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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30269 ***
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Müller Aged 4._]
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+A FRAGMENT
+
+
+BY THE
+
+
+RT. HON. PROFESSOR F. MAX MÜLLER, K.M.
+
+
+_WITH PORTRAITS_
+
+
+New York
+CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+1901
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY
+CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+
+
+TROW DIRECTORY
+PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
+NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+For some years past my father had, in the intervals of more serious
+work, occupied his leisure moments in jotting down reminiscences of
+his early life. In 1898 and 1899 he issued the two volumes of _Auld
+Lang Syne_, which contained recollections of his friends, but very
+little about his own life and career. In the Introductory Chapter to
+the Autobiography he explains fully the reasons which led him, at his
+advanced age, to undertake the task of writing his own Life, and he
+began, but alas! too late, to gather together the fragments that he
+had written at different times. But even during the last two years of
+his life, and after the first attack of the illness which finally
+proved fatal, he would not devote himself entirely to what he
+considered mere recreation, as can be seen from such a work as his
+_Six Systems of Indian Philosophy_ published in May, 1889, and from
+the numerous articles which continued to appear up to the very time of
+his death.
+
+During the last weeks of his life, when we all knew that the end could
+not be far off, the Autobiography was constantly in his thoughts, and
+his great desire was to leave as much as possible ready for
+publication. Even when he was lying in bed far too weak to sit up in a
+chair, he continued to work at the manuscript with me. I would read
+portions aloud to him, and he would suggest alterations and dictate
+additions. I see that we were actually at work on this up to the 19th
+of October, and on the 28th he was taken to his well-earned rest. One
+of the last letters that I read to him was a letter from Messrs.
+Longmans, his lifelong publishers, urging the publication of the
+fragments of the Autobiography that he had then written.
+
+My father’s object in writing his Autobiography was twofold: firstly,
+to show what he considered to have been his mission in life, to lay
+bare the thread that connected all his labours; and secondly, to
+encourage young struggling scholars by letting them see how it had
+been possible for one of themselves, without fortune, a stranger in a
+strange land, to arrive at the position to which he attained, without
+ever sacrificing his independence, or abandoning the unprofitable and
+not very popular subjects to which he had determined to devote his
+life.
+
+Unfortunately the last chapter takes us but little beyond the
+threshold of his career. There is enough, however, to enable us to see
+how from his earliest student days his leanings were philosophical and
+religious rather than classical; how the study of Herbart’s philosophy
+encouraged him in the work in which he was engaged as a mere student,
+the Science of Language and Etymology; how his desire to know
+something special, that no other philosopher would know, led him to
+explore the virgin fields of Oriental literature and religions. With
+this motive he began the study of Arabic, Persian, and finally
+Sanskrit, devoting himself more especially to the latter under
+Brockhaus and Rückert, and subsequently under Burnouf, who persuaded
+him to undertake the colossal work of editing the Rig-veda.
+
+The Autobiography breaks off before the end of the period during which
+he devoted himself exclusively to Sanskrit. It is idle to speculate
+what course his life’s work might have taken, had he been elected to
+the Boden Professorship of Sanskrit; but he lived long enough to
+realize that his rejection for that chair in 1860, which was so hard
+to bear at the time, was really a blessing in disguise, as it enabled
+him to turn his attention to more general subjects, and devote himself
+to those philological, philosophical, religious and mythological
+studies, which found their expression in a series of works commencing
+with his _Lectures on the Science of Language_, 1861, and terminating
+with his _Contributions to the Science of Mythology_, 1897,—“the
+thread that connects the origin of thought and language with the
+origin of mythology and religion.”
+
+As to his advice to struggling scholars, the self-depreciation,
+which, as Professor Jowett said, is one of the greatest dangers of an
+autobiography, makes my father rather conceal the real causes of his
+success in life. He even goes so far as to say, “everything in my
+career came about most naturally, not by my own effort, but owing to
+those circumstances or to that environment, of which we have heard so
+much of late”: or again, “it was really my friends who did everything
+for me and helped me over many a stile and many a ditch.” No doubt in
+one sense this is true, but not in the sense in which it would have
+been true had he, when at the University, accepted the offer which he
+tells us a wealthy cousin made him, to adopt him and send him into the
+Austrian diplomatic service, and even to procure him a wife and a
+title into the bargain. The friends who helped him, men such as
+Humboldt, Burnouf, Bunsen, Stanley, Kingsley, Liddell, to mention only
+a few, were men whose very friendship was the surest proof of my
+father’s merits. The real secret of his success lay not in his
+friends, but in himself;—in the knowledge that his success or failure
+in life depended entirely on his own efforts; in the fixity of purpose
+which made him refuse all offers that would lead him from the pathway
+that he had laid down for himself; and in the unflagging industry with
+which he strove to reach the goal of his ambition. “My very
+struggles,” he writes, “were certainly a help to me.”
+
+When I came to examine the manuscript with a view to sending it to
+press, I found that there was a good deal of work necessary before it
+could be published in book form. The fragments were in many cases
+incomplete; there was no division into chapters, no connexion between
+the various periods and episodes of his life; important incidents were
+omitted; while, owing to the intermittent way in which he had been
+writing, there were frequent repetitions. My father was always most
+critical of his own style, and would often, when correcting his
+proof-sheets, alter a whole page, because a word or a phrase
+displeased him, or because some new idea, some happier mode of
+expression, occurred to him; but in the case of his Autobiography, the
+only revision that he was able to give, was on his deathbed, while I
+read the manuscript aloud to him.
+
+My father points out how rarely the sons of great musicians or great
+painters become distinguished in the same line themselves. “It seems,”
+he says, “almost as if the artistic talent were exhausted by one
+generation or one individual”; and I fear that, in my case at all
+events, the same remark applies to literary talent. I have done my
+best to string the fragments together into one connected whole, only
+making such insertions, elisions and alterations as appeared strictly
+necessary. Any deficiency in literary style that may be noticeable in
+portions of the book should be ascribed to the inexperience of the
+editor.
+
+I have thought it right to insert the last chapter, which I call “A
+Confession,” though I am not sure that my father intended it to be
+included in his Autobiography. It will, however, explain the attitude
+which he observed throughout his life, in keeping aloof, as far as
+possible, from the arena of academic contention at Oxford. He was
+never chosen a member of the Hebdomadal Council, he rarely attended
+meetings of Convocation or Congregation; he felt that other people,
+with more leisure at their disposal, could be of more use there; but
+he never refused to work for his University, when he felt that he was
+able to render good service, and he acted for years as a Curator of
+the Bodleian Library and of the Taylorian Institute, and as a Delegate
+of the Clarendon Press.
+
+With reference to the illustrations, it may be of interest to readers
+to know that the portraits of my grandfather and grandmother are taken
+from pencil-drawings by Adolf Hensel, the husband of Mendelssohn’s
+sister Fanny, herself a great musician, who, as my father tells us in
+_Auld Lang Syne_, really composed several of the airs that Mendelssohn
+published as his _Songs without Words_. The last portrait of my father
+is from a photograph taken soon after his arrival in Oxford by his
+great friend Thomson, afterwards Archbishop of York.
+
+Nothing now remains for me but to acknowledge the debt that I owe
+personally to this book. “Work,” my father used often to say to me,
+“is the best healer of sorrow. In grief or disappointment, try hard
+work; it will not fail you.” And certainly during these three sad
+months, I have proved the truth of this saying. He could not have left
+me a surer comfort or more welcome distraction than the duty of
+preparing for press these pages, the last fruits of that mind which
+remained active and fertile to the last.
+
+                                          W. G. MAX MÜLLER.
+
+  OXFORD, _January_, 1901.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                               PAGE
+
+   I. INTRODUCTORY                     1
+
+  II. CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU             46
+
+ III. SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG          97
+
+  IV. UNIVERSITY                     115
+
+   V. PARIS                          162
+
+  VI. ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND             188
+
+ VII. EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD           218
+
+VIII. EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD        272
+
+  IX. A CONFESSION                   308
+
+      INDEX                          319
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF PORTRAITS
+
+
+F. MAX MÜLLER, AGED FOUR        _Frontispiece_
+
+                                 FACING PAGE
+
+MY FATHER                            46
+
+MY MOTHER                            58
+
+F. MAX MÜLLER, AGED FOURTEEN        106
+
+    "    "     AGED TWENTY          156
+
+    "    "     AGED THIRTY          268
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+After the publication of the second volume of my _Auld Lang Syne_,
+1899, I had a good deal of correspondence, of public criticism, and of
+private communings also with myself, whether I should continue my
+biographical records in the form hitherto adopted, or give a more
+personal character to my recollections. Some of my friends were
+evidently dissatisfied. “The recollections of your friends and the
+account of the influence they exercised on you,” they said, “are
+interesting, no doubt, as far as they go, but we want more. We want to
+know the springs, the aspirations, the struggles, the failures, and
+achievements of your life. We want to know how you yourself look at
+yourself and at your past life and its various incidents.” What they
+really wanted was, in fact, an autobiography. “No one,” as a friend of
+mine, not an Irishman, said, “could do that so well as yourself, and
+you will never escape a biographer.” I confess that did not frighten
+me very much. I did not think the danger of a biography very
+imminent. Besides, I had already revised two biographies and several
+biographical notices even during my lifetime. No sensible man ought to
+care about posthumous praise or posthumous blame. Enough for the day
+is the evil thereof. Our contemporaries are our right judges, our
+peers have to give their votes in the great academies and learned
+societies, and if they on the whole are not dissatisfied with the
+little we have done, often under far greater difficulties than the
+world was aware of, why should we care for the distant future? Who was
+a greater giant in philosophy than Hegel? Who towered higher than
+Darwin in natural science? Yet in one of the best German reviews[1]
+the following words of a young German biologist[2] are quoted, and not
+without a certain approval: “Darwinism belongs now to history, like
+that other _curiosum_ of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both
+are variations on the theme, How can a generation be led by the nose?
+and they are not calculated to raise our departing century in the eyes
+of later generations.”
+
+  [1] _Deutsche Rundschau_, Feb., 1900, p. 249.
+
+  [2] Driesch, _Biologisches Centralblatt_, 1896, p. 335.
+
+If I was afraid of anything, it was not so much the severity of future
+judges, as the extreme kindness and leniency which distinguish most
+biographies in our days. It is true, 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 murmurings. It might be said that in my own case the thread
+that connects all my labours is very visible, namely, the thread that
+connects the origin of thought and languages with the origin of
+mythology and religion. Everything I have done was, no doubt,
+subordinate to these four great problems, but to lay bare the
+connecting links between what I have written and what I wanted to
+write and never found time to write, is by no means easy, not even for
+the author himself. Besides, what author has ever said the last word
+he wanted to say, and who has not had to close his eyes before he
+could write Finis to his work? There are many things still which I
+should like to say, but I am getting tired, and others will say them
+much better than I could, and will no doubt carry on the work where I
+had to leave it unfinished. We owe much to others, and we have to
+leave much to others. For throwing light on such points an
+autobiography is, no doubt, better adapted than any biography written
+by a stranger, if only we can at the same time completely forget that
+the man who is described is the same as the man who describes.
+
+“Friends,” as Professor Jowett said, “always think it necessary
+(except Boswell, that great genius) to tell lies about their deceased
+friend; they leave out all his faults lest the public should
+exaggerate them. But we want to know his faults,—hat is probably
+the most interesting part of him.”
+
+Jowett knew quite well, and he did not hesitate to say so, that to do
+much good in this world, you must be a very able and honest man,
+thinking of nothing else day and night; and he adds, “you must also be
+a considerable piece of a rogue, having many reticences and
+concealments; and I believe a good sort of roguery is never to say a
+word against anybody, however much they may deserve it.”
+
+Now Professor Jowett has certainly done some good work at Oxford, but
+if any one were to say that he also was a considerable piece of a
+rogue, what an outcry there would be among the sons of Balliol. Jowett
+thought that the only chance of a good biography was for a man to
+write memoirs of himself, and what a pity that he did not do so in his
+own case. His friends, however, who had to write his Life were wise,
+and he escaped what of late has happened to several eminent men. He
+escaped the testimonials for this, and testimonials for another life,
+such as they are often published in our days.
+
+Testimonials are bad enough in this life, when we have to select one
+out of many candidates as best fitted for an office, and it is but
+natural that the electors will hardly ever look at them, but will try
+to get their information through some other channel. But what are
+called _post obit_ testimonials really go beyond everything yet known
+in funeral panegyrics. Of course, as no one is asked for such
+testimonials except those who are known to have been friends of the
+departed, these testimonials hardly ever contain one word of blame.
+One feels ashamed to write such testimonials, but if you are asked,
+what can you do without giving offence? We are placed altogether in a
+false position. Let any one try to speak the truth and nothing but the
+truth, and he will find that it is almost impossible to put down
+anything that in the slightest way might seem to reflect on the
+departed. The mention of the most innocent failings in an obituary
+notice is sure to offend somebody, the widow or the children, or some
+dear friend. I thought that my Recollections had hitherto contained
+nothing that could possibly offend anybody, nothing that could not
+have been published during the lifetime of the man to whom it
+referred. But no; I had ever so many complaints, and I gladly left
+out, in later editions, names which in many cases were really of no
+consequence compared with what they said and did.
+
+Surely every man has his faults and his little and often ridiculous
+weaknesses, and these weaknesses belong quite as much to a man’s
+character as his strength; nay, with the suppression of the former the
+latter would often become almost unintelligible.
+
+I like the biographies of such friends of mine as Dean Stanley,
+Charles Kingsley, and Baron Bunsen. But even these are deficient in
+those shadows which would but help to bring out all the more clearly
+the bright points in their character. We should remember the words of
+Dr. Wendell Holmes: “We all want to draw perfect ideals, and all the
+coin that comes from Nature’s mint is more or less clipped, filed,
+‘sweated,’ or bruised, and bent and worn, even if it was pure metal
+when stamped, which is more than we can claim, I suppose, for anything
+human.” True, very true; and what would the departed himself say to
+such biographies as are now but too common,—most flattering pictures
+no doubt, but pictures without one spot or wrinkle? In Germany it was
+formerly not an uncommon thing for the author of a book to write a
+self-review (Selbst-Kritik), and these were generally far better than
+reviews written by friends or enemies. For who knows the strong and
+weak points of a book so well as the author? True; but a whole life is
+more difficult to review and to criticize than a single book.
+Nevertheless it must be admitted that an autobiography has many
+advantages, and it might be well if every man of note, nay, every man
+who has something to say for himself that he wishes posterity to know,
+should say it himself. This would in time form a wonderful archive for
+psychological study. Something of the kind has been done already at
+Berlin in preserving private correspondences. Of course it is
+difficult to keep such archives within reasonable limits, but here
+again I am not afraid of self-laudation so much as of self-depreciation.
+
+Professor Jowett, who did not write his own biography, was quite
+right in saying that there is great danger of an autobiography being
+rather self-depreciatory; there is certainly something so nauseous in
+self-praise that most people would shrink far more from self-praise
+than from self-blame. There may be some kind of subtle self-admiration
+even in the fault-finding of an outspoken autobiographer; but who can
+dive into those deepest depths of the human soul? To me it seems that
+if an honest man takes himself by the neck, and shakes himself, he can
+do it far better than anybody else, and the castigation, if well
+deserved, comes certainly with a far better grace from himself than if
+administered by others.
+
+Few men, I believe, know their real goodness and greatness. Some of
+the most handsome women, so we are assured, pass through life without
+ever knowing from their looking-glass that they are handsome. And it
+is certainly true that men, from sad experience, know their weak
+points far better than their good points, which they look on as no
+more than natural.
+
+The Autos, for instance, described by John Stuart Mill, has no cause
+to be grateful to the Autos that wrote his biography. Mill had been
+threatened by several future biographers, and he therefore wrote the
+short biographical account of himself almost in self-defence. But
+besides the truly miraculous, and, if related by anybody else, hardly
+credible achievements of his early boyhood and youth, his great
+achievements in later life, the influence which he exercised both by
+his writings and still more by his personal and public character,
+would have found a far more eloquent and truthful interpreter in a
+stranger than in Mill himself. I remember another case where a most
+distinguished author tried to escape the oil and the blessings,
+perhaps the opposite also, from the hands of his future biographers.
+Froude destroyed the whole of his correspondence, and he wished
+particularly that all letters written to him in the fullest confidence
+should be burnt,—and they were. I think it was a pity, for I know
+what valuable letters were destroyed in that _auto da fé_; and yet
+when he had done all this, he seems to have been seized with fear, and
+just before he returned to Oxford as Regius Professor of Modern
+History he began to write a sketch of his own life, which was found
+among his papers. Interesting it certainly was, but fortunately his
+best friends prevented its publication. It would have added nothing to
+what we know of him in his writings, and would never have put his real
+merits in their proper light. Besides, it came to an end with his
+youth and told us little of his real life.
+
+I flattered myself that I had found the true way out of all these
+difficulties, by writing not exactly my own life, but recollections of
+my friends and acquaintances who had influenced me most, and guided me
+in my not always easy passage through life. As in describing the
+course of a river, we cannot do better than to describe the shores
+which hem in and divert the river and are reflected on its waves, I
+thought that by describing my environment, my friends, and fellow
+workers, I could best describe the course of my own life. I hoped also
+that in this way I myself could keep as much as possible in the
+background, and yet in describing the wooded or rocky shores with
+their herds, their cottages, and churches, describe their reflected
+image on the passing river.
+
+But now I am asked to give a much fuller account of myself, not only
+of what I have seen, but also of what I have been, what were the
+objects or ideals of my life, how far I have succeeded in carrying
+them out, and, as I said, how often I have failed to accomplish what I
+had sketched out as my task in life. People wished to know how a boy,
+born and educated in a small and almost unknown town in the centre of
+Germany, should have come to England, should have been chosen there to
+edit the oldest book of the world, the Veda of the Brahmans, never
+published before, whether in India or in Europe, should have passed
+the best part of his life as a professor in the most famous and, as it
+was thought, the most exclusive University in England, and should
+actually have ended his days as a Member of Her Majesty’s most
+honourable Privy Council. I confess myself it seems a very strange
+career, yet everything came about most naturally, not by my own
+effort, but owing again to those circumstances or to that environment
+of which we have heard so much of late.
+
+Young, struggling men also have written to me, 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
+England. They knew, for I had never made any secret of it, how poor I
+was in worldly goods, and how, as I said at Glasgow, I had nothing to
+depend on after I left the University, but those fingers with which I
+still hold my pen and write so badly that I can hardly read my
+manuscript myself. When I arrived I had no family connections in
+England, nor any influential friends, “and yet,” I was told, “in a
+foreign country, you managed to reach the top of your profession. Tell
+us how you did it; and how you preserved at the same time your
+independence and never forsook the not very popular subjects, such as
+language, mythology, religion, and philosophy, on which you continued
+to write to the very end of your life.”
+
+I generally said that most of these questions could best be answered
+from my books, but they replied that few people had time to read all I
+had written, and many would feel grateful for a thread to lead them
+through this labyrinth of books, essays, and pamphlets, which have
+issued from my workshop during the last fifty years.[3]
+
+  [3] As giving a clear and complete abstract of my writings I
+  may now recommend M. Montcalm’s _L’origine de la Pensée et de
+  la Parole_, Paris, 1900.
+
+All I could say was that each man must find his own way in life, but
+if there was any secret about my success, it was simply due to the
+fact that I had perfect faith, and went on never doubting even when
+everything looked grey and black about me. I felt convinced that what
+I cared for, and what I thought worthy of a whole life of hard work,
+must in the end be recognized by others also as of value, and as
+worthy of a certain support from the public. Had not Layard gained a
+hearing for Assyrian bulls? Did not Darwin induce the world to take an
+interest in Worms, and in the Fertilization of Orchids? And should the
+oldest book and the oldest thoughts of the Aryan world remain despised
+and neglected?
+
+For many years I never thought of appointments or of getting on in the
+world in a pecuniary sense. My friends often laughed at me, and when I
+think of it now, I confess I must have seemed very Quixotic to many of
+those who tried for this and that, got lucrative appointments, married
+rich wives, became judges and bishops, ambassadors and ministers, and
+could hardly understand what I was driving at with my Sanskrit
+manuscripts, my proof-sheets and revises. Perhaps I did not know
+myself. Still I was not quite so foolish as they imagined. True, I
+declined several offers made to me which seemed very advantageous in a
+worldly sense, but would have separated me entirely from my favourite
+work.
+
+When at last a professorship of Modern Literature was offered me at
+Oxford, I made up my mind, though it was not exactly what I should
+have liked, to give up half of my time to studies required by this
+professorship, keeping half of my time for the Veda and for Sanskrit
+in general. This was not so bad after all. People often laughed at me
+for being professor of the most modern languages, and giving so much
+of my time and labour to the most ancient language and literature in
+the world. Perhaps it was not quite right my giving up so much of my
+time to modern languages, a subject so remote from my work in life,
+but it was a concession which I could make with a good conscience,
+having always held that language was one and indivisible, and that
+there never had been a break between Sanskrit, Latin, and French, or
+Sanskrit, Gothic, and German. One of my first lectures at Oxford was
+“On the antiquity of modern languages,” so that I gave full notice to
+the University as to how I meant to treat my subject, and on the whole
+the University seems to have been satisfied with my professorial work,
+so that when afterwards for very good reasons, whether financial,
+theological, or national, I, or rather my friends, failed to secure a
+majority in Convocation for a professorship of Sanskrit, the
+University actually founded for me a Professorship of Comparative
+Philology, an honour of which I had never dreamt, and to secure which
+I certainly had never taken any steps.
+
+Here is all my secret. At first, as I said, it required faith, but it
+also required for many years a perfect indifference as to worldly
+success. And here again in my career as a Sanskrit scholar, mere
+circumstances were of great importance. They were circumstances which
+I was glad to accept, but which I could never have created myself. 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 each. It was at the time
+when the fate of the Company hung in the balance, and when Bunsen, the
+Prussian Minister, made himself _persona grata_ by delivering a speech
+at one of the public dinners in the City, setting forth in eloquent
+words the undeniable merits of the Old Company and the wonderful work
+they had achieved. It was likewise a mere accident that I should have
+become known to Bunsen, and that he should have shown me so much
+kindness in my literary work. He had himself tried hard to go to India
+to discover the Rig-veda, nay, to find out whether there was still
+such a thing as the Veda in India. The same Bunsen, His Excellency
+Baron Bunsen, the Prussian Minister in London, on his own accord went
+afterwards to see the Chairman and the Directors of the East India
+Company, and explained to them what the Rig-veda was, and that it
+would be a real disgrace if such a work were published in Germany; and
+they agreed to vote a sum of money such as they had never voted
+before for any literary undertaking. Though after the mutiny nothing
+could save them, 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 Company,—much abused though
+splendidly defended also by no less a man than John Stuart Mill.
+
+This is what I mean by friends and circumstances, 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 myself.
+Small and large things work wonderfully together. It was the change
+threatening the government of India, and a mighty change it was, that
+gave me the chance of publishing the Veda, a very small matter as it
+may seem in the eyes of most people, and yet intended to bring about
+quite as mighty a change in our views of the ancient people of the
+world, particularly of their languages and religions. This, too—the
+development of language and religion—seems of importance to some
+people who do not care two straws for the East India Company,
+particularly if it helps us to learn what we really are ourselves, and
+how we came to be what we are.
+
+In one sense biographies and autobiographies are certainly among the
+most valuable materials for the historian. Biography, as Heinrich
+Simon, not Henri Simon, said, is the best kind of history, and the
+life of one man, if laid open before us with all he thought and all he
+did, gives us a better insight into the history of his time than any
+general account of it can possibly do.
+
+Now it is quite true that the life of a quiet scholar has little to do
+with history, except it may be the history of his own branch of study,
+which some people consider quite unimportant, while to others it seems
+all-important. This is as it ought to be, till the universal historian
+finds the right perspective, and assigns to each branch of study and
+activity its proper place in the panorama of the progress of mankind
+towards its ideals. Even a quiet scholar, if he keeps his eyes open,
+may now and then see something that is of importance to the historian.
+While I was living in small rooms at Leipzig, or lodging _au
+cinquième_ in the Rue Royale at Paris, or copying manuscripts in a
+dark room of the old East India House in Leadenhall Street, I now and
+then caught glimpses of the mighty stream of history as it was rushing
+by. At Leipzig I saw much of Robert Blum who was afterwards _fusillé_
+at Vienna by Windischgrätz in defiance of all international law, for
+he was a member of the German Diet, then sitting at Frankfurt. From my
+windows at Paris I looked over the _Boulevard de la Madeleine_, and
+down on the right to the _Chambre des Députés_, and I saw from my
+windows the throne of Louis Philippe carried along by its four legs by
+four women on horseback, with Phrygian caps and red scarfs, 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
+street. In my small study at the East India House I saw several of the
+Directors, Colonel Sykes and others, and heard them discussing the
+fate of the East India Company and of the vast empire of India too,
+and at the same time the private interests of those who hoped to be
+Members of the new India Council, and those who despaired of that
+distinction. I was the first to bring the news of the French
+Revolution in February to London, and presented a bullet that had
+smashed the windows of my room at Paris, to Bunsen, who took it in the
+evening to Lord Palmerston. After I had seen the Revolution in Paris
+and the flight of the King and the Duchesse d’Orléans, I was in time
+to see in London the Chartist Deputation to Parliament, and the
+assembled police in Trafalgar Square, when Louis Napoleon served as a
+Special Constable, and I heard the Duke of Wellington explain to
+Bunsen, that though no soldier was seen in the streets there was
+artillery hidden under the bridges, and ready to act if wanted. I
+could add more, but I must not anticipate, and after all, to me all
+these great events seemed but small compared with a new manuscript of
+the Veda sent from India, or a better reading of an obscure passage.
+_Diversos diversa iuvant_, and it is fortunate that it should be so.
+
+All these things, I thought, should form part of my Recollections,
+and my own little self should disappear as much as possible. Even the
+pronoun I should meet the reader but seldom, though in Recollections
+it was as impossible to leave it out altogether as it would be to take
+away the lens from a photographic camera. Now I believe I have always
+been most willing to yield to my friends, 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 struggles; but I must on the
+whole adhere to my old plan. I could not, if I would, neglect the
+environment of my life, and the many friends that advised and helped
+me, and enabled me to achieve the little that I may have achieved in
+my own line of study.
+
+If my friends had been different from what they were, should I not
+have become a different man myself, whether for good or for evil? And
+the same applies to our natural surroundings also. And here I must
+invoke the patience of my readers, if I try to explain in as few words
+as possible what I think about _environment_, and what about
+_heredity_ or _atavism_.
+
+I was a thorough Darwinian in ascribing the shaping of my career to
+environment, though I was always very averse to atavism, of which we
+have heard so much lately in most biographies. Even with respect to
+environment, however, I could not go quite so far as certain of our
+Darwinian friends, who maintain that everything is the result of
+environment, or translated into biographical language, that everybody
+is a creature of circumstances. No, I could not go so far as that.
+Environment may shape our course and may shape us, but there must be
+something that is shaped, and allows itself to be shaped. 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 life. That he
+grew then a thicker fur, I knew, but that surely does not explain the
+whole of the Mammoth, with and without a thick fur, before and after
+the fur. It is really a pity to see for how many of these downright
+absurdities Darwin is made responsible by the Darwinians. He has
+clearly shown how in many cases the individual may be modified almost
+beyond recognition by environment, but the individual must always have
+been there first. Before we had a spaniel and a Newfoundland dog there
+must have been some kind of dog, neither so small as the spaniel nor
+so large as the Newfoundland, and no one would now doubt that these
+two belonged to the same species and presupposed some kind of a less
+modified canine creature. It is equally true that every individual man
+has been modified by his surroundings or environment, if not to the
+same extent as certain animals, yet very considerably, as in the case
+of Kaspar Hauser, the man with the iron mask, or the mutineers of the
+_Bounty_ in the Pitcairn Islands. But there must have been the man
+first, before he could be so modified. Now it was this very
+individual, my own self in fact, the spiritual self even more than the
+physical, that interested my critics, while I thought that the
+circumstances which moulded that self would be of far greater interest
+than the self itself. Of course all the modifications that men now
+undergo are nothing if compared to the early modifications which
+produced what we speak of as racial, linguistic, or even national
+peculiarities. That we are English or German, that we are white or
+black, nay, if you like, that we are human beings at all, all this has
+modified our self, or our germ-plasm, far more powerfully than
+anything that can happen to us as individuals now.
+
+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 young,
+struggling man, all I could say was that here again it was really my
+friends who did everything for me, and helped me over many a stile,
+and many a ditch, nay, without whom I should never have done whatever
+I did for the Sciences of Language, of Mythology, and Religion, in
+fact for Anthropology in the widest sense of that word. My very
+struggles were certainly a help to me, even my opponents were most
+useful to me. The subjects on which I wrote had hardly been touched on
+in England, at least from the historical point of view which I took,
+and I had not only to overcome the indifference of the public, but to
+disarm as much as possible the prejudices often felt, and sometimes
+expressed also, against anything made in Germany! Now I confess I
+could never understand such a prejudice among men of science. Was I
+more right or more wrong because I was born in Germany? Is scientific
+truth the exclusive property of one nation, of Germany, or of England?
+If I say two and two make four in German, is that less true because it
+is said by a German? and if I say, no language without thought, no
+thought without language, has that anything to do with my native
+country? The prejudice against strangers and particularly against
+Germans is, no doubt, much stronger now than it was at the time when I
+first came to England. I had spent nearly two years in Paris, and
+there too there existed then so little of unfriendly feeling towards
+Germany, that one of the best reviews to which the rising scholars and
+best writers of Paris contributed was actually called _Revue
+Germanique_. Who would now venture to publish in Paris such a review
+and under such a title? If there existed such an anti-German feeling
+anywhere in England when I arrived here in the year 1846, one would
+suppose that it existed most strongly at Oxford. And so it did, no
+doubt, particularly among theologians. With them German meant much the
+same as unorthodox, and unorthodox was enough at that time to taboo a
+man at Oxford. In one of the sermons preached in these early days at
+St. Mary’s, German theologians such as Strauss and Neander (_sic_)
+were spoken of as fit only to be drowned in the German Ocean, before
+they reached the shores of England. I do not add what followed: the
+story is too well known. I was chiefly amused by the juxtaposition of
+Strauss and Neander, whose most orthodox lectures on the history of
+the Christian Church I had attended at Berlin. Neander was certainly
+to us at Berlin the very pattern of orthodoxy, and people wondered at
+my attending his lectures. But they were good and honest lectures. He
+was quite a character, and I feel tempted to go a little out of my way
+in speaking of him. By birth a Jew, he became one of the most learned
+Christian divines. Ever so many stories were told of him, some true,
+some no doubt invented. I saw him often walking to and from the
+University to give his lectures in a large fur coat, with high black
+polished boots beneath, but showing occasionally as he walked along.
+It was told that he once sent for a doctor because he was lame. The
+doctor on examining his feet, saw that one boot was covered with mud,
+while the other was perfectly clean. The Professor had walked with one
+foot on the pavement, with the other in the gutter, and was far too
+much absorbed in his ideas to discover the true cause of his
+discomfort. He lived with his sister, who took complete care of him
+and saw to his wardrobe also. She knew that he wore one pair of
+trousers, and that on a certain day in the year the tailor brought him
+a new pair. Great was her amazement when one day, after her brother
+had gone to the University, she discovered his pair of trousers lying
+on a chair near his bed. She at once sent a servant to the Professor’s
+lecture-room to inquire whether he had his trousers on. The hilarity
+of his class may be imagined. The fact was it was the very day on
+which the tailor was in the habit of bringing the new pair of
+trousers, which the Professor had put on, leaving his usual garment
+behind.
+
+Many more stories of his absent-mindedness were _en vogue_ about Dr.
+Neander, but that this man, a pillar of strength to the orthodox in
+Germany, who was looked up to as an infallible Pope, should have his
+name coupled with that of Strauss certainly gave one a little shock.
+Yet it was at Oxford that I pitched my tent, chiefly in order to
+superintend the printing of my Rig-veda at the University Press there,
+and never dreaming that a fellowship, still less a professorship in
+that ancient Tory University, would ever be offered to me.
+
+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
+Pope; and yet in time I was chosen a Fellow of All Souls, and the
+first married Fellow of the College, and even a professorship was
+offered to me when I least expected it. The fact is, I never thought
+of either, and no one was more surprised than myself when I was asked
+to act as deputy, and then as full Taylorian Professor; no one could
+have mistrusted his eyes more than I did, 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 fellows. My ambition had never soared
+so high. I was thinking of returning to Leipzig as a _Privat-docent_,
+to rise afterwards to an extraordinary and, if all went well, to an
+ordinary professorship.
+
+But after these two appointments at Oxford had secured to me what I
+thought a fair social and financial position in England, I did not
+feel justified in attempting to begin life again in Germany. I had not
+asked for a professorship or fellowship. They were offered me, and my
+ambition never went beyond securing what was necessary for my
+independence. In Germany I was supposed to have become quite wealthy;
+in England people knew how small my income really was, and wondered
+how I managed to live on it. 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 Oxford. I could not see anything anomalous in a German holding
+a professorship in England. There were several cases of the same kind
+in Germany. Lassen (1800-1876), our great Sanskrit professor at Bonn,
+was a Norwegian by birth, and no one ever thought of his nationality.
+What had that to do with his knowledge of Sanskrit? Nor was I ever
+treated as an alien or as intruder at Oxford, at least not at that
+early time. As to myself, I had now obtained what seemed to me a small
+but sufficient income with perfect independence. The quiet life of a
+quiet student had been from my earliest days my ideal in life. Even at
+school at Dessau, when we boys talked of what we hoped to be, I
+remember how my ideal was that of a monk, undisturbed in his
+monastery, surrounded by books and by a few friends. The idea that I
+should ever rise to be a professor in a university, or that any career
+like that of my father, grandfather, and other members of my family
+would ever be open to me, never entered my mind then. It seemed to me
+almost disloyal to think of ever taking their places. Even when I saw
+that there were no longer any Protestant monks, no Benedictines, the
+place of an assistant in a large library, sitting in a quiet corner,
+was my highest ambition.
+
+I do not see why it should have been so, for all my relations and
+friends occupied high places in the public service, but as I had no
+father to open my eyes, 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 mother, whose one desire
+was to be left alone, much as the world tempted her, then not yet
+thirty years old, to give up her mourning and to return to society.
+Thus it soon became my own philosophy of life, to be left alone, free
+to go my own way, or like Diogenes, to live in my own tub. Here we see
+what I call the influence of circumstances, of surroundings, or as
+others call it, of environment. This, however, is very different from
+atavism, as we shall see presently. Atavism also has been called a
+kind of environment, attacking us and influencing us from the past,
+and as it were, from behind, from the North in fact instead of the
+South, the East, and the West, and from all the points of the compass.
+
+But atavism means really a very different thing, if indeed it means
+anything at all.
+
+I must ease my conscience once for all on this point, and say what I
+feel about atavism and environment. Environment in the shape of
+friends, of locality, and other material circumstances, has certainly
+influenced my life very much, and I could never see why such a hybrid
+word as environment should be used instead of surroundings or
+circumstances. Creatures of circumstances would be far better
+understood than creatures of environment; but environment, I suppose,
+would sound more scientific. Atavism also is a new word, instead of
+family likeness, but unless carefully defined, the word is very apt to
+mislead us.
+
+When it is said[4] that children often resemble their grandfathers or
+grandmothers more than their immediate parents, and that this
+propensity is termed atavism, this does not seem quite correct even
+etymologically, for atavus in Latin did not mean father or
+grandfather, but at first great-great-great-grandfather, and then
+only ancestors; and what should be made quite clear is that this
+mysterious atavism should not be used by careful speakers, to express
+the supposed influence of parents or even grandparents, but that of
+more distant ancestors only, and possibly of a whole family.
+
+  [4] _Oxford Dictionary_, s. v.; J. Rennie, _Science of
+  Gardening_, p. 113.
+
+Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin their works with a
+long account not only of father and mother, but of grandparents and of
+ever so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined the
+outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written.
+Who would deny that there is some truth, or at least some
+plausibility, in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in giving
+an intelligible account of it? It is supposed to affect the moral as
+well as the physical peculiarities of the offspring, and that here,
+too, physical and moral qualities often go together cannot be denied.
+A blind person, for instance, is generally cautious, but happy and
+quite at his ease in large societies. A deaf person is often
+suspicious and unhappy in society. In inheriting blindness, therefore,
+a man could well be said to have inherited cautiousness; in inheriting
+deafness, suspiciousness would seem to have come to him by
+inheritance.
+
+But is blindness really inherited? Is the son of a father who has lost
+his eyesight blind, and necessarily blind? We must distinguish between
+atavistic and parental influences. Parental influences would mean the
+influence of qualities acquired by the parents, and directly
+bequeathed to their offspring; atavistic influences would refer to
+qualities inherited and transmitted, it may be, through several
+generations, and engrained in a whole family. In keeping these two
+classes separate, we should only be following Weismann’s example, who
+denies altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable. His
+examples are most interesting and most important, and many Darwinians
+have had to accept his amendment. Besides, we should always consider
+whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family or inconstant.
+If a father is a drunkard, surely it does not follow that his sons
+must be drunkards. Neither does it follow that all the children must
+be sober if the parents are sober. Of course, in ordinary conversation
+both parental and ancestral influences seem clear enough. But if a
+child is said to favour his mother, because like her he has blue eyes
+and fair hair, what becomes of the heritage from the father who may
+have brown eyes and dark hair? Whatever may happen to the children,
+there is always an excuse, only an excuse is not an explanation. If
+the daughter of a beautiful woman grows up very plain, the Frenchman
+was no doubt right when he remarked, _C’était alors le père qui
+n’était pas bien_, and if the son of a teetotaller should later in
+life become a drunkard, the conclusion would be even worse. In fact,
+this kind of atavistic or parental influence is a very pleasant
+subject for gossips, but from a scientific point of view, it is
+perfectly futile. If it is not the father, it is the mother; if it is
+not the grandmother, it is the grandfather; in fact, family influences
+can always be traced to some source or other, if the whole pedigree
+may be dug up and ransacked. But for that very reason they are of no
+scientific value whatever. They can neither be accounted for, nor can
+they be used to account for anything themselves. Even of twins, though
+very like each other in many respects, one may be phlegmatic, the
+other passionate. Some scientists, such as Weismann and others, have
+therefore denied, and I believe rightly, that any acquired characters,
+whether physical or mental, can ever be inherited by children from
+their parents. Whatever similarity there is, and there is plenty, is
+traced back by him to what he calls the germ-plasm, working on
+continuously in spite of all individual changes. If that germ-plasm is
+liable to certain peculiar modifications in the father or grandfather,
+it is liable to the same or similar modifications in the offspring,
+that is, if the father could become a drunkard, so could the son, only
+we must not think that the _post hoc_ is here the same as the _propter
+hoc_. If we compare the germ-plasm to the molecules constituting the
+stem or branches of a vine, its grapes and leaves in their similarity
+and their variety would be comparable to the individuals belonging to
+the same family, and springing from the same family tree. But then the
+grape we see would not be what the grape of last year, or the grape
+immediately preceding it on the same branch, had made it, though there
+can be no doubt that the antecedent possibilities of the new grape
+were the same as those of the last. If one grape is blue, the next
+will be blue too, but no one would say that it was blue because the
+last grape was blue. The real cause would be that the molecules of the
+protoplasm have been so affected by long continued generation, that
+some of the peculiar qualities of the vine have become constant.
+
+The child of a negro must always be a negro; his peculiarities are
+constant, though it may be quite true that the negro and other races
+are not different species, but only varieties rendered constant by
+immense periods of time. What the cause of these constant and
+inconstant peculiarities may be, not even Weismann has yet been able
+to explain satisfactorily.
+
+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
+influence, as something belonging to the environment of my life; it
+never frightened me as an atavistic evil. It justified me in being
+cautious and in being prepared for the worst, and so far it may be
+said to have helped in shaping or narrowing the course of my life.
+Fortunately, however, this tendency to deafness seems now to have
+exhausted itself. In my own generation there is one case only, and the
+next two generations, children and grandchildren of mine, show no
+signs of it. If, on the other hand, my son was congratulated when
+entering the diplomatic service, on being the son of his father, it is
+clear that the difference between inherited and acquired qualities, so
+strongly insisted on by Weismann, had not been fully appreciated by
+his friends. Besides, my own power of speaking foreign languages has
+always been very limited, and I have many times declined the
+compliment of being a second Mezzofanti.[5] I worked at languages as a
+musician studies the nature and capacities of musical instruments,
+though without attempting to perform on every one of them. There was
+no time left for acquiring a practical familiarity with languages, if
+I wanted to carry on my researches into the origin, the nature and
+history of language. My own study of languages could therefore have
+been of very little use to me, nor did my son himself perceive such an
+advantage in learning to converse in French, Spanish, Turkish, &c. The
+facts were wrong, and the theory of atavism perfectly unreasonable as
+applied to such a case.
+
+  [5] _Science of Language_, vol. i. p. 24 (1861).
+
+If the theory of atavism were stretched so far, it would soon do away
+with free will altogether. That heredity has something to do with our
+moral character, no one would deny who knows the influence of our
+national, nay even of racial character. We are Aryan by heredity; we
+might be Negroes or Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals
+also have their instincts. Only while animals, like serpents for
+instance, would never hesitate to follow their innate propensity, man,
+when he feels the power of what we may call inherited human instinct,
+feels also that he can fight against it, and preserve his freedom,
+even while wearing the chains of his slavery. This may have removed
+some of Dr. Wendell Holmes’ scruples in writing his powerful story,
+_Elsie Venner_, and may likewise quiet the fears of his many critics.
+
+I believe that language also—our own inherited language—exercises
+the most powerful influence on our reason and our will, far more
+powerful than we are aware of.
+
+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 Cicero, and this simply on account of the language which
+they had to speak, whether Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish. We cannot
+tell whether the original differentiation of language, symbolized by
+the story of the Tower of Babel, took place before or after the racial
+differentiation of men. Anyhow it must have taken place in quite
+primordial times. Without speaking positively on this point, I
+certainly hold as strongly as ever that language makes the man, and
+that therefore for classificatory purposes also language is far more
+useful than colour of skin, hair, cranial or gnathic peculiarities.
+Whether it be true that with every new language we speak we become
+new men, certain it is that language prepares for us channels in which
+our thoughts have to run, unless they are so powerful as to break all
+dams and dykes, and to dig for themselves new beds.
+
+For a long time people would not see that languages can be classified;
+and as languages always presuppose speakers of language, these
+speakers also can be classified accordingly. It is quite true that
+some of these Aryan speakers may in some cases have Negro blood and
+Negro features, as when a Negro becomes an English bishop. Conquered
+tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language of their
+conquerors, but this too is exceptional, and if we call them Aryas, we
+do not commit ourselves to any opinion as to their blood, their bones,
+or their hair. These will never submit to the same classification as
+their speech, and why should they? Nor should it be forgotten that
+wherever a mixture of language takes place, mixed marriages also would
+most likely take place at the same time. But whatever confusion may
+have arisen in later times in language and in blood, no language could
+have arisen without speakers, and we mean by Aryas no more than
+speakers of Aryan languages, whatever their skulls or their hair may
+have been. An Octoroon, and even a Quadroon, may have blonde waving
+hair, but if he speaks English he would be classified as Aryan, if
+Berber as a Negro. But who is injured by such a classification? Let
+blood and skulls and hair and jaws be classified by all means, but let
+us speak no longer of Aryan skulls or Semitic blood. We might as well
+speak of a prognathic language.
+
+While fully admitting, therefore, the influence which family,
+nationality, race, and language exercise on us, it should be clearly
+perceived that habits acquired by our parents are not heritable, that
+the sons of drunkards need not be drunkards, as little as the sons of
+sober people must be sober. But though biographers may agree to this
+in general they seem inclined, to hold out very strongly for what are
+called _special talents in certain families_. This subject is
+decidedly amusing, but it admits of no scientific treatment, as far as
+I can see.
+
+The grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for instance, though
+not a composer, was evidently a man of genius, a philosopher of
+considerable intellectual capacity and moral strength. The father of
+the composer was a rich banker at Berlin, and he used to say: “When I
+was young I was the son of the great Mendelssohn, now that I am old, I
+am the father of the great Mendelssohn; then what am I?” Even a poor
+man to become a rich banker must be a kind of genius, and so far the
+son may be said to have come of a good stock. But the great musical
+talent that was developed in the third generation both in Felix and
+his sisters, failed entirely in his brother, who, to save his life,
+could never have sung “God save the Queen.” In the little theatrical
+performances of the whole family for which Felix composed the music,
+and his sister Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical
+brother—was it not Paul?—had generally to be provided with some such
+part as that of a night watchman, and he managed to get through his
+song with as much credit as the _Nachtwächter_ in the little town of
+Germany, where he sang or repeated, as I well remember, in his cracked
+voice:
+
+    “Hört, ihr Herren, und lasst euch sagen,
+     Die Glock’ hat zwölf geschlagen;
+     Wahret das Feuer und auch das Licht,
+     Dass Keinem kein Schade geschicht.”
+
+    “Listen, gents, and let me tell,
+     The clock struck twelve by its last knell;
+     Watch o’er the fire and o’er the light
+     That no one suffer any plight.”
+
+I have known in my life many musicians and their families, but I
+remember very few instances indeed, where the son of a distinguished
+musician was a great musician himself. If the children take to music
+at all they may become very fair musicians, but never anything
+extraordinary. The Bach family may be quoted against me, but music,
+before Sebastian Bach, was almost like a profession, and could be
+learned like any other handicraft.
+
+Nor are the cases of painters being the sons of great painters, or of
+poets being the sons of great poets, more numerous. It seems almost as
+if the artistic talent was exhausted by one generation or one
+individual, so that we often see the sons of great men by no means
+great, and if they do anything in the same line as their fathers, we
+must remember that there was much to induce them to follow in their
+steps without admitting any atavistic influences.
+
+For the present, I can only repeat the conclusion I arrived at after
+weighing all the arguments of my friends and critics, namely, to
+continue my Recollections much as I began them, to try to explain what
+made me what I am, to describe, in fact, my environment; though as my
+years advance, and my labours and plans grow wider and wider, I shall,
+no doubt, have to say a great deal more about myself than in the
+volumes of _Auld Lang Syne_. In fact, my Recollections will become
+more and more of an autobiography, and the I and the Autos will appear
+more frequently than I could have wished.
+
+In an autobiography the painter is of course supposed to be the same
+as the sitter, but quite apart from the metaphysical difficulties of
+such a supposition, there is the physical difficulty when the writer
+is an old man, and the model is a young boy. Is the old man likely to
+be a fair judge of the young man, whether it be himself or some one
+else? As a rule, old men are very indulgent, while young men are apt
+to be stern and strict in their judgments. The very fact that they
+often invent excuses for themselves shows that they feel that they
+want excuses. The words of the Preacher, vii. 16: “Be not righteous
+over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy
+thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why
+shouldest thou die before thy time?” are evidently the words of an old
+man when judging of himself or of others. A young man would have
+spoken differently. He would have made no allowance; for anything like
+compassion for an erring friend is as yet unknown to him. In an
+autobiography written by an old man there is therefore a double
+danger, first the indulgence of the old man, and secondly the kindly
+feeling of the writer towards the object of his remarks.
+
+All these difficulties stand before me like a mountain wall. And it
+seems better to confess at once that an old man writing his own life
+can never be quite just, however honest he tries to be. He may be too
+indulgent, but he may also be too strict and stern. To say, for
+instance, of a man that he has not kept his promise, would be a very
+serious charge if brought against anybody else. Yet my oldest friend
+in the world knows how many times he has made a promise to himself,
+and has not only not kept it but has actually found excuses why he did
+not keep it. The more sensitive our conscience becomes, the more
+blameworthy many an act of our life seems to be, and what to an
+ordinary conscience is no fault at all, becomes almost a sin under a
+fiercer light.
+
+This changes the moral atmosphere of youth when painted by an old man,
+but the physical atmosphere also assumes necessarily a different hue.
+Whether we like it or not, distance will always lend enchantment to
+the view. If the azure hue is inseparable from distant mountains and
+from the distant sky, we need not wonder that it veils the distant
+paradise of youth. A man who keeps a diary from his earliest years,
+and who as an old man simply copies from its yellow pages, may give us
+a very accurate black and white image of what he saw as a boy, but as
+in old faded photographs, the life and light are gone out of them,
+while unassisted memory may often preserve tints of their former
+reality. There is life and light in such recollections, but I am
+willing to admit that memory can be very treacherous also. Thus in my
+own case I can vouch that whatever I relate is carefully and
+accurately transcribed from the tablets of my memory, as I see them
+now, but though I can claim truthfulness to myself and to my memory, I
+cannot pretend to photographic accuracy. 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 narrators.
+
+I doubt whether any historian would accept a statement made thirty
+years after the event without independent confirmation. I could not
+give the date of the battle of Sadowa, though I well remember reading
+the full account of it in the _Times_ from day to day. I can of
+course get at the date from historical books, and from that kind of
+artificial memory which arises by itself without any _memoria
+technica_. There is a favourite German game of cards called Sixty-six,
+and it was reported that when the French in 1870 shouted _À Berlin_,
+the then Crown-Prince who had won the battle of Sadowa, or Königgrätz,
+said: “Ah, they want another game of Sixty-six!” that is they want a
+battle like that of Sadowa. In this way I shall always remember the
+date of that decisive battle. But I could not give the date of the
+Crimean battles nor a trustworthy account of the successive stages of
+that war. I doubt whether even my old friend, Sir William H. Russell,
+could do that now without referring to his letters in the _Times_.
+After thirty years no one, I believe, could take an oath to the
+accuracy of any statement of what he saw or heard so many years ago.
+
+All then that I can vouch for is that I read my memory as I should the
+leaves of an old MS. from which many letters, nay, whole words and
+lines have vanished, and where I am often driven to decipher and to
+guess, as in a palimpsest, what the original uncial writing may have
+been. I am the first to confess that there may be flaws in my memory,
+there may be before my eyes that magic azure which surrounds the
+distant past; but I can promise that there shall be no invention, no
+_Dichtung_ instead of _Wahrheit_, but always, as far as in me lies,
+truth. I know quite well that even a certain dislocation of facts is
+not always to be avoided in an old memory. I know it from sad
+experience. As the spires of a city—of Oxford for instance—arrange
+themselves differently as we pass the old place on the railway, so
+that now one and now the other stands in the centre and seems to rise
+above the heads of the rest, so it is with our friends and
+acquaintances. Some who seemed giants at one time assume smaller
+proportions as others come into view towering above them. The whole
+scenery changes from year to year. Who does not remember the trees in
+our garden that seemed like giants in our childhood, but when we see
+them again in our old age, they have shrunk, and not from old age
+only?
+
+And must I make one more confession? 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 present, in fact that he had won
+that battle. I also remember Dr. Routh, the venerable president of
+Magdalen College, who died in his hundredth year, and who had so often
+repeated all the circumstances of the execution of Charles I, that
+when Macaulay expressed a wish to see him, he declined “because that
+young man has given quite a wrong account of the last moments of the
+king,” which he then proceeded to relate, as if he had been an
+eye-witness throughout.
+
+Are we not liable to the same hallucination, though, let us hope, in a
+more mitigated form? Have we never told a story as if it were our
+own, not from any wish to deceive, but simply because it seemed
+shorter and easier to do so than to explain step by step how it
+reached us? And after doing that once or twice, is there not great
+danger of our being surprised at somebody else claiming the story as
+his own, or actually maintaining that it was he who told it to us?
+
+Not very long ago I remember reading in a journal a story of the Duke
+of Wellington. His servant had been sent before to order dinner for
+him at an out-of-the-way hotel, and in order to impress the landlord
+with the dignity of his coming guest, he had recited a number of the
+Duke’s titles, which were very numerous. The landlord, thinking that
+the Duke of Vittoria, the Prince of Waterloo, the Marquis of Torres
+Vedras, and all the rest, were friends invited to dine with the Duke
+of Wellington, ordered accordingly a very sumptuous banquet to the
+great dismay of the real Duke. This may or may not be a very old and a
+very true story; all I know is that much the same thing was told at
+Oxford of Dr. Bull, who was Canon of Christ Church, Canon of Exeter,
+Prebendary of York, Vicar of Staverton, and lastly, the Rev. Dr. Bull
+himself. Dinner was provided for each of these persons, and we are
+told that the reverend pluralist had to eat all the dishes on the
+table and pay for them. This also may have been no more than one of
+the many “Common-roomers” which abounded in Oxford when Common Rooms
+were more frequented than they are now. But what I happen to know as a
+fact is that Dean Stanley received no less than four invitations to a
+hall at Blenheim, addressed A. P. Stanley, Esq., the Rev. A. P.
+Stanley, Canon Stanley, Professor Stanley, all evidently copied from
+some books of reference.
+
+I may perhaps claim one advantage in trying to describe what happened
+to myself in my passage through life. From the earliest days that I
+can recollect, I felt myself as a twofold being—as a subject and an
+object, as a spectator and as an actor. I suppose we all talk to
+ourselves, and say to our better and worse selves, O thou fool! or,
+Well done, my boy! Well this inward conversation began with me at a
+very early time, and left the impression that I was the coachman, but
+at the same time the horse too which he drove and sometimes whipped
+very cruelly. And this phase of thought, or rather this state of
+feeling, seems soon to have led me on to another view which likewise
+dates from a very early time, though it afterwards vanished. As a
+little boy, when I could not have the same toys which other boys
+possessed, I could fully enjoy what they enjoyed, as if they had been
+my own. There is a German phrase, “Ich freue mich in deiner Seele,”
+which exactly expressed what I often felt. It was not the result of
+teaching, still less of reasoning—it was a sentiment given me and
+which certainty did not leave me till much later in life, when
+competition, rivalry, jealousy, and envy seemed to accentuate my own I
+as against all other I’s or Thou’s. I suppose we all remember how the
+sight of a wound of a fellow creature, nay even of a dog, gives us a
+sharp twitch in the same part of our own body. That bodily sympathy
+has never left me, I suffer from it even now as I did seventy years
+ago. And is there anybody who has not felt his eyes moisten at the
+sudden happiness of his friends? All this seems to me to account, to a
+certain extent at least, for that feeling of identity with so-called
+strangers, which came to me from my earliest days, and has returned
+again with renewed strength in my old age. The “know thyself,”
+ascribed to Chilon and other sages of ancient Greece, gains a deeper
+meaning with every year, till at last the I which we looked upon as
+the most certain and undoubted fact, vanishes from our grasp to become
+the Self, free from the various accidents and limitations which make
+up the I, and therefore one with the Self that underlies all
+individual and therefore vanishing I’s. What that common Self may be
+is a question to be reserved for later times, though I may say at once
+that the only true answer given to it seems to me that of the
+Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy. Only we must take care not to
+mistake the moral Self, that finds fault with the active Self, for the
+Highest Self that knows no longer of good or evil deeds.
+
+Long before I had worked and thought out this problem as the
+fundamental truth of all philosophy, it presented itself to me as if
+by intuition, long before I could have fathomed it in its metaphysical
+meaning. I had just heard of the death of a dear little child, and was
+standing in our garden, looking at a rose-bush, covered in summer with
+hundreds of rose-buds and rose-flowers. While I was looking I broke
+off one small withered bud from the midst of a large cluster of roses,
+and after I had done so a question came to me, and I said to myself,
+What has happened? Is it only that one small bud is dead and gone, or
+have not all the other roses been touched by the breath of death that
+fell on it? Have they not all suffered from the death of their sister,
+for they all spring from the same stem, they all have their life from
+the same source? And if one rose suffers, must not all the others
+suffer with it? Then all the buds and flowers of the cluster seemed to
+me to become one, as it were a family of roses, and each single bud
+seemed but the repetition of the same thing, the manifestation of the
+same thought, namely the thought of the rose. But my eyes were carried
+still further, and the stem from which the bunch of roses sprang was
+lost with other stems in a branch, and it was that branch on which all
+the roses of the branchlets and stems depended, and without which they
+could not flower or exist. The single roses thus became identified
+with the branch from which they had sprung, and by which they lived. I
+wondered more and more, and after another look all the branches with
+all their branchlets became absorbed in the stem, and the stem was the
+tree, and the tree sprang from a seed, or as it is now called, the
+protoplasm; but beyond that seed there was nothing else that the eye
+could see or the mind could grasp. And while this vision floated
+before my eyes I thought of my little friend, and the home from which
+she had been broken off, and the same vision which had changed the
+rose-bush with all its flowers, and buds, and branchlets, and
+branches, into a stem and a tree, and at last into one invisible germ
+and seed, seemed now to change my little friend and her brothers and
+sisters, her parents too and all her family, into one being which,
+like an old oak tree, started from an invisible stem, or an invisible
+seed, or from an invisible thought, and that divine thought was man,
+as the other divine thought had been rose.
+
+Perhaps I did not see it so fully then as I see it now, and I
+certainly did not reason about it. I simply felt that in the death of
+my little friend, something of myself had gone, though she was no
+relation, but only a stray human friend. We see many things as
+children which we cannot see as grown-up men and women, for, as
+Longfellow said, “the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts.” Nay,
+I feel convinced that He who spoke the parable of the vine had seen
+the same vision when He said: “I am the vine, ye are the branches.
+Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself
+except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.”
+And it is on this vision, or this parable of the vine, that
+immediately afterwards follows the lesson, “Love one another, as I
+have loved you.” In loving one another we are in truth loving the
+others as ourselves, as one with ourselves; and while we are loving
+Him who is the vine, we are loving the branches, ourselves—aye, even
+our own little selves.
+
+Such vague visions or intuitions often remain with us for life, but
+while they seem to be the same, they vary as we vary ourselves. We
+imagine we saw their deepest meaning from the first, but, like a
+parable, they gain in meaning every time they come back to us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU
+
+
+In a small town such as Dessau was when I lived there as a child and
+as a boy, one lived as in an enchanted island. The horizon was very
+narrow, and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the little oasis.
+The Duchy was indeed a little oasis in the large desert of Central
+Germany. The landscape was beautiful: there were rivers small and
+large—the Mulde and the Elbe; there were magnificent oak forests;
+there were regiments of firs standing in regular columns like so many
+grenadiers; there were parks such as one sees in England only. The
+town, the capital of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, had been cared for by
+successive rulers—men mostly far in advance of their time—who had
+read and travelled, and brought home the best they could find abroad.
+Their old castle, centuries old, over-awed the town; it was by far the
+largest building, though there were several other smaller places in
+the town for members of the ducal family. All the public buildings,
+theatres, libraries, schools, and barracks, had been erected by the
+Dukes, as well as several private residences intended for some of the
+higher officials. The whole town was, in fact, the creation of the
+Dukes; the whole ground on which it stood had been originally their
+property, but it was mostly held as freehold by those who had built
+their own private houses on it. No one would have built a house on
+leasehold land, 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 years. The same family often remained in their house for
+generations, and the different stories were occupied by three
+generations at the same time—by grandparents, parents, and children.
+In this small town I was born on December 6, 1823. My father, Wilhelm
+Müller, was Librarian of the Ducal Library, and one of the most
+popular poets in Germany. A national monument was erected to his
+memory at Dessau in the year 1891, nearly a hundred years after his
+birth.
+
+  [Illustration: MY FATHER]
+
+What a blessing it would be if such a rule were followed with all
+great men, who seem so great at the time of their death, and who, a
+hundred years later, are almost forgotten, or at all events
+appreciated by a small number of admirers only. This Monument- and
+Society-mania is indeed becoming very objectionable, for if for some
+time there has been no room for tombs and statues in Westminster
+Abbey, there will soon be no room for them in the streets of London.
+The result is that many of the people who walk along the Thames
+Embankment, particularly foreigners, often ask, “Cur?” when looking at
+the human idols in bronze and marble put up there; while historians,
+remembering the really great men of England, would ask quite as often,
+“Cur non?” There is a curious race of people, who, as soon as a man of
+any note dies, are ready to found anything for him—a monument, a
+picture, a school, a prize, a society—to keep alive his memory. Of
+course these societies want presidents, members of council,
+committees, secretaries, &c., and at last, subscriptions also. Thus it
+has happened that the name of founder (_Gründer_) has assumed,
+particularly in Germany, a perfume by no means sweet. Those who are
+asked to subscribe to such testimonials know how disagreeable it is to
+decline to give at least their name, deeply as they feel that in
+giving it they are offending against all the rules of historical
+perspective. I should not say that my father was one of the great
+poets of Germany, though Heine, no mean critic, declared that he
+placed his lyric poetry next to that of Goethe. Besides, he was barely
+thirty-three when he died. He had been a favourite pupil of F. A.
+Wolf, and had proved his classical scholarship by his _Homerische
+Vorschule_, and other publications. His poems became popular in the
+true sense of the word, and there are some which the people in the
+street sing even now without being aware of the name of their author.
+Schubert’s compositions also have contributed much to the wide
+popularity of his _Schöne Müllerin_ and his _Winterreise_, so that
+though it might truly be said of him that he wanted no monument in
+bronze or stone, it seemed but natural that a small town like Dessau
+should wish to honour itself by honouring the memory of one of its
+sons. In the company of Mendelssohn, the philosopher, and of F.
+Schneider, the composer, a monument of my father in the principal
+street of his native town, and before the school in which he had been
+a pupil and a teacher, could hardly seem out of place. That the Greek
+Parliament voted the Pentelican marble for the poet of the
+_Griechenlieder_, as it had done for Lord Byron, was another
+inducement for his fellow citizens to do honour to their honoured
+poet. He died when I was hardly four years old, so that my
+recollection of him is very faint and vague, made up, I believe, to a
+great extent, of pictures, and things that my mother told me. I seem
+to remember him as a bright, sunny, and thoroughly joyful man,
+delighted with our little naughtinesses. One book I still possess
+which he bought for me and which was to be the first book of my
+library. It was a small volume of Horace, printed by Pickering in
+1820. It has now almost vanished among the 12,000 big volumes that
+form my library, but I am delighted that I am still able, at
+seventy-six, to read it without spectacles. I think I remember my
+father taking my sister and me on his knees, and telling us the most
+delightful stories, that set us wondering and laughing and crying till
+we could laugh and cry no longer. He had been a fellow worker with the
+brothers Grimm, and the stories he told were mostly from their
+collection, though he knew how to embellish them with anything that
+could make a child cry and laugh.
+
+People have little idea how great and how lasting an influence such
+popular stories about kings and queens, and princesses and knights,
+about ogres and witches, about men that have been changed into
+animals, and about animals that talk and behave like human beings,
+exercise on the imagination of young children. While we listened, a
+new world seemed to open before us, and anything like doubt as to the
+reality of these beings never existed. What was reality or unreality
+to young children of four and five? How few people know what real
+reality is, even after they have reached the age of fifty or sixty.
+For children, such names as reality and unreality do not exist, nor
+the ideas which they express. They listen to what their father tells
+them, and they cannot see any difference between what he tells them of
+Frederick Barbarossa, of Romulus and Remus suckled by a wolf, or of
+the dwarfs that guarded the coffin of Schneewittchen.
+
+Some people, however, have thought that from an educational point of
+view, a belief in this imaginary world must be mischievous. I doubt
+it, and it would be easy to show that originally these stories and
+fables were really meant to inculcate right and good principles.
+Luther declared that he would not lose these wonderful stories of his
+tender childhood for any sum of money, and Camerarius (_Fabulae
+Aesopeae_, p. 406, Lipsiae, 1570) speaks of these German fables as
+filling the minds of the people, and particularly of children, with
+terror, hope, and religion. The oldest collections in which some of
+these Aesopean fables occur, the Pantschatantra and Hitopadesa in
+Sanskrit, were distinctly intended for the education of princes, and
+though they may make the young listeners inclined to be superstitious,
+such superstitiousness is not likely to last long. Children delight in
+_Märchen_ as in a kind of pantomime, and when the curtain has fallen
+on that fairy world they often think of it as of a beautiful dream
+that has passed away. The stories are certainly more impressive than
+the proverbs and wise saws which many of them were meant to
+illustrate, without always saying, _haec fabula docet_. Even if some
+of these stories touch sometimes on what may not seem to us quite
+correct, it is done to make children laugh rather at the silliness
+than cry at the downright wickedness of some of the heroes. It is by
+no means uncommon, for instance, that a good-for-nothing fellow
+succeeds, while his virtuous companions fail. But there is either a
+reason for it, or the injustice provokes the indignation of children,
+long before they have learnt that in real life also virtue does not
+always receive its reward, while falsehood often prospers, at least
+for a time. There is no harm, I think, in a certain dreaminess in
+children. I remember that I have often laughed with all my heart at
+Rumpelstilzchen, and shed bitter tears at Brüderchen and
+Schwesterchen. I seemed to see brother and sister driven into the
+wood, the brother being changed into a deer, and the sister sleeping
+with her head on his warm fur, till at last the deer was killed by a
+huntsman, and the little sister had to travel on quite alone in the
+forest. Of course in the end she became a princess, and the brother a
+prince who married a queen, and all ended in great joy and jubilation
+in which we all joined. How good for children that they should for a
+time at least have lived in such a dreamland, in which truthfulness
+was as a rule rewarded, and falsehood punished in the end.
+
+It was like a recollection of a Paradise, and such a recollection,
+even if it brought out the contrast between the dream-world and the
+real world, would often set children musing on what ought and what
+ought not to be. They did not long believe in Dornröschen and
+Schneewittchen, they learnt but too soon that Dornröschen and
+Schneewittchen belonged to another world. They may even have come to
+learn that Dornröschen (thorn-rose) and Schneewittchen (snow-white)
+were meant originally for the sleep or death of nature in her
+snow-white shroud, and the return of the sun; but woe to the boy who
+on first learning these stories should have declared that they were
+mere bosh, or, as Sir Walter Scott says, the detritus of nature-myths.
+
+My father’s father, whom I never knew, seems not to have been
+distinguished in any way. He was, however, a useful tradesman and a
+respected citizen of Dessau, and, as I see, the founder of the first
+lending library in that small town. He married a second time, a rich
+widow, chiefly, as I was told, to enable him to give his son, my
+father, a liberal education. She grew to be very old, and I well
+remember her, to me, forbidding and terrifying appearance. She quite
+belonged to a past generation, and when I saw her again after having
+been in England, she asked me whether I had seen Napoleon who had been
+taken prisoner and sent to England, but had lately escaped and resumed
+his throne in Paris. She evidently mixed up the two Napoleons, and I
+did not contradict her. To me her conversation was interesting as
+showing how little the traditions of the people can be relied on, and
+how easily, by the side of real history, a popular history could grow
+up. After all, the poems of Charlemagne besieging Jerusalem owed their
+origin very likely to some similar confusion in the minds of old
+women. My sister and I were always terrified when we were sent to
+visit her, for with her dishevelled grey hair, her thin white face,
+and her piercing eyes, she was to us the old grandmother, or the witch
+of Grimm’s stories; and the language she used was such that, if we
+repeated it at home, we were severely reprimanded. She knew very
+little about my father, but her memory about her first husband and
+about her own youth and childhood was very clear, though not always
+edifying. Her stories about ghosts, witches, ogres, nickers, and the
+whole of that race were certainly enough to frighten a child, and some
+of them clung to me for a very long time. On my mother’s side my
+relations were more civilized, and they had but little social
+intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives. My mother’s father
+was von Basedow, the President, that is Prime Minister of the Duchy of
+Anhalt-Dessau, a position in which he was succeeded by his eldest son,
+my uncle. He was the first man in the town; the Duke and he really
+ruled the Duchy exactly as they pleased. There was no check on them of
+any kind, and yet no one, as far as I know, ever complained of any
+tyranny. My grandfather’s father again was the famous reformer of
+public education in Germany. He (1723-1790) had to brave the
+conservative and clerical parties throughout the country. His home at
+Hamburg was burnt in a riot, and it was then that he migrated to
+Dessau, to become the founder of the _Philanthropinum_, and at the
+same time the path-breaker for men such as Pestalozzi (1746-1827) and
+Froebel (1782-1852). Considering his lifelong struggles, he deserved a
+better monument at Dessau than he has found there. No doubt he was a
+passionate and violent man, and his outbreaks are still remembered at
+Dessau, while his beneficial activity has almost been forgotten. I was
+often told that I took after my mother’s family, whatever that may
+mean, and this was certainly the case in outward appearance, though I
+hope not in temper. My great grandfather, the Pedagogue as he was
+called, was a friend of Goethe’s, and is mentioned in his poems.
+
+My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a
+widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was
+heart-broken. The few years of her married life had been most bright
+and brilliant. My father was a rising poet, and such was his
+popularity that he was able to indulge his tastes as he liked, whether
+in travelling or in making his house a pleasant centre of social life.
+Contemporaries and friends of my father, particularly Baron Simolin, a
+very intimate friend, who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house,
+have written of the bright gaiety, the whole-hearted enjoyment of life
+that reigned there, and have told how, though his income was to say
+the least of it small, Wilhelm Müller’s home was the rallying-point
+for all the cultivated, scientific, and artistic society of Dessau,
+who felt attracted by the simple and unaffected yet truly genial
+disposition of the master of the house.
+
+It would be interesting to know how much an author could make at that
+time by his pen. Publishers seem to have been far more liberal then
+than they are now. The circumstances were different. The number of
+writers was of course much smaller, and the sale of really popular
+books probably much larger. Anyhow, my father, whose salary was
+minute, seems to have been able to enjoy the few years of his married
+life in great comfort. The thought of saving money, however, seems
+never to have entered his poetical mind, and after his unexpected
+death, due to paralysis of the heart, it was found that hardly any
+provision had been made for his family. Even the life insurance, which
+is obligatory on every civil servant, and the pension granted by the
+Duke, gave my mother but a very small income, fabulously small, when
+one considers that she had to bring up two children on it. It has been
+a riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.
+
+However, it was done, and could only have been done in a small town
+like Dessau, where education was as good as it was cheap, and where
+very little was expected by society. We must also take into account
+the very low prices which then ruled at Dessau with regard to almost
+all the necessaries of life. I see from the old newspapers that beef
+sold at about threepence a pound (two groschen), mutton at about
+twopence. Wine was sold at seven to eight groschen a bottle, a better
+sort for twelve to fourteen groschen—a groschen being about a penny.
+People drank mostly beer, and this was sold under Government
+inspection at two to three groschen per quart. Fish was equally cheap,
+and such, at the beginning of the century, was the abundance of salmon
+caught in the Elbe, and even in the Mulde at Dessau, that it was
+stipulated as in Scotland, that servants should not have salmon more
+than twice or thrice in the week. The lowest price for salmon was
+then twopence halfpenny a pound. As a boy I can remember seeing the
+salmon in large numbers leap over a weir in the very town of Dessau,
+and though they had travelled for so many miles inland, the fish was
+very good, though not so good as Severn salmon. Game also was very
+cheap, and sold for not much more than mutton, nay, at certain times
+it was given away; it could not be exported. Corn was sold at three
+shillings per _Scheffel_, and by corn was chiefly meant rye. No one
+took wheaten bread, and the bread was therefore called brown bread and
+black bread. White bread was only taken with coffee, and peasants in
+the villages would not have touched it, because it was not supposed to
+make such strong bones as rye-bread. With such prices we can
+understand that a salary of £300 was considered sufficient for the
+highest officers of state.
+
+My mother’s relations, who were all high in the public service, my
+grandfather, as I said, being the Duke’s chief minister, made life
+more easy and pleasant for us; but for many years my mother never went
+into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family
+only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her
+two children day after day to the beautiful _Gottesacker_ (God’s
+Acre), where she stood for hours at our father’s grave, and sobbed and
+cried. It was a beautiful and restful place, covered with old acacia
+trees. The inscription over the gateway was one of my earliest
+puzzles. _Tod ist nicht Tod, ist nur Veredlung menschlicher Natur_
+(Death is not death, ’tis but the ennobling of man’s nature). On each
+side there stood a figure, representing the genius of sleep and the
+genius of death. All this was the work of the old Duke, Leopold
+Friedrich Franz, who tried to educate his people as he had educated
+himself, partly by travel, partly by intercourse with the best men he
+could attract to Dessau.
+
+  [Illustration: MY MOTHER]
+
+At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and
+thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of
+course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my
+chief happiness was to be with my mother. I shared her grief without
+understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her
+children, and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of
+life to her, she gave to us, she lived for us only, and tried very
+hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness. She was certainly
+most beautiful, and quite different from all other ladies at Dessau,
+not only in the eyes of her son, but as it seemed to me, of everybody.
+Then she had a most perfect voice, and when I first began music she
+helped and encouraged me in every possible way. We played _à quatre
+mains_, and soon she made me accompany her when she sang. As far as I
+can recollect, I was never so happy as when I could be with her. She
+read so much to us that I was quite satisfied, and saw perhaps less of
+my young friends than I ought. When my mother said she wished to
+die, and to be with our father, I feel sure that my sister and I were
+only anxious that she should take us with her, for there were few
+golden chains that bound us as yet to this life. I see her now,
+sitting on a winter’s evening near the warm stove, a candle on the
+table, and a book from which she read to us in her hands, while the
+spinning-wheel worked by the servant-maid in the corner went on
+humming all the time. She read Paul Gerhard’s translation of St.
+Bernard’s:
+
+    “Salve caput cruentatum,
+     Totum spinis coronatum,
+     Conquassatum, vulneratum,
+     Arundine verberatum,
+     Facies sputis illita.”
+
+    “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,
+     Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!
+     O Haupt zu Spott gebunden
+     Mit einer Dornenkron,
+     O Haupt sonst schön gezieret
+     Mit höchster Ehr und Zier,
+     Jetzt aber hoch schimpfiret:
+     Gegrüsset seist du mir!”
+
+Though the German translation does not come near the powerful majesty
+of the original, yet such was the effect produced on me that I saw the
+bleeding head before my eyes, 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 church. How deeply such scenes
+seem engraved on the memory; how vividly they return when the rubbish
+of many years is swept away and all is again as it was then, and the
+_caput cruentatum_ looks down on us once more, as it did then, with
+the human eyes full of divine love, so truly human that one could say
+with St. Bernard, “Tuum caput huc inclina, in meis pausa brachiis.”
+But willingly as I listened to these readings at home, and full as my
+heart was of love to Christ, I suffered intensely when I was taken to
+church as a young boy. It was a very large church, and in winter
+bitterly cold. Even though I liked the singing, the long sermon was
+real torture to me. I could not understand a word of it, and being
+thinly clad my teeth would have chattered if I had not been told that
+it was wrong “to make a noise in church.” Oh! what misery is inflicted
+on childhood by this enforced attendance at church. When a church can
+be warmed the suffering is less intense, 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
+church. These early impressions often remain for life, and the worst
+of it is that the idea remains in the minds of children, and of
+grown-up people too, that by going to church and repeating the same
+prayers over and over again, and listening to long and often dreary
+sermons, they are actually doing a service to God (_Gottesdienst_).
+Why does no new prophet arise and say in the name of God, as David did
+in the name of Jehovah, “Sermons and long prayers ‘thou didst not
+desire’”?
+
+Many years later I had to discuss the same question with Keshub
+Chunder Sen, the Indian Reformer. He wanted to know what kind of
+service should be adopted by his new church, the Brahmo Somaj; his
+friends thought of sermons, singing, and processions with flags and
+flowers through the streets. “No,” I said to him, “service of God
+should be service of men; if you want divine service, let it be a real
+service, such as God would approve of. Let other people go to church,
+to their mosques or their temples, but take you your own friends on
+certain days of the week to whatever you like to call your
+meeting-place, and after a short prayer or a few words of advice send
+some of them to the poorest streets in the city, others to the
+prisons, others to the hospitals. Let them pray with all who wish to
+pray, but let them speak words of true love and comfort also, and when
+they can, let them help them with their alms. That would be a real
+Divine Service and a divine Sunday for you, and you would all come
+home, it may be sadder, but certainly wiser and better men.”
+
+I am afraid he did not agree with me. He did not think that true
+religion was to visit the poor and the afflicted. That might do for a
+practical people like the English, but the Hindu wanted something
+else, he wanted some outward show and ceremony for the people, and at
+the same time some silent communion with God. Who can tell what
+different people understand by religion? and who can prescribe the
+spiritual food that is best for them? “Only,” I said, “do not call it
+practical to encourage millions of people to waste hours and hours in
+mere repetition, and to spend millions and millions in supplying this
+cold comfort, when next door to the magnificent cathedral there are
+squalid streets, and squalid houses, and squalid beds to lie and die
+on.”
+
+The religious and devotional element is very strong in Germany, but
+the churches are mostly empty. A German keeps his religion for
+weekdays rather than for Sunday. When the German regiments marched,
+and when they made ready for battle, they did not sing ribald songs,
+they sang the songs of Luther and Paul Gerhard, which they knew by
+heart and which strengthened them to face death as it ought to be
+faced.
+
+Fortunately, while enforced attendance at church was apt to produce
+the strongest aversion in the young heart against anything that was
+called religion, religious instruction both at home and at school too
+was excellent, and undid much of the mischief that had been done
+during cold winter days. True religious sentiments can be planted in
+the soul at home only, by a mother better even than by a father. The
+sense of a divine presence everywhere, πἁντα πλἡρη θεὡν, once planted
+in the heart of a child remains for life. Of course the child soon
+begins to argue, and says to his mother that God cannot be at the same
+time in two rooms. But only let a mother show to the child the rays of
+the sun in the sky, in the streets, and in every corner of the house,
+and it will begin to understand that nothing can be hid from the eyes
+of Him who is greater than the sun. And when a child doubts whether
+the voice of conscience can be the voice of God, and asks how he could
+hear that voice without seeing the speaker, ask him only whose voice
+it can be that tells him not to do what he himself wishes to do, and
+not to say what he could say without any fear of men; and his idea of
+God will be raised from that of a visible being like the sun, to the
+concept of a presence that never vanishes, that is not only without,
+in the sky, in the mountains, and in the storm, but nearer also
+within, in the sense of fear, in the sense of shame, and in the hope
+of pardon and love.
+
+At school our religious teaching was chiefly historical and moral.
+There was no difficulty in finding proper teachers for that, and there
+were no attempts on the part of parents to interfere with religious
+instruction or to demand separate teaching for each sect. It is true
+that religious sects are not so numerous in Germany as they are in
+England. Some, though by no means all, children of Roman Catholic and
+Jewish parents were allowed to be absent from religious lessons. 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 children. Respect for historical truth, and an
+implanted sense of the reverence due to children, would keep any
+teacher from making the history of the Christian Church, whether
+before or after the Reformation, an excuse for offending one of the
+little ones committed to his care. If Jews or Roman Catholics wished
+for any special religious instruction it was given by their own
+priests or Rabbis, and was given without any interference on the part
+of the Government. But such was at my time the state of public feeling
+that I hardly knew at school who among my young friends were Roman
+Catholics, or Lutherans, or Reformed. I must admit, however, that the
+very name of Luther might have offended Roman Catholics. He was
+represented to us as a perfect saint, almost as inspired and
+infallible. His hymns sung in church seemed to us little different
+from the Psalms of David, and I well remember what a shock it gave me
+when at Oxford, much later in life, I heard Luther spoken of like any
+other mortal, nay, as a heretic, and a most dangerous heretic too.
+When I was a boy I remember that in some places the same building had
+to be used for Protestant and Roman Catholic services. All that, I am
+afraid, is now changed, and the old liberal and tolerant feeling then
+prevailing on all sides is now often stigmatized as indifference, and
+by other ugly names. It should really be called the golden age of
+Christianity, and this so-called indifference should be classed among
+the highest Christian virtues, and as the fullest realization of the
+spirit of Christ.
+
+Thus we grew up from our earliest youth, being taught to look upon
+Christianity as an historical fact, on Christ and His disciples as
+historical characters, on the Old and New Testaments as real
+historical books. Though we did not understand as yet the deeper
+meaning of Christ and of His words, we had at least nothing to unlearn
+in later times, or to feel that our parents had ever told us what they
+themselves could not have held to be true. Our simple faith was not
+shaken by mere questions of criticism, or by the problem how any human
+being could take upon himself to declare any book to be revealed,
+unless he claimed for himself a more than human insight. The simplest
+rules of logic should make such a declaration impossible, whatever the
+sacred book may be to which it is applied. Granted that the Pope was
+infallible, how could the Cardinals know that he was, unless they
+claimed for themselves the same or even greater infallibility? It is
+far more easy to be inspired than to know some one else is or was
+inspired; the true inspiration is, and always has been, the spirit of
+truth within, and this is but another name for the spirit of God. It
+is truth that makes inspiration, not inspiration that makes truth.
+Whoever knows what truth is, knows also what inspiration is: not only
+_theopneustos_, blown into the soul by God, but the very voice of God,
+the real presence of God, the only presence in which we, as human
+beings, can ever perceive Him.
+
+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
+objective, but must always be subjective. I may return to this
+question at a later period of my life, when I had to discuss with
+Renan, at Paris, with Froude, Kingsley, and Liddon, in England, and
+tried to show how entirely self-made some of their difficulties were.
+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 own; as Samson, when
+he awoke, found himself bound with seven green withs and had to break
+them with all his might before he could hope to escape from the
+Philistines. The Philistines never bound me. During my early
+school-days these difficulties did not exist, but I have often been
+grateful in after life that the seven locks of my head have never been
+woven with the web.
+
+I remember a number of small events in my school-life at Dessau, but
+though they were full of interest to me, nay, full of meaning, and not
+without an influence on my later life, they would have no meaning and
+no interest for others, and may remain as if they had never been. The
+influence which music exercised on my mind, and, I believe, on my
+heart also, I have related in my _Musical Recollections_. The image of
+those passing years, though its general tone was melancholy, chiefly
+owing to my mother’s melancholy, seemed to me at the time free from
+all unhappiness. My work at school and at home was not too heavy; I
+was fond of it, and very fond of books. Books were scarce then, and
+whoever possessed a new and valuable book was expected to lend it to
+his friends in the little town. If a man was known to possess, say,
+Goethe’s works or Jean Paul’s works, the consequence was that one went
+to him or to her to ask for the loan of them. And not only books, but
+paper and pens also were scarce. The first steel pens came in when I
+was still in the lower school, and bad as they were they were looked
+upon as real treasures by the schoolboys who possessed them. Paper was
+so dear that one had to be very sparing in its use. Every margin and
+cover was scribbled over before it was thrown away, 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 Christmas. I am sorry to say I have had to suffer
+all my life from the inefficiency of our writing master, or maybe from
+the fact that my thoughts were too quick for my pen. In other subjects
+I did well, but though I was among the first in each class, I was by
+no means cleverer than other boys. In the lower school work was more
+like conversation or like hearing news from our teachers. The idea of
+effort did not yet exist. The drudgery began, however, when I entered
+the upper school, the gymnasium, and learnt the elements of Latin and
+Greek. Though our teachers were very conscientious, they tried to make
+our work no burden to us, and the constant change of places in each
+class kept up a lively rivalry among the boys, though I am not sure
+that it did not make me rather ambitious and at times conceited.
+Still, I had few enemies, and it seemed of much more consequence who
+could knock down another boy than who could gain a place above him. I
+feel sure I could have done a great deal more at school than I did,
+but it was partly my music and partly my incessant headaches that
+interfered with my school work.
+
+I remember as a boy that certain streets were inhabited exclusively by
+Jewish families. A large number of Jews had been received at Dessau by
+a former Duke; but though he granted them leave to settle at Dessau
+when they were persecuted in other parts of Germany, he stipulated
+that they should only settle in certain streets. These streets were by
+no means the worst streets of the town; on the contrary they showed
+greater comfort and hardly any of the squalor which disgraced the
+Jewish quarters in other towns in Germany. As children we were brought
+up without any prejudice against the Jews, though we had, no doubt, a
+certain feeling that they were tolerated only, and were not quite on
+the same level with ourselves. We also felt the religious difficulty
+sometimes very strongly. Were not the Jews the murderers of Christ?
+and had they not said: “the blood be on us and on our children”? But
+as we were told that it was wrong to harbour feelings of revenge, we
+boys soon forgot and forgave, and played together as the best friends.
+I remember picking up a number of Jewish words which would not have
+been understood anywhere else. I was hardly aware that they were
+Jewish and used them like any other words. But I once gave great
+offence to my friend Professor Bernays, who was a Jew. He had uttered
+some quite incredible statement, and I exclaimed, “Sind Sie denn ganz
+maschukke?”—Hebrew for “mad.” I meant no harm, but he was very much
+hurt.
+
+I knew several Jewish families, and received much kindness from them
+as a boy. Many of these families were wealthy, but they never
+displayed their wealth, and in consequence excited no envy. All that
+is changed now. The children of the Jews who formerly lived in a very
+quiet style at Dessau, now occupy the best houses, indulge in most
+expensive tastes, and try in every way to outshine their non-Jewish
+neighbours. They buy themselves titles, and, when they can, stipulate
+for stars and orders as rewards for successful financial operations,
+carried out with the money of princely personages. Hence the
+revulsion of feeling all over Germany, or what is called
+Anti-Semitism, which has assumed not only a social but a political
+significance. I doubt whether there is anything religious in it, as
+there was when we were boys. The Anti-Semitic hatred is the hatred of
+money-making, more particularly of that kind of money-making which
+requires no hard work, but only a large capital to begin with, and
+boldness and astuteness in speculating, that is in buying and selling
+at the right moment. The sinews of war for that kind of financial
+warfare were mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of the
+present generation. Sometimes, no doubt, the capital was lost, and in
+those cases it must be said that the Jewish speculator disappears from
+the stage without a sigh or a cry. He begins again, and if he should
+have to do what his grandfather did, walk from house to house with a
+bag on his back, he does not whine.
+
+One cannot blame the Jews or any other speculators for using their
+opportunities, but they must not complain either if they excite envy,
+and if that envy assumes in the end a dangerous character. The Jews,
+so far from suffering from disabilities, enjoy really certain
+privileges over their Christian competitors in Germany. They belong to
+a _regnum_, but also to a _regnum in regno_. They have, so to say, our
+Sunday and likewise their Sabbath. Jew will always help Jew against a
+Christian; and again who can blame them for that? All one can say is
+that they should not complain of their unpopularity, but take into
+account the risk they are running. No one hated the Jews such as they
+were in Dessau fifty years ago. They had their own schools and
+synagogues, and no one interfered with them when they built their
+bowers in the streets at the time of their Feast of Tabernacles, and
+lived, feasted, and slept in them to keep up the memory of their
+sojourning in the desert. They indulged in even more offensive
+practices, such as, for instance, putting three stones in the coffins
+to be thrown by the dead at the Virgin Mary, her husband, and their
+Son. No one suspected or accused them of kidnapping Christian
+children, or offering sacrifices with their blood. They were known too
+well for that. Conversions of Jews were not infrequent, and converted
+Jews were not persecuted by their former co-religionists as they are
+now. Even marriages between Christians and Jews were by no means
+uncommon, particularly when the young Jewesses were beautiful or rich,
+still better if they were both. Disgraceful as the Anti-Semitic riots
+have been in Germany and Russia, there can be no doubt that in this as
+in most cases both sides were to blame, and there is little prospect
+of peace being re-established till many more heads have been broken.
+
+What helped very much to keep the peace in the small town of Dessau,
+as it did all over Germany, nay, all over the world, till about the
+year 1848, was the small number of newspapers. In my childhood and
+youth their number was very small. In Dessau I only knew of one, which
+was then called the _Wochenblatt_, afterwards the _Staatsanzeiger_. At
+that time newspapers were really read for the news which they
+contained, not for leading or misleading articles and all the rest.
+What a happy time it was when a newspaper consisted of a sheet, or
+half a sheet in quarto, with short paragraphs about actual events,
+which had often taken place weeks and months before. A battle might
+have been fought in Spain or Turkey, in India or China, and no one
+knew of it till some official information was vouchsafed by the
+respective Governments or by Jewish bankers. War-correspondents or
+regular reporters did not exist, and the old telegraphic dispatches
+were sent by wooden telegraphs fixed on high towers, which from a
+distance looked like gallows on which a criminal was hanging and
+gesticulating with arms and feet. Anybody who watched these signals
+could decipher them far more easily than a hieroglyphic inscription.
+
+The peace of Europe, nay, of the whole world, was then in the keeping
+of sovereigns and their ministers, and Prince Metternich might
+certainly take some credit for having kept what he called the Thirty
+Years’ Peace. Shall we ever, as long as there are newspapers, have
+peace again—peace between the great nations of the world, and peace
+at home between contending parties, and peace in our mornings at home
+which are now so ruthlessly broken in upon, nay, swallowed up by
+those paper-giants, most unwelcome yet irresistible callers, just when
+we want to settle down to a quiet day’s work? It is no use protesting
+against the inevitable, 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 politics. 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 Augustus. When
+unsuccessful _littérateurs_ or bankrupt bankers’ clerks were the chief
+contributors to the newspapers, their influence might have been small;
+but when Bismarcks turned journalists, and Gortchakoffs prompted,
+newspapers could hardly be called _quantités négligeables_.
+
+The horizon of Dessau was very narrow, but within its bounds there was
+a busy and happy life. Everybody did his work honestly and
+conscientiously. There were, of course, two classes, the educated and
+the uneducated. The educated consisted of the members of the
+Government service, the clergy, the schoolmasters, doctors, artists,
+and officers; the uneducated were the tradesmen, mechanics, and
+labourers. The trade was mostly in the hands of Jews, it had become
+almost a Jewish monopoly. When one of these tradesmen went bankrupt,
+there was a commotion over the whole town, and I remember being taken
+to see one of these bankrupt shops, expecting to find the whole house
+broken up and demolished, and being surprised to see the tradesman
+standing whole, and sound, and smiling, in his accustomed place. My
+etymological tastes must have developed very early, for I had asked
+why this poor Jew was called a bankrupt, and had been duly informed
+that it was because his bank had been broken, _banca rotta_, which of
+course I took in a literal sense, and expected to see all the
+furniture broken to pieces. The commercial relations of our Dessau
+tradesmen did not extend much beyond Leipzig, Berlin, possibly Hamburg
+and Cologne. If a burgher of Dessau travelled to these or to more
+distant parts the whole town knew of it and talked about it, whereas a
+journey to Paris or London was an event worthy to be mentioned and
+discussed in the newspapers. These old newspapers are full of curious
+information. We find that if a person wished to travel to Cologne or
+further, he advertised for a companion, and it was for the Burgomaster
+to make the necessary arrangements for him.
+
+French was studied and spoken, particularly at Court, but English was
+a rare acquirement, still more Italian or Spanish. There was, however,
+a small inner circle where these languages were studied, chiefly in
+order to read the master-works of modern literature. And this was all
+the more creditable because there were no good teachers to be found at
+Dessau, and people had to learn what they wished to learn by
+themselves, with the help of a grammar and dictionary. We learnt
+French at school, but the result was deplorable. As in all public
+schools, the French master who had to teach the language at the Ducal
+Gymnasium could not keep order among the boys. He of course spoke
+French, but that was all. He did not know how to teach, and could not
+excite any interest in the boys, who insisted on pronouncing French as
+if it were German. The poor man’s life was made a burden to him. His
+name was Noel, and he had all the pleasing manners of a Frenchman, but
+that served only to rouse the antagonism of the young barbarians. The
+result was that we learnt very little, and I was sent to an old Jew to
+learn French and a little English. That old Jew, called Levy Rubens,
+was a perfect gentleman. He probably had been a commercial traveller
+in his early days, though no one knew exactly where he came from or
+how he had learnt languages. He had taught my father and grandfather
+and he was delighted to teach the third generation. He certainly spoke
+French and English fluently, but with the strongest Jewish accent, and
+this was inherited by all his pupils at Dessau. I feel ashamed when I
+think of the tricks we played the old man—putting mice into his
+pockets, upsetting inkstands over his table, and placing crackers
+under his chairs. But he never lost his temper; he never would have
+dared to punish us as we deserved; but he went on with his lesson as
+if nothing had happened. He took his small pay, and was satisfied
+when his lessons were over and he could settle down to his long pipe
+and his books. He lived quite alone and died quite alone, a
+hardworking, honest, poor Jew, not exactly despised or persecuted, but
+not treated with the respect which he certainly deserved, and which he
+would have received if he had not been a Jew.
+
+Our public school was as good as any in Germany. These small duchies
+generally followed the example of Prussia, and they carried out the
+instructions issued by the Ministry of Education at Berlin according
+to the very letter. Besides, several of the reigning dukes had taken a
+very warm and personal interest in popular education, and at the
+beginning of the century the eyes of the whole of Germany, nay, of
+Europe, were turned towards the educational experiments carried on by
+my great-grandfather, Basedow,[6] at the so-called Philanthropinum at
+Dessau under the patronage of the Duke and of several of the more
+enlightened sovereigns of Europe, such as the Empress Catherine of
+Russia, the King of Denmark, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, Prince
+Adam Czartoryski, &c. Even after Basedow’s death the interest in
+education was kept alive in Dessau, and all was done that could be
+done in so small a town to keep the different schools—elementary,
+middle-class, and high schools—on the highest possible level of
+efficiency.
+
+  [6] Johann Bernhard Basedow, von seinem Urenkel, F. M. M.
+  (Essays, Band IV).
+
+Bathing was a very healthful recreation, though I very nearly came to
+grief from trusting to my seniors. They could swim and I could not
+yet. But while bathing with two of my friends in a part of the river
+which was safe, they swam along and asked me to follow them. Having
+complete confidence in them I jumped in from the shore, but very soon
+began to sink. My shouts brought my friends back, and they rescued me,
+not without some difficulty, from drowning.
+
+In an English school the influence of the master is, of course, more
+constant, because one of the masters is always within call, while in
+Germany he is visible during school-hours only. If a master is fond of
+his pupils, and takes an interest in them individually, he can do them
+more good than parents at home, or the teacher at a day school. The
+boys at a German school are, no doubt, a very mixed crew, but that
+cannot be helped. This mixture of classes may be a drawback in some
+respects, but from an educational point of view the sons of very rich
+parents are by no means more valuable than the poor boys. Far from it.
+Many of the evils of schoolboy life come from the sons of the rich,
+while the sons of poor parents are generally well behaved. But for all
+that, there was a rough and rude tone among some of the boys at
+school, arising from defects in the education at home, and this
+sometimes embittered what ought to be the happiest time of life,
+particularly in the case of delicate boys. The son of a Minister has
+often to sit by the side of the son of a wealthy butcher, and the very
+fact that he is the son of a gentleman often exposes the more refined
+boy to the bullying of his muscular neighbour. I was fortunate at
+school. I could hold my own with the boys, and as to the masters,
+several of them had known my father or had been his pupils, and they
+took a personal interest in me.
+
+I remember more particularly one young master who was very kind to me,
+and took me home for private lessons and for giving me some good
+advice. There was something sad and very attractive about him, and I
+found out afterwards that he knew that he was dying of consumption,
+and that besides that he was liable to be prosecuted for political
+liberalism, which at that time was almost like high treason. I believe
+he was actually condemned and sent to prison like many others, and he
+died soon after I had left Dessau. His name was Dr. Hönicke, and he
+was the first to try to impress on me that I ought to show myself
+worthy of my father, an idea which had never entered my mind before,
+nay, which at first I could hardly understand, but which,
+nevertheless, slumbered on in my mind till years afterwards it was
+called out and became a strong influence for the whole of my life. I
+still have some lines which he wrote for my album. They were the
+well-known lines from Horace, which, at the time, I had great
+difficulty in construing, but which have remained graven in my memory
+ever since:
+
+    “Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,
+     Est in iuvencis est in equis patrum
+       Virtus nec imbellem feroces
+         Progenerant aquilae columbam.
+     Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
+     Rectique cultus pectora roborant;
+       Utcunque defecere mores,
+         Dedecorant bene nata culpae.”
+
+In my childhood I had to pass through the ordinary illnesses, but it
+was the faith in our doctor that always saved me. The doctor was to my
+mind the man who was called in to make me well again, and while my
+mother was agitated about her only son, I never dreamt of any danger.
+The very idea of death never came near me till my grandfather died
+(1835), but even then I was only about twelve years old, and though I
+had seen much of him, particularly during the years that my mother
+lived again in his house, yet he was too old to take much share in his
+grandchildren’s amusements. He left a gap, no doubt, in our life, but
+that gap was filled again with new figures in the life of a boy of
+twelve. He was only sixty-one years old when he died, and yet my idea
+of him was always that of a very old man. Everything was done for him,
+his servant dressed him every morning, he was lifted into his carriage
+and out of it, and he certainly lived the life of an invalid, such as
+I should not consent to own to at seventy-six. He made no secret that
+he cared more for the son of his son who was the heir, and was to
+perpetuate the name of von Basedow, than for the son of his daughter.
+He was very fond of driving and of shooting, and he frequently took my
+cousin out shooting with him. When my cousin came home with a hare he
+had shot, I confess I was sometimes jealous, but I was soon cured of
+my wish to go with my grandfather into the forest. Once when I was
+with him in his little carriage, my grandfather, not being able to see
+well, had the misfortune to kill a doe which had come out with her two
+little ones. The misery of the mother and afterwards of her two young
+ones, was heart-rending, and from that day on I made up my mind never
+to go out shooting, and never to kill an animal. And I have kept my
+word, though I was much laughed at. It may be that later in life and
+after my grandfather’s death I had little opportunity of shooting, 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 life.
+
+My grandfather, though he aged early, remained in harness as Prime
+Minister to the end of his life, and it was his great desire to
+benefit his country by new institutions. It was he who, at the time
+when people hardly knew yet what railroads meant, succeeded in getting
+the line from Berlin to Halle and Leipzig to pass by Dessau. He
+offered to build the bridge across the Elbe and to give the land and
+the wood for the sleepers gratis, and what seemed at the time a far
+too generous offer has proved a blessing to the duchy, making it as it
+were the centre of the great railway connecting Berlin, Leipzig,
+Magdeburg, the Elbe, Hanover, Bremen, nay, Cologne also, the Rhine,
+and Western Europe. He was in his way a good statesman, though we are
+too apt to measure a man’s real greatness by the circumstances in
+which he moves.
+
+As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor
+could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and
+though I watched it carefully I could not trace it to any fault of
+mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It
+came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always
+the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes
+for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it
+seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly
+strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I
+was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and
+try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had
+been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had
+peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week, and
+as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was
+scolded and punished, really without any fault of my own. After all
+remedies had failed which the doctor and nurses prescribed (and I well
+remember my grandmother using massage on my neck, which must have
+been about 1833 to 1835) I was handed over to Hahnemann, the founder
+of homeopathy. Hahnemann (born 1755) had been practising as doctor at
+Dessau as early as 1780—that is somewhat before my time—but had left
+it, and when in 1820 he had been prohibited by the Government from
+practising and lecturing at Leipzig, he took refuge once more in the
+neighbouring town of Coethen. From there he paid visits to Dessau as
+consulting physician, and after I had explained to him as well as I
+could all the symptoms of my chronic headache, he assured my mother
+that he would cure it at once. He was an imposing personality—a
+powerful man with a gigantic head and strong eyes and a most
+persuasive voice. I can quite understand that his personal influence
+would have gone far to effect a cure of many diseases. People forget
+too much how strong a curative power resides in the patient’s faith in
+his doctor, in fact how much the mind can do in depressing and in
+reinvigorating the body. I shall never forget in later years
+consulting Sir Andrew Clarke, and telling him of ever so many, to my
+mind, most serious symptoms. I had lost sleep and appetite, and
+imagined myself in a very bad state indeed. He examined me and knocked
+me about for full three quarters of an hour, and instead of
+pronouncing my doom as I fully expected, he told me with a bright look
+and most convincing voice that he had examined many men who had worked
+their brains too much, but had never seen a man at my time of life so
+perfectly sound in every organ. I felt young and strong at once, and
+meeting my old friend Morier on my way home, we ate some dozens of
+oysters together and drank some pints of porter without the slightest
+bad effect. In fact I was cured without a pill or a drop of medicine.
+
+And who does not know how, if one makes up one’s mind at last to have
+a tooth pulled out, the pain seems to cease as soon as we pull the
+bell at the dentist’s?
+
+However, Hahnemann did not succeed with me. I swallowed a number of
+his silver and gold globules, but the migraine kept its regular
+course, right to left and left to right, and this went on till about
+the year 1860. Then my doctor, the late Mr. Symonds of Oxford, told me
+exactly what Hahnemann had told me—that he would cure me, if I would
+go on taking some medicine regularly for six months or a year. He told
+me that he and his brother had made a special study of headaches, and
+that there were ever so many kinds of headache, each requiring its own
+peculiar treatment. When I asked him to what category of headaches
+mine belonged, I was not a little abashed on being told that my
+headache was what they called the Alderman’s headache. “Surely,” I
+said, “I don’t overeat, or overdrink.” I had thought that mine was a
+mysterious nervous headache, arising from the brain. But no, it seemed
+to be due to turtle soup and port wine. However, the doctor, seeing my
+surprise, comforted me by telling me that it was the nerves of the
+head which affected the stomach, and thus produced indirectly the same
+disturbance in my digestion as an aldermanic diet. Whether this was
+true or was only meant as a _solatium_ I do not know. But what I do
+know is, that by taking the medicine regularly for about half a year,
+the frequency and violence of my headaches were considerably reduced,
+while after about a year they vanished completely. I was a new being,
+and my working time was doubled.
+
+One lesson may be learnt from this, namely, that the English system of
+doctoring is very imperfect. In England we wait till we are ill, then
+go to a doctor, describe our symptoms as well as we can, pay one
+guinea, or two, get our prescription, take drastic medicine for a
+month and expect to be well. My German doctor, when he saw the
+prescription of my English doctor, told me that he would not give it
+to a horse. If after a month we are not better we go again; he
+possibly changes our medicine, and we take it more or less regularly
+for another month. The doctor cannot watch the effect of his medicine,
+he is not sure even whether his prescriptions have been carefully
+followed; and he knows but too well that anything like a chronic
+complaint requires a chronic treatment. The important thing, however,
+was that my headaches yielded gradually to the continued use of
+medicine; it would hardly have produced the desired effect if I had
+taken it by fits and starts. All this seems to me quite natural; but
+though my English doctor cured me, and my German doctors did not, I
+still hold that the German system is better. Most families have their
+doctor in Germany, who calls from time to time to watch the health of
+the old and young members of the family, particularly when under
+medical treatment, and receives his stipulated annual payment, which
+secures him a safe income that can be raised, of course, by attendance
+on occasional patients. Perhaps the Chinese system is the best; they
+pay their doctor while they are well, and stop payment as long as they
+are ill. 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 England. If my remarks
+refer to the study and practice of medicine I am asked whether more
+men are killed in England than in Germany; if I refer to the study and
+practice of law I am assured that quite as many murderers are hanged
+in England as in Germany; and if I venture to hint that the study of
+theology might on certain points be improved at Oxford, I am told that
+quite as many souls are saved in England as in Germany, nay, a good
+many more. As I cannot ascertain the facts from trustworthy
+statistics, I have nothing to reply; all I feel is that most nations,
+like most individuals, are perfect in their own eyes, but that those
+are most perfect who are willing to admit that there is something to
+be learnt from their neighbours.
+
+But to return to Hahnemann. He was very kind to me, and I looked up to
+him as a giant both in body and in mind. But he could not deliver me
+from my enemy, the ever recurrent migraine. The cures, however, both
+at Dessau and at Coethen, where he had been made a _Hofrath_ by the
+reigning Duke, were very extraordinary. Hahnemann remained in Coethen
+till 1835, and in that year, when he was eighty, he married a young
+French lady, Melanie d’Hervilly, and was carried off by her to Paris,
+where he soon gained a large practice, and died in 1843, that is at
+the age of eighty-eight. Much of his success, I feel sure, was due to
+his presence and to the confidence which he inspired. How do I know
+that Sir Andrew Clarke, seeing that I was in low spirits about my
+health, did not think it right to encourage me, and by encouraging me
+did certainly make me feel confident about myself, and thus raised my
+vitality, my spirits, or whatever we like to call it? “Thy faith hath
+made thee whole” is a lesson which doctors ought not to neglect.
+
+How little we know the effect of the environment in which we grow up.
+My old granny has drawn deeper furrows through my young soul than all
+my teachers and preachers put together. I am not going to add a
+chapter to that most unsatisfactory of all studies, child-psychology.
+It is an impossible subject. The victim—the child—cannot be
+interrogated till it is too late. The influences that work on the
+child’s senses and mind cannot be determined; they are too many, and
+too intangible. The observers of babies, mostly young fathers proud of
+their first offspring, remind me always of a very learned friend of
+mine, who presented to the Royal Society most laborious pages
+containing his lifelong observations on certain deviations of the
+magnetic needle, and who had forgotten that in making these
+observations he always had a pair of steel spectacles on his nose.
+However, I have nothing to say against these observations, nor against
+their more or less successful interpretations. 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 condition, whether as a
+hairy or a hairless creature. To imagine that we can learn from the
+way in which children begin to use our old words, how the primitive
+language of mankind was formed, seems to me like imagining that
+children playing with counters would teach us how and for what purpose
+the first money was coined. There is no doubt a grain of truth in this
+infantile psychology, but it requires as many caveats as that which is
+called ethnological psychology, which makes us see in the savages of
+the present day the representation of the first ancestors of our race,
+and would teach us to discover in their superstitions the antecedents
+of the mythology and religion of the Aryan or Semitic races. 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 Brahmans, Greeks, or Romans, 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
+Homer. They look upon the Patagonians as the _tabula rasa_ of
+humanity, and they forget that even if we admitted that the ancestors
+of the Aryan race had once been more savage than the Patagonians, it
+would not follow that their savagery was identical with that of the
+people of Tierra del Fuego. Why should not the distance between
+Patagonian and Vedic Rishis have been at least as great as that
+between Vedic Rishis and Homeric bards? If there are ever so many
+kinds of civilized life, was there only one and the same savagery?
+
+To take, for instance, the feeling of fear; is it likely that we shall
+find out whether it is innate in human nature or acquired and
+intensified in each generation, by shaking our fists in the face of a
+little baby, to see whether it will wink or shrink or shriek? Some
+children may be more fearless than others, but whether that
+fearlessness arises from ignorance or from stolidity is again by no
+means easy to determine. A burnt child fears the fire, an unburnt
+child might boldly grasp a glowing coal, but all this would not help
+us to determine whether fear is an innate or an acquired tendency or
+habit.
+
+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
+grandmothers, and that I had to make a strong effort of will before I
+could bring myself to walk across a churchyard in the dark. This shows
+how much our character is shaped by circumstances, even when we are
+least aware of it. I did not believe in ghosts and I was not a coward,
+but I felt through life a kind of shiver in dark passages and at the
+sound of mysterious noises, 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 there,
+and that caused me, particularly in my younger days, many a moment of
+discomfort.
+
+All such experiences constitute what may be called the background of
+our life. My first ideas of men and women, and of the world at large,
+that is of the unknown world, were formed within the narrow walls of
+Dessau, for Dessau was still surrounded by walls, and the gates of the
+city were closed every night, though the fears of a foreign enemy were
+but small. Of course the views of life prevailing at Dessau were very
+narrow, but they were wide enough for our purposes. Though we heard of
+large towns like Dresden or Berlin, and of large countries like France
+and Italy, my real world was Dessau and its neighbourhood. We had no
+interests outside the walls of our town or the frontiers of our
+duchy. If we heard of things that had happened at Leipzig or Berlin,
+in Paris or London, they had no more reality for us than what we had
+read about Abraham, or Romulus and Remus, or Alexander the Great. To
+us the pulse of the world seemed to beat in the _Haupt- und
+Residenzstadt_ of Dessau, though we knew perfectly well how small it
+was in comparison with other towns.
+
+And this, too, has left its impression on my thoughts all through
+life, if only by making everything that I saw in later life in such
+towns as Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, and London, appear quite
+overwhelmingly grand. Boys brought up in any of these large towns
+start with a different view of the world, and with a different measure
+for what they see in later life. I do not know that they are to be
+envied for that, for there is pleasure in admiration, pleasure even in
+being stunned by the first sight of the life in the streets of Paris
+or London. I certainly have been a great admirer all my life, and I
+ascribe this disposition to the small surroundings of my early years
+at Dessau.
+
+And so it was with everything else. Having admired our
+Cavalier-Strasse, I could admire all the more the Boulevards in Paris,
+and Regent Street in London. Having enjoyed our small theatre, I stood
+aghast at the Grand Opera, and at Drury Lane. This power of admiration
+and enjoyment extended even to dinners and other domestic amusements.
+Having been brought up on very simple fare, I fully enjoyed the
+dinners which the Old East India Company gave, when we sat down about
+400 people, and, as I was told, four pounds was paid for each guest. 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
+entertainments, even if not quite at four pounds a head, 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 years.
+
+I remember the time when I woke with my breath frozen on my bedclothes
+into a thin sheet of ice. 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 morning, and where, when we tried to break the ice in the
+jug, there were only a few drops of water left at the bottom with
+which to wash. No wonder that the ablutions were expeditious. After
+they were performed we had our speedy breakfast, consisting of a cup
+of coffee and a _semmel_ or roll, and then we rushed to school, often
+through the snow that had not yet been swept away from the pavement.
+We sat in school from eight to eleven or twelve, rushed home again,
+had our very simple dinner, and then back to school, from two to four.
+How we lived through it I sometimes wonder, for we were thinly clad
+and often wet with rain or snow; and yet we enjoyed our life as boys
+only can enjoy it, and had no time to be ill. 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 consequence. The
+background of my life at Dessau and at Leipzig may seem dark, but it
+has only served to make the later years of my life all the brighter
+and warmer.
+
+The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I
+feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by
+it. The unspoiled primitiveness of life at Dessau as it was when I was
+at school there till the age of twelve, would be extremely difficult
+to describe in all its details. Everybody seemed to know everybody and
+everything about everybody. Everybody knew that he was watched, and
+gossip, in the best sense of the word, ruled supreme in the little
+town. Gossip was, in fact, public opinion with all its good and all
+its bad features. Still the result was that no one could afford to
+lose caste, and that everybody behaved as well as he could. I really
+believe that the private life of the people of Dessau at the beginning
+of the century was blameless. The great evils of society did not
+exist, and if now and then there was a black sheep, his or her life
+became a burden to them. Everybody knew what had happened, and society
+being on the whole so blameless, was all the more merciless on the
+sinners, whether their sins were great or small. So from the very
+first my idea was that there were only two classes—one class quite
+perfect and pure as angels, the other black sheep, and altogether
+unspeakable. There was no transition, no intermediate links, no
+shading of light and dark. A man was either black or white, and this
+rigid rule applied not only to moral character, but intellectual
+excellence also was measured by the same standard. A work of art was
+either superlatively beautiful, or it was contemptible. A man of
+science was either a giant or a humbug. Some people spoke of Goethe as
+the greatest of all poets and philosophers the world had ever known;
+others called him a wicked man and an overvalued poet.[7]
+
+  [7] That this was not only the case at Dessau, 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 find.
+
+It is dangerous, no doubt, to go through life with so imperfect a
+measure, and I have for a long time suffered from it, particularly in
+cases where I ought to have been able to make allowance for small
+failings. But as I had been brought up to approach people with a
+complete trust in their rectitude, and with an unlimited admiration of
+their genius, it took me many years before I learnt to make allowance
+for human weaknesses or temporary failures. I have lost many a
+charming companion and excellent friend in my journey through life,
+because I weighed them with my rusty Dessau balance. I had to learn by
+long experience that there may be a spot, nay, several spots on the
+soft skin of a peach, and yet the whole fruit may be perfect. I acted
+very much like the merchant who tested a whole field of rice by the
+first handful of grains, and who, if he found one or two bad grains,
+would have nothing to do with the whole field. I had to learn what
+was, perhaps, the most difficult lesson of all, that a trusted friend
+could not always be trusted, and yet need not therefore be altogether
+a reprobate. What was most difficult for me to digest was an untruth:
+finding out that one who professed to be a friend had said and done
+most unfriendly things behind one’s back. Still, in a long life one
+finds out that even that may not be a deadly sin, and that if we are
+so loth to forgive it, it is partly because the falsehood affected our
+own interests. 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 honest, straightforward, and trustworthy, by a large number
+of his own friends. We see this over and over again with men occupying
+eminent positions in Church and State. We see how a prime minister or
+an archbishop is represented by men who know him as a liar and a
+hypocrite, while by others he is spoken of as a paragon of honour and
+honesty, and a true Christian. My narrow Dessau views became a little
+widened when I went to school at Leipzig; still more when I spent two
+years and a half at the University of Leipzig, and afterwards at
+Berlin. Still, during all this time I saw but little of what is called
+society, I only knew of people whom I loved and of people whom I
+disliked. There was no room as yet for indifferent people, whom one
+tolerates and is civil to without caring whether one sees them again
+or not. Of the simplest duties of society also I was completely
+ignorant. No one ever told me what to say and what to do, or what not
+to say and what not to do. What I felt I said, what I thought right I
+did. There was, in fact, in my small native town very little that
+could be called society. One lived in one’s family and with one’s
+intimate friends without any ceremony. It is a pity that children are
+not taught a few rules of life-wisdom by their seniors. I know that
+the Jews do not neglect that duty, 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-houses, but had
+been planted out full grown by their seniors. The only rules of
+worldly wisdom which I remember, came to me through proverbs and
+little verses which we had either to copy or to learn by heart, such
+as:
+
+    “Wer einmal lügt, dem glaubt man nicht
+     Und wenn er auch die Wahrheit spricht.”
+
+    “Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde.”
+
+    “Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen,
+     Er kommt doch endlich an die Sonnen.”
+
+    “Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied.”
+
+Some lines which hung over my bed I have carried with me all through
+life, and I still think they are very true and very terse:
+
+    “Im Glück nicht jubeln und im Sturm nicht zagen,
+     Das Unvermeidliche mit Würde tragen,
+     Das Rechte thun, am Schönen sich erfreuen,
+     Das Leben lieben und den Tod nicht scheuen,
+     Und fest an Gott und bessere Zukunft glauben,
+     Heisst leben, heisst dem Tod sein Bitteres rauben.”
+
+Still, all this formed a very small viaticum for a journey through
+life, 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
+horns. Again and again I had to say to myself, “That would have done
+very well at home, but it was a mistake for all that.” My social
+rawness and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as the Dessau
+dialect remained with me for life; at least I was assured by my
+friends that though I had spoken French and English for so many years,
+they could always detect in my German that I came from Dessau or
+Leipzig.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG
+
+
+It was certainly a poor kind of armour in which I set out from Dessau.
+My mother, devoted as she was to me, had judged rightly that it was
+best for me to be with other boys and under the supervision of a man.
+I had been somewhat spoiled by her passionate love, and also by her
+passionate severity in correcting the ordinary naughtinesses of a boy.
+So having risen from form to form in the school at Dessau, I was sent,
+at the age of twelve, to Leipzig, to live in the house of Professor
+Carus and attend the famous Nicolai-Schule with his son, who was of
+the same age as myself and who likewise wanted a companion. It was
+thought that there would be a certain emulation between us, and so, no
+doubt, there was, though we always remained the best of friends. The
+house in which we lived stood in a garden and was really an
+orthopaedic institution for girls. There were about twenty or thirty
+of these young girls living in the house or spending the day there,
+and their joyous company was very pleasant. Of course the names and
+faces of my young friends have, with one or two exceptions, vanished
+from my memory, but I was surprised when a few years ago (1895) I was
+staying with Madame Salis-Schwabe at her delightful place on the Menai
+Straits, and discovered that we had known each other more than fifty
+years before in the house of Professor Carus at Leipzig. Though we had
+met from time to time, we never knew of our early meeting at Leipzig,
+till in comparing notes we discovered how we had spent a whole year in
+the same house and among the same friends. Hers has been a life full
+of work and entirely devoted to others. To the very end of her days
+she was spending her large income in founding schools on the system
+recommended by Froebel, not only in England, but in Italy. She died at
+Naples in 1896, while visiting a large school that had been founded by
+her with the assistance of the Italian Government. Her own house in
+Wales was full of treasures of art, and full of memorials of her many
+friends, such as Bunsen, Renan, Mole, Ary Scheffer, and many more. How
+far her charity went may be judged by her being willing to part with
+some of the most precious of Ary Scheffer’s pictures, in order to keep
+her schools well endowed, and able to last after her death, which she
+felt to be imminent.
+
+Public schools are nearly all day schools in Germany. The boys live at
+home, mostly in their own families, but they spend six hours every day
+at school, and it is a mistake to imagine that they are not attached
+to it, that they have no games together, and that they do not grow up
+manly or independent. Most schools have playgrounds, and in summer
+swimming is a favourite amusement for all the boys. There were two
+good public schools at Leipzig, the Nicolai School and the Thomas
+School. There was plenty of _esprit de corps_ in them, and often when
+the boys met it showed itself not only in words but in blows, and the
+discussions over the merits of their schools were often continued in
+later life. I was very fortunate in being sent to the Nicolai School,
+under Dr. Nobbe as head master. He was at the same time Professor at
+the University of Leipzig, and is well known in England also as the
+editor of Cicero. He was very proud that his school counted Leibniz[8]
+among its former pupils. He was a classical scholar of the old school.
+During the last three years of our school life we had to write plenty
+of Latin and Greek verse, and were taught to speak Latin. The speaking
+of Latin came readily enough, but the verses never attained a very
+high level. Besides Nobbe we had Forbiger, well known by his books on
+ancient geography, and Palm, editor of the same Greek Dictionary
+which, in the hands of Dr. Liddell, has reached its highest
+perfection. Then there was Funkhänel, known beyond Germany by his
+edition of the Orations of Demosthenes, and his studies on Greek
+orators. We were indeed well off for masters, and most of them seemed
+to enjoy their work and to be fond of the boys. Our head master was
+very popular. He was a man of the old German type, powerfully built,
+with a large square head, very much like Luther, and, strange to say,
+when in 1839 a great Luther festival was celebrated all over Germany,
+he published a book in which he proved that he was a direct descendant
+of Luther.
+
+  [8] His own spelling of his name.
+
+The school was carried on very much on the old plan of teaching
+chiefly classics, but teaching them thoroughly. Modern languages,
+mathematics, and physical science had a poor chance, though they
+clamoured for recognition. Latin and Greek verse were considered far
+more important. In the two highest forms we had to speak Latin, and
+such as it was it seemed to us much easier than to speak French.
+Hebrew was also taught as an optional subject during the last four
+years, and the little I know of Hebrew dates chiefly from my
+school-days. Schoolboys soon find out what their masters think of the
+value of the different subjects taught at school, and they are apt to
+treat not only the subjects themselves but the teachers also according
+to that standard. Hence our modern language and our physical science
+masters had a hard time of it. They could not keep their classes in
+order, and it was by no means unusual for many of the boys simply to
+stay away from their lessons. The old mathematical master, before
+beginning his lesson, used to rub his spectacles, and after looking
+round the half empty classroom, mutter in a plaintive voice: “I see
+again many boys who are not here to-day.” When the same old master
+began to lecture on physical science, he told the boys to bring a frog
+to be placed under a glass from which the air had been extracted by an
+air-pump. Of course every one of the twenty or thirty boys brought two
+or three frogs, and when the experiment was to be made all these frogs
+were hopping about the lecture-room, and the whole army of boys were
+hopping after them over chairs and tables to catch them. No wonder
+that during this tumult the master did not succeed with his
+experiment, and when at last the glass bowl was lifted up and we were
+asked to see the frog, great was the joy of all the boys when the frog
+hopped out and escaped from the hands of its executioner. 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 kept, and destroyed some of the precious instruments
+supplied by Government. Severe punishments followed, but they did not
+serve to make physical science more popular.
+
+We certainly did very well in Greek and Latin, and read a number of
+classical texts, not only critically at school, but also cursorily at
+home, having to give a weekly account of what we had thus read by
+ourselves. I liked my classics, 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 teachers, nay, that as compared to German
+poets and prose writers they were somewhat overpraised. Still, it
+would have been very conceited not to admire what our masters admired,
+and as in duty bound we went into the usual raptures about Homer and
+Sophocles, about Horace and Cicero. Many things which in later life we
+learn to admire in the classics could hardly appeal to the taste of
+boys. The directness, the simplicity and originality of the ancient,
+as compared with modern writers, cannot be appreciated by them, and I
+well remember being struck with what we disrespectful boys called the
+cheekiness of Horace expecting immortality (_non omnis moriar_) for
+little poems which we were told were chiefly written after Greek
+patterns. We had to admit that there were fewer false quantities in
+his Latin verses than in our own, but in other respects we could not
+see that his odes were so infinitely superior to ours. His hope of
+immortality has certainly been fulfilled beyond what could have been
+his own expectations. With so little of ancient history known to him,
+his idea of the immortality of poetry must have been far more modest
+in his time than in our own. He may have known the past glories of the
+Persian Empire, but as to ancient literature, there was nothing for
+him to know, whether in Persia, in Babylonia, in Assyria, or even in
+Egypt, least of all in India. Literary fame existed for him in Greece
+only, and in the Roman Empire, and his own ambition could therefore
+hardly have extended beyond these limits. The exaggeration in the
+panegyrics passed on everything Greek or Latin dates from the
+classical scholars of the Middle Ages, who knew nothing that could be
+compared to the classics, and who were loud in praising what they
+possessed the monopoly of selling. Successive generations of scholars
+followed suit, so that even in our time it seemed high treason to
+compare Goethe with Horace, or Schiller with Sophocles. Of late,
+however, 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 Plato. The fact is that we have learnt from them and
+imitated them, till in some cases the imitations have equalled or even
+excelled the originals, while now the taste for classical correctness
+has been wellnigh supplanted by an appetite for what is called
+realistic, original, and extravagant.
+
+With all that has been said or written against making classical
+studies the most important element in a liberal education, or rather
+against retaining them in their time-honoured position, nothing has as
+yet been suggested to take their place. For after all, 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 Latin; it is in order to learn
+to understand the old world on which our modern world is founded; it
+is in order to think the old thoughts, which are the feeders of our
+own intellectual life, that we become in our youth the pupils of
+Greeks and Romans. In order to know what we are, we have to learn how
+we have come to be what we are. Our very languages form an unbroken
+chain between us and Cicero and Aristotle, and in order to use many of
+our words intelligently, we must know the soil from which they sprang,
+and the atmosphere in which they grew up and developed.
+
+I enjoyed my work at school very much, and I seem to have passed
+rapidly from class to class. I frequently received prizes both in
+money and in books, but I see a warning attached to some of them that
+I ought not to be conceited, which probably meant no more than that I
+should not show when I was pleased with my successes. At least I do
+not know what I could have been conceited about. What I feel about my
+learning at school is that it was entirely passive. I acquired
+knowledge such as it was presented to me. I did not doubt whatever my
+teachers taught me, I did not, as far as I can recollect, work up any
+subject by myself. I find only one paper of mine of that early time,
+and, curiously enough, it was on mythology; but it contains no inkling
+of comparative mythology, but simply a chronological arrangement of
+the sources from which we draw our knowledge of Greek mythology. I see
+also from some old papers, that I began to write poetry, and that
+twice or thrice I was chosen at great festivities to recite poems
+written by myself. In the year 1839 three hundred years had passed
+since Luther preached at Leipzig in the Church of St. Nicolai, and the
+tercentenary of this event was celebrated all over Germany. My poem
+was selected for recitation at a large meeting of the friends of our
+school and the notables of the town, and I had to recite it, not
+without fear and trembling. I was then but sixteen years of age.
+
+In the next year, 1840, Leipzig celebrated the invention of printing
+in 1440. It was on this occasion that Mendelssohn wrote his famous
+_Hymn of Praise_. I formed part of the chorus, and I well remember the
+magnificent effect which the music produced in the Church of St.
+Thomas. Again a poem of mine was selected, and I had to recite it at a
+large gathering in the Nicolai-Schule on July 18, 1840.
+
+On December 23 another celebration took place at our school, at which
+I had to recite a Latin poem of mine, _In Schillerum_. Lastly, there
+was my valedictory poem when I left the school in 1841, and a Latin
+poem “Ad Nobbium,” our head master.
+
+I have found among my mother’s treasures the far too often flattering
+testimonial addressed to her by Professor Nobbe on that occasion,
+which ends thus: “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 point, first-rate,
+and of intellectual capacities excellent throughout. May his young
+mind develop more and more, may the fruits of his labours hereafter be
+a comfort to his mother for the sorrows and cares of the past.”
+
+It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examination for
+admission to the University (_Abiturienten-Examen_) not at my own
+school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable
+me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government. The schools in
+Anhalt were modelled after the Prussian schools, and laid far more
+stress on mathematics, physical science, and modern languages than the
+schools in Saxony. I had therefore to get up in a very short time
+several quite new subjects, and did not do so well in them as in Greek
+and Latin. However, I passed with a first class, and obtained my
+scholarship, small as it was. 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 examination. He reminds me that among my examiners
+there were such men as Dr. Ritter, the two Sentenis, and Professor
+Werner, and he says that he watched me when I came upstairs and
+entered the locked room to do my paper work. My friend’s career in
+life had been that of Director of a Life Insurance Company, probably a
+more lucrative career than what mine has been.
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Müller Aged 14._]
+
+During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of Professor Carus, and
+afterwards as a student at the University, my chief enjoyment was
+certainly music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but I pity
+the man who has not known the charm of it. At that time Leipzig was
+really the centre of music in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was there,
+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 Concerts. I find among my letters a few descriptions of
+concerts and other musical entertainments, which even at present may
+be of some interest. I was asked to be present at some concerts where
+quartettes and other pieces were performed by Mendelssohn, Hiller,
+Kaliwoda, David, and Eckart. Liszt also made his triumphant entry into
+Germany at Leipzig, and everybody was full of expectation and
+excitement. His concert had been advertised long before his arrival.
+It was to consist of an Overture of Weber’s; a Cavatina from _Robert
+le Diable_, sung by Madame Schlegel; a Concerto of Weber’s, to be
+played by Liszt, the same which I had shortly before heard played by
+Madame Pleyel; Beethoven’s Overture to _Prometheus_; Fantasia on _La
+Juive_; Schubert’s _Ave Maria_ and _Serenade_, as arranged by Liszt. I
+was the more delighted because I had myself played some of these
+pieces. But suddenly there appeared a placard stating that Liszt, on
+hearing that tickets were sold at one thaler (three shillings), had
+declared he would play a few pieces only and without an orchestra. In
+spite of that disappointment, the whole house was full, the staircase
+crowded from top to bottom, and when we had pushed our way through, we
+found that about 300 places had been retained for one and a half
+thalers (four shillings and sixpence), while tickets at the box-office
+were sold for two thalers (six shillings). Nevertheless, I managed to
+get a very good place, by simply not seeing a number of ladies who
+were pushing behind me. When Liszt appeared there was a terrible
+hissing—he looked as if petrified, glanced like a demon at the
+public, but nevertheless began to play the Scherzo and Finale of the
+Pastoral Symphony. Then there burst out a perfect thunder of applause,
+and all seemed pacified, while Madame Schmidt sang a song accompanied
+by a certain Mr. Kermann. As soon as that was over, a new storm of
+hisses arose, which was meant for this Mr. Kermann, who was a pupil,
+but at the same time the man of business of Liszt. He and three other
+men had made all arrangements, and Liszt knew nothing about them, as
+he cared very little for the money, which went chiefly to his
+managers. A Fantasia by Liszt followed, and lastly a _Galop
+Chromatique_—but the public would not go away, and at length Liszt
+was induced to play _Une grande Valse_. It was no doubt a new
+experience; but I could not go into ecstasies like others, for after
+all it was merely mechanical, though no doubt in the highest
+perfection. The day after Liszt advertised that his original Programme
+would be played, but at six o’clock Professor Carus, with whom I
+lived, was called to see Liszt, who was said to be ill; the fact being
+he had only sold fifty tickets at the raised prices. Many strangers
+who had come to Leipzig to hear him went away, anything but pleased
+with the new musical genius. At one concert, where he appeared in
+Magyar costume, the ladies offered him a golden laurel wreath and
+sword. He had just published his arrangement of _Adelaida_, which he
+promised to play in one of the concerts.
+
+Another very musical family at Leipzig was that of Professor Fröge. He
+was a rich man, and had married a famous singer, Fräulein Schlegel.
+One evening the _Sonnambula_ was performed in their house, which had
+been changed into a theatre. She acted the Sonnambula, and her singing
+as well as her acting was most finished and delightful. Mendelssohn
+was much in their house, and made her sing his songs as soon as they
+were written and before they were published. They were great friends,
+the bond of their friendship being music. He actually died when
+playing while she was singing. People talked as they always will talk
+about what they cannot understand, but they evidently did not know
+either Mendelssohn or Madame Fröge.
+
+The house of Professor Carus was always open to musical geniuses, and
+many an evening men like Hiller, Mendelssohn, David, Eckart, &c., came
+there to play, while Madame Carus sang, and sang most charmingly. I
+too was asked sometimes to play at these evening parties. I see that
+Ernst gave a concert at Leipzig, and no doubt his execution was
+admirable. Still, I could not understand what David meant when he
+declared that after hearing Ernst he would throw his own instrument
+into the fire.
+
+Mendelssohn, who was delighted with Liszt—and no one could judge him
+better than he—gave a soirée in honour of him. About 400 people were
+invited—I among the rest, being one of the tenors who sang in the
+Oratorio that Hiller was then rehearsing for the first performance. I
+think it was the _Destruction of Babylon_. There was a complete
+orchestra at Mendelssohn’s party, and we heard a symphony of Schubert
+(posthumous), Mendelssohn’s psalm “As the hart pants,” and his
+overture _Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt_. After that there was
+supper for all the guests, and then followed a chorus from his _St.
+Paul_, and a triple concerto of Bach, played on three pianofortes by
+Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Hiller. It was a difficult piece—difficult to
+play and difficult to follow. Lastly, Liszt played his new fantasia on
+_Lucia di Lammermoor_, and his arrangement of the _Erlkönig_. All was
+really perfect; and hearing so much music, I became more and more
+absorbed in it. I even gave some concerts with Grabau, a great
+violoncellist, at Merseburg, and at a Count Arnim’s, a very rich
+nobleman near Merseburg, who had invited Liszt for one evening and
+paid him 100 ducats. This seemed at that time a very large sum,
+almost senseless. As a ducat was about nine shillings, it was after
+all only £45, which would not seem excessive at present for an artist
+such as Liszt.
+
+I also heard Thalberg at Leipzig. They all came to see Mendelssohn,
+and I believe did their best to please him. At that time my idea of
+devoting myself altogether to the study of music became very strong;
+and as Professor Carus married again, I proposed to leave Leipzig, and
+to enter the musical school of Schneider at Dessau. But nothing came
+of that, and I think on the whole it was as well.
+
+While at school at Leipzig I had but little opportunity of travelling,
+for my mother was always anxious to have me home during the holidays,
+and I was equally anxious to be with her and to see my relations at
+Dessau. Generally I went in a wretched carriage from Leipzig to
+Dessau. It was only seven German miles (about thirty-five English
+miles), but it took a whole day to get there; and during part of the
+journey, when we had to cross the deep and desert-like sands, walking
+on foot was much more expeditious than sitting inside the carriage.
+But then we paid only one thaler for the whole journey, and sometimes,
+in order to save that, I walked on foot the whole way. That also took
+me a whole day; but when I tried it the first time, being then quite
+young and rather delicate in health, I had to give in about an hour
+before I came to Dessau, my legs refusing to go further, and my
+muscles being cramped and stiff from exertion, I had to sit down by
+the road. During one vacation I remember exploring the valley of the
+Mulde with some other boys. We travelled for about a fortnight from
+village to village, and lived in the simplest way. A more ambitious
+journey I took in 1841 with a friend of mine, Baron von Hagedorn. He
+was a curious and somewhat mysterious character. He had been brought
+up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he was entrusted as a baby. No one
+knew his parents, but they must have been rich, for he possessed a
+large fortune. He had a country place near Munich, and he spent the
+greater part of the year in travelling about, and amusing himself. He
+had been brought up with my mother and other members of our family,
+and he took a very kind interest in me. I see from my letters that in
+1841 he took me from Dessau to Coethen, Brunswick, and Magdeburg. At
+Brunswick we saw the picture gallery, the churches, and the tomb of
+Schill, one of the German volunteers in the War of Independence
+against France. We also explored Hildesheim, saw the rose-tree
+planted, as we were told, by Charlemagne; then proceeded to Göttingen,
+and saw its famous library. We passed through Minden, where the Fulda
+and Werra join, and arrived late at Cassel. From Cassel we explored
+Wilhelmshöhe, the beautiful park where thirty years later Napoleon III
+was kept as a prisoner.
+
+Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional exaggeration,
+was certainly a good friend to me. He often gave me good advice, and
+was more of a father to me than a mere friend. He was a man of the
+world; and he forgot that I never meant to be a man of the world, and
+therefore his advice was not always what I wanted. He was also a great
+friend of my cousin who was married to a Prince of Dessau, and they
+had agreed among themselves that I should go to the Oriental Academy
+at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and then enter the diplomatic
+service. As there were no children from the Prince’s marriage, I was
+to be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune was not enough
+to tempt me, I was told that even a wife had been chosen for me, and
+that I should have a new name and title, after being adopted by the
+Prince. To other young men this might have seemed irresistible. I at
+once said no. It seemed to interfere with my freedom, with my studies,
+with my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything was
+presented to me by my cousin as on a silver tray, I shook my head and
+remained true to my first love, Sanskrit and all the rest. Hagedorn
+could not understand this; he thought a brilliant life preferable to
+the quiet life of a professor. Not so I. He little knew where true
+happiness was to be found, and he was often in a very melancholy mood.
+He did not live long, but I shall never forget how much I owed him.
+When I went to Paris, he allowed me to live in his rooms. They were,
+it is true, _au cinquième_, but they were in the best quarter of
+Paris, in the Rue Royale St. Honoré, opposite the Madeleine, and very
+prettily furnished. This kept me from living in dusty lodgings in the
+Quartier Latin, and the five flights of stairs may have strengthened
+my lungs. 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 again. But in those days one did not know what it meant to be
+tired. Whether my friends grumbled, I cannot tell, but I myself pitied
+some of them who were old and gouty when they arrived at my door out
+of breath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+UNIVERSITY
+
+
+In order to enable me to go to the University, my mother and sister
+moved to Leipzig and kept house for me during all the time I was
+there—that is, for two years and a half. In spite of the _res angusta
+domi_, I enjoyed my student-life thoroughly, while my home was made
+very agreeable by my mother and sister. My mother was full of
+resource, and she was wise enough not to interfere with my freedom. My
+sister, who was about two years older than myself, was most
+kind-hearted and devoted both to me and to our mother. There was
+nothing selfish in her, and we three lived together in perfect love,
+peace, and harmony. My sister enjoyed what little there was of
+society, whereas I kept sternly aloof from it. She was much admired,
+and soon became engaged to a young doctor, Dr. A. Krug, the son of the
+famous professor of philosophy at Leipzig, whose works, particularly
+his _Dictionary of Philosophy_, hold a distinguished place in the
+history of German philosophy. He was a thorough patriot, and so public
+spirited that he thought it right to leave a considerable sum of money
+to the University, without making sufficient provision for his
+children. However, the young married couple lived happily at Chemnitz,
+and my sister was proud in the possession of her children. It was the
+sudden death of several of these children that broke her heart and
+ruined her health; she died very young. Standing by the grave of her
+children, she said to me shortly before her death, “Half of me is dead
+already, and lies buried there; the other half will soon follow.”
+
+Of society, in the ordinary sense of the word, I saw hardly anything.
+I am afraid I was rather a bear, and declined even to invest in
+evening dress. I joined a student club which formed part of the
+_Burschenschaft_, but which in order to escape prosecution adopted the
+title of _Gemeinschaft_. I went there in the evening to drink beer and
+smoke, and I made some delightful acquaintances and friendships. What
+fine characters were there, often behind a very rough exterior! My
+dearest friend was Prowe, of Thorn in East Prussia—so honest, so
+true, so straightforward, so over-conscientious in the smallest
+things. He was a classical scholar, and later on entered the Prussian
+educational service. As a master at the principal school at Thorn his
+time was fully occupied, and of course he was cut off there from the
+enlivening influences of literary society. Still he kept up his
+interest in higher questions, and published some extremely valuable
+books on Copernicus, a native of Thorn, for which he received the
+thanks of astronomers and historians, and flattering testimonials
+from learned societies. We met but seldom later in life, and my own
+life in England was so busy and full that even our correspondence was
+not regular. But I met him once more at Ems with a charming wife, and
+decidedly happy in his own sphere of activity. These early friendships
+form the distant landscape of life on which we like to dwell when the
+present ceases to absorb all our thoughts. Our memory dwells on them
+as a golden horizon, and there remains a constant yearning which makes
+us feel the incompleteness of this life. After all, the number of our
+true friends is small; and yet how few even of that small number
+remain with us for life. There are other faces and other names that
+rise from beyond the clouds which more and more divide us from our
+early years.
+
+There were some wild spirits among us who fretted at the narrow-minded
+policy which went by the name of the Metternich system. Repression was
+the panacea which Metternich recommended to all the governments of
+Germany, large and small. No doubt the system of keeping things quiet
+secured to Germany and to Europe at large a thirty years’ peace, but
+it could not prevent the accumulation of inflammable material which,
+after several threatenings, burst forth at last in the conflagration
+of 1848. Among my friends I remember several who were ready for the
+wildest schemes in order to have Germany united, respected abroad,
+and under constitutional government at home. Splendid fellows they
+were, but they either ended their days within the walls of a prison,
+or had to throw up everything and migrate to America. What has become
+of them? Some have risen to the surface in America, others have
+yielded to the inevitable and become peaceful citizens at home; nay, I
+am grieved to say, have even accepted service under Government to spy
+on their former friends and fellow-dreamers. But not a few saw the
+whole of their life wrecked either in prison or in poverty, though
+they had done no wrong, and in many cases were the finest characters
+it has been my good fortune to know. They were before their time, the
+fruit was not ripe as it was in 1871, but Germany certainly lost some
+of her best sons in those miserable years; and if my father escaped
+this political persecution, it was probably due to the influence of
+the reigning Duke and the Duchess, a Princess of Prussia, who knew
+that he was not a dangerous man, and not likely to blow up the German
+Diet.
+
+I myself got a taste of prison life for the offence of wearing the
+ribbon of a club which the police regarded with disfavour. I cannot
+say that either the disgrace or the discomfort of my two days’ durance
+vile weighed much with me, as my friends were allowed free access to
+me, 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
+scholarship, which alone enabled me to continue my studies at
+Leipzig, and which, as a rule, was forfeited for political offences.
+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 club. I assured him that
+I was innocent of any political propaganda, and that the loss of my
+stipendium would entail my leaving the University. Much to my relief,
+the old gentleman replied: “I have heard nothing about this; and if I
+do, how am I to know that it refers to you, there are many Müllers in
+the University?” Fortunately the distinctive prefix Max had not yet
+been added to my name.
+
+I must confess that I and my boon companions were sometimes guilty of
+practices which in more modern days, and certainly at Oxford or
+Cambridge, 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 in.
+
+Duelling was then, as it is now, a favourite pastime among the
+students; and though not by nature a brawler, I find that in my
+student days at Leipzig I fought three duels, of two of which I carry
+the marks to the present day.
+
+I remember that on one occasion before the introduction of cabs we
+hired all the sedan-chairs in Leipzig, with their yellow-coated
+porters, and went in procession through the streets, much to the
+astonishment of the good citizens, and annoyance also, as they were
+unable to hire any means of conveyance till a peremptory stop was put
+to our fun. Not content with this exploit, when the first cabs were
+introduced into Leipzig, thirty or forty being put on the street at
+first, I and my friends secured the use of all of them for the day,
+and proceeded out into the country. The inhabitants who were eagerly
+looking forward to a drive in one of the new conveyances were
+naturally annoyed at finding themselves forestalled, 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 time.
+
+Very innocent amusements, if perhaps foolish, but very happy days all
+the same; 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 life.
+
+It is in every respect a great jump from a German school to a German
+university. At school a boy even in the highest form, has little
+choice. All his lessons are laid down for him; he has to learn what he
+is told, whether he likes it or not. Few only venture on books outside
+the prescribed curriculum. There is an examination at the end of every
+half-year, and a boy must pass it well in order to get into a higher
+form. Boys at a public school (gymnasium), if they cannot pass their
+examination at the proper time, are advised to go to another school,
+and to prepare for a career in which classical languages are of less
+importance.
+
+I must say at once that when I matriculated at Leipzig, in the summer
+of 1841, I was still very young and very immature. I had determined to
+study philology, chiefly Greek and Latin, but the fare spread out by
+the professors was much too tempting. I read Greek and Latin without
+difficulty; I often read classical authors without ever attempting to
+translate them; I also wrote and spoke Latin easily. Some of the
+professors lectured in Latin, and at our academic societies Latin was
+always spoken. I soon became a member of the classical seminary under
+Gottfried Hermann, and of the Latin Society under Professor Haupt.
+Admission to these seminaries and societies was obtained by submitting
+essays, and it was no doubt a distinction to belong to them. It was
+also useful, for not only had we to write essays and discuss them with
+the other members, generally teachers, and with the professor, but we
+could also get some useful advice from the professor for our private
+studies. In that respect the German universities do very little for
+the students, unless one has the good fortune to belong to one of
+these societies. The young men are let loose, and they can choose
+whatever lectures they want. I still have my _Collegien-Buch_, in
+which every professor has to attest what lectures one has attended.
+The number of lectures on various subjects which I attended is quite
+amazing, and I should have attended still more if the honorarium had
+not frightened me away. Every professor lectured _publice_ and
+_privatim_, and for the more important courses, four lectures a week,
+he charged ten shillings, for more special courses less or nothing.
+This seems little, but it was often too much for me; and if one added
+these honoraria to the salary of a popular professor, his income was
+considerable, and was more than the income of most public servants. I
+have known professors who had four or five hundred auditors. This gave
+them £250 twice a year, and that, added to their salary, was
+considered a good income at that time. All this has been much changed.
+Salaries have been raised, and likewise the honoraria, so that I well
+remember the case of Professor von Savigny, who, when he was chosen
+Minister of Justice at Berlin, declared that he would gladly accept if
+only his salary was raised to what his income had been as Professor of
+Law. Of course, professors of Arabic or Sanskrit were badly off, and
+_Privatdocenten_ (tutors) fared still worse, but the _professores
+ordinarii_, particularly if they lectured on an obligatory subject and
+were likewise examiners, were very well off. In fact, it struck me
+sometimes as very unworthy of them to keep a _famulus_, a student who
+had to tell every one who wished to hear a distinguished professor
+once or twice, that he would not allow him to come a third time.
+
+One great drawback of the professorial system is certainly the small
+measure of personal advice that a student may get from the professors.
+Unless he is known to them personally, or has gained admission to
+their societies or seminaries, the young student or freshman is quite
+bewildered by the rich fare in the shape of lectures that is placed
+before him. Some students, no doubt, particularly in their early
+terms, solve this difficulty by attending none at all, and there is no
+force to make them do so, except the examinations looming in the
+distance. But there are many young men most anxious to learn, only
+they do not know where to begin. I open my old _Collegien-Buch_ and I
+find that in the first term or Semester I attended the following
+lectures, and I may say I attended them regularly, took careful notes,
+and read such books as were recommended by the professors. I find
+
+   1. The first book of Thucydides          Gottfried Hermann.
+   2. On Scenic Antiquities                 The same.
+   3. On Propertius                         P. M. Haupt.
+   4. History of German Literature          The same.
+   5. The Ranae of Aristophanes             Stallbaum.
+   6. Disputatorium (in Latin)              Nobbe.
+   7. Aesthetics                            Weisse.
+   8. Anthropology                          Lotze.
+   9. Systems of Harmonic Composition       Fink.
+  10. Hebrew Grammar                        Fürst.
+  11. Demosthenes                           Westermann.
+  12. Psychology                            Heinroth.
+
+This was enough for the summer half-year. Except Greek and Latin, the
+other subjects were entirely new to me, and what I wanted was to get
+an idea of what I should like to study. It may be interesting to add
+the other Semesters as far as I have them in my _Collegien-Buch_.
+
+  13. Aeschyli Persae                       Hermann.
+  14. On Criticism                          The same.
+  15. German Grammar                        Haupt.
+  16. Walther von der Vogelweide            The same.
+  17. Tacitus, Agricola, and De Oratoribus  The same.
+  18. On Hegel                              Weisse.
+  19. Disputatorium (Latin)                 Nobbe.
+  20. Modern History                        Wachsmuth.
+  21. Sanskrit Grammar                      Brockhaus.
+  22. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+
+Then follows the summer term of 1842.
+
+  23. Pindar                                Hermann.
+  24. Nibelungen                            Haupt.
+  25. Nala                                  Brockhaus.
+  26. History of Oriental Literature        The same.
+  27. Arabic Grammar                        Fleischer.
+  28. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+  29. Plauti Trinumus                       Becker.
+
+Winter term, 1842.
+
+  30. Prabodha Chandrodaya                  Brockhaus.
+  31. History of Indian Literature          The same.
+  32. Aristophanes’ Vespae                  Hermann.
+  33. Plauti Rudens                         The same.
+  34. Greek Syntax                          The same.
+  35. Juvenal                               Becker.
+  36. Metaphysics and Logic                 Weisse.
+  37. Philosophy of History                 The same.
+  38. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+  39. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+  40. Philosophical Society                 Weisse.
+  41. Philosophical Society                 Drobisch.
+
+Summer term, 1843.
+
+  42. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+  43. Philosophical Society                 Drobisch.
+  44. Philosophical Society                 Weisse.
+  45. Soma-deva                             Brockhaus.
+  46. Hitopadesa                            The same.
+  47. History of Greeks and Romans          Wachsmuth.
+  48. History of Civilization               The same.
+  49. History after the Fifteenth Century   Flathe.
+  50. History of Ancient Philosophy         Niedner.
+
+Winter term, 1843-4.
+
+  51. Rig-veda                              Brockhaus.
+  52. Elementa Persica                      Fleischer.
+  53. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+
+Here my _Collegien-Buch_ breaks off, the fact being that I was
+preparing to go to Berlin to hear the lectures of Bopp and Schelling.
+
+It will be clear from the above list that I certainly attempted too
+much. I ought either to have devoted all my time to classical studies
+exclusively, or carried on my philosophical studies more
+systematically. I confess that, delighted as I was with Gottfried
+Hermann and Haupt as my guides and teachers in classics, I found
+little that could rouse my enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature,
+and I always required a dose of that to make me work hard. Everything
+seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to
+the plough, no ruins on which to try one’s own spade. Hermann and
+Haupt gave me work to do, but it was all in the critical line—the
+genealogical relation of various MSS., or, again, the peculiarities of
+certain poets, long before I had fully grasped their general
+character. What Latin vowels could or could not form elision in
+Horace, Propertius, or Ovid, was a subject that cost me much labour,
+and yet left very small results as far as I was personally concerned.
+One clever conjecture, or one indication to show that one MS. was
+dependent on the other, was rewarded with a Doctissime or
+Excellentissime, but a paper on Aeschylus and his view of a divine
+government of the world received but a nodding approval.
+
+They certainly taught their pupils what accuracy meant; they gave us
+the new idea that MSS. are not everything, unless their real value has
+been discovered first by finding the place which they occupy in the
+pedigree of the MSS. of every author. They also taught us that there
+are mistakes in MSS. which are inevitable, and may safely be left to
+conjectural emendation; that MSS. of modern date may be and often are
+more valuable than more ancient MSS., for the simple reason that they
+were copied from a still more ancient MS., and that often a badly
+written and hardly legible MS. proves more helpful than others
+written by a calligraphist, because it is the work of a scholar who
+copied for himself and not for the market. All these things we learnt
+and learnt by practical experience under Hermann and Haupt, but what
+we failed to acquire was a large knowledge of Greek and Latin
+literature, of the character of each author and of the spirit which
+pervaded their works. I ought to have read in Latin, Cicero, Tacitus,
+and Lucretius; in Greek, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle;
+but as I read only portions of them, my knowledge of the men
+themselves and their objects in life remained very fragmentary. For
+instance, my real acquaintance with Plato and Aristotle was confined
+to a few dialogues of the former and some of the logical works of the
+latter. The rest I learnt from such works as Ritter and Preller’s
+_Historia Philosophiae Graecae et Romanae ex fontium locis contexta_,
+and from the very useful lectures of Niedner on the history of ancient
+philosophy. However, I thought I had to do what my professors told me,
+and shaped my reading so that they should approve of my work.
+
+This must not be understood as in any way disparaging my teachers.
+Such an idea never entered my head at the time. People have no idea in
+England what kind of worship is paid by German students to their
+professors. To find fault with them or to doubt their _ipse dixit_
+never entered our minds. What they said of other classical scholars
+from whom they differed, as Hermann did from Otfried Müller, or Haupt
+from Orelli, was gospel, and remained engraved on our memory for a
+long time. Once when attending Hermann’s lectures, another student who
+was sitting at the same table with me made disrespectful remarks about
+old Hermann. I asked him to be quiet, and when he went on with his
+foolish remarks, I could only stop him by calling him out. As soon as
+the challenge was accepted he had of course to be quiet, and a few
+days after we fought our duel without much damage to either of us. I
+only mention this because it shows what respect and admiration we felt
+for our professor, also because it exemplifies the usefulness of
+duelling in a German university, where after a challenge not another
+word can be said or violence be threatened even by the rudest
+undergraduate. A duel for a Greek conjecture may seem very absurd, but
+in duels of this kind all that is wanted is really a certain knowledge
+of fencing, care being taken that nothing serious shall happen. And
+yet, though that is so, the feeling of a possible danger is there, and
+keeps up a certain etiquette and a certain proper behaviour among men
+taken from all strata of society. Nor can I quite deny that when I
+went in the morning to a beautiful wood in the neighbourhood of
+Leipzig, certain misgivings were difficult to suppress. I saw myself
+severely wounded, possibly killed, by my antagonist, and carried to a
+house where my mother and sister were looking for me. This went off
+when I met the large assembly of students, beautifully attired in
+their club uniforms, the beer barrels pushed up on one side, the
+surgeon and his instruments waiting on the other. There were ever so
+many, thirty or forty couples I think, waiting to fight their duels
+that morning. Some fenced extremely well, and it was a pleasure to
+look on; and when one’s own turn came, all one thought of was how to
+stand one’s ground boldly, and how to fence well. Some of the
+combatants came on horseback or in carriages, and there was a small
+river close by to enable us to escape if the police should have heard
+of our meeting. For popular as these duels are, they are forbidden and
+punished, and the severest punishment seemed always to be the loss of
+our uniforms, our arms, our flags, and our barrels of beer. However,
+we escaped all interference this time, and enjoyed our breakfast in
+the forest thoroughly, nothing happening to disturb the hilarity of
+the morning.
+
+Not being satisfied with what seemed to me a mere chewing of the cud
+in Greek and Latin, I betook myself to systematic philosophy, and even
+during the first terms read more of that than of Plato and Aristotle.
+I belonged to the philosophical societies of Weisse, of Drobisch, and
+of Lotze, a membership in each of which societies entailed a
+considerable amount of reading and writing.
+
+At Leipzig, Professor Drobisch represented the school of Herbart,
+which prided itself on its clearness and logical accuracy, 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 difficulties. I wished to know what it all meant, for
+I was not satisfied with mere words. There is hardly a word that has
+so many meanings as Idea, and I doubt whether any of the raw recruits,
+just escaped from school, and unacquainted with the history of
+philosophy, could have had any idea of what Hegel’s Idea was meant
+for. Yet they talked about it very eloquently and very positively over
+their glasses of beer; and anybody who came from Berlin and could
+speak mysteriously or rapturously about the Idea and its evolution by
+the dialectic process, was listened to with silent wonder by the young
+Saxons, who had been brought up on Kant and Krug. The Hegelian fever
+was still very high at that time. It is true Hegel himself was dead
+(1831), and though he was supposed to have declared on his deathbed
+that he left only one true disciple, and that that disciple had
+misunderstood him, to be a Hegelian was considered a _sine qua non_,
+not only among philosophers, but quite as much among theologians, men
+of science, lawyers, artists, in fact, in every branch of human
+knowledge, at least in Prussia. If Christianity in its Protestant form
+was the state-religion of the kingdom, Hegelianism was its
+state-philosophy. Beginning with the Minister of Instruction down to
+the village schoolmaster, everybody claimed to be a Hegelian, and
+this was supposed to be the best road to advancement. Though
+Altenstein, who was then at the head of the Ministry of Instruction,
+began to waver in his allegiance to Hegel, even he could not resist
+the rush of public and of official opinion. It was he who, when a new
+professor of philosophy was recommended to him either by Hegel himself
+or by some of his followers, is reported to have said: “Gentlemen, I
+have read some of the young man’s books, and I cannot understand a
+word of them. However, you are the best judges, 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 possible, and dismissed him with the
+words: ‘Enfin, si je peux y entrer, je ne les prendrai pas.’ This
+seems to me very much what you say of your young philosopher. If I can
+understand his books, I am not to take him.” This Hegelian fever was
+very much like what we have passed through ourselves at the time of
+the Darwinian fever; Darwin’s natural evolution was looked upon very
+much like Hegel’s dialectic process, as the general solvent of all
+difficulties. The most egregious nonsense was passed under that name,
+as it was under the name of evolution. Hegel knew very well what he
+meant, so did Darwin. But the empty enthusiasm of his followers became
+so wild that Darwin himself, the most humble of all men, became quite
+ashamed of it. The master, of course, was not responsible for the
+folly of his so-called disciples, but the result was inevitable.
+After the bow had been stretched to the utmost, a reaction followed,
+and in the case of Hegelianism, a complete collapse. Even at Berlin
+the popularity of Hegelianism came suddenly to an end, and after a
+time no truly scientific man liked to be called a Hegelian. These
+sudden collapses in Germany are very instructive. As long as a German
+professor is at the head of affairs and can do something for his
+pupils, his pupils are very loud in their encomiums, both in public
+and in private. They not only exalt him, but help to belittle all who
+differ from him. So it was with Hegel, so it was at a later time with
+Bopp, and Curtius, and other professors, particularly if they had the
+ear of the Minister of Education. But soon after the death of these
+men, particularly if another influential star was rising, the change
+of tone was most sudden and most surprising; even the sale of their
+books dwindled down, and they were referred to only as landmarks,
+showing the rapid advance made by living celebrities. Perhaps all this
+cannot be helped, as long as human nature is what it is, but it is
+nevertheless painful to observe.
+
+I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with Hegelianism through
+Professor Christian Weisse at Leipzig, who, though he was considered a
+Hegelian, was a very sober Hegelian, a critic quite as much as an
+admirer of Hegel. He had a very small audience, because his manner of
+lecturing was certainly most trying and tantalizing. But by being
+brought into personal contact with him one was able to get help from
+him wherever he could give it. Though Weisse was convinced of the
+truth of Hegel’s Dialectic Method, he often differed from him in its
+application. This Dialectic Method consisted in showing how thought is
+constantly and irresistibly driven from an affirmative to a negative
+position, then reconciles the two opposites, and from that point
+starts afresh, repeating once more the same process. Pure being, for
+instance, from which Hegel’s ideal evolution starts, was shown to be
+the same as empty being, that is to say, nothing, and both were
+presented as identical, and in their identity giving us the new
+concept of Becoming (_Werden_), which is being and not-being at the
+same time. All this may appear to the lay reader rather obscure, but
+could not well be passed over.
+
+So far Weisse followed the great thinker, and I possess still, in his
+own writing, 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 categories, like
+angels of God, ascend and descend from heaven to earth. We must
+remember that the true Hegelian regarded the Ideas as the thoughts of
+God. Hegel looked upon this evolution of thought as at the same time
+the evolution of Being, the Idea being the only thing that could be
+said to be truly real. In order to understand this, we must remember
+that the historical key to Hegel’s Idea was really the Neo-Platonic
+or Alexandrian Logos. But of this Logos we ignorant undergraduates,
+sitting at the feet of Prof. Weisse, knew absolutely nothing, and even
+if the Idea was sometimes placed before us as the Absolute, the
+Infinite, or the Divine, it was to us, at least to most of us, myself
+included, _vox et praeterea nihil_. We watched the wonderful
+evolutions and convolutions of the Idea in its Dialectic development,
+but of the Idea itself or himself we had no idea whatever. It was all
+darkness, a vast abyss, and we sat patiently and wrote down what we
+could catch and comprehend of the Professor’s explanations, but the
+Idea itself we never could lay hold of. It would not have been so
+difficult if the Professor had spoken out more boldly. But whenever he
+came to the relation of the Idea to what we mean by God, there was
+always even with him, who was a very honest man, a certain theological
+hesitation. Hegel himself seems to shrink occasionally from the
+consequence that the Idea really stands in the place of God, and that
+it is in the self-conscious spirit of humanity that the ideal God
+becomes first conscious of himself. Still, that is the last word of
+Hegel’s philosophy, though others maintain that the Idea with Hegel
+was the thought of God, and that human thought was but a repetition of
+that divine thought. With Hegel there is first the evolution of the
+Idea in the pure ether of logic from the simplest to the highest
+category. Then follows Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, that is, the
+evolution of the Idea in nature, the Idea having by the usual
+dialectic process negatived itself and entered into its opposite
+(_Anderssein_), passing through a new process of space and time, and
+ending in the self-conscious human soul. Thus nature and spirit were
+represented as dominated by the Idea in its logical development.
+Nature was one manifestation of the Idea, History the other, and it
+became the task of the philosopher to discover its traces both in the
+progress of nature and in the historical progress of thought.
+
+And here it was where the strongest protests began to be heard.
+Physical Science revolted, and Historical Research soon joined the
+rebellion. Professor Weisse also, in spite of his great admiration for
+Hegel, protested in his Lectures against this idealization of history,
+and showed how often Hegel, if he could not find the traces he was
+looking for in the historical development of the Idea, was misled by
+his imperfect knowledge of facts, and discovered what was not there,
+but what he felt convinced ought to have been there. Nowhere has this
+become so evident as in Hegel’s _Philosophy of Religion_. The
+conception was grand of seeing in the historical development of
+religion a repetition of the Dialectic Progress of the Idea. But facts
+are stubborn things, and do not yield even to the supreme command of
+the Idea. Besides, if the historical facts of religion were really
+such as the Dialectic Process of the Idea required, these facts are
+no longer what they were before 1831, and what would become then of
+the Idea which, as he wrote in his preface to his _Metaphysics_, could
+not possibly be changed to please the new facts? It was this part of
+Weisse’s lectures, it was the protest of the historical conscience
+against the demands of the Idea, that interested me most. I see as
+clearly the formal truth as the material untruth of Hegel’s
+philosophy. The thorough excellence of its method and the desperate
+baldness of its results, strike me with equal force. Though I did not
+yet know what kind of thing or person the Idea was really meant for, I
+knew myself enough of ancient Greek philosophy and of Oriental
+religions to venture to criticize Hegel’s representation and
+disposition of the facts themselves. I could not accept the answer of
+my more determined Hegelian friends, _Tant pis pour les faits_, but
+felt more and more the old antagonism between what ought to be and
+what is, between the reasonableness of the Idea, and the
+unreasonableness of facts. I found a strong supporter in a young
+Privat-Docent who at that time began his brilliant career at Leipzig,
+Dr. Lotze. He had made a special study of mathematics and physical
+science, 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 Religion_. I joined his philosophical society, and
+I lately found among my old papers several essays which I had written
+for our meetings. They amused me very much, but I should be sorry to
+see them published now. It is curious that after many years I, as a
+Delegate of the University Press at Oxford, was instrumental in
+getting the first English translation of Lotze’s _Metaphysics_
+published in England; and it is still more curious that Mark Pattison,
+the late Rector of Lincoln, should have opposed it with might and main
+as a useless book which would never pay its expenses. I stood up for
+my old teacher, and I am glad to say to the honour of English
+philosophers, that the translation passed through several editions,
+and helped not a little to establish Lotze’s position in England and
+America. He died in 1881.
+
+It is extraordinary how the young minds in German universities survive
+the storms and fogs through which they have to pass in their academic
+career. I confess I myself felt quite bewildered for a time, and began
+to despair altogether of my reasoning powers. Why should I not be able
+to understand, I asked myself, what other people seemed to understand
+without any effort? We speak the same language, why should we not be
+able to think the same thought? I took refuge for a time in
+history—the history of language, of religion, and of philosophy.
+There was a very learned professor at Leipzig, Dr. Niedner, who
+lectured on the History of Greek Philosophy, and whose _Manual for the
+History of Philosophy_ has been of use to me through the whole of my
+life. Socrates said of Heraclitus: “What I have understood of his
+book is excellent, and I suppose therefore that even what I have not
+understood is so too; but one must be a Delian swimmer not to be
+drowned in it.” I tried for a long time to follow this advice with
+regard to Hegel and Weisse, and though disheartened did not despair. I
+understood some of it, why should not the rest follow in time? Thus, I
+never gave up the study of philosophy at Leipzig and afterwards at
+Berlin, and my first contributions to philosophical journals date from
+that early time, when I was a student in the University of Leipzig. My
+very earliest, though very unsuccessful, struggles to find an entrance
+into the mysteries of philosophy date even from my school-days.
+
+I remember some years before, when I was quite young, perhaps no more
+than fifteen years of age, listening with bated breath to some
+professors at Leipzig who were talking very excitedly about philosophy
+in my presence. I had no idea what was meant by philosophy, still less
+could I follow when they began to discuss Kant’s _Kritik der reinen
+Vernunft_. One of my friends, whom I looked up to as a great
+authority, confessed that he had read the book again and again, but
+could not understand the whole of it. My curiosity was much excited,
+and once, while he was taking a walk with me, I asked him very timidly
+what Kant’s book was about, and how a man could write a book that
+other men could not understand. He tried to explain what Kant’s book
+was about, but it was all perfect darkness before my eyes; I was
+trying to lay hold of a word here and there, but it all floated before
+my mind like mist, without a single ray of light, without any way out
+of all that maze of words. But when at last he said he would lend me
+the book, I fell on it and pored over it hour after hour. The result
+was the same. My little brain could not take in the simplest ideas of
+the first chapters—that space and time were nothing by themselves;
+that we ourselves gave the form of space and time to what was given us
+by the senses. But though defeated I would not give in; I tried again
+and again, but of course it was all in vain. The words were here and I
+could construe them, but there was nothing in my mind which the words
+could have laid hold on. It was like rain on hard soil, it all ran
+off, or remained standing in puddles and muddles on my poor brain.
+
+At last I gave it up in despair, but I had fully made up my mind that
+as soon as I went to the University I would find out what philosophy
+really was, and what Kant meant by saying that space and time were
+forms of our sensuous intuition. I see that, accordingly, in the
+summer of 1841, I attended lectures on Aesthetics by Professor Weisse,
+on Anthropology by Lotze, and on Psychology by Professor Heinroth, and
+I slowly learnt to distinguish between what was going on within me,
+and what I had been led to imagine existed outside me, or at least
+quite independent of me. But before I had got a firm grasp of Kant,
+of his forms of intuition, and the categories of the understanding, I
+was thrown into Hegelianism. This, too, was at first entire darkness,
+but I was not disheartened. I attended Professor Weisse’s lectures on
+Hegel in the winter of 1841-2, and again in the winter of 1842-3 I
+attended his lectures on Logic and Metaphysics, and on the Philosophy
+of History. He took an interest in me, and I felt most strongly
+attracted by him. Soon after I joined his Philosophical Society, and
+likewise that of Professor Drobisch. In these societies every member,
+when his turn came, had to write an essay and defend it against the
+professor and the other members of the society. All this was very
+helpful, but it was not till I had heard a course of lectures on the
+History of Philosophy, by Professor Niedner, that my interest in
+Philosophy became strong and healthy. While Weisse was a leading
+Hegelian philosopher, and Drobisch represented the opposite philosophy
+of Herbart, Niedner was purely historical, and this appealed most to
+my taste. Still, my philosophical studies remained very disjointed. At
+last I was admitted to Lotze’s Philosophical Society also, and here we
+chiefly read and discussed Kant’s _Kritik_. Lotze was then quite a
+young man, undecided as yet himself between physical science and pure
+philosophy.
+
+Weisse was certainly the most stirring lecturer, but his delivery was
+fearful. He did not read his lectures, as many professors did, but
+would deliver them _extempore_. He had no command of language, and
+there was a pause after almost every sentence. He was really thinking
+out the problem while he was lecturing; he was constantly repeating
+his sentences, and any new thought that crossed his mind would carry
+him miles away from his subject. It happened sometimes in these
+rhapsodies that he contradicted himself, but when I walked home with
+him after his lecture to a village near Leipzig where he lived, he
+would readily explain how it happened, how he meant something quite
+different from what he had said, or what I had understood. In fact he
+would give the whole lecture over again, only much more freely and
+more intelligibly. I was fully convinced at that time that Hegel’s
+philosophy was the final solution of all problems; I only hesitated
+about his philosophy of history as applied to the history of religion.
+I could not bring myself to admit that the history of religion, nor
+even the history of philosophy as we know it from Thales to Kant, was
+really running side by side with his Logic, showing how the leading
+concepts of the human mind, as elaborated in the Logic, had found
+successive expression in the history and development of the schools of
+philosophy as known to us. Weisse was strong both in his analysis of
+concepts and in his knowledge of history, and though he taught Hegel
+as a faithful interpreter, he always warned us against trusting too
+much in the parallelism between Logic and History. Study the writings
+of the good philosophers, he would say, and then see whether they will
+or will not fit into the Procrustean bed of Hegel’s Logic. And this
+was the best lesson he could have given to young men. How well founded
+and necessary the warning was I found out myself, the more I studied
+the religion and philosophies of the East, and then compared what I
+saw in the original documents with the account given by Hegel in his
+_Philosophy of Religion_. It is quite true that Hegel at the time when
+he wrote, could not have gained a direct or accurate knowledge of the
+principal religions of the East. But what I could not help seeing was
+that what Hegel represented as the necessity in the growth of
+religious thought, was far away from the real growth, as I had watched
+it in some of the sacred books of these religions. This shook my
+belief in the correctness of Hegel’s fundamental principles more than
+anything else.
+
+At that time Herbart’s philosophy, as taught by Drobisch at Leipzig,
+came to me as a most useful antidote. The chief object of that
+philosophy is, as is well known, the analysing and clearing, so to
+speak, of our concepts. This was exactly what I wanted, only that
+occupied as I was with the problems of language, I at once translated
+the object of his philosophy into a definition of words. Henceforth
+the object of my own philosophical occupations was the accurate
+definition of every word. All words, such as reason, pure reason,
+mind, thought, were carefully taken to pieces and traced back, if
+possible, to their first birth, and then through their further
+developments. My interest in this analytical process soon took an
+historical, that is etymological, character in so far as I tried to
+find out why any words should now mean exactly what, according to our
+definition, they ought to mean. For instance, in examining such words
+as _Vernunft_ or _Verstand_, a little historical retrospect showed
+that their distinction as reason and understanding was quite modern,
+and chiefly due to a scientific definition given and maintained by the
+Kantian school of philosophy. Of course every generation has a right
+to define its philosophical terms, but from an historical point of
+view Kant might have used with equal right _Vernunft_ for _Verstand_,
+and _Verstand_ for _Vernunft_. Etymologically or historically both
+words have much the same meaning. _Vernunft_, from _Vernehmen_, meant
+originally no more than perception, while _Verstand_ meant likewise
+perception, but soon came to imply a kind of understanding, even a
+kind of technical knowledge, though from a purely etymological
+standpoint it had nothing that fitted it more for carrying the
+meaning, which is now assigned to it in German in distinction to
+_Vernunft_, than understanding had as distinguished from reason. It
+requires, of course, a very minute historical research to trace the
+steps by which such words as reason and understanding diverge in
+different directions, in the language of the people and in
+philosophical parlance. This teaches us a very important distinction,
+namely that between the popular development of the meaning of a word,
+and its meaning as defined and asserted by a philosopher or by a poet
+in the plenitude of his power. Etymological definition is very useful
+for the first stages in the history of a word. It is useful to know,
+for instance, that _deus_, God, meant originally bright, bright
+whether applied to sky, sun, moon, stars, dawn, morning, dayspring,
+spring of the year, and many other bright objects in nature, that it
+thus assumed a meaning common to them all, splendid, or heavenly,
+beneficent, powerful, so that when in the Veda already we find a
+number of heavenly bodies, or of terrestrial bodies, or even of
+periods of time called Devas, this word has assumed a more general,
+more comprehensive, and more exalted meaning. It did not yet mean what
+the Greeks called θεοἱ or gods, but it meant something common to all
+these θεοἱ, and thus could naturally rise to express what the Greeks
+wanted to express by that word. There was as yet no necessity for
+defining deva or θεὁς, when applied to what was meant by gods, but of
+course the most opposite meanings had clustered round it. While a
+philosophical Greek would maintain that θεὁς meant what was one and
+never many, a poetical Greek or an ordinary Greek would hold that it
+meant what was by nature many. But while in such a case philosophical
+analysis and historical genealogy would support each other, there are
+ever so many cases where etymological analysis is as hopeless as
+logical analysis. Who is to define _romantic_, in such expressions as
+romantic literature. Etymologically we know that romantic goes back
+finally to Rome, but the mass of incongruous meanings that have been
+thrown at random into the caldron of that word, is so great that no
+definition could be contrived to comprehend them all. And how should
+we define _Gothic_ or _Romanic_ architecture, remembering that as no
+Goths had anything to do with pointed arches, neither were any Romans
+responsible for the flat roofs of the German churches of the Saxon
+emperors.
+
+Enough to show what I meant when I said that Professor Drobisch, in
+his Lectures on Herbart, gave one great encouragement in the special
+work in which I was already engaged as a mere student, the Science of
+Language and Etymology. If Herbart declared philosophy to consist in a
+thorough examination (_Bearbeitung_) of concepts, or conceptual
+knowledge, my answer was, Only let it be historical, nay, in the
+beginning, etymological; I was not so foolish as to imagine that a
+word as used at present, meant what it meant etymologically. _Deus_ no
+longer meant brilliant, but it should be the object of the true
+historian of language to prove how _Deus_, having meant originally
+brilliant, came to mean what it means now.
+
+For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher, and that sounded so
+grand that the idea of preparing for a mere schoolmaster, teaching
+Greek and Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a sphere. Soon,
+however, while dreaming of a chair of philosophy at a German
+University, I began to feel that I must know something special,
+something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn
+Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. I had only heard what we call in German
+the chiming, not the striking of the bells of Indian philosophy; I had
+read Frederick Schlegel’s explanatory book _Über die Sprache und
+Weisheit der Indier_ (1808), and looked into Windischmann’s _Die
+Philosophie im Fortgange der Weltgeschichte_ (1827-1834). These books
+are hardly opened now—they are antiquated, and more than antiquated;
+they are full of mistakes as to facts, and mistakes as to the
+conclusions drawn from them. But they had ushered new ideas into the
+world of thought, and they left on many, as they did on me, that
+feeling which the digger who prospects for minerals is said to have,
+that there must be gold beneath the surface, if people would only dig.
+That feeling was very vague as yet, and might have been entirely
+deceptive, nor did I see my way to go beyond the point reached by
+these two dreamers or explorers. The thought remained in the
+rubbish-chamber of my mind, and though forgotten at the time, broke
+forth again when there was an opportunity. It was a fortunate
+coincidence that at that very time, in the winter of 1841, a new
+professorship was founded at Leipzig and given to Professor Brockhaus.
+Uncertain as I was about the course I had to follow in my studies, I
+determined to see what there was to be learnt in Sanskrit. There was a
+charm in the unknown, and, I must confess, a charm also in studying
+something which my friends and fellow students did not know. I called
+on Professor Brockhaus, and found that there were only two other
+students to attend his lectures, one Spiegel, who already knew the
+elements of Sanskrit, and who is still alive in Erlangen,[9] as a
+famous professor of Sanskrit and Zend, though no longer lecturing, and
+another, Klengel; both several years my seniors, but both extremely
+amiable to their younger fellow student. Klengel was a scholar, a
+philosopher, and a musician, and though after a term or two he had to
+give up his study of Sanskrit, he was very useful to me by his good
+advice. He encouraged me and praised me for my progress in Sanskrit,
+which was no doubt more rapid than his own, and he confirmed me in my
+conviction that something might be made of Sanskrit by the philologist
+and by the philosopher. It should not be forgotten that at that time
+there was a strong prejudice against Sanskrit among classical
+scholars. The number of men who stood up for it, though it included
+names such as W. von Humboldt, F. and A. W. von Schlegel, was still
+very small. Even Herder’s and Goethe’s prophetic words produced
+little effect. It is said that when the Government had been persuaded,
+chiefly by the two Humboldts, to found a chair of Sanskrit at the
+University of Würzburg, and had nominated Bopp as its first occupant,
+the philological faculty of the University protested against such a
+desecration, and the appointment fell through. It is true, no doubt,
+that in their first enthusiasm the students of Sanskrit had uttered
+many exaggerated opinions. Sanskrit was represented as the mother of
+all languages, instead of being the elder sister of the Aryan family.
+The beginning of all language, of all thought, of all religion was
+traced back to India, and when Greek scholars were told that Zeus
+existed in the Veda under the name of Dyaus, there was a great flutter
+in the dovecots of classical scholarship. Many of these enthusiastic
+utterances had afterwards to be toned down. How we did enjoy those
+enthusiastic days, which even in their exaggerated hopes were not
+without some use. Problems such as the beginning of language, of
+thought, of mythology and religion, were started with youthful hope
+that the Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis had been
+present at the first outburst of roots, of concepts, nay, that like
+Pelops and other descendants of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed
+daily intercourse with the gods, and had been present at the
+mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of Kronos. We may be
+ashamed to-day of some of the dreams of the early spring of man’s
+sojourn on earth, but they were enchanting dreams, 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 it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally the
+bright sky, something actually seen, but something that had to become
+something unseen. All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by
+mankind at large, must have begun with what the senses can perceive,
+before it could rise to signify something unperceived by the senses.
+Only after the blue aether had been perceived and named, was it
+possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active, as an agent, as a
+god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus be called the most sublime, he who
+resides in the aether, αἰθἑρι ναἱων ὑψἱζυγος, the heavenly one, or
+οὐρἁνιος ὕπατος and ὕψιστος, the highest, and at last _Iupiter Optimus
+Maximus_, a name applied even to the true God. When Zeus had once
+become like the sky, all seeing or omniscient (ἐπὁψιος), would he not
+naturally be supposed to see, not only the good, but the evil deeds of
+men also, nay, their very thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if
+so, would he not be the avenger of evil, the watcher of oaths
+(ὅρκιος), the protector of the helpless (ἱκἑσιος)? Yet, if conceived,
+as for a long time all the gods were conceived and could only be
+conceived, namely, as human in their shape, should we not necessarily
+get that strange amalgamation of a human being doing superhuman
+work—hurling the thunderbolt, shouting in thunder, hidden by dark
+clouds, and smiling in the serene blue of the sky with its brilliant
+scintillations? All this and much more became perfectly intelligible,
+the step from the visible to the invisible, from the perceived to the
+conceived, from nature to nature’s gods, and from nature’s god to a
+more sublime unseen and spiritual power. All this seemed to pass
+before our very eyes in the Veda, and then to be reflected in Homer
+and Pindar.
+
+  [9] Herr Geheimrath von Spiegel now lives at Munich.
+
+Some details of this restored picture of the world of gods and men in
+early times, nay, in the very spring of time, may have to be altered,
+but the picture, the eidyllion remained, and nothing could curb the
+adventurous spirit and keep it from pushing forward and trying to do
+what seemed to others almost impossible, namely, to watch the growth
+of the human mind as reflected in the petrifactions of language.
+Language itself spoke to us with a different voice, and a formerly
+unsuspected meaning.
+
+We knew, for instance, that _ewig_ meant eternal, but whence eternal.
+Nothing eternal was ever seen, and it seemed to the philosopher that
+eternal could be expressed by a negation only, by a negation of what
+was temporary. But we now learnt that _ewig_ was derived in word and
+therefore in thought from the Gothic _aiwar_, time. _Ewigkeit_ was
+therefore originally time, and “for all time” came naturally to mean
+“for all eternity.” Eternity also came from _aeternus_, that is
+_aeviternus_, for time, i. e. for all time, and thus for eternity,
+while _aevum_ meant life, lifetime, age. But now came the question, if
+_aevum_ shows the growth of this word, and its origin, and how it
+arrives in the end at the very opposite pole, life and time coming to
+mean eternity, could we not by the same process discover the origin
+and growth of such short Greek words as ἀεἱ and aἰeἱ? It seems almost
+impossible, yet remembering that _aevum_ meant originally life, we
+find in Vedic Sanskrit _eva_, course, way, life, the same as _aevum_,
+while the Sanskrit _âyush_, likewise derived from _i_, to go, forms
+its locative _âyushi_. _Âyushi_, or originally _âyasi_, would mean “in
+life, in time,” and turned into Greek would regularly become then
+aἰeἱ, lifelong, or ever. It was not difficult to find fault with this
+and other etymologies, and to ask for an explanation of αἰἑν and αἰἑς,
+as derived from the same word _âyus_. It is curious that people will
+not see that etymologies, and particularly the gradual development in
+the form and meaning of words, can hardly ever be a matter of
+mathematical certainty.
+
+Historical, nay, even individual, influences come in which prevent the
+science of language from becoming purely mechanical. Pott, and
+Curtius, and others stood up against Bopp and Grimm, maintaining that
+there could be nothing irregular in language, particularly in phonetic
+changes. If this means no more than that under the same circumstances
+the same changes will always take place, it would be of course a mere
+truism. The question is only whether we can ever know all the
+circumstances, and whether there are not some of these circumstances
+which cause what we are apt to call irregularities. When Bopp said
+that Sanskrit _d_ corresponds to a Greek δ, but often also to a Greek
+θ, I doubt whether this is often the case. All I say is, if _deva_
+corresponds to θεὁς, we must try to find the reason or the
+circumstances which caused so unusual a correspondence. If no more is
+meant than that there must be a reason for all that seems irregular,
+no one would gainsay that, neither Bopp nor Grimm, and no one ever
+doubted that as a principle. But to establish these reasons is the
+very difficulty with which the Science of Language has to deal.
+
+There is no word that has not an etymology, only if we consider the
+distance of time that separates us from the historical facts we are
+trying to account for, we should sometimes be satisfied with
+probabilities and not always stipulate for absolute certainty. Many of
+Bopp’s, Grimm’s, and Pott’s etymologies have had to be surrendered,
+and yet our suzerainty over that distant country which they conquered,
+over the Aryan home, remains. If there is an etymology containing
+something irregular, and for which no reason has as yet been found, we
+must wait till some better etymology can be suggested, or a reason be
+found for that apparent irregularity. If the etymological meaning of
+_duhitar_, daughter, as milkmaid, is doubted, let us have a better
+explanation, not a worse; but the general picture of the early family
+among the Aryans “somewhere in Asia” is not thereby destroyed. The
+father, Sk. _pitar_, remains the protector or nourisher, though the
+_i_ for _a_ in _pater_ and πατἡρ is irregular. The mother, _mâtar_,
+remains the bearer of children, though _mâ_ is no longer used in that
+sense in any of the Aryan languages. _Pati_ is the lord, the strong
+one—therefore the husband; _vadhû_, the yoke-fellow, or the wife as
+brought home, possibly as carried off by force. _Vis_ or _vesa_ is the
+home, οἰκος or _vicus_, what was entered for shelter. _Svasura_,
+ἑκυρὁς, _Socer_, the father-in-law, is the old man of the _svas_, the
+_famuli_, or the family, or the clients, though the first _s_ is
+irregular, and can be defended only on the ground of mistaken analogy.
+_Bhrâtar_, _frater_, brother, was the supporter; _svastar_, _soror_,
+sister, the comforter, &c.
+
+What do a few objections signify? The whole picture remains, as if we
+could look into the _vesa_, the οἰκος the _veih_, the home, the
+village of the ancient Aryans, and watch them, the _svas_, the people,
+in their mutual relations. Even compound words, such as _vis-pati_,
+lord of a family or a village, have been preserved to the present day
+in the Lithuanian _Veszpats_, lord, whether King or God. It is enough
+for us to see that the relationship between husband and wife, between
+parents and children, between brothers and sisters, nay, even between
+children-in-law and parents-in-law, had been recognized and sanctified
+by names. That there are, and always will be, doubts and slight
+differences of opinion on these prehistoric thoughts and words, is
+easily understood. We were pleased for a long time to see in _vidua_,
+widow, the Sanskrit _vidua_, i. e. without a man or a husband. We now
+derive _vi-dhavâ_, widow, from _vidh_, to be separated, to be without
+(cf. _vido_ in _divido_, and Sk. _vidh_), but the picture of the Aryan
+family remains much the same.
+
+When these and similar antiquities were for the first time brought to
+light by Bopp, Grimm, and Pott, what wonder that we young men should
+have jumped at them, and shouted with delight, more even than the
+diggers who dug up Babylonian palaces or Egyptian temples! No one did
+more for these antiquarian finds and restorations than A. Kuhn, a
+simple schoolmaster, but afterwards a most distinguished member of the
+Berlin Academy. How often did I sit with him in his study as he
+worked, surrounded by his Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit books. In later
+times also, when I had made some discoveries myself as to the
+mythological names or beings identical in Vedic and Greek writings,
+how pleasant was it to see him rub his hands or shake his head. Long
+before I had published my identifications they were submitted to him,
+and he communicated to me his own guesses as I communicated mine to
+him. Kuhn would never appropriate what belonged to anybody else, and
+even in cases where we agreed, he would always make it clear that we
+had both arrived independently at the same result.
+
+It is in the nature of things that every new generation of scholars
+should perfect their tools, and with these discover flaws in the work
+left by their predecessors. Still, what is the refined chiselling of
+later scholars compared with the rough-hewn stones of men like Bopp or
+Grimm? If the Cyclopean stones of the Pelasgians are not like the
+finished works of art by Phidias, what would the Parthenon be without
+the walls ascribed to the Cyclops? It is the same in all sciences, and
+we must try to be just, both to the genius of those who created, and
+to the diligence of those who polished and refined.
+
+For all this, however, I met with but small sympathy and encouragement
+at Leipzig; nay, I had to be very careful in uttering what were
+supposed to be heretical or unscholarlike opinions in the seminary of
+Gottfried Hermann, or in the Latin society of Haupt. The latter
+particularly, though he knew very well how much light had been spread
+on the growth of language by the researches of Bopp, Grimm, and Pott,
+and though Grimm was his intimate friend of whom he always spoke with
+real veneration, could not bear his own pupils dabbling in this
+subject. And of course at that time my knowledge of comparative
+philology was a mere dabbling. If he could discover a false quantity
+in any etymology, great was his delight, and his sarcasm truly
+withering, particularly as it was poured out in very classical Latin.
+Gottfried Hermann was a different character. He saw there was a new
+light and he would not turn his back to it. He knew how lightly his
+antagonist, Otfried Müller, valued Sanskrit in his mythological
+essays, and he set to work, and in one of his last academical programs
+actually gave the paradigms of Sanskrit verbs as compared with those
+of Greek. He saw that the coincidences between the two could not be
+casual, and if they were so overwhelming in the mere termination of
+verbs, what might we not expect in words and names, even in
+mythological names? He by no means discouraged me, nay, he was sorry
+to lose me, when in my third year I went to Berlin. He showed me great
+kindness on several occasions, and when the time came to take my
+degree of M.A. and Ph.D., he, as Dean of the Faculty, invited me to
+return to Leipzig, offering me an exhibition to cover the expenses of
+the Degree.
+
+  [Illustration: F. MAX MÜLLER _Aged Twenty_]
+
+My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire to hear Bopp, but
+yet more from a desire to make the acquaintance of Schelling. My
+inclination towards philosophy had become stronger and stronger; I had
+my own ideas about the mythological as a necessary form of ancient
+philosophy, and when I saw that the old philosopher had advertised his
+lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not resist, and went to
+Berlin in 1844. I must say at once that Professor Bopp, though he was
+extremely kind to me, was at that time, if not old—he was only
+fifty-three—very infirm. In his lectures he simply read his
+_Comparative Grammar_ with a magnifying glass, and added very little
+that was new. He lent me some manuscripts which he had copied in Latin
+in his younger days, but I could not get much help from him when I
+came to really difficult passages. This, I confess, puzzled me at the
+time, for I looked on every professor as omniscient. The time comes,
+however, when we learn that even at fifty-three a man may have
+forgotten certain things, nay, may have let many books and new
+discoveries even in his own subject pass by, because he has plenty to
+do with his own particular studies. We remember the old story of the
+professor who, when charged by a young and rather impertinent student
+with not knowing this or that, replied: “Sir, I have forgotten more
+than you ever knew.” And so it is indeed. Human nature and human
+memory are very strong during youth and manhood, but even at fifty
+there is with many people a certain decline of mental vigour that
+tells chiefly on the memory. Things are not exactly forgotten, but
+they do not turn up at the right time. They just leave a certain
+knowledge of where the missing information can be found; they leave
+also a kind of feeling that the ground is not quite safe and that we
+must no longer trust entirely to our memory. In one respect this
+feeling is very useful, for instead of writing down anything, trusting
+to our memory as we used to do, we feel it necessary to verify many
+things which formerly were perfectly clear and certain in our memory
+without such reference to books.
+
+I remember being struck with the same thing in the case of Professor
+Wilson, the well-known Oxford Professor of Sanskrit. He was kind
+enough to read with me, and I certainly was often puzzled, not only by
+what he knew, but also by what he had forgotten. I feel now that I
+misjudged him, and that his open declaration, “I don’t know, let us
+look it up,” really did him great honour. I still have in my
+possession a portion of Pânini’s Vedic grammar translated by him. I
+put by the side of it my own translation, and he openly acknowledged
+that mine, with the passages taken from the Veda, was right. There was
+no humbug about Wilson. He never posed as a scholar; nay, I remember
+his saying to me more than once, “You see, I am not a scholar, I am a
+gentleman who likes Sanskrit, and that is all.” He certainly did like
+Sanskrit, and he knew it better than many a professor, but in his own
+way. He had enjoyed the assistance of really learned Pandits, and he
+never forgot to record their services. But he had himself cleared the
+ground—he had really done original work. In fact, he had done nothing
+but original work, and then he was abused for not having always found
+at the first trial what others discovered when standing on his
+shoulders. Again, he was found fault with for not having had a
+classical education. His education was, I believe, medical, but when
+once in the Indian Civil Service, he made himself useful in many ways,
+educational and otherwise. When he left India he was Master of the
+Mint. Such a man might not know Greek and Latin like F. A. von
+Schlegel, or any other professor, but he knew his own subject, 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 Sanskrit. Such a feeling is natural among small
+schoolmasters, but it is dying out at last among real scholars. I have
+known very good Sanskrit scholars who knew no Greek at all, and very
+little Latin. And I have also known Greek scholars who knew no
+Sanskrit and yet attempted comparisons between the two. When Lepsius
+was made a Member of the Berlin Academy, Lachmann, who ought to have
+known better, used to say of him: “He knows many things which nobody
+knows, but he also is ignorant of many things which everybody knows.”
+Such remarks never speak well for the man who makes them.
+
+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 age, and is still violently assailed for opinions he may have
+uttered fifty years ago. When quite a young man I wrote, at Baron
+Bunsen’s request, a long letter on the Turanian Languages. It was
+published in 1854, but it still continues to be criticized as if it
+had been published last year. Of course, considering the rapid advance
+of linguistic studies, a great part of that letter became antiquated
+long ago; but at the time of its first appearance it contained nearly
+all that could then be known on these allophylian, that is, non-Aryan
+and non-Semitic languages; and I may, perhaps, quote the opinion of
+Professor Pott, no mean authority at that time, who, after severely
+criticizing my letter, declared that it belonged to the most important
+publications that had appeared on linguistic subjects for many years.
+And yet, though I have again and again protested that I could not
+possibly have known in 1854 what has been discovered since as to a
+number of these Turanian languages, everybody who writes on any of
+them seems to be most anxious to show that in 1894 he knows more than
+I did in 1854. No astronomer is blamed for not having known the planet
+Neptune before its discovery in 1846, or for having been wrong in
+accounting for the irregularities of Saturn. But let that pass; I only
+share the fate of others who have lived too long.
+
+After all, all our knowledge, whatever show we may make of it, is very
+imperfect, and the more we know the better we learn how little it is
+that we do know, and how much of unexplored country there is beyond
+the country which we have explored. We must judge a man by what he has
+done—by his own original work. There are many scholars, and very
+useful they are in their own way, but if their books are examined, one
+easily finds the stores from which they borrowed their materials. They
+may add some notes of their own and even some corrections,
+particularly corrections of the authors from whom they have borrowed
+most; but at the end where is the fresh ore that they have raised;
+where is the gold they have extracted and coined? There are cases
+where the original worker is quite forgotten, whereas the retailers
+flourish. Well, facts are facts, whether known or not known, and the
+triumphal chariot of truth has to be dragged along by many hands and
+many shoulders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PARIS
+
+
+My stay in Paris from March, 1845, to June, 1846, was a very useful
+intermezzo. It opened my mind and showed me a new world; showed me, in
+fact, that there was a world besides Germany, though even of Germany
+and German society I had seen as yet very little. I had been working
+away at school and university, but with the exception of my short stay
+in Berlin, I had little experience of men and manners outside the
+small sphere of Dessau and Leipzig.
+
+I had been at Berlin some nine months when, in December, 1844, my old
+friend Baron Hagedorn came to see me, and invited me to spend some
+time with him in Paris. He had his own apartments there, and promised
+to look after me. At the same time my cousin, Baroness Stolzenberg,
+whom I have mentioned before as wishing me to enter the Austrian
+diplomatic service, offered to send me to England at her expense as a
+teacher. I hesitated for some days between these two offers. I knew
+that my own patrimony had been nearly spent at Leipzig and Berlin, and
+the time had come for me to begin to support myself; and how was I to
+do that in Paris? On the other hand, I had long felt that for
+continuing my Sanskrit studies a stay in Paris, and later perhaps in
+London also, was indispensable. I had also to consider the feelings of
+my mother, whose whole heart was absorbed in her only son. However,
+Sanskrit, and my love of an independent life won the day, and I
+decided to accept Hagedorn’s proposal. My mind once made up, I wanted
+to be off at once, but Hagedorn could not fix the exact time when he
+would be free to leave, and told me to keep myself in readiness to
+start whenever he found himself free to go. I accordingly went to stay
+with my mother and my married sister at Chemnitz, and indulged in
+idleness and the unwonted dissipations of parties, dances, and long
+skating expeditions. At last, feeling I could not afford to wait any
+longer, I went off to Dessau to see Hagedorn, and found to my great
+disappointment that he was detained by important legal business in
+connection with his property near Munich, and could not yet fix a date
+for his departure. So it was settled that I was to go on to Paris
+without him, and instal myself in his apartment, 25, Rue Royale St.
+Honoré.
+
+I got my passport wherein I was carefully described with all my
+particular marks, and started off on my foreign travels. At first all
+went well. I stopped a few days at Bonn, and again at Brussels, where
+I had my first experience of hearing a foreign language spoken round
+me, and found that my French was sadly deficient. But from Brussels
+on, my experiences were anything but agreeable. The journey to Paris
+took twenty-four hours, and we travelled day and night without any
+stop for meals. Most of the passengers were well provided with food
+and wine, but had it not been for the kindness of some old ladies, my
+fellow-travellers, I should really have starved. When we crossed the
+frontier the luggage of all passengers was carefully examined. But the
+_douanier_, in trying to open my portmanteau, broke the lock, and then
+began a fearful cursing and swearing. I was perfectly helpless. I
+could hardly understand what the French _douaniers_ said, still less
+make them understand what I had to say. They had done the damage, but
+would do nothing to remedy it. The train would not wait, and I should
+certainly have been left behind if the other travellers had not taken
+my part, and I was allowed to go on to Paris. I looked a mere boy,
+very harmless, not at all the clever smuggler the officials took me to
+be. 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 Sanskrit.
+
+But my miseries were not yet over, on the contrary, they became much
+worse. On my arrival in Paris I got a _fiacre_ and told the man to
+drive to 25, Rue St. Honoré; _Royale_ I considered of no importance;
+but, alas! at the right number of the Rue St. Honoré, the _concierge_
+stared at me, telling me that no Baron Hagedorn lived there. Try
+Faubourg St. Honoré, they said, but here the same thing happened. And
+all this was on a rainy afternoon, I being tired out with travelling
+and fasting, and perfectly overwhelmed by the immensity of Paris. I
+knew nobody at Paris, having trusted for all such things to Baron
+Hagedorn, in fact I was _au désespoir_. Then as I was driving along
+the Boulevard des Italiens, looking out of window, I saw a familiar
+figure—a little hunchback whom I had known at Dessau, where he
+studied music under Schneider. It was M. Gathy, a man well known by
+his musical writings, particularly his _Dictionary of Music_. I
+shrieked Gathy! Gathy! and he was as much surprised when he recognized
+the little boy from Dessau, as I was when in this vast Paris I
+discovered at last a face which I knew. I jumped out of my carriage,
+told Gathy all that had happened to me, being all the time between
+complete despair and perfect delight. He knew Hagedorn and his rooms
+very well. It was the Rue Royale St. Honoré. The _concierge_ was quite
+prepared for my arrival, and took us both to the rooms which were _au
+cinquième_, but large and extremely well furnished. I was so tired
+that I lay down on the sofa, and called out in my best French,
+_Donnez-moi quelque chose à manger et à boire_. This was not so easily
+done as said, but at last, after toiling up and down five flights of
+stairs, he brought me what I wanted; I restored myself in the true
+sense of the word, and then began to discuss the most necessary
+matters with M. Gathy. He was the most charming of men, half German,
+half French, full of _esprit_, and, what was more important to me,
+full of real kindness and love. As soon as I saw him I felt I was
+safe, and so I was, though I had still some battles to fight. First of
+all, I had taken but little money with me, looking upon Hagedorn as my
+banker. Fortunately I remembered the name of one of his friends, about
+whom Hagedorn had often spoken to me and who was in Rothschild’s Bank.
+I went there to find that he was away, but another gentleman there
+told me that I could have as much as I liked till Hagedorn or his
+friend came back. So I was lucky, unlucky as I had been before.
+
+The next step I had to consider was what I should do for my breakfast,
+luncheon, and dinner. Breakfast I could have at home, but for the
+other meals I had to go out and get what I wanted wherever I could. It
+was not always what I wanted, for it had to be cheap, and even a
+dinner _à deux francs_ in the Palais Royal seemed to me extravagant. I
+became more knowing by-and-by, and discovered smaller and simpler
+restaurants, where Frenchmen dined and had arranged for a less showy
+but more wholesome diet.
+
+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 memory. My
+principal amusement at first was to go on voyages of discovery through
+the town. The beauty of the city itself, and the rush and crowd in
+the streets delighted me, and I remember specially a few days after my
+arrival, when I went to watch “le tout Paris” going out to the races
+at Longchamps, that I was so struck by the difference between these
+streets full of equipages of all sorts, ladies in resplendent dresses,
+and well-groomed gentlemen, and the quiet streets that I had been
+accustomed to in Dessau and Leipzig, that I could hardly keep myself
+from laughing out loud. However, when the novelty wore off there was
+another contrast that struck me, and made me more inclined to cry this
+time than to laugh, and that was, that while at home I knew almost
+every face I passed, here in these crowds I was a stranger and knew no
+one, and I suffered cruelly from the solitude at first.
+
+I began my work, however, at once, and on the third day after my
+arrival I was at the Bibliothèque Royale armed with a letter of
+introduction from Humboldt, and the very next day was already at work
+collating the MSS. of the _Kathaka Upanishad_. I had also to devote
+some hours daily to the study of French; for, much as I grudged these
+hours, I fully realized that in order to get full advantage from my
+stay in Paris, I must first master French.
+
+Next came the great question, how to make the acquaintance of Burnouf.
+I did not know the world. I did not know whether I should write to him
+first, in what language, and to what address. I knew Burnouf from his
+books, and I felt a desperate respect for him. After a time Gathy
+discovered his address for me, and I summoned up courage to call on
+him. My French was very poor as yet, but I walked in and found a dear
+old gentleman in his _robe de chambre_, 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 day. He received me with great civility, such as I had not
+been accustomed to before. He spoke of some little book which I had
+published, and inquired warmly after my teachers in Germany, such as
+Brockhaus, Bopp, and Lassen. He told me I might attend his lectures in
+the Collège de France, and he would always be most happy to give me
+advice and help.
+
+I at once felt perfect trust in the man, and was really _aux cieux_ to
+have found such an adviser. He was, indeed, a fine specimen of the
+real French savant. He was small, and his face was decidedly German,
+with the _tête carrée_ which one sees so often in Germany, only
+lighted up by a constant sparkle, which is distinctively French. I
+must have seemed very stupid to him when I tried to explain to him
+what I really wanted to do in Paris. He told me himself afterwards
+that he could not make me out at first. I wanted to study the Veda,
+but I had told him at the same time that I thought the Vedic hymns
+very stupid, and that I cared chiefly for their philosophy, that is,
+the Upanishads. This was really not true, but it came up first in
+conversation, and I thought it would show Burnouf that my interest in
+the Veda was not simply philological, but philosophical also. No doubt
+at first I chiefly copied the Upanishads and their commentaries, but
+Burnouf was not pleased. “We know what is in the Upanishads,” he used
+to say, “but we want the hymns and their native comments.” I soon came
+to understand what he meant; I carefully attended his lectures, which
+were on the hymns of the Rig-veda and opened an entirely new world to
+my mind. We had the first book of the Rig-veda as published by Rosen,
+and Burnouf’s explanations were certainly delightful. He spoke freely
+and conversationally in his lectures, and one could almost assist at
+the elaboration of his thoughts. His audience was certainly small;
+there was nothing like Renan’s eloquence and wit. But Burnouf had ever
+so many new facts to communicate to us. He explained to us his own
+researches, he showed us new MSS. which he had received from India, in
+fact he did all he could to make us fellow workers. Often did he tell
+us to look up some passage in the Veda, to compare and copy the
+commentaries, and to let him have the result of our researches at the
+next lecture. All this was very inspiriting, particularly as Burnouf,
+upon examining our work, was very generous in his approval, and quite
+ready, if we had failed, to point out to us new sources that should
+be examined. He never asserted his own authority, and if ever we had
+found out something which he had not known before, he was delighted to
+let us have the full credit for it. After all, it was a new and
+unknown country, that had to be explored and mapped out, and even a
+novice might sometimes find a grain of gold.
+
+His select class contained some good men. There were Barthélemy St.
+Hilaire, the famous translator of Aristotle, and for a time Minister
+of Foreign Affairs in France, the Abbé Bardelli, R. Roth, Th.
+Goldstücker, and a few more.
+
+Barthélemy St. Hilaire was a personal friend of Burnouf, and came to
+the Collège de France not so much to learn Sanskrit as to hear
+Burnouf’s lucid exposition of ancient Indian religion and philosophy.
+Bardelli was a regular Italian Abbé, studying Sanskrit at Paris, but
+chiefly interested in Coptic. He was, like St. Hilaire, much my
+senior, but we became great friends, and he once confided to me what
+had certainly puzzled me—his reasons for becoming an ecclesiastic. He
+had been deeply in love with a young lady; his love was returned, but
+he was too poor to marry, and she was persuaded and almost forced to
+marry a rich man. Dear old Abbé, always taking snuff while he told me
+his agonies, and then finishing up by saying that he became a priest
+so as to put an end for ever to his passion. Who would have suspected
+such a background to his jovial face? I don’t know how it was that
+people, much my seniors, so often confided to me their secret
+sufferings. I may have to mention some other cases, and I feel that
+after my friends are gone, and so many years have passed over their
+graves, there is no indiscretion in speaking of their confidences. It
+may possibly teach us to remember how much often lies buried under a
+grave bright with flowers. I saw Bardelli’s own grave many years later
+in the famous cemetery at Pisa. R. Roth and Th. Goldstücker were both
+strenuous Sanskrit scholars. Both owed much to Burnouf, Roth even more
+than Goldstücker, though the latter has perhaps more frequently spoken
+of what he owed to Burnouf. Roth was my senior by several years, and
+engaged in much the same work as myself. But we never got on well
+together. It is curious from what small things and slight impressions
+our likes and dislikes are often formed. I have heard men give as a
+reason for disliking some one, that he had forgotten to pay half a
+cab-fare. So in Roth’s case, I never got over a most ordinary
+experience. He and two other young students and myself, having to
+celebrate some festal occasion, had ordered a good luncheon at a
+restaurant. To me with my limited means this was a great extravagance,
+but I could not refuse to join. Roth, to my great surprise and, I may
+add, being very fond of oysters, annoyance, took a very unfair share
+of that delicacy, and whenever I met him in after life, whether in
+person or in writing, this incident would always crop up in my mind;
+and when later on he offered to join me in editing the Rig-veda, I
+declined, perhaps influenced by that early impression which I could
+not get rid of. I blame myself for so foolish a prejudice, but it
+shows what creatures of circumstance we are.
+
+With Goldstücker I was far more intimate. He was some years older than
+myself and quite independent as far as money went. He knew how small
+my means were, and would gladly have lent me money. But through the
+whole of my life I never borrowed from my friends, or in fact from
+anybody, though I was forced sometimes when very hard up for ready
+money, and when I knew that money was due to me but had not arrived
+when I expected it, to apply to some friend for a temporary advance. I
+will try and recall the lines in which I once applied to Gathy for
+such a loan.
+
+    Versuch’ ich’s wohl, mein herzgeliebter Gathy,
+    Mit schmeichelndem Sonnet Sie anzupumpen?
+    Ich bitte nicht um schwere Goldesklumpen,
+    Ich bitte nur um etliche Ducati.
+    Auch zahl’ ich wieder ultimo Monati.
+    Auf Wiedersehn bei Morel und Frascati
+    Und Nachsicht für den Brief, den allzu plumpen!
+    Zwar reiche Nabobs sind die braven Inder,
+    Doch arme Teufel die Indianisten!
+    Reich sind hienieden schon die Heiden-Kinder,
+    Doch selig werden nur die armen Christen!
+    Reimsucher bin ich, doch kein Reimefinder,
+    Und _sans critique_ sind all die Sanscritisten.
+
+This kind of negotiating a loan I have to confess to, but the idea of
+borrowing money, without knowing when I could repay it, never entered
+my mind. Relations who could have helped me I had none, and nothing
+remained to me but to work for others. Indeed my want of money soon
+began to cause me very serious anxiety in Paris. Little as I spent, my
+funds became lower and lower. I did not, like many other scholars,
+receive help from my Government. I had mapped out my course for
+myself, and instead of taking to teaching on leaving the University,
+had settled to come to Paris and continue my Sanskrit studies, and it
+was in my own hands whether I should swim or sink. It was, indeed, a
+hard struggle, far harder than those who have known me in later life
+would believe. All I could do to earn a little money was to copy and
+collate MSS. for other people. I might indeed have given private
+lessons, but I have always had a strong objection to that form of
+drudgery, and would rather sit up a whole night copying than give an
+hour to my pupils. My plan was as follows: to sit up the whole of one
+night, to take about three hours’ rest the next night, but without
+undressing, and then to take a good night’s rest the third night, and
+start over again. It was a hard fight, and cannot have been very good
+for me physically, but I do not regret it now.
+
+Often did I go without my dinner, being quite satisfied with boiled
+eggs and bread and butter, which I could have at home without toiling
+down and toiling up five flights of stairs that led to my room.
+Sometimes I went with some of my young friends _hors de la barrière_,
+that is, outside Paris, outside the barrier where the _octroi_ has to
+be paid on meat, wine, &c. Here the food was certainly better for the
+price I could afford to pay, but the society was sometimes peculiar. I
+remember once seeing a strange lady sitting not very far from me, who
+was the well-known Louve of Eugène Sue’s _Mystères de Paris_. One of
+my companions on these expeditions was Karl de Schloezer, who was then
+studying Arabic in Paris. He was always cheerful and amusing, and a
+delightful companion. He knew much more of the world than I did, and
+often surprised me by his diplomatic wisdom. “Let us stand up for each
+other,” he said one day; “you say all the good you can of me, I saying
+all the good I can of you.” I became very fierce at the time, charging
+him with hypocrisy and I do not know what. He, however, took it all in
+good part, and we remained friends all the time he was at Paris, and
+indeed to the day of his death. He was very fond of music, but I was,
+perhaps, the better performer on the pianoforte. He had invited me, a
+violin, and violoncello, to play some of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s
+Sonatas. Alas! when we found that he murdered his part, I sat down and
+played the whole evening, leaving him to listen, not, I fear, in the
+best of moods. He took his revenge, however; and the next time he
+asked me and the two other musicians to his room, we found indeed
+everything ready for us to play, but our host was nowhere to be found.
+He maintained that he had been called away; I am certain, however,
+that the little trick was played on purpose.
+
+He afterwards entered the Prussian diplomatic service and was the
+protégé of the Princess of Prussia, afterwards the Empress of Germany.
+That was enough to make Bismarck dislike him, and when Schloezer
+served as Secretary of Legation under Bismarck as Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg, he committed the outrage of challenging his chief to a
+duel. Bismarck declined, nor would it, according to diplomatic
+etiquette, have been possible for him not to decline. Later on,
+however, Schloezer was placed _en disponibilité_, that is to say, he
+was politely dismissed. He had to pay a kind of farewell visit to
+Bismarck, who was then omnipotent. Being asked by Bismarck what he
+intended to do, and whether he could be of any service to him,
+Schloezer said very quietly, “Yes, your Excellency, I shall take to
+writing my Memoirs, and you know that I have seen much in my time
+which many people will be interested to learn.” Bismarck was quiet for
+a time, looking at some papers, and then remarked quite unconcernedly,
+“You would not care to go to the United States as Minister?” “I am
+ready to go to-morrow,” replied Schloezer, and having carried his
+point, having in fact outwitted Bismarck, he started at once for
+Washington. Bismarck knew that Schloezer could wield a sharp pen, and
+there was a time when he was sensitive to such pen-pricks. They did
+not see much of each other afterwards, but, owing to the protection of
+the Empress, Schloezer was later accredited as Prussian envoy to the
+Pope, and died too soon for his friends in beautiful Italy.
+
+One of my oldest friends at Paris was a Baron d’Eckstein, a kind of
+diplomatic agent who knew everybody in Paris, and wrote for the
+newspapers, French and German. He had, I believe, a pension from the
+French Government, and was, as a Roman Catholic, strongly allied with
+the Clerical Party. This did not concern me. What concerned me was his
+love of Sanskrit and the ancient religion of India. He would sit with
+me for hours, or take me to dine with him at a restaurant, discussing
+all the time the Vedas and the Upanishad and the Vedanta philosophy.
+There are several articles of his written at this time in the _Journal
+Asiatique_, and I was especially grateful to him, for he gave me
+plenty of work to do, particularly in the way of copying Sanskrit MSS.
+for him, and he paid me well and so helped me to keep afloat in Paris.
+Knowing as he did everybody, he was very anxious to introduce me to
+his friends, such as George Sand, Lamennais, the Comtesse d’Agoult
+(Daniel Stern), Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and others; but I much
+preferred half an hour with him or with Burnouf to paying formal
+visits. I heard afterwards many unkind things about Baron
+d’Eckstein’s political and clerical opinions, but though in becoming a
+convert to Roman Catholicism he may have shown weakness, and as a
+political writer may have been influenced by his near friends and
+patrons, I never found him otherwise than kind, tolerant, and
+trustworthy. His life was to have been written by Professor
+Windischmann, but he too died; and who knows what may have become of
+the curious memoirs which he left? At the time of the February
+revolution in 1848, he was in the very midst of it. He knew Lamartine,
+who was the hero of the day, though of a few days only. He attended
+meetings with Lamartine, Odilon, Barrot, and others, and he assured me
+that there would be no revolution, because nobody was prepared for it.
+
+Lamartine who had been asked by his friends, all of them royalists and
+friends of order, whether he would, in case of necessity, undertake to
+form a ministry under the Duchesse d’Orléans as regent, scouted such
+an idea at first, but at last promised to be ready if he were wanted.
+The time came sooner than he expected, and the Duchesse d’Orléans
+counted on him when she went to the Chamber and her Regency was
+proclaimed. Lamartine was then so popular that he might have saved the
+situation. But the mob broke into the Chamber, shots were fired, and
+there was no Lamartine. The Duchesse d’Orléans had to fly, and
+fortunately escaped under the protection of the Duc de Nemours, the
+only son of Louis Philippe then in Paris, and the dynasty of the
+Orléans was lost—never to return. Baron d’Eckstein lost many of his
+influential friends at that time, possibly his pension also, but he
+had enough to live upon, and he died at last as a very old man in a
+Roman Catholic monastery, a most interesting and charming man, whose
+memoirs would certainly have been very valuable.
+
+But to return to Burnouf, I never can adequately express my debt of
+gratitude to him. He was of the greatest assistance to me in clearing
+my thoughts and directing them into one channel. “Either one thing or
+the other,” he said. “Either study Indian philosophy and begin with
+the Upanishads and Sankara’s commentary, or study Indian religion and
+keep to the Rig-veda, and copy the hymns and Sâyana’s commentary, and
+then you will be our great benefactor.” A great benefactor! that was
+too much for me, a mere dwarf in the presence of giants. But Burnouf’s
+words confirmed me more and more in my desire to give myself up to the
+Veda.
+
+Burnouf told me not only what Vedic MSS. there were at the
+Bibliothèque Royale, he also brought me his own MSS. and lent them to
+me to copy, with the condition, however, that I should not smoke while
+working at them. He himself did not smoke, and could not bear the
+smell of smoke, and he showed me several of his MSS. which had become
+quite useless to him, because they smelt of stale tobacco smoke. I
+did all I could to guard these sacred treasures against such
+profanation.
+
+Another and even more useful warning came to me from Burnouf. “Don’t
+publish extracts from the commentary only,” he said; “if you do, you
+will publish what is easy to read, and leave out what is difficult.” I
+certainly thought that extracts would be sufficient, but I soon found
+out that here also Burnouf was right, though there was always the fear
+that I should never find a publisher for so immense a work. This fear
+I confided to Burnouf, but he always maintained his hopeful view. “The
+commentary must be published, depend upon it, and it will be,” he
+said.
+
+So I stuck to it and went on copying and collating my Sanskrit MSS.,
+always trusting that a publisher would turn up at the proper time. I
+had, of course, to do all the drudgery for myself, and I soon found
+out that it was not in human nature, at least not in my nature, to
+copy Sanskrit from a MS. even for three or four hours without
+mistakes. To my great disappointment I found mistakes whenever I
+collated my copy with the original. I found that like the copyists of
+classical MSS. my eye had wandered from one line to another where the
+same word occurred, that I had left out a word when the next word
+ended with the same termination, nay that I had even left out whole
+lines. Hence I had either to collate my own copy, which was very
+tedious, or invent some new process. This new process I discovered by
+using transparent paper, and thus tracing every letter. I had some
+excellent _papier végétal_ made for me, and, instead of copying,
+traced the whole Sanskrit MS. This had the great advantage that
+nothing could be left out, and that when the original was smudged and
+doubtful I could carefully trace whatever was clear and visible
+through the transparent paper. At first I confess my work was slow,
+but soon it went as rapidly as copying, and it was even less fatiguing
+to the eyes than the constant looking from the MS. to the copy, and
+from the copy to the MS. But the most important advantage was, that I
+could thus feel quite certain that nothing was left out, so that even
+now, after more than fifty years, these tracings are as useful to me
+as the MS. itself. There was room left between the lines or on the
+margin to note the various readings of other MSS.; in fact, my
+materials grew both in extent and in value.
+
+Still there remained the question of a publisher. To print the
+Rig-veda in six volumes quarto of about a thousand pages each, and to
+provide the editor with a living wage during the many years he would
+have to devote to his task, required a large capital. I do not know
+exactly how much, but what I do know is that, when a second edition of
+the text of the Veda in four volumes was printed at the expense of the
+Maharajah of Vizianagram, it cost that generous and patriotic prince
+four thousand pounds, though I then gave my work gratuitously.
+
+While I was working at the Bibliothèque Royale, Humboldt had used his
+powerful influence with the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to
+help me in publishing my edition of the Rig-veda in Germany. Nothing,
+however, came of that plan; it proved too costly for any private
+publisher, even with royal assistance.
+
+Then came a vague offer from St. Petersburg. Boehtlingk, the great
+Sanskrit scholar, as a member of the Imperial Russian Academy, invited
+me to come to St. Petersburg and print the Veda there, in
+collaboration with himself, and at the expense of the Academy. Burnouf
+and Goldstücker both warned me against accepting this offer, but,
+hopeless as I was of getting my Veda published elsewhere, I expressed
+my willingness to go on condition that some provision should be made
+for me before I decided to migrate to Russia, as I possessed
+absolutely nothing but what I was able to earn myself. Boehtlingk, I
+believe, suggested to the Academy that I should be appointed Assistant
+Keeper of the Oriental Museum at St. Petersburg, but his colleagues
+did not apparently consider so young a man, and a mere German scholar,
+a fit candidate for so responsible a post. Boehtlingk wished me to
+send him all my materials, and he would get the MSS. of the Rig-veda
+and of Sâyana’s commentary from the Library of the East India Company,
+and Paris. No definite proposition, however, came from the Imperial
+Academy, but an announcement of Boehtlingk’s appeared in the papers
+in January, 1846, to the effect that he was preparing, in
+collaboration with Monsieur Max Müller of Paris, a complete edition of
+the Rig-veda.
+
+All this, I confess, began to frighten me. For me, a poor scholar, to
+go to St. Petersburg without any official invitation, without any
+appointment, seemed reckless, and though I have no doubt that
+Boehtlingk would have done his best for me, yet even he could only
+suggest private lessons, and that was no cheerful outlook. The Academy
+would do nothing for me unless I joined Boehtlingk, but at last
+offered to buy my materials, on which I had spent so much labour and
+the small fund at my disposal. If the Academy could have got the
+necessary MSS. from Paris and London, I should have been perfectly
+helpless. Boehtlingk could have done the whole work himself, in some
+respects better than I, because he was my senior, and besides, he knew
+Pânini, the old Indian grammarian who is constantly referred to in
+Sâyana’s Commentary, better than I did. With all these threatening
+clouds around me, my decision was by no means easy.
+
+It was Burnouf’s advice that determined me to remain quietly in Paris.
+He warned me repeatedly against trusting to Boehtlingk, and promised,
+if I would only stay in Paris, to give me his support with Guizot, who
+was then Minister for Foreign Affairs, and very much interested in
+Oriental studies.
+
+Boehtlingk seems never to have forgiven me, and he and several of his
+friends were highly displeased at my ultimate success in securing a
+publisher for the Rig-veda in England. Their language was most
+unbecoming, and they tried, and actually urged other Sanskrit
+scholars, to criticize my edition, though I must say to their credit
+that they afterwards confessed that it was all that could be desired.
+
+Many years later, Boehtlingk published a violent attack on me,
+entitled _F. Max Müller als Mythendichter_, but I thought it
+unnecessary to take up the dispute, and preferred to leave my friends
+to judge for themselves between me and this propounder of accusations,
+the legitimacy of which he was utterly unable to establish. However,
+as I discovered later that he accused me of having acted
+discourteously towards the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, with
+whom I had never had any direct dealings, and stated that he had
+prevented that illustrious body from ever making me a corresponding
+member, I thought it right to offer an explanation to the Secretary,
+and I have in my possession his reply, in which he wrote that there
+was no foundation whatever for Professor Boehtlingk’s statements.
+
+However, the outcome of it was that I did not go to St. Petersburg,
+but went on with my work at the Library in Paris, till one day I found
+it necessary to run over to London, to copy and collate certain MSS.,
+and there I found the long-sought-for benefactors, who were to enable
+me to carry out the work of my life.
+
+Of course, during my stay in Paris there was no idea of my going into
+society, or of buying tickets for theatres or concerts. I went out to
+dinner at some small restaurant, but otherwise I remained at home, and
+viewed Paris life from my high windows, looking out on the Chambre des
+Députés on one side, the Madeleine close to me on the left, and the
+Porte St. Martin far away at the end of the Boulevards. Baron
+d’Eckstein, as I have said, was willing to introduce me into society,
+but I refused his kind offers. In fact, I was more or less of a bear,
+and I now regret having missed meeting many interesting characters,
+and having kept aloof from others, because my interests were absorbed
+elsewhere. Burnouf asked me sometimes to his house; so did a Monsieur
+Troyer, who had been in India and published some Sanskrit texts, and
+whose daughter, the Duchesse de Wagram, made much of me, as she was
+very fond of music. There were some German families also, some rich,
+some poor, who showed me great kindness.
+
+I was too much oppressed with cares and anxieties about my life and my
+literary plans to think much of society and enjoyment. Even of the
+students and student life I saw but little, though I was actually
+attending lectures with them. I must say, however, 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 extravagances. A
+Frenchman, if he once begins to work, can work and does work very
+hard. I remember seeing several instances of this, but it is possible
+that I may have seen the pick of the Quartier Latin only. One who was
+then a young man, preparing for the Church, but already with an eye to
+higher flights, was Renan. At first he still looked upon all young
+Germans with suspicion, but this feeling soon disappeared. I remember
+him chiefly at the Bibliothèque Royale, where he had a very small
+place in the Oriental Department. Hase, the Greek scholar, Reinaud,
+the Arabist, and Stanislas Julien, the Sinologue, were librarians
+then. Hase, a German by birth, was most obliging, but he was greatly
+afraid of speaking German, and insisted on our always speaking French
+to him. Often did he call Renan to fetch MSS. for me: “Renan,” he
+would call out very loudly, “allez chercher, pour Monsieur Max Müller,
+le manuscrit sanscrit, numéro ...,” and then followed a pause, till he
+had translated “1637” into French. In later years Renan and I became
+great friends, but we German scholars were often puzzled at his great
+popularity, which certainly was owing to his style more even than to
+his scholarship. Some time later, when I was already established in
+England, we had a little controversy, and I printed a rather fierce
+attack on his _Grammaire Sémitique_. But we were intimate enough for
+me to show him my pamphlet, and when he wrote to me, “Pardonnez-moi,
+je n’ai pas compris ce que vous vouliez dire,” I suppressed the
+pamphlet, though it was printed, and we remained friends for life. He
+translated my first article on Comparative Mythology, and I had a
+number of most interesting letters from him. It was his wife who did
+the translation, while he revised it. That French pamphlet is very
+scarce now; my own pamphlet was entirely suppressed; even I myself can
+find no copy of it among the rubbish of my early writings, and what I
+regret most, I threw away his letters, not thinking how interesting
+they would become in time.
+
+With all my work, however, I found time to attend some lectures at the
+Collège de France, and to make the acquaintance of some distinguished
+French _savants_ of the _Institut_. I went there with Burnouf, or
+Stanislas Julien, or Reinaud, little dreaming that I should some day
+belong to the same august body. Many of my young French friends, who
+afterwards became _Membres de l’Institut_, rose to that dignity much
+later. I was made not only a corresponding, but a real member of the
+Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1869, before my
+friends, such as G. Perrot 1874, Michel Bréal 1875, Gaston Paris 1876,
+and Jules Oppert 1881, occupied their well-merited academical
+_fauteuils_. The struggle when I was elected in 1869 was a serious
+one; it was between Mommsen and myself, between classical and Oriental
+scholarship, and for once Oriental scholarship carried the day.
+Mommsen, however, was elected in 1895, and there can be little doubt
+that his strong and outspoken political antipathies had something to
+do with the late date of his election.
+
+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 expected.
+Though I was able to express myself _tant bien que mal_, I have always
+felt hampered in a long conversation. Of course, the French themselves
+have always been polite enough to say that they could not have
+detected that I was a German, but I knew better than that, and never
+have I, even in later years, gained a perfect conversational command
+of that difficult language.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND
+
+
+While working in Paris I constantly felt the want of some essential
+MSS. which were at the Library of the East India Company in London,
+and my desire to visit England consequently grew stronger and
+stronger; but I had not the wherewithal to pay for the journey, much
+less for a stay of even a fortnight in London. At last (June, 1846) I
+thought that I had scraped together enough to warrant my starting. At
+that time I had never seen the sea, and I was very desirous of doing
+so. I well remember my unbounded rapture at my first sight of the
+silver stream, and like Xenophon’s Greeks I could have shouted,
+θἁλαττα, θἁλαττα. Once on board my rapture soon collapsed and was
+succeeded by that well-known feeling of misery which I have so
+frequently experienced since then, and I huddled myself up in a corner
+of the deck.
+
+There a young fellow-traveller saw the poor bundle of misery, and
+tried to comfort me, and brought me what he thought was good for me,
+not, however, without a certain merry twinkle in his eye and a few
+kindly jokes at my expense. We landed at the docks in London, a real
+drizzly day, rain and mist, and such a crowd rushing on shore that I
+missed my cheerful friend and felt quite lost. In addition to all this
+a porter had run away with my portmanteau, which contained my books
+and MSS., in fact all my worldly goods. At that moment my young friend
+reappeared, and seeing the plight I was in, came to my assistance.
+“You stay here,” he said, “and I will arrange everything for you;” and
+so he did. He fetched a four-wheeler, put my luggage on the top,
+bundled me inside, and drove with me through a maze of London streets
+to his rooms in the Temple. Then, still knowing nothing about me, he
+asked me to spend the night in his rooms, gave me a bed and everything
+else I wanted for the night. The next morning he took me out to look
+for lodgings, which we found in Essex Street, a small street leading
+out of the Strand.
+
+The room which I took was almost entirely filled by an immense
+four-post bed. I had never seen such a structure before, and during
+the first night that I slept in it, I was in constant fear that the
+top of the bed would fall and smother me as in the German _Märchen_.
+When the landlady came in to see me in the morning, after asking how I
+had slept, the first thing she said was, “But, sir, don’t you want
+another ‘pillar’?” I looked bewildered, and said: “Why, what shall I
+do with another pillar? and where will you put it?” She then touched
+the pillows under my head and said, “Well, sir, you shall have
+another ‘pillar’ to-morrow.” “How shall I ever learn English,” I said
+to myself, “if a ‘pillar’ means really a soft pillow?”
+
+But to return to my unknown friend, he came every day to show me
+things which I ought to see in London, and brought me tickets for
+theatres and concerts, which he said were sent to him. His name was
+William Howard Russell, endeared to so many, high and low, under the
+name of “Billy” Russell, the first and most brilliant
+war-correspondent of _The Times_ during the Crimean War. He remained
+my warm and true friend through life, and even now when we are both
+cripples, we delight in meeting and talking over very distant days.
+
+I had come over to London expecting to stay about a fortnight, but I
+had been there working at the Library in Leadenhall Street for nearly
+a month, and my work was far from done, when I thought that I ought to
+call and pay my respects to the Prussian Minister, Baron Bunsen. I
+little thought at the time when I was ushered into his presence that
+this acquaintance was to become the turning-point of my life. If I
+owed much to Burnouf, how can I tell what I owed to Bunsen? I was
+amazed at the kindness with which from the very first he received me.
+I had no claim whatever on him, and I had as yet done very little as a
+scholar. It is true that he had known my father in Italy, and that
+Humboldt, with his usual kindness, had written him a strong letter of
+recommendation on my behalf, but that was hardly sufficient reason to
+account for the real friendship with which he at once honoured me.
+
+Baroness Bunsen, in the life of her husband, writes: “The kindred
+mind, their sympathy of heart, the unity in highest aspirations, a
+congeniality in principles, a fellowship in the pursuit of favourite
+objects, which attracted and bound Bunsen to his young friend (i. e.
+myself), rendered this connexion one of the happiest of his life.” I
+am proud to think it was so.
+
+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
+life, namely, the _editio princeps_ of the Rig-veda. Often has he told
+me how, at the time when he was prosecuting his studies at Göttingen,
+the very existence of such a book was unknown as yet in Germany. The
+name of Veda had no doubt been known, and there was a halo of mystery
+about it, as the oldest book of the world. But what it was and where
+it was to be found no one could tell. Mr. Astor, a pupil of Bunsen’s
+at Göttingen, had arranged to take Bunsen to India to carry on his
+researches there. But Bunsen waited and waited in Italy, till at last,
+after maintaining himself by giving private lessons, he went to Rome,
+was taken up by Brandes and Niebuhr, the Prussian Ambassador there,
+became the friend of the future Frederick William IV, and thus
+gradually drifted into diplomacy, giving up all hopes of discovering
+or rescuing the Rig-veda.
+
+People have hardly any idea now, how, in spite of the East India
+Company conquering and governing India, India itself remained a _terra
+incognita_, unapproachable by the students of England and of Europe.
+That there were literary treasures to be discovered in India, that the
+Brahmans were the depositaries of ancient wisdom, was known through
+the labours of some of the most eminent servants of the East India
+Company. It had been known even before, through the interesting
+communications of Roman Catholic missionaries in India, that the
+manuscripts themselves, at least those of the Veda, were not
+forthcoming. Even as late as the times of Sir W. Jones, Colebrooke,
+and Professor Wilson, the Brahmans were most unwilling to part with
+MSS. of the Veda, except the Upanishads. Professor Wilson told me that
+once, when examining the library of a native Râjah, he came across
+some MSS. of the Rig-veda, and began turning them over; but “I
+observed,” he said, “the ominous and threatening looks of some of the
+Brahmans present, and thought it wiser to beat a retreat.” Dr. Mill
+had known of a gentleman who had a very sacred hymn of the Veda, the
+Gayatri, printed at Calcutta. The Brahmans were furious at this
+profanation, and when the gentleman died soon after, they looked upon
+his premature death as the vengeance of the offended gods.
+Colebrooke, however, was allowed to possess himself of several most
+valuable Vedic MSS., and he found Brahmans quite ready to read with
+him, not only the classical texts, but also portions of the Veda.
+“They do not even,” he writes, “conceal from us the most sacred texts
+of the Veda.” His own essays on the Veda appeared in the _Asiatic
+Researches_ as early as 1801. But people went on dreaming about the
+Veda, instead of reading Colebrooke’s essays.
+
+It was curious, however, that at the time when I prepared my edition
+of the Rig-veda, Vedic scholarship was at a very low ebb in Bengal
+itself, and there were few Brahmans there who knew the whole of the
+Rig-veda by heart, as they still did in the South of India.
+Manuscripts were never considered in India as of very high authority;
+they were always over-ruled by the oral traditions of certain schools.
+However, such manuscripts, good and bad, but mostly bad, existed, and
+after a time some of them reached England, France, and even Germany.
+Portions of those in Berlin and Paris I had copied and collated, so
+that I could show Bunsen the very book which he had been in search of
+in his youth. This opened his heart to me as well as the doors of his
+house. “I am glad,” he said, “to have lived to see the Veda. Whatever
+you want, let me know; I look upon you as myself grown young again.”
+And he did help me, as only a father can help his son.
+
+Perhaps he expected too much from the Veda, as many other people did
+at that time, and before the _verba ipsissima_ were printed. As the
+oldest book that ever was composed, the Veda was supposed to give us a
+picture of what man was in his most primitive state, with his most
+primitive ideas, and his most primitive language. Everybody interested
+in the origin and the first development of language, thought,
+religion, and social institutions, looked forward to the Veda as a new
+revelation. All such dreams, natural enough before the Veda was known,
+were dispersed by my laying sacrilegious hands on the Veda itself, and
+actually publishing it, making it public property, to the dismay of
+the Brahmans in India, and to the delight of all Sanskrit scholars in
+Europe. The learned essays of Colebrooke in India, and the extracts
+published by Rosen, the Oriental librarian of the British Museum,
+might indeed have taught people that the Veda was not a book without
+any antecedents, that it would not tell us the secrets of Adam and
+Eve, or of Deukalion and Pyrrha. I myself had both said and written
+that the Veda, like an old oak tree, shows hundreds and thousands of
+circles within circles; and yet I was afterwards held responsible for
+having excited the wildest hopes among archaeologists, when I had done
+my best, if not to destroy them, at all events to reduce them to their
+proper level. Schelling seemed quite disappointed when I showed him
+some of the translations of the hymns of the Rig-veda; and Bunsen,
+who was still under Schelling’s influence, had evidently expected a
+great many more of such philosophical hymns as the famous one
+beginning:
+
+“There was not nought nor was there aught at that time.”
