,gaisford1 ,dr41 #bdj1 #beb-bed ,gathy1 ,m41 #afe1 #agb ,german regiments1 hymns sung by1 #fb -- students1 #bac ,germany and ,germans1 prejudice against1 #bj1 #ba -- religious feeling in1 #fb ,germ-plasm1 #ai1 #bh ,gewandhaus ,concerts1 #ajg ,giordano ,bruno on ,oxford1 #bbh ,goethe1 not always admired1 #ic ,goldstcker1 #agj-agb ,goldwin ,smith1 #bch ,gottesacker at ,dessau1 #eg ,grabau1 ,m4 ,m4's concerts with1 #aaj ,grandfather of ,m4 ,m41 #gi-ha ,grandmother of ,m4 ,m41 #ec ,grant1 ,sir ,alexander1 #bgb1 #bgc ,greene's ,oxford1 #bbg ,greenhill1 ,dr41 #bde ,grenville1 ,lord1 #bbi ,greswell1 ,mr41 #bde ,griffith1 ,dr41 ,master of ,university1 #bbi ,grimm1 #aea ,grnder1 ein1 #dh ,guizot1 #ahb ,habits acquired not hereditable1 #cc ,hagedorn1 ,baron1 #aab-aad1 #afb -- journey with him1 #aab -- his plan of life for ,m4 ,m41 #aac ,hahnemann1 #hb et seq41 #hf ,hallam's literary dog1 #bji ,hare1 ,archdeacon1 #bje1 #bhf -- visit to1 #bjh ,hase1 #ahe ,haupt1 his ,latin ,society1 #aba1 #abe -- his dislike to modern philology1 #aee1 #aef ,hawkins1 ,dr41 #bdj1 #bdi ,headaches1 suffering from1 #ha et seq4 -- how cured1 #hc ,heads of ,houses1 #bcd1 #bfd -- -- their power1 #bci ,hebdomadal ,board1 #bci1 #bee ,hebrew taught at the ,nicolai-,schule1 #ajj ,hegel1 #b -- his philosophy1 #acj-ach ,hegel's idea1 #acc-ace -- 8,philosophy of ,nature10 #ace1 #acf -- 8,philosophy of ,religion10 #ace1 #adb -- 8,metaphysics10 #acf ,heinroth1 #aci ,helps1 ,sir ,arthur1 #bff ,hentzner1 his description of ,oxford1 #bbh ,herbart1 school of1 #abi1 #adj1 #adb ,heredity1 #ag ,hermann1 ,gottfried1 #aba1 #abe1 #abh -- welcomed modern philology1 #aee -- his kindness to ,m4 ,m41 #aef ,hermae round the ,theatre1 #bfd ,highland lady at ,oxford1 #bbi ,hiller1 #ajg1 #aji -- his oratorio1 #aaj ,historical method1 #aih -- events1 their influence transitory1 #cae1 #caf ,hitopadesa1 #ea ,holmes1 ,oliver ,wendell1 #f1 #bff ,hnicke1 ,dr41 #gh ,horace1 8cheekiness0 of1 #ajb ,human weaknesses1 allowance must be made for1 #ic1 #id ,humboldt1 #aha ,imprisonment1 ,m4 ,m4's1 at ,university1 #aah1 #aai ,indian thought1 influence of1 #cae1 #cag ,indolence1 ,m4 ,m4's1 #cab ,inherited and acquired qualities1 difference between1 #cc ,inspiration and infallibility1 #fe1 #ff ,institut de ,france1 #ahf -- ,m4 ,m4 made ,member1 #ahf1 #ahg ,jenkins1 ,dr41 ,master of ,balliol1 #bej ,jerusalem1 ,bishopric of1 #bic ,jews at ,dessau1 #fh1 #gj -- their privileges in ,germany1 #gj ,johnson1 ,manuel1 #bhf1 #cjc -- his art treasures1 #cjc ,jowett1 ,professor1 #d1 #f1 #bhg ,kaliwoda1 #ajg ,kant's 8,kritik10 #ach ,kaspar ,hauser1 #ah ,keshub ,chunder ,sen1 #fa ,kingsley1 ,charles1 #e -- and muscular ,christianity1 #cji ,klengel1 #adg ,kuhn1 ,a41 #aed ,lamartine1 #agg ,language1 influence of1 #ca -- differentiation of1 #ca1 #cb1 #cc -- science of1 #aih ,lassen1 #bc ,latham1 ,dr41 #baj ,layard1 #aa1 #bje ,leipzig1 #ae -- school at1 #ig -- ,university1 #aae ,lepsius1 #aei ,liberals at ,university1 #aag1 #aah ,liddell1 ,dr41 #bch -- and ,mrs41 #bfg ,liddell's ,dictionary1 #ii ,liszt1 #ajg-aaa ,london1 #ahh -- society1 peeps into1 #bje -- ,m4 ,m4's social difficulties1 #bjf-bjh ,longchamps1 #afg ,lotze1 #abi1 #acf1 #aci1 #bhg ,louis ,lucien ,bonaparte1 #bad ,louis ,napoleon1 #af ,luther1 #fd -- his love of fairy tales1 #ej1 #ea -- tercentenary1 #aje ,maitland1 ,sir ,peregrine1 #bea ,mammoth1 #ah ,manning1 #bif ,masters1 influence of1 in ,german and ,english schools1 #gg ,maurice1 ,frederick1 #bje1 #bhf -- ,pusey's attack on1 #cjb ,memory changes1 #ci ,mendelssohn family1 #cc1 #cd ,mendelssohn1 ,felix1 #ajg1 #aaj -- his death1 #aaj -- his concert for ,liszt1 #aaj1 #aaa ,mendelssohn's 8,hymn of ,praise10 #aje -- music in ,oxford1 #bfh ,metternich1 #gb -- his system1 #aag ,mezzofanti1 #cj ,michelet1 #bhg ,mill1 ,john ,stuart1 #g1 #ad -- his ,autos1 #g ,mill1 ,dr41 mention of a ,vedic hymn printed at ,calcutta1 #aib ,milton on ,oxford1 #bbh ,modern ,literature1 ,professorship of1 #ab ,mommsen1 #ahf1 #ahg ,moncalm1 8,l'origine de la ,pense10 #aj n4 ,monk1 ,m4 ,m4's wish to be a1 #bd ,monument-raising1 #dg ,morier1 #bge-bgi ,mother1 ,m4 ,m4's1 #eg-ei -- her relations1 #ed1 #ee ,mozley1 #bhg ,,mss41 copying1 #agi ,mulde1 excursion on foot along the1 #aab ,mller1 ,wilhelm1 #dg1 #dh -- his poems1 #dh -- his family1 #eb1 #ec -- his home and society1 #ee -- early death1 #ef -- monument to1 #di ,music1 its influence on ,m4 ,m41 #fg -- wished to make it his career1 #aaa 8,mystres de ,paris10 #agd ,natural ,science and ,mathematics little taught at ,nicolai-,schule1 #ajj ,neander1 #ba1 #bb ,newman1 #bhf1 #bib-bif -- want of openness in his friends1 #bib1 #bif -- his influence1 #bic -- on 8,lives of the ,saints10 #bid1 #bie ,newspapers few in number1 #ga -- influence of modern1 #gb -- old1 #gd ,nicolai-,schule1 #ii -- chiefly for classics1 #ii-aja ,niebuhr1 #aia1 #bhi ,niedner1 ,dr41 #abg1 #acg1 #adj ,nirukta1 the1 #bjc ,nobbe1 ,dr41 #ii -- his testimonial1 #aje ,old and young men1 #cf ,oriental languages1 #adf ,orlans1 ,duchesse d'1 #agg ,oxford1 first visit to1 #bac -- settled at1 #bbj -- social life at1 #bbj1 #bba -- changes in1 #bbc-bbf -- new buildings1 #bbd1 #bbe -- conservative1 #bbf -- ,greene's1 #bbg -- ,hentzner's description of1 #bbh -- ,giordano ,bruno on1 #bbh -- ,milton on1 #bbh -- society in #ahaj1 #bbi-bca -- great changes in1 #bdc1 #bdd -- society at1 in the forties and fifties1 #bdd1 #bde -- city society of1 #bde1 #bdf -- high tone of talk1 #bhd -- theological atmosphere at1 #bhf -- trivial questions of ceremony in1 #bia1 #bib1 #cjj1 #cja ,palgrave1 #bgd1 #bhg ,palm1 ,dr41 #ii ,palmerston1 ,lord1 #af1 #bag ,pnini1 #ahb -- his grammar1 #bjd ,pantschatantra1 #ea ,paper1 scarcity of1 #fg ,parental influences1 #bg ,paris1 #ae1 #afb ,paris1 journey to1 #afc1 #afd -- meals there1 #aff -- hard struggles in1 #agc1 #bhc ,patagonians as types of humanity1 #hh ,peel1 ,sir ,robert1 #bje ,philanthropinum1 #ed1 #gf ,philology1 love of1 #aba ,philosophy1 studied by ,m4 ,m41 #abi1 #acg1 #adf ,physical science1 revolt of1 against ,hegel1 #ace ,pillar and pillow1 #ahi 8,pitar10 father1 #aec ,pitcairn ,islands1 #ah ,plumptre1 ,dr41 #bac1 #bae1 #bfe ,poems1 ,m4 ,m4's1 #ajd1 #aje ,pollen1 #bhg ,pott1 #aea1 #afj ,pranks at ,university1 #aai1 #abj 8,presence of mind10 #bfb ,prichard1 ,dr41 #baa1 #bab1 #bba ,professor's lectures