+
+To the scholar, no doubt, the Veda remained and always will remain the
+oldest of real books, that has been preserved to us in an almost
+miraculous way. By book, however, as I often explained, I mean a book
+divided into chapters and verses, having a beginning and an end, and
+handed down to us in an alphabetic form of writing. China may have
+possessed older books in a half phonetic, half symbolic writing; Egypt
+certainly possessed older hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri;
+Babylon had its cuneiform monuments; and certain portions of the Old
+Testament may have existed in a written form at the time of Josiah,
+when Hilkiah, the high priest, found the law book in the sanctuary (2
+Kings xxii. 8). But the Veda, with its ten books or _Mandalas_, its
+1017 hymns or _Suktas_, with every consonant and vowel and accent
+plainly written, was a different thing. It may safely be called a
+book. No doubt it existed for a long time, as it does even at present,
+in oral tradition, but as it was in tradition, so it was when reduced
+to writing, and in either form I doubt whether any other real book can
+rival it in antiquity. More important, however, than the purely
+chronological antiquity of the book, is the antiquity or primitiveness
+of the thoughts which it contains. If the people of the Veda did not
+turn out to be quite such savages as was hoped and expected, they
+nevertheless disclosed to us a layer of thought which can be explored
+nowhere else. The Vedic poets were not ashamed of exposing their fear
+that the sun might tumble down from the sky, and there are no other
+poets, as far as I know, who still trembled at the same not quite
+unnatural thought. Nor do I find even savages who still wonder and
+express their surprise that black cows should produce white milk. Is
+not that childish enough for any ancient or modern savage? Mere
+chronology is here of as little avail as with modern savages, whose
+customs and beliefs, though known as but of yesterday, are represented
+to us as older than the Veda, older than Babylonian cylinders, older
+than anything written. When certain modern savages recognize the
+relationship of paternity, maternity, and consanguinity, this is
+called very ancient. If they admit traditional restrictions as to
+marriage, food, the treatment of the dead, nay, even a life to come,
+this too, no doubt, may be very old; but it may be of yesterday also.
+There are even quite new gods, whose genesis has been watched by
+living missionaries. The great difficulty in all such researches is to
+distinguish between what is common to human nature, and what is really
+inherited or traditional. All such questions have only as yet been
+touched upon, and they must wait for their answer till real scholars
+will take up the study of the language of living savages, in the same
+scholarlike spirit in which they have taken up the study of Vedic and
+Babylonian savages. But we must have patience and learn to wait. 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 civilized. It may safely be said of this
+as of other mere ideas, that it may be true, but that there is no
+evidence to show that it is true. At all events it takes much for
+granted, and neglects, as it would seem, the very lessons which the
+theory of evolution has taught us. It is the nature of evolution to be
+continuous, and not to proceed _per saltum_. Therein lies the beauty
+of genealogical evolution that we can recognize the fibres which
+connect the upper strata with the lower, till we strike the lowest, or
+at least that which contains what seem to be the seeds and germs of
+early thoughts, words, and acts. We can trace the most modern forms of
+language back to Sanskrit, or rather to that postulated linguistic
+stratum of which Sanskrit formed the most prominent representative,
+just as we can trace the French _Dieu_ back to Latin _Deus_ and
+Sanskrit _Devas_, the brilliant beings behind the phenomena of nature;
+and again behind them, _Dyaus_, the brilliant sky, the Greek _Zeus_,
+the Roman _Iovis_ and _Iuppiter_, the most natural of all the Aryan
+gods of nature. This is real evolution, a real causal nexus between
+the present and the past. It used to be called history or pragmatic
+history, whether we take history in the sense of the description of
+evolution, or in that of evolution itself. History has generally to
+begin with the present, to go back to the past, and to point out the
+palpable steps by which the past became again and again the present.
+Evolution, on the contrary, prefers to begin with the distant past, to
+postulate formations, even if they have left no traces, and to speak
+of those almost imperceptible changes by which the postulated past
+became the perceptible present, as not only necessary, but as real.
+Perhaps the difference is of no importance, but the historical method
+seems certainly the more accurate, and the more satisfactory from a
+purely scientific point of view.
+
+In all such evolutionary researches language has always been the most
+useful instrument, 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 principles. Here, too, no doubt,
+intermediate links which must have existed, are sometimes lost beyond
+recovery, and when we arrive at the very roots of language, we feel
+that there may have been whole aeons before that radical period. Here
+science must recognize her inevitable horizons, but here again no
+surviving literary monument could carry us so far as the Veda. Hence
+its supreme importance for Aryan philology—for the philology of the
+most important languages of historical mankind. Other languages,
+whether Babylonian or Accadian, whether Hottentot or Maori, may be,
+for all we know, much more ancient or much more primitive; but, as
+scientific explorers, we can only speak of what we know, and we must
+renounce all conjectures that go beyond facts.
+
+In all these researches no one took a livelier interest and encouraged
+me more than Bunsen. When some of my translations of the Vedic hymns
+seemed fairly satisfactory, I used to take them to him, and he was
+always delighted at seeing a little more of that ancient Aryan torso,
+though at the time he was more specially interested in Egyptian
+chronology and archaeology. Often when I was alone with him did we
+discuss the chronological and psychological dates of Egyptian and
+Aryan antiquity. Kind-hearted as he was, Bunsen could get very
+excited, nay, quite violent in arguing, and though these fits soon
+passed off, yet it made discussions between His Excellency the
+Prussian Minister and a young German scholar somewhat difficult. At
+that time much less was known of the earliest Egyptian chronology than
+is now. But I was never much impressed by mere dates. If a king was
+supposed to have lived 5,000 years before our era, “What is that to
+us?” I used to say, “He sits on his throne _in vacuo_, and there is
+nothing to fix him by, nothing contemporary which alone gives interest
+to history. In India we have no dates; but whatever dates and names of
+kings and accounts of battles the Egyptian inscriptions may give us,
+as a book there is nothing so old in Egypt as the Veda in India.
+Besides, we have in the Veda thoughts; and in the chronology of
+thought the Veda seems to me older than even the Book of the Dead.”
+
+As to the actual date of the Veda, I readily granted that
+chronologically it was not so old as the pyramids, but supposing it
+had been, would that in any way have increased its value for our
+studies? If we were to place it at 5000 B. C., I doubt whether anybody
+could refute such a date, while if we go back beyond the Veda, and
+come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit and of
+the Proto-Aryan language I doubt very much whether even 5,000 years
+would suffice for that. There is an unfathomable depth in language,
+layer following after layer, long before we arrive at roots, and what
+a time and what an effort must have been required for their
+elaboration, and for the elaboration of the ideas expressed in them.
+
+Our battles waxed sometimes very fierce, but we generally ended by
+arriving at an understanding. As a young man, Bunsen had clearly
+perceived the importance of the Veda for an historical study of
+mankind and the growth of the human mind, but he was not discouraged
+when he saw that it gave us less than had been expected. “It is a
+fortress,” he used to say, “that must be besieged and taken, it cannot
+be left in our rear.” But he little knew how much time it would take
+to approach it, to surround it, and at last to take it. It has not
+been surrendered even now, and will not be in my time. It is true
+there are several translations of the whole of the Rig-veda, and their
+authors deserve the highest credit for what they have done. People
+have wondered why I have not given one of them in my Sacred Books of
+the East. I thought it was more honest to give, in co-operation with
+Oldenburg, specimens only in vols. xxxii and xlvi of that series, and
+let it be seen in the notes how much uncertainty there still is, and
+how much more of hard work is required, before we can call ourselves
+masters of the old Vedic fortress.
+
+Bunsen’s interest in my work, however, took a more practical turn than
+mere encouragement. It was no good encouraging me to copy and collate
+Sanskrit MSS. if they were not to be published. He saw that the East
+India Company were the proper body to undertake that work. Bunsen’s
+name was a power in England, and his patronage was the very best
+introduction that I could have had. It was no easy task to persuade
+the Board of Directors—all strictly practical and commercial men—to
+authorize so considerable an expenditure, merely to edit and print an
+old book that none of them could understand, and many of them had
+perhaps never even heard of. Bunsen pointed out what a disgrace it
+would be to them, if some other country than England published this
+edition of the Sacred Books of the Brahmans.
+
+Professor Wilson, Librarian of the Company, also gave my project his
+support, and at last, not quite a year after my arrival in England,
+after a long struggle and many fears of failure, it was settled that
+the East India Company were to bear the cost of printing the Veda, and
+were meanwhile to enable me to stay in London, and prepare my work for
+press.
+
+I had already been working five years copying and collating, and my
+first volume of the Rig-veda was progressing, but it was only when all
+was settled that I realized how much there was still to do, and that I
+should have very hard work indeed before the printing could begin. I
+must enter into some details to show the real difficulties I had to
+face.
+
+I felt convinced that the first thing to do was to publish a correct
+text of the Rig-veda. That was not so difficult, though it brought me
+the greatest kudos. The MSS. were very correct, and the text could
+easily be restored by comparing the Pada and Sanhitâ texts, i. e. the
+text in which every word was separated, and the text in which the
+words were united according to the rules of Sandhi. Anybody might have
+done that, yet this, as I said, was the part of my work for which I
+have received the greatest praise.
+
+When my edition of the Rig-veda containing text and commentary was
+nearly finished, another scholar, who had assisted me in my work, and
+who had always had the use of my MSS., my Indices, in fact of the
+whole of my _apparatus criticus_, published a transcript of the text
+in Latin letters, and thus anticipated part of the last volume of my
+edition. His friends, who were perhaps not mine, seemed delighted to
+call him the first editor of the Rig-veda, though they ceased to do so
+when they discovered misprints or mistakes of my own edition repeated
+in his. He himself was far above such tactics. He knew, and they knew
+perfectly well that, whatever the _vulgus profanum_ may think, my real
+work was the critical edition of Sâyana’s commentary on the Rig-veda.
+I had determined that this also should be edited according to the
+strictest rules of criticism. I knew what an amount of labour that
+would involve, but I refused to yield to the pressure of my colleagues
+to proceed more quickly but less critically.
+
+Sâyana quotes a number of Sanskrit works which, at the time when I
+began my edition, had not yet been edited. Such were the Nirukta, the
+glossary of the Rig-veda; the Aitareya-brâhmana, a very old
+explanation of the Vedic sacrifice; the Âsvalâyana Sûtras, on the
+ceremonial; and sundry works of the same character. Sâyana generally
+alludes very briefly only to these works and presupposes that they are
+known to us, so that a short reference would suffice for his purposes.
+To find such references and to understand them required, however, not
+only that I should copy these works, which I did, but that I should
+make indices and thus be able to find the place of the passages to
+which he alluded. This I did also, but over and over again was I
+stopped by some short enigmatical reference to Pânini’s grammar or
+Yaska’s glossary, which I could not identify. All these references are
+now added to my edition, and those who will look them up in the
+originals, will see what kind of work it was which I had to do before
+a single line of my edition could be printed. How often was I in
+perfect despair, because there was some allusion in Sâyana which I
+could not make out, and which no other Sanskrit scholar, not even
+Burnouf or Wilson, could help me to clear up. It often took me whole
+days, nay, weeks, before I saw light. A good deal of the commentary
+was easy enough. It was like marching on the high road, when suddenly
+there rises a fortress that has to be taken before any further advance
+is to be thought of. In the purely mechanical part other men could and
+did help me. But whenever any real difficulty arose, I had to face it
+by myself, though after a time I gladly acknowledged that here, too,
+their advice was often valuable to me. In fact I found, and all my
+assistants seemed to have found out the same, that if they were
+useful to me, the work they did for me was useful to them, and I am
+proud to say that nearly all of them have afterwards risen to great
+prominence in Sanskrit scholarship. From time to time I also worked at
+interpreting and translating some of the Vedic hymns, though I had
+always hoped that this part of the work would be taken up by other
+scholars.
+
+Bunsen was also my social sponsor in London, and my first peeps into
+English society were at the Prussian Legation. He often invited me to
+his breakfast and dinner parties, and when I saw for the first time
+the magnificent rooms crowded with ministers, and dukes, and bishops,
+and with ladies in their grandest dresses, I was as in a dream, and
+felt as if I had been lifted into another world. Men were pointed out
+to me such as Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Van der Weyer,
+the Belgian Minister, Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David’s and author of
+the _History of Greece_, Archdeacon Hare, Frederick Maurice, and many
+more whom I did not know then, though I came to know several of them
+afterwards. Anybody who had anything of his own to produce was welcome
+in Bunsen’s house, and among the men whom I remember meeting at his
+breakfast parties, were Rawlinson, Layard, Hodgson, Birch, and many
+more. Those breakfast parties were then quite a new institution to me,
+and it is curious how entirely they have gone out of fashion, though
+Sir Harry Inglis, Member for Oxford, Gladstone, Member for Oxford,
+Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), kept them up to the last,
+while in Oxford they survived perhaps longer than anywhere else. They
+had one great advantage, people came to them quite fresh in the
+morning; but they broke too much into the day, particularly when, as
+at Oxford, they ended with beer, champagne, and cigars, as was
+sometimes the case in undergraduates’ rooms.
+
+How I was able to swim in that new stream, I can hardly understand
+even now. I had been quite unaccustomed to this kind of society, and
+was ignorant of its simplest rules. Bunsen, however, was never put out
+by my gaucheries, but gave me friendly hints in feeling my way through
+what seemed to me a perfect labyrinth. He told me that I had offended
+people by not returning their calls, or not leaving a card after
+having dined with them, paying the so-called digestion-visit to them.
+How should I know? Nobody had ever told me, and I thought it obtrusive
+to call. Nor did I know that in England to touch fish with a knife, or
+to help yourself to potatoes with a fork, was as fatal as to drop or
+put in an _h_. 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
+fork, often scattering it over your plate and possibly over the
+table-cloth. I must confess also that fish-knives always seemed to me
+more civilized than forks in dividing fish, but fish-knives did not
+exist when I first came to England. 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 discarded. Let us hope it is
+by the survival of the fittest. When I first went to Oxford everybody
+took wine with his neighbours, now it is only at such conservative
+colleges as my own—All Souls—that the old custom still survives. But
+then we have not even given up wax candles yet, and we look upon gas
+as a most objectionable innovation.
+
+Another great difficulty I had was in writing letters and addressing
+my friends properly as Sir, or Mr. Smith, or Smith. I was told that
+the rule was very simple and that you addressed everybody exactly as
+they addressed you. What was the consequence? When I received an
+invitation to dine with the Bishop of Oxford who addressed me as “My
+dear Sir,” I wrote back “My dear Sir,” and said that I should be very
+happy. How Samuel Wilberforce must have chuckled when he read my
+epistle. But how is any stranger to know all the intricacies of social
+literature, particularly if he is wrongly informed by the highest
+authorities. I must confess that even later in life I have often been
+puzzled as to the right way of addressing my friends. There is no
+difficulty about intimate friends, but as one grows older one knows
+so many people more or less intimately, and according to their
+different characters and stations in life, one often does not know
+whether one offends by too great or too little familiarity. I was once
+writing to a very eminent man in London who had been exceedingly
+friendly to me at Oxford, and I addressed him as “My dear Professor
+H.” At the end of his answer he wrote, “Don’t call me Professor.” All
+depends on the tone in which such words are said. I imagined that
+living in fashionable society in London, he did not like the somewhat
+scholastic title of Professor which, in London particularly, has
+always a by-taste of diluted omniscience and conceit. I accordingly
+addressed him in my next letter as “My dear Sir,” and this, I am sorry
+to say, produced quite a coldness and stiffness, as my friend
+evidently imagined that I declined to be on more intimate terms with
+him, the fact being that through life I have always been one of his
+most devoted admirers. I did my best to conform to all the British
+institutions, as well as I could, though in the beginning I must no
+doubt have made fearful blunders, and possibly given offence to the
+truly insular Briton. Bunsen seemed to delight in asking me whenever
+he had Princes or other grandees to lunch or dine with him.
+
+One day he took me with him to stay at Hurstmonceux with Archdeacon
+Hare, and a delightful time it was. There were books in every room,
+on the staircase, and in every corner of the house, and the Archdeacon
+knew every one of them, and as soon as a book was mentioned, he went
+and fetched it. He generally knew the very place at which the passage
+that was being discussed, occurred, and excelled even the famous dog,
+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 _History_, and at once climbed up the ladder
+and brought down from the shelf the very volume in which the disputed
+passage occurred. He had been taught this one trick of fetching a
+certain volume from the shelves of the library, and the conversation
+was turned and turned till it was brought round to a passage in that
+very volume. The guests were, no doubt, amazed, but as it was before
+the days of Darwin and Lubbock, it led to no more than a good laugh. I
+was surprised and delighted at the honesty with which the Archdeacon
+admitted the weak points of the Anglican system, and the dangers which
+threatened not only the Church, but the religion of England. The real
+danger, he evidently thought, came from the clergy, and their
+hankering after Rome. “They have forgotten their history,” he said,
+“and the sufferings which the sway of a Roman priesthood has inflicted
+for centuries on their country.” I think it was he who told me the
+story of a young Romanizing curate, who declared that he could never
+see what was the use of the laity.
+
+One day when I called on Bunsen with my books, and I frequently called
+when I had something new to show him, he said: “You must come with me
+to Oxford to the meeting of the British Association.” This was in
+1847. Of course I did not know what sort of thing this British
+Association was, but Bunsen said he would explain it all to me, only I
+must at once sit down and write a paper. He, Bunsen, was to read a
+paper on the “Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference
+to Asiatic and African Ethnology and the Classification of Languages,”
+and he wanted Dr. Karl Meyer and myself to support him, the former
+with a paper on Celtic Philology, and myself with a paper on the Aryan
+and Aboriginal Languages of India. I assured him that this was quite
+beyond me. I had hardly been a year in England, and even if I could
+write, I knew but too well that I could not read a paper before a
+large audience. However, Bunsen would take no refusal. “We must show
+them what we have done in Germany for the history and philosophy of
+language,” he said, “and I reckon on your help.” There was no escape,
+and to Oxford I had to go. I was fearfully nervous, for, as Prince
+Albert was to be present, ever so many distinguished people had
+flocked to the meeting, and likewise some not very friendly
+ethnologists, such as Dr. Latham, and Mr. Crawford, known by the name
+of the Objector General. Our section was presided over by the famous
+Dr. Prichard, the author of that classical work, _Researches into the
+Physical History of Mankind_, in five volumes, and it was he who
+protected me most chivalrously against the somewhat frivolous
+objections of certain members, who were not over friendly towards
+Prince Albert, Chevalier Bunsen, and all that was called German in
+scholarship. All, however, went off well. Bunsen’s speech was most
+successful, and it is a pity that it should be buried in the
+_Transactions of the British Association for 1847_. At that time it
+was considered a great honour that his speech should appear there _in
+extenso_. When Bunsen declared that he would not give it, unless Dr.
+Meyer’s paper and my own were published in the _Transactions_ at the
+same time, there was renewed opposition. I was so little proud of my
+own essay, that I should much rather have kept it back for further
+improvement, but printed it was in the _Transactions_, and much
+canvassed at the time in different journals.
+
+I have always been doubtful about the advantages of these public
+meetings, so far as any scientific results are concerned. Everybody
+who pays a guinea may become a member and make himself heard, whether
+he knows anything on the subject or not. The most ignorant men often
+occupy the largest amount of time. Some people look upon these
+congresses simply as a means of advertising themselves, and I have
+actually seen quoted among a man’s titles to fame the fact that he had
+been a member of certain congresses. Another drawback is that no one,
+not even the best of scholars, is quite himself before a mixed
+audience. Whereas in a private conversation a man is glad to receive
+any new information, no one likes to be told in public that he ought
+to have known this or that, or that every schoolboy knows it. Then
+follows generally a squabble, and the best pleader is sure to have the
+laughter on his side, however ignorant he may be of the subject that
+is being discussed. But Dr. Prichard was an excellent president and
+moderator, and though he had unruly spirits to deal with, he succeeded
+in keeping up a certain decorum among them. Dr. Prichard’s authority
+stood very high, and justly so, and his _Researches into the Physical
+History of Mankind_ still remain unparalleled in ethnology. His
+careful weighing of facts and difficulties went out of fashion when
+the theory of evolution became popular, and every change from a flea
+to an elephant was explained by imperceptible degrees. He dealt
+chiefly with what was perceptible, with well-observed facts, and many
+of the facts which he marshalled so well, require even now, in these
+post-Darwinian days I should venture to say, renewed consideration.
+Like all great men, he was wonderfully humble, and allowed me to
+contradict him, who ought to have been proud to listen and to learn
+from him.
+
+But though I cannot say that the result of these meetings and
+wranglings was very great or valuable, I spent a few most delightful
+days at Oxford, and I could not imagine a more perfect state of
+existence than to be an undergraduate, a fellow, or a professor there.
+A kind of silent love sprang up in my heart, though I hardly confessed
+it to myself, much less to the object of my affections. I knew I had
+to go back to be a University tutor or even a master in a public
+school in Germany, and that was a hard life compared with the freedom
+of Oxford. To be independent and free to work as I liked, that was
+everything to me, but how I ever succeeded in realizing my ideal, I
+hardly know. At that time I saw nothing but a life of drudgery and
+severe struggle before me, but I did not allow myself to dwell on it;
+I simply worked on, without looking either right or left, behind or
+before.
+
+While at Oxford on this my first flying visit, I had a room in
+University College, the very college in which my son was hereafter to
+be an undergraduate. My host was Dr. Plumptre, the Master of the
+College, a tall, stiff, and to my mind, very imposing person. He was
+then Vice-Chancellor, and I believe I never saw him except in his cap
+and gown and with two bedels walking before him, the one with a gold,
+the other with a silver poker in his hands. We have no Esquire bedels
+any longer! All the professors, too, and even the undergraduates,
+dressed in their mediaeval academic costume, looked to me very grand,
+and so different from the German students at Leipzig or still more at
+Jena, walking about the streets in pink cotton trousers and
+dressing-gowns. It seemed to me quite a different world, and I made
+new discoveries every day. Being with Bunsen I was invited to all the
+official dinners during the meeting of the British Association, and
+here, too, the Vice-Chancellor acted his part with becoming dignity.
+He never unbent; he never indulged in a joke or joined in the laughter
+of his neighbours. When I remarked on his immovable features, I was
+told that he slept in starched sheets—and I believed it. At one of
+these dinners, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte caused a titter during a
+speech about the freedom which people enjoyed in England. “In France,”
+he said, “with all the declamations about _Liberté_, _Égalité_,
+_Fraternité_, there is very little freedom, and, with all the trees of
+_liberté_ which are being planted along the boulevards, there is very
+little of real liberty to be found there!” “But you in England,” he
+finished, “you have your old tree of liberty, which is always
+flowering and showering _peas_ on the whole world.” He wanted to say
+peace. We tried to look solemn but failed, and a suppressed laugh went
+round till it reached the Vice-Chancellor. There it stopped. He was
+far too well bred to allow a single muscle of his face to move. “He
+throws a cold blanket on everything,” my neighbour said; and my
+knowledge of English was still so imperfect that I accepted many of
+these metaphorical remarks in their literal sense, and became more and
+more puzzled about my host. It was evidently a pleasure to my friends
+to see how easily I was taken in. On the walls of the houses at Oxford
+I saw the letters F. P. about ten feet from the ground. Of course it
+was meant for Fire Plug, but I was told that it marked the height of
+the Vice-Chancellor, whose name was Frederick Plumptre.
+
+My visit to Oxford was over all too soon, and I returned to London to
+toil away at my Sanskrit MSS. in the little room that had been
+assigned to me in the Old East India House in Leadenhall Street. That
+building, too, in which the reins of the mighty Empire of India were
+held, mostly by the hands of merchants, has vanished, and the place of
+it knoweth it no more. However, I thought little of India, I only
+thought of the library at the East India House, a real Eldorado for an
+eager Sanskrit student, who had never seen such treasures before. I
+saw little else there, I only remember seeing Tippoo Sahib’s tiger
+which held an English soldier in his claws, and was regularly wound up
+for the benefit of visitors, and then uttered a loud squeak, enough to
+disturb even the most absorbed of students. I felt quite dazed by all
+the books and manuscripts placed at my disposal, and revelled in them
+every day till it became dark, and I had to walk home through Ludgate
+Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, generally carrying ever so many books
+and papers under my arms. I knew nobody in the city, and no one knew
+me; and what did I care for the world, as long as I had my beloved
+manuscripts?
+
+In March, 1848, I had to go over to Paris to finish up some work
+there, and just came in for the revolution. From my windows I had a
+fine view of all that was going on. I well remember the pandemonium in
+the streets, the aspect of the savage mob, the wanton firing of shots
+at quiet spectators, the hoisting of Louis Philippe’s nankeen trousers
+on the flag-staff of the Tuileries. When bullets began to come through
+my windows, I thought it time to be off while it was still possible.
+Then came the question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts,
+&c., belonging to the East India Company, to the train. The only
+railway open was the line to Havre, which had been broken up close to
+the station, but further on was intact, and in order to get there we
+had to climb three barricades. I offered my _concierge_ five francs to
+carry my box, but his wife would not hear of his risking his life in
+the streets; ten francs—the same result; but at the sight of a louis
+d’or she changed her mind, and with an “Allez, mon ami, allez
+toujours,” dispatched her husband on his perilous expedition. Arrived
+in London I went straight to the Prussian Legation, and was the first
+to give Bunsen the news of Louis Philippe’s flight from Paris. Bunsen
+took me off to see Lord Palmerston, 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 Paris. So even a poor scholar had to
+play his small part in the events that go to make up history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD
+
+
+It had been settled that my edition of the Rig-veda should be printed
+at the Oxford University Press, and I found that I had often to go
+there to superintend the printing. Not that the printers required much
+supervision, as I must say that the printing at the University Press
+was, and is, excellent—far better than anything I had known in
+Germany. In providing copy for a work of six volumes, each of about
+1000 pages, it was but natural that _lapsus calami_ should occur from
+time to time. What surprised me was that several of these were
+corrected in the proof-sheets sent to me. At last I asked whether
+there was any Sanskrit scholar at Oxford who revised my proof-sheets
+before they were returned. I was told there was not, but that the
+queries were made by the printer himself. That printer was an
+extraordinary man. His right arm was slightly paralysed, and he had
+therefore been put on difficult slow work, such as Sanskrit. There are
+more than 300 types which a printer must know in composing Sanskrit.
+Many of the letters in Sanskrit are incompatible, i. e. they cannot
+follow each other, or if they do, they have to be modified. Every
+_d_, for instance, if followed by a _t_, is changed to _t_; every _dh_
+loses its aspiration, becomes likewise _t_, or changes the next _t_
+into _dh_. Thus from _budh_ + _ta_, we have _Buddha_, i. e. awakened.
+In writing I had sometimes neglected these modifications, but in the
+proof-sheets these cases were always either queried or corrected. When
+I asked the printer, who did not of course know a word of Sanskrit,
+how he came to make these corrections, he said: “Well, sir, my arm
+gets into a regular swing from one compartment of types to another,
+and there are certain movements that never occur. So if I suddenly
+have to take up types which entail a new movement, I feel it, and I
+put a query.” An English printer might possibly be startled in the
+same way if in English he had to take up an _s_ immediately following
+an _h_. 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 Sanskrit. In spite of the extreme accuracy of my
+printer, however, I saw, that after all it would be better for myself,
+and for the Veda, if I were on the spot, and I decided to migrate from
+London to Oxford.
+
+My first visit had filled me with enthusiasm for the beautiful old
+town, which I regarded as an ideal home for a student. Besides, I
+found that I was getting too gay in London, and in order to be able to
+devote my evenings to society, I had to get up and begin work soon
+after five. May, therefore, saw me established for the first time in
+Oxford, in a small room in Walton Street. The moving of my books and
+papers from London did not take long. At that time my library could
+still be accommodated in my portmanteau, it had not yet risen to
+12,000 volumes, threatening to drive me out of my house. A happy time
+it was when I possessed no books which I had not read, and no one sent
+books to me which I did not want, and yet had to find a place for in
+my rooms, and to thank the author for his kindness.
+
+I at once found that my work went on more rapidly at Oxford than in
+London, though if I had expected to escape from all hospitality I
+certainly was not allowed to do that. Accustomed as I was to the
+Spartan diet of a German _convictorium_, or a dinner at the Palais
+Royal _à deux francs_, the dinners to which I was invited by some of
+the Fellows in Hall, or in Common Room, surprised me not a little. The
+old plate, the old furniture, and the whole style of living, impressed
+me deeply, particularly the after-dinner railway, an ingenious
+invention for lightening the trouble of the guests who took wine in
+Common Room. There was a small railway fixed before the fireplace, and
+on it a wagon containing the bottles went backwards and forwards,
+halting before every guest till he had helped himself. That railway, I
+am afraid, is gone now; and what is more serious, the pleasant, chatty
+evenings spent in Common Room are likewise a thing of the past.
+Married Fellows, if they dine in Hall, return home after dinner, and
+junior Fellows go to their books or pupils. In my early Oxford days, a
+married Fellow would have sounded like a solecism. The story goes that
+married Fellows were not entirely unknown, and that you could hold
+even a fellowship, if you could hold your tongue. Young people,
+however, who did not possess that gift of silence, had often to wait
+till they were fifty, before a college living fell vacant, and the
+quinquagenarian Fellow became a young husband and a young vicar.
+
+What impressed me, however, even more than the great hospitality of
+Oxford, was the real friendliness shown to an unknown German scholar.
+After all, I had done very little as yet, but the kind words which
+Bunsen and Dr. Prichard had spoken about me at the meeting of the
+British Association, had evidently produced an impression in my favour
+far beyond what I deserved. I must have seemed a very strange bird,
+such as had never before built his nest at Oxford. I was very young,
+but I looked even younger than I was, and my knowledge of the manners
+of society, particularly of English society, was really nil. Few
+people knew what I was working at. Some had a kind of vague impression
+that I had discovered a very old religion, older than the Jewish and
+the Christian, which contained the key to many of the mysteries that
+had puzzled the ancient, nay, even the modern world. Frequently, when
+I was walking through the streets of Oxford, I observed how people
+stared at me, and seemed to whisper some information about me.
+Tradespeople did not always trust me, though I never owed a penny to
+anybody; when I wanted money I could always make it by going on faster
+with printing the Rig-veda, for which I received four pounds a sheet.
+This seemed to me then a large sum, though many a sheet took me at
+first more than a week to get ready, copy, collate, understand, and
+finally print. If I was interested in any other subject, my exchequer
+suffered accordingly—but I could always retrieve my losses by sitting
+up late at night. Poor as I was, I never had any cares about money,
+and when I once began to write in English for English journals, I had
+really more than I wanted. My first article in the _Edinburgh Review_
+appeared in October, 1851.
+
+At that time the idea of settling at Oxford, of remaining in this
+academic paradise, never entered my head. I was here to print my
+Rig-veda and work at the Bodleian; that I should in a few years be an
+M.A. of Christ Church, a Fellow of the most exclusive of colleges,
+nay, a married Fellow—a being not even invented then—and a professor
+of the University, never entered into my wildest dreams. I could only
+admire, and admire with all my heart. Everything seemed perfect, the
+gardens, the walks in the neighbourhood, the colleges, and most of all
+the inhabitants of the colleges, both Fellows and undergraduates. 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—could, in fact, govern itself without a Minister of Education
+to appoint professors, without a Royal Commissioner to look after the
+undergraduates and their moral and political sentiments. And here at
+Oxford I was told that the Government did not know Oxford, nor Oxford
+the Government, that the only ruling power consisted in the Statutes
+of the University, that professors and tutors were perfectly free so
+long as they conformed to these statutes, and that certainly no
+minister could ever appoint or dismiss a professor, except the Regius
+professors. “If we want a thing done,” my friends used to explain to
+me, “we do it ourselves, as long as it does not run counter to the
+statutes.”
+
+But Oxford changes with every generation. It is always growing old,
+but it is always growing young again. There was an old Oxford four
+hundred years ago, and there was an old Oxford fifty years ago. To a
+man who is taking his M.A. degree, Oxford, as it was when he was a
+freshman, seems quite a thing of the past. By the public at large no
+place is supposed to be so conservative, so unchanging, nay, so
+stubborn in resisting new ideas, as Oxford; and yet people who knew it
+forty or fifty years ago, like myself, find it now so changed that,
+when they look back they can hardly believe it is the same place. Even
+architecturally the streets of the University have changed, and here
+not always for the better. Architects unfortunately object to mere
+imitation of the old Oxford style of building; they want to produce
+something entirely their own, which may be very good by itself, but is
+not always in harmony with the general tone of the college buildings.
+I still remember the outcry against the Taylor Institution, the only
+Palladian building at Oxford, and yet everybody has now grown
+reconciled to it, and even Ruskin lectured in it, which he would not
+have done, if he had disapproved of its architecture. He would never
+lecture in the Indian Institute, and wrote me a letter sadly reproving
+me for causing Broad Street to be defaced by such a building, when I
+had had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was very loud in his
+condemnation of other new buildings. He abused even the New Museum,
+though he had a great deal to do with it himself. He had hoped that it
+would be the architecture of the future, but he confessed after a time
+that he was not satisfied with the result.
+
+In his days we still had the old Magdalen Bridge, the Bodleian
+unrestored, and no trams. Ruskin was so offended by the new bridge, by
+the restored Bodleian, and by the tram-cars, that he would go ever so
+far round to avoid these eyesores, when he had to deliver his
+lectures; and that was by no means an easy pilgrimage. There was, of
+course, no use in arguing with him. Most people like the new Magdalen
+Bridge because it agrees better with the width of High Street; they
+consider the Bodleian well restored, particularly now that the new
+stone is gradually toning down to the colour of the old walls, and as
+to tram-cars, objectionable as they are in many respects, they
+certainly offend the eye less than the old dirty and rickety
+omnibuses. The new buildings of Merton, in the style of a London
+police-station, offended him deeply, and with more justice,
+particularly as he had to live next door to them when he had rooms at
+Corpus.
+
+These new buildings could not be helped at Oxford. The stone, with
+which most of the old colleges were built, was taken from a quarry
+close to Oxford, and began to peel off and to crumble in a very
+curious manner. Artists like these chequered walls, and by moonlight
+they are certainly picturesque, but the colleges had to think of what
+was safe. My own college, All Souls, has ever so many pinnacles, and
+we kept an architect on purpose to watch which of them were unsafe and
+had to be restored or replaced by new ones. Every one of these
+pinnacles cost us about fifty pounds, and at every one of our meetings
+we were told that so many pinnacles had been tested, and wanted
+repairing or replacing. Many years ago, when I was spending the whole
+Long Vacation at Oxford, I could watch from my windows a man who was
+supposed to be testing the strength of these pinnacles. He was armed
+with a large crowbar, which he ran with all his might against the
+unfortunate pinnacle. I doubt whether the walls of any Roman castellum
+could have resisted such a ram. I spoke to some of the Fellows, and
+when the builder made his next report to us, we rather objected to the
+large number of invalids. He was not to be silenced, however, so
+easily, but told us with a very grave countenance that he could not
+take the responsibility, as a pinnacle might fall any day on our
+Warden when he went to chapel. This, he thought, would settle the
+matter. But no, it made no impression whatever on the junior Fellows,
+and the number of annual cripples was certainly very much reduced in
+consequence.
+
+It is true that Oxford has always loved what is old better than what
+is new, and has resisted most innovations to the very last. A
+well-known liberal statesman used to say that when any measure of
+reform was before Parliament, he always rejoiced to see an Oxford
+petition against it, for that measure was sure to be carried very
+soon. It should not be forgotten, however, that there always has been
+a liberal minority at Oxford. It is still mentioned as something quite
+antediluvian, that Oxford, that is the Hebdomadal Council, petitioned
+against the Great Western Railway invading its sacred precincts; 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
+world.
+
+Many things, of course, have been changed, and are changing every year
+before our very eyes; but what can never be changed, in spite of some
+recent atrocities in brick and mortar, is the natural beauty of its
+gardens, and the historical character of its architecture. Whether
+Friar Bacon, as far back as the thirteenth century, admired the
+colleges, chapels, and gardens of Oxford, we do not know; and even if
+we did, few of them could have been the same as those which we admire
+to-day. 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 philosopher, who is sometimes claimed as a Fellow of Brasenose
+College, probably long before that College existed; but what is said
+in that play in praise of the University, may at least be taken as a
+recollection of what Greene saw himself, when he took his degree as
+Bachelor of Arts in 1578. In his play of the _History of Friar Bacon_,
+Greene introduces the Emperor of Germany, Henry II, 1212-50, as paying
+a visit to Henry III of England, 1216-73, and he puts into his mouth
+the following lines, which, though they cannot compare with Shelley’s
+or Mat Arnold’s, are at all events the earliest testimony to the
+natural attractions of Oxford. Anyhow, Shelley’s and Mat Arnold’s
+lines are well known and are always quoted, so that I venture to quote
+Greene’s lines, not for the sake of their beauty, but simply because
+they are probably known to very few of my readers:
+
+    “Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford schools
+     Are richly seated near the river-side:
+     The mountains full of fat and fallow deer,
+     The battling[10] pastures lade with kine and flocks,
+     The town gorgeous with high built colleges,
+     And scholars seemly in their grave attire.”
+
+  [10] Will it be believed that the battels (bills) in College
+  are connected with this word?
+
+The mountains round Oxford we must accept as a bold poetical licence,
+whether they were meant for Headington Hill or Wytham Woods. The
+German traveller, Hentzner, who described Oxford in 1598, is more true
+to nature when he speaks of the wooded hills that encompass the plain
+in which Oxford lies.
+
+But while the natural beauty of Oxford has always been admired and
+praised by strangers, the doctors and professors of the old University
+have not always fared so well at the hands of English and foreign
+critics. I shall not quote from Giordano Bruno, who visited England in
+1583-5, and calls Oxford “the widow of true science[11],” but Milton
+surely cannot be suspected of any prejudice against Oxford. Yet he
+writes in 1656 in a letter to Richard Jones: “There is indeed plenty
+of amenity and salubrity in the place when you are there. There are
+books enough for the needs of a University: if only the amenity of the
+spot contributed so much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does
+to pleasant living, nothing would seem wanting to the happiness of the
+place.”
+
+  [11] _Opere_, ed. Wagner, i. p. 179.
+
+These ill-natured remarks about the Oxford Dons seem to go on to the
+very beginning of our century. The buildings and gardens are praised,
+but by way of contrast, it would seem, or from some kind of jealousy,
+their inhabitants are always treated with ridicule. Not long ago a
+book was published, _Memoirs of a Highland Lady_. Though published in
+1898, it should be remembered that the memoirs go back as far as 1809.
+Nor should it be forgotten that at that time the authoress was hardly
+more than thirteen years of age, and certainly of a very girlish, not
+to say frivolous, disposition. She stayed some time with the then
+Master of University, Dr. Griffith, and for him, it must be said, she
+always shows a certain respect. But no one else at Oxford is spared.
+She arrived there at the time of Lord Grenville’s installation as
+Chancellor of the University. Though so young, she was taken to the
+Theatre, and this is her description of what she saw and heard:—“It
+was a shock to me; I had expected to be charmed with a play, instead
+of being nearly set to sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit.
+There were some purple, and some gold, some robes and some wigs, a
+great crowd, and some stir at times, while a deal of humdrum speaking
+and dumb show was followed by the noisy demonstrations of the
+students, as they applauded or condemned the honours bestowed; but in
+the main I tired of the heat and the mob, and the worry of these
+mornings, and so, depend upon it, did poor Lord Grenville, who sat up
+in the chair of state among the dignitaries, like the Grand Lama in
+his temple guarded by his priests.” One thing only she was delighted
+with, that was the singing of Catalani at one of the concerts. Yet
+even here she cannot repress her remark that she sang “Gott safe the
+King.” She evidently was a flippant young lady or child, and with her
+sister, who afterwards joined her at Oxford, seems to have found
+herself quite a fish out of water in the grave society of the
+University.
+
+The room in the Master’s Lodge which appalled her most and seems to
+have been used as a kind of schoolroom, was the Library, full of
+Divinity books, but without curtains, carpet, or fireplace. Here they
+had lessons in music, drawing, arithmetic, history, geography, and
+French. “And the Master,” she adds, “opened to us what had been till
+then a sealed book, the New Testament, so that this visit to Oxford
+proved really one of the fortunate chances of my life.”
+
+This speaks well for the young lady, who in later life seems to have
+occupied a most honoured and influential position in Scotch society.
+But Oxford society evidently found no favour in her eyes.
+
+Her uncle and aunt, as she tells us, were frequently out at dinner
+with other Heads of Houses, for there was, of course, no other
+society. These dinners seem to have been very sumptuous, though their
+own domestic life was certainly very simple. For breakfast they had
+tea, and butter on their bread, and at dinner a small glass of ale,
+college home-brewed ale. “How fat we got!” she exclaims. The Master
+seems to have been a man of refined taste, fond of drawing, and what
+was called poker-painting; he was given also to caricaturing, and
+writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently fond of his
+society, but of the other Oxford society she only mentions the
+ultra-Tory politics, and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of
+Houses. “The various Heads,” she writes, “with their respective wives,
+were extremely inferior to my uncle and aunt. More than half of the
+Doctors of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small gentry or
+country clergy, or even of a lower grade. Many of these, constant to
+the loves of their youth, brought ladies of inferior manners to grace
+what appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not a good style;
+there was little talent, and less polish, and no sort of knowledge of
+the world. And yet the ignorance of this class was less offensive than
+the assumption of another, when a lady of high degree had fallen in
+love with her brother’s tutor, and got him handsomely provided for in
+the Church, that she might excuse herself for marrying him. Of the
+lesser clergy, there were young witty ones—odious; young learned
+ones—bores; and elderly ones—pompous; all, however, of all grades,
+kind and hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble, gentle,
+considerate, and self-sacrificing, had no representative, as far as I
+could see, among these dealers in old wines, rich dinners, fine china,
+and massive plate.”
+
+“The religion of Oxford appeared in those days to consist in honouring
+the King and his Ministers, and in perpetually popping in and out of
+chapel. Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer, beaten on
+every staircase half an hour before by a scout. The education was
+suited to Divinity. A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the
+young, riotous community, 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 committed. There were rules that had in a
+general way to be obeyed, and lectures that had to be attended, but as
+for care to give high aims, provide refining amusements, give a worthy
+tone to the character of responsible beings, there was none ever even
+thought of. The very meaning of the word ‘education’ did not appear to
+be understood. The college was a fit sequel to the school. The young
+men herded together; they lived in their rooms, and they lived out of
+them, in the neighbouring villages, where many had comfortable
+establishments.... All sorts of contrivances were resorted to to
+enable the dissipated to remain out all night, to shield a culprit, to
+deceive the dignitaries.” This was in 1809, and even later.
+
+And yet with all this, and while we are told that those who attended
+lectures were laughed at, it seems strange that the best divines, and
+lawyers, and politicians of the first half of our century, some of
+whom we may have known ourselves, must have been formed under that
+system. We can hardly believe that it was as bad as here described,
+and we must remember that much of the _Memoirs_ of this Scotch lady
+can have been written from memory only, and long after the time when
+she and her sister lived at University College. Life there, no doubt,
+may have been very dull, as there were no other young ladies at
+Oxford, and it cannot have been very amusing for these young girls to
+dine with sixteen Heads of Houses, all in wide silk cassocks, scarves
+and bands, one or two in powdered wigs, so that, as we are told, they
+often went home crying. All intercourse with the young men was
+strictly forbidden, though it seems to have been not altogether
+impossible to communicate, from the garden of the Master’s Lodge, with
+the young men bending out of the college windows, or climbing down to
+the gardens.
+
+One of these young men, who was at University College at the same
+time, might certainly not have been considered a very desirable
+companion for these two Scotch girls. It was no other than Shelley.
+What they say of him does not tell us much that is new, yet it
+deserves to be repeated. “Mr. Shelley,” we read, “afterwards so
+celebrated, was half crazy. He began his career with every kind of
+wild prank at Eton. At University he was very insubordinate, always
+infringing some rule, the breaking of which he knew could not be
+overlooked. He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to about
+these and other irregularities, he was in the habit of making such
+extraordinary gestures, expressive of his humility under reproof, as
+to overset first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing
+tutor. When he proceeded so far as to paste up atheistical squibs on
+the chapel doors, it was considered necessary to expel him privately,
+out of regard to Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who came up at once.
+He and his son left Oxford together.”
+
+No one would recognize in this picture the University of Oxford, as it
+is at present. _Nous avons changé tout cela_ might be said with great
+truth by the Heads of Houses, the Professors, and Fellows of the
+present day. And yet what the Highland lady, or rather the Highland
+girl, describes, refers to times not so long ago but that some of the
+men we have known might have lived through it. How this change came
+about I cannot tell, though I can bear testimony to a few survivals of
+the old state of things.
+
+The Oxford of 1848 was still the Oxford of the Heads of Houses and of
+the Hebdomadal Board. That board consisted almost entirely of Heads of
+Houses, and a most important board it was, considering that the whole
+administration of the University was really in its hands. The
+colleges, on the other hand, were very jealous of their independence;
+and even the authority of the Proctors, who represented the University
+as such, was often contested within the gates of a college. It is
+wonderful that this old system of governing the University through the
+Heads of Houses should have gone on so long and so smoothly. Having
+been trusted by the Fellows of his own society with considerable power
+in the administration of his own college, it was supposed that the
+Head would prove equally useful in the administration of the
+University. A Head of a House became at once a member of the Council.
+And, on the whole, they managed to drive the coach and horses very
+well. But often when I had to take foreigners to hear the University
+Sermon, and they saw a most extraordinary set of old gentlemen walking
+into St. Mary’s in procession, with a most startling combination of
+colours, black and red, scarlet and pink, on their heavy gowns and
+sleeves, I found it difficult to explain who they were. “Are they your
+professors?” I was asked. “Oh, no,” I said, “the professors don’t wear
+red gowns, only Doctors of Divinity and of Civil Law, and as every
+Head of a House must have something to wear in public, he is
+invariably made a Doctor.” I remember one exception only, and at a
+much later time, namely, the Master of Balliol, who, like Canning at
+the Congress of Vienna, considered it among his most valued
+distinctions never to have worn the gown of a D.C.L. or D.D. It is
+well known that when Marshal Blücher was made a Doctor at Oxford he
+asked, in the innocence of his heart, that General Gneisenau, his
+right-hand man, might at least be made a chemist. He certainly had
+mixed a most effective powder for the French army under Napoléon.
+
+“But,” my friend would ask, “have you no _Senatus Academicus_, have
+you no faculties of professors such as there are in all other
+Christian universities?” “Yes and no,” I said. “We have professors,
+but they are not divided into faculties, and they certainly do not
+form the _Senatus Academicus_, or the highest authority in the
+University.”
+
+It seems very strange, but it is nevertheless a fact, that as soon as
+a good tutor is made a professor, he is considered of no good for the
+real teaching work of the colleges. His lectures are generally
+deserted; and I could quote the names of certain professors who
+afterwards rose to great eminence, but who at Oxford were simply
+ignored and their lecture-rooms deserted. The real teaching or
+coaching or cramming for examination is left to the tutors and Fellows
+of each college, and the examinations also are chiefly in their hands.
+Many undergraduates never see a professor, and, as far as the teaching
+work of the University is concerned, the professorships might safely
+be abolished. And yet, as I could honestly assure my foreign friends,
+the best men who take honour degrees at Oxford are quite the equals of
+the best men at Paris or Berlin. The professors may not be so
+distinguished, but that is due to a certain extent to the small
+salaries attached to some of the chairs. England has produced great
+names both in science and philosophy and scholarship, but these have
+generally drifted to some more attractive or lucrative centres. When I
+first came to Oxford one professor received £40 a year, another
+£1,500, and no one complained about these inequalities. A certain
+amount of land had been left by a king or bishop for endowing a
+certain chair, and every holder of the chair received whatever the
+endowment yielded. The mode of appointing professors was very curious
+at that time. Often the elections resembled parliamentary elections,
+far more regard being paid to political or theological partisanship
+than to scientific qualifications. Every M.A. had a vote, and these
+voters were scattered all over the country. Canvassing was carried on
+quite openly. Travelling expenses were freely paid, and lists were
+kept in each college of the men who could be depended on to vote for
+the liberal or the conservative candidate. Imagine a professor of
+medicine or of Greek being elected because he was a liberal! Some
+appointments rested with the Prime Minister, or, as it was called, the
+Crown; and it was quoted to the honour of the Duke of Wellington, that
+he, when Chancellor of the University, once insisted that the electors
+should elect the best man, and they had to yield, though there were
+electors who would declare their own candidate the best man, whatever
+the opinion of really qualified judges might be. All this election
+machinery is much improved now, though an infallible system of
+electing the best men has not yet been discovered. One single elector,
+who is not troubled by too tender a conscience, may even now vitiate a
+whole election; to say nothing of the painful position in which an
+elector is placed, if he has to vote against a personal friend or a
+member of his own college, 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 University.
+
+It took me some time before I could gain an insight into all this. The
+old system passed away before my very eyes, not without evident
+friction between my different friends, and then came the difficulty of
+learning to understand the working of the new machinery which had been
+devised and sanctioned by Parliament. Reformers arose even among the
+Heads of Houses, as, for instance, Dr. Jeune, the Master of Pembroke
+College, who was credited with having _rajeuni l’ancienne université_.
+But he was by no means the only, or even the chief actor in University
+reform. Many of my personal friends, such as Dr. Tait, afterwards
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rev. H. G. Liddell, afterwards Dean of
+Christ Church, Professor Baden-Powell, and the Rev. G. H. S. Johnson,
+afterwards Dean of Wells, with Stanley and Goldwin Smith as
+Secretaries, did honest service in the various Royal and Parliamentary
+Commissions, and spent much of their valuable time in serving the
+University and the country. I could do no more than answer the
+questions addressed to me by the Commissioners and by my friends, and
+this is really all the share I had at that time in the reform of the
+University, or what was called Germanizing the English Universities.
+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 dinner, because the Heads of Houses would no longer
+admit him to their hospitable boards.
+
+Certainly to have been a member of the much abused Hebdomadal Board,
+and a Head of a College in those pre-reform days must have been a
+delightful life. Before the days of agricultural distress the income
+of the colleges was abundant; the authority of the Heads was
+unquestioned in their own colleges; not only undergraduates, but
+Fellows also had to be submissive. No junior Fellow would then have
+dared to oppose his Head at college meetings. If there was by chance
+an obstreperous junior, he was easily silenced or requested to retire.
+The days had not yet come when a Master of Trinity ventured to remark
+that even a junior Fellow might possibly be mistaken. Colleges seemed
+to be the property of the Heads, and in some of them the Fellows were
+really chosen by them, and the rest of the Fellows after some kind of
+examination. The management of University affairs was likewise
+entirely in the hands of the Heads of Colleges, and it was on rare
+occasions only that a theological question stirred the interest of
+non-resident M.A.s, and brought them to Oxford to record their vote
+for or against the constituted authorities. Men like the Dean of
+Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, the Warden of Wadham, Dr. Parsons, and
+the Provost of Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, were in their dominions supreme,
+till the rebellious spirit began to show itself in such men as Dr.
+Jeune, Professor Baden-Powell, A. P. Stanley, Goldwin Smith and
+others.
+
+Nor were there many very flagrant abuses under the old régime. It was
+rather the want of life that was complained of. It began to be felt
+that Oxford should take its place as an equal by the side of foreign
+Universities, not only as a high school, but as a home of what then
+was called for the first time “original research.” There can be no
+question that as a teaching body, as a high school at the head of all
+the public schools in England, Oxford did its duty nobly. A man who at
+that time could take a Double First was indeed a strong man, well
+fitted for any work in after life. He would not necessarily turn out
+an original thinker, a scholar, or a discoverer in physical science,
+but he would know what it was to know anything thoroughly. To take
+honours at the same time in classics and mathematics required strength
+and grasp, and the effort was certainly considerable, as I found out
+when occasionally I read a Greek or Latin author with a young
+undergraduate friend. What struck me most was the accurate knowledge
+a candidate acquired of special authors and special books, but also
+the want of that familiarity with the language, Greek or Latin, which
+would enable him to read any new author with comparative ease. The
+young men whom I knew at the time they went in for their final
+examination, were certainly well grounded in classics, and what they
+knew they knew thoroughly.
+
+The personal relations existing between undergraduates and their
+tutors were very intimate. A tutor took a pride in his pupils, and
+often became their friend for life. The teaching was almost private
+teaching, and the idea of reading a written lecture to a class in
+college did not exist as yet. It was real teaching with questions and
+answers; while lectures, written and read out, were looked down upon
+as good enough for professors, but entirely useless for the schools.
+The social tone of the University was excellent. Many of the tutors
+and of the undergraduates came of good families, and the struggle for
+life, or for a college living, or college office, was not, as yet, so
+fierce as it became afterwards. College tutors toiled on for life, and
+certainly did their work to the last most conscientiously. There was
+perhaps little ambition, little scheming or pushing, but the work of
+the University, such as the country would have it, was well done. If
+the Honour-Lists were small, the number of utter failures also was not
+very large.
+
+For a young scholar, like myself, who came to live at Oxford in those
+distant days, the peace and serenity of life were most congenial,
+though several of my friends were among the first who began to fret,
+and wished for more work to be done and for better use to be made of
+the wealth and the opportunities of the University. My impression at
+that time was the same as it has been ever since, that a reform of the
+Universities was impossible till the public schools had been
+thoroughly reformed. The Universities must take what the schools send
+them. There is every year a limited number of boys from the best
+schools who would do credit to any University. But a large number of
+the young men who are sent up to matriculate at Oxford are not up to
+an academic standard. Unless the colleges agree to stand empty for a
+year or two, they cannot help themselves, but have to keep the
+standard of the matriculation examination low, and in fact do, to a
+great extent, the work that ought to have been done at school. Think
+of boys being sent up to Oxford, who, after having spent on an average
+six years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line of Greek
+or Latin which they have not seen before. Yet so it was, and so it is,
+unless I am very much misinformed. It is easy for some colleges who
+keep up a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class men;
+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 degree, and few
+people have any idea how little a pass degree may mean. Those tutors
+have indeed hard work to do and get little credit for it, though their
+devotion to their college and their pupils is highly creditable. Fifty
+years ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is now,
+because candidates were not allowed to pass in different subjects at
+different times, but the whole examination had to be done all at once,
+or not at all.
+
+I had naturally made it a rule at Oxford to stand aloof from the
+conflict of parties, whether academical, theological, or political. I
+had my own work to do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude
+my opinions, which naturally were different from those prevalent at
+Oxford. Most people like to wash their dirty linen among themselves;
+and though I gladly talked over such matters with my friends who often
+consulted me, I did not feel called upon to join in the fray. I lived
+through several severe crises at Oxford, and though I had some
+intimate friends on either side, I remained throughout a looker on.
+
+Seldom has a University passed through such a complete change as
+Oxford has since the year 1854. And yet the change was never violent,
+and the University has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated
+and reinvigorated. It has been said that our constitution has now
+become too democratic, and that a University should be ruled by a
+Senatus rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain extent.
+There has been too much unrest, too constant changes, and a lack of
+continuity in the studies and in the government of the University.
+Every three years a new wave of young masters came in, carried a
+reform in the system of teaching and examining, and then left to make
+room for a new wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones had a
+fair trial. Senior members of the University, heads of houses and
+professors, have no more voting power than the young men who have just
+taken their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than these
+young Masters, who always meet together and form a kind of compact
+phalanx when votes are to be taken. There was even a Non-placet club,
+ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the
+reforming party, or threatened to change any established customs,
+whether beneficial or otherwise to the University. The University, as
+such, was far less considered than the colleges, and money drawn from
+the colleges for University purposes was looked upon as robbery,
+though of course the colleges profited by the improvement of the
+University, and the interests of the two ought never to have been
+divided, as little as the interests of an army can be divided from the
+interests of each regiment.
+
+When I came to Oxford there was still practically no society except
+that of the Heads of Houses, and there were no young ladies to grace
+their dinners. Each head took his turn in succession, and had twice or
+three times during term to feed his colleagues. These dinners were
+sumptuous repasts, though they often took place as early as five. To
+be invited to them was considered a great distinction, and, though a
+very young man, I was allowed now and then to be present, and I highly
+appreciated the honour. The company consisted almost entirely of Heads
+of Houses, Canons, and Professors; sometimes there was a sprinkling of
+distinguished persons from London, and even of ladies of various ages
+and degrees. I confess I often sat among them, as we say in German,
+_verrathen und verkauft_. After dinner I saw a number of young men
+streaming in, and thought the evening would now become more lively.
+But far from it. These young men with white ties and in evening dress
+stood in their scanty gowns huddled together on one side of the room.
+They received a cup of tea, but no one noticed them or spoke to them,
+and they hardly dared to speak among themselves. This, as I was told,
+was called “doing the perpendicular,” and they must have felt much
+relieved when towards ten o’clock they were allowed to depart, and
+exchange the perpendicular for a more comfortable position, indulging
+in songs and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to join.
+
+At that time I remember only very few houses outside the circle of
+Heads of Houses, where there was a lady and a certain amount of social
+life—the houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor Baden-Powell,
+Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell. In their houses there was less of
+the strict academical etiquette, and as they were fond of music,
+particularly the Donkins, I spent some really delightful evenings with
+them. Nay, as I played on the pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses
+began to patronize music at their evening parties, though no gentleman
+at that time would have played at Oxford. I being a German, and
+Professor Donkin being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play,
+and we certainly had an appreciative, though not always a silent,
+audience.
+
+In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships was still very
+perceptible in the society of the University. No Fellows were allowed
+to marry, and the natural consequence was that most of them waited for
+a college living, a professorship or librarianship, which generally
+came to them when they were no longer young men. Headships of colleges
+also had so long to be waited for that most of them were generally
+filled by very senior and mostly unmarried men. Besides, headships
+were but seldom given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even
+divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity, and for business
+habits. Some of the Fellows gave pleasant and, as I thought, very
+Lucullic dinners in college; and I still remember my surprise when I
+was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at Jesus College. My host
+was Mr. Ffoulkes, who afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an
+Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains, the whole
+furniture and the plate quite confounded me, 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 English.
+
+The City society was completely separated from the University society,
+so that even rich bankers and other gentlemen would never have
+ventured to ask members of the University to dine.
+
+Considering the position then held by the Heads of Houses, I feel I
+ought to devote some pages to describing some of the most prominent of
+them. At my age I may well hold to the maxim _seniores priores_, and
+will therefore begin with Dr. Routh, the centenarian President of
+Magdalen, as, though, the headship of a house seems to be an excellent
+prescription for longevity, there was no one to dispute the venerable
+doctor’s claim to precedence in this respect. He was then nearly a
+hundred years old, and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his
+wish to have the _C, anno centesimo_, on his gravestone, for, though
+tired of life, he often declared, so I was told, that he would not be
+outdone in this respect by another very old man, who was a dissenter;
+he never liked to see the Church beaten. I might have made his
+personal acquaintance, some friends of the old President offering to
+present me to him. But I did not avail myself of their offer, because
+I knew the old man did not like to be shown as a curiosity. When I saw
+him sitting at his window he always wore a wig, and few had seen him
+without his wig and without his academic gown. He was certainly an
+exceptional man, and I believe he stood alone in the whole history of
+literature, as having published books at an interval of seventy years.
+His edition of the _Enthymemes_ and _Gorgias of Plato_ was published
+in 1784, his papers on the _Ignatian Epistles_ in 1854. His _Reliquia
+Sacra_ first appeared in 1814, and they are a work which at that time
+would have made the reputation of any scholar and divine. His editions
+of historical works, such as Burnet’s _History of his own Time_ and
+the _History of the reign of King James_, show his considerable
+acquaintance with English history. I have already mentioned how he
+used to speak of events long before his time, such as the execution of
+Charles I, as if he had been present; nor did he hesitate to declare
+that even Bishop Burnet was a great liar. He certainly had seen many
+things which connected him with the past. He had seen Samuel Johnson
+mounting the steps of the Clarendon building in Broad Street, and
+though he had not himself seen Charles I when he held his Parliament
+at Oxford, he had known a lady whose mother had seen the king walking
+round the Parks at Oxford.
+
+However, we must not forget that many stories about the old President
+were more or less mythical, as indeed many Oxford stories are. I was
+told that he actually slept in wig, cap and gown, so that once when
+an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle of his College, he put
+his head out of window in an incredibly short time, fully equipped as
+above. Many of these stories or “Common-Roomers” as they were called,
+still lived in the Common Rooms in my time, when the Fellows of each
+College assembled regularly after dinner, to take wine and dessert,
+and to talk on anything but what was called _Shop_, i. e. Greek and
+Latin. No one inquired about the truth of these stories, as long as
+they were well told. In a place like Oxford there exists a regular
+descent, by inheritance, of good stories. I remember stories told of
+Dr. Jenkins, as Master of Balliol, and afterwards transferred to his
+successor, Mr. Jowett. Bodleian stories descended in like manner from
+Dr. Bandinell to Mr. Coxe, and will probably be told of successive
+librarians till they become quite incongruous. I am old enough to have
+watched the descent of stories at Oxford, just as one recognizes the
+same furniture in college rooms occupied by successive generations of
+undergraduates. To me they sometimes seem threadbare like the old
+Turkish carpets in the college rooms, but I never spoil them by
+betraying their age, and, if well told, I can enjoy them as much as if
+I had never heard them before.
+
+Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, was quite a representative of Old
+Oxford, and a well-known character in the University. I had been
+introduced to him by Baron Bunsen, and he showed me much hospitality.
+I was warned that I should find him very stiff and forbidding. His own
+Fellows called him the East-wind. But though he certainly was
+condescending, he treated me with great urbanity. He had a very
+peculiar habit; when he had to shake hands with people whom he
+considered his inferiors, he stretched out two fingers, and if some of
+them who knew this peculiarity of his, tendered him two fingers in
+return, the shaking of hands became rather awkward. One of the Fellows
+of his college told me that, as long as he was only a Fellow, he never
+received more than two fingers; when, however, he became Head Master
+of a school, he was rewarded with three fingers, or even with the
+whole hand, but, as soon as he gave up this place, and returned to
+live in college, he was at once reduced to the statutable two fingers.
+I don’t recollect exactly how many fingers I was treated to, and I may
+have shaken them with my whole hand. Anyhow, I am quite conscious now
+of how many times I must have offended against academic etiquette.
+How, for instance, is a man to know that people who live at Oxford
+during term-time never shake hands except once during term? I doubt,
+in fact, whether that etiquette existed when I first came to Oxford,
+but it certainly had existed for some time before I discovered it.
+
+Dr. Jenkins, Master of Balliol, was also the hero of many anecdotes.
+It was of him that it was first told how he once found fault with an
+undergraduate because, whenever he looked out of window, he
+invariably saw the young man loitering about in the quad; to which the
+undergraduate replied: “How very curious, for whenever I cross the
+quad, I always see you, Sir, looking out of window.” He had a quiet
+humour of his own, and delighted in saying things which made others
+laugh, but never disturbed a muscle of his own face. One of his
+undergraduates was called Wyndham, and he had to say a few sharp words
+to him at “handshaking,” that is, at the end of term. After saying all
+he wanted, he finished in Latin: “Et nunc valeas Wyndhamme,”—the last
+two syllables being pronounced with great emphasis. The Master’s
+regard for his own dignity was very great. Once, when returning from a
+solitary walk, he slipped and fell. Two undergraduates seeing the
+accident ran to assist him, and were just laying hands on him to lift
+him up, when he descried a Master of Arts coming. “Stop,” he cried,
+“stop, I see a Master of Arts coming down the street.” And he
+dismissed the undergraduates with many thanks, and was helped on to
+his legs by the M.A.
+
+Accidents, or slips of the tongue, will happen to everybody, even to a
+Head of a House. One of these old gentlemen, Dr. Symons, of Wadham,
+when presiding at a missionary meeting, had to introduce Sir Peregrine
+Maitland, a most distinguished officer, and a thoroughly good man.
+When dilating on the Christian work which Sir Peregrine had done in
+India, he called him again and again Sir Peregrine Pickle. The effect
+was most ludicrous, for everybody was evidently well acquainted with
+_Roderick Random_, and Sir Peregrine had great difficulty in remaining
+serious when the Chairman called on Sir Peregrine Pickle once more to
+address his somewhat perplexed audience.
+
+But whatever may be said about the old Heads of Houses, most of them
+were certainly gentlemen both by birth and by nature. They are
+forgotten now, but they did good in their time, and much of their good
+work remains. If I consider who were the Dean and Canons and Students
+I met at Christ Church when I first became a member of the House, I
+should have to give a very different account from that given by the
+Highland lady in her _Memoirs_. The Dean of Christ Church, who
+received me, who proposed me for the degree of M.A., and afterwards
+allowed me to become a member of the House, was Dr. Gaisford, a real
+scholar, though it may be of the old school. He was considered very
+rough and rude, but I can only say he showed me more of real courtesy
+in those days than anybody else at Oxford. He was, I believe, a little
+shy, and easily put out when he suspected anybody, particularly the
+young men, of want of consideration. I can quite believe that when an
+undergraduate, in addressing him, stepped on the hearthrug on which he
+was standing, he may have said: “Get down from my hearthrug,” meaning,
+“keep at your proper distance.” I can only say that I never found him
+anything but kind and courteous. It so happened that he had been made
+a Member of the Bavarian Academy, and I, though very young, had
+received the same distinction as a reward for my Sanskrit work, and
+the Dean was rather pleased when he heard it. When I asked him whether
+he would put my name on the books of the House, he certainly hesitated
+a little, and asked me at last to come again next day and dine with
+him. I went, but I confess I was rather afraid that the Dean would
+raise difficulties. However, he spoke to me very nicely, “I have
+looked through the books,” he said, “and I find two precedents of
+Germans being members of the House, one of the name of Wernerus, and
+another of the name of Nitzschius,” or some such name. “But,” he
+continued, smiling, “even if I had not found these names, I should not
+have minded making a precedent of your case.” People were amazed at
+Oxford when they heard of the Dean’s courtesy, but I can only repeat
+that I never found him anything but courteous.
+
+Most of the Heads of Houses asked me to dine with them by sending me
+an invitation. The Dean alone first came and called on me. I was then
+living in a small room in Walton Street in which I worked, and dined,
+and smoked. My bedroom was close by, and I generally got up early, and
+shaved and finished my toilet at about 11 o’clock. I had just gone
+into my bedroom to shave, my face was half covered with lather, when
+my landlady rushed in and told me the Dean had called, and my dogs
+were pulling him about. The fact was I had a Scotch terrier with a
+litter of puppies in a basket, and when the Dean entered in full
+academical dress, the dogs flew at him, pulling the sleeves of his
+gown and barking furiously. Covered with lather as I was, I had to
+rush in to quiet the dogs, and in this state I had to receive the Very
+Rev. the Dean, and explain to him the nature of the work that brought
+me to Oxford. It was certainly awkward, but in spite of the disorder
+of my room, in spite also of the tobacco smoke of which the Dean did
+not approve, all went off well, though, I confess, I felt somewhat
+ashamed. In the same interview the Dean asked me about an Icelandic
+Dictionary which had been offered to the press by Cleasby and Dasent.
+“Surely it is a small barbarous island,” he said, “and how can they
+have any literature?” I tried, as well as I could, to explain to the
+Dean the extent and the value of Icelandic literature, and soon after
+the press, which was then the Dean, accepted the Dictionary which was
+brought out later by Dr. Vigfusson, in a most careful and scholarlike
+manner. It might indeed safely be called his Dictionary, considering
+how many dictionaries are called, not after the name of the compiler
+or compilers, but after that of their editor.
+
+This Dr. Vigfusson was quite a character. He was perfectly pale and
+bloodless, and had but one wish, that of being left alone. He came to
+Oxford first to assist Dr. Dasent, to whom Cleasby, when he died, had
+handed over his collections; but afterwards he stayed, taking it for
+granted that the University would give him the little he wanted. But
+even that little was difficult to provide, as there were no funds that
+could be used for that purpose, however uselessly other funds might
+seem to be squandered. That led to constant grumbling on his part.
+Ever so many expedients were tried to satisfy him, but none quite
+succeeded. At last he fell ill and died, and when he was a patient at
+the Acland Home, where the nurses did all they could for him, he
+several times said to me when I sat with him, that he had never been
+so happy in his life as in that Home. I sometimes blame myself for not
+having seen more of him at Oxford. But he always seemed to me full of
+suspicions and very easily offended, and that made any free
+intercourse with him difficult and far from pleasant. Perhaps it was
+my fault also. He may have felt that he might have claimed a
+professorship of Icelandic quite as well as I, and he may have grudged
+my settled position in Oxford, my independence and my freedom.
+Whenever we did work together, I always found him pleasant at first,
+but very soon he would become wayward and sensitive, do what I would,
+and I had to let him go his own way, as I went mine.
+
+I remember dining with the famous Dr. Bull, Canon of Christ Church,
+who certainly managed to produce a dinner that would have done credit
+to any French chef. He was one of the last pluralists, and many
+stories were told about him. One story, which however was perfectly
+true, showed at all events his great sagacity. A well-known banker had
+been for years the banker of Christ Church. Dr. Bull who was the
+College Bursar had to transact all the financial business with him. No
+one suspected the banking house which he represented. Dr. Bull,
+however, the last time he invited him to dinner, was struck by his
+very pious and orthodox remarks, and by the change of tone in his
+conversation, such as might suit a Canon of Christ Church, but not a
+luxurious banker from London. Without saying a word, Dr. Bull went to
+London next day, drew out all the money of the college, took all his
+papers from the bank, and the day after, to the dismay of London, the
+bank failed, the depositors lost their money, but Christ Church was
+unhurt.
+
+Another of the Canons of Christ Church at that time had spent half a
+century in the place, and read the lessons there twice every day. Of
+course he knew the prayer-book by heart, and as long as he could see
+to read there was no harm in his reading. But when his eyesight failed
+him and he had to trust entirely to his memory, he would often go from
+some word in the evening prayer to the same word in the marriage
+service, and from there to the burial service, with an occasional slip
+into baptism. 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 away. I frequently stayed at Oxford during vacation, and
+thought of course that the evening service would never end, till at
+last I was asked to name the child, and then I went home.
+
+One Sunday I remember going to chapel, and after prayers had begun the
+following conversation took place, loud enough to be heard all through
+the chapel. Enter old Canon preceded by a beadle. He goes straight to
+his stall, and finding it occupied by a well-known D.D. from London,
+who is deeply engaged in prayer, he stands and looks at the
+interloper, and when that produces no effect, he says to the beadle:
+“Tell that man this is my stall; tell him to get out.”
+
+Beadle: “Dr. A.’s compliments, and whether you would kindly occupy
+another stall.”
+
+D.D.: “Very sorry; I shall change immediately.”
+
+Old Canon settles in his stall, prayers continue, and after about ten
+minutes the Canon shouts: “Beadle, tell that man to dine with me at
+five.”
+
+Beadle: “Dr. A.’s compliments, and whether you would give him the
+pleasure of your company at dinner at five.”
+
+D.D.: “Very sorry, I am engaged.”
+
+Beadle: “D.D. regrets he is engaged.”
+
+Old Canon: “Oh, he won’t dine!”
+
+The cathedral was very empty, and fortunately this conversation was
+listened to by a small congregation only. I can, however, vouch for
+it, as I was sitting close by and heard it myself.
+
+Bodley’s Library, too, was full of good stories, though many of them
+do not bear repeating. When I first began to work there, Dr. Bandinell
+was Bodleian Librarian. Working in the Bodleian was then like working
+in one’s private library. One could have as many books and MSS. as one
+desired, and the six hours during which the Library was open were a
+very fair allowance for such tiring work as copying and collating
+Sanskrit MSS. I well remember my delight when I first sat down at my
+table near one of the windows looking into the garden of Exeter. It
+seemed a perfect paradise for a student. I must confess that I
+slightly altered my opinion when I had to sit there every day during a
+severe winter without any fire, shivering and shaking, and almost
+unable to hold my pen, till kind Mr. Coxe, the sub-librarian, took
+compassion on me and brought me a splendid fur that had been sent him
+as a present by a Russian scholar, who had witnessed the misery of the
+Librarian in this Siberian Library. Now all this is changed. The
+Library is so full of students, both male and female, that one has
+difficulty in finding a place, certainly in finding a quiet place; and
+all sorts of regulations have been introduced which have no doubt
+become necessary on account of the large number of readers, but which
+have completely changed, or as some would say, improved the character
+of the place. As to one improvement, however, there can be no two
+opinions. The Library and the reading-room, the so-called Camera, are
+now comfortably warmed, and students may in the latter place read for
+twelve hours uninterruptedly, and not be turned out as we were by a
+warning bell at four o’clock. And woe to you if you failed to obey the
+warning. One day an unfortunate reader was so absorbed in his book
+that he did not hear the bell, and was locked in. He tried in vain to
+attract attention from the windows, for it was no pleasant prospect to
+pass a night among so many ghosts. At last he saw a solitary woman,
+and shouted to her that he was locked in. “No,” she said, “you are
+not. The Library is closed at four.” Whether he spent the night among
+the books is not known. Let us hope that he met with a less logical
+person to release him from his cold prison.
+
+Dr. Bandinell ruled supreme in his library, and even the Curators
+trembled before him when he told them what had been the invariable
+custom of the Library for years, and could not be altered. And,
+curiously enough, he had always funds at his disposal, which is not
+the case now, and whenever there was a collection of valuable MSS. in
+the market he often prided himself on having secured it long before
+any other library had the money ready. Now and then, it is true, he
+allowed himself to be persuaded by a plausible seller of rare books
+or MSS., but generally he was very wary. He was not always very
+courteous to visitors, and still less so to his under-librarians. The
+Oriental under-librarian Professor Reay, in particular, who was old
+and somewhat infirm, had much to suffer from him, and the language in
+which he was ordered about was such as would not now be addressed to
+any menial. And yet Professor Reay belonged to a very good family,
+though Dr. Bandinell would insist on calling him Ray, and declared
+that he had no right to the e in his name. In revenge some people
+would give him an additional i and call him Dr. Bandinelli, which made
+him very angry, because, as he would say to me, “he had never been one
+of those dirty foreigners.” Silence was enjoined in the library, but
+the librarian’s voice broke through all rules of silence. I remember
+once, when Professor Reay had been looking for ever so long to find
+his spectacles without which he could not read the Arabic MSS., and
+had asked everybody whether they had seen them, a voice came at last
+thundering through the library: “You left your spectacles on my chair,
+you old ----, and I sat on them!” There was an end of spectacles and
+Arabic MSS. after that. There were two men only of whom Dr. Bandinell
+and H. O. Coxe also were afraid, Dr. Pusey, who was one of the
+Curators, and later on, Jowett, the Master of Balliol.
+
+There was a vacancy in the Oriental sub-librarianship, and a very
+distinguished young Hebrew scholar, William Wright, afterwards
+Professor at Cambridge, was certainly by far the best candidate. But
+as ill-luck—I mean ill-luck for the Library—would have it, he had
+given offence by a lecture at Dublin, in which he declared that the
+people of Canaan were Semitic, and not, as stated in Genesis, the
+children of Ham. No one doubts this now, and every new inscription has
+confirmed it. Still a strong effort was made to represent Dr. Wright
+as a most dangerous young man, and thus to prevent his appointment at
+Oxford. The appointment was really in the hands of Dr. Bandinell; and
+after I had frankly explained to him the motives of this mischievous
+agitation against Dr. Wright, and assured him that he was a scholar
+and by no means given to what was then called “free-handling of the
+Old Testament,” he promised me that he would appoint him and no one
+else. However, poor man, he was urged and threatened and frightened,
+and to my great surprise the appointment was given to some one else,
+who at that time had given hardly any proofs of independent work as a
+Semitic scholar, though he afterwards rendered very good and honest
+service. I did not disguise my opinion of what had happened; and for
+more than a year Dr. Bandinell never spoke to me nor I to him, though
+we met almost daily at the library. At last the old man, evidently
+feeling that he had been wrong, came to tell me that he was sorry for
+what had happened, but that it was not his fault: after this, of
+course, all was forgotten. Dr. Wright had a much more brilliant career
+opened to him, first at the British Museum, and then as professor at
+Cambridge, than he could possibly have had as sub-librarian at Oxford.
+He always remained a scholar, and never dabbled in theology.
+
+Some very heated correspondence passed at the time, and I remember
+keeping the letters for a long while. They were curious as showing the
+then state of theological opinion at Oxford; but I have evidently put
+the correspondence away so carefully that nowhere can I find it now.
+Let it be forgotten and forgiven.
+
+Many, if not all, of the stories that I have written down in this
+chapter may be legendary, and they naturally lose or gain as told by
+different people. Who has not heard different versions of the story of
+a well-known Canon of Christ Church in my early days, who, when rowing
+on the river, saw a drowning man laying hold of his boat and nearly
+upsetting it. “Providentially,” he explained, “I had brought my
+umbrella, and I had presence of mind enough to hit him over the
+knuckles. He let go, sank, and never rose again.” Nobody, I imagine,
+would have vouched for the truth of this story, but it was so often
+repeated that it provided the old gentleman with a nickname, that
+stuck to him always.
+
+I could add more Oxford stories, but it seems almost ill-natured to do
+so, and I could only say in most cases _relata refero_. When I first
+came here Oxford and Oxford society were to me so strange that I
+probably accepted many similar stories as gospel truth. My young
+friends hardly treated me quite fairly in this respect. I had many
+questions to ask, and my friends evidently thought it great fun to
+chaff me and to tell me stories which I naturally believed, for there
+were many things which seemed to me very strange, and yet they were
+true and I had to believe them. The existence of Fellows who received
+from £300 to £800 a year, as a mere sinecure for life, provided they
+did not marry, seemed to me at first perfectly incredible. 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
+employments, particularly if they could gain an exhibition or
+scholarship. But after a man had passed his examinations, the country
+or the government had nothing more to do with him. “Swim or drown” was
+the maxim followed everywhere; and it was but natural that the first
+years of professional life, whether as lawyers, medical men, or
+clergymen, were years of great self-denial. But they were also years
+of intense struggle, 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 employment. To imagine that after the country had done
+its duty by providing schools and universities, it would provide
+crutches for men who ought to learn to walk by themselves, was beyond
+my comprehension, particularly when I was told how large a sum was
+yearly spent by the colleges in paying these fellowships without
+requiring any _quid pro quo_.
+
+Having once come to believe that, and several other to me
+unintelligible things at Oxford, I was ready to believe almost
+anything my friends told me. There are some famous stone images, for
+instance, round the Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum. They are
+hideous, for the sandstone of which they are made has crumbled away
+again and again, but even when they were restored, the same brittle
+stone was used. They are in the form of Hermae, and were planned by no
+less an architect than Sir Christopher Wren. When I asked what they
+were meant for, I was assured quite seriously that they were images of
+former Heads of Houses. I believed it, though I expressed my surprise
+that the stone-mason who made new heads, when the old showed hardly
+more than two eyes and a nose, and a very wide mouth, should carefully
+copy the crumbling faces, because, as I was informed, he had been told
+to copy the former gentlemen.
+
+It was certainly a very common amusement of my young undergraduate
+friends to make fun of the Heads of Houses. They did not seem to feel
+that shiver of unspeakable awe for them of which Bishop Thorold
+speaks; nay, they were anything but respectful in speaking of the
+Doctors of Divinity in their red gowns with black velvet sleeves. If
+it is difficult for old men always to understand young men, it is
+certainly even more difficult for young men to understand old men.
+There is a very old saying, “Young men think that old men are fools,
+but old men know that young men are.” Though very young myself, I came
+to know several of the old Heads of Houses, and though they certainly
+had their peculiarities, they did by no means all belong to the age of
+the Dodo. They were enjoying their _otium cum dignitate_, as befits
+gentlemen, scholars, and divines, and they certainly deserved greater
+respect from the undergraduates than they received.
+
+At the annual _Encaenia_, a great deal of licence was allowed to the
+young men; and I know of several strangers, especially foreigners, who
+have been scandalized at the riotous behaviour of the undergraduates
+in the Theatre, the Oxford _Aula_, when the Vice-Chancellor stood up
+to address the assembled audience. My first experience of this was
+with Dr. Plumptre, who, as I have said, was very tall and stately;
+when his first words were not quite distinct, the undergraduates
+shouted, “Speak up, old stick.” When the Warden of Wadham, the Rev.
+Dr. Symons, was showing some pretty young ladies to their seats in the
+Theatre, he was threatened by the young men, who yelled at the top of
+their voices, “I’ll tell Lydia, you wicked old man.” Now Lydia was his
+most excellent spouse. At first the remarks of the undergraduates at
+the _Encaenia_, or rather _Saturnalia_, were mostly good-natured and
+at least witty; but they at last became so rude that distinguished
+men, whom the University wished to honour by conferring on them
+honorary degrees, felt deeply offended. Sir Arthur Helps declared that
+he came to receive an honour, and received an insult. Well do I
+remember the Rev. Dr. Salmon, who was asked where he had left his
+lobster sauce; Dr. Wendell Holmes was shouted at, whether he had come
+across the Atlantic in his “One Hoss Shay”; the Right Hon. W. H.
+Smith, First Lord of the Admiralty, was presented with a Pinafore, and
+Lord Wolseley with a Black Watch. There was a certain amount of wit in
+these allusions, and the best way to take the academic row and riot
+was Tennyson’s, who told me on coming out that “he felt all the time
+as if standing on the shingle of the sea shore, the storm howling, and
+the spray covering him right and left.” After a time, however, these
+_Saturnalia_ had to be stopped, and they were stopped in a curious
+way, by giving ladies seats among the undergraduates. It speaks well
+for them that their regard for the ladies restrained them, and made
+them behave like gentlemen.
+
+The reign of the Heads of Houses, which was in full force when I first
+settled in Oxford, began to wane when it was least expected. There
+had, however, been grumblings among the Fellows and Tutors at Oxford,
+who felt themselves aggrieved by the self-willed interference of the
+Heads of Colleges in their tutorial work, and, it may be, resented the
+airs assumed by men who, after all, were their equals, and in no sense
+their betters, in the University.
+
+Society distinctly profited when Fellows and Tutors were allowed to
+marry, and when several of the newly-elected of the Heads of Houses,
+having wives and daughters, opened their houses, and had interesting
+people to dine with them from the neighbourhood and from London.
+
+The Deanery of Christ Church was not only made architecturally into a
+new house, but under Dr. Liddell, with his charming wife and
+daughters, became a social centre not easily rivalled anywhere else.
+There one met not only royalty, the young Prince of Wales, but many
+eminent writers, artists, and political men from London, Gladstone,
+Disraeli, Richmond, Ruskin, and many others. Another bright house of
+the new era was that of the Principal of Brasenose, Dr. Cradock, and
+his cheerful and most amusing wife. There one often met such men as
+Lord Russell, Sir George C. Lewis, young Harcourt, and many more. She
+was the true Dresden china marquise, with her amusing sallies, which
+no doubt often gave offence to grave Heads of Houses and sedate
+Professors. No one knew her age, she was so young; and yet she had
+been maid of honour to some Queen, as I told her once, to Queen Anne.
+Having been maid of honour, she never concealed her own peculiar
+feelings about people who had not been presented. When she wanted to
+be left alone, she would look out of window, and tell visitors who
+came to call, “Very sorry, but I am not at home to-day.” Queen’s
+College also, under Dr. Thomson, the future Archbishop of York, was a
+most hospitable house. Mrs. Thomson presided over it with her peculiar
+grace and genuine kindness, and many a pleasant evening I spent there
+with musical performances. But here, too, the old leaven of Oxford
+burst forth sometimes. Of course, we generally performed the music of
+Handel and other classical authors; Mendelssohn’s compositions were
+still considered as mere twaddle by some of the old school. At one of
+these evenings, the old organist of New College, with his wooden leg,
+after sitting through a rehearsal of Mendelssohn’s _Hymn of Praise_,
+which I was conducting at the pianoforte, walked up to me, as I
+thought, to thank me; but no, he burst out in a torrent of real and
+somewhat coarse abuse of me, for venturing to introduce such flimsy
+music at Oxford. I did not feel very guilty, and fortunately I
+remained silent, whether from actual bewilderment or from a better
+cause, I can hardly tell.
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Müller Aged 30._]
+
+Long before Commissions came down on Oxford a new life seemed to be
+springing up there, and what was formerly the exception became more
+and more the rule among the young Fellows and Tutors. They saw what a
+splendid opportunity was theirs, having the very flower of England
+to educate, having the future of English society to form. They
+certainly made the best of it, helped, I believe, by the so-called
+Oxford Movement, which, whatever came of it afterwards, was certainly
+in the beginning thoroughly genuine and conscientious. The Tutors saw
+a good deal of the young men confided to their care, and the result
+was that even what was called the “fast set” thought it a fine thing
+to take a good class. I could mention a number of young noblemen and
+wealthy undergraduates who, in my early years, read for a first class
+and took it; and my experience has certainly been that those who took
+a first class came out in later life as eminent and useful members of
+society. Not that eminence in political, clerical, literary, and
+scientific life was restricted to first classes, far from it. But
+first-class men rarely failed to appear again on the surface in later
+life. It may be true that a first class did not always mean a
+first-class man, but it always seemed to mean a man who had learned
+how to work honestly, whether he became Prime Minister or Archbishop,
+or spent his days in one of the public offices, or even in a
+counting-house or newspaper office.
+
+I felt it was an excellent mixture if a young man, after taking a good
+degree at Oxford, spent a year or two at a German University. He
+generally came back with fresh ideas, knew what kind of work still had
+to be done in the different branches of study, and did it with a
+perseverance that soon produced most excellent results. Of course
+there was always the difficulty that young men wished to make their
+way in life, that is to make a living. The Church, the bar, and the
+hospital, absorbed many of those who in Germany would have looked
+forward to a University career. In my own subject more particularly,
+my very best pupils did not see their way to gaining even an
+independence, unless they gave their time to first securing a curacy,
+or a mastership at school; and they usually found that, in order to do
+their work conscientiously, they had to give up their favourite
+studies in which they would certainly have done excellent work, if
+there had been no _dira necessitas_. 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 studies. But the feeling
+of the majority was always against what was called derisively Original
+Research, and the fellowship-funds continued to be frittered away,
+payment by results being considered a totally mistaken principle, so
+that often, as in the case of the new septennial fellowships, there
+remained the payment only, but no results.
+
+Still all this became clear to me at a much later time only. My first
+years at Oxford were spent in a perfect bewilderment of joy and
+admiration. No one can see that University for the first time,
+particularly in spring or autumn, without being enchanted with it. To
+me it seemed a perfect paradise, and I could have wished for myself no
+better lot than that which the kindness of my friends later secured
+for me there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD
+
+
+I was still very young when I came to settle at Oxford, only
+twenty-four in fact; and, though occasionally honoured by invitations
+from Heads of Houses and Professors, I naturally lived chiefly with
+undergraduates and junior Fellows, such as Grant, Sellar, Palgrave,
+Morier, and others. Grant, afterwards Sir Alexander Grant and
+Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was a delightful companion.
+He had always something new in his mind, and discussed with many
+flashes of wit and satire. He possessed an aristocratic contempt for
+anything commonplace, or self-evident, so that one had to be careful
+in conversing with him. But he was generous, and his laugh reconciled
+one to some of his sharp sallies. How little one anticipates the
+future greatness of one’s friends. They all seem to us no better than
+ourselves, when suddenly they emerge. Grant had shown what he could do
+by his edition of Aristotle’s _Ethics_. He became one of the
+Professors at the new University at Bombay and contributed much to the
+first starting of that University, so warmly patronized by Sir Charles
+Trevelyan. On returning to this country he was chosen to fill the
+distinguished place of Principal of the Edinburgh University. More was
+expected of him when he enjoyed this _otium cum dignitate_, but his
+health seemed to have suffered in the enervating climate of India,
+and, though he enjoyed his return to his friends most fully and
+spending his life as a friend among friends, he died comparatively
+young, and perhaps without fulfilling all the hopes that were
+entertained of him. But he was a thoroughly genial man, and his
+handshake and the twinkle of his eye when meeting an old friend will
+not easily be forgotten.
+
+Sellar was another Scotchman whom I knew as an undergraduate at
+Balliol. When I first came to know him he was full of anxieties about
+his health, and greatly occupied with the usual doubts about religion,
+particularly the presence of evil or of anything imperfect in this
+world. He was an honest fellow, warmly attached to his friends; and no
+one could wish to have a better friend to stand up for him on all
+occasions and against all odds. He afterwards became happily married
+and a useful Professor of Latin at Edinburgh. I stayed with him later
+in life in Scotland and found him always the same, really enjoying his
+friends’ society and a talk over old days. He had begun to ail when I
+saw him last, but the old boy was always there, even when he was
+miserable about his chiefly imaginary miseries. Soon after I had left
+him I received his last message and farewell from his deathbed. We
+are told that all this is very natural and what we must be prepared
+for—but what cold gaps it leaves. My thoughts often return to him, as
+if he were still among the living, and then one feels one’s own
+loneliness and friendlessness again and again.
+
+Palgrave roused great expectations among undergraduates at Oxford, but
+he kept us waiting for some time. He took early to office life in the
+Educational Department, and this seems to have ground him down and
+unfitted him for other work. He had a wonderful gift of admiring, his
+great hero being Tennyson, and he was more than disappointed if others
+did not join in his unqualified panegyrics of the great poet. At last,
+somewhat late in life, he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford,
+and gave some most learned and instructive lectures. His knowledge of
+English Literature, particularly poetry, was quite astounding. I
+certainly never went to him to ask him a question that he did not
+answer at once and with exhaustive fullness. Some of his friends
+complained of his great command of language, and even Tennyson, I am
+told, found it sometimes too much. All I can say is that to me it was
+a pleasure to listen to him. I owe him particular thanks for having,
+in the kindest manner, revised my first English compositions. He was
+always ready and indefatigable, and I certainly owed a good deal to
+his corrections and his unstinted advice. His _Golden Treasury_ has
+become a national possession, and certainly speaks well both for his
+extensive knowledge and for his good taste.
+
+Lastly there was Morier, of whom certainly no one expected when he was
+at Balliol that he would rise to be British Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg. His early education had been somewhat neglected, but when
+he came to Balliol he worked hard to pass a creditable examination. He
+was a giant in size, very good-looking, and his manners, when he
+liked, most charming and attractive. Being the son of a diplomatist
+there was something both English and foreign in his manner, and he
+certainly was a general favourite at Oxford. His great desire was to
+enter the diplomatic service, but when that was impossible, he found
+employment for a time in the Education Office. But society in London
+was too much for him, he was made for society, and society was
+delighted to receive him. But it was difficult for him at the same
+time to fulfil his duties at the Education Office, and the result was
+that he had to give up his place. Things began to look serious, when
+fortunately Lord Aberdeen, a great friend of his father, found him
+some diplomatic employment; and that once found, Morier was in his
+element. He was often almost reckless; but while several of his
+friends came altogether to grief, he managed always to fall on his
+feet and keep afloat while others went down. As an undergraduate he
+came to me to read Greek with me, and I confess that with such
+mistakes in his Greek papers as οἱ πἁθοι instead of τἀ πἁθη, I
+trembled for his examinations. However, he did well in the schools,
+knowing how to hide his weak points and how to make the best of his
+strong ones. I travelled with him in Germany, and when the
+Schleswig-Holstein question arose, he wrote a pamphlet which certainly
+might have cost him his diplomatic career. He asked me to allow it to
+be understood that the pamphlet, which did full justice to the claims
+of Holstein and of Germany, had been written by me. I received many
+compliments, which I tried to parry as well as I could. Fortunately
+Lord John Russell stood by Morier, and his prophecies did certainly
+turn out true. “Don’t let the Germans awake from their slumbers and
+find a work ready made for them on which they all agree.” But the
+signatories of the treaty of London did the very thing against which
+Morier had raised his warning voice, as the friend of Germany as it
+was, though perhaps not of the Germany that was to be. Schleswig-Holstein
+_meer-umschlungen_ became the match, (the Schwefel-hölzchen), that was
+to light the fire of German unity, a unity which for a time may not
+have been exactly what England could have wished for, but which in the
+future will become, we hope, the safety of Europe and the support of
+England.
+
+Morier’s later advance in his diplomatic career was certainly most
+successful. He possessed the very important art of gaining the
+confidence of the crowned heads and ministers he had to deal with.
+Bismarck, it is true, could not bear him, and tried several times to
+trip him up. Even while Morier was at Berlin, as a Secretary of
+Legation, Bismarck asked for his removal, but Lord Granville simply
+declined to remove a young diplomatist who gave him information on all
+parties in Germany, and to do so had to mix with people whom Bismarck
+did not approve of. Besides, Morier was always a _persona grata_ with
+the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess, and that was enough to make
+Bismarck dislike him. Later in life Bismarck accused him of having
+conveyed private information of the military position of the Germans
+to the French Guards, such information being derived from the English
+Court. The charge was ridiculous. Morier was throughout the war a
+sympathizer with Germany as against France. The English Court had no
+military information to convey or to communicate to Morier, and Morier
+was too much of a diplomatist and a gentleman, if by accident he had
+possessed any such information, to betray such a secret to an enemy in
+the field. Bismarck was completely routed, though his son seemed
+inclined to fasten a duel on the English diplomatist. Morier rose
+higher and higher, and at last became Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
+When I laughed and congratulated him he said, “He must be a great fool
+who does not reach the top of the diplomatic tree.” That was too much
+modesty, and yet modesty was not exactly his fault; but he agreed
+with me as to _quam parva sapientia regitur mundus_.
+
+Nothing could seem more prosperous than my friend Morier’s career; but
+few people knew how utterly miserable he really was. He had one son,
+in many respects the very image of his father, a giant in stature,
+very handsome, and most attractive. In spite of all we said to him he
+would not send his son to a public school in England, but kept him
+with him at the different embassies, where his only companions were
+the young attachés and secretaries. He had a private tutor, and when
+that tutor declared that young Morier was fit for the University, his
+father managed to get him into Balliol, recommending him to the
+special care of the Master. He actually lived in the Master’s house
+for a time, but enjoyed the greatest liberty that an undergraduate at
+Oxford may enjoy. His father was wrapped up in his boy, but at the
+same time tried to frighten him into hard work, or at least into
+getting through the examinations. All was in vain; young Morier was so
+nervous that he could never pass an examination. What might be
+expected followed, and the father had at last to remove him to begin
+work as an honorary attaché at his own embassy. I liked the young man
+very much, but my own impression is that his nervousness quite
+unfitted him for serious work. The end was beyond description sad. He
+went to South Africa in the police force, distinguished himself very
+much, came back to England, and then on his second voyage to the Cape
+died suddenly on board the steamer. I have seldom seen such utter
+misery as his father’s. He loved his son and the son loved his father
+passionately, but the father expected more than it was physically and
+mentally possible for the son to do. Hence arose misunderstandings,
+and yet beneath the surface there was this passionate love, like the
+love of lovers. When I saw my old friend last, he cried and sobbed
+like a child: his heart was really broken. He went on for a few years
+more, suffering much from ill health, but really killed at last by his
+utter misery. I knew him in the bright morning of his life, at the
+meridian of his great success, and last in the dark night when light
+and life seems gone, when the moon and all the stars are extinguished,
+and nothing remains but patient suffering and the hope of a brighter
+morn to come.
+
+How little one dreamt of all this when we were young, and when an
+ambassador, nay, even a professor, seemed to us far beyond the reach
+of our ambition. I could go on mentioning many more names of men with
+whom I lived at Oxford in the most delightful intimacy, and who
+afterwards turned up as bishops, archbishops, judges, ministers, and
+all the rest. True, it is quite natural that it should be so with a
+man who, as I did, began his English life almost as an undergraduate
+among undergraduates. Nearly all Englishmen who receive a liberal
+education must pass either through Oxford or through Cambridge, and I
+was no doubt lucky in making thus early the acquaintance of a number
+of men who later in life became deservedly eminent. The only drawback
+was that, knowing my friends very intimately, 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 demand.
+
+Thomson was a dear friend of mine when he was still a fellow of
+Queen’s College. We worked together, as may be seen by my
+contributions to his _Laws of Thought_, and the translation of a Vedic
+hymn which he helped me to make. I think he had a kind of anticipation
+of what was in store for him. Though for a time he had to be
+satisfied, even when he was married, with a very small London living,
+he soon rose in the Church, at a time when clergymen of a liberal way
+of thinking had not much chance of Crown preferment. But having gone
+at the head of a deputation to Lord Palmerston, to inform him that
+Gladstone’s next election as member for Oxford was becoming doubtful,
+owing to all the bishoprics being given to the Low Church party—the
+party of Lord Shaftesbury—Palmerston remembered his stately and
+courteous bearing, and when the see of Gloucester fell vacant, gave
+him that bishopric to silence Gladstone’s supporters. This was a very
+unexpected preferment at Oxford, but Thomson made such good use of his
+opportunity that, when the Archbishopric of York became vacant, and
+Palmerston found it difficult to make his own or Lord Shaftesbury’s
+nominee acceptable to the Queen, he suggested that any one of the
+lately elected bishops approved of by the Crown might go to York, and
+some one else fill the see thus vacated. It so happened that Thomson’s
+name was the first to be mentioned, and he was made Archbishop,
+probably one of the youngest Archbishops England has ever known. He
+certainly fulfilled all expectations and proved himself the people’s
+Archbishop, for he was himself the son of a small tradesman, a fact of
+which he was never ashamed, though his enemies did not fail to cast it
+in his teeth. 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 me, and was now His Grace the
+Lord Archbishop, with a palace to inhabit and an income of about
+£10,000 a year. However, though as a German and as a friend of Bunsen
+I was looked upon as a kind of heretic, I never made the Archbishop
+blush for his old friend, and I always found him the same to the end
+of his life, kind, courteous, and ready to help, though it is but fair
+to remember that an Archbishop of York is one of the first subjects of
+the Queen, and cannot do or say everything that he might like to do or
+to say. When I had to ask him to do something for a friend of mine,
+who as a clergyman had given great offence by his very liberal
+opinions, he did all he could do, though he might have incurred great
+obloquy by so doing.
+
+But when I think of these men, friends and acquaintances of mine, whom
+I remember as young men, very able and hard working no doubt, yet not
+so entirely different from others who through life remained unknown,
+it is as if I had slept through a number of years and dreamt, and had
+then suddenly awoke to a new life. Some of my friends, I am glad to
+say, I always found the same, whether in ermine or in lawn sleeves;
+others, however, I am sorry to say, had _become_ something, the old
+boy in them had vanished, and nothing was to be seen except the
+bishop, the judge, or the minister.
+
+It was not for me to remind them of their former self, and to make
+them doubt their own identity, but I often felt the truth of Matthew
+Arnold’s speeches, who, in social position, never rose beyond that of
+inspector of schools, and who often laughed when at great dinners he
+found himself surrounded by their Graces, their Excellencies, and my
+Lords, recognizing faces that sat below him at school and whose names
+in the class lists did not occupy so high a place as his own. Not that
+Matthew Arnold was dissatisfied; he knew his worth, but, as he himself
+asked for nothing, it is strange that his friends should never have
+asked for something for him, which would have shown to the world at
+large that he had not been left behind in the race. It strikes one
+that while he was at Oxford, few people only detected in Arnold the
+poet or the man of remarkable genius. I had many letters from him, but
+I never kept them, and I often blame myself now that in his, as in
+other cases, I should have thrown away letters as of no importance.
+Then suddenly came the time when he returned to Oxford as the poet, as
+the Professor of poetry, nay, afterwards as the philosopher also,
+placed high by public opinion among the living worthies of England.
+What was sometimes against him was his want of seriousness. A laugh
+from his hearers or readers seemed to be more valued by him than their
+serious opposition, or their convinced assent. He trusted, like
+others, to _persiflage_, and the result was that when he tried to be
+serious, people could not forget that he might at any time turn round
+and smile, and decline to be taken _au grand sérieux_. People do not
+know what a dangerous game this French _persiflage_ is, particularly
+in England, and how difficult it becomes to exchange it afterwards for
+real seriousness.
+
+Those early Oxford days were bright days for me, and now, when those
+young and old faces, whether undergraduates or archbishops, rise up
+again before me, I being almost the only one left of that happy
+company, I ask again, “Did they also belong to a mere dreamland, they
+who gave life to my life, and made England my real home?” When I first
+saw them at Oxford, I was really an undergraduate, though I had taken
+my Doctor’s degree at Leipzig. I lived, in fact, my happy university
+life over again, and it would be difficult to say which academical
+years I enjoyed more, those at Leipzig and Berlin, or those at Oxford.
+There were intermediate years in Paris, but during my stay there I saw
+but little of students and student life. I was too much oppressed with
+cares and anxieties about my present and future to think much of
+society and enjoyment. At Oxford, these cares had become far less, and
+I could by hard work earn as much money as I wanted, and cared to
+spend. In Paris, I was already something of a scholar and writer; at
+Oxford I became once more the undergraduate.
+
+This young society into which I was received was certainly most
+attractive, though that it contained the germs of future greatness
+never struck me at the time. What struck me was the general tone of
+the conversation. Of course, as Lord Palmerston said of himself when
+he was no longer very young, “boys will be boys,” but there never was
+anything rude or vulgar in their conversation, and I hardly ever heard
+an offensive remark among them. Most of my friends came from Balliol,
+and were serious-minded men, many of them occupied and troubled by
+religious, philosophical, and social problems.
+
+What puzzled me most was the entire absence of duels. Occasionally
+there were squabbles and high words, which among German students could
+have had one result only—a duel. But at Oxford, either a man
+apologized at once or the next morning, and the matter was forgotten,
+or, if a man proved himself a cad or a snob, he was simply dropped. I
+do not mean to condemn the students’ duels in Germany altogether.
+Considering how mixed the society of German universities is, and the
+perfect equality that reigns among them—they all called each other
+“thou” in my time—the son of a gentleman required some kind of
+protection against the son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing
+and fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students, so that there
+remained nothing to a young student who wanted to escape from the
+insults of a young ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a
+challenge was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was the power
+of public opinion at the universities that not another word of insult
+would be uttered. In this way much mischief is prevented. Besides,
+every precaution is taken to guard against fatal accident, and I
+believe there are fewer serious accidents on the _mensura_ than in the
+hunting-field in England. When I was at Leipzig, where we had at least
+four hundred duels during the year, only two fatal accidents happened,
+and they were, indeed, accidents, such as will happen even at
+football. Of course duels can never be defended, but for keeping up
+good manners, also for bringing out a man’s character, these academic
+duels seem useful. However small the danger is, it frightens the
+coward and restrains the poltroon. For all that, what has taken place
+in England may in time take place in Germany also, and men will cease
+to think that it is impossible to defend their honour without a piece
+of steel or a pistol. The last thing that a German student desires to
+do in a duel is to kill his adversary. Hence pistol duels, which are
+generally preferred by theological students, because they cannot
+easily get a living if their face is scarred all over, are generally
+the most harmless, except perhaps for the seconds.
+
+Before closing this chapter, I should like to say a few words on the
+impressions which the theological atmosphere of Oxford in 1848
+produced on me, and which even now fills me with wonder and amazement.
+
+When I came to Oxford, I was strongly recommended to Stanley on one
+side, and to Manuel Johnson on the other,—a curious mixture. Johnson,
+the Observer, was extremely kind and hospitable to me. He was a genial
+man, full of love, possibly a little weak, but thoroughly honest, nay,
+transparently so. I met at his house nearly all the leaders of the
+High Church movement, though I never met Newman himself, who had then
+already gone to reside at his retreat at Littlemore. On the other
+hand, Stanley received me with open arms as a friend of Bunsen,
+Frederick Maurice, and Julius Hare, and as I came straight from the
+February revolution in 1848, he was full of interest and curiosity to
+know from me what I had seen in Paris.
+
+At first I knew nothing, and understood nothing of the movement, call
+it ecclesiastical or theological, that was going on at Oxford at that
+time. I dined almost every Sunday at Johnson’s house, and at his
+dinners and Sunday afternoon garden parties I met men such as Church,
+Mozley, Buckle, Palgrave, Pollen, Rigaud, Burgon, and Chrétian, who
+inspired me with great respect, both for their learning and for what I
+could catch of their character. Stanley, on the other hand, Froude,
+and Jowett, proved themselves true friends to me in making me feel at
+home, and initiating me into the secrets of the place. There was,
+however, a curious reticence on both sides, and it was by sudden
+glimpses only that I came to understand that these two sets were quite
+divided, nay, opposed, and had very different ideals before them.
+
+I had been at a German university, and the historical study of
+Christianity was to me as familiar as the study of Roman history.
+Professors whom I had looked up to as great authorities, implicitly to
+be trusted, such as Lotze and Weisse at Leipzig, Schelling and
+Michelet at Berlin, had, after causing in me a certain surprise at
+first, left me with the firm conviction that the Old and New Testament
+were historical books, and to be treated according to the same
+critical principles as any other ancient book, particularly the sacred
+books of the East of which so little was then known, and of which I
+too knew very little as yet; enough, however, to see that they
+contained nothing but what under the circumstances they could
+contain, traditions of extreme antiquity collected by men who gathered
+all they thought would be useful for the education of the people.
+Anything like revelation in the old sense of the word, a belief that
+these books had been verbally communicated by the Deity, or that what
+seemed miraculous in them was to be accepted as historically real,
+simply because it was recorded in these sacred books, was to me a
+standpoint long left behind. To me the questions that occupied my
+thoughts were to what date these books, such as we have them, could be
+assigned, what portions of them were of importance to us, what were
+the simple truths they contained, and what had been added to them by
+later collectors. Well do I remember when, before going to Oxford, I
+spoke to Bunsen of the preface to my Rig-veda, and used the
+expression, “the great revelations of the world,” he, perfectly
+understanding what I meant, warned me in his loud and warm voice,
+“Don’t say that at Oxford.” I could see no harm, nor Bunsen either,
+nor his son who was an Oxford man and a clergyman of the Church of
+England; but I was told that I should be misunderstood. I knew far too
+little to imagine that I had a right to speak of what was fermenting
+and growing within me. During my stay at Leipzig and Berlin, and
+afterwards in my intercourse with Renan and Burnouf, the principles of
+the historical school had become quite familiar to me, but the
+application of these principles to the early history of religion was
+a different matter. How far the Old and the New Testament would stand
+the critical tests enunciated by Niebuhr was a frequent subject of
+controversy, during the time I spent at Paris, between young Renan and
+myself. Though I did not go with him in his reconstruction of the
+history of the Jews and the Jewish religion, and of the early
+Christians and the Christian religion, I agreed with him in principle,
+objecting only to his too free and too idyllic reconstruction of these
+great religious movements. Besides, before all things, I was at that
+time given to philosophical studies, chiefly to an inquiry into the
+limits of our knowledge in the Kantian sense of the word, the origin
+of thought and language, the first faltering and half-mythological
+steps of language in the search for causes or divine agents. All this
+occupied me far more than the age of the Fourth Gospel and its
+position by the side of the Synoptic Gospels. I had talked with
+Schelling and Schopenhauer, and little as I appreciated or understood
+all their teachings, there were certain aspirations left in my mind
+which led me far away beyond the historical foundations of
+Christianity. What can we know? was the question which I often opposed
+to Renan at the very beginning of our conversations and controversies.
+That there were great truths in the teaching and preaching of Christ,
+Renan was always ready to admit, 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 race, Renan’s eyes were always
+directed to the evidence, and to what we could still know of the early
+history of Christianity and its Founder. I could not deny that,
+historically speaking, we knew very little of the life, the work, and
+the teachings of Christ; 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
+Christ. To this opinion I remained true through life. I claimed for
+each man the liberty of believing in his own Christ, 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 imagination.
+
+Naturally, when I came to Oxford, I thought these things were familiar
+to all, however much they might admit of careful correction. Nor have
+I any doubt that to some of my friends who were great theologians,
+they were better known than to a young Oriental scholar like myself.
+But unless engaged in conversation on these subjects, and this was
+chiefly the case with my friends of the Stanley party, I did not feel
+called upon to preach what, as I thought, every serious student knew
+quite as well and probably much better than myself, though he might
+for some reason or other prefer to keep silence thereon.
+
+What was my surprise when I found that most of these excellent and
+really learned men were much more deeply interested in purely
+ecclesiastical questions, in the validity of Anglican orders, in the
+wearing of either gowns or surplices in the pulpit, in the question of
+candlesticks and genuflections. “What has all this to do with true
+religion?” I once said to dear Johnson. He laughed with his genial
+laugh, and blowing the smoke of his cigar away, said, “Oh, you don’t
+understand!” But I did understand, and a great deal more than he
+expected. Truly religious men, I thought, might please themselves with
+incense and candlesticks, provided they gave no offence to their
+neighbours. It seemed to me quite natural also that men like Johnson,
+with a taste for art, should prefer the Roman ritual to the simple and
+sometimes rather bare service of the Anglican Church, but that things
+such as incense and censers, surplice and gown, should be taken as
+they are, as paraphernalia, the work of human beings, the outcome of
+personal and local influences, as church-service, no doubt, but not as
+service of God. God has to be served by very different things, and
+there is the danger of the formal prevailing over the essential, the
+danger of idolatry of symbols as realities, whenever too much
+importance is attributed to the external forms of worship and divine
+service.
+
+The validity of Anglican orders was often discussed at the
+Observatory, 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
+Wolsey. Anyhow I could not bring myself to see the importance of such
+questions, 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 God. That is what
+I called a truly religious and truly Christian life. What struck me
+particularly, both on the Newman side, and among those whom I met at
+Jowett’s and Froude’s, was a curious want of openness and manliness in
+discussing these simple questions, simple, if not complicated by
+ecclesiastical theories. When Newman at Iffley was spoken of, it was
+in hushed tones, and when rumours of his going over to Rome reached
+his friends at Oxford, their consternation seemed to be like that of
+people watching the deathbed of a friend. I am sorry I saw nothing of
+Newman at that time; when I sat with him afterwards in his study at
+Birmingham, he was evidently tired of controversy, and unwilling to
+reopen questions which to him were settled once for all, or if not
+settled, at all events closed and relinquished. I could never form a
+clear idea of the man, much as I admired his sermons; his brother and
+his own friends gave such different accounts of him. That even at
+Littlemore he was still faithful to his own national Church, anxious
+only to bring it nearer to its ancient possibly Roman type, can hardly
+be doubted. When he wrote from Littlemore to his friend De Lisle, he
+had no reason to economize the truth. De Lisle hoped that Newman would
+soon openly join the Church of Rome, but Newman answered: “You must
+allow me to be honest with you in adding one thing. 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 ... I must assure you then with great sincerity that I have
+not the shadow of an internal movement known to myself towards such a
+step. While God is with me where I am, I will not seek Him elsewhere.
+I might almost say in the words of Scripture, ‘We have found the
+Messias!’...”
+
+How true this is, and yet the same Newman went over to the unreformed
+Church, because the Archbishop of Canterbury had sanctioned Bunsen’s
+proposal of an Anglo-German bishopric of Jerusalem, quite forgetful of
+the fact that Synesius also had been bishop of Ptolemais. Again I say,
+What have such matters to do with true religion, such as we read of in
+the New Testament, as an ideal to be realized in our life on earth?
+And it so happened that at the same time I knew of families rendered
+miserable through Newman’s influence, of young girls, daughters of
+narrow-minded Anglicans, hurried over to Rome, of young men at Oxford
+with their troubled consciences which under Newman’s direct or
+indirect guidance could end only in Rome. Newman’s influence must have
+been extraordinary; the tone in which people who wished to free
+themselves from him, who had actually left him, spoke of him, seemed
+tremulous with awe. I would give anything to have known him at that
+time, when I knew him through his disciples only. They were caught in
+various ways. I know of one, a brilliant writer, who had been
+entrusted by Newman with writing some of the _Lives of the Saints_. He
+did it with great industry, 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 insipid, and might be the inventions of their friends; such
+legends, he felt, would take no root on English soil, at all events
+not in the present generation. In consequence he informed Newman that
+he could not keep his promise, or that, if he did so, he must speak
+the truth, tell people what they might believe about these Saints, and
+what was purely fanciful in the accounts of their lives. And what was
+Newman’s answer? He did not respect the young man’s scruples, but
+encouraged him to go on, because, as he said, people would never
+believe more than half of these Lives, and that therefore some of
+these unsupported legends also might prove useful, if only as a kind
+of ballast.
+
+“I rejoice to hear of your success,” he writes, August 21, 1843. “As
+to St. Grimball, of course we must expect such deficiencies; where
+matter is found, it is all gain, and there are plenty of Lives to put
+together, as you will see, when you see the whole list.
+
+“I am rather for _inserting_ (of course discreetly and in way of
+selection) the miracles for which you have not good evidence. (1) They
+are beautiful, you say, and will tell in the narrative. (2) Next you
+can say that the evidence is weak, and this will be bringing credit
+for the others where you say the evidence is strong. People will never
+go _so far_ as your narrative. Cut it down to what is true, and they
+will disbelieve a part of _it_; put in these legends and they will
+compound for the true at the sacrifice of what may be true, but is not
+well attested.”
+
+I confess I cannot quite follow. If a man like Newman believed in
+these saints and their miracles, his pleading would become
+intelligible, but it seems from this very letter that he did not, and
+yet he tried to persuade his young friend to go on and not to gather
+the tares, “lest haply he might root up the wheat with them. Let both
+grow together until the harvest.” I do not like to judge, 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 truth. And yet this was the man who at one time was
+supposed to draw the best spirits of Oxford with him to Rome. This was
+the man to whom some of the best spirits at Oxford confessed all they
+had to confess, and that could have been very little, and of whom
+they spoke with a subdued whisper as the apostle who would restore all
+faith, and bring back the Anglican sheep to the Roman fold.
+
+I saw and heard all that was going on, the hopes deferred, the secret
+visits to Littlemore, the rumours and more than rumours of Newman’s
+defection. Such was the devotion of some of these disciples that they
+expected day by day a great catastrophe or a great victory, for after
+the publication of so many letters written at the time by Wiseman,
+Manning, De Lisle, and others, there can be little doubt that a great
+conversion or perversion of England to the Romish Church was fully
+expected. De Lisle writes: “England is now in full career of a great
+Religious Revolution, this time back to Catholicism and to the Roman
+See as its true centre ... the best friends of Rome in the Anglican
+Church are obliged still to be guarded.” Such words admit of one
+meaning only, and if Newman had been followed by a large number of his
+Oxford friends, the results for England might really have been most
+terrible. But here, no doubt, the English national feeling came in.
+What England had suffered under Roman ecclesiastical rule had not yet
+been entirely forgotten, and the idea that a foreign potentate and a
+foreign priesthood should interfere with the highest interests of the
+nation, was fortunately as distasteful as ever, not only to a large
+party of the clergy, but to a still larger party of the laity also.
+It seemed to me very curious that so many of Newman’s followers did
+not see the unpatriotic character of their agitation. Either
+subjection to Rome or civil war at home was the inevitable outcome of
+what they discussed very innocently at the Observatory, and little as
+I understood their schemes for the future, I often felt surprised at
+what sounded to me like very unpatriotic utterances.
+
+Another thing that struck me as utterly un-English and has often been
+dwelt on by the historians of this movement, was the curiously secret
+character of the agitation. What has an Englishman to fear when he
+openly protests against what he disapproves of in Church or State? But
+Newman’s friends at Oxford behaved really, as has been often said,
+like so many naughty schoolboys, or like conspirators, yet they were
+neither. A very similar charge, however, was brought against the
+liberal party. They also seemed to think that they were out of bounds,
+and were doing in secret what they did not dare to do openly. It is
+well known that one friend of Newman’s, who afterwards became a Roman
+Catholic, had a small chapel set up in his bedroom in college, with
+pictures and candles and instruments of flagellation. No one was
+allowed to see this room, till one evening when the flagellant had
+retired after dinner and fallen asleep, the servants found him lying
+before the altar. Nothing remained to him then but to exchange his
+comfortable college rooms for the less comfortable cell of a Roman
+monastery, and little was done by his new friends to make the evening
+of his life serene and free from anxiety. These things were known and
+talked about in Oxford, and generally with anything but the
+seriousness that the subject seemed to me to require. Again at the
+Observatory a point was made of having games in the garden such as
+boccia on a Sunday afternoon, thus evading the strict observance of
+the Sabbath, without openly trying to restore to it the character
+which it had in Roman Catholic countries.
+
+German theology was talked about as a kind of forbidden fruit, as if
+it was not right for them to look at it, to taste it, or to examine
+it. Even years later people were afraid to meet Professor Ewald,
+Bishop Colenso, and other so-called heretics at my house. They even
+fell on poor Ewald at an evening party. Ewald was staying with me and
+working hard at some Hebrew MSS. at the Bodleian. He was then already
+an old man, but in his appearance a powerful and venerable champion.
+He is the only man I remember who, after copying Hebrew MSS. for
+twelve hours at the Bodleian with nothing but a sandwich to sustain
+him, complained of the short time allowed there for work. He came home
+for dinner very tired, and when the conversation or rather the
+disputation began between him and some of our young liberal
+theologians, he spoke in short pithy sentences only. He considered
+himself perfectly orthodox, nay, one of the pillars of religion in
+Germany, and laid down the law with unhesitating conviction. As far as
+I can remember, he was answering a number of questions about St. Paul,
+and what he thought of Christ, of the Kingdom of Christ, and the Life
+to come, and being pestered and driven into a corner by his various
+questioners, and asked at last how he knew St. Paul’s secret thoughts,
+he not knowing how to express himself in fluent English, exclaimed in
+a loud voice, “I know it by the Holy Ghost.” Here the conversation
+naturally stopped, and poor Ewald was allowed to finish his dinner in
+peace. He had been Professor at Bonn, when Pusey came there as a young
+man to study Hebrew after he had been appointed Canon of Christ Church
+and Professor of Hebrew, and he expressed to me a wish to see Dr.
+Pusey. I told him it would not be easy to arrange a meeting,
+considering how strongly opposed Dr. Pusey was to Ewald’s opinions.
+Personally I always found Pusey tolerant, and his kindness to me was a
+surprise to all my young friends. But the fact was, we moved on
+different planes, and though he knew my religious opinions well, they
+only excited a smile, and he often said with a sigh, “I know you are a
+German.” 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 terror. He had read more heresy, he used to
+say, than anybody, and he wished no one to pass through the trials
+and agonies through which he had passed, chiefly, I should think,
+during his stay at a German university. The historical element was
+wanting in him, nay, like Hegel, he sometimes seemed to lay stress on
+the unhistorical character of Christianity. My idea, on the contrary,
+was that Christianity was a true historical event, prepared by many
+events that had gone before and alone made it possible and real. Even
+the abyss, if there were such an abyss, was, as it seemed to me, meant
+to be there on our passage through life, and was to be faced with a
+brave heart.
+
+But to return to my first experiences of the theological atmosphere of
+Oxford, I confess I felt puzzled to see men, whose learning and
+character I sincerely admired, absorbed in subjects which to my mind
+seemed simply childish. I expected I should hear from them some new
+views on the date of the gospels, the meaning of revelation, the
+historical value of revelation, or the early history of the Church.
+No, of all this not a word. Nothing but discussions on vestments, on
+private confession, on candles on the altar, whether they were wanted
+or not, on the altar being made of stone or of wood, of consecrated
+wine being mixed with water, of the priest turning his back on the
+congregation, &c. I could not understand how these men, so high above
+the ordinary level of men in all other respects, could put aside the
+fundamental questions of Christianity and give their whole mind to
+what seemed to me rightly called in the newspapers “mere millinery.”
+I sought information from Stanley, but he shrugged his shoulders and
+advised me to keep aloof and say nothing. This I was most willing to
+do; I cared for none of these things. My mind was occupied with far
+more serious problems, such as I had heard explained by men of
+profound learning and honest purpose in the great universities of
+Germany; these troubles arose from questions which seemed to me to
+have no connexion with true religion at all. Even the differences
+between the reformed and unreformed churches were to me mere questions
+of history, mere questions of human expediency. I did not consider
+Roman Catholics as heretics—I had known too many of them of
+unblemished character in Germany. I might have regretted the abuses
+which called for reform, the excrescences which had disfigured
+Christianity like many other religions, but which might be tolerated
+as long as they did not lead to toleration for intolerance. Luther
+might no longer appear to me in the light of a perfect saint, but that
+he was right in suppressing the time-honoured abuses of the Roman
+Church admitted with me of no doubt whatsoever. Large numbers always
+had that effect on me, and when I saw how many good and excellent men
+were satisfied with the unreformed teaching of the Roman Church, I
+felt convinced that they must attach a different meaning to certain
+doctrines and ecclesiastical practices from what we did. I had
+learned to discover what was good and true in all religions, and I
+could fully agree with Macaulay when he said, “If people had lived in
+a country where very sensible people worshipped the cow, they would
+not fall out with people who worship saints.”
+
+I know that many of my friends on both sides looked upon me as a
+latitudinarian, but my conviction has always been that we could not be
+broad enough. They looked upon me as wishing to keep on good terms
+with high and low and broad, and I made no secret of it, that I
+thought I could understand Pusey as well as Stanley, and assign to
+each his proper place. Stanley was of course more after my own heart
+than Pusey, but Pusey too was a man who interested me very much. I saw
+that he might become a great power whether for good or for evil in
+England. He was, in fact, a historical character, and these were
+always the men who interested me. He was fully aware of his importance
+in England, and the great influence which his name exercised. That
+influence was not always exercised in the right way, so at least it
+seemed to me, particularly when it was directed against such friends
+of mine as Kingsley, Froude, or Jowett. Once, I remember, when he had
+come to my house, 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 God. Curious to say, he relented, and
+admitted that he had used too strong language. To me everything that
+was said of God seemed imperfect, and never to apply to God Himself
+but only to the idea which the human mind had formed of Him. To me
+even the Hindu, if he spoke of Brahman or Krishna, seemed to have
+aimed at the true God, in spite of the idolatrous epithets which he
+used; then how could a man like Frederic Maurice be said to have
+worshipped a different God, considering that we all can but feel after
+Him in the dark, not being able to do more than exclude all that seems
+to us unworthy of Deity?
+
+A very important element in the ecclesiastical views of some of my
+friends was, no doubt, the artistic. If Johnson leant towards Rome, it
+was the more ornate and beautiful service that touched and attracted
+him. I sat near to him in St. Giles’ Church; he told me what to do and
+what not to do during service. In spite of the Prayer-book, it is by
+no means so easy as people imagine to do exactly the right thing in
+church, and I had of course to learn a number of prayers and responses
+by heart. To me the service, as it was in my parish church, seemed
+already too ornate, accustomed as I had been to the somewhat bare and
+cold service in the Lutheran Church at Dessau. But Johnson constantly
+complained about the monotonous and mechanical performances of the
+clergy. He had a strong feeling for all that was beautiful and
+impressive in art, and he wanted to see the service of God in church
+full both of reverence and beauty.
+
+Johnson’s private collection of artistic treasures was very
+considerable, and I learnt much from the Italian engravings and Dutch
+etchings which he possessed and delighted in showing. I often spent
+happy hours with him examining his portfolios, and wondered how he
+could afford to buy such treasures. But he knew when and where to buy,
+and I believe when his collection was sold after his death, it brought
+a good deal more than it had cost him. Another collection of art was
+that of Dr. Wellesley, the Principal of New Inn Hall, who was a friend
+of Johnson’s and had collected most valuable antiquities during his
+long stay in Italy. He was the son of the Marquis of Wellesley, a
+handsome man, with all the refinement and courtesy of the old English
+gentleman. Though not perhaps very useful in the work of the
+University, he was most pleasant to live with, and full of information
+in his own line of study, the history of art, chiefly of Italian art.
+
+The beautiful services of the Roman Church abroad, and particularly at
+Rome, certainly exercised a kind of magic attraction on many of the
+friends of Wiseman and Newman, though one wonders that the sunny
+grandeur of St. Peter’s at Rome should ever have seemed more
+impressive than the sombre sublimity and serene magnificence of
+Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, the introduction of a more ornate
+service, even of harmless candlesticks and the often very useful
+incense, had always a secret meaning. They were used as symbols of
+something of which the people had no conception, whereas in the early
+Church they had been really natural and useful.
+
+In the midst of all this commotion, and chiefly secret commotion, I
+felt a perfect stranger; I saw the bright and dark sides, but I
+confess I saw little of what I called religion. Though my own
+religious struggles lay behind me, still there were many questions
+which pressed for a solution, but for which my friends at Oxford
+seemed either indifferent or unprepared. My practical religion was
+what I had learnt from my mother; that remained unshaken in all
+storms, and in its extreme simplicity and childishness answered all
+the purposes for which religion is meant. Then followed, in the
+Universities of Leipzig and Berlin, the purely historical and
+scientific treatment of religion, which, while it explained many
+things and destroyed many things, never interfered with my early ideas
+of right and wrong, never disturbed my life with God and in God, and
+seemed to satisfy all my religious wants. I never was frightened or
+shaken by the critical writings of Strauss or Ewald, of Renan or
+Colenso. If what they said had an honest ring, I was delighted, for I
+felt quite certain that they could never deprive me of the little I
+really wanted. That little could never be little enough; it was like a
+stronghold with no fortifications, no trenches, and no walls around
+it. Suppose it was proved to me that, on geological evidence, the
+earth or the world could not have been created in six days, what was
+that to me? Suppose it was proved to me that Christ could never have
+given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into the swine, what was
+that to me? Let Colenso and Bishop Wilberforce, let Huxley and
+Gladstone fight about such matters; their turbulent waves could never
+disturb me, could never even reach me in my safe harbour. I had little
+to carry, no learned impedimenta to safeguard my faith. If a man
+possesses this one pearl of great price, he may save himself and his
+treasure, but neither the tinselled vestments of a Cardinal, nor the
+triple tiara that crowns the Head of the Church, will serve as
+life-belts in the gales of doubt and controversy. My friends at Oxford
+did not know that, though with my one jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I
+was really richer and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor of
+Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer, may be very long, but
+the prayer of the Publican may have been more efficient than that of
+the Pharisee.
+
+After a time I made an even more painful discovery: I found men, who
+were considered quite orthodox, but who really were without any
+belief. They spoke to me very freely, because they imagined that as a
+German I would think as they did, and that I should not be surprised
+if they looked on me as not quite sincere. It was not only honest
+doubt that disturbed them. They had done with honest doubt, and they
+were satisfied with a kind of Voltairian philosophy, which at last
+ended in pure agnosticism. But even that, even professed agnosticism,
+I could understand, because it often meant no more than a confession
+of ignorance with regard to God, which we all confess, and need not
+necessarily amount to the denial of the existence of Deity. But that
+Voltairian levity which scoffs at everything connected with religion
+was certainly something I did not expect to meet with at Oxford, and
+which even now perplexes me. Of course, I should never think of
+mentioning names, but it seemed to me necessary to mention the fact,
+to complete the curious mosaic of theological and religious thought
+that existed at Oxford at the time of my arrival.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CONFESSION
+
+
+One confession I have to make, and one for which I can hardly hope for
+absolution, whether from my friends or from my enemies. I have never
+done anything; I have never been a doer, a canvasser, a wirepuller, a
+manager, in the ordinary sense of these words. I have also shrunk from
+agitation, from clubs and from cliques, even from most respectable
+associations and societies. Many people would call me an idle,
+useless, and indolent man, and though I have not wasted many hours of
+my life, I cannot deny the charge that I have neither fought battles,
+nor helped to conquer new countries, nor joined any syndicate to roll
+up a fortune. I have been a scholar, a _Stubengelehrter_, and _voilà
+tout_!
+
+Much as I admired Ruskin when I saw him with his spade and
+wheelbarrow, encouraging and helping his undergraduate friends to make
+a new road from one village to another, I never myself took to
+digging, and shovelling, and carting. Nor could I quite agree with
+him, happy as I always felt in listening to him, when he said: “What
+we think, or what we know, or what we believe, is in the end of
+little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do.” My
+view of life has always been the very opposite! What we do, or what we
+build up, has always seemed to me of little consequence. Even Nineveh
+is now a mere desert of sand, and Ruskin’s new road also has long
+since been worn away. The only thing of consequence, to my mind, is
+what we think, what we know, what we believe! To Ruskin’s ears such a
+sentiment was downright heresy, and I know quite well that it would be
+condemned as extremely dangerous, if not downright wicked, by most
+people, particularly in England. My friend, Charles Kingsley, preached
+muscular Christianity, that is, he was always up and doing. Another
+old friend of mine, Carlyle, preached all his life that “it was no use
+talking, if one would not do.” There is an old proverb in German, too,
+
+    “Die nicht mit thaten,
+     Die nicht mit rathen”;
+
+actually denying the right of giving advice to those who had not taken
+a part in the fight.
+
+However, though I have not been a doer, a _faiseur_, as the French
+would say, I do not wish to represent myself as a mere idle drone
+during the long years of my quiet life. Nor did I stand quite alone in
+looking on a scholar’s life—even when I was living in a garret _au
+cinquième_—as a paradise on earth. Did not Emerson write, “The
+scholar is the man of the age”? Did not even Mazzini, who certainly
+was constantly up and trying to do, did not even he confess that men
+must die, but that the amount of truth they have discovered does not
+die with them? And Carlyle? Did he ever try to get into Parliament?
+Did he ever accept directorates? Did he join either the Chartists or
+the Special Constables in Trafalgar Square? As in a concert you want
+listeners as well as performers, so in public life, those who look on
+are quite as essential as those who shout and deal heavy blows.
+
+Nature has not endowed everybody with the requisite muscle to be a
+muscular Christian. But it may be said, that even if Carlyle and
+Ruskin were absolved from doing muscular work in Trafalgar Square,
+what excuse could they plead for not walking in procession to Hyde
+Park, climbing up one of the platforms and haranguing the men and
+women and children? I suppose they had the feeling which the razor has
+when it is used for cutting stones: they would feel that it was not
+exactly their _métier_. Arguing when reason meets reason is most
+delightful, whether we win or lose; but arguing against unreason,
+against anything that is by nature thick, dense, impenetrable,
+irrational, has always seemed to me the most disheartening occupation.
+Majorities, mere numerical majorities, by which the world is governed
+now, strike me as mere brute force, though to argue against them is
+no doubt as foolish as arguing against a railway train that is going
+to crush you. Gladstone could harangue multitudes; so could Disraeli;
+all honour to them for it. But think of Carlyle or Ruskin doing so!
+Stroking the shell of a tortoise, or the cupola of St. Paul’s, would
+have been no more attractive to them than addressing the discontented,
+when in their hundreds and their thousands they descended into the
+streets. All I claim is that there must be a division of labour, and
+as little as Wayland Smith was useless in his smithy, when he hardened
+the iron in the fire for making swords or horse-shoes, was Carlyle a
+man that could be spared, while he sat in his study preparing thoughts
+that would not bend or break.
+
+But I cannot even claim to have been a man of action in the sense in
+which Carlyle was in England, or Emerson in America. They were men who
+in their books were constantly teaching and preaching. “Do this!” they
+said; “Do not do that!” The Jewish prophets did much the same, and
+they are not considered to have been useless men, though they did not
+make bricks, or fight battles like Jehu. But the poor _Stubengelehrte_
+has not even that comfort. Only now and then he gets some unexpected
+recognition, as when Lord Derby, then Secretary of State for India,
+declared that the scholars who had discovered and proved the close
+relationship between Sanskrit and English, had rendered more valuable
+service to the Government of India than many a regiment. This may be
+called a mere assertion, and it is true that it cannot be proved
+mathematically, but what could have induced a man like Lord Derby to
+make such a statement, except the sense of its truth produced on his
+mind by long experience?
+
+However, I can only speak for myself, and of my idea of work. I felt
+satisfied when my work led me to a new discovery, whether it was the
+discovery of a new continent of thought, or of the smallest desert
+island in the vast ocean of truth. I would gladly go so far as to try
+to convince my friends by a simple statement of facts. Let them follow
+the same course and see whether I was right or wrong. But to make
+propaganda, to attempt to persuade by bringing pressure to bear, to
+canvass and to organize, to found societies, to start new journals, to
+call meetings and have them reported in the papers, has always been to
+me very much against the grain. If we know some truth, what does it
+matter whether a few millions, more or less, see the truth as we see
+it? Truth is truth, whether it is accepted now or in millions of
+years. Truth is in no hurry, at least it always seemed to me so. When
+face to face with a man, or a body of men, who would not be convinced,
+I never felt inclined to run my head against a stone wall, or to
+become an advocate and use the tricks of a lawyer. I have often been
+blamed for it, I have sometimes even regretted my indolence or my
+quiet happiness, when I felt that truth was on my side and by my side.
+I suppose there is no harm in personal canvassing, but as much as I
+disliked being canvassed, did I feel it degrading to canvass others. I
+know quite well how often it happened at a meeting when either a
+measure or a candidate was to be carried, that the voters had
+evidently been spoken to privately beforehand, had in the conscience
+of their heart promised their votes. The facts and arguments at the
+meeting itself might all be on one side, but the majority was in
+favour of the other. Men whose time was of little value had been round
+from house to house, a majority had been compacted into an inert
+unreasoning mass; and who would feel inclined to use his spade of
+reason against so much unreason? Some people, more honest than the
+rest, after the mischief was done, would say, “Why did you not call?
+why did you not write letters?” I may be quite wrong, but I can only
+say that it seemed to me like taking an unfair advantage, unfair to
+our opponents, and almost insulting to our friends. Still, from a
+worldly point of view, I was no doubt wrong, and it is certainly true
+that I was often left in a minority. My friends have told me again and
+again that if a good measure or a good man is to be carried, good men
+must do some dirty work. If they cannot do that, they are of no use,
+and I doubt not that I have often been considered a very useless man
+by my political and academic friends, because I trusted to reason
+where there was no reason to trust to. I was asked to write letters,
+to address and post letters, to promise travelling expenses or even
+convivial entertainments at Oxford, to get leaders and leaderettes
+inserted in newspapers. I simply loathed it, and at last declined to
+do it. If a measure is carried by promise, not by argument, if an
+election is carried by personal influence, not by reason, what happens
+is very often the same as what happens when fruit is pulled off a tree
+before it is ripe. It is expected to ripen by itself, but it never
+becomes sweet, and often it rots. A premature measure may be carried
+through the House by a minister with a powerful majority, but it does
+not acquire vitality and maturity by being carried; it often remains
+on the Statute-book a dead letter, till in the end it has to be
+abolished with other rubbish.
+
+However, I have learnt to admire the indefatigable assiduity of men
+who have slowly and partially secured their converts and their
+recruits, and thus have carried in the end what they thought right and
+reasonable. I have seen it particularly at Oxford, where
+undergraduates were indoctrinated by their tutors, till they had taken
+their degree and could vote with their betters. I take all the blame
+and shame upon myself as a useless member of Congregation and
+Convocation, and of society at large. I was wrong in supposing that
+the walls of Jericho would fall before the blast of reason, and wrong
+in abstaining from joining in the braying of rams’ horns and the
+shouts of the people. I was fortunate, however, in counting among my
+most intimate friends some of the most active and influential
+reformers in University, Church, and State, and it is quite possible
+that I may often have influenced them in the hours of sweet converse;
+nay, that standing in the second rank, I may have helped to load the
+guns which they fired off with much effect afterwards. I felt that my
+open partnership might even injure them more than it could help them;
+for was it not always open to my opponents to say that I was a German,
+and therefore could not possibly understand purely English questions?
+Besides, there is another peculiarity which I have often observed in
+England. People like to do what has to be done by themselves. It
+seemed to me sometimes as if I had offended my friends if I did
+anything by myself, and without consulting them. Besides, my position,
+even after I had been in England for so many years, was always
+peculiar; for though I had spent nearly a whole life in the service of
+my adopted country, though my political allegiance was due and was
+gladly given to England, still I was, and have always remained, a
+German.
+
+And next to Germany, which was young and full of ideals when I was
+young, there came India, and Indian thought which exercised their
+quieting influence on me. From a very early time I became conscious of
+the narrow horizon of this life on earth, and the purely phenomenal
+character of the world in which for a few years we have to live and
+move and have our being. As students of classical and other Oriental
+history we come to admire the great empires with their palaces and
+pyramids and temples and capitols. What could have seemed more real,
+more grand, more likely to impress the young mind than Babylon and
+Nineveh, Thebes and Alexandria, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome? And now
+where are they? The very names of their great rulers and heroes are
+known to few people only and have to be learnt by heart, without
+telling us much of those who wore them. Many things for which
+thousands of human beings were willing to lay down their lives, and
+actually did lay them down, are to us mere words and dreams, myths,
+fables, and legends. If ever there was a doer, it was Hercules, and
+now we are told that he was a mere myth!
+
+If one reads the description of Babylonian and Egyptian campaigns, as
+recorded on cuneiform cylinders and on the walls of ancient Egyptian
+temples, the number of people slaughtered seems immense, the issues
+overwhelming; and yet what has become of it all? The inroads of the
+Huns, the expeditions of Genghis Khan and Timur, so fully described by
+historians, shook the whole world to its foundations, and now the sand
+of the desert disturbed by their armies lies as smooth as ever.
+
+What India teaches us is that in a state advancing towards
+civilization, there must be always two castes or two classes of men, a
+caste of Brahmans or of thinkers, and a caste of Kshatriyas, who are
+to fight; possibly other castes also of those who are to work and of
+those who are to serve. Great wars went on in India, but they were
+left to be fought by the warriors by profession. The peasants in their
+villages remained quiet, accepting the consequences, whatever they
+might be, and the Brahmans lived on, thinking and dreaming in their
+forests, satisfied to rule after the battle was over.
+
+And what applies to military struggles seems to me to apply to all
+struggles—political, religious, social, commercial, and even
+literary. Let those who love to fight, fight; but let others who are
+fond of quiet work go on undisturbed in their own special callings.
+That was, as far as we can see, the old Indian idea, or at all events
+the ideal which the Brahmans wished to see realized. I do not stand up
+for utter idleness or sloth, not even for drones, though nature does
+not seem to condemn even _hoc genus_ altogether. All I plead for, as a
+scholar and a thinker, is freedom from canvassing, from letter-reading
+and letter-writing, from committees, deputations, meetings, public
+dinners, and all the rest. That will sound very selfish to the ears of
+practical men, and I understand why they should look upon men like
+myself as hardly worth their salt. But what would they say to one of
+the greatest fighters in the history of the world? What would they say
+to Julius Caesar, 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 people?
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abiturienten, Examination at Zerbst, 106
+
+Acland, Dr., 245
+
+Admiration, power of, 90
+
+Aitareya-brâhmana, 203
+
+All Souls’ Fellowship, 23
+  -- -- pinnacles, 225, 226
+
+Altenstein, Minister of Instruction, 131
+
+Anglican system, 209
+  -- orders, 291
+
+Anhalt-Dessau, Duchy of, 46
+
+Antiquities hid in etymologies, 152-154
+
+Anti-Semitism, 70, 71
+
+Arnim, Count, 110
+
+Arnold, Matthew, 282-283
+
+Artistic element in the Oxford movement, 303, 304
+
+Aryan speakers may differ in blood, 32
+  -- and aboriginal languages of India, M. M.’s paper on, 210, 211
+
+Aryans of India, 197
+
+Aryas, meaning of, 32
+
+Asvalâyana Sûtras, 203
+
+Atavism, 17, 25, 26, 27, 30
+
+Atavistic influences, 27
+
+Autobiography, object of M. M. in writing his, vi
+
+Autos, the, 35
+
+
+Babies, studying, 86
+
+Bach family, 34
+
+Baden-Powell, Professor, 238, 245
+
+Bandinell, Dr., 259-261
+
+Bardelli, Abbé, 170
+
+Basedow, von, President, 54
+  -- the Pedagogue, 55, 76
+
+Bathing, 77
+
+Bernays, Professor, 69
+
+Bibliothèque Royale, 167
+
+Biographies, too lenient, 2
+  -- best kind of history, 14
+
+Bismarck, 175
+
+Blücher, Marshal, 235
+
+Blum, Robert, 15
+
+Boden Professorship of Sanskrit, vii
+
+Bodleian Library, 258, 259
+
+Boehtlingk, 181, 182, 183
+
+Books, scarcity of, 67
+
+Bopp, 125, 132, 148, 151, 156
+  -- his lectures, 156, 157
+
+Brahmo Somaj, service for the, 61
+
+Breakfast parties, 205
+
+British Association at Oxford, 210, 215
+
+Brockhaus, Professor, 147
+
+Buckle, 287
+
+Bull, Dr., 40, 255, 256
+
+Bunsen, Baron, 5, 13, 16
+  -- first visit to, 190, 191
+  -- his kindness, 193, 199, 221
+
+Burgon, 287
+
+Burnouf, 167, 169, 178, 179-182, 288
+
+
+Camerarius, 51
+
+Canon of Christ Church, an old, 256-258
+
+Canvassing, 312, 313
+
+Carlyle, 310, 311
+
+Carus, Professor, 98, 109
+
+Chartist Deputation, 16
+
+Chrétian, 287
+
+Christianity, historical teaching of, in Germany, 65, 287, 291
+  -- an historical event, 300
+
+Church, Dr., 287
+
+Church, not for young children, 60
+
+Circumstances, influence of, 24
+
+Clarke, Sir Andrew, 82, 86
+
+Classics, exaggerated praise of the, 101, 102
+  -- -- reactions from, 103
+  -- nothing takes their place, 103
+
+Colebrooke, 192
+
+Colenso, 298, 305
+
+Collegien-Buch, 121, 123-125
+
+Comparative Philology, Professorship of, 12
+
+Congregation and Convocation, why M. M. kept away from, 314, 315
+
+Conscience, the voice of, 63
+
+Coxe, Mr., 258
+
+Cradock, Dr. and Mrs., 267
+
+Crawford, Mr., the Objector General, 211
+
+Curtius, 132, 151
+
+
+Darwin, 2, 11, 17, 131
+
+David, 107, 109
+
+Deafness in M. M.’s family, 29
+
+De Lisle, 293, 296
+
+Dessau, Dukes of, 46
+  -- cheapness of life at, 56, 57
+  -- Gottesacker at, 57
+  -- only two classes at, 73
+  -- trade of, 73
+  -- public school at, 76
+  -- its walls, 89
+  -- M. M.’s world, 89
+  -- simplicity of life at, 92
+  -- -- effect on the character, 92, 96
+  -- moral sayings, 96
+
+Devas, Θεὁς, 144
+
+Dieu, Deus, Devas, 197
+
+Donkin, Professor, 246
+
+Double First, 240
+
+Drobisch, 129, 140, 142, 145
+
+Duels at University, 119, 128, 129, 284, 286
+
+Dyaus, Zeus, Iovis, 197
+
+
+Early life, roughing it, 91
+
+East India Company, 14
+
+East India House, 16, 215
+
+Eckart, 107, 109
+
+Eckstein, Baron d’, 176, 177
+
+“Edinburgh Review,” first article in, 222
+
+Egyptian chronology, 199
+
+“Elsie Venner,” 31
+
+Emerson, 310
+
+Encaenia, 265, 266
+  -- jokes at, 265
+
+English and German Doctors, 84, 85
+
+Environment, 17, 18, 25
+
+Ernst, 110
+
+Eternal, _ewig_, 150, 151
+
+Etymologies, 152
+
+Evolution, 198
+
+Ewald, 298, 299, 305
+
+
+Fairy tales, influence of, 50-52
+
+Fear, the feeling of, 88
+
+Feast of Tabernacles, 71
+
+Fellowships, old system of, 246, 247, 263
+
+Forbiger, 99
+
+French master at Dessau, 75
+
+French Revolution, 16, 216
+
+Friar Bacon, 227
+
+Fröge, Professor, 109
+  -- his wife and Mendelssohn, 109
+
+Froude, J. A., 8, 287
+
+Funkhänel, 99
+
+
+Gaisford, Dr., 240, 252-254
+
+Gathy, M., 165, 172
+
+German regiments, hymns sung by, 62
+  -- students, 213
+
+Germany and Germans, prejudice against, 20, 21
+  -- religious feeling in, 62
+
+Germ-plasm, 19, 28
+
+Gewandhaus Concerts, 107
+
+Giordano Bruno on Oxford, 228
+
+Goethe, not always admired, 93
+
+Goldstücker, 170-172
+
+Goldwin Smith, 238
+
+Gottesacker at Dessau, 57
+
+Grabau, M. M.’s concerts with, 110
+
+Grandfather of M. M., 79-81
+
+Grandmother of M. M., 53
+
+Grant, Sir Alexander, 272, 273
+
+Greene’s Oxford, 227
+
+Greenhill, Dr., 245
+
+Grenville, Lord, 229
+
+Greswell, Mr., 245
+
+Griffith, Dr., Master of University, 229
+
+Grimm, 151
+
+Gründer, ein, 48
+
+Guizot, 182
+
+
+Habits acquired not hereditable, 33
+
+Hagedorn, Baron, 112-114, 162
+  -- journey with him, 112
+  -- his plan of life for M. M., 113
+
+Hahnemann, 82 _et seq._, 86
+
+Hallam’s literary dog, 209
+
+Hare, Archdeacon, 205, 286
+  -- visit to, 208
+
+Hase, 185
+
+Haupt, his Latin Society, 121, 125
+  -- his dislike to modern philology, 155, 156
+
+Hawkins, Dr., 240, 249
+
+Headaches, suffering from, 81 _et seq._
+  -- how cured, 83
+
+Heads of Houses, 234, 264
+  -- -- their power, 239
+
+Hebdomadal Board, 239, 255
+
+Hebrew taught at the Nicolai-Schule, 100
+
+Hegel, 2
+  -- his philosophy, 130-138
+
+Hegel’s idea, 133-135
+  -- “Philosophy of Nature,” 135, 136
+  -- “Philosophy of Religion,” 135, 142
+  -- “Metaphysics,” 136
+
+Heinroth, 139
+
+Helps, Sir Arthur, 266
+
+Hentzner, his description of Oxford, 228
+
+Herbart, school of, 129, 140, 142
+
+Heredity, 17
+
+Hermann, Gottfried, 121, 125, 128
+  -- welcomed modern philology, 155
+  -- his kindness to M. M., 156
+
+Hermae round the Theatre, 264
+
+Highland lady at Oxford, 229
+
+Hiller, 107, 109
+  -- his oratorio, 110
+
+Historical method, 198
+  -- events, their influence transitory, 315, 316
+
+Hitopadesa, 51
+
+Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 6, 266
+
+Hönicke, Dr., 78
+
+Horace, “cheekiness” of, 102
+
+Human weaknesses, allowance must be made for, 93, 94
+
+Humboldt, 181
+
+
+Imprisonment, M. M.’s, at University, 118, 119
+
+Indian thought, influence of, 315, 317
+
+Indolence, M. M.’s, 312
+
+Inherited and acquired qualities, difference between, 33
+
+Inspiration and infallibility, 65, 66
+
+Institut de France, 186
+  -- M. M. made Member, 186, 187
+
+
+Jenkins, Dr., Master of Balliol, 250
+
+Jerusalem, Bishopric of, 293
+
+Jews at Dessau, 68, 70
+  -- their privileges in Germany, 70
+
+Johnson, Manuel, 286, 303
+  -- his art treasures, 303
+
+Jowett, Professor, 4, 6, 287
+
+
+Kaliwoda, 107
+
+Kant’s “Kritik,” 138
+
+Kaspar Hauser, 18
+
+Keshub Chunder Sen, 61
+
+Kingsley, Charles, 5
+  -- and muscular Christianity, 309
+
+Klengel, 147
+
+Kuhn, A., 154
+
+
+Lamartine, 177
+
+Language, influence of, 31
+  -- differentiation of, 31, 32, 33
+  -- science of, 198
+
+Lassen, 23
+
+Latham, Dr., 210
+
+Layard, 11, 205
+
+Leipzig, 15
+  -- school at, 97
+  -- University, 115
+
+Lepsius, 159
+
+Liberals at University, 117, 118
+
+Liddell, Dr., 238
+  -- and Mrs., 267
+
+Liddell’s Dictionary, 99
+
+Liszt, 107-111
+
+London, 188
+  -- society, peeps into, 205
+  -- M. M.’s social difficulties, 206-208
+
+Longchamps, 167
+
+Lotze, 129, 136, 139, 287
+
+Louis Lucien Bonaparte, 214
+
+Louis Napoleon, 16
+
+Luther, 64
+  -- his love of fairy tales, 50, 51
+  -- tercentenary, 105
+
+
+Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 251
+
+Mammoth, 18
+
+Manning, 296
+
+Masters, influence of, in German and English schools, 77
+
+Maurice, Frederick, 205, 286
+  -- Pusey’s attack on, 302
+
+Memory changes, 39
+
+Mendelssohn family, 33, 34
+
+Mendelssohn, Felix, 107, 110
+  -- his death, 110
+  -- his concert for Liszt, 110, 111
+
+Mendelssohn’s “Hymn of Praise,” 105
+  -- music in Oxford, 268
+
+Metternich, 72
+  -- his system, 117
+
+Mezzofanti, 30
+
+Michelet, 287
+
+Mill, John Stuart, 7, 14
+  -- his Autos, 7
+
+Mill, Dr., mention of a Vedic hymn printed at Calcutta, 192
+
+Milton on Oxford, 228
+
+Modern Literature, Professorship of, 12
+
+Mommsen, 186, 187
+
+Moncalm, “L’origine de la Pensée,” 10 _n._
+
+Monk, M. M.’s wish to be a, 24
+
+Monument-raising, 47
+
+Morier, 275-279
+
+Mother, M. M.’s, 57-59
+  -- her relations, 54, 55
+
+Mozley, 287
+
+MSS., copying, 179
+
+Mulde, excursion on foot along the, 112
+
+Müller, Wilhelm, 47, 48
+  -- his poems, 48
+  -- his family, 52, 53
+  -- his home and society, 55
+  -- early death, 56
+  -- monument to, 49
+Music, its influence on M. M., 67
+  -- wished to make it his career, 111
+
+“Mystères de Paris,” 174
+
+
+Natural Science and Mathematics little taught at Nicolai-Schule, 100
+
+Neander, 21, 22
+
+Newman, 286, 292-296
+  -- want of openness in his friends, 292, 296
+  -- his influence, 293
+  -- on “Lives of the Saints,” 294, 295
+
+Newspapers few in number, 71
+  -- influence of modern, 72
+  -- old, 74
+
+Nicolai-Schule, 99
+  -- chiefly for classics, 99-101
+
+Niebuhr, 191, 289
+
+Niedner, Dr., 127, 137, 140
+
+Nirukta, the, 203
+
+Nobbe, Dr., 99
+  -- his testimonial, 105
+
+
+Old and young men, 36
+
+Oriental languages, 146
+
+Orléans, Duchesse d’, 177
+
+Oxford, first visit to, 213
+  -- settled at, 220
+  -- social life at, 220, 221
+  -- changes in, 223-226
+  -- new buildings, 224, 225
+  -- conservative, 226
+  -- Greene’s, 227
+  -- Hentzner’s description of, 228
+  -- Giordano Bruno on, 228
+  -- Milton on, 228
+  -- society in 1810, 229-231
+  -- great changes in, 243, 244
+  -- society at, in the forties and fifties, 244, 245
+  -- city society of, 245, 246
+  -- high tone of talk, 284
+  -- theological atmosphere at, 286
+  -- trivial questions of ceremony in, 291, 292, 300, 301
+
+
+Palgrave, 274, 287
+
+Palm, Dr., 99
+
+Palmerston, Lord, 16, 217
+
+Pânini, 182
+  -- his grammar, 204
+
+Pantschatantra, 51
+
+Paper, scarcity of, 67
+
+Parental influences, 27
+
+Paris, 15, 162
+
+Paris, journey to, 163, 164
+  -- meals there, 166
+  -- hard struggles in, 173, 283
+
+Patagonians as types of humanity, 88
+
+Peel, Sir Robert, 205
+
+Philanthropinum, 54, 76
+
+Philology, love of, 121
+
+Philosophy, studied by M. M., 129, 137, 146
+
+Physical science, revolt of, against Hegel, 135
+
+Pillar and pillow, 189
+
+“Pitar,” father, 153
+
+Pitcairn Islands, 18
+
+Plumptre, Dr., 213, 215, 265
+
+Poems, M. M.’s, 104, 105
+
+Pollen, 287
+
+Pott, 151, 160
+
+Pranks at University, 119, 120
+
+“Presence of mind,” 262
+
+Prichard, Dr., 211, 212, 221
+
+Professor’s lectures and fees, 121, 122
+
+Professors, feeling of German students for their, 127
+
+Proto-Aryan language, 200
+
+Prowe, Professor, 116, 117
+
+Public schools in Germany, 98
+  -- -- in England need reforming, 242
+
+Pusey, Dr., 261, 299, 302
+
+
+Race, differentiation of, 35
+
+Rawlinson, Sir H., 205
+
+Reay, Professor, 260
+
+Reinaud, 186
+
+Religion, practical, 305, 306
+
+Religious feeling in Germany, 68
+  -- -- great tolerance in, 70, 71
+  -- sentiments must be taught at home, 62
+  -- teaching in school, 63
+
+Renan, 185, 186, 288, 289, 290, 305
+
+Research, fellowships for, 270
+
+Revelation, subjective not objective, 66
+  -- in the old sense, 288
+
+Rigaud, John, 287
+
+Rig-veda, how to publish the, 181, 182
+  -- printing of, 222
+
+Roman Catholic Church, English national feeling opposed to, 296, 297
+
+Rose-bush, vision of the, 43, 44
+
+Roth, 170, 171
+
+Routh, Dr., 247-249
+
+Rubens, Levy, 75
+
+Ruskin, 224
+
+Russell, Sir W., 37, 190
+
+
+Sadowa, and Sixty-six, 38
+
+St. Hilaire, Barthélemy, 170
+
+St. Petersburg, idea of going to, 181, 183
+
+Salis-Schwabe, Madame, 98
+
+Salmon at Dessau, 56, 57
+
+“Salve caput cruentatum,” 59
+
+Sanskrit Professorship, vii, 12
+  -- chair of, at Leipzig, 147
+  -- feeling against, 147
+  -- unedited works, 204
+
+Savigny, Professor, 122
+
+Sâyana’s Commentary, 202-204
+
+Schelling, 156, 195, 287, 289
+
+Schlegel’s “Weisheit der Indier,” 146
+
+Schleswig-Holstein question, 276
+
+Schloezer, Karl von, 174, 176
+
+School teaching, 67, 68
+  -- success at, 104, 105
+  -- routine of learning, 120
+
+Schopenhauer, 289
+
+Selbst-Kritik, 6
+
+Self, the, 42
+
+Sellar, Professor, 273, 274
+
+Seminaries and societies at University, 123
+
+Senatus Academicus, 236, 237
+
+Shelley, 233
+
+Simolin, Baron, 55
+
+Sister, M. M.’s, 115, 116
+
+Spiegel, Professor, 147
+
+Sport, M. M.’s dislike of, 80
+
+Stanislas Julien, 185
+
+Stanley, Dr., 5, 41, 238, 286, 287, 302
+
+Steel pens, 67
+
+Stories in Oxford, regular descent of, 248
+
+Strauss, 21, 305
+
+Stubengelehrter, 308, 311
+
+Student Clubs, 116
+
+Student life in Paris, 184
+
+Sunday games at the Observatory, 298
+
+Sykes, Colonel, 16
+
+Symons, Dr., 239, 240, 251
+
+Sympathy in the joys and sufferings of others, 41, 42
+
+
+Tait, Dr., 238
+
+Talents in families, 33-35
+
+Taylorian Professorship, 22
+
+Telegraphs, old, 72
+
+Testimonials, 4
+
+Thalberg, 111
+
+Thirlwall, 205
+
+Thomson, Dr. and Mrs., 267, 268, 280, 281
+
+Tippoo Sahib’s tiger, 215
+
+Travelling in the thirties, 111
+
+Troyer, M., and the Duchesse de Wagram, 184
+
+Truth, 312
+
+Turanian languages, M. M.’s letter on, 160, 161
+
+Tutors and Fellows, 236
+  -- -- their influence, 241, 268, 269
+
+
+University, M. M.’s life at, 115, 116
+  -- pranks, 119, 120
+  -- duels at, 119, 128-130
+
+University Press, 218, 219
+
+Upanishads, 169
+
+
+Van der Weyer, 205
+
+Veda, 9, 12-14, 148, 168
+
+Veda, a mystery, 191, 194
+  -- MSS. of, in India, 192
+  -- -- brought to Europe, 193
+  -- oldest of real books, 195
+  -- primitive thought in the, 195, 197-199
+  -- date of, 200
+  -- translations of, 201
+  -- East India Company and the, 201
+  -- forming correct text of the Rig-, 202
+  -- enormous work involved, 204
+
+Vedic scholarship, 193
+
+_Veih_, home, 153
+
+_Vernunft_ and _Verstand_, 143
+
+Vigfusson, Dr., 254
+
+Voltairian philosophy at Oxford, 307
+
+
+Weismann, 27-30
+
+Weisse, 129, 132-135, 139-142, 287
+
+Wellesley, Dr., 304
+
+Wellington, Duke of, 16, 40, 205
+
+Westminster Abbey and St. Peter’s, 304
+
+Wilberforce, Samuel, 207, 208
+
+Wilson, Professor, 158, 159
+
+Wiseman, 296
+
+Wolf, F. A., 48
+
+Wolseley, Lord, 266
+
+Wren, Sir Christopher, 264
+
+Wright, Dr., 261, 262
+
+
+Youth painted by the old, 35, 36
+
+
+Zerbst, examined at, 106
+  -- M. M.’s examiners at, 106
+
+Zeus, Dyaus, 148, 149
+
+
+
+
+OTHER BOOKS BY MAX MÜLLER
+
+
+Auld Lang Syne
+
+_First Series._ Illustrated. 8vo, $2.00
+
+“This book, the fruit of enforced leisure, as its author tells us, is
+a charming mass of gossip about people whom Professor Max Müller has
+known during his long career—musicians, literary men, princes, and
+beggars. The last class is not, perhaps, the least interesting or
+amusing. To our mind, however, the chapter on musicians, with its
+delightful pictures of the author’s early life, and the naïve
+confessions as to musical tastes, with some of the stories about
+celebrated composers, forms the most interesting portion of a work
+which has not one dull page.”—_The Spectator._
+
+“One of the most charming examples of reminiscent literature that has
+recently seen the light.”—New York _Sun_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Auld Lang Syne
+
+_Second Series._ =My Indian Friends.= 8vo, $2.00.
+
+“The professor’s ‘Indian Friends’ are not all of the nineteenth
+century. His oldest friends are in the Veda, about which he has always
+loved to write. Indeed, he spent the best years of his life over the
+text of the Rig Veda, and has a clear right to be heard upon the
+classic he has done so much to make familiar.... But the real charm of
+his recollections lies rather in their peaceful kindliness, in their
+wide and tolerant sympathies, and in their earnest aim, which will
+surely be attained in some measure, of bringing what is best in India
+closer home to foreigners.”—_Literature._
+
+
+Science of Language
+
+Founded on Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution. _New Edition
+from New Plates. Largely Re-written._ In 2 vols., crown 8vo, $6.00.
+
+_CONTENTS:—Vol. I.—The Science of Language one of the Physical
+Sciences; The Growth of Language in Contradistinction to the History
+of Language; The Empirical Stage in the Science of Language; The
+Classificatory Stage in the Science of Language; The Genealogical
+Classification of Languages; Comparative Grammar; The Constituent
+Elements of Language; The Morphological Classification of Languages;
+The Theoretical Stage in the Science of Language—Origin of Language;
+Genealogical Tables of Languages._
+
+_CONTENTS:—Vol. II.—Introductory Lecture. New Materials for the
+Science of Language and New Theories; Language and Reason; The
+Physiological Alphabet; Phonetic Change; Grimm’s Law; On the
+Principles of Etymology; On the Powers of Roots; Metaphor; The
+Mythology of the Greeks; Jupiter, The Supreme Aryan God; Myths of the
+Dawn; Modern Mythology._
+
+“In practical value to the student of the science of language, the
+work stands alone.”—Boston _Transcript_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Ramakrishna
+
+=His Life and Sayings.= Crown 8vo, $1.50 _net_.
+
+“As a whole the little book marks one of the summit points of recent
+scientific religious literature. Max Müller’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 teaching.”—_American Historical
+Review._
+
+
+Science of Thought
+
+_Two Volumes._ Crown 8vo, $4.00.
+
+“Of the portion of the work in which the author exemplifies and
+illustrates his theory—his analysis of the Sanskrit roots, his
+chapters on Kant’s philosophy, on the formation of words, on
+propositions and syllogisms—it is only necessary to say that while
+they contain, along with much that will reward a careful study, not a
+little that will arouse controversy, they have, like all the author’s
+former productions, the prime merit of being free from the two
+greatest of literary faults—obscurity and dulness. A work in which
+two of the driest and hardest of studies, analytic philology and
+mental philosophy, are made at once lucid and attractive, is an
+acquisition for which all students of those mysteries have reason to
+be grateful.”—New York _Evening Post_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Science of Religion
+
+=Lectures on the Science of Religion=; with Papers on Buddhism, and a
+Translation of the Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue. Crown 8vo, $2.00.
+
+_CONTENTS:—LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION; BUDDHIST NIHILISM;
+BUDDHA’S DHAMMAPADA, OR “PATH OF VIRTUE”; Introduction; The
+Twin-Verses; On Reflection; Thought; Flowers; The Fool; The Wise Man;
+The Venerable; The Thousands; Evil; Punishment; Old Age; Self; The
+World; The Awakened (Buddha); Happiness; Pleasure; Anger; Impurity;
+The Just; The Way; Miscellaneous; The Downward Course; The Elephant;
+Thirst; The Bhikshu (Mendicant); The Brahmana._
+
+
+Chips from a German Workshop
+
+_Five Volumes._ Crown 8vo, $2.00 per vol.; the set, $10.00.
+
+Vol. I. Essays on the Science of Religion.
+
+Vol. II. Essays on Mythology, Traditions and Customs.
+
+Vol. III. Essays on Literature, Biography and Antiquities.
+
+Vol. IV. Comparative Philology, Mythology, etc.
+
+Vol. V. Miscellaneous. Later Essays.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion=, as Illustrated by the
+Religions of India. [_Hibbert Lectures for 1878._] Crown 8vo, $1.50
+_net_.
+
+=Biographical Essays=: Râmmohun Roy—Keshub Chunder Sen—Dayânanda
+Sarasvatî—Bunyiu Nanjio—Kenjiu Kasawara—Mohl—Kingsley. Crown 8vo,
+$2.00.
+
+=The German Classics.= From the Fourth to the Nineteenth Century. With
+biographical notices, translations into modern German and notes. _A
+New Edition, Revised, Enlarged and Adapted to_ SHERER’S “History of
+German Literature.” 2 vols, $6.00 _net_.
+
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, _Publishers_
+
+153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Autobiography, by F. Max Müller
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30269 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30269 ***</div>
+
+<h1>MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h1>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="front" id="front"></a><a href="images/illo_frontispiece.jpg"><img src="images/illo_frontispiece_th.jpg"
+alt="F. Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 4" title="F. Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 4" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><i>F. Max M&uuml;ller</i><br />
+ <i>Aged 4.</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>MY<br />
+AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h2>
+
+<h3 style="padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 2em">A FRAGMENT</h3>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: 70%">BY THE</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: 110%"><span class="smcap">Rt. Hon. Professor</span> F. MAX M&Uuml;LLER, K.M.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="padding-top: 3em; padding-bottom: 2em"><i>WITH PORTRAITS</i></p>
+
+<p class="publisher">New York<br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER&#8217;S SONS<br />
+1901</p>
+
+<p class="copyright"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1901, by</span><br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER&#8217;S SONS</p>
+
+<p class="copyright">
+TROW DIRECTORY<br />
+PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY<br />
+NEW YORK</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">For</span> some years past my father had, in the intervals
+of more serious work, occupied his leisure
+moments in jotting down reminiscences of his early
+life. In 1898 and 1899 he issued the two volumes
+of <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>, which contained recollections
+of his friends, but very little about his own life and
+career. In the Introductory Chapter to the Autobiography
+he explains fully the reasons which led
+him, at his advanced age, to undertake the task of
+writing his own Life, and he began, but alas! too
+late, to gather together the fragments that he had
+written at different times. But even during the
+last two years of his life, and after the first attack
+of the illness which finally proved fatal, he would
+not devote himself entirely to what he considered
+mere recreation, as can be seen from such a work
+as his <i>Six Systems of Indian Philosophy</i> published
+in May, 1889, and from the numerous articles
+which continued to appear up to the very time of
+his death.</p>
+
+<p>During the last weeks of his life, when we all
+knew that the end could not be far off, the Autobiography<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>
+was constantly in his thoughts, and his
+great desire was to leave as much as possible ready
+for publication. Even when he was lying in bed
+far too weak to sit up in a chair, he continued to
+work at the manuscript with me. I would read
+portions aloud to him, and he would suggest alterations
+and dictate additions. I see that we were
+actually at work on this up to the 19th of October,
+and on the 28th he was taken to his well-earned
+rest. One of the last letters that I read to him was
+a letter from Messrs. Longmans, his lifelong publishers,
+urging the publication of the fragments of
+the Autobiography that he had then written.</p>
+
+<p>My father&#8217;s object in writing his Autobiography
+was twofold: firstly, to show what he considered to
+have been his mission in life, to lay bare the thread
+that connected all his labours; and secondly, to
+encourage young struggling scholars by letting them
+see how it had been possible for one of themselves,
+without fortune, a stranger in a strange land, to
+arrive at the position to which he attained, without
+ever sacrificing his independence, or abandoning the
+unprofitable and not very popular subjects to which
+he had determined to devote his life.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately the last chapter takes us but little
+beyond the threshold of his career. There is
+enough, however, to enable us to see how from his
+earliest student days his leanings were philosophical
+and religious rather than classical; how the study
+of Herbart&#8217;s philosophy encouraged him in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>
+work in which he was engaged as a mere student,
+the Science of Language and Etymology; how his
+desire to know something special, that no other philosopher
+would know, led him to explore the virgin
+fields of Oriental literature and religions. With
+this motive he began the study of Arabic, Persian,
+and finally Sanskrit, devoting himself more especially
+to the latter under Brockhaus and R&uuml;ckert,
+and subsequently under Burnouf, who persuaded
+him to undertake the colossal work of editing the
+Rig-veda.</p>
+
+<p>The Autobiography breaks off before the end of
+the period during which he devoted himself exclusively
+to Sanskrit. It is idle to speculate what
+course his life&#8217;s work might have taken, had he been
+elected to the Boden Professorship of Sanskrit; but
+he lived long enough to realize that his rejection
+for that chair in 1860, which was so hard to bear at
+the time, was really a blessing in disguise, as it
+enabled him to turn his attention to more general
+subjects, and devote himself to those philological,
+philosophical, religious and mythological studies,
+which found their expression in a series of works
+commencing with his <i>Lectures on the Science of
+Language</i>, 1861, and terminating with his <i>Contributions
+to the Science of Mythology</i>, 1897,&mdash;&#8220;the
+thread that connects the origin of thought
+and language with the origin of mythology and religion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As to his advice to struggling scholars, the self-depreciation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
+which, as Professor Jowett said, is one
+of the greatest dangers of an autobiography, makes
+my father rather conceal the real causes of his
+success in life. He even goes so far as to say,
+&#8220;everything in my career came about most naturally,
+not by my own effort, but owing to those circumstances
+or to that environment, of which we
+have heard so much of late&#8221;: or again, &#8220;it was
+really my friends who did everything for me and
+helped me over many a stile and many a ditch.&#8221;
+No doubt in one sense this is true, but not in the
+sense in which it would have been true had he, when
+at the University, accepted the offer which he tells
+us a wealthy cousin made him, to adopt him and
+send him into the Austrian diplomatic service, and
+even to procure him a wife and a title into the bargain.
+The friends who helped him, men such as
+Humboldt, Burnouf, Bunsen, Stanley, Kingsley,
+Liddell, to mention only a few, were men whose
+very friendship was the surest proof of my father&#8217;s
+merits. The real secret of his success lay not in his
+friends, but in himself;&mdash;in the knowledge that his
+success or failure in life depended entirely on his
+own efforts; in the fixity of purpose which made
+him refuse all offers that would lead him from the
+pathway that he had laid down for himself; and in
+the unflagging industry with which he strove to
+reach the goal of his ambition. &#8220;My very struggles,&#8221;
+he writes, &#8220;were certainly a help to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When I came to examine the manuscript with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>
+a view to sending it to press, I found that there
+was a good deal of work necessary before it could
+be published in book form. The fragments were
+in many cases incomplete; there was no division
+into chapters, no connexion between the various
+periods and episodes of his life; important incidents
+were omitted; while, owing to the intermittent way
+in which he had been writing, there were frequent
+repetitions. My father was always most critical of
+his own style, and would often, when correcting his
+proof-sheets, alter a whole page, because a word or
+a phrase displeased him, or because some new idea,
+some happier mode of expression, occurred to him;
+but in the case of his Autobiography, the only revision
+that he was able to give, was on his deathbed,
+while I read the manuscript aloud to him.</p>
+
+<p>My father points out how rarely the sons of great
+musicians or great painters become distinguished
+in the same line themselves. &#8220;It seems,&#8221; he says,
+&#8220;almost as if the artistic talent were exhausted by
+one generation or one individual&#8221;; and I fear that,
+in my case at all events, the same remark applies
+to literary talent. I have done my best to string
+the fragments together into one connected whole,
+only making such insertions, elisions and alterations
+as appeared strictly necessary. Any deficiency in
+literary style that may be noticeable in portions of
+the book should be ascribed to the inexperience of
+the editor.</p>
+
+<p>I have thought it right to insert the last chapter,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>
+which I call &#8220;A Confession,&#8221; though I am not sure
+that my father intended it to be included in his
+Autobiography. It will, however, explain the attitude
+which he observed throughout his life, in
+keeping aloof, as far as possible, from the arena of
+academic contention at Oxford. He was never
+chosen a member of the Hebdomadal Council, he
+rarely attended meetings of Convocation or Congregation;
+he felt that other people, with more leisure
+at their disposal, could be of more use there; but
+he never refused to work for his University, when
+he felt that he was able to render good service,
+and he acted for years as a Curator of the Bodleian
+Library and of the Taylorian Institute, and as a
+Delegate of the Clarendon Press.</p>
+
+<p>With reference to the illustrations, it may be of
+interest to readers to know that the portraits of my
+grandfather and grandmother are taken from pencil-drawings
+by Adolf Hensel, the husband of Mendelssohn&#8217;s
+sister Fanny, herself a great musician, who,
+as my father tells us in <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>, really
+composed several of the airs that Mendelssohn published
+as his <i>Songs without Words</i>. The last portrait
+of my father is from a photograph taken soon
+after his arrival in Oxford by his great friend Thomson,
+afterwards Archbishop of York.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing now remains for me but to acknowledge
+the debt that I owe personally to this book.
+&#8220;Work,&#8221; my father used often to say to me, &#8220;is
+the best healer of sorrow. In grief or disappointment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>
+try hard work; it will not fail you.&#8221; And
+certainly during these three sad months, I have
+proved the truth of this saying. He could not have
+left me a surer comfort or more welcome distraction
+than the duty of preparing for press these pages, the
+last fruits of that mind which remained active and
+fertile to the last.</p>
+
+<p class="right">W.&nbsp;G. MAX M&Uuml;LLER.</p>
+
+<p><small><span class="smcap">Oxford</span>, <i>January</i>, 1901.</small></p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="table of contents">
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign" style="font-size: 70%" colspan="2">CHAPTER</td><td style="font-size: 70%; text-align: center">PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Introductory</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Childhood at Dessau</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">School-days at Leipzig</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">University</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Paris</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Arrival in England</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Early Days at Oxford</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Early Friends at Oxford</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">A Confession</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td style="line-height: 50%">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="leftalign" colspan="2"><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_PORTRAITS" id="LIST_OF_PORTRAITS"></a>LIST OF PORTRAITS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="list of portraits">
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">F. Max M&uuml;ller, Aged Four</span></td><td class="rightalign"><i><a href="#front">Frontispiece</a></i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="rightalign"><span style="font-size: 60%">FACING
+PAGE</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">My Father</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#father">46</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">My Mother</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#mother">58</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">F. Max M&uuml;ller, Aged Fourteen</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Max14">106</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2.5em">"</span>" <span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 1.8em">Aged Twenty</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Max20">156</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2.5em">"</span>" <span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 1.8em">Aged Thirty</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Max30">268</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="MY_AUTOBIOGRAPHY" id="MY_AUTOBIOGRAPHY"></a>MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h2>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>INTRODUCTORY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">After</span> the publication of the second volume of
+my <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>, 1899, I had a good deal
+of correspondence, of public criticism, and of private
+communings also with myself, whether I
+should continue my biographical records in the form
+hitherto adopted, or give a more personal character
+to my recollections. Some of my friends
+were evidently dissatisfied. &#8220;The recollections of
+your friends and the account of the influence they
+exercised on you,&#8221; they said, &#8220;are interesting, no
+doubt, as far as they go, but we want more. We
+want to know the springs, the aspirations, the
+struggles, the failures, and achievements of your
+life. We want to know how you yourself look at
+yourself and at your past life and its various incidents.&#8221;
+What they really wanted was, in fact, an
+autobiography. &#8220;No one,&#8221; as a friend of mine,
+not an Irishman, said, &#8220;could do that so well as
+yourself, and you will never escape a biographer.&#8221;
+I confess that did not frighten me very much. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+did not think the danger of a biography very imminent.
+Besides, I had already revised two biographies
+and several biographical notices even during
+my lifetime. No sensible man ought to care
+about posthumous praise or posthumous blame.
+Enough for the day is the evil thereof. Our contemporaries
+are our right judges, our peers have
+to give their votes in the great academies and
+learned societies, and if they on the whole are not
+dissatisfied with the little we have done, often under
+far greater difficulties than the world was aware
+of, why should we care for the distant future?
+Who was a greater giant in philosophy than Hegel?
+Who towered higher than Darwin in natural
+science? Yet in one of the best German reviews<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+the following words of a young German biologist<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>
+are quoted, and not without a certain approval:
+&#8220;Darwinism belongs now to history, like that other
+<i>curiosum</i> of our century, the Hegelian philosophy.
+Both are variations on the theme, How can a generation
+be led by the nose? and they are not calculated
+to raise our departing century in the eyes of
+later generations.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>If I was afraid of anything, it was not so much
+the severity of future judges, as the extreme kindness
+and leniency which distinguish most biographies
+in our days. It is true, it would not be easy
+for those who have hereafter to report on our labours
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>to discover the red thread that runs through all of
+them from our first stammerings to our latest murmurings.
+It might be said that in my own case the
+thread that connects all my labours is very visible,
+namely, the thread that connects the origin of
+thought and languages with the origin of mythology
+and religion. Everything I have done was, no
+doubt, subordinate to these four great problems,
+but to lay bare the connecting links between what
+I have written and what I wanted to write and never
+found time to write, is by no means easy, not even
+for the author himself. Besides, what author has
+ever said the last word he wanted to say, and who
+has not had to close his eyes before he could write
+Finis to his work? There are many things still
+which I should like to say, but I am getting tired,
+and others will say them much better than I could,
+and will no doubt carry on the work where I had to
+leave it unfinished. We owe much to others, and
+we have to leave much to others. For throwing
+light on such points an autobiography is, no doubt,
+better adapted than any biography written by a
+stranger, if only we can at the same time completely
+forget that the man who is described is the same
+as the man who describes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Friends,&#8221; as Professor Jowett said, &#8220;always
+think it necessary (except Boswell, that great
+genius) to tell lies about their deceased friend; they
+leave out all his faults lest the public should exaggerate
+them. But we want to know his faults,&mdash;that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+is probably the most interesting part of
+him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jowett knew quite well, and he did not hesitate
+to say so, that to do much good in this world, you
+must be a very able and honest man, thinking of
+nothing else day and night; and he adds, &#8220;you
+must also be a considerable piece of a rogue, having
+many reticences and concealments; and I believe a
+good sort of roguery is never to say a word against
+anybody, however much they may deserve it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now Professor Jowett has certainly done some
+good work at Oxford, but if any one were to say
+that he also was a considerable piece of a rogue, what
+an outcry there would be among the sons of Balliol.
+Jowett thought that the only chance of a good biography
+was for a man to write memoirs of himself,
+and what a pity that he did not do so in his
+own case. His friends, however, who had to write
+his Life were wise, and he escaped what of late has
+happened to several eminent men. He escaped the
+testimonials for this, and testimonials for another
+life, such as they are often published in our days.</p>
+
+<p>Testimonials are bad enough in this life, when
+we have to select one out of many candidates as
+best fitted for an office, and it is but natural that
+the electors will hardly ever look at them, but will
+try to get their information through some other
+channel. But what are called <i>post obit</i> testimonials
+really go beyond everything yet known in funeral
+panegyrics. Of course, as no one is asked for such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+testimonials except those who are known to have
+been friends of the departed, these testimonials
+hardly ever contain one word of blame. One feels
+ashamed to write such testimonials, but if you are
+asked, what can you do without giving offence? We
+are placed altogether in a false position. Let any
+one try to speak the truth and nothing but the truth,
+and he will find that it is almost impossible to put
+down anything that in the slightest way might seem
+to reflect on the departed. The mention of the most
+innocent failings in an obituary notice is sure to
+offend somebody, the widow or the children, or some
+dear friend. I thought that my Recollections had
+hitherto contained nothing that could possibly offend
+anybody, nothing that could not have been
+published during the lifetime of the man to whom
+it referred. But no; I had ever so many complaints,
+and I gladly left out, in later editions, names which
+in many cases were really of no consequence compared
+with what they said and did.</p>
+
+<p>Surely every man has his faults and his little
+and often ridiculous weaknesses, and these weaknesses
+belong quite as much to a man&#8217;s character as
+his strength; nay, with the suppression of the former
+the latter would often become almost unintelligible.</p>
+
+<p>I like the biographies of such friends of mine as
+Dean Stanley, Charles Kingsley, and Baron Bunsen.
+But even these are deficient in those shadows
+which would but help to bring out all the more clearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+the bright points in their character. We should
+remember the words of Dr. Wendell Holmes: &#8220;We
+all want to draw perfect ideals, and all the coin that
+comes from Nature&#8217;s mint is more or less clipped,
+filed, &#8216;sweated,&#8217; or bruised, and bent and worn,
+even if it was pure metal when stamped, which is
+more than we can claim, I suppose, for anything
+human.&#8221; True, very true; and what would the departed
+himself say to such biographies as are now
+but too common,&mdash;most flattering pictures no doubt,
+but pictures without one spot or wrinkle? In Germany
+it was formerly not an uncommon thing for
+the author of a book to write a self-review (Selbst-Kritik),
+and these were generally far better than
+reviews written by friends or enemies. For who
+knows the strong and weak points of a book so well
+as the author? True; but a whole life is more difficult
+to review and to criticize than a single book.
+Nevertheless it must be admitted that an autobiography
+has many advantages, and it might be well
+if every man of note, nay, every man who has something
+to say for himself that he wishes posterity to
+know, should say it himself. This would in time
+form a wonderful archive for psychological study.
+Something of the kind has been done already at
+Berlin in preserving private correspondences. Of
+course it is difficult to keep such archives within
+reasonable limits, but here again I am not afraid
+of self-laudation so much as of self-depreciation.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Jowett, who did not write his own biography,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+was quite right in saying that there is
+great danger of an autobiography being rather self-depreciatory;
+there is certainly something so nauseous
+in self-praise that most people would shrink far
+more from self-praise than from self-blame. There
+may be some kind of subtle self-admiration even in
+the fault-finding of an outspoken autobiographer;
+but who can dive into those deepest depths of the
+human soul? To me it seems that if an honest man
+takes himself by the neck, and shakes himself, he
+can do it far better than anybody else, and the
+castigation, if well deserved, comes certainly with
+a far better grace from himself than if administered
+by others.</p>
+
+<p>Few men, I believe, know their real goodness and
+greatness. Some of the most handsome women, so
+we are assured, pass through life without ever knowing
+from their looking-glass that they are handsome.
+And it is certainly true that men, from sad
+experience, know their weak points far better than
+their good points, which they look on as no more
+than natural.</p>
+
+<p>The Autos, for instance, described by John
+Stuart Mill, has no cause to be grateful to the Autos
+that wrote his biography. Mill had been threatened
+by several future biographers, and he therefore
+wrote the short biographical account of himself almost
+in self-defence. But besides the truly miraculous,
+and, if related by anybody else, hardly credible
+achievements of his early boyhood and youth, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+great achievements in later life, the influence which
+he exercised both by his writings and still more by
+his personal and public character, would have found
+a far more eloquent and truthful interpreter in a
+stranger than in Mill himself. I remember another
+case where a most distinguished author tried to
+escape the oil and the blessings, perhaps the opposite
+also, from the hands of his future biographers.
+Froude destroyed the whole of his correspondence,
+and he wished particularly that all letters written
+to him in the fullest confidence should be burnt,&mdash;and
+they were. I think it was a pity, for I know
+what valuable letters were destroyed in that <i>auto da
+f&eacute;</i>; and yet when he had done all this, he seems to
+have been seized with fear, and just before he returned
+to Oxford as Regius Professor of Modern
+History he began to write a sketch of his own life,
+which was found among his papers. Interesting it
+certainly was, but fortunately his best friends prevented
+its publication. It would have added nothing
+to what we know of him in his writings, and
+would never have put his real merits in their proper
+light. Besides, it came to an end with his youth and
+told us little of his real life.</p>
+
+<p>I flattered myself that I had found the true way
+out of all these difficulties, by writing not exactly
+my own life, but recollections of my friends and acquaintances
+who had influenced me most, and guided
+me in my not always easy passage through life.
+As in describing the course of a river, we cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+do better than to describe the shores which hem in
+and divert the river and are reflected on its waves,
+I thought that by describing my environment, my
+friends, and fellow workers, I could best describe
+the course of my own life. I hoped also that in this
+way I myself could keep as much as possible in the
+background, and yet in describing the wooded or
+rocky shores with their herds, their cottages, and
+churches, describe their reflected image on the passing
+river.</p>
+
+<p>But now I am asked to give a much fuller account
+of myself, not only of what I have seen, but
+also of what I have been, what were the objects or
+ideals of my life, how far I have succeeded in carrying
+them out, and, as I said, how often I have failed
+to accomplish what I had sketched out as my task
+in life. People wished to know how a boy, born and
+educated in a small and almost unknown town in
+the centre of Germany, should have come to England,
+should have been chosen there to edit the
+oldest book of the world, the Veda of the Brahmans,
+never published before, whether in India or in Europe,
+should have passed the best part of his life as
+a professor in the most famous and, as it was thought,
+the most exclusive University in England, and
+should actually have ended his days as a Member
+of Her Majesty&#8217;s most honourable Privy Council.
+I confess myself it seems a very strange career, yet
+everything came about most naturally, not by my
+own effort, but owing again to those circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+or to that environment of which we have heard so
+much of late.</p>
+
+<p>Young, struggling men also have written to me,
+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
+England. They knew, for I had never made any
+secret of it, how poor I was in worldly goods, and
+how, as I said at Glasgow, I had nothing to depend
+on after I left the University, but those fingers with
+which I still hold my pen and write so badly that I
+can hardly read my manuscript myself. When I
+arrived I had no family connections in England,
+nor any influential friends, &#8220;and yet,&#8221; I was told,
+&#8220;in a foreign country, you managed to reach the
+top of your profession. Tell us how you did it;
+and how you preserved at the same time your independence
+and never forsook the not very popular
+subjects, such as language, mythology, religion, and
+philosophy, on which you continued to write to the
+very end of your life.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I generally said that most of these questions could
+best be answered from my books, but they replied
+that few people had time to read all I had written,
+and many would feel grateful for a thread to lead
+them through this labyrinth of books, essays, and
+pamphlets, which have issued from my workshop
+during the last fifty years.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+<p>All I could say was that each man must find his
+own way in life, but if there was any secret about
+my success, it was simply due to the fact that I had
+perfect faith, and went on never doubting even
+when everything looked grey and black about me.
+I felt convinced that what I cared for, and what I
+thought worthy of a whole life of hard work, must
+in the end be recognized by others also as of value,
+and as worthy of a certain support from the public.
+Had not Layard gained a hearing for Assyrian
+bulls? Did not Darwin induce the world to take an
+interest in Worms, and in the Fertilization of Orchids?
+And should the oldest book and the oldest
+thoughts of the Aryan world remain despised and
+neglected?</p>
+
+<p>For many years I never thought of appointments
+or of getting on in the world in a pecuniary sense.
+My friends often laughed at me, and when I think
+of it now, I confess I must have seemed very
+Quixotic to many of those who tried for this and
+that, got lucrative appointments, married rich wives,
+became judges and bishops, ambassadors and ministers,
+and could hardly understand what I was driving
+at with my Sanskrit manuscripts, my proof-sheets
+and revises. Perhaps I did not know myself.
+Still I was not quite so foolish as they imagined.
+True, I declined several offers made to me which
+seemed very advantageous in a worldly sense, but
+would have separated me entirely from my favourite
+work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When at last a professorship of Modern Literature
+was offered me at Oxford, I made up my mind,
+though it was not exactly what I should have liked,
+to give up half of my time to studies required by
+this professorship, keeping half of my time for the
+Veda and for Sanskrit in general. This was not so
+bad after all. People often laughed at me for
+being professor of the most modern languages, and
+giving so much of my time and labour to the most
+ancient language and literature in the world. Perhaps
+it was not quite right my giving up so much of
+my time to modern languages, a subject so remote
+from my work in life, but it was a concession which
+I could make with a good conscience, having always
+held that language was one and indivisible, and
+that there never had been a break between Sanskrit,
+Latin, and French, or Sanskrit, Gothic, and German.
+One of my first lectures at Oxford was &#8220;On
+the antiquity of modern languages,&#8221; so that I gave
+full notice to the University as to how I meant to
+treat my subject, and on the whole the University
+seems to have been satisfied with my professorial
+work, so that when afterwards for very good
+reasons, whether financial, theological, or national,
+I, or rather my friends, failed to secure a majority
+in Convocation for a professorship of Sanskrit, the
+University actually founded for me a Professorship
+of Comparative Philology, an honour of which
+I had never dreamt, and to secure which I certainly
+had never taken any steps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Here is all my secret. At first, as I said, it required
+faith, but it also required for many years a
+perfect indifference as to worldly success. And
+here again in my career as a Sanskrit scholar, mere
+circumstances were of great importance. They
+were circumstances which I was glad to accept, but
+which I could never have created myself. 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 each. It was at the time
+when the fate of the Company hung in the balance,
+and when Bunsen, the Prussian Minister, made
+himself <i>persona grata</i> by delivering a speech at one
+of the public dinners in the City, setting forth in
+eloquent words the undeniable merits of the Old
+Company and the wonderful work they had
+achieved. It was likewise a mere accident that I
+should have become known to Bunsen, and that he
+should have shown me so much kindness in my literary
+work. He had himself tried hard to go to India
+to discover the Rig-veda, nay, to find out whether
+there was still such a thing as the Veda in India.
+The same Bunsen, His Excellency Baron Bunsen,
+the Prussian Minister in London, on his own accord
+went afterwards to see the Chairman and the Directors
+of the East India Company, and explained
+to them what the Rig-veda was, and that it would
+be a real disgrace if such a work were published in
+Germany; and they agreed to vote a sum of money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+such as they had never voted before for any literary
+undertaking. Though after the mutiny nothing
+could save them, 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 Company,&mdash;much abused
+though splendidly defended also by no less a man
+than John Stuart Mill.</p>
+
+<p>This is what I mean by friends and circumstances,
+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 myself. Small and large things work
+wonderfully together. It was the change threatening
+the government of India, and a mighty change
+it was, that gave me the chance of publishing the
+Veda, a very small matter as it may seem in the
+eyes of most people, and yet intended to bring about
+quite as mighty a change in our views of the ancient
+people of the world, particularly of their languages
+and religions. This, too&mdash;the development of language
+and religion&mdash;seems of importance to some
+people who do not care two straws for the East India
+Company, particularly if it helps us to learn what
+we really are ourselves, and how we came to be what
+we are.</p>
+
+<p>In one sense biographies and autobiographies are
+certainly among the most valuable materials for the
+historian. Biography, as Heinrich Simon, not
+Henri Simon, said, is the best kind of history, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+the life of one man, if laid open before us with all
+he thought and all he did, gives us a better insight
+into the history of his time than any general account
+of it can possibly do.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is quite true that the life of a quiet scholar
+has little to do with history, except it may be the
+history of his own branch of study, which some people
+consider quite unimportant, while to others it
+seems all-important. This is as it ought to be, till
+the universal historian finds the right perspective,
+and assigns to each branch of study and activity its
+proper place in the panorama of the progress of mankind
+towards its ideals. Even a quiet scholar, if he
+keeps his eyes open, may now and then see something
+that is of importance to the historian. While
+I was living in small rooms at Leipzig, or lodging
+<i>au cinqui&egrave;me</i> in the Rue Royale at Paris, or copying
+manuscripts in a dark room of the old East India
+House in Leadenhall Street, I now and then caught
+glimpses of the mighty stream of history as it was
+rushing by. At Leipzig I saw much of Robert
+Blum who was afterwards <i>fusill&eacute;</i> at Vienna by
+Windischgr&auml;tz in defiance of all international law, for
+he was a member of the German Diet, then sitting
+at Frankfurt. From my windows at Paris I looked
+over the <i>Boulevard de la Madeleine</i>, and down on the
+right to the <i>Chambre des D&eacute;put&eacute;s</i>, and I saw from
+my windows the throne of Louis Philippe carried
+along by its four legs by four women on horseback,
+with Phrygian caps and red scarfs, and I saw the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+next morning from the same windows the stretchers
+carrying the dead and wounded from the Boulevards
+to a hospital at the back of my street. In my small
+study at the East India House I saw several of the
+Directors, Colonel Sykes and others, and heard
+them discussing the fate of the East India Company
+and of the vast empire of India too, and at the
+same time the private interests of those who hoped
+to be Members of the new India Council, and those
+who despaired of that distinction. I was the first
+to bring the news of the French Revolution in February
+to London, and presented a bullet that had
+smashed the windows of my room at Paris, to Bunsen,
+who took it in the evening to Lord Palmerston.
+After I had seen the Revolution in Paris and the
+flight of the King and the Duchesse d&#8217;Orl&eacute;ans, I was
+in time to see in London the Chartist Deputation
+to Parliament, and the assembled police in Trafalgar
+Square, when Louis Napoleon served as a
+Special Constable, and I heard the Duke of Wellington
+explain to Bunsen, that though no soldier
+was seen in the streets there was artillery hidden
+under the bridges, and ready to act if wanted. I
+could add more, but I must not anticipate, and
+after all, to me all these great events seemed but
+small compared with a new manuscript of the Veda
+sent from India, or a better reading of an obscure
+passage. <i>Diversos diversa iuvant</i>, and it is fortunate
+that it should be so.</p>
+
+<p>All these things, I thought, should form part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+my Recollections, and my own little self should
+disappear as much as possible. Even the pronoun
+I should meet the reader but seldom, though in
+Recollections it was as impossible to leave it out
+altogether as it would be to take away the lens from
+a photographic camera. Now I believe I have always
+been most willing to yield to my friends, 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 struggles; but I must
+on the whole adhere to my old plan. I could not,
+if I would, neglect the environment of my life, and
+the many friends that advised and helped me, and
+enabled me to achieve the little that I may have
+achieved in my own line of study.</p>
+
+<p>If my friends had been different from what they
+were, should I not have become a different man
+myself, whether for good or for evil? And the same
+applies to our natural surroundings also. And here
+I must invoke the patience of my readers, if I try
+to explain in as few words as possible what I think
+about <i>environment</i>, and what about <i>heredity</i> or
+<i>atavism</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I was a thorough Darwinian in ascribing the
+shaping of my career to environment, though I was
+always very averse to atavism, of which we have
+heard so much lately in most biographies. Even
+with respect to environment, however, I could not
+go quite so far as certain of our Darwinian friends,
+who maintain that everything is the result of environment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+or translated into biographical language,
+that everybody is a creature of circumstances. No,
+I could not go so far as that. Environment may
+shape our course and may shape us, but there must
+be something that is shaped, and allows itself to be
+shaped. 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 life. That he grew then a thicker
+fur, I knew, but that surely does not explain the
+whole of the Mammoth, with and without a thick
+fur, before and after the fur. It is really a pity to
+see for how many of these downright absurdities
+Darwin is made responsible by the Darwinians. He
+has clearly shown how in many cases the individual
+may be modified almost beyond recognition by
+environment, but the individual must always have
+been there first. Before we had a spaniel and a
+Newfoundland dog there must have been some
+kind of dog, neither so small as the spaniel nor so
+large as the Newfoundland, and no one would now
+doubt that these two belonged to the same species
+and presupposed some kind of a less modified canine
+creature. It is equally true that every individual
+man has been modified by his surroundings or environment,
+if not to the same extent as certain animals,
+yet very considerably, as in the case of Kaspar
+Hauser, the man with the iron mask, or the
+mutineers of the <i>Bounty</i> in the Pitcairn Islands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+But there must have been the man first, before he
+could be so modified. Now it was this very individual,
+my own self in fact, the spiritual self even
+more than the physical, that interested my critics,
+while I thought that the circumstances which
+moulded that self would be of far greater interest
+than the self itself. Of course all the modifications
+that men now undergo are nothing if compared to
+the early modifications which produced what we
+speak of as racial, linguistic, or even national peculiarities.
+That we are English or German, that
+we are white or black, nay, if you like, that we are
+human beings at all, all this has modified our self,
+or our germ-plasm, far more powerfully than anything
+that can happen to us as individuals now.</p>
+
+<p>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 young, struggling man,
+all I could say was that here again it was really my
+friends who did everything for me, and helped me
+over many a stile, and many a ditch, nay, without
+whom I should never have done whatever I did for
+the Sciences of Language, of Mythology, and Religion,
+in fact for Anthropology in the widest sense
+of that word. My very struggles were certainly a
+help to me, even my opponents were most useful to
+me. The subjects on which I wrote had hardly
+been touched on in England, at least from the historical
+point of view which I took, and I had not
+only to overcome the indifference of the public, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+to disarm as much as possible the prejudices often
+felt, and sometimes expressed also, against anything
+made in Germany! Now I confess I could
+never understand such a prejudice among men of
+science. Was I more right or more wrong because
+I was born in Germany? Is scientific truth the exclusive
+property of one nation, of Germany, or of
+England? If I say two and two make four in German,
+is that less true because it is said by a German?
+and if I say, no language without thought,
+no thought without language, has that anything to
+do with my native country? The prejudice against
+strangers and particularly against Germans is, no
+doubt, much stronger now than it was at the time
+when I first came to England. I had spent nearly
+two years in Paris, and there too there existed then
+so little of unfriendly feeling towards Germany,
+that one of the best reviews to which the rising
+scholars and best writers of Paris contributed was
+actually called <i>Revue Germanique</i>. Who would
+now venture to publish in Paris such a review and
+under such a title? If there existed such an anti-German
+feeling anywhere in England when I arrived
+here in the year 1846, one would suppose that
+it existed most strongly at Oxford. And so it did, no
+doubt, particularly among theologians. With them
+German meant much the same as unorthodox, and
+unorthodox was enough at that time to taboo a man
+at Oxford. In one of the sermons preached in these
+early days at St. Mary&#8217;s, German theologians such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+as Strauss and Neander (<i>sic</i>) were spoken of as fit
+only to be drowned in the German Ocean, before
+they reached the shores of England. I do not add
+what followed: the story is too well known. I was
+chiefly amused by the juxtaposition of Strauss and
+Neander, whose most orthodox lectures on the history
+of the Christian Church I had attended at Berlin.
+Neander was certainly to us at Berlin the very
+pattern of orthodoxy, and people wondered at my
+attending his lectures. But they were good and
+honest lectures. He was quite a character, and I
+feel tempted to go a little out of my way in speaking
+of him. By birth a Jew, he became one of the
+most learned Christian divines. Ever so many stories
+were told of him, some true, some no doubt invented.
+I saw him often walking to and from the
+University to give his lectures in a large fur coat,
+with high black polished boots beneath, but showing
+occasionally as he walked along. It was told that
+he once sent for a doctor because he was lame. The
+doctor on examining his feet, saw that one boot was
+covered with mud, while the other was perfectly
+clean. The Professor had walked with one foot on
+the pavement, with the other in the gutter, and was
+far too much absorbed in his ideas to discover the
+true cause of his discomfort. He lived with his
+sister, who took complete care of him and saw to his
+wardrobe also. She knew that he wore one pair of
+trousers, and that on a certain day in the year the
+tailor brought him a new pair. Great was her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+amazement when one day, after her brother had
+gone to the University, she discovered his pair of
+trousers lying on a chair near his bed. She at once
+sent a servant to the Professor&#8217;s lecture-room to inquire
+whether he had his trousers on. The hilarity
+of his class may be imagined. The fact was it was
+the very day on which the tailor was in the habit of
+bringing the new pair of trousers, which the Professor
+had put on, leaving his usual garment behind.</p>
+
+<p>Many more stories of his absent-mindedness were
+<i>en vogue</i> about Dr. Neander, but that this man, a
+pillar of strength to the orthodox in Germany, who
+was looked up to as an infallible Pope, should have
+his name coupled with that of Strauss certainly gave
+one a little shock. Yet it was at Oxford that I
+pitched my tent, chiefly in order to superintend the
+printing of my Rig-veda at the University Press
+there, and never dreaming that a fellowship, still
+less a professorship in that ancient Tory University,
+would ever be offered to me.</p>
+
+<p>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 Pope;
+and yet in time I was chosen a Fellow of All Souls,
+and the first married Fellow of the College, and
+even a professorship was offered to me when I least
+expected it. The fact is, I never thought of either,
+and no one was more surprised than myself when
+I was asked to act as deputy, and then as full Taylorian
+Professor; no one could have mistrusted his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+eyes more than I did, when one of the Fellows of
+All Soul&#8217;s informed me by letter that it was the intention
+of the College to elect me one of its fellows.
+My ambition had never soared so high. I was thinking
+of returning to Leipzig as a <i>Privat-docent</i>, to
+rise afterwards to an extraordinary and, if all went
+well, to an ordinary professorship.</p>
+
+<p>But after these two appointments at Oxford had
+secured to me what I thought a fair social and financial
+position in England, I did not feel justified in attempting
+to begin life again in Germany. I had not
+asked for a professorship or fellowship. They were
+offered me, and my ambition never went beyond
+securing what was necessary for my independence.
+In Germany I was supposed to have become quite
+wealthy; in England people knew how small my
+income really was, and wondered how I managed
+to live on it. 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 Oxford. I could
+not see anything anomalous in a German holding a
+professorship in England. There were several cases
+of the same kind in Germany. Lassen (1800-1876),
+our great Sanskrit professor at Bonn, was
+a Norwegian by birth, and no one ever thought of
+his nationality. What had that to do with his
+knowledge of Sanskrit? Nor was I ever treated as
+an alien or as intruder at Oxford, at least not at
+that early time. As to myself, I had now obtained
+what seemed to me a small but sufficient income<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+with perfect independence. The quiet life of a
+quiet student had been from my earliest days my
+ideal in life. Even at school at Dessau, when we
+boys talked of what we hoped to be, I remember
+how my ideal was that of a monk, undisturbed in
+his monastery, surrounded by books and by a few
+friends. The idea that I should ever rise to be a
+professor in a university, or that any career like that
+of my father, grandfather, and other members of
+my family would ever be open to me, never entered
+my mind then. It seemed to me almost disloyal
+to think of ever taking their places. Even when I
+saw that there were no longer any Protestant monks,
+no Benedictines, the place of an assistant in a large
+library, sitting in a quiet corner, was my highest
+ambition.</p>
+
+<p>I do not see why it should have been so, for all
+my relations and friends occupied high places in the
+public service, but as I had no father to open my
+eyes, and to stimulate my ambition&mdash;he having died
+before I was four years old&mdash;my ideas of life and
+its possibilities were evidently taken from my young
+widowed mother, whose one desire was to be left
+alone, much as the world tempted her, then not yet
+thirty years old, to give up her mourning and to
+return to society. Thus it soon became my own
+philosophy of life, to be left alone, free to go my
+own way, or like Diogenes, to live in my own tub.
+Here we see what I call the influence of circumstances,
+of surroundings, or as others call it, of environment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+This, however, is very different from
+atavism, as we shall see presently. Atavism also
+has been called a kind of environment, attacking us
+and influencing us from the past, and as it were,
+from behind, from the North in fact instead of the
+South, the East, and the West, and from all the
+points of the compass.</p>
+
+<p>But atavism means really a very different thing,
+if indeed it means anything at all.</p>
+
+<p>I must ease my conscience once for all on this
+point, and say what I feel about atavism and environment.
+Environment in the shape of friends,
+of locality, and other material circumstances, has
+certainly influenced my life very much, and I could
+never see why such a hybrid word as environment
+should be used instead of surroundings or circumstances.
+Creatures of circumstances would be far
+better understood than creatures of environment;
+but environment, I suppose, would sound more
+scientific. Atavism also is a new word, instead of
+family likeness, but unless carefully defined, the
+word is very apt to mislead us.</p>
+
+<p>When it is said<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> that children often resemble
+their grandfathers or grandmothers more than their
+immediate parents, and that this propensity is
+termed atavism, this does not seem quite correct
+even etymologically, for atavus in Latin did not
+mean father or grandfather, but at first great-great-great-grandfather,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>and then only ancestors; and
+what should be made quite clear is that this mysterious
+atavism should not be used by careful speakers,
+to express the supposed influence of parents
+or even grandparents, but that of more distant ancestors
+only, and possibly of a whole family.</p>
+
+<p>Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin
+their works with a long account not only of
+father and mother, but of grandparents and of ever
+so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined
+the outward and inward character of the
+man whose life has to be written. Who would deny
+that there is some truth, or at least some plausibility,
+in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in
+giving an intelligible account of it? It is supposed
+to affect the moral as well as the physical peculiarities
+of the offspring, and that here, too, physical and
+moral qualities often go together cannot be denied.
+A blind person, for instance, is generally cautious,
+but happy and quite at his ease in large societies.
+A deaf person is often suspicious and unhappy in
+society. In inheriting blindness, therefore, a man
+could well be said to have inherited cautiousness;
+in inheriting deafness, suspiciousness would seem to
+have come to him by inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>But is blindness really inherited? Is the son of a
+father who has lost his eyesight blind, and necessarily
+blind? We must distinguish between atavistic
+and parental influences. Parental influences
+would mean the influence of qualities acquired by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+the parents, and directly bequeathed to their offspring;
+atavistic influences would refer to qualities
+inherited and transmitted, it may be, through several
+generations, and engrained in a whole family.
+In keeping these two classes separate, we should
+only be following Weismann&#8217;s example, who denies
+altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable.
+His examples are most interesting and most important,
+and many Darwinians have had to accept
+his amendment. Besides, we should always consider
+whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family
+or inconstant. If a father is a drunkard, surely
+it does not follow that his sons must be drunkards.
+Neither does it follow that all the children must
+be sober if the parents are sober. Of course, in
+ordinary conversation both parental and ancestral
+influences seem clear enough. But if a child is said
+to favour his mother, because like her he has blue
+eyes and fair hair, what becomes of the heritage
+from the father who may have brown eyes and dark
+hair? Whatever may happen to the children, there
+is always an excuse, only an excuse is not an explanation.
+If the daughter of a beautiful woman
+grows up very plain, the Frenchman was no doubt
+right when he remarked, <i>C&#8217;&eacute;tait alors le p&egrave;re qui
+n&#8217;&eacute;tait pas bien</i>, and if the son of a teetotaller
+should later in life become a drunkard, the conclusion
+would be even worse. In fact, this kind of
+atavistic or parental influence is a very pleasant
+subject for gossips, but from a scientific point of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+view, it is perfectly futile. If it is not the father,
+it is the mother; if it is not the grandmother, it is
+the grandfather; in fact, family influences can always
+be traced to some source or other, if the whole
+pedigree may be dug up and ransacked. But for
+that very reason they are of no scientific value whatever.
+They can neither be accounted for, nor can
+they be used to account for anything themselves.
+Even of twins, though very like each other in many
+respects, one may be phlegmatic, the other passionate.
+Some scientists, such as Weismann and others,
+have therefore denied, and I believe rightly, that
+any acquired characters, whether physical or mental,
+can ever be inherited by children from their
+parents. Whatever similarity there is, and there is
+plenty, is traced back by him to what he calls the
+germ-plasm, working on continuously in spite of all
+individual changes. If that germ-plasm is liable to
+certain peculiar modifications in the father or grandfather,
+it is liable to the same or similar modifications
+in the offspring, that is, if the father could become
+a drunkard, so could the son, only we must not
+think that the <i>post hoc</i> is here the same as the
+<i>propter hoc</i>. If we compare the germ-plasm to the
+molecules constituting the stem or branches of a
+vine, its grapes and leaves in their similarity and
+their variety would be comparable to the individuals
+belonging to the same family, and springing
+from the same family tree. But then the grape we
+see would not be what the grape of last year, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+the grape immediately preceding it on the same
+branch, had made it, though there can be no doubt
+that the antecedent possibilities of the new grape
+were the same as those of the last. If one grape is
+blue, the next will be blue too, but no one would say
+that it was blue because the last grape was blue.
+The real cause would be that the molecules of the
+protoplasm have been so affected by long continued
+generation, that some of the peculiar qualities of
+the vine have become constant.</p>
+
+<p>The child of a negro must always be a negro;
+his peculiarities are constant, though it may be quite
+true that the negro and other races are not different
+species, but only varieties rendered constant by immense
+periods of time. What the cause of these
+constant and inconstant peculiarities may be, not
+even Weismann has yet been able to explain satisfactorily.</p>
+
+<p>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 influence, as something
+belonging to the environment of my life; it
+never frightened me as an atavistic evil. It justified
+me in being cautious and in being prepared for
+the worst, and so far it may be said to have helped
+in shaping or narrowing the course of my life. Fortunately,
+however, this tendency to deafness seems
+now to have exhausted itself. In my own generation
+there is one case only, and the next two generations,
+children and grandchildren of mine, show no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+signs of it. If, on the other hand, my son was congratulated
+when entering the diplomatic service, on
+being the son of his father, it is clear that the difference
+between inherited and acquired qualities,
+so strongly insisted on by Weismann, had not been
+fully appreciated by his friends. Besides, my own
+power of speaking foreign languages has always
+been very limited, and I have many times declined
+the compliment of being a second Mezzofanti.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> I
+worked at languages as a musician studies the nature
+and capacities of musical instruments, though
+without attempting to perform on every one of
+them. There was no time left for acquiring a practical
+familiarity with languages, if I wanted to carry
+on my researches into the origin, the nature and
+history of language. My own study of languages
+could therefore have been of very little use to me,
+nor did my son himself perceive such an advantage
+in learning to converse in French, Spanish, Turkish,
+&amp;c. The facts were wrong, and the theory of
+atavism perfectly unreasonable as applied to such
+a case.</p>
+
+<p>If the theory of atavism were stretched so far, it
+would soon do away with free will altogether. That
+heredity has something to do with our moral character,
+no one would deny who knows the influence
+of our national, nay even of racial character. We
+are Aryan by heredity; we might be Negroes or
+Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>also have their instincts. Only while animals, like
+serpents for instance, would never hesitate to follow
+their innate propensity, man, when he feels the
+power of what we may call inherited human instinct,
+feels also that he can fight against it, and preserve
+his freedom, even while wearing the chains of his
+slavery. This may have removed some of Dr. Wendell
+Holmes&#8217; scruples in writing his powerful story,
+<i>Elsie Venner</i>, and may likewise quiet the fears of
+his many critics.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that language also&mdash;our own inherited
+language&mdash;exercises the most powerful influence on
+our reason and our will, far more powerful than we
+are aware of.</p>
+
+<p>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 Cicero, and this simply on account
+of the language which they had to speak, whether
+Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish. We cannot tell
+whether the original differentiation of language,
+symbolized by the story of the Tower of Babel, took
+place before or after the racial differentiation of
+men. Anyhow it must have taken place in quite
+primordial times. Without speaking positively on
+this point, I certainly hold as strongly as ever that
+language makes the man, and that therefore for
+classificatory purposes also language is far more useful
+than colour of skin, hair, cranial or gnathic peculiarities.
+Whether it be true that with every new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+language we speak we become new men, certain it
+is that language prepares for us channels in which
+our thoughts have to run, unless they are so powerful
+as to break all dams and dykes, and to dig for
+themselves new beds.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time people would not see that languages
+can be classified; and as languages always
+presuppose speakers of language, these speakers
+also can be classified accordingly. It is quite true
+that some of these Aryan speakers may in some
+cases have Negro blood and Negro features, as when
+a Negro becomes an English bishop. Conquered
+tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language
+of their conquerors, but this too is exceptional,
+and if we call them Aryas, we do not commit
+ourselves to any opinion as to their blood, their
+bones, or their hair. These will never submit to
+the same classification as their speech, and why
+should they? Nor should it be forgotten that
+wherever a mixture of language takes place, mixed
+marriages also would most likely take place at the
+same time. But whatever confusion may have
+arisen in later times in language and in blood, no
+language could have arisen without speakers, and
+we mean by Aryas no more than speakers of Aryan
+languages, whatever their skulls or their hair may
+have been. An Octoroon, and even a Quadroon,
+may have blonde waving hair, but if he speaks
+English he would be classified as Aryan, if Berber
+as a Negro. But who is injured by such a classification?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+Let blood and skulls and hair and jaws be
+classified by all means, but let us speak no longer
+of Aryan skulls or Semitic blood. We might as well
+speak of a prognathic language.</p>
+
+<p>While fully admitting, therefore, the influence
+which family, nationality, race, and language exercise
+on us, it should be clearly perceived that habits
+acquired by our parents are not heritable, that the
+sons of drunkards need not be drunkards, as little
+as the sons of sober people must be sober. But
+though biographers may agree to this in general
+they seem inclined, to hold out very strongly for
+what are called <i>special talents in certain families</i>.
+This subject is decidedly amusing, but it admits of
+no scientific treatment, as far as I can see.</p>
+
+<p>The grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
+for instance, though not a composer, was evidently
+a man of genius, a philosopher of considerable
+intellectual capacity and moral strength. The
+father of the composer was a rich banker at Berlin,
+and he used to say: &#8220;When I was young I was the
+son of the great Mendelssohn, now that I am old,
+I am the father of the great Mendelssohn; then what
+am I?&#8221; Even a poor man to become a rich banker
+must be a kind of genius, and so far the son may
+be said to have come of a good stock. But the great
+musical talent that was developed in the third generation
+both in Felix and his sisters, failed entirely
+in his brother, who, to save his life, could never
+have sung &#8220;God save the Queen.&#8221; In the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+theatrical performances of the whole family for
+which Felix composed the music, and his sister
+Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical
+brother&mdash;was it not Paul?&mdash;had generally to be
+provided with some such part as that of a night
+watchman, and he managed to get through his song
+with as much credit as the <i>Nachtw&auml;chter</i> in the
+little town of Germany, where he sang or repeated,
+as I well remember, in his cracked voice:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;H&ouml;rt, ihr Herren, und lasst euch sagen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Die Glock&#8217; hat zw&ouml;lf geschlagen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wahret das Feuer und auch das Licht,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dass Keinem kein Schade geschicht.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Listen, gents, and let me tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clock struck twelve by its last knell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watch o&#8217;er the fire and o&#8217;er the light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That no one suffer any plight.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">I have known in my life many musicians and their
+families, but I remember very few instances indeed,
+where the son of a distinguished musician was a
+great musician himself. If the children take to
+music at all they may become very fair musicians,
+but never anything extraordinary. The Bach family
+may be quoted against me, but music, before
+Sebastian Bach, was almost like a profession, and
+could be learned like any other handicraft.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are the cases of painters being the sons of
+great painters, or of poets being the sons of great
+poets, more numerous. It seems almost as if the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+artistic talent was exhausted by one generation or
+one individual, so that we often see the sons of
+great men by no means great, and if they do anything
+in the same line as their fathers, we must remember
+that there was much to induce them to
+follow in their steps without admitting any atavistic
+influences.</p>
+
+<p>For the present, I can only repeat the conclusion
+I arrived at after weighing all the arguments of
+my friends and critics, namely, to continue my
+Recollections much as I began them, to try to explain
+what made me what I am, to describe, in fact,
+my environment; though as my years advance, and
+my labours and plans grow wider and wider, I shall,
+no doubt, have to say a great deal more about myself
+than in the volumes of <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>. In
+fact, my Recollections will become more and more
+of an autobiography, and the I and the Autos will
+appear more frequently than I could have wished.</p>
+
+<p>In an autobiography the painter is of course supposed
+to be the same as the sitter, but quite apart
+from the metaphysical difficulties of such a supposition,
+there is the physical difficulty when the
+writer is an old man, and the model is a young boy.
+Is the old man likely to be a fair judge of the young
+man, whether it be himself or some one else? As
+a rule, old men are very indulgent, while young
+men are apt to be stern and strict in their judgments.
+The very fact that they often invent excuses
+for themselves shows that they feel that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+want excuses. The words of the Preacher, vii. 16:
+&#8220;Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself
+over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?
+Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish:
+why shouldest thou die before thy time?&#8221; are evidently
+the words of an old man when judging of
+himself or of others. A young man would have
+spoken differently. He would have made no allowance;
+for anything like compassion for an erring
+friend is as yet unknown to him. In an autobiography
+written by an old man there is therefore
+a double danger, first the indulgence of the old man,
+and secondly the kindly feeling of the writer towards
+the object of his remarks.</p>
+
+<p>All these difficulties stand before me like a mountain
+wall. And it seems better to confess at once
+that an old man writing his own life can never be
+quite just, however honest he tries to be. He may
+be too indulgent, but he may also be too strict and
+stern. To say, for instance, of a man that he has
+not kept his promise, would be a very serious charge
+if brought against anybody else. Yet my oldest
+friend in the world knows how many times he has
+made a promise to himself, and has not only not
+kept it but has actually found excuses why he did
+not keep it. The more sensitive our conscience becomes,
+the more blameworthy many an act of our
+life seems to be, and what to an ordinary conscience
+is no fault at all, becomes almost a sin under a
+fiercer light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This changes the moral atmosphere of youth
+when painted by an old man, but the physical
+atmosphere also assumes necessarily a different hue.
+Whether we like it or not, distance will always lend
+enchantment to the view. If the azure hue is inseparable
+from distant mountains and from the distant
+sky, we need not wonder that it veils the distant
+paradise of youth. A man who keeps a diary
+from his earliest years, and who as an old man simply
+copies from its yellow pages, may give us a very
+accurate black and white image of what he saw as
+a boy, but as in old faded photographs, the life and
+light are gone out of them, while unassisted memory
+may often preserve tints of their former reality.
+There is life and light in such recollections, but
+I am willing to admit that memory can be very
+treacherous also. Thus in my own case I can vouch
+that whatever I relate is carefully and accurately
+transcribed from the tablets of my memory, as I
+see them now, but though I can claim truthfulness
+to myself and to my memory, I cannot pretend to
+photographic accuracy. 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 narrators.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt whether any historian would accept a
+statement made thirty years after the event without
+independent confirmation. I could not give the
+date of the battle of Sadowa, though I well remember
+reading the full account of it in the <i>Times</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+from day to day. I can of course get at the date
+from historical books, and from that kind of artificial
+memory which arises by itself without any
+<i>memoria technica</i>. There is a favourite German
+game of cards called Sixty-six, and it was reported
+that when the French in 1870 shouted <i>&Agrave; Berlin</i>,
+the then Crown-Prince who had won the battle of
+Sadowa, or K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz, said: &#8220;Ah, they want another
+game of Sixty-six!&#8221; that is they want a battle
+like that of Sadowa. In this way I shall always
+remember the date of that decisive battle. But I
+could not give the date of the Crimean battles nor
+a trustworthy account of the successive stages of
+that war. I doubt whether even my old friend, Sir
+William H. Russell, could do that now without referring
+to his letters in the <i>Times</i>. After thirty
+years no one, I believe, could take an oath to the accuracy
+of any statement of what he saw or heard
+so many years ago.</p>
+
+<p>All then that I can vouch for is that I read my
+memory as I should the leaves of an old MS. from
+which many letters, nay, whole words and lines have
+vanished, and where I am often driven to decipher
+and to guess, as in a palimpsest, what the original
+uncial writing may have been. I am the first to
+confess that there may be flaws in my memory,
+there may be before my eyes that magic azure which
+surrounds the distant past; but I can promise that
+there shall be no invention, no <i>Dichtung</i> instead of
+<i>Wahrheit</i>, but always, as far as in me lies, truth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+I know quite well that even a certain dislocation of
+facts is not always to be avoided in an old memory.
+I know it from sad experience. As the spires of
+a city&mdash;of Oxford for instance&mdash;arrange themselves
+differently as we pass the old place on the railway,
+so that now one and now the other stands in the
+centre and seems to rise above the heads of the rest,
+so it is with our friends and acquaintances. Some
+who seemed giants at one time assume smaller proportions
+as others come into view towering above
+them. The whole scenery changes from year to
+year. Who does not remember the trees in our
+garden that seemed like giants in our childhood, but
+when we see them again in our old age, they have
+shrunk, and not from old age only?</p>
+
+<p>And must I make one more confession? 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 present, in fact that he
+had won that battle. I also remember Dr. Routh,
+the venerable president of Magdalen College, who
+died in his hundredth year, and who had so often
+repeated all the circumstances of the execution of
+Charles I, that when Macaulay expressed a wish to
+see him, he declined &#8220;because that young man has
+given quite a wrong account of the last moments of
+the king,&#8221; which he then proceeded to relate, as if
+he had been an eye-witness throughout.</p>
+
+<p>Are we not liable to the same hallucination,
+though, let us hope, in a more mitigated form?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+Have we never told a story as if it were our own,
+not from any wish to deceive, but simply because it
+seemed shorter and easier to do so than to explain
+step by step how it reached us? And after doing
+that once or twice, is there not great danger of our
+being surprised at somebody else claiming the story
+as his own, or actually maintaining that it was he
+who told it to us?</p>
+
+<p>Not very long ago I remember reading in a journal
+a story of the Duke of Wellington. His servant
+had been sent before to order dinner for him at an
+out-of-the-way hotel, and in order to impress the
+landlord with the dignity of his coming guest, he
+had recited a number of the Duke&#8217;s titles, which
+were very numerous. The landlord, thinking that
+the Duke of Vittoria, the Prince of Waterloo, the
+Marquis of Torres Vedras, and all the rest, were
+friends invited to dine with the Duke of Wellington,
+ordered accordingly a very sumptuous banquet
+to the great dismay of the real Duke. This may
+or may not be a very old and a very true story;
+all I know is that much the same thing was told at
+Oxford of Dr. Bull, who was Canon of Christ
+Church, Canon of Exeter, Prebendary of York,
+Vicar of Staverton, and lastly, the Rev. Dr. Bull
+himself. Dinner was provided for each of these
+persons, and we are told that the reverend pluralist
+had to eat all the dishes on the table and pay for
+them. This also may have been no more than one
+of the many &#8220;Common-roomers&#8221; which abounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+in Oxford when Common Rooms were more frequented
+than they are now. But what I happen to
+know as a fact is that Dean Stanley received no less
+than four invitations to a hall at Blenheim, addressed
+A.&nbsp;P. Stanley, Esq., the Rev. A.&nbsp;P. Stanley,
+Canon Stanley, Professor Stanley, all evidently
+copied from some books of reference.</p>
+
+<p>I may perhaps claim one advantage in trying to
+describe what happened to myself in my passage
+through life. From the earliest days that I can
+recollect, I felt myself as a twofold being&mdash;as a
+subject and an object, as a spectator and as an actor.
+I suppose we all talk to ourselves, and say to our
+better and worse selves, O thou fool! or, Well done,
+my boy! Well this inward conversation began with
+me at a very early time, and left the impression
+that I was the coachman, but at the same time the
+horse too which he drove and sometimes whipped
+very cruelly. And this phase of thought, or rather
+this state of feeling, seems soon to have led me on
+to another view which likewise dates from a very
+early time, though it afterwards vanished. As a
+little boy, when I could not have the same toys
+which other boys possessed, I could fully enjoy what
+they enjoyed, as if they had been my own. There
+is a German phrase, &#8220;Ich freue mich in deiner
+Seele,&#8221; which exactly expressed what I often felt.
+It was not the result of teaching, still less of reasoning&mdash;it
+was a sentiment given me and which certainty
+did not leave me till much later in life, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+competition, rivalry, jealousy, and envy seemed to
+accentuate my own I as against all other I&#8217;s or
+Thou&#8217;s. I suppose we all remember how the sight
+of a wound of a fellow creature, nay even of a dog,
+gives us a sharp twitch in the same part of our own
+body. That bodily sympathy has never left me, I
+suffer from it even now as I did seventy years ago.
+And is there anybody who has not felt his eyes moisten
+at the sudden happiness of his friends? All this
+seems to me to account, to a certain extent at least,
+for that feeling of identity with so-called strangers,
+which came to me from my earliest days, and has
+returned again with renewed strength in my old age.
+The &#8220;know thyself,&#8221; ascribed to Chilon and other
+sages of ancient Greece, gains a deeper meaning
+with every year, till at last the I which we looked
+upon as the most certain and undoubted fact, vanishes
+from our grasp to become the Self, free from
+the various accidents and limitations which make
+up the I, and therefore one with the Self that underlies
+all individual and therefore vanishing I&#8217;s.
+What that common Self may be is a question to be
+reserved for later times, though I may say at once
+that the only true answer given to it seems to me
+that of the Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy.
+Only we must take care not to mistake the moral
+Self, that finds fault with the active Self, for the
+Highest Self that knows no longer of good or evil
+deeds.</p>
+
+<p>Long before I had worked and thought out this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+problem as the fundamental truth of all philosophy,
+it presented itself to me as if by intuition, long before
+I could have fathomed it in its metaphysical
+meaning. I had just heard of the death of a dear
+little child, and was standing in our garden, looking
+at a rose-bush, covered in summer with hundreds
+of rose-buds and rose-flowers. While I was looking
+I broke off one small withered bud from the midst
+of a large cluster of roses, and after I had done so
+a question came to me, and I said to myself, What
+has happened? Is it only that one small bud is dead
+and gone, or have not all the other roses been
+touched by the breath of death that fell on it?
+Have they not all suffered from the death of their
+sister, for they all spring from the same stem, they
+all have their life from the same source? And if
+one rose suffers, must not all the others suffer with
+it? Then all the buds and flowers of the cluster
+seemed to me to become one, as it were a family
+of roses, and each single bud seemed but the repetition
+of the same thing, the manifestation of the
+same thought, namely the thought of the rose. But
+my eyes were carried still further, and the stem
+from which the bunch of roses sprang was lost with
+other stems in a branch, and it was that branch on
+which all the roses of the branchlets and stems depended,
+and without which they could not flower
+or exist. The single roses thus became identified
+with the branch from which they had sprung, and
+by which they lived. I wondered more and more,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+and after another look all the branches with all their
+branchlets became absorbed in the stem, and the
+stem was the tree, and the tree sprang from a seed,
+or as it is now called, the protoplasm; but beyond
+that seed there was nothing else that the eye could
+see or the mind could grasp. And while this vision
+floated before my eyes I thought of my little friend,
+and the home from which she had been broken off,
+and the same vision which had changed the rose-bush
+with all its flowers, and buds, and branchlets,
+and branches, into a stem and a tree, and at last into
+one invisible germ and seed, seemed now to change
+my little friend and her brothers and sisters, her
+parents too and all her family, into one being which,
+like an old oak tree, started from an invisible stem,
+or an invisible seed, or from an invisible thought,
+and that divine thought was man, as the other divine
+thought had been rose.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I did not see it so fully then as I see it
+now, and I certainly did not reason about it. I
+simply felt that in the death of my little friend,
+something of myself had gone, though she was
+no relation, but only a stray human friend. We see
+many things as children which we cannot see as
+grown-up men and women, for, as Longfellow said,
+&#8220;the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts.&#8221;
+Nay, I feel convinced that He who spoke the parable
+of the vine had seen the same vision when He
+said: &#8220;I am the vine, ye are the branches. Abide
+in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more
+can ye, except ye abide in Me.&#8221; And it is on this
+vision, or this parable of the vine, that immediately
+afterwards follows the lesson, &#8220;Love one another,
+as I have loved you.&#8221; In loving one another we
+are in truth loving the others as ourselves, as one
+with ourselves; and while we are loving Him who
+is the vine, we are loving the branches, ourselves&mdash;aye,
+even our own little selves.</p>
+
+<p>Such vague visions or intuitions often remain
+with us for life, but while they seem to be the same,
+they vary as we vary ourselves. We imagine we
+saw their deepest meaning from the first, but, like
+a parable, they gain in meaning every time they
+come back to us.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i>, Feb., 1900, p. 249.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Driesch, <i>Biologisches Centralblatt</i>, 1896, p. 335.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> As giving a clear and complete abstract of my writings I
+may now recommend M. Montcalm&#8217;s <i>L&#8217;origine de la Pens&eacute;e et
+de la Parole</i>, Paris, 1900.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Oxford Dictionary</i>, s.&nbsp;v.; J. Rennie, <i>Science of Gardening</i>,
+p. 113.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Science of Language</i>, vol. i. p. 24 (1861).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> a small town such as Dessau was when I lived
+there as a child and as a boy, one lived as in an
+enchanted island. The horizon was very narrow,
+and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the
+little oasis. The Duchy was indeed a little oasis
+in the large desert of Central Germany. The landscape
+was beautiful: there were rivers small and
+large&mdash;the Mulde and the Elbe; there were magnificent
+oak forests; there were regiments of firs standing
+in regular columns like so many grenadiers;
+there were parks such as one sees in England only.
+The town, the capital of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau,
+had been cared for by successive rulers&mdash;men
+mostly far in advance of their time&mdash;who had read
+and travelled, and brought home the best they could
+find abroad. Their old castle, centuries old, over-awed
+the town; it was by far the largest building,
+though there were several other smaller places in
+the town for members of the ducal family. All the
+public buildings, theatres, libraries, schools, and barracks,
+had been erected by the Dukes, as well as several
+private residences intended for some of the higher
+officials. The whole town was, in fact, the creation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+of the Dukes; the whole ground on which it stood
+had been originally their property, but it was mostly
+held as freehold by those who had built their
+own private houses on it. No one would have built
+a house on leasehold land, 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
+years. The same family often remained in their
+house for generations, and the different stories
+were occupied by three generations at the same
+time&mdash;by grandparents, parents, and children. In
+this small town I was born on December 6, 1823.
+My father, Wilhelm M&uuml;ller, was Librarian of the
+Ducal Library, and one of the most popular poets in
+Germany. A national monument was erected to
+his memory at Dessau in the year 1891, nearly a
+hundred years after his birth.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="father" id="father"></a><a href="images/illo046.jpg"><img src="images/illo046_th.jpg"
+alt="My father" title="My father" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><small>MY FATHER</small></p>
+
+<p>What a blessing it would be if such a rule were
+followed with all great men, who seem so great at
+the time of their death, and who, a hundred years
+later, are almost forgotten, or at all events appreciated
+by a small number of admirers only. This
+Monument- and Society-mania is indeed becoming
+very objectionable, for if for some time there has
+been no room for tombs and statues in Westminster
+Abbey, there will soon be no room for them in the
+streets of London. The result is that many of the
+people who walk along the Thames Embankment,
+particularly foreigners, often ask, &#8220;Cur?&#8221; when
+looking at the human idols in bronze and marble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+put up there; while historians, remembering the
+really great men of England, would ask quite as
+often, &#8220;Cur non?&#8221; There is a curious race of people,
+who, as soon as a man of any note dies, are
+ready to found anything for him&mdash;a monument, a
+picture, a school, a prize, a society&mdash;to keep alive
+his memory. Of course these societies want presidents,
+members of council, committees, secretaries,
+&amp;c., and at last, subscriptions also. Thus it has
+happened that the name of founder (<i>Gr&uuml;nder</i>) has
+assumed, particularly in Germany, a perfume by no
+means sweet. Those who are asked to subscribe to
+such testimonials know how disagreeable it is to
+decline to give at least their name, deeply as they
+feel that in giving it they are offending against all
+the rules of historical perspective. I should not
+say that my father was one of the great poets of
+Germany, though Heine, no mean critic, declared
+that he placed his lyric poetry next to that of
+Goethe. Besides, he was barely thirty-three when
+he died. He had been a favourite pupil of F.&nbsp;A.
+Wolf, and had proved his classical scholarship by
+his <i>Homerische Vorschule</i>, and other publications.
+His poems became popular in the true sense of the
+word, and there are some which the people in the
+street sing even now without being aware of the
+name of their author. Schubert&#8217;s compositions also
+have contributed much to the wide popularity of his
+<i>Sch&ouml;ne M&uuml;llerin</i> and his <i>Winterreise</i>, so that
+though it might truly be said of him that he wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+no monument in bronze or stone, it seemed but
+natural that a small town like Dessau should wish
+to honour itself by honouring the memory of one
+of its sons. In the company of Mendelssohn, the
+philosopher, and of F. Schneider, the composer, a
+monument of my father in the principal street of
+his native town, and before the school in which he
+had been a pupil and a teacher, could hardly seem
+out of place. That the Greek Parliament voted the
+Pentelican marble for the poet of the <i>Griechenlieder</i>,
+as it had done for Lord Byron, was another
+inducement for his fellow citizens to do honour to
+their honoured poet. He died when I was hardly
+four years old, so that my recollection of him is
+very faint and vague, made up, I believe, to a great
+extent, of pictures, and things that my mother told
+me. I seem to remember him as a bright, sunny,
+and thoroughly joyful man, delighted with our little
+naughtinesses. One book I still possess which
+he bought for me and which was to be the first book
+of my library. It was a small volume of Horace,
+printed by Pickering in 1820. It has now almost
+vanished among the 12,000 big volumes that form
+my library, but I am delighted that I am still able,
+at seventy-six, to read it without spectacles. I
+think I remember my father taking my sister and
+me on his knees, and telling us the most delightful
+stories, that set us wondering and laughing and
+crying till we could laugh and cry no longer. He
+had been a fellow worker with the brothers Grimm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+and the stories he told were mostly from their collection,
+though he knew how to embellish them
+with anything that could make a child cry and
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>People have little idea how great and how lasting
+an influence such popular stories about kings and
+queens, and princesses and knights, about ogres and
+witches, about men that have been changed into
+animals, and about animals that talk and behave
+like human beings, exercise on the imagination of
+young children. While we listened, a new world
+seemed to open before us, and anything like doubt
+as to the reality of these beings never existed.
+What was reality or unreality to young children
+of four and five? How few people know what real
+reality is, even after they have reached the age of
+fifty or sixty. For children, such names as reality
+and unreality do not exist, nor the ideas which they
+express. They listen to what their father tells them,
+and they cannot see any difference between what
+he tells them of Frederick Barbarossa, of Romulus
+and Remus suckled by a wolf, or of the dwarfs that
+guarded the coffin of Schneewittchen.</p>
+
+<p>Some people, however, have thought that from
+an educational point of view, a belief in this imaginary
+world must be mischievous. I doubt it,
+and it would be easy to show that originally these
+stories and fables were really meant to inculcate
+right and good principles. Luther declared that he
+would not lose these wonderful stories of his tender<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+childhood for any sum of money, and Camerarius
+(<i>Fabulae Aesopeae</i>, p. 406, Lipsiae, 1570) speaks of
+these German fables as filling the minds of the people,
+and particularly of children, with terror, hope,
+and religion. The oldest collections in which some
+of these Aesopean fables occur, the Pantschatantra
+and Hitopadesa in Sanskrit, were distinctly intended
+for the education of princes, and though they may
+make the young listeners inclined to be superstitious,
+such superstitiousness is not likely to last long.
+Children delight in <i>M&auml;rchen</i> as in a kind of pantomime,
+and when the curtain has fallen on that fairy
+world they often think of it as of a beautiful dream
+that has passed away. The stories are certainly
+more impressive than the proverbs and wise saws
+which many of them were meant to illustrate, without
+always saying, <i>haec fabula docet</i>. Even if some
+of these stories touch sometimes on what may not
+seem to us quite correct, it is done to make children
+laugh rather at the silliness than cry at the downright
+wickedness of some of the heroes. It is by no means
+uncommon, for instance, that a good-for-nothing
+fellow succeeds, while his virtuous companions fail.
+But there is either a reason for it, or the injustice
+provokes the indignation of children, long before
+they have learnt that in real life also virtue does not
+always receive its reward, while falsehood often
+prospers, at least for a time. There is no harm, I
+think, in a certain dreaminess in children. I remember
+that I have often laughed with all my heart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+at Rumpelstilzchen, and shed bitter tears at Br&uuml;derchen
+and Schwesterchen. I seemed to see brother
+and sister driven into the wood, the brother being
+changed into a deer, and the sister sleeping with her
+head on his warm fur, till at last the deer was killed
+by a huntsman, and the little sister had to travel on
+quite alone in the forest. Of course in the end she
+became a princess, and the brother a prince who
+married a queen, and all ended in great joy and
+jubilation in which we all joined. How good for
+children that they should for a time at least have
+lived in such a dreamland, in which truthfulness
+was as a rule rewarded, and falsehood punished in
+the end.</p>
+
+<p>It was like a recollection of a Paradise, and such
+a recollection, even if it brought out the contrast between
+the dream-world and the real world, would
+often set children musing on what ought and what
+ought not to be. They did not long believe in
+Dornr&ouml;schen and Schneewittchen, they learnt but
+too soon that Dornr&ouml;schen and Schneewittchen
+belonged to another world. They may even have
+come to learn that Dornr&ouml;schen (thorn-rose) and
+Schneewittchen (snow-white) were meant originally
+for the sleep or death of nature in her snow-white
+shroud, and the return of the sun; but woe to the
+boy who on first learning these stories should have
+declared that they were mere bosh, or, as Sir Walter
+Scott says, the detritus of nature-myths.</p>
+
+<p>My father&#8217;s father, whom I never knew, seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+not to have been distinguished in any way. He
+was, however, a useful tradesman and a respected
+citizen of Dessau, and, as I see, the founder of the
+first lending library in that small town. He married
+a second time, a rich widow, chiefly, as I was told,
+to enable him to give his son, my father, a liberal
+education. She grew to be very old, and I well remember
+her, to me, forbidding and terrifying appearance.
+She quite belonged to a past generation,
+and when I saw her again after having been in
+England, she asked me whether I had seen Napoleon
+who had been taken prisoner and sent to England,
+but had lately escaped and resumed his throne
+in Paris. She evidently mixed up the two Napoleons,
+and I did not contradict her. To me her conversation
+was interesting as showing how little the
+traditions of the people can be relied on, and how
+easily, by the side of real history, a popular history
+could grow up. After all, the poems of Charlemagne
+besieging Jerusalem owed their origin very
+likely to some similar confusion in the minds of old
+women. My sister and I were always terrified when
+we were sent to visit her, for with her dishevelled
+grey hair, her thin white face, and her piercing
+eyes, she was to us the old grandmother, or the
+witch of Grimm&#8217;s stories; and the language she
+used was such that, if we repeated it at home, we
+were severely reprimanded. She knew very little
+about my father, but her memory about her first
+husband and about her own youth and childhood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+was very clear, though not always edifying. Her
+stories about ghosts, witches, ogres, nickers, and the
+whole of that race were certainly enough to frighten
+a child, and some of them clung to me for a very
+long time. On my mother&#8217;s side my relations were
+more civilized, and they had but little social intercourse
+with my grandmother and her relatives. My
+mother&#8217;s father was von Basedow, the President,
+that is Prime Minister of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau,
+a position in which he was succeeded by his
+eldest son, my uncle. He was the first man in the
+town; the Duke and he really ruled the Duchy exactly
+as they pleased. There was no check on them
+of any kind, and yet no one, as far as I know, ever
+complained of any tyranny. My grandfather&#8217;s
+father again was the famous reformer of public education
+in Germany. He (1723-1790) had to brave
+the conservative and clerical parties throughout the
+country. His home at Hamburg was burnt in a
+riot, and it was then that he migrated to Dessau, to
+become the founder of the <i>Philanthropinum</i>, and
+at the same time the path-breaker for men such as
+Pestalozzi (1746-1827) and Froebel (1782-1852).
+Considering his lifelong struggles, he deserved a
+better monument at Dessau than he has found there.
+No doubt he was a passionate and violent man, and
+his outbreaks are still remembered at Dessau, while
+his beneficial activity has almost been forgotten. I
+was often told that I took after my mother&#8217;s family,
+whatever that may mean, and this was certainly the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+case in outward appearance, though I hope not in
+temper. My great grandfather, the Pedagogue as
+he was called, was a friend of Goethe&#8217;s, and is mentioned
+in his poems.</p>
+
+<p>My childhood at home was often very sad. My
+mother, who was left a widow at twenty-eight with
+two children, my sister and myself, was heart-broken.
+The few years of her married life had been
+most bright and brilliant. My father was a rising
+poet, and such was his popularity that he was able
+to indulge his tastes as he liked, whether in travelling
+or in making his house a pleasant centre of social
+life. Contemporaries and friends of my father, particularly
+Baron Simolin, a very intimate friend,
+who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house, have
+written of the bright gaiety, the whole-hearted enjoyment
+of life that reigned there, and have told
+how, though his income was to say the least of it
+small, Wilhelm M&uuml;ller&#8217;s home was the rallying-point
+for all the cultivated, scientific, and artistic
+society of Dessau, who felt attracted by the simple
+and unaffected yet truly genial disposition of the
+master of the house.</p>
+
+<p>It would be interesting to know how much an
+author could make at that time by his pen. Publishers
+seem to have been far more liberal then than
+they are now. The circumstances were different.
+The number of writers was of course much smaller,
+and the sale of really popular books probably much
+larger. Anyhow, my father, whose salary was minute,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+seems to have been able to enjoy the few years
+of his married life in great comfort. The thought
+of saving money, however, seems never to have entered
+his poetical mind, and after his unexpected
+death, due to paralysis of the heart, it was found
+that hardly any provision had been made for his
+family. Even the life insurance, which is obligatory
+on every civil servant, and the pension granted
+by the Duke, gave my mother but a very small income,
+fabulously small, when one considers that she
+had to bring up two children on it. It has been a
+riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.</p>
+
+<p>However, it was done, and could only have been
+done in a small town like Dessau, where education
+was as good as it was cheap, and where very little
+was expected by society. We must also take into
+account the very low prices which then ruled at
+Dessau with regard to almost all the necessaries of
+life. I see from the old newspapers that beef sold
+at about threepence a pound (two groschen), mutton
+at about twopence. Wine was sold at seven to eight
+groschen a bottle, a better sort for twelve to fourteen
+groschen&mdash;a groschen being about a penny. People
+drank mostly beer, and this was sold under Government
+inspection at two to three groschen per quart.
+Fish was equally cheap, and such, at the beginning
+of the century, was the abundance of salmon caught
+in the Elbe, and even in the Mulde at Dessau, that
+it was stipulated as in Scotland, that servants should
+not have salmon more than twice or thrice in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+week. The lowest price for salmon was then twopence
+halfpenny a pound. As a boy I can remember
+seeing the salmon in large numbers leap over
+a weir in the very town of Dessau, and though they
+had travelled for so many miles inland, the fish was
+very good, though not so good as Severn salmon.
+Game also was very cheap, and sold for not much
+more than mutton, nay, at certain times it was given
+away; it could not be exported. Corn was sold at
+three shillings per <i>Scheffel</i>, and by corn was chiefly
+meant rye. No one took wheaten bread, and the
+bread was therefore called brown bread and black
+bread. White bread was only taken with coffee,
+and peasants in the villages would not have touched
+it, because it was not supposed to make such strong
+bones as rye-bread. With such prices we can understand
+that a salary of &pound;300 was considered sufficient
+for the highest officers of state.</p>
+
+<p>My mother&#8217;s relations, who were all high in the
+public service, my grandfather, as I said, being the
+Duke&#8217;s chief minister, made life more easy and
+pleasant for us; but for many years my mother
+never went into society, and our society consisted
+of members of our own family only. All I remember
+of my mother at that time was that she took her
+two children day after day to the beautiful <i>Gottesacker</i>
+(God&#8217;s Acre), where she stood for hours at
+our father&#8217;s grave, and sobbed and cried. It was a
+beautiful and restful place, covered with old acacia
+trees. The inscription over the gateway was one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+my earliest puzzles. <i>Tod ist nicht Tod, ist nur
+Veredlung menschlicher Natur</i> (Death is not
+death, &#8217;tis but the ennobling of man&#8217;s nature). On
+each side there stood a figure, representing the
+genius of sleep and the genius of death. All this
+was the work of the old Duke, Leopold Friedrich
+Franz, who tried to educate his people as he had educated
+himself, partly by travel, partly by intercourse
+with the best men he could attract to Dessau.</p>
+
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="mother" id="mother"></a><a href="images/illo058.jpg"><img src="images/illo058_th.jpg"
+alt="My mother" title="My mother" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><small>MY MOTHER</small></p>
+
+<p>At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing
+to a boy. I heard and thought more about death
+than about life, though I knew little of course of
+what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures,
+and my chief happiness was to be with my mother.
+I shared her grief without understanding much
+about it. She was passionately devoted to her
+children, and I was passionately fond of her. What
+there was left of life to her, she gave to us, she lived
+for us only, and tried very hard not to deprive our
+childhood of all brightness. She was certainly most
+beautiful, and quite different from all other ladies
+at Dessau, not only in the eyes of her son, but as
+it seemed to me, of everybody. Then she had a
+most perfect voice, and when I first began music
+she helped and encouraged me in every possible way.
+We played <i>&agrave; quatre mains</i>, and soon she made me
+accompany her when she sang. As far as I can
+recollect, I was never so happy as when I could
+be with her. She read so much to us that I was
+quite satisfied, and saw perhaps less of my young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+friends than I ought. When my mother said she
+wished to die, and to be with our father, I feel
+sure that my sister and I were only anxious that she
+should take us with her, for there were few golden
+chains that bound us as yet to this life. I see her
+now, sitting on a winter&#8217;s evening near the warm
+stove, a candle on the table, and a book from which
+she read to us in her hands, while the spinning-wheel
+worked by the servant-maid in the corner went on
+humming all the time. She read Paul Gerhard&#8217;s
+translation of St. Bernard&#8217;s:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Salve caput cruentatum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Totum spinis coronatum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conquassatum, vulneratum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arundine verberatum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Facies sputis illita.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O Haupt zu Spott gebunden<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mit einer Dornenkron,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O Haupt sonst sch&ouml;n gezieret<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mit h&ouml;chster Ehr und Zier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jetzt aber hoch schimpfiret:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gegr&uuml;sset seist du mir!&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Though the German translation does not come
+near the powerful majesty of the original, yet such
+was the effect produced on me that I saw the bleeding
+head before my eyes, and cried and cried until
+my mother had to comfort me by assuring me that
+the sufferer was now in Heaven and that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+was only a song to be sung in church. How
+deeply such scenes seem engraved on the memory;
+how vividly they return when the rubbish of many
+years is swept away and all is again as it was then,
+and the <i>caput cruentatum</i> looks down on us once
+more, as it did then, with the human eyes full of
+divine love, so truly human that one could say with
+St. Bernard, &#8220;Tuum caput huc inclina, in meis
+pausa brachiis.&#8221; But willingly as I listened to these
+readings at home, and full as my heart was of love to
+Christ, I suffered intensely when I was taken to
+church as a young boy. It was a very large church,
+and in winter bitterly cold. Even though I liked
+the singing, the long sermon was real torture to me.
+I could not understand a word of it, and being thinly
+clad my teeth would have chattered if I had not
+been told that it was wrong &#8220;to make a noise in
+church.&#8221; Oh! what misery is inflicted on childhood
+by this enforced attendance at church. When
+a church can be warmed the suffering is less intense,
+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 church. These early impressions
+often remain for life, and the worst of it is
+that the idea remains in the minds of children, and
+of grown-up people too, that by going to church
+and repeating the same prayers over and over again,
+and listening to long and often dreary sermons, they
+are actually doing a service to God (<i>Gottesdienst</i>).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+Why does no new prophet arise and say in the name
+of God, as David did in the name of Jehovah,
+&#8220;Sermons and long prayers &#8216;thou didst not desire&#8217;&#8221;?</p>
+
+<p>Many years later I had to discuss the same question
+with Keshub Chunder Sen, the Indian Reformer.
+He wanted to know what kind of service
+should be adopted by his new church, the Brahmo
+Somaj; his friends thought of sermons, singing, and
+processions with flags and flowers through the streets.
+&#8220;No,&#8221; I said to him, &#8220;service of God should be
+service of men; if you want divine service, let it
+be a real service, such as God would approve of.
+Let other people go to church, to their mosques or
+their temples, but take you your own friends on
+certain days of the week to whatever you like to
+call your meeting-place, and after a short prayer
+or a few words of advice send some of them to the
+poorest streets in the city, others to the prisons,
+others to the hospitals. Let them pray with all who
+wish to pray, but let them speak words of true love
+and comfort also, and when they can, let them help
+them with their alms. That would be a real Divine
+Service and a divine Sunday for you, and you
+would all come home, it may be sadder, but certainly
+wiser and better men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid he did not agree with me. He did
+not think that true religion was to visit the poor and
+the afflicted. That might do for a practical people
+like the English, but the Hindu wanted something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+else, he wanted some outward show and ceremony
+for the people, and at the same time some silent
+communion with God. Who can tell what different
+people understand by religion? and who can
+prescribe the spiritual food that is best for them?
+&#8220;Only,&#8221; I said, &#8220;do not call it practical to encourage
+millions of people to waste hours and hours in
+mere repetition, and to spend millions and millions
+in supplying this cold comfort, when next door to
+the magnificent cathedral there are squalid streets,
+and squalid houses, and squalid beds to lie and
+die on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The religious and devotional element is very
+strong in Germany, but the churches are mostly
+empty. A German keeps his religion for weekdays
+rather than for Sunday. When the German
+regiments marched, and when they made ready for
+battle, they did not sing ribald songs, they sang the
+songs of Luther and Paul Gerhard, which they
+knew by heart and which strengthened them to
+face death as it ought to be faced.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, while enforced attendance at church
+was apt to produce the strongest aversion in the
+young heart against anything that was called religion,
+religious instruction both at home and at
+school too was excellent, and undid much of the mischief
+that had been done during cold winter days.
+True religious sentiments can be planted in the soul
+at home only, by a mother better even than by a
+father. The sense of a divine presence everywhere,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+&#960;&#7937;&#957;&#964;&#945; &#960;&#955;&#7969;&#961;&#951; &#952;&#949;&#8033;&#957;, once planted in the heart
+of a child remains for life. Of course the child
+soon begins to argue, and says to his mother that
+God cannot be at the same time in two rooms. But
+only let a mother show to the child the rays of the
+sun in the sky, in the streets, and in every corner of
+the house, and it will begin to understand that nothing
+can be hid from the eyes of Him who is greater
+than the sun. And when a child doubts whether
+the voice of conscience can be the voice of God, and
+asks how he could hear that voice without seeing
+the speaker, ask him only whose voice it can be that
+tells him not to do what he himself wishes to do,
+and not to say what he could say without any fear
+of men; and his idea of God will be raised from that
+of a visible being like the sun, to the concept of a
+presence that never vanishes, that is not only without,
+in the sky, in the mountains, and in the storm,
+but nearer also within, in the sense of fear, in the
+sense of shame, and in the hope of pardon and love.</p>
+
+<p>At school our religious teaching was chiefly historical
+and moral. There was no difficulty in finding
+proper teachers for that, and there were no
+attempts on the part of parents to interfere with
+religious instruction or to demand separate teaching
+for each sect. It is true that religious sects are not
+so numerous in Germany as they are in England.
+Some, though by no means all, children of Roman
+Catholic and Jewish parents were allowed to be absent
+from religious lessons. But most parents knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+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 children. Respect
+for historical truth, and an implanted sense of the
+reverence due to children, would keep any teacher
+from making the history of the Christian Church,
+whether before or after the Reformation, an excuse
+for offending one of the little ones committed
+to his care. If Jews or Roman Catholics wished
+for any special religious instruction it was given
+by their own priests or Rabbis, and was given without
+any interference on the part of the Government.
+But such was at my time the state of public
+feeling that I hardly knew at school who among my
+young friends were Roman Catholics, or Lutherans,
+or Reformed. I must admit, however, that the
+very name of Luther might have offended Roman
+Catholics. He was represented to us as a perfect
+saint, almost as inspired and infallible. His hymns
+sung in church seemed to us little different from the
+Psalms of David, and I well remember what a shock
+it gave me when at Oxford, much later in life, I
+heard Luther spoken of like any other mortal, nay,
+as a heretic, and a most dangerous heretic too.
+When I was a boy I remember that in some places
+the same building had to be used for Protestant
+and Roman Catholic services. All that, I am
+afraid, is now changed, and the old liberal and tolerant
+feeling then prevailing on all sides is now often
+stigmatized as indifference, and by other ugly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+names. It should really be called the golden age
+of Christianity, and this so-called indifference
+should be classed among the highest Christian virtues,
+and as the fullest realization of the spirit of
+Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we grew up from our earliest youth, being
+taught to look upon Christianity as an historical
+fact, on Christ and His disciples as historical characters,
+on the Old and New Testaments as real historical
+books. Though we did not understand as
+yet the deeper meaning of Christ and of His words,
+we had at least nothing to unlearn in later times, or
+to feel that our parents had ever told us what they
+themselves could not have held to be true. Our
+simple faith was not shaken by mere questions of
+criticism, or by the problem how any human being
+could take upon himself to declare any book to be
+revealed, unless he claimed for himself a more than
+human insight. The simplest rules of logic should
+make such a declaration impossible, whatever the
+sacred book may be to which it is applied. Granted
+that the Pope was infallible, how could the Cardinals
+know that he was, unless they claimed for themselves
+the same or even greater infallibility? It is
+far more easy to be inspired than to know some one
+else is or was inspired; the true inspiration is, and
+always has been, the spirit of truth within, and this
+is but another name for the spirit of God. It is truth
+that makes inspiration, not inspiration that makes
+truth. Whoever knows what truth is, knows also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+what inspiration is: not only <i>theopneustos</i>, blown
+into the soul by God, but the very voice of God,
+the real presence of God, the only presence in which
+we, as human beings, can ever perceive Him.</p>
+
+<p>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 objective, but must always be subjective. I may
+return to this question at a later period of my life,
+when I had to discuss with Renan, at Paris, with
+Froude, Kingsley, and Liddon, in England, and
+tried to show how entirely self-made some of their
+difficulties were. 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 own;
+as Samson, when he awoke, found himself bound
+with seven green withs and had to break them with
+all his might before he could hope to escape from
+the Philistines. The Philistines never bound me.
+During my early school-days these difficulties did
+not exist, but I have often been grateful in after life
+that the seven locks of my head have never been
+woven with the web.</p>
+
+<p>I remember a number of small events in my
+school-life at Dessau, but though they were full of
+interest to me, nay, full of meaning, and not without
+an influence on my later life, they would have no
+meaning and no interest for others, and may remain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+as if they had never been. The influence which
+music exercised on my mind, and, I believe, on my
+heart also, I have related in my <i>Musical Recollections</i>.
+The image of those passing years, though its
+general tone was melancholy, chiefly owing to my
+mother&#8217;s melancholy, seemed to me at the time
+free from all unhappiness. My work at school and
+at home was not too heavy; I was fond of it, and
+very fond of books. Books were scarce then, and
+whoever possessed a new and valuable book was expected
+to lend it to his friends in the little town.
+If a man was known to possess, say, Goethe&#8217;s works
+or Jean Paul&#8217;s works, the consequence was that one
+went to him or to her to ask for the loan of them.
+And not only books, but paper and pens also were
+scarce. The first steel pens came in when I was
+still in the lower school, and bad as they were they
+were looked upon as real treasures by the schoolboys
+who possessed them. Paper was so dear that
+one had to be very sparing in its use. Every margin
+and cover was scribbled over before it was
+thrown away, 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
+Christmas. I am sorry to say I have had to suffer
+all my life from the inefficiency of our writing
+master, or maybe from the fact that my thoughts
+were too quick for my pen. In other subjects I did
+well, but though I was among the first in each class,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+I was by no means cleverer than other boys. In
+the lower school work was more like conversation
+or like hearing news from our teachers. The idea
+of effort did not yet exist. The drudgery began,
+however, when I entered the upper school, the
+gymnasium, and learnt the elements of Latin and
+Greek. Though our teachers were very conscientious,
+they tried to make our work no burden to us,
+and the constant change of places in each class kept
+up a lively rivalry among the boys, though I am
+not sure that it did not make me rather ambitious
+and at times conceited. Still, I had few enemies,
+and it seemed of much more consequence who could
+knock down another boy than who could gain a
+place above him. I feel sure I could have done a
+great deal more at school than I did, but it was
+partly my music and partly my incessant headaches
+that interfered with my school work.</p>
+
+<p>I remember as a boy that certain streets were inhabited
+exclusively by Jewish families. A large
+number of Jews had been received at Dessau by
+a former Duke; but though he granted them leave
+to settle at Dessau when they were persecuted in
+other parts of Germany, he stipulated that they
+should only settle in certain streets. These streets
+were by no means the worst streets of the town;
+on the contrary they showed greater comfort and
+hardly any of the squalor which disgraced the Jewish
+quarters in other towns in Germany. As children
+we were brought up without any prejudice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+against the Jews, though we had, no doubt, a certain
+feeling that they were tolerated only, and were
+not quite on the same level with ourselves. We also
+felt the religious difficulty sometimes very strongly.
+Were not the Jews the murderers of Christ? and
+had they not said: &#8220;the blood be on us and on our
+children&#8221;? But as we were told that it was wrong
+to harbour feelings of revenge, we boys soon forgot
+and forgave, and played together as the best friends.
+I remember picking up a number of Jewish words
+which would not have been understood anywhere
+else. I was hardly aware that they were Jewish and
+used them like any other words. But I once gave
+great offence to my friend Professor Bernays, who
+was a Jew. He had uttered some quite incredible
+statement, and I exclaimed, &#8220;Sind Sie denn ganz
+maschukke?&#8221;&mdash;Hebrew for &#8220;mad.&#8221; I meant no
+harm, but he was very much hurt.</p>
+
+<p>I knew several Jewish families, and received
+much kindness from them as a boy. Many of these
+families were wealthy, but they never displayed
+their wealth, and in consequence excited no envy.
+All that is changed now. The children of the Jews
+who formerly lived in a very quiet style at Dessau,
+now occupy the best houses, indulge in most expensive
+tastes, and try in every way to outshine their
+non-Jewish neighbours. They buy themselves
+titles, and, when they can, stipulate for stars and
+orders as rewards for successful financial operations,
+carried out with the money of princely personages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+Hence the revulsion of feeling all over Germany,
+or what is called Anti-Semitism, which has assumed
+not only a social but a political significance. I doubt
+whether there is anything religious in it, as there
+was when we were boys. The Anti-Semitic hatred
+is the hatred of money-making, more particularly
+of that kind of money-making which requires no
+hard work, but only a large capital to begin with,
+and boldness and astuteness in speculating, that is
+in buying and selling at the right moment. The
+sinews of war for that kind of financial warfare were
+mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of
+the present generation. Sometimes, no doubt, the
+capital was lost, and in those cases it must be said
+that the Jewish speculator disappears from the stage
+without a sigh or a cry. He begins again, and if
+he should have to do what his grandfather did, walk
+from house to house with a bag on his back, he does
+not whine.</p>
+
+<p>One cannot blame the Jews or any other speculators
+for using their opportunities, but they must
+not complain either if they excite envy, and if that
+envy assumes in the end a dangerous character.
+The Jews, so far from suffering from disabilities,
+enjoy really certain privileges over their Christian
+competitors in Germany. They belong to a <i>regnum</i>,
+but also to a <i>regnum in regno</i>. They have, so to
+say, our Sunday and likewise their Sabbath. Jew
+will always help Jew against a Christian; and again
+who can blame them for that? All one can say is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+that they should not complain of their unpopularity,
+but take into account the risk they are running.
+No one hated the Jews such as they were in Dessau
+fifty years ago. They had their own schools and
+synagogues, and no one interfered with them when
+they built their bowers in the streets at the time
+of their Feast of Tabernacles, and lived, feasted,
+and slept in them to keep up the memory of their
+sojourning in the desert. They indulged in even
+more offensive practices, such as, for instance, putting
+three stones in the coffins to be thrown by the
+dead at the Virgin Mary, her husband, and their
+Son. No one suspected or accused them of kidnapping
+Christian children, or offering sacrifices with
+their blood. They were known too well for that.
+Conversions of Jews were not infrequent, and converted
+Jews were not persecuted by their former
+co-religionists as they are now. Even marriages
+between Christians and Jews were by no means
+uncommon, particularly when the young Jewesses
+were beautiful or rich, still better if they were both.
+Disgraceful as the Anti-Semitic riots have been in
+Germany and Russia, there can be no doubt that
+in this as in most cases both sides were to blame,
+and there is little prospect of peace being re-established
+till many more heads have been broken.</p>
+
+<p>What helped very much to keep the peace in the
+small town of Dessau, as it did all over Germany,
+nay, all over the world, till about the year 1848,
+was the small number of newspapers. In my childhood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+and youth their number was very small. In
+Dessau I only knew of one, which was then called
+the <i>Wochenblatt</i>, afterwards the <i>Staatsanzeiger</i>.
+At that time newspapers were really read for the
+news which they contained, not for leading or misleading
+articles and all the rest. What a happy
+time it was when a newspaper consisted of a sheet,
+or half a sheet in quarto, with short paragraphs
+about actual events, which had often taken place
+weeks and months before. A battle might have
+been fought in Spain or Turkey, in India or
+China, and no one knew of it till some official
+information was vouchsafed by the respective
+Governments or by Jewish bankers. War-correspondents
+or regular reporters did not exist, and
+the old telegraphic dispatches were sent by wooden
+telegraphs fixed on high towers, which from a distance
+looked like gallows on which a criminal was
+hanging and gesticulating with arms and feet.
+Anybody who watched these signals could decipher
+them far more easily than a hieroglyphic inscription.</p>
+
+<p>The peace of Europe, nay, of the whole world,
+was then in the keeping of sovereigns and their
+ministers, and Prince Metternich might certainly
+take some credit for having kept what he called the
+Thirty Years&#8217; Peace. Shall we ever, as long as
+there are newspapers, have peace again&mdash;peace between
+the great nations of the world, and peace at
+home between contending parties, and peace in our
+mornings at home which are now so ruthlessly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+broken in upon, nay, swallowed up by those paper-giants,
+most unwelcome yet irresistible callers, just
+when we want to settle down to a quiet day&#8217;s work?
+It is no use protesting against the inevitable, 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 politics.
+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 Augustus.
+When unsuccessful <i>litt&eacute;rateurs</i> or bankrupt bankers&#8217;
+clerks were the chief contributors to the newspapers,
+their influence might have been small; but
+when Bismarcks turned journalists, and Gortchakoffs
+prompted, newspapers could hardly be called
+<i>quantit&eacute;s n&eacute;gligeables</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The horizon of Dessau was very narrow, but
+within its bounds there was a busy and happy life.
+Everybody did his work honestly and conscientiously.
+There were, of course, two classes, the educated
+and the uneducated. The educated consisted of the
+members of the Government service, the clergy, the
+schoolmasters, doctors, artists, and officers; the uneducated
+were the tradesmen, mechanics, and
+labourers. The trade was mostly in the hands of
+Jews, it had become almost a Jewish monopoly.
+When one of these tradesmen went bankrupt, there
+was a commotion over the whole town, and I remember
+being taken to see one of these bankrupt
+shops, expecting to find the whole house broken up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+and demolished, and being surprised to see the
+tradesman standing whole, and sound, and smiling,
+in his accustomed place. My etymological tastes
+must have developed very early, for I had asked
+why this poor Jew was called a bankrupt, and had
+been duly informed that it was because his bank
+had been broken, <i>banca rotta</i>, which of course I
+took in a literal sense, and expected to see all the
+furniture broken to pieces. The commercial relations
+of our Dessau tradesmen did not extend much
+beyond Leipzig, Berlin, possibly Hamburg and
+Cologne. If a burgher of Dessau travelled to these
+or to more distant parts the whole town knew of it
+and talked about it, whereas a journey to Paris or
+London was an event worthy to be mentioned and
+discussed in the newspapers. These old newspapers
+are full of curious information. We find that
+if a person wished to travel to Cologne or further,
+he advertised for a companion, and it was for the
+Burgomaster to make the necessary arrangements
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>French was studied and spoken, particularly at
+Court, but English was a rare acquirement, still
+more Italian or Spanish. There was, however, a
+small inner circle where these languages were studied,
+chiefly in order to read the master-works of
+modern literature. And this was all the more creditable
+because there were no good teachers to be found
+at Dessau, and people had to learn what they wished
+to learn by themselves, with the help of a grammar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+and dictionary. We learnt French at school,
+but the result was deplorable. As in all public
+schools, the French master who had to teach the language
+at the Ducal Gymnasium could not keep
+order among the boys. He of course spoke French,
+but that was all. He did not know how to teach,
+and could not excite any interest in the boys, who
+insisted on pronouncing French as if it were German.
+The poor man&#8217;s life was made a burden to
+him. His name was Noel, and he had all the pleasing
+manners of a Frenchman, but that served only
+to rouse the antagonism of the young barbarians.
+The result was that we learnt very little, and I was
+sent to an old Jew to learn French and a little English.
+That old Jew, called Levy Rubens, was a
+perfect gentleman. He probably had been a commercial
+traveller in his early days, though no one
+knew exactly where he came from or how he had
+learnt languages. He had taught my father and
+grandfather and he was delighted to teach the third
+generation. He certainly spoke French and English
+fluently, but with the strongest Jewish accent,
+and this was inherited by all his pupils at Dessau.
+I feel ashamed when I think of the tricks we played
+the old man&mdash;putting mice into his pockets, upsetting
+inkstands over his table, and placing crackers
+under his chairs. But he never lost his temper; he
+never would have dared to punish us as we deserved;
+but he went on with his lesson as if nothing had happened.
+He took his small pay, and was satisfied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+when his lessons were over and he could settle down
+to his long pipe and his books. He lived quite alone
+and died quite alone, a hardworking, honest, poor
+Jew, not exactly despised or persecuted, but not
+treated with the respect which he certainly deserved,
+and which he would have received if he had not
+been a Jew.</p>
+
+<p>Our public school was as good as any in Germany.
+These small duchies generally followed the example
+of Prussia, and they carried out the instructions
+issued by the Ministry of Education at Berlin according
+to the very letter. Besides, several of the
+reigning dukes had taken a very warm and personal
+interest in popular education, and at the beginning
+of the century the eyes of the whole of Germany,
+nay, of Europe, were turned towards the educational
+experiments carried on by my great-grandfather,
+Basedow,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> at the so-called Philanthropinum at Dessau
+under the patronage of the Duke and of several
+of the more enlightened sovereigns of Europe, such
+as the Empress Catherine of Russia, the King of
+Denmark, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, Prince
+Adam Czartoryski, &amp;c. Even after Basedow&#8217;s
+death the interest in education was kept alive in
+Dessau, and all was done that could be done in so
+small a town to keep the different schools&mdash;elementary,
+middle-class, and high schools&mdash;on the highest
+possible level of efficiency.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+<p>Bathing was a very healthful recreation, though
+I very nearly came to grief from trusting to my
+seniors. They could swim and I could not yet. But
+while bathing with two of my friends in a part of
+the river which was safe, they swam along and asked
+me to follow them. Having complete confidence
+in them I jumped in from the shore, but very soon
+began to sink. My shouts brought my friends back,
+and they rescued me, not without some difficulty,
+from drowning.</p>
+
+<p>In an English school the influence of the master
+is, of course, more constant, because one of the masters
+is always within call, while in Germany he is
+visible during school-hours only. If a master is
+fond of his pupils, and takes an interest in them
+individually, he can do them more good than parents
+at home, or the teacher at a day school. The boys
+at a German school are, no doubt, a very mixed
+crew, but that cannot be helped. This mixture of
+classes may be a drawback in some respects, but
+from an educational point of view the sons of very
+rich parents are by no means more valuable than the
+poor boys. Far from it. Many of the evils of
+schoolboy life come from the sons of the rich, while
+the sons of poor parents are generally well behaved.
+But for all that, there was a rough and rude tone
+among some of the boys at school, arising from defects
+in the education at home, and this sometimes
+embittered what ought to be the happiest time of
+life, particularly in the case of delicate boys. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+son of a Minister has often to sit by the side of the
+son of a wealthy butcher, and the very fact that he
+is the son of a gentleman often exposes the more
+refined boy to the bullying of his muscular neighbour.
+I was fortunate at school. I could hold my
+own with the boys, and as to the masters, several of
+them had known my father or had been his pupils,
+and they took a personal interest in me.</p>
+
+<p>I remember more particularly one young master
+who was very kind to me, and took me home for
+private lessons and for giving me some good advice.
+There was something sad and very attractive about
+him, and I found out afterwards that he knew that
+he was dying of consumption, and that besides that
+he was liable to be prosecuted for political liberalism,
+which at that time was almost like high treason.
+I believe he was actually condemned and sent
+to prison like many others, and he died soon after
+I had left Dessau. His name was Dr. H&ouml;nicke, and
+he was the first to try to impress on me that I ought
+to show myself worthy of my father, an idea which
+had never entered my mind before, nay, which at
+first I could hardly understand, but which, nevertheless,
+slumbered on in my mind till years afterwards
+it was called out and became a strong influence
+for the whole of my life. I still have some
+lines which he wrote for my album. They were
+the well-known lines from Horace, which, at the
+time, I had great difficulty in construing, but which
+have remained graven in my memory ever since:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Est in iuvencis est in equis patrum<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Virtus nec imbellem feroces<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Progenerant aquilae columbam.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rectique cultus pectora roborant;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Utcunque defecere mores,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dedecorant bene nata culpae.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In my childhood I had to pass through the ordinary
+illnesses, but it was the faith in our doctor that
+always saved me. The doctor was to my mind the
+man who was called in to make me well again, and
+while my mother was agitated about her only son,
+I never dreamt of any danger. The very idea of
+death never came near me till my grandfather died
+(1835), but even then I was only about twelve years
+old, and though I had seen much of him, particularly
+during the years that my mother lived again in
+his house, yet he was too old to take much share in
+his grandchildren&#8217;s amusements. He left a gap, no
+doubt, in our life, but that gap was filled again with
+new figures in the life of a boy of twelve. He was
+only sixty-one years old when he died, and yet my
+idea of him was always that of a very old man.
+Everything was done for him, his servant dressed
+him every morning, he was lifted into his carriage
+and out of it, and he certainly lived the life of an
+invalid, such as I should not consent to own to at
+seventy-six. He made no secret that he cared more
+for the son of his son who was the heir, and was to
+perpetuate the name of von Basedow, than for the son<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+of his daughter. He was very fond of driving and
+of shooting, and he frequently took my cousin out
+shooting with him. When my cousin came home
+with a hare he had shot, I confess I was sometimes
+jealous, but I was soon cured of my wish to go with
+my grandfather into the forest. Once when I was
+with him in his little carriage, my grandfather, not
+being able to see well, had the misfortune to kill a
+doe which had come out with her two little ones.
+The misery of the mother and afterwards of her
+two young ones, was heart-rending, and from that
+day on I made up my mind never to go out shooting,
+and never to kill an animal. And I have kept
+my word, though I was much laughed at. It may
+be that later in life and after my grandfather&#8217;s death
+I had little opportunity of shooting, 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 life.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, though he aged early, remained
+in harness as Prime Minister to the end of his life,
+and it was his great desire to benefit his country by
+new institutions. It was he who, at the time when
+people hardly knew yet what railroads meant, succeeded
+in getting the line from Berlin to Halle
+and Leipzig to pass by Dessau. He offered to build
+the bridge across the Elbe and to give the land and
+the wood for the sleepers gratis, and what seemed at
+the time a far too generous offer has proved a blessing
+to the duchy, making it as it were the centre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+of the great railway connecting Berlin, Leipzig,
+Magdeburg, the Elbe, Hanover, Bremen, nay,
+Cologne also, the Rhine, and Western Europe. He
+was in his way a good statesman, though we are too
+apt to measure a man&#8217;s real greatness by the circumstances
+in which he moves.</p>
+
+<p>As far back as I can remember I was a martyr
+to headaches. No doctor could help me, no one
+seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and
+though I watched it carefully I could not trace it
+to any fault of mine. The idea that it came from
+overwork was certainly untrue. It came and went,
+and if it was one day on the right side it was always
+the next time on the left, even though I was free
+from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or
+even longer. It was strange also that it seldom
+lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly
+strong and well the day after I had been
+prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite
+unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try
+to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when
+the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes
+the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In
+this way I often lost two or three days in a week,
+and as my work had to be done somehow, it was
+often done anyhow, and I was scolded and punished,
+really without any fault of my own. After all remedies
+had failed which the doctor and nurses prescribed
+(and I well remember my grandmother using
+massage on my neck, which must have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+about 1833 to 1835) I was handed over to Hahnemann,
+the founder of homeopathy. Hahnemann
+(born 1755) had been practising as doctor at Dessau
+as early as 1780&mdash;that is somewhat before my
+time&mdash;but had left it, and when in 1820 he had
+been prohibited by the Government from practising
+and lecturing at Leipzig, he took refuge once more
+in the neighbouring town of Coethen. From there
+he paid visits to Dessau as consulting physician, and
+after I had explained to him as well as I could all
+the symptoms of my chronic headache, he assured
+my mother that he would cure it at once. He was
+an imposing personality&mdash;a powerful man with a
+gigantic head and strong eyes and a most persuasive
+voice. I can quite understand that his personal influence
+would have gone far to effect a cure of many
+diseases. People forget too much how strong a curative
+power resides in the patient&#8217;s faith in his doctor,
+in fact how much the mind can do in depressing and
+in reinvigorating the body. I shall never forget
+in later years consulting Sir Andrew Clarke, and
+telling him of ever so many, to my mind, most serious
+symptoms. I had lost sleep and appetite, and
+imagined myself in a very bad state indeed. He
+examined me and knocked me about for full three
+quarters of an hour, and instead of pronouncing my
+doom as I fully expected, he told me with a bright
+look and most convincing voice that he had examined
+many men who had worked their brains too
+much, but had never seen a man at my time of life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+so perfectly sound in every organ. I felt young and
+strong at once, and meeting my old friend Morier
+on my way home, we ate some dozens of oysters together
+and drank some pints of porter without the
+slightest bad effect. In fact I was cured without a
+pill or a drop of medicine.</p>
+
+<p>And who does not know how, if one makes up
+one&#8217;s mind at last to have a tooth pulled out, the
+pain seems to cease as soon as we pull the bell at
+the dentist&#8217;s?</p>
+
+<p>However, Hahnemann did not succeed with me.
+I swallowed a number of his silver and gold globules,
+but the migraine kept its regular course, right
+to left and left to right, and this went on till about
+the year 1860. Then my doctor, the late Mr. Symonds
+of Oxford, told me exactly what Hahnemann
+had told me&mdash;that he would cure me, if I would
+go on taking some medicine regularly for six months
+or a year. He told me that he and his brother had
+made a special study of headaches, and that there
+were ever so many kinds of headache, each requiring
+its own peculiar treatment. When I asked him to
+what category of headaches mine belonged, I was
+not a little abashed on being told that my headache
+was what they called the Alderman&#8217;s headache.
+&#8220;Surely,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t overeat, or overdrink.&#8221;
+I had thought that mine was a mysterious nervous
+headache, arising from the brain. But no, it seemed
+to be due to turtle soup and port wine. However,
+the doctor, seeing my surprise, comforted me by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+telling me that it was the nerves of the head which
+affected the stomach, and thus produced indirectly
+the same disturbance in my digestion as an aldermanic
+diet. Whether this was true or was only
+meant as a <i>solatium</i> I do not know. But what I do
+know is, that by taking the medicine regularly for
+about half a year, the frequency and violence of my
+headaches were considerably reduced, while after
+about a year they vanished completely. I was a new
+being, and my working time was doubled.</p>
+
+<p>One lesson may be learnt from this, namely, that
+the English system of doctoring is very imperfect.
+In England we wait till we are ill, then go to a doctor,
+describe our symptoms as well as we can, pay
+one guinea, or two, get our prescription, take drastic
+medicine for a month and expect to be well. My
+German doctor, when he saw the prescription of my
+English doctor, told me that he would not give it to
+a horse. If after a month we are not better we go
+again; he possibly changes our medicine, and we
+take it more or less regularly for another month.
+The doctor cannot watch the effect of his medicine,
+he is not sure even whether his prescriptions have
+been carefully followed; and he knows but too well
+that anything like a chronic complaint requires a
+chronic treatment. The important thing, however,
+was that my headaches yielded gradually to the
+continued use of medicine; it would hardly have
+produced the desired effect if I had taken it by fits
+and starts. All this seems to me quite natural; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+though my English doctor cured me, and my German
+doctors did not, I still hold that the German
+system is better. Most families have their doctor
+in Germany, who calls from time to time to watch
+the health of the old and young members of the
+family, particularly when under medical treatment,
+and receives his stipulated annual payment, which
+secures him a safe income that can be raised, of
+course, by attendance on occasional patients. Perhaps
+the Chinese system is the best; they pay their
+doctor while they are well, and stop payment as
+long as they are ill. 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 England. If my remarks refer to the study and
+practice of medicine I am asked whether more men
+are killed in England than in Germany; if I refer
+to the study and practice of law I am assured that
+quite as many murderers are hanged in England
+as in Germany; and if I venture to hint that the
+study of theology might on certain points be improved
+at Oxford, I am told that quite as many
+souls are saved in England as in Germany, nay,
+a good many more. As I cannot ascertain the facts
+from trustworthy statistics, I have nothing to reply;
+all I feel is that most nations, like most individuals,
+are perfect in their own eyes, but that those are
+most perfect who are willing to admit that there is
+something to be learnt from their neighbours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But to return to Hahnemann. He was very kind
+to me, and I looked up to him as a giant both in
+body and in mind. But he could not deliver me
+from my enemy, the ever recurrent migraine. The
+cures, however, both at Dessau and at Coethen,
+where he had been made a <i>Hofrath</i> by the reigning
+Duke, were very extraordinary. Hahnemann remained
+in Coethen till 1835, and in that year, when
+he was eighty, he married a young French lady,
+Melanie d&#8217;Hervilly, and was carried off by her to
+Paris, where he soon gained a large practice, and
+died in 1843, that is at the age of eighty-eight.
+Much of his success, I feel sure, was due to his
+presence and to the confidence which he inspired.
+How do I know that Sir Andrew Clarke, seeing
+that I was in low spirits about my health, did not
+think it right to encourage me, and by encouraging
+me did certainly make me feel confident about myself,
+and thus raised my vitality, my spirits, or
+whatever we like to call it? &#8220;Thy faith hath made
+thee whole&#8221; is a lesson which doctors ought not
+to neglect.</p>
+
+<p>How little we know the effect of the environment
+in which we grow up. My old granny has drawn
+deeper furrows through my young soul than all my
+teachers and preachers put together. I am not
+going to add a chapter to that most unsatisfactory
+of all studies, child-psychology. It is an impossible
+subject. The victim&mdash;the child&mdash;cannot be interrogated
+till it is too late. The influences that work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+on the child&#8217;s senses and mind cannot be determined;
+they are too many, and too intangible. The observers
+of babies, mostly young fathers proud of
+their first offspring, remind me always of a very
+learned friend of mine, who presented to the Royal
+Society most laborious pages containing his lifelong
+observations on certain deviations of the magnetic
+needle, and who had forgotten that in making these
+observations he always had a pair of steel spectacles
+on his nose. However, I have nothing to say against
+these observations, nor against their more or less
+successful interpretations. 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 condition, whether as a hairy or a hairless
+creature. To imagine that we can learn from
+the way in which children begin to use our old
+words, how the primitive language of mankind was
+formed, seems to me like imagining that children
+playing with counters would teach us how and for
+what purpose the first money was coined. There
+is no doubt a grain of truth in this infantile psychology,
+but it requires as many caveats as that which
+is called ethnological psychology, which makes us
+see in the savages of the present day the representation
+of the first ancestors of our race, and would
+teach us to discover in their superstitions the antecedents
+of the mythology and religion of the Aryan
+or Semitic races. The same philosophers who constantly
+fall back on heredity and atavism in order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+to explain what seems inexplicable in the beliefs
+and customs of the Brahmans, Greeks, or Romans,
+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 Homer. They look upon
+the Patagonians as the <i>tabula rasa</i> of humanity,
+and they forget that even if we admitted that the
+ancestors of the Aryan race had once been more
+savage than the Patagonians, it would not follow
+that their savagery was identical with that of the
+people of Tierra del Fuego. Why should not the
+distance between Patagonian and Vedic Rishis have
+been at least as great as that between Vedic Rishis
+and Homeric bards? If there are ever so many
+kinds of civilized life, was there only one and the
+same savagery?</p>
+
+<p>To take, for instance, the feeling of fear; is it
+likely that we shall find out whether it is innate in
+human nature or acquired and intensified in each
+generation, by shaking our fists in the face of a
+little baby, to see whether it will wink or shrink or
+shriek? Some children may be more fearless than
+others, but whether that fearlessness arises from
+ignorance or from stolidity is again by no means
+easy to determine. A burnt child fears the fire,
+an unburnt child might boldly grasp a glowing
+coal, but all this would not help us to determine
+whether fear is an innate or an acquired tendency
+or habit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 grandmothers,
+and that I had to make a strong effort of
+will before I could bring myself to walk across a
+churchyard in the dark. This shows how much our
+character is shaped by circumstances, even when
+we are least aware of it. I did not believe in ghosts
+and I was not a coward, but I felt through life a
+kind of shiver in dark passages and at the sound of
+mysterious noises, 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 there,
+and that caused me, particularly in my younger
+days, many a moment of discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>All such experiences constitute what may be
+called the background of our life. My first ideas
+of men and women, and of the world at large, that
+is of the unknown world, were formed within the
+narrow walls of Dessau, for Dessau was still surrounded
+by walls, and the gates of the city were
+closed every night, though the fears of a foreign
+enemy were but small. Of course the views of life
+prevailing at Dessau were very narrow, but they
+were wide enough for our purposes. Though we
+heard of large towns like Dresden or Berlin, and
+of large countries like France and Italy, my real
+world was Dessau and its neighbourhood. We had
+no interests outside the walls of our town or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+frontiers of our duchy. If we heard of things that
+had happened at Leipzig or Berlin, in Paris or London,
+they had no more reality for us than what we
+had read about Abraham, or Romulus and Remus,
+or Alexander the Great. To us the pulse of the
+world seemed to beat in the <i>Haupt- und Residenzstadt</i>
+of Dessau, though we knew perfectly well
+how small it was in comparison with other towns.</p>
+
+<p>And this, too, has left its impression on my
+thoughts all through life, if only by making everything
+that I saw in later life in such towns as Leipzig,
+Berlin, Paris, and London, appear quite overwhelmingly
+grand. Boys brought up in any of
+these large towns start with a different view of the
+world, and with a different measure for what they
+see in later life. I do not know that they are to be
+envied for that, for there is pleasure in admiration,
+pleasure even in being stunned by the first sight of
+the life in the streets of Paris or London. I certainly
+have been a great admirer all my life, and
+I ascribe this disposition to the small surroundings
+of my early years at Dessau.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was with everything else. Having admired
+our Cavalier-Strasse, I could admire all the
+more the Boulevards in Paris, and Regent Street
+in London. Having enjoyed our small theatre, I
+stood aghast at the Grand Opera, and at Drury
+Lane. This power of admiration and enjoyment
+extended even to dinners and other domestic amusements.
+Having been brought up on very simple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+fare, I fully enjoyed the dinners which the Old East
+India Company gave, when we sat down about
+400 people, and, as I was told, four pounds was paid
+for each guest. 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 entertainments,
+even if not quite at four pounds a
+head, 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 years.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the time when I woke with my
+breath frozen on my bedclothes into a thin sheet of
+ice. 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 morning, and
+where, when we tried to break the ice in the jug,
+there were only a few drops of water left at the bottom
+with which to wash. No wonder that the ablutions
+were expeditious. After they were performed
+we had our speedy breakfast, consisting of
+a cup of coffee and a <i>semmel</i> or roll, and then we
+rushed to school, often through the snow that had
+not yet been swept away from the pavement. We
+sat in school from eight to eleven or twelve, rushed
+home again, had our very simple dinner, and then
+back to school, from two to four. How we lived
+through it I sometimes wonder, for we were thinly
+clad and often wet with rain or snow; and yet we
+enjoyed our life as boys only can enjoy it, and had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+no time to be ill. One blessing this early roughing
+has left me for life&mdash;a power of enjoying many
+things which to most of my friends are matters of
+course or of no consequence. The background of
+my life at Dessau and at Leipzig may seem dark,
+but it has only served to make the later years of my
+life all the brighter and warmer.</p>
+
+<p>The more I think about that distant, now very
+distant past, the more I feel how, without being
+aware of it, my whole character was formed by it.
+The unspoiled primitiveness of life at Dessau as it
+was when I was at school there till the age of twelve,
+would be extremely difficult to describe in all its
+details. Everybody seemed to know everybody and
+everything about everybody. Everybody knew
+that he was watched, and gossip, in the best sense of
+the word, ruled supreme in the little town. Gossip
+was, in fact, public opinion with all its good and all
+its bad features. Still the result was that no one
+could afford to lose caste, and that everybody behaved
+as well as he could. I really believe that the
+private life of the people of Dessau at the beginning
+of the century was blameless. The great evils
+of society did not exist, and if now and then there
+was a black sheep, his or her life became a burden
+to them. Everybody knew what had happened, and
+society being on the whole so blameless, was all the
+more merciless on the sinners, whether their sins
+were great or small. So from the very first my idea
+was that there were only two classes&mdash;one class quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+perfect and pure as angels, the other black sheep,
+and altogether unspeakable. There was no transition,
+no intermediate links, no shading of light and
+dark. A man was either black or white, and this
+rigid rule applied not only to moral character, but
+intellectual excellence also was measured by the
+same standard. A work of art was either superlatively
+beautiful, or it was contemptible. A man of
+science was either a giant or a humbug. Some
+people spoke of Goethe as the greatest of all poets
+and philosophers the world had ever known; others
+called him a wicked man and an overvalued
+poet.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is dangerous, no doubt, to go through life with
+so imperfect a measure, and I have for a long time
+suffered from it, particularly in cases where I ought
+to have been able to make allowance for small failings.
+But as I had been brought up to approach
+people with a complete trust in their rectitude, and
+with an unlimited admiration of their genius, it
+took me many years before I learnt to make allowance
+for human weaknesses or temporary failures.
+I have lost many a charming companion and excellent
+friend in my journey through life, because I
+weighed them with my rusty Dessau balance. I
+had to learn by long experience that there may be
+a spot, nay, several spots on the soft skin of a peach,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>and yet the whole fruit may be perfect. I acted
+very much like the merchant who tested a whole
+field of rice by the first handful of grains, and who,
+if he found one or two bad grains, would have nothing
+to do with the whole field. I had to learn what
+was, perhaps, the most difficult lesson of all, that a
+trusted friend could not always be trusted, and yet
+need not therefore be altogether a reprobate. What
+was most difficult for me to digest was an untruth:
+finding out that one who professed to be a friend
+had said and done most unfriendly things behind
+one&#8217;s back. Still, in a long life one finds out that
+even that may not be a deadly sin, and that if we
+are so loth to forgive it, it is partly because the falsehood
+affected our own interests. 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 honest, straightforward, and trustworthy,
+by a large number of his own friends. We
+see this over and over again with men occupying
+eminent positions in Church and State. We see
+how a prime minister or an archbishop is represented
+by men who know him as a liar and a hypocrite,
+while by others he is spoken of as a paragon of honour
+and honesty, and a true Christian. My narrow
+Dessau views became a little widened when I went
+to school at Leipzig; still more when I spent two
+years and a half at the University of Leipzig, and
+afterwards at Berlin. Still, during all this time I
+saw but little of what is called society, I only knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+of people whom I loved and of people whom I disliked.
+There was no room as yet for indifferent
+people, whom one tolerates and is civil to without
+caring whether one sees them again or not. Of the
+simplest duties of society also I was completely ignorant.
+No one ever told me what to say and what to
+do, or what not to say and what not to do. What I
+felt I said, what I thought right I did. There was, in
+fact, in my small native town very little that could be
+called society. One lived in one&#8217;s family and with
+one&#8217;s intimate friends without any ceremony. It
+is a pity that children are not taught a few rules
+of life-wisdom by their seniors. I know that the
+Jews do not neglect that duty, 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-houses,
+but had been planted out full grown by their seniors.
+The only rules of worldly wisdom which I remember,
+came to me through proverbs and little verses
+which we had either to copy or to learn by heart,
+such as:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Wer einmal l&uuml;gt, dem glaubt man nicht<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und wenn er auch die Wahrheit spricht.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Er kommt doch endlich an die Sonnen.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Jeder ist seines Gl&uuml;ckes Schmied.&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">Some lines which hung over my bed I have carried
+with me all through life, and I still think they are
+very true and very terse:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Im Gl&uuml;ck nicht jubeln und im Sturm nicht zagen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Das Unvermeidliche mit W&uuml;rde tragen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Das Rechte thun, am Sch&ouml;nen sich erfreuen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Das Leben lieben und den Tod nicht scheuen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und fest an Gott und bessere Zukunft glauben,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heisst leben, heisst dem Tod sein Bitteres rauben.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">Still, all this formed a very small viaticum for a
+journey through life, and I often thought that a few
+more hints might have preserved me from the painful
+process of what was called rubbing off one&#8217;s
+horns. Again and again I had to say to myself,
+&#8220;That would have done very well at home, but
+it was a mistake for all that.&#8221; My social rawness
+and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as
+the Dessau dialect remained with me for life; at
+least I was assured by my friends that though I
+had spoken French and English for so many years,
+they could always detect in my German that I came
+from Dessau or Leipzig.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Johann Bernhard Basedow, von seinem Urenkel, F.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;M.
+(Essays, Band IV).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> That this was not only the case at Dessau, may be seen by
+a number of contemporary reviews of Goethe&#8217;s works republished
+some years ago and the exact title of which I cannot find.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was certainly a poor kind of armour in which
+I set out from Dessau. My mother, devoted as she
+was to me, had judged rightly that it was best
+for me to be with other boys and under the supervision
+of a man. I had been somewhat spoiled by
+her passionate love, and also by her passionate severity
+in correcting the ordinary naughtinesses of
+a boy. So having risen from form to form in the
+school at Dessau, I was sent, at the age of twelve,
+to Leipzig, to live in the house of Professor Carus
+and attend the famous Nicolai-Schule with his
+son, who was of the same age as myself and who
+likewise wanted a companion. It was thought
+that there would be a certain emulation between
+us, and so, no doubt, there was, though we
+always remained the best of friends. The house
+in which we lived stood in a garden and was really
+an orthopaedic institution for girls. There were
+about twenty or thirty of these young girls living
+in the house or spending the day there, and their
+joyous company was very pleasant. Of course the
+names and faces of my young friends have, with
+one or two exceptions, vanished from my memory,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+but I was surprised when a few years ago (1895) I
+was staying with Madame Salis-Schwabe at her delightful
+place on the Menai Straits, and discovered
+that we had known each other more than fifty years
+before in the house of Professor Carus at Leipzig.
+Though we had met from time to time, we never
+knew of our early meeting at Leipzig, till in comparing
+notes we discovered how we had spent a
+whole year in the same house and among the same
+friends. Hers has been a life full of work and
+entirely devoted to others. To the very end of her
+days she was spending her large income in founding
+schools on the system recommended by Froebel,
+not only in England, but in Italy. She died at
+Naples in 1896, while visiting a large school that
+had been founded by her with the assistance of the
+Italian Government. Her own house in Wales was
+full of treasures of art, and full of memorials of
+her many friends, such as Bunsen, Renan, Mole,
+Ary Scheffer, and many more. How far her charity
+went may be judged by her being willing to
+part with some of the most precious of Ary Scheffer&#8217;s
+pictures, in order to keep her schools well endowed,
+and able to last after her death, which she
+felt to be imminent.</p>
+
+<p>Public schools are nearly all day schools in Germany.
+The boys live at home, mostly in their own
+families, but they spend six hours every day at
+school, and it is a mistake to imagine that they are
+not attached to it, that they have no games together,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+and that they do not grow up manly or independent.
+Most schools have playgrounds, and in
+summer swimming is a favourite amusement for
+all the boys. There were two good public schools
+at Leipzig, the Nicolai School and the Thomas
+School. There was plenty of <i>esprit de corps</i> in
+them, and often when the boys met it showed itself
+not only in words but in blows, and the discussions
+over the merits of their schools were often
+continued in later life. I was very fortunate in
+being sent to the Nicolai School, under Dr. Nobbe
+as head master. He was at the same time Professor
+at the University of Leipzig, and is well known in
+England also as the editor of Cicero. He was very
+proud that his school counted Leibniz<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> among its
+former pupils. He was a classical scholar of the
+old school. During the last three years of our
+school life we had to write plenty of Latin and
+Greek verse, and were taught to speak Latin. The
+speaking of Latin came readily enough, but the
+verses never attained a very high level. Besides
+Nobbe we had Forbiger, well known by his books
+on ancient geography, and Palm, editor of the same
+Greek Dictionary which, in the hands of Dr. Liddell,
+has reached its highest perfection. Then there
+was Funkh&auml;nel, known beyond Germany by his
+edition of the Orations of Demosthenes, and his
+studies on Greek orators. We were indeed well off
+for masters, and most of them seemed to enjoy their
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>work and to be fond of the boys. Our head master
+was very popular. He was a man of the old German
+type, powerfully built, with a large square
+head, very much like Luther, and, strange to say,
+when in 1839 a great Luther festival was celebrated
+all over Germany, he published a book in which
+he proved that he was a direct descendant of Luther.</p>
+
+<p>The school was carried on very much on the old
+plan of teaching chiefly classics, but teaching them
+thoroughly. Modern languages, mathematics, and
+physical science had a poor chance, though they
+clamoured for recognition. Latin and Greek verse
+were considered far more important. In the two
+highest forms we had to speak Latin, and such as
+it was it seemed to us much easier than to speak
+French. Hebrew was also taught as an optional
+subject during the last four years, and the little I
+know of Hebrew dates chiefly from my school-days.
+Schoolboys soon find out what their masters think
+of the value of the different subjects taught at
+school, and they are apt to treat not only the subjects
+themselves but the teachers also according
+to that standard. Hence our modern language and
+our physical science masters had a hard time of it.
+They could not keep their classes in order, and it
+was by no means unusual for many of the boys
+simply to stay away from their lessons. The old
+mathematical master, before beginning his lesson,
+used to rub his spectacles, and after looking round
+the half empty classroom, mutter in a plaintive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+voice: &#8220;I see again many boys who are not here
+to-day.&#8221; When the same old master began to lecture
+on physical science, he told the boys to bring
+a frog to be placed under a glass from which the
+air had been extracted by an air-pump. Of course
+every one of the twenty or thirty boys brought
+two or three frogs, and when the experiment was
+to be made all these frogs were hopping about the
+lecture-room, and the whole army of boys were hopping
+after them over chairs and tables to catch
+them. No wonder that during this tumult the master
+did not succeed with his experiment, and when
+at last the glass bowl was lifted up and we were
+asked to see the frog, great was the joy of all the
+boys when the frog hopped out and escaped from
+the hands of its executioner. 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 kept, and destroyed some of the precious
+instruments supplied by Government. Severe punishments
+followed, but they did not serve to make
+physical science more popular.</p>
+
+<p>We certainly did very well in Greek and Latin,
+and read a number of classical texts, not only critically
+at school, but also cursorily at home, having to
+give a weekly account of what we had thus read
+by ourselves. I liked my classics, and yet I could
+not help feeling that there was a certain exaggeration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+in the way in which every one of them was
+spoken of by our teachers, nay, that as compared to
+German poets and prose writers they were somewhat
+overpraised. Still, it would have been very conceited
+not to admire what our masters admired, and
+as in duty bound we went into the usual raptures
+about Homer and Sophocles, about Horace and
+Cicero. Many things which in later life we learn
+to admire in the classics could hardly appeal to the
+taste of boys. The directness, the simplicity and
+originality of the ancient, as compared with modern
+writers, cannot be appreciated by them, and I well
+remember being struck with what we disrespectful
+boys called the cheekiness of Horace expecting
+immortality (<i>non omnis moriar</i>) for little poems
+which we were told were chiefly written after Greek
+patterns. We had to admit that there were fewer
+false quantities in his Latin verses than in our own,
+but in other respects we could not see that his odes
+were so infinitely superior to ours. His hope of
+immortality has certainly been fulfilled beyond
+what could have been his own expectations. With
+so little of ancient history known to him, his idea
+of the immortality of poetry must have been far
+more modest in his time than in our own. He may
+have known the past glories of the Persian Empire,
+but as to ancient literature, there was nothing for
+him to know, whether in Persia, in Babylonia, in
+Assyria, or even in Egypt, least of all in India.
+Literary fame existed for him in Greece only, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+in the Roman Empire, and his own ambition could
+therefore hardly have extended beyond these limits.
+The exaggeration in the panegyrics passed on everything
+Greek or Latin dates from the classical
+scholars of the Middle Ages, who knew nothing
+that could be compared to the classics, and who
+were loud in praising what they possessed the
+monopoly of selling. Successive generations of
+scholars followed suit, so that even in our time it
+seemed high treason to compare Goethe with
+Horace, or Schiller with Sophocles. Of late, however,
+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 Plato. The
+fact is that we have learnt from them and imitated
+them, till in some cases the imitations have equalled
+or even excelled the originals, while now the taste
+for classical correctness has been wellnigh supplanted
+by an appetite for what is called realistic,
+original, and extravagant.</p>
+
+<p>With all that has been said or written against
+making classical studies the most important element
+in a liberal education, or rather against retaining
+them in their time-honoured position, nothing
+has as yet been suggested to take their place.
+For after all, 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 Latin; it is in order
+to learn to understand the old world on which our
+modern world is founded; it is in order to think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+the old thoughts, which are the feeders of our own
+intellectual life, that we become in our youth the
+pupils of Greeks and Romans. In order to know
+what we are, we have to learn how we have come
+to be what we are. Our very languages form an
+unbroken chain between us and Cicero and Aristotle,
+and in order to use many of our words intelligently,
+we must know the soil from which they
+sprang, and the atmosphere in which they grew up
+and developed.</p>
+
+<p>I enjoyed my work at school very much, and
+I seem to have passed rapidly from class to class.
+I frequently received prizes both in money and in
+books, but I see a warning attached to some of them
+that I ought not to be conceited, which probably
+meant no more than that I should not show when I
+was pleased with my successes. At least I do not
+know what I could have been conceited about.
+What I feel about my learning at school is that it
+was entirely passive. I acquired knowledge such
+as it was presented to me. I did not doubt whatever
+my teachers taught me, I did not, as far as I
+can recollect, work up any subject by myself. I
+find only one paper of mine of that early time, and,
+curiously enough, it was on mythology; but it contains
+no inkling of comparative mythology, but
+simply a chronological arrangement of the sources
+from which we draw our knowledge of Greek mythology.
+I see also from some old papers, that I
+began to write poetry, and that twice or thrice I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+was chosen at great festivities to recite poems written
+by myself. In the year 1839 three hundred
+years had passed since Luther preached at Leipzig
+in the Church of St. Nicolai, and the tercentenary
+of this event was celebrated all over Germany. My
+poem was selected for recitation at a large meeting
+of the friends of our school and the notables of the
+town, and I had to recite it, not without fear and
+trembling. I was then but sixteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>In the next year, 1840, Leipzig celebrated the
+invention of printing in 1440. It was on this occasion
+that Mendelssohn wrote his famous <i>Hymn
+of Praise</i>. I formed part of the chorus, and I well
+remember the magnificent effect which the music
+produced in the Church of St. Thomas. Again a
+poem of mine was selected, and I had to recite it
+at a large gathering in the Nicolai-Schule on July
+18, 1840.</p>
+
+<p>On December 23 another celebration took place
+at our school, at which I had to recite a Latin poem
+of mine, <i>In Schillerum</i>. Lastly, there was my
+valedictory poem when I left the school in 1841,
+and a Latin poem &#8220;Ad Nobbium,&#8221; our head master.</p>
+
+<p>I have found among my mother&#8217;s treasures the
+far too often flattering testimonial addressed to her
+by Professor Nobbe on that occasion, which ends
+thus: &#8220;I rejoice at seeing him leave this school
+with testimonials of moral excellence not often
+found in one of his years&mdash;and possessed of knowledge
+in more than one point, first-rate, and of intellectual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+capacities excellent throughout. May his
+young mind develop more and more, may the fruits
+of his labours hereafter be a comfort to his mother
+for the sorrows and cares of the past.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my
+examination for admission to the University (<i>Abiturienten-Examen</i>)
+not at my own school, but at
+Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to
+enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt
+Government. The schools in Anhalt were modelled
+after the Prussian schools, and laid far more stress
+on mathematics, physical science, and modern languages
+than the schools in Saxony. I had therefore
+to get up in a very short time several quite new
+subjects, and did not do so well in them as in Greek
+and Latin. However, I passed with a first class, and
+obtained my scholarship, small as it was. 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 examination. He reminds me that
+among my examiners there were such men as Dr.
+Ritter, the two Sentenis, and Professor Werner, and
+he says that he watched me when I came upstairs
+and entered the locked room to do my paper work.
+My friend&#8217;s career in life had been that of Director
+of a Life Insurance Company, probably a more
+lucrative career than what mine has been.</p>
+
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="Max14" id="Max14"></a><a href="images/illo106.jpg"><img src="images/illo106_th.jpg"
+alt="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 14" title="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 14" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption">
+<i>F. Max M&uuml;ller</i><br />
+<i>Aged 14.</i></p>
+
+<p>During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of
+Professor Carus, and afterwards as a student at the
+University, my chief enjoyment was certainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but
+I pity the man who has not known the charm of it.
+At that time Leipzig was really the centre of music
+in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was there, 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 Concerts.
+I find among my letters a few descriptions of concerts
+and other musical entertainments, which even
+at present may be of some interest. I was asked
+to be present at some concerts where quartettes and
+other pieces were performed by Mendelssohn,
+Hiller, Kaliwoda, David, and Eckart. Liszt also
+made his triumphant entry into Germany at Leipzig,
+and everybody was full of expectation and excitement.
+His concert had been advertised long
+before his arrival. It was to consist of an Overture
+of Weber&#8217;s; a Cavatina from <i>Robert le Diable</i>,
+sung by Madame Schlegel; a Concerto of Weber&#8217;s,
+to be played by Liszt, the same which I had shortly
+before heard played by Madame Pleyel; Beethoven&#8217;s
+Overture to <i>Prometheus</i>; Fantasia on <i>La
+Juive</i>; Schubert&#8217;s <i>Ave Maria</i> and <i>Serenade</i>, as
+arranged by Liszt. I was the more delighted because
+I had myself played some of these pieces.
+But suddenly there appeared a placard stating that
+Liszt, on hearing that tickets were sold at one
+thaler (three shillings), had declared he would play
+a few pieces only and without an orchestra. In spite
+of that disappointment, the whole house was full,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+the staircase crowded from top to bottom, and when
+we had pushed our way through, we found that
+about 300 places had been retained for one and a
+half thalers (four shillings and sixpence), while
+tickets at the box-office were sold for two thalers
+(six shillings). Nevertheless, I managed to get a
+very good place, by simply not seeing a number of
+ladies who were pushing behind me. When Liszt
+appeared there was a terrible hissing&mdash;he looked
+as if petrified, glanced like a demon at the public,
+but nevertheless began to play the Scherzo and
+Finale of the Pastoral Symphony. Then there
+burst out a perfect thunder of applause, and all
+seemed pacified, while Madame Schmidt sang a
+song accompanied by a certain Mr. Kermann. As
+soon as that was over, a new storm of hisses arose,
+which was meant for this Mr. Kermann, who was a
+pupil, but at the same time the man of business of
+Liszt. He and three other men had made all arrangements,
+and Liszt knew nothing about them,
+as he cared very little for the money, which went
+chiefly to his managers. A Fantasia by Liszt followed,
+and lastly a <i>Galop Chromatique</i>&mdash;but the
+public would not go away, and at length Liszt was
+induced to play <i>Une grande Valse</i>. It was no
+doubt a new experience; but I could not go into
+ecstasies like others, for after all it was merely mechanical,
+though no doubt in the highest perfection.
+The day after Liszt advertised that his original Programme
+would be played, but at six o&#8217;clock Professor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+Carus, with whom I lived, was called to see Liszt,
+who was said to be ill; the fact being he had only
+sold fifty tickets at the raised prices. Many
+strangers who had come to Leipzig to hear him went
+away, anything but pleased with the new musical
+genius. At one concert, where he appeared in Magyar
+costume, the ladies offered him a golden laurel
+wreath and sword. He had just published his arrangement
+of <i>Adelaida</i>, which he promised to play
+in one of the concerts.</p>
+
+<p>Another very musical family at Leipzig was that
+of Professor Fr&ouml;ge. He was a rich man, and had
+married a famous singer, Fr&auml;ulein Schlegel. One
+evening the <i>Sonnambula</i> was performed in their
+house, which had been changed into a theatre. She
+acted the Sonnambula, and her singing as well as
+her acting was most finished and delightful. Mendelssohn
+was much in their house, and made her
+sing his songs as soon as they were written and before
+they were published. They were great friends,
+the bond of their friendship being music. He
+actually died when playing while she was singing.
+People talked as they always will talk about what
+they cannot understand, but they evidently did not
+know either Mendelssohn or Madame Fr&ouml;ge.</p>
+
+<p>The house of Professor Carus was always open
+to musical geniuses, and many an evening men like
+Hiller, Mendelssohn, David, Eckart, &amp;c., came
+there to play, while Madame Carus sang, and sang
+most charmingly. I too was asked sometimes to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+play at these evening parties. I see that Ernst gave
+a concert at Leipzig, and no doubt his execution was
+admirable. Still, I could not understand what
+David meant when he declared that after hearing
+Ernst he would throw his own instrument into the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>Mendelssohn, who was delighted with Liszt&mdash;and
+no one could judge him better than he&mdash;gave a
+soir&eacute;e in honour of him. About 400 people were
+invited&mdash;I among the rest, being one of the tenors
+who sang in the Oratorio that Hiller was then rehearsing
+for the first performance. I think it was
+the <i>Destruction of Babylon</i>. There was a complete
+orchestra at Mendelssohn&#8217;s party, and we heard a
+symphony of Schubert (posthumous), Mendelssohn&#8217;s
+psalm &#8220;As the hart pants,&#8221; and his overture
+<i>Meeresstille und gl&uuml;ckliche Fahrt</i>. After that
+there was supper for all the guests, and then followed
+a chorus from his <i>St. Paul</i>, and a triple concerto
+of Bach, played on three pianofortes by Mendelssohn,
+Liszt, and Hiller. It was a difficult piece&mdash;difficult
+to play and difficult to follow. Lastly,
+Liszt played his new fantasia on <i>Lucia di Lammermoor</i>,
+and his arrangement of the <i>Erlk&ouml;nig</i>. All
+was really perfect; and hearing so much music, I
+became more and more absorbed in it. I even gave
+some concerts with Grabau, a great violoncellist, at
+Merseburg, and at a Count Arnim&#8217;s, a very rich
+nobleman near Merseburg, who had invited Liszt
+for one evening and paid him 100 ducats. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+seemed at that time a very large sum, almost senseless.
+As a ducat was about nine shillings, it was
+after all only &pound;45, which would not seem excessive
+at present for an artist such as Liszt.</p>
+
+<p>I also heard Thalberg at Leipzig. They all came
+to see Mendelssohn, and I believe did their best to
+please him. At that time my idea of devoting myself
+altogether to the study of music became very
+strong; and as Professor Carus married again, I proposed
+to leave Leipzig, and to enter the musical
+school of Schneider at Dessau. But nothing came
+of that, and I think on the whole it was as well.</p>
+
+<p>While at school at Leipzig I had but little opportunity
+of travelling, for my mother was always
+anxious to have me home during the holidays, and
+I was equally anxious to be with her and to see my
+relations at Dessau. Generally I went in a wretched
+carriage from Leipzig to Dessau. It was only seven
+German miles (about thirty-five English miles), but
+it took a whole day to get there; and during part
+of the journey, when we had to cross the deep and
+desert-like sands, walking on foot was much more
+expeditious than sitting inside the carriage. But
+then we paid only one thaler for the whole journey,
+and sometimes, in order to save that, I walked on
+foot the whole way. That also took me a whole day;
+but when I tried it the first time, being then quite
+young and rather delicate in health, I had to give
+in about an hour before I came to Dessau, my legs
+refusing to go further, and my muscles being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+cramped and stiff from exertion, I had to sit down
+by the road. During one vacation I remember exploring
+the valley of the Mulde with some other
+boys. We travelled for about a fortnight from village
+to village, and lived in the simplest way. A
+more ambitious journey I took in 1841 with a friend
+of mine, Baron von Hagedorn. He was a curious
+and somewhat mysterious character. He had been
+brought up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he
+was entrusted as a baby. No one knew his parents,
+but they must have been rich, for he possessed a
+large fortune. He had a country place near Munich,
+and he spent the greater part of the year in
+travelling about, and amusing himself. He had
+been brought up with my mother and other members
+of our family, and he took a very kind interest
+in me. I see from my letters that in 1841 he
+took me from Dessau to Coethen, Brunswick, and
+Magdeburg. At Brunswick we saw the picture gallery,
+the churches, and the tomb of Schill, one of
+the German volunteers in the War of Independence
+against France. We also explored Hildesheim, saw
+the rose-tree planted, as we were told, by Charlemagne;
+then proceeded to G&ouml;ttingen, and saw its
+famous library. We passed through Minden, where
+the Fulda and Werra join, and arrived late at Cassel.