and fees1 #aba1 #abb ,professors1 feeling of ,german students for their1 #abg ,proto-,aryan language1 #bjj ,prowe1 ,professor1 #aaf1 #aag ,public schools in ,germany1 #ih -- -- in ,england need reforming1 #bdb ,pusey1 ,dr41 #bfa1 #bii1 #cjb ,race1 differentiation of1 #ce ,rawlinson1 ,sir ,h41 #bje ,reay1 ,professor1 #bfj ,reinaud1 #ahf ,religion1 practical1 #cje1 #cjf ,religious feeling in ,germany1 #fh -- -- great tolerance in1 #gj1 #ga -- sentiments must be taught at home1 #fb -- teaching in school1 #fc ,renan1 #ahe1 #ahf1 #bhh1 #bhi1 #bij1 #cje ,research1 fellowships for1 #bgj ,revelation1 subjective not objective1 #ff -- in the old sense1 #bhh ,rigaud1 ,john1 #bhg ,rig-veda1 how to publish the1 #aha1 #ahb -- printing of1 #bbb ,roman ,catholic ,church1 ,english national feeling opposed to1 #bif1 #big ,rose-bush1 vision of the1 #dc1 #dd ,roth1 #agj1 #aga ,routh1 ,dr41 #bdg-bdi ,rubens1 ,levy1 #ge ,ruskin1 #bbd ,russell1 ,sir ,w41 #cg1 #aij ,sadowa1 and ,sixty-six1 #ch ,st4 ,hilaire1 ,barthlemy1 #agj ,st4 ,petersburg1 idea of going to1 #aha1 #ahc ,salis-,schwabe1 ,madame1 #ih ,salmon at ,dessau1 #ef1 #eg 8,salve caput cruentatum10 #ei ,sanskrit ,professorship1 vii1 #ab -- chair of1 at ,leipzig1 #adg -- feeling against1 #adg -- unedited works1 #bjd ,savigny1 ,professor1 #abb ,syana's ,commentary1 #bjb-bjd ,schelling1 #aef1 #aie1 #bhg1 #bhi ,schlegel's 8,weisheit der ,indier10 #adf ,schleswig-,holstein question1 #bgf ,schloezer1 ,karl von1 #agd1 #agf ,school teaching1 #fg1 #fh -- success at1 #ajd1 #aje -- routine of learning1 #abj ,schopenhauer1 #bhi ,selbst-,kritik1 #f ,self1 the1 #db ,sellar1 ,professor1 #bgc1 #bgd ,seminaries and societies at ,university1 #abc ,senatus ,academicus1 #bcf1 #bcg ,shelley1 #bcc ,simolin1 ,baron1 #ee ,sister1 ,m4 ,m4's1 #aae1 #aaf ,spiegel1 ,professor1 #adg ,sport1 ,m4 ,m4's dislike of1 #hj ,stanislas ,julien1 #ahe ,stanley1 ,dr41 #e1 #da1 #bch1 #bhf1 #bhg1 #cjb ,steel pens1 #fg ,stories in ,oxford1 regular descent of1 #bdh ,strauss1 #ba1 #cje ,stubengelehrter1 #cjh1 #caa ,student ,clubs1 #aaf ,student life in ,paris1 #ahd ,sunday games at the ,observatory1 #bih ,sykes1 ,colonel1 #af ,symons1 ,dr41 #bci1 #bdj1 #bea ,sympathy in the joys and sufferings of others1 #da1 #db ,tait1 ,dr41 #bch ,talents in families1 #cc-ce ,taylorian ,professorship1 #bb ,telegraphs1 old1 #gb ,testimonials1 #d ,thalberg1 #aaa ,thirlwall1 #bje ,thomson1 ,dr4 and ,mrs41 #bfg1 #bfh1 #bhj1 #bha ,tippoo ,sahib's tiger1 #bae ,travelling in the thirties1 #aaa ,troyer1 ,m41 and the ,duchesse de ,wagram1 #ahd ,truth1 #cab ,turanian languages1 ,m4 ,m4's letter on1 #afj1 #afa ,tutors and ,fellows1 #bcf -- -- their influence1 #bda1 #bfh1 #bfi ,university1 ,m4 ,m4's life at1 #aae1 #aaf -- pranks1 #aai1 #abj -- duels at1 #aai1 #abh-acj ,university ,press1 #bah1 #bai ,upanishads1 #afi ,van der ,weyer1 #bje ,veda1 #i1 #ab-ad1 #adh1 #afh ,veda1 a mystery1 #aia1 #aid -- ,,mss4 of1 in ,india1 #aib -- -- brought to ,europe1 #aic -- oldest of real books1 #aie -- primitive thought in the1 #aie1 #aig-aii -- date of1 #bjj -- translations of1 #bja -- ,east ,india ,company and the1 #bja -- forming correct text of the ,rig-1 #bjb -- enormous work involved1 #bjd ,vedic scholarship1 #aic ,veih1 home1 #aec ,vernunft and ,verstand1 #adc ,vigfusson1 ,dr41 #bed ,voltairian philosophy at ,oxford1 #cjg ,weismann1 #bg-cj ,weisse1 #abi1 #acb-ace1 #aci-adb1 #bhg ,wellesley1 ,dr41 #cjd ,wellington1 ,duke of1 #af1 #dj1 #bje ,westminster ,abbey and ,st4 ,peter's1 #cjd ,wilberforce1 ,samuel1 #bjg1 #bjh ,wilson1 ,professor1 #aeh1 #aei ,wiseman1 #bif ,wolf1 ,f4 ,a41 #dh ,wolseley1 ,lord1 #bff ,wren1 ,sir ,christopher1 #bfd ,wright1 ,dr41 #bfa1 #bfb ,youth painted by the old1 #ce1 #cf ,zerbst1 examined at1 #ajf -- ,m4 ,m4's examiners at1 #ajf ,zeus1 ,dyaus1 #adh1 #adi ,,other ,,books ,,by ,,max ,m,,ller ,auld ,lang ,syne ,first ,series4 ,illustrated4 #hvo1 #b4jj 8,this book1 the fruit of enforced leisure1 as its author tells us1 is a charming mass of gossip about people whom ,professor ,max ,mller has known during his long career--musicians1 literary men1 princes1 and beggars4 ,the last class is not1 perhaps1 the least interesting or amusing4 ,to our mind1 however1 the chapter on musicians1 with its delightful pictures of the author's early life1 and the nave confessions as to musical tastes1 with some of the stories about celebrated composers1 forms the most interesting portion of a work which has not one dull page40--,the ,spectator4 8,one of the most charming examples of reminiscent literature that has recently seen the light40--,new ,york ,sun4 99 99 99 99 99 ,auld ,lang ,syne ,second ,series4 ,my ,indian ,friends4 #hvo1 #b4jj4 8,the professor's #8,indian ,friends' are not all of the nineteenth century4 ,his oldest friends are in the ,veda1 about which he has always loved to write4 ,indeed1 he spent the best years of his life over the text of the ,rig ,veda1 and has a clear right to be heard upon the classic he has done so much to make familiar4444 ,but the real charm of his recollections lies rather in their peaceful kindliness1 in their wide and tolerant sympathies1 and in their earnest aim1 which will surely be attained in some measure1 of bringing what is best in ,india closer home to foreigners40--,literature4 ,science of ,language ,founded on ,lectures delivered at the ,royal ,institution4 ,new ,edition from ,new ,plates4 ,largely ,re-written4 ,in #b vols41 crown #hvo1 #f4jj4 ,,contents3--,vol4 ,i4--,the ,science of ,language one of the ,physical ,sciences2 ,the ,growth of ,language in ,contradistinction to the ,history of ,language2 ,the ,empirical ,stage in the ,science of ,language2 ,the ,classificatory ,stage in the ,science of ,language2 ,the ,genealogical ,classification of ,languages2 ,comparative ,grammar2 ,the ,constituent ,elements of ,language2 ,the ,morphological ,classification of ,languages2 ,the ,theoretical ,stage in the ,science of ,language--,origin of ,language2 ,genealogical ,tables of ,languages4 ,,contents3--,vol4 ,,ii4--,introductory ,lecture4 ,new ,materials for the ,science of ,language and ,new ,theories2 ,language and ,reason2 ,the ,physiological ,alphabet2 ,phonetic ,change2 ,grimm's ,law2 ,on the ,principles of ,etymology2 ,on the ,powers of ,roots2 ,metaphor2 ,the ,mythology of the ,greeks2 ,jupiter1 ,the ,supreme ,aryan ,god2 ,myths of the ,dawn2 ,modern ,mythology4 8,in practical value to the student of the science of language1 the work stands alone40--,boston ,transcript4 99 99 99 99 99 ,ramakrishna ,his ,life and ,sayings4 ,crown #hvo1 #a4ej net4 8,as a whole the little book marks one of the summit points of recent scientific religious literature4 ,max ,mller's penetrating insight into the broad facts of ,hindu intellectual history is coupled in this instance with all the just criticism needed for a true valuation of ,ramakrishna's personality and teaching40--,american ,historical ,review4 ,science of ,thought ,two ,volumes4 ,crown #hvo1 #d4jj4 8,of the portion of the work in which the author exemplifies and illustrates his theory--his analysis of the ,sanskrit roots1 his chapters on ,kant's philosophy1 on the formation of words1 on propositions and syllogisms--it is only necessary to say that while they contain1 along with much that will reward a careful study1 not a little that will arouse controversy1 they have1 like all the author's former productions1 the prime merit of being free from the two greatest of literary faults--obscurity and dulness4 ,a work in which two of the driest and hardest of studies1 analytic philology and mental philosophy1 are made at once lucid and attractive1 is an acquisition for which all students of those mysteries have reason to be grateful40--,new ,york ,evening ,post4 99 99 99 99 99 ,science of ,religion ,lectures on the ,science of ,religion2 with ,papers on ,buddhism1 and a ,translation of the ,dhammapada1 or ,path of ,virtue4 ,crown #hvo1 #b4jj4 ,,contents3--,,lectures ,,on ,,the ,,science ,,of ,,religion2 ,,buddhist ,,nihilism2 ,,buddha',s ,,dhammapada1 ,,or 8,,path ,,of ,,virtue02 ,introduction2 ,the ,twin-,verses2 ,on ,reflection2 ,thought2 ,flowers2 ,the ,fool2 ,the ,wise ,man2 ,the ,venerable2 ,the ,thousands2 ,evil2 ,punishment2 ,old ,age2 ,self2 ,the ,world2 ,the ,awakened 7,buddha72 ,happiness2 ,pleasure2 ,anger2 ,impurity2 ,the ,just2 ,the ,way2 ,miscellaneous2 ,the ,downward ,course2 ,the ,elephant2 ,thirst2 ,the ,bhikshu 7,mendicant72 ,the ,brahmana4 ,chips from a ,german ,workshop ,five ,volumes4 ,crown #hvo1 #b4jj per vol42 the set1 #aj4jj4 ,vol4 ,i4 ,essays on the ,science of ,religion4 ,vol4 ,,ii4 ,essays on ,mythology1 ,traditions and ,customs4 ,vol4 ,,iii4 ,essays on ,literature1 ,biography and ,antiquities4 ,vol4 ,,iv4 ,comparative ,philology1 ,mythology1 etc4 ,vol4 ,v4 ,miscellaneous4 ,later ,essays4 99 99 99 99 99 ,lectures on the ,origin and ,growth of ,religion1 as ,illustrated by the ,religions of ,india4 ,hibbert ,lectures for #ahgh4 ,crown #hvo1 #a4ej net4 ,biographical ,essays3 ,rmmohun ,roy--,keshub ,chunder ,sen--,daynanda ,sarasvat--,bunyiu ,nanjio--,kenjiu ,kasawara--,mohl--,kingsley4 ,crown #hvo1 #b4jj4 ,the ,german ,classics4 ,from the ,fourth to the ,nineteenth ,century4 ,with biographical notices1 translations into modern ,german and notes4 ,a ,new ,edition1 ,revised1 ,enlarged and ,adapted to ,,sherer',s 8,history of ,german ,literature40 #b vols1 #f4jj net4 ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons1 ,publishers #aec-aeg ,,fifth ,,avenue1 ,,new ,,york