+From Cassel we explored Wilhelmsh&ouml;he, the
+beautiful park where thirty years later Napoleon
+III was kept as a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+exaggeration, was certainly a good friend
+to me. He often gave me good advice, and was
+more of a father to me than a mere friend. He
+was a man of the world; and he forgot that I never
+meant to be a man of the world, and therefore his
+advice was not always what I wanted. He was
+also a great friend of my cousin who was married
+to a Prince of Dessau, and they had agreed among
+themselves that I should go to the Oriental
+Academy at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and
+then enter the diplomatic service. As there were
+no children from the Prince&#8217;s marriage, I was to
+be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune
+was not enough to tempt me, I was told that even a
+wife had been chosen for me, and that I should
+have a new name and title, after being adopted by
+the Prince. To other young men this might have
+seemed irresistible. I at once said no. It seemed
+to interfere with my freedom, with my studies, with
+my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything
+was presented to me by my cousin as on a
+silver tray, I shook my head and remained true to
+my first love, Sanskrit and all the rest. Hagedorn
+could not understand this; he thought a brilliant
+life preferable to the quiet life of a professor. Not
+so I. He little knew where true happiness was to
+be found, and he was often in a very melancholy
+mood. He did not live long, but I shall never forget
+how much I owed him. When I went to Paris,
+he allowed me to live in his rooms. They were,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+it is true, <i>au cinqui&egrave;me</i>, but they were in the best
+quarter of Paris, in the Rue Royale St. Honor&eacute;,
+opposite the Madeleine, and very prettily furnished.
+This kept me from living in dusty lodgings in the
+Quartier Latin, and the five flights of stairs may
+have strengthened my lungs. 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 again. But in those days one did not know
+what it meant to be tired. Whether my friends
+grumbled, I cannot tell, but I myself pitied some
+of them who were old and gouty when they arrived
+at my door out of breath.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> His own spelling of his name.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>UNIVERSITY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> order to enable me to go to the University, my
+mother and sister moved to Leipzig and kept house
+for me during all the time I was there&mdash;that is,
+for two years and a half. In spite of the <i>res angusta
+domi</i>, I enjoyed my student-life thoroughly, while
+my home was made very agreeable by my mother
+and sister. My mother was full of resource, and
+she was wise enough not to interfere with my freedom.
+My sister, who was about two years older
+than myself, was most kind-hearted and devoted
+both to me and to our mother. There was nothing
+selfish in her, and we three lived together in perfect
+love, peace, and harmony. My sister enjoyed what
+little there was of society, whereas I kept sternly
+aloof from it. She was much admired, and soon
+became engaged to a young doctor, Dr. A. Krug,
+the son of the famous professor of philosophy at
+Leipzig, whose works, particularly his <i>Dictionary of
+Philosophy</i>, hold a distinguished place in the history
+of German philosophy. He was a thorough patriot,
+and so public spirited that he thought it right to
+leave a considerable sum of money to the University,
+without making sufficient provision for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+children. However, the young married couple
+lived happily at Chemnitz, and my sister was proud
+in the possession of her children. It was the sudden
+death of several of these children that broke her
+heart and ruined her health; she died very young.
+Standing by the grave of her children, she said to
+me shortly before her death, &#8220;Half of me is dead
+already, and lies buried there; the other half will
+soon follow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Of society, in the ordinary sense of the word, I
+saw hardly anything. I am afraid I was rather a
+bear, and declined even to invest in evening dress.
+I joined a student club which formed part of the
+<i>Burschenschaft</i>, but which in order to escape prosecution
+adopted the title of <i>Gemeinschaft</i>. I went
+there in the evening to drink beer and smoke, and
+I made some delightful acquaintances and friendships.
+What fine characters were there, often behind
+a very rough exterior! My dearest friend was
+Prowe, of Thorn in East Prussia&mdash;so honest, so
+true, so straightforward, so over-conscientious in the
+smallest things. He was a classical scholar, and
+later on entered the Prussian educational service.
+As a master at the principal school at Thorn his
+time was fully occupied, and of course he was cut
+off there from the enlivening influences of literary
+society. Still he kept up his interest in higher questions,
+and published some extremely valuable books
+on Copernicus, a native of Thorn, for which he
+received the thanks of astronomers and historians,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+and flattering testimonials from learned societies.
+We met but seldom later in life, and my own life
+in England was so busy and full that even our correspondence
+was not regular. But I met him once
+more at Ems with a charming wife, and decidedly
+happy in his own sphere of activity. These early
+friendships form the distant landscape of life on
+which we like to dwell when the present ceases to
+absorb all our thoughts. Our memory dwells on
+them as a golden horizon, and there remains a constant
+yearning which makes us feel the incompleteness
+of this life. After all, the number of our true
+friends is small; and yet how few even of that small
+number remain with us for life. There are other
+faces and other names that rise from beyond the
+clouds which more and more divide us from our
+early years.</p>
+
+<p>There were some wild spirits among us who fretted
+at the narrow-minded policy which went by the
+name of the Metternich system. Repression was
+the panacea which Metternich recommended to all
+the governments of Germany, large and small.
+No doubt the system of keeping things quiet secured
+to Germany and to Europe at large a thirty
+years&#8217; peace, but it could not prevent the accumulation
+of inflammable material which, after several
+threatenings, burst forth at last in the conflagration
+of 1848. Among my friends I remember
+several who were ready for the wildest schemes in
+order to have Germany united, respected abroad,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+and under constitutional government at home.
+Splendid fellows they were, but they either ended
+their days within the walls of a prison, or had to
+throw up everything and migrate to America.
+What has become of them? Some have risen to the
+surface in America, others have yielded to the inevitable
+and become peaceful citizens at home; nay,
+I am grieved to say, have even accepted service
+under Government to spy on their former friends
+and fellow-dreamers. But not a few saw the whole
+of their life wrecked either in prison or in poverty,
+though they had done no wrong, and in many cases
+were the finest characters it has been my good fortune
+to know. They were before their time, the
+fruit was not ripe as it was in 1871, but Germany
+certainly lost some of her best sons in those miserable
+years; and if my father escaped this political
+persecution, it was probably due to the influence of
+the reigning Duke and the Duchess, a Princess of
+Prussia, who knew that he was not a dangerous man,
+and not likely to blow up the German Diet.</p>
+
+<p>I myself got a taste of prison life for the offence
+of wearing the ribbon of a club which the police
+regarded with disfavour. I cannot say that either
+the disgrace or the discomfort of my two days&#8217;
+durance vile weighed much with me, as my friends
+were allowed free access to me, and came and drank
+beer and smoked cigars in my cell&mdash;of course at my
+expense&mdash;but what I dreaded was the loss of my
+stipendium or scholarship, which alone enabled me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+to continue my studies at Leipzig, and which, as
+a rule, was forfeited for political offences. On my
+release from prison I went to the Rector of the
+University and explained to him the circumstances
+of the case&mdash;how I had been arrested simply for
+membership of a suspected club. I assured him
+that I was innocent of any political propaganda, and
+that the loss of my stipendium would entail my
+leaving the University. Much to my relief, the old
+gentleman replied: &#8220;I have heard nothing about
+this; and if I do, how am I to know that it refers to
+you, there are many M&uuml;llers in the University?&#8221;
+Fortunately the distinctive prefix Max had not yet
+been added to my name.</p>
+
+<p>I must confess that I and my boon companions
+were sometimes guilty of practices which in more
+modern days, and certainly at Oxford or Cambridge,
+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 in.</p>
+
+<p>Duelling was then, as it is now, a favourite pastime
+among the students; and though not by nature
+a brawler, I find that in my student days at Leipzig
+I fought three duels, of two of which I carry the
+marks to the present day.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that on one occasion before the introduction
+of cabs we hired all the sedan-chairs in Leipzig,
+with their yellow-coated porters, and went in
+procession through the streets, much to the astonishment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+of the good citizens, and annoyance also, as
+they were unable to hire any means of conveyance
+till a peremptory stop was put to our fun. Not content
+with this exploit, when the first cabs were introduced
+into Leipzig, thirty or forty being put on
+the street at first, I and my friends secured the use
+of all of them for the day, and proceeded out into
+the country. The inhabitants who were eagerly
+looking forward to a drive in one of the new conveyances
+were naturally annoyed at finding themselves
+forestalled, 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 time.</p>
+
+<p>Very innocent amusements, if perhaps foolish,
+but very happy days all the same; 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 life.</p>
+
+<p>It is in every respect a great jump from a German
+school to a German university. At school a
+boy even in the highest form, has little choice. All
+his lessons are laid down for him; he has to learn
+what he is told, whether he likes it or not. Few
+only venture on books outside the prescribed curriculum.
+There is an examination at the end of every
+half-year, and a boy must pass it well in order to
+get into a higher form. Boys at a public school
+(gymnasium), if they cannot pass their examination
+at the proper time, are advised to go to another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+school, and to prepare for a career in which classical
+languages are of less importance.</p>
+
+<p>I must say at once that when I matriculated at
+Leipzig, in the summer of 1841, I was still very
+young and very immature. I had determined to
+study philology, chiefly Greek and Latin, but the
+fare spread out by the professors was much too
+tempting. I read Greek and Latin without difficulty;
+I often read classical authors without ever
+attempting to translate them; I also wrote and
+spoke Latin easily. Some of the professors lectured
+in Latin, and at our academic societies Latin was
+always spoken. I soon became a member of the
+classical seminary under Gottfried Hermann, and
+of the Latin Society under Professor Haupt. Admission
+to these seminaries and societies was obtained
+by submitting essays, and it was no doubt a
+distinction to belong to them. It was also useful,
+for not only had we to write essays and discuss them
+with the other members, generally teachers, and
+with the professor, but we could also get some useful
+advice from the professor for our private studies.
+In that respect the German universities do very
+little for the students, unless one has the good fortune
+to belong to one of these societies. The young
+men are let loose, and they can choose whatever
+lectures they want. I still have my <i>Collegien-Buch</i>,
+in which every professor has to attest what lectures
+one has attended. The number of lectures on various
+subjects which I attended is quite amazing, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+I should have attended still more if the honorarium
+had not frightened me away. Every professor
+lectured <i>publice</i> and <i>privatim</i>, and for the more
+important courses, four lectures a week, he charged
+ten shillings, for more special courses less or nothing.
+This seems little, but it was often too much for me;
+and if one added these honoraria to the salary of a
+popular professor, his income was considerable, and
+was more than the income of most public servants.
+I have known professors who had four or five hundred
+auditors. This gave them &pound;250 twice a year,
+and that, added to their salary, was considered a
+good income at that time. All this has been much
+changed. Salaries have been raised, and likewise
+the honoraria, so that I well remember the case of
+Professor von Savigny, who, when he was chosen
+Minister of Justice at Berlin, declared that he would
+gladly accept if only his salary was raised to what
+his income had been as Professor of Law. Of
+course, professors of Arabic or Sanskrit were badly
+off, and <i>Privatdocenten</i> (tutors) fared still worse,
+but the <i>professores ordinarii</i>, particularly if they
+lectured on an obligatory subject and were likewise
+examiners, were very well off. In fact, it struck me
+sometimes as very unworthy of them to keep a
+<i>famulus</i>, a student who had to tell every one who
+wished to hear a distinguished professor once or
+twice, that he would not allow him to come a third
+time.</p>
+
+<p>One great drawback of the professorial system is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+certainly the small measure of personal advice that
+a student may get from the professors. Unless he
+is known to them personally, or has gained admission
+to their societies or seminaries, the young student
+or freshman is quite bewildered by the rich
+fare in the shape of lectures that is placed before
+him. Some students, no doubt, particularly in their
+early terms, solve this difficulty by attending none
+at all, and there is no force to make them do so, except
+the examinations looming in the distance. But
+there are many young men most anxious to learn,
+only they do not know where to begin. I open my
+old <i>Collegien-Buch</i> and I find that in the first term
+or Semester I attended the following lectures, and
+I may say I attended them regularly, took careful
+notes, and read such books as were recommended
+by the professors. I find</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">1.</td><td class="subnam">The first book of Thucydides</td><td class="leftalign">Gottfried Hermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">2.</td><td class="subnam">On Scenic Antiquities</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">3.</td><td class="subnam">On Propertius</td><td class="leftalign">P.&nbsp;M. Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">4.</td><td class="subnam">History of German Literature</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">5.</td><td class="subnam">The Ranae of Aristophanes</td><td class="leftalign">Stallbaum.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">6.</td><td class="subnam">Disputatorium (in Latin)</td><td class="leftalign">Nobbe.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">7.</td><td class="subnam">Aesthetics</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">8.</td><td class="subnam">Anthropology</td><td class="leftalign">Lotze.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">9.</td><td class="subnam">Systems of Harmonic Composition</td><td class="leftalign">Fink.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">10.</td><td class="subnam">Hebrew Grammar</td><td class="leftalign">F&uuml;rst.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">11.</td><td class="subnam">Demosthenes</td><td class="leftalign">Westermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">12.</td><td class="subnam">Psychology</td><td class="leftalign">Heinroth.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This was enough for the summer half-year. Except
+Greek and Latin, the other subjects were entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+new to me, and what I wanted was to get an
+idea of what I should like to study. It may be
+interesting to add the other Semesters as far as I
+have them in my <i>Collegien-Buch</i>.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">13.</td><td class="subnam">Aeschyli Persae</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">14.</td><td class="subnam">On Criticism</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">15.</td><td class="subnam">German Grammar</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">16.</td><td class="subnam">Walther von der Vogelweide</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">17.</td><td class="subnam">Tacitus, Agricola, and De Oratoribus</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">18.</td><td class="subnam">On Hegel</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">19.</td><td class="subnam">Disputatorium (Latin)</td><td class="leftalign">Nobbe.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">20.</td><td class="subnam">Modern History</td><td class="leftalign">Wachsmuth.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">21.</td><td class="subnam">Sanskrit Grammar</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">22.</td><td class="subnam">Latin Society</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Then follows the summer term of 1842.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">23.</td><td class="subnam">Pindar</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">24.</td><td class="subnam">Nibelungen</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">25.</td><td class="subnam">Nala</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">26.</td><td class="subnam">History of Oriental Literature</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">27.</td><td class="subnam">Arabic Grammar</td><td class="leftalign">Fleischer.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">28.</td><td class="subnam">Latin Society</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">29.</td><td class="subnam">Plauti Trinumus</td><td class="leftalign">Becker.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Winter term, 1842.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">30.</td><td class="subnam">Prabodha Chandrodaya</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">31.</td><td class="subnam">History of Indian Literature</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">32.</td><td class="subnam">Aristophanes&#8217; Vespae</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">33.</td><td class="subnam">Plauti Rudens</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">34.</td><td class="subnam">Greek Syntax</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">35.</td><td class="subnam">Juvenal</td><td class="leftalign">Becker.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">36.</td><td class="subnam">Metaphysics and Logic</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">37.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophy of History</td><td class="leftalign">The same.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">38.</td><td class="subnam">Greek and Latin Seminary</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann &amp; Klotze.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">39.</td><td class="subnam">Latin Society</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">40.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophical Society</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">41.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophical Society</td><td class="leftalign">Drobisch.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Summer term, 1843.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">42.</td><td class="subnam">Greek and Latin Seminary</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann &amp; Klotze.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">43.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophical Society</td><td class="leftalign">Drobisch.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">44.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophical Society</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">45.</td><td class="subnam">Soma-deva</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">46.</td><td class="subnam">Hitopadesa</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">47.</td><td class="subnam">History of Greeks and Romans</td><td class="leftalign">Wachsmuth.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">48.</td><td class="subnam">History of Civilization</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">49.</td><td class="subnam">History after the Fifteenth Century</td><td class="leftalign">Flathe.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">50.</td><td class="subnam">History of Ancient Philosophy</td><td class="leftalign">Niedner.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Winter term, 1843-4.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">51.</td><td class="subnam">Rig-veda</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">52.</td><td class="subnam">Elementa Persica</td><td class="leftalign">Fleischer.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">53.</td><td class="subnam">Greek and Latin Seminary</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann &amp; Klotze.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Here my <i>Collegien-Buch</i> breaks off, the fact being
+that I was preparing to go to Berlin to hear
+the lectures of Bopp and Schelling.</p>
+
+<p>It will be clear from the above list that I certainly
+attempted too much. I ought either to have devoted
+all my time to classical studies exclusively, or
+carried on my philosophical studies more systematically.
+I confess that, delighted as I was with Gottfried
+Hermann and Haupt as my guides and teachers
+in classics, I found little that could rouse my
+enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+always required a dose of that to make me work
+hard. Everything seemed to me to have been done,
+and there was no virgin soil left to the plough, no
+ruins on which to try one&#8217;s own spade. Hermann
+and Haupt gave me work to do, but it was all in
+the critical line&mdash;the genealogical relation of various
+MSS., or, again, the peculiarities of certain
+poets, long before I had fully grasped their general
+character. What Latin vowels could or could not
+form elision in Horace, Propertius, or Ovid, was a
+subject that cost me much labour, and yet left very
+small results as far as I was personally concerned.
+One clever conjecture, or one indication to show
+that one MS. was dependent on the other, was rewarded
+with a Doctissime or Excellentissime, but
+a paper on Aeschylus and his view of a divine
+government of the world received but a nodding
+approval.</p>
+
+<p>They certainly taught their pupils what accuracy
+meant; they gave us the new idea that MSS. are
+not everything, unless their real value has been discovered
+first by finding the place which they occupy
+in the pedigree of the MSS. of every author. They
+also taught us that there are mistakes in MSS. which
+are inevitable, and may safely be left to conjectural
+emendation; that MSS. of modern date may be and
+often are more valuable than more ancient MSS.,
+for the simple reason that they were copied from
+a still more ancient MS., and that often a badly
+written and hardly legible MS. proves more helpful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+than others written by a calligraphist, because it is
+the work of a scholar who copied for himself and
+not for the market. All these things we learnt and
+learnt by practical experience under Hermann and
+Haupt, but what we failed to acquire was a large
+knowledge of Greek and Latin literature, of the
+character of each author and of the spirit which
+pervaded their works. I ought to have read in
+Latin, Cicero, Tacitus, and Lucretius; in Greek,
+Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle; but
+as I read only portions of them, my knowledge of
+the men themselves and their objects in life remained
+very fragmentary. For instance, my real
+acquaintance with Plato and Aristotle was confined
+to a few dialogues of the former and some of the
+logical works of the latter. The rest I learnt from
+such works as Ritter and Preller&#8217;s <i>Historia Philosophiae
+Graecae et Romanae ex fontium locis contexta</i>,
+and from the very useful lectures of Niedner
+on the history of ancient philosophy. However, I
+thought I had to do what my professors told me,
+and shaped my reading so that they should approve
+of my work.</p>
+
+<p>This must not be understood as in any way disparaging
+my teachers. Such an idea never entered
+my head at the time. People have no idea in England
+what kind of worship is paid by German students
+to their professors. To find fault with
+them or to doubt their <i>ipse dixit</i> never entered our
+minds. What they said of other classical scholars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+from whom they differed, as Hermann did from
+Otfried M&uuml;ller, or Haupt from Orelli, was gospel,
+and remained engraved on our memory for a long
+time. Once when attending Hermann&#8217;s lectures,
+another student who was sitting at the same table
+with me made disrespectful remarks about old Hermann.
+I asked him to be quiet, and when he went
+on with his foolish remarks, I could only stop him
+by calling him out. As soon as the challenge was
+accepted he had of course to be quiet, and a few
+days after we fought our duel without much damage
+to either of us. I only mention this because it
+shows what respect and admiration we felt for our
+professor, also because it exemplifies the usefulness
+of duelling in a German university, where after a
+challenge not another word can be said or violence
+be threatened even by the rudest undergraduate. A
+duel for a Greek conjecture may seem very absurd,
+but in duels of this kind all that is wanted is really
+a certain knowledge of fencing, care being taken
+that nothing serious shall happen. And yet, though
+that is so, the feeling of a possible danger is there,
+and keeps up a certain etiquette and a certain proper
+behaviour among men taken from all strata of society.
+Nor can I quite deny that when I went in
+the morning to a beautiful wood in the neighbourhood
+of Leipzig, certain misgivings were difficult
+to suppress. I saw myself severely wounded, possibly
+killed, by my antagonist, and carried to a house
+where my mother and sister were looking for me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+This went off when I met the large assembly of
+students, beautifully attired in their club uniforms,
+the beer barrels pushed up on one side, the surgeon
+and his instruments waiting on the other. There
+were ever so many, thirty or forty couples I think,
+waiting to fight their duels that morning. Some
+fenced extremely well, and it was a pleasure to look
+on; and when one&#8217;s own turn came, all one thought
+of was how to stand one&#8217;s ground boldly, and how
+to fence well. Some of the combatants came on
+horseback or in carriages, and there was a small
+river close by to enable us to escape if the police
+should have heard of our meeting. For popular as
+these duels are, they are forbidden and punished,
+and the severest punishment seemed always to be
+the loss of our uniforms, our arms, our flags, and
+our barrels of beer. However, we escaped all interference
+this time, and enjoyed our breakfast in the
+forest thoroughly, nothing happening to disturb the
+hilarity of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Not being satisfied with what seemed to me a
+mere chewing of the cud in Greek and Latin, I
+betook myself to systematic philosophy, and even
+during the first terms read more of that than of
+Plato and Aristotle. I belonged to the philosophical
+societies of Weisse, of Drobisch, and of Lotze,
+a membership in each of which societies entailed a
+considerable amount of reading and writing.</p>
+
+<p>At Leipzig, Professor Drobisch represented the
+school of Herbart, which prided itself on its clearness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+and logical accuracy, but was naturally less attractive
+to the young spirits at the University who
+had heard of Hegel&#8217;s Idea and looked to the dialectic
+process as the solution of all difficulties. I
+wished to know what it all meant, for I was not
+satisfied with mere words. There is hardly a word
+that has so many meanings as Idea, and I doubt
+whether any of the raw recruits, just escaped from
+school, and unacquainted with the history of philosophy,
+could have had any idea of what Hegel&#8217;s
+Idea was meant for. Yet they talked about it very
+eloquently and very positively over their glasses of
+beer; and anybody who came from Berlin and could
+speak mysteriously or rapturously about the Idea
+and its evolution by the dialectic process, was listened
+to with silent wonder by the young Saxons,
+who had been brought up on Kant and Krug. The
+Hegelian fever was still very high at that time. It
+is true Hegel himself was dead (1831), and though
+he was supposed to have declared on his deathbed
+that he left only one true disciple, and that that
+disciple had misunderstood him, to be a Hegelian
+was considered a <i>sine qua non</i>, not only among
+philosophers, but quite as much among theologians,
+men of science, lawyers, artists, in fact, in every
+branch of human knowledge, at least in Prussia.
+If Christianity in its Protestant form was the
+state-religion of the kingdom, Hegelianism was its
+state-philosophy. Beginning with the Minister of
+Instruction down to the village schoolmaster, everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+claimed to be a Hegelian, and this was supposed
+to be the best road to advancement. Though
+Altenstein, who was then at the head of the Ministry
+of Instruction, began to waver in his allegiance
+to Hegel, even he could not resist the rush of public
+and of official opinion. It was he who, when a
+new professor of philosophy was recommended to
+him either by Hegel himself or by some of his followers,
+is reported to have said: &#8220;Gentlemen, I
+have read some of the young man&#8217;s books, and I
+cannot understand a word of them. However, you
+are the best judges, 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 possible,
+and dismissed him with the words: &#8216;Enfin, si je peux
+y entrer, je ne les prendrai pas.&#8217; This seems to me
+very much what you say of your young philosopher.
+If I can understand his books, I am not to take
+him.&#8221; This Hegelian fever was very much like what
+we have passed through ourselves at the time of the
+Darwinian fever; Darwin&#8217;s natural evolution was
+looked upon very much like Hegel&#8217;s dialectic process,
+as the general solvent of all difficulties. The
+most egregious nonsense was passed under that
+name, as it was under the name of evolution. Hegel
+knew very well what he meant, so did Darwin. But
+the empty enthusiasm of his followers became so
+wild that Darwin himself, the most humble of all
+men, became quite ashamed of it. The master, of
+course, was not responsible for the folly of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+so-called disciples, but the result was inevitable.
+After the bow had been stretched to the utmost, a
+reaction followed, and in the case of Hegelianism,
+a complete collapse. Even at Berlin the popularity
+of Hegelianism came suddenly to an end, and after
+a time no truly scientific man liked to be called a
+Hegelian. These sudden collapses in Germany are
+very instructive. As long as a German professor
+is at the head of affairs and can do something for
+his pupils, his pupils are very loud in their encomiums,
+both in public and in private. They not only
+exalt him, but help to belittle all who differ from
+him. So it was with Hegel, so it was at a later time
+with Bopp, and Curtius, and other professors, particularly
+if they had the ear of the Minister of Education.
+But soon after the death of these men, particularly
+if another influential star was rising, the
+change of tone was most sudden and most surprising;
+even the sale of their books dwindled down,
+and they were referred to only as landmarks, showing
+the rapid advance made by living celebrities.
+Perhaps all this cannot be helped, as long as human
+nature is what it is, but it is nevertheless painful
+to observe.</p>
+
+<p>I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted
+with Hegelianism through Professor Christian
+Weisse at Leipzig, who, though he was considered
+a Hegelian, was a very sober Hegelian, a critic quite
+as much as an admirer of Hegel. He had a very
+small audience, because his manner of lecturing was
+certainly most trying and tantalizing. But by being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+brought into personal contact with him one was
+able to get help from him wherever he could give
+it. Though Weisse was convinced of the truth of
+Hegel&#8217;s Dialectic Method, he often differed from
+him in its application. This Dialectic Method consisted
+in showing how thought is constantly and irresistibly
+driven from an affirmative to a negative
+position, then reconciles the two opposites, and from
+that point starts afresh, repeating once more the
+same process. Pure being, for instance, from which
+Hegel&#8217;s ideal evolution starts, was shown to be the
+same as empty being, that is to say, nothing, and
+both were presented as identical, and in their identity
+giving us the new concept of Becoming (<i>Werden</i>),
+which is being and not-being at the same
+time. All this may appear to the lay reader rather
+obscure, but could not well be passed over.</p>
+
+<p>So far Weisse followed the great thinker, and
+I possess still, in his own writing, the picture of a
+ladder on which the intellect is represented as climbing
+higher and higher from the lowest concept to
+the highest&mdash;a kind of Jacob&#8217;s ladder on which the
+categories, like angels of God, ascend and descend
+from heaven to earth. We must remember that the
+true Hegelian regarded the Ideas as the thoughts
+of God. Hegel looked upon this evolution of
+thought as at the same time the evolution of Being,
+the Idea being the only thing that could be said to
+be truly real. In order to understand this, we must
+remember that the historical key to Hegel&#8217;s Idea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+was really the Neo-Platonic or Alexandrian Logos.
+But of this Logos we ignorant undergraduates, sitting
+at the feet of Prof. Weisse, knew absolutely
+nothing, and even if the Idea was sometimes placed
+before us as the Absolute, the Infinite, or the Divine,
+it was to us, at least to most of us, myself included,
+<i>vox et praeterea nihil</i>. We watched the wonderful
+evolutions and convolutions of the Idea in its Dialectic
+development, but of the Idea itself or himself
+we had no idea whatever. It was all darkness, a vast
+abyss, and we sat patiently and wrote down what
+we could catch and comprehend of the Professor&#8217;s
+explanations, but the Idea itself we never could lay
+hold of. It would not have been so difficult if the
+Professor had spoken out more boldly. But whenever
+he came to the relation of the Idea to what we
+mean by God, there was always even with him, who
+was a very honest man, a certain theological hesitation.
+Hegel himself seems to shrink occasionally
+from the consequence that the Idea really stands in
+the place of God, and that it is in the self-conscious
+spirit of humanity that the ideal God becomes first
+conscious of himself. Still, that is the last word of
+Hegel&#8217;s philosophy, though others maintain that
+the Idea with Hegel was the thought of God, and
+that human thought was but a repetition of that
+divine thought. With Hegel there is first the evolution
+of the Idea in the pure ether of logic from
+the simplest to the highest category. Then follows
+Hegel&#8217;s Philosophy of Nature, that is, the evolution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+of the Idea in nature, the Idea having by the
+usual dialectic process negatived itself and entered
+into its opposite (<i>Anderssein</i>), passing through a
+new process of space and time, and ending in the
+self-conscious human soul. Thus nature and spirit
+were represented as dominated by the Idea in its
+logical development. Nature was one manifestation
+of the Idea, History the other, and it became the
+task of the philosopher to discover its traces both in
+the progress of nature and in the historical progress
+of thought.</p>
+
+<p>And here it was where the strongest protests began
+to be heard. Physical Science revolted, and Historical
+Research soon joined the rebellion. Professor
+Weisse also, in spite of his great admiration for
+Hegel, protested in his Lectures against this idealization
+of history, and showed how often Hegel, if he
+could not find the traces he was looking for in the
+historical development of the Idea, was misled by
+his imperfect knowledge of facts, and discovered
+what was not there, but what he felt convinced
+ought to have been there. Nowhere has this become
+so evident as in Hegel&#8217;s <i>Philosophy of Religion</i>.
+The conception was grand of seeing in the
+historical development of religion a repetition of
+the Dialectic Progress of the Idea. But facts are
+stubborn things, and do not yield even to the supreme
+command of the Idea. Besides, if the historical
+facts of religion were really such as the Dialectic
+Process of the Idea required, these facts are no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+longer what they were before 1831, and what would
+become then of the Idea which, as he wrote in his
+preface to his <i>Metaphysics</i>, could not possibly be
+changed to please the new facts? It was this part
+of Weisse&#8217;s lectures, it was the protest of the historical
+conscience against the demands of the Idea, that
+interested me most. I see as clearly the formal
+truth as the material untruth of Hegel&#8217;s philosophy.
+The thorough excellence of its method and the desperate
+baldness of its results, strike me with equal
+force. Though I did not yet know what kind of
+thing or person the Idea was really meant for, I
+knew myself enough of ancient Greek philosophy
+and of Oriental religions to venture to criticize
+Hegel&#8217;s representation and disposition of the facts
+themselves. I could not accept the answer of my
+more determined Hegelian friends, <i>Tant pis pour
+les faits</i>, but felt more and more the old antagonism
+between what ought to be and what is, between
+the reasonableness of the Idea, and the unreasonableness
+of facts. I found a strong supporter in
+a young Privat-Docent who at that time began his
+brilliant career at Leipzig, Dr. Lotze. He had made
+a special study of mathematics and physical science,
+and felt the same disagreement between facts and
+theories in Hegel&#8217;s <i>Philosophy of Nature</i> which
+had struck me so much in reading his <i>Philosophy of
+Religion</i>. I joined his philosophical society, and I
+lately found among my old papers several essays
+which I had written for our meetings. They amused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+me very much, but I should be sorry to see them
+published now. It is curious that after many
+years I, as a Delegate of the University Press
+at Oxford, was instrumental in getting the first
+English translation of Lotze&#8217;s <i>Metaphysics</i> published
+in England; and it is still more curious that
+Mark Pattison, the late Rector of Lincoln, should
+have opposed it with might and main as a useless
+book which would never pay its expenses. I stood
+up for my old teacher, and I am glad to say to the
+honour of English philosophers, that the translation
+passed through several editions, and helped not
+a little to establish Lotze&#8217;s position in England and
+America. He died in 1881.</p>
+
+<p>It is extraordinary how the young minds in German
+universities survive the storms and fogs
+through which they have to pass in their academic
+career. I confess I myself felt quite bewildered for
+a time, and began to despair altogether of my reasoning
+powers. Why should I not be able to understand,
+I asked myself, what other people seemed
+to understand without any effort? We speak the
+same language, why should we not be able to think
+the same thought? I took refuge for a time in history&mdash;the
+history of language, of religion, and of
+philosophy. There was a very learned professor at
+Leipzig, Dr. Niedner, who lectured on the History
+of Greek Philosophy, and whose <i>Manual for the
+History of Philosophy</i> has been of use to me
+through the whole of my life. Socrates said of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+Heraclitus: &#8220;What I have understood of his book
+is excellent, and I suppose therefore that even what
+I have not understood is so too; but one must be a
+Delian swimmer not to be drowned in it.&#8221; I tried
+for a long time to follow this advice with regard
+to Hegel and Weisse, and though disheartened did
+not despair. I understood some of it, why should
+not the rest follow in time? Thus, I never gave up
+the study of philosophy at Leipzig and afterwards
+at Berlin, and my first contributions to philosophical
+journals date from that early time, when I was a
+student in the University of Leipzig. My very earliest,
+though very unsuccessful, struggles to find an
+entrance into the mysteries of philosophy date even
+from my school-days.</p>
+
+<p>I remember some years before, when I was quite
+young, perhaps no more than fifteen years of age,
+listening with bated breath to some professors at
+Leipzig who were talking very excitedly about philosophy
+in my presence. I had no idea what was
+meant by philosophy, still less could I follow when
+they began to discuss Kant&#8217;s <i>Kritik der reinen Vernunft</i>.
+One of my friends, whom I looked up to as
+a great authority, confessed that he had read the
+book again and again, but could not understand the
+whole of it. My curiosity was much excited, and
+once, while he was taking a walk with me, I asked
+him very timidly what Kant&#8217;s book was about, and
+how a man could write a book that other men could
+not understand. He tried to explain what Kant&#8217;s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+book was about, but it was all perfect darkness before
+my eyes; I was trying to lay hold of a word
+here and there, but it all floated before my mind like
+mist, without a single ray of light, without any
+way out of all that maze of words. But when at last
+he said he would lend me the book, I fell on it and
+pored over it hour after hour. The result was the
+same. My little brain could not take in the simplest
+ideas of the first chapters&mdash;that space and time were
+nothing by themselves; that we ourselves gave the
+form of space and time to what was given us by the
+senses. But though defeated I would not give in;
+I tried again and again, but of course it was all in
+vain. The words were here and I could construe
+them, but there was nothing in my mind which the
+words could have laid hold on. It was like rain
+on hard soil, it all ran off, or remained standing in
+puddles and muddles on my poor brain.</p>
+
+<p>At last I gave it up in despair, but I had fully
+made up my mind that as soon as I went to the
+University I would find out what philosophy really
+was, and what Kant meant by saying that space and
+time were forms of our sensuous intuition. I see
+that, accordingly, in the summer of 1841, I attended
+lectures on Aesthetics by Professor Weisse, on
+Anthropology by Lotze, and on Psychology by Professor
+Heinroth, and I slowly learnt to distinguish
+between what was going on within me, and what I
+had been led to imagine existed outside me, or at
+least quite independent of me. But before I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+got a firm grasp of Kant, of his forms of intuition,
+and the categories of the understanding, I was
+thrown into Hegelianism. This, too, was at first
+entire darkness, but I was not disheartened. I attended
+Professor Weisse&#8217;s lectures on Hegel in the
+winter of 1841-2, and again in the winter of
+1842-3 I attended his lectures on Logic and Metaphysics,
+and on the Philosophy of History. He took
+an interest in me, and I felt most strongly attracted
+by him. Soon after I joined his Philosophical Society,
+and likewise that of Professor Drobisch. In
+these societies every member, when his turn came,
+had to write an essay and defend it against the professor
+and the other members of the society. All this
+was very helpful, but it was not till I had heard a
+course of lectures on the History of Philosophy, by
+Professor Niedner, that my interest in Philosophy
+became strong and healthy. While Weisse was a
+leading Hegelian philosopher, and Drobisch represented
+the opposite philosophy of Herbart, Niedner
+was purely historical, and this appealed most to my
+taste. Still, my philosophical studies remained very
+disjointed. At last I was admitted to Lotze&#8217;s Philosophical
+Society also, and here we chiefly read and
+discussed Kant&#8217;s <i>Kritik</i>. Lotze was then quite a
+young man, undecided as yet himself between
+physical science and pure philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>Weisse was certainly the most stirring lecturer,
+but his delivery was fearful. He did not read his
+lectures, as many professors did, but would deliver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+them <i>extempore</i>. He had no command of language,
+and there was a pause after almost every sentence.
+He was really thinking out the problem while he
+was lecturing; he was constantly repeating his sentences,
+and any new thought that crossed his mind
+would carry him miles away from his subject. It
+happened sometimes in these rhapsodies that he contradicted
+himself, but when I walked home with
+him after his lecture to a village near Leipzig
+where he lived, he would readily explain how it
+happened, how he meant something quite different
+from what he had said, or what I had understood.
+In fact he would give the whole lecture over again,
+only much more freely and more intelligibly. I
+was fully convinced at that time that Hegel&#8217;s philosophy
+was the final solution of all problems; I
+only hesitated about his philosophy of history as applied
+to the history of religion. I could not bring
+myself to admit that the history of religion, nor
+even the history of philosophy as we know it from
+Thales to Kant, was really running side by side
+with his Logic, showing how the leading concepts
+of the human mind, as elaborated in the Logic, had
+found successive expression in the history and development
+of the schools of philosophy as known
+to us. Weisse was strong both in his analysis of
+concepts and in his knowledge of history, and
+though he taught Hegel as a faithful interpreter,
+he always warned us against trusting too much in
+the parallelism between Logic and History. Study<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+the writings of the good philosophers, he would
+say, and then see whether they will or will not fit
+into the Procrustean bed of Hegel&#8217;s Logic. And
+this was the best lesson he could have given to
+young men. How well founded and necessary the
+warning was I found out myself, the more I studied
+the religion and philosophies of the East, and then
+compared what I saw in the original documents with
+the account given by Hegel in his <i>Philosophy of
+Religion</i>. It is quite true that Hegel at the time
+when he wrote, could not have gained a direct or
+accurate knowledge of the principal religions of the
+East. But what I could not help seeing was that
+what Hegel represented as the necessity in the
+growth of religious thought, was far away from the
+real growth, as I had watched it in some of the
+sacred books of these religions. This shook my
+belief in the correctness of Hegel&#8217;s fundamental
+principles more than anything else.</p>
+
+<p>At that time Herbart&#8217;s philosophy, as taught by
+Drobisch at Leipzig, came to me as a most useful
+antidote. The chief object of that philosophy is,
+as is well known, the analysing and clearing, so to
+speak, of our concepts. This was exactly what I
+wanted, only that occupied as I was with the problems
+of language, I at once translated the object of
+his philosophy into a definition of words. Henceforth
+the object of my own philosophical occupations
+was the accurate definition of every word.
+All words, such as reason, pure reason, mind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+thought, were carefully taken to pieces and traced
+back, if possible, to their first birth, and then
+through their further developments. My interest
+in this analytical process soon took an historical,
+that is etymological, character in so far as I tried
+to find out why any words should now mean exactly
+what, according to our definition, they ought
+to mean. For instance, in examining such words
+as <i>Vernunft</i> or <i>Verstand</i>, a little historical retrospect
+showed that their distinction as reason and
+understanding was quite modern, and chiefly due to
+a scientific definition given and maintained by the
+Kantian school of philosophy. Of course every
+generation has a right to define its philosophical
+terms, but from an historical point of view Kant
+might have used with equal right <i>Vernunft</i> for
+<i>Verstand</i>, and <i>Verstand</i> for <i>Vernunft</i>. Etymologically
+or historically both words have much the
+same meaning. <i>Vernunft</i>, from <i>Vernehmen</i>, meant
+originally no more than perception, while <i>Verstand</i>
+meant likewise perception, but soon came to imply
+a kind of understanding, even a kind of technical
+knowledge, though from a purely etymological
+standpoint it had nothing that fitted it more for
+carrying the meaning, which is now assigned to it
+in German in distinction to <i>Vernunft</i>, than understanding
+had as distinguished from reason. It
+requires, of course, a very minute historical research
+to trace the steps by which such words as
+reason and understanding diverge in different directions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+in the language of the people and in philosophical
+parlance. This teaches us a very important
+distinction, namely that between the popular
+development of the meaning of a word, and its
+meaning as defined and asserted by a philosopher
+or by a poet in the plenitude of his power. Etymological
+definition is very useful for the first stages
+in the history of a word. It is useful to know, for
+instance, that <i>deus</i>, God, meant originally bright,
+bright whether applied to sky, sun, moon, stars,
+dawn, morning, dayspring, spring of the year, and
+many other bright objects in nature, that it thus
+assumed a meaning common to them all, splendid,
+or heavenly, beneficent, powerful, so that when in
+the Veda already we find a number of heavenly
+bodies, or of terrestrial bodies, or even of periods of
+time called Devas, this word has assumed a more
+general, more comprehensive, and more exalted
+meaning. It did not yet mean what the Greeks
+called &#952;&#949;&#959;&#7985; or gods, but it meant something common
+to all these &#952;&#949;&#959;&#7985;, and thus could naturally rise
+to express what the Greeks wanted to express by
+that word. There was as yet no necessity for defining
+deva or &#952;&#949;&#8001;&#962;, when applied to what was
+meant by gods, but of course the most opposite
+meanings had clustered round it. While a philosophical
+Greek would maintain that &#952;&#949;&#8001;&#962; meant
+what was one and never many, a poetical Greek or
+an ordinary Greek would hold that it meant what
+was by nature many. But while in such a case<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+philosophical analysis and historical genealogy
+would support each other, there are ever so many
+cases where etymological analysis is as hopeless as
+logical analysis. Who is to define <i>romantic</i>, in
+such expressions as romantic literature. Etymologically
+we know that romantic goes back finally
+to Rome, but the mass of incongruous meanings
+that have been thrown at random into the caldron
+of that word, is so great that no definition could
+be contrived to comprehend them all. And how
+should we define <i>Gothic</i> or <i>Romanic</i> architecture,
+remembering that as no Goths had anything to do
+with pointed arches, neither were any Romans responsible
+for the flat roofs of the German churches
+of the Saxon emperors.</p>
+
+<p>Enough to show what I meant when I said that
+Professor Drobisch, in his Lectures on Herbart,
+gave one great encouragement in the special work
+in which I was already engaged as a mere student,
+the Science of Language and Etymology. If Herbart
+declared philosophy to consist in a thorough
+examination (<i>Bearbeitung</i>) of concepts, or conceptual
+knowledge, my answer was, Only let it be
+historical, nay, in the beginning, etymological; I
+was not so foolish as to imagine that a word as used
+at present, meant what it meant etymologically.
+<i>Deus</i> no longer meant brilliant, but it should be
+the object of the true historian of language to prove
+how <i>Deus</i>, having meant originally brilliant, came
+to mean what it means now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher,
+and that sounded so grand that the idea of preparing
+for a mere schoolmaster, teaching Greek and
+Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a
+sphere. Soon, however, while dreaming of a chair
+of philosophy at a German University, I began to
+feel that I must know something special, something
+that no other philosopher knew, and that induced
+me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. I had
+only heard what we call in German the chiming,
+not the striking of the bells of Indian philosophy;
+I had read Frederick Schlegel&#8217;s explanatory book
+<i>&Uuml;ber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier</i> (1808),
+and looked into Windischmann&#8217;s <i>Die Philosophie
+im Fortgange der Weltgeschichte</i> (1827-1834).
+These books are hardly opened now&mdash;they are antiquated,
+and more than antiquated; they are full of
+mistakes as to facts, and mistakes as to the conclusions
+drawn from them. But they had ushered new
+ideas into the world of thought, and they left on
+many, as they did on me, that feeling which the digger
+who prospects for minerals is said to have, that
+there must be gold beneath the surface, if people
+would only dig. That feeling was very vague as
+yet, and might have been entirely deceptive, nor did
+I see my way to go beyond the point reached by
+these two dreamers or explorers. The thought remained
+in the rubbish-chamber of my mind, and
+though forgotten at the time, broke forth again
+when there was an opportunity. It was a fortunate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+coincidence that at that very time, in the winter of
+1841, a new professorship was founded at Leipzig
+and given to Professor Brockhaus. Uncertain as
+I was about the course I had to follow in my studies,
+I determined to see what there was to be learnt in
+Sanskrit. There was a charm in the unknown, and,
+I must confess, a charm also in studying something
+which my friends and fellow students did not know.
+I called on Professor Brockhaus, and found that
+there were only two other students to attend his
+lectures, one Spiegel, who already knew the elements
+of Sanskrit, and who is still alive in Erlangen,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>
+as a famous professor of Sanskrit and Zend,
+though no longer lecturing, and another, Klengel;
+both several years my seniors, but both extremely
+amiable to their younger fellow student. Klengel
+was a scholar, a philosopher, and a musician, and
+though after a term or two he had to give up his study
+of Sanskrit, he was very useful to me by his good advice.
+He encouraged me and praised me for my
+progress in Sanskrit, which was no doubt more rapid
+than his own, and he confirmed me in my conviction
+that something might be made of Sanskrit by the
+philologist and by the philosopher. It should not
+be forgotten that at that time there was a strong
+prejudice against Sanskrit among classical scholars.
+The number of men who stood up for it, though it
+included names such as W. von Humboldt, F. and
+A.&nbsp;W. von Schlegel, was still very small. Even
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>Herder&#8217;s and Goethe&#8217;s prophetic words produced
+little effect. It is said that when the Government
+had been persuaded, chiefly by the two Humboldts,
+to found a chair of Sanskrit at the University of
+W&uuml;rzburg, and had nominated Bopp as its first
+occupant, the philological faculty of the University
+protested against such a desecration, and the appointment
+fell through. It is true, no doubt, that
+in their first enthusiasm the students of Sanskrit had
+uttered many exaggerated opinions. Sanskrit was
+represented as the mother of all languages, instead
+of being the elder sister of the Aryan family. The
+beginning of all language, of all thought, of all religion
+was traced back to India, and when Greek
+scholars were told that Zeus existed in the Veda
+under the name of Dyaus, there was a great flutter
+in the dovecots of classical scholarship. Many of
+these enthusiastic utterances had afterwards to be
+toned down. How we did enjoy those enthusiastic
+days, which even in their exaggerated hopes were
+not without some use. Problems such as the beginning
+of language, of thought, of mythology and
+religion, were started with youthful hope that the
+Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis
+had been present at the first outburst of roots, of
+concepts, nay, that like Pelops and other descendants
+of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed daily
+intercourse with the gods, and had been present at
+the mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of
+Kronos. We may be ashamed to-day of some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+the dreams of the early spring of man&#8217;s sojourn on
+earth, but they were enchanting dreams, and all
+our thoughts of man&#8217;s nature and destiny on earth
+were tinged with the colours of a morning that
+threw light over the grey darkness which preceded
+it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally
+the bright sky, something actually seen, but
+something that had to become something unseen.
+All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by
+mankind at large, must have begun with what the
+senses can perceive, before it could rise to signify
+something unperceived by the senses. Only after
+the blue aether had been perceived and named, was
+it possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active,
+as an agent, as a god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus
+be called the most sublime, he who resides in the
+aether, &#945;&#7984;&#952;&#7953;&#961;&#953; &#957;&#945;&#7985;&#969;&#957; &#8017;&#968;&#7985;&#950;&#965;&#947;&#959;&#962;, the heavenly one, or
+&#959;&#8016;&#961;&#7937;&#957;&#953;&#959;&#962; &#8021;&#960;&#945;&#964;&#959;&#962; and &#8021;&#968;&#953;&#963;&#964;&#959;&#962;, the highest, and at
+last <i>Iupiter Optimus Maximus</i>, a name applied
+even to the true God. When Zeus had once become
+like the sky, all seeing or omniscient (&#7952;&#960;&#8001;&#968;&#953;&#959;&#962;),
+would he not naturally be supposed to see, not only
+the good, but the evil deeds of men also, nay, their
+very thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if
+so, would he not be the avenger of evil, the watcher
+of oaths (&#8005;&#961;&#954;&#953;&#959;&#962;), the protector of the helpless
+(&#7985;&#954;&#7953;&#963;&#953;&#959;&#962;)? Yet, if conceived, as for a long time all
+the gods were conceived and could only be conceived,
+namely, as human in their shape, should we
+not necessarily get that strange amalgamation of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+human being doing superhuman work&mdash;hurling the
+thunderbolt, shouting in thunder, hidden by dark
+clouds, and smiling in the serene blue of the sky
+with its brilliant scintillations? All this and much
+more became perfectly intelligible, the step from
+the visible to the invisible, from the perceived to
+the conceived, from nature to nature&#8217;s gods, and
+from nature&#8217;s god to a more sublime unseen and
+spiritual power. All this seemed to pass before our
+very eyes in the Veda, and then to be reflected in
+Homer and Pindar.</p>
+
+<p>Some details of this restored picture of the world
+of gods and men in early times, nay, in the very
+spring of time, may have to be altered, but the picture,
+the eidyllion remained, and nothing could curb
+the adventurous spirit and keep it from pushing forward
+and trying to do what seemed to others almost
+impossible, namely, to watch the growth of the human
+mind as reflected in the petrifactions of language.
+Language itself spoke to us with a different
+voice, and a formerly unsuspected meaning.</p>
+
+<p>We knew, for instance, that <i>ewig</i> meant eternal,
+but whence eternal. Nothing eternal was ever seen,
+and it seemed to the philosopher that eternal could
+be expressed by a negation only, by a negation of
+what was temporary. But we now learnt that <i>ewig</i>
+was derived in word and therefore in thought from
+the Gothic <i>aiwar</i>, time. <i>Ewigkeit</i> was therefore
+originally time, and &#8220;for all time&#8221; came naturally
+to mean &#8220;for all eternity.&#8221; Eternity also came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+from <i>aeternus</i>, that is <i>aeviternus</i>, for time, i.&nbsp;e. for
+all time, and thus for eternity, while <i>aevum</i> meant
+life, lifetime, age. But now came the question, if
+<i>aevum</i> shows the growth of this word, and its origin,
+and how it arrives in the end at the very opposite
+pole, life and time coming to mean eternity, could
+we not by the same process discover the origin and
+growth of such short Greek words as &#7936;&#949;&#7985; and a&#7984;e&#7985;?
+It seems almost impossible, yet remembering that
+<i>aevum</i> meant originally life, we find in Vedic Sanskrit
+<i>eva</i>, course, way, life, the same as <i>aevum</i>,
+while the Sanskrit <i>&acirc;yush</i>, likewise derived from <i>i</i>,
+to go, forms its locative <i>&acirc;yushi</i>. <i>&Acirc;yushi</i>, or originally
+<i>&acirc;yasi</i>, would mean &#8220;in life, in time,&#8221; and
+turned into Greek would regularly become then
+a&#7984;e&#7985;, lifelong, or ever. It was not difficult to find
+fault with this and other etymologies, and to ask for
+an explanation of &#945;&#7984;&#7953;&#957; and &#945;&#7984;&#7953;&#962;, as derived from
+the same word <i>&acirc;yus</i>. It is curious that people will
+not see that etymologies, and particularly the
+gradual development in the form and meaning of
+words, can hardly ever be a matter of mathematical
+certainty.</p>
+
+<p>Historical, nay, even individual, influences come
+in which prevent the science of language from becoming
+purely mechanical. Pott, and Curtius, and
+others stood up against Bopp and Grimm, maintaining
+that there could be nothing irregular in language,
+particularly in phonetic changes. If this
+means no more than that under the same circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+the same changes will always take place, it
+would be of course a mere truism. The question
+is only whether we can ever know all the circumstances,
+and whether there are not some of these
+circumstances which cause what we are apt to call
+irregularities. When Bopp said that Sanskrit <i>d</i> corresponds
+to a Greek &#948;, but often also to a Greek &#952;,
+I doubt whether this is often the case. All I say is,
+if <i>deva</i> corresponds to &#952;&#949;&#8001;&#962;, we must try to find the
+reason or the circumstances which caused so unusual
+a correspondence. If no more is meant than
+that there must be a reason for all that seems irregular,
+no one would gainsay that, neither Bopp
+nor Grimm, and no one ever doubted that as a principle.
+But to establish these reasons is the very
+difficulty with which the Science of Language has
+to deal.</p>
+
+<p>There is no word that has not an etymology, only
+if we consider the distance of time that separates us
+from the historical facts we are trying to account
+for, we should sometimes be satisfied with probabilities
+and not always stipulate for absolute certainty.
+Many of Bopp&#8217;s, Grimm&#8217;s, and Pott&#8217;s etymologies
+have had to be surrendered, and yet our
+suzerainty over that distant country which they
+conquered, over the Aryan home, remains. If
+there is an etymology containing something irregular,
+and for which no reason has as yet been found,
+we must wait till some better etymology can be suggested,
+or a reason be found for that apparent irregularity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+If the etymological meaning of <i>duhitar</i>,
+daughter, as milkmaid, is doubted, let us have a
+better explanation, not a worse; but the general
+picture of the early family among the Aryans
+&#8220;somewhere in Asia&#8221; is not thereby destroyed.
+The father, Sk. <i>pitar</i>, remains the protector or
+nourisher, though the <i>i</i> for <i>a</i> in <i>pater</i> and &#960;&#945;&#964;&#7969;&#961;
+is irregular. The mother, <i>m&acirc;tar</i>, remains the
+bearer of children, though <i>m&acirc;</i> is no longer used in
+that sense in any of the Aryan languages. <i>Pati</i>
+is the lord, the strong one&mdash;therefore the husband;
+<i>vadh&ucirc;</i>, the yoke-fellow, or the wife as brought
+home, possibly as carried off by force. <i>Vis</i> or <i>vesa</i>
+is the home, &#959;&#7984;&#954;&#959;&#962; or <i>vicus</i>, what was entered for
+shelter. <i>Svasura</i>, &#7953;&#954;&#965;&#961;&#8001;&#962;, <i>Socer</i>, the father-in-law,
+is the old man of the <i>svas</i>, the <i>famuli</i>, or the family,
+or the clients, though the first <i>s</i> is irregular, and
+can be defended only on the ground of mistaken
+analogy. <i>Bhr&acirc;tar</i>, <i>frater</i>, brother, was the supporter;
+<i>svastar</i>, <i>soror</i>, sister, the comforter, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>What do a few objections signify? The whole
+picture remains, as if we could look into the <i>vesa</i>,
+the &#959;&#7984;&#954;&#959;&#962; the <i>veih</i>, the home, the village of the
+ancient Aryans, and watch them, the <i>svas</i>, the
+people, in their mutual relations. Even compound
+words, such as <i>vis-pati</i>, lord of a family or a village,
+have been preserved to the present day in the Lithuanian
+<i>Veszpats</i>, lord, whether King or God. It
+is enough for us to see that the relationship between
+husband and wife, between parents and children,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+between brothers and sisters, nay, even between
+children-in-law and parents-in-law, had been
+recognized and sanctified by names. That there
+are, and always will be, doubts and slight differences
+of opinion on these prehistoric thoughts and words,
+is easily understood. We were pleased for a long
+time to see in <i>vidua</i>, widow, the Sanskrit <i>vidua</i>,
+i.&nbsp;e. without a man or a husband. We now derive
+<i>vi-dhav&acirc;</i>, widow, from <i>vidh</i>, to be separated, to
+be without (cf. <i>vido</i> in <i>divido</i>, and Sk. <i>vidh</i>), but
+the picture of the Aryan family remains much the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>When these and similar antiquities were for the
+first time brought to light by Bopp, Grimm, and
+Pott, what wonder that we young men should have
+jumped at them, and shouted with delight, more
+even than the diggers who dug up Babylonian
+palaces or Egyptian temples! No one did more for
+these antiquarian finds and restorations than A.
+Kuhn, a simple schoolmaster, but afterwards a most
+distinguished member of the Berlin Academy.
+How often did I sit with him in his study as he
+worked, surrounded by his Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit
+books. In later times also, when I had made
+some discoveries myself as to the mythological
+names or beings identical in Vedic and Greek writings,
+how pleasant was it to see him rub his hands
+or shake his head. Long before I had published my
+identifications they were submitted to him, and he
+communicated to me his own guesses as I communicated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+mine to him. Kuhn would never appropriate
+what belonged to anybody else, and even in cases
+where we agreed, he would always make it clear
+that we had both arrived independently at the same
+result.</p>
+
+<p>It is in the nature of things that every new generation
+of scholars should perfect their tools, and
+with these discover flaws in the work left by their
+predecessors. Still, what is the refined chiselling of
+later scholars compared with the rough-hewn stones
+of men like Bopp or Grimm? If the Cyclopean
+stones of the Pelasgians are not like the finished
+works of art by Phidias, what would the Parthenon
+be without the walls ascribed to the Cyclops? It
+is the same in all sciences, and we must try to be
+just, both to the genius of those who created, and
+to the diligence of those who polished and refined.</p>
+
+<p>For all this, however, I met with but small
+sympathy and encouragement at Leipzig; nay, I
+had to be very careful in uttering what were supposed
+to be heretical or unscholarlike opinions in
+the seminary of Gottfried Hermann, or in the Latin
+society of Haupt. The latter particularly, though
+he knew very well how much light had been spread
+on the growth of language by the researches of
+Bopp, Grimm, and Pott, and though Grimm was
+his intimate friend of whom he always spoke with
+real veneration, could not bear his own pupils dabbling
+in this subject. And of course at that time
+my knowledge of comparative philology was a mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+dabbling. If he could discover a false quantity in
+any etymology, great was his delight, and his sarcasm
+truly withering, particularly as it was poured
+out in very classical Latin. Gottfried Hermann
+was a different character. He saw there was a new
+light and he would not turn his back to it. He
+knew how lightly his antagonist, Otfried M&uuml;ller,
+valued Sanskrit in his mythological essays, and he
+set to work, and in one of his last academical programs
+actually gave the paradigms of Sanskrit verbs
+as compared with those of Greek. He saw that the
+coincidences between the two could not be casual,
+and if they were so overwhelming in the mere termination
+of verbs, what might we not expect in words
+and names, even in mythological names? He by no
+means discouraged me, nay, he was sorry to lose
+me, when in my third year I went to Berlin. He
+showed me great kindness on several occasions, and
+when the time came to take my degree of M.A. and
+Ph.D., he, as Dean of the Faculty, invited me to
+return to Leipzig, offering me an exhibition to cover
+the expenses of the Degree.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="Max20" id="Max20"></a><a href="images/illo156.jpg"><img src="images/illo156_th.jpg"
+alt="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 20" title="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 20" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><small>F. MAX M&Uuml;LLER</small><br />
+<i>Aged Twenty</i></p>
+
+<p>My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire
+to hear Bopp, but yet more from a desire to
+make the acquaintance of Schelling. My inclination
+towards philosophy had become stronger and
+stronger; I had my own ideas about the mythological
+as a necessary form of ancient philosophy, and
+when I saw that the old philosopher had advertised
+his lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+resist, and went to Berlin in 1844. I must say at
+once that Professor Bopp, though he was extremely
+kind to me, was at that time, if not old&mdash;he was only
+fifty-three&mdash;very infirm. In his lectures he simply
+read his <i>Comparative Grammar</i> with a magnifying
+glass, and added very little that was new. He lent
+me some manuscripts which he had copied in Latin
+in his younger days, but I could not get much help
+from him when I came to really difficult passages.
+This, I confess, puzzled me at the time, for I looked
+on every professor as omniscient. The time comes,
+however, when we learn that even at fifty-three a
+man may have forgotten certain things, nay, may
+have let many books and new discoveries even in
+his own subject pass by, because he has plenty to do
+with his own particular studies. We remember the
+old story of the professor who, when charged by a
+young and rather impertinent student with not
+knowing this or that, replied: &#8220;Sir, I have forgotten
+more than you ever knew.&#8221; And so it is
+indeed. Human nature and human memory are
+very strong during youth and manhood, but even at
+fifty there is with many people a certain decline of
+mental vigour that tells chiefly on the memory.
+Things are not exactly forgotten, but they do not
+turn up at the right time. They just leave a certain
+knowledge of where the missing information can
+be found; they leave also a kind of feeling that the
+ground is not quite safe and that we must no longer
+trust entirely to our memory. In one respect this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+feeling is very useful, for instead of writing down
+anything, trusting to our memory as we used to do,
+we feel it necessary to verify many things which
+formerly were perfectly clear and certain in our
+memory without such reference to books.</p>
+
+<p>I remember being struck with the same thing in
+the case of Professor Wilson, the well-known Oxford
+Professor of Sanskrit. He was kind enough to
+read with me, and I certainly was often puzzled,
+not only by what he knew, but also by what he had
+forgotten. I feel now that I misjudged him, and
+that his open declaration, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know, let us
+look it up,&#8221; really did him great honour. I still
+have in my possession a portion of P&acirc;nini&#8217;s Vedic
+grammar translated by him. I put by the side of it
+my own translation, and he openly acknowledged
+that mine, with the passages taken from the Veda,
+was right. There was no humbug about Wilson.
+He never posed as a scholar; nay, I remember his
+saying to me more than once, &#8220;You see, I am not a
+scholar, I am a gentleman who likes Sanskrit, and
+that is all.&#8221; He certainly did like Sanskrit, and he
+knew it better than many a professor, but in his own
+way. He had enjoyed the assistance of really
+learned Pandits, and he never forgot to record their
+services. But he had himself cleared the ground&mdash;he
+had really done original work. In fact, he had
+done nothing but original work, and then he was
+abused for not having always found at the first trial
+what others discovered when standing on his shoulders.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+Again, he was found fault with for not having
+had a classical education. His education was,
+I believe, medical, but when once in the Indian
+Civil Service, he made himself useful in many ways,
+educational and otherwise. When he left India he
+was Master of the Mint. Such a man might not
+know Greek and Latin like F.&nbsp;A. von Schlegel, or
+any other professor, but he knew his own subject,
+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
+Sanskrit. Such a feeling is natural among small
+schoolmasters, but it is dying out at last among real
+scholars. I have known very good Sanskrit scholars
+who knew no Greek at all, and very little Latin.
+And I have also known Greek scholars who knew
+no Sanskrit and yet attempted comparisons between
+the two. When Lepsius was made a Member of
+the Berlin Academy, Lachmann, who ought to have
+known better, used to say of him: &#8220;He knows
+many things which nobody knows, but he also is
+ignorant of many things which everybody knows.&#8221;
+Such remarks never speak well for the man who
+makes them.</p>
+
+<p>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 age, and is still violently assailed for opinions
+he may have uttered fifty years ago. When quite
+a young man I wrote, at Baron Bunsen&#8217;s request, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+long letter on the Turanian Languages. It was published
+in 1854, but it still continues to be criticized
+as if it had been published last year. Of course,
+considering the rapid advance of linguistic studies,
+a great part of that letter became antiquated long
+ago; but at the time of its first appearance it contained
+nearly all that could then be known on these
+allophylian, that is, non-Aryan and non-Semitic
+languages; and I may, perhaps, quote the opinion
+of Professor Pott, no mean authority at that time,
+who, after severely criticizing my letter, declared
+that it belonged to the most important publications
+that had appeared on linguistic subjects for many
+years. And yet, though I have again and again
+protested that I could not possibly have known in
+1854 what has been discovered since as to a number
+of these Turanian languages, everybody who writes
+on any of them seems to be most anxious to show
+that in 1894 he knows more than I did in 1854. No
+astronomer is blamed for not having known the
+planet Neptune before its discovery in 1846, or for
+having been wrong in accounting for the irregularities
+of Saturn. But let that pass; I only share the
+fate of others who have lived too long.</p>
+
+<p>After all, all our knowledge, whatever show we
+may make of it, is very imperfect, and the more
+we know the better we learn how little it is that we
+do know, and how much of unexplored country
+there is beyond the country which we have explored.
+We must judge a man by what he has done&mdash;by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+his own original work. There are many scholars,
+and very useful they are in their own way, but if
+their books are examined, one easily finds the stores
+from which they borrowed their materials. They
+may add some notes of their own and even some corrections,
+particularly corrections of the authors from
+whom they have borrowed most; but at the end
+where is the fresh ore that they have raised; where
+is the gold they have extracted and coined? There
+are cases where the original worker is quite forgotten,
+whereas the retailers flourish. Well, facts are
+facts, whether known or not known, and the triumphal
+chariot of truth has to be dragged along
+by many hands and many shoulders.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Herr Geheimrath von Spiegel now lives at Munich.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>PARIS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My</span> stay in Paris from March, 1845, to June,
+1846, was a very useful intermezzo. It opened my
+mind and showed me a new world; showed me, in
+fact, that there was a world besides Germany,
+though even of Germany and German society I had
+seen as yet very little. I had been working away
+at school and university, but with the exception of
+my short stay in Berlin, I had little experience of
+men and manners outside the small sphere of Dessau
+and Leipzig.</p>
+
+<p>I had been at Berlin some nine months when,
+in December, 1844, my old friend Baron Hagedorn
+came to see me, and invited me to spend some time
+with him in Paris. He had his own apartments
+there, and promised to look after me. At the same
+time my cousin, Baroness Stolzenberg, whom I have
+mentioned before as wishing me to enter the Austrian
+diplomatic service, offered to send me to England
+at her expense as a teacher. I hesitated for
+some days between these two offers. I knew that
+my own patrimony had been nearly spent at Leipzig
+and Berlin, and the time had come for me to
+begin to support myself; and how was I to do that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+in Paris? On the other hand, I had long felt that
+for continuing my Sanskrit studies a stay in Paris,
+and later perhaps in London also, was indispensable.
+I had also to consider the feelings of my mother,
+whose whole heart was absorbed in her only son.
+However, Sanskrit, and my love of an independent
+life won the day, and I decided to accept Hagedorn&#8217;s
+proposal. My mind once made up, I wanted to be
+off at once, but Hagedorn could not fix the exact
+time when he would be free to leave, and told me to
+keep myself in readiness to start whenever he found
+himself free to go. I accordingly went to stay with
+my mother and my married sister at Chemnitz, and
+indulged in idleness and the unwonted dissipations
+of parties, dances, and long skating expeditions.
+At last, feeling I could not afford to wait any longer,
+I went off to Dessau to see Hagedorn, and found
+to my great disappointment that he was detained
+by important legal business in connection with his
+property near Munich, and could not yet fix a date
+for his departure. So it was settled that I was to
+go on to Paris without him, and instal myself in his
+apartment, 25, Rue Royale St. Honor&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>I got my passport wherein I was carefully described
+with all my particular marks, and started
+off on my foreign travels. At first all went well.
+I stopped a few days at Bonn, and again at Brussels,
+where I had my first experience of hearing a
+foreign language spoken round me, and found that
+my French was sadly deficient. But from Brussels<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+on, my experiences were anything but agreeable.
+The journey to Paris took twenty-four hours,
+and we travelled day and night without any stop
+for meals. Most of the passengers were well provided
+with food and wine, but had it not been for
+the kindness of some old ladies, my fellow-travellers,
+I should really have starved. When we crossed the
+frontier the luggage of all passengers was carefully
+examined. But the <i>douanier</i>, in trying to open my
+portmanteau, broke the lock, and then began a fearful
+cursing and swearing. I was perfectly helpless.
+I could hardly understand what the French
+<i>douaniers</i> said, still less make them understand
+what I had to say. They had done the damage, but
+would do nothing to remedy it. The train would
+not wait, and I should certainly have been left behind
+if the other travellers had not taken my part,
+and I was allowed to go on to Paris. I looked a
+mere boy, very harmless, not at all the clever smuggler
+the officials took me to be. 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 Sanskrit.</p>
+
+<p>But my miseries were not yet over, on the contrary,
+they became much worse. On my arrival in
+Paris I got a <i>fiacre</i> and told the man to drive to
+25, Rue St. Honor&eacute;; <i>Royale</i> I considered of no importance;
+but, alas! at the right number of the
+Rue St. Honor&eacute;, the <i>concierge</i> stared at me, telling
+me that no Baron Hagedorn lived there. Try<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, they said, but here the same
+thing happened. And all this was on a rainy afternoon,
+I being tired out with travelling and fasting,
+and perfectly overwhelmed by the immensity of
+Paris. I knew nobody at Paris, having trusted for
+all such things to Baron Hagedorn, in fact I was
+<i>au d&eacute;sespoir</i>. Then as I was driving along the
+Boulevard des Italiens, looking out of window, I
+saw a familiar figure&mdash;a little hunchback whom I
+had known at Dessau, where he studied music under
+Schneider. It was M. Gathy, a man well known by
+his musical writings, particularly his <i>Dictionary of
+Music</i>. I shrieked Gathy! Gathy! and he was as
+much surprised when he recognized the little boy
+from Dessau, as I was when in this vast Paris I
+discovered at last a face which I knew. I jumped
+out of my carriage, told Gathy all that had happened
+to me, being all the time between complete
+despair and perfect delight. He knew Hagedorn
+and his rooms very well. It was the Rue Royale
+St. Honor&eacute;. The <i>concierge</i> was quite prepared for
+my arrival, and took us both to the rooms which
+were <i>au cinqui&egrave;me</i>, but large and extremely well
+furnished. I was so tired that I lay down on the
+sofa, and called out in my best French, <i>Donnez-moi
+quelque chose &agrave; manger et &agrave; boire</i>. This was
+not so easily done as said, but at last, after toiling
+up and down five flights of stairs, he brought me
+what I wanted; I restored myself in the true sense
+of the word, and then began to discuss the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+necessary matters with M. Gathy. He was the most
+charming of men, half German, half French, full
+of <i>esprit</i>, and, what was more important to me, full
+of real kindness and love. As soon as I saw him I
+felt I was safe, and so I was, though I had still some
+battles to fight. First of all, I had taken but little
+money with me, looking upon Hagedorn as my
+banker. Fortunately I remembered the name of
+one of his friends, about whom Hagedorn had often
+spoken to me and who was in Rothschild&#8217;s Bank.
+I went there to find that he was away, but another
+gentleman there told me that I could have as much
+as I liked till Hagedorn or his friend came back.
+So I was lucky, unlucky as I had been before.</p>
+
+<p>The next step I had to consider was what I should
+do for my breakfast, luncheon, and dinner. Breakfast
+I could have at home, but for the other meals I
+had to go out and get what I wanted wherever I
+could. It was not always what I wanted, for it had
+to be cheap, and even a dinner <i>&agrave; deux francs</i> in the
+Palais Royal seemed to me extravagant. I became
+more knowing by-and-by, and discovered smaller
+and simpler restaurants, where Frenchmen dined
+and had arranged for a less showy but more wholesome
+diet.</p>
+
+<p>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 memory. My principal
+amusement at first was to go on voyages of discovery
+through the town. The beauty of the city<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+itself, and the rush and crowd in the streets delighted
+me, and I remember specially a few days
+after my arrival, when I went to watch &#8220;le tout
+Paris&#8221; going out to the races at Longchamps, that I
+was so struck by the difference between these streets
+full of equipages of all sorts, ladies in resplendent
+dresses, and well-groomed gentlemen, and the quiet
+streets that I had been accustomed to in Dessau
+and Leipzig, that I could hardly keep myself from
+laughing out loud. However, when the novelty
+wore off there was another contrast that struck me,
+and made me more inclined to cry this time than to
+laugh, and that was, that while at home I knew
+almost every face I passed, here in these crowds I
+was a stranger and knew no one, and I suffered
+cruelly from the solitude at first.</p>
+
+<p>I began my work, however, at once, and on the
+third day after my arrival I was at the Biblioth&egrave;que
+Royale armed with a letter of introduction from
+Humboldt, and the very next day was already at
+work collating the MSS. of the <i>Kathaka Upanishad</i>.
+I had also to devote some hours daily to the
+study of French; for, much as I grudged these
+hours, I fully realized that in order to get full advantage
+from my stay in Paris, I must first master
+French.</p>
+
+<p>Next came the great question, how to make the
+acquaintance of Burnouf. I did not know the
+world. I did not know whether I should write to
+him first, in what language, and to what address. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+knew Burnouf from his books, and I felt a desperate
+respect for him. After a time Gathy discovered
+his address for me, and I summoned up courage to
+call on him. My French was very poor as yet, but
+I walked in and found a dear old gentleman in his
+<i>robe de chambre</i>, surrounded by his books and his
+children&mdash;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 day. He received me with great civility,
+such as I had not been accustomed to before. He
+spoke of some little book which I had published,
+and inquired warmly after my teachers in Germany,
+such as Brockhaus, Bopp, and Lassen. He told
+me I might attend his lectures in the Coll&egrave;ge de
+France, and he would always be most happy to give
+me advice and help.</p>
+
+<p>I at once felt perfect trust in the man, and was
+really <i>aux cieux</i> to have found such an adviser. He
+was, indeed, a fine specimen of the real French
+savant. He was small, and his face was decidedly
+German, with the <i>t&ecirc;te carr&eacute;e</i> which one sees so
+often in Germany, only lighted up by a constant
+sparkle, which is distinctively French. I must
+have seemed very stupid to him when I tried to
+explain to him what I really wanted to do in Paris.
+He told me himself afterwards that he could not
+make me out at first. I wanted to study the Veda,
+but I had told him at the same time that I thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+the Vedic hymns very stupid, and that I cared
+chiefly for their philosophy, that is, the Upanishads.
+This was really not true, but it came up first in conversation,
+and I thought it would show Burnouf
+that my interest in the Veda was not simply philological,
+but philosophical also. No doubt at first I
+chiefly copied the Upanishads and their commentaries,
+but Burnouf was not pleased. &#8220;We know
+what is in the Upanishads,&#8221; he used to say, &#8220;but we
+want the hymns and their native comments.&#8221; I
+soon came to understand what he meant; I carefully
+attended his lectures, which were on the hymns of
+the Rig-veda and opened an entirely new world to
+my mind. We had the first book of the Rig-veda
+as published by Rosen, and Burnouf&#8217;s explanations
+were certainly delightful. He spoke freely and conversationally
+in his lectures, and one could almost assist
+at the elaboration of his thoughts. His audience
+was certainly small; there was nothing like Renan&#8217;s
+eloquence and wit. But Burnouf had ever so many
+new facts to communicate to us. He explained to
+us his own researches, he showed us new MSS.
+which he had received from India, in fact he did
+all he could to make us fellow workers. Often did
+he tell us to look up some passage in the Veda, to
+compare and copy the commentaries, and to let him
+have the result of our researches at the next lecture.
+All this was very inspiriting, particularly as Burnouf,
+upon examining our work, was very generous
+in his approval, and quite ready, if we had failed, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+point out to us new sources that should be examined.
+He never asserted his own authority, and if ever
+we had found out something which he had not
+known before, he was delighted to let us have the
+full credit for it. After all, it was a new and unknown
+country, that had to be explored and mapped
+out, and even a novice might sometimes find a grain
+of gold.</p>
+
+<p>His select class contained some good men. There
+were Barth&eacute;lemy St. Hilaire, the famous translator
+of Aristotle, and for a time Minister of Foreign
+Affairs in France, the Abb&eacute; Bardelli, R. Roth, Th.
+Goldst&uuml;cker, and a few more.</p>
+
+<p>Barth&eacute;lemy St. Hilaire was a personal friend of
+Burnouf, and came to the Coll&egrave;ge de France not so
+much to learn Sanskrit as to hear Burnouf&#8217;s lucid
+exposition of ancient Indian religion and philosophy.
+Bardelli was a regular Italian Abb&eacute;, studying
+Sanskrit at Paris, but chiefly interested in Coptic.
+He was, like St. Hilaire, much my senior, but we
+became great friends, and he once confided to me
+what had certainly puzzled me&mdash;his reasons for becoming
+an ecclesiastic. He had been deeply in love
+with a young lady; his love was returned, but he
+was too poor to marry, and she was persuaded and
+almost forced to marry a rich man. Dear old Abb&eacute;,
+always taking snuff while he told me his agonies,
+and then finishing up by saying that he became a
+priest so as to put an end for ever to his passion.
+Who would have suspected such a background to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+his jovial face? I don&#8217;t know how it was that people,
+much my seniors, so often confided to me their
+secret sufferings. I may have to mention some
+other cases, and I feel that after my friends are
+gone, and so many years have passed over their
+graves, there is no indiscretion in speaking of their
+confidences. It may possibly teach us to remember
+how much often lies buried under a grave bright
+with flowers. I saw Bardelli&#8217;s own grave many
+years later in the famous cemetery at Pisa. R. Roth
+and Th. Goldst&uuml;cker were both strenuous Sanskrit
+scholars. Both owed much to Burnouf, Roth even
+more than Goldst&uuml;cker, though the latter has perhaps
+more frequently spoken of what he owed to
+Burnouf. Roth was my senior by several years,
+and engaged in much the same work as myself. But
+we never got on well together. It is curious from
+what small things and slight impressions our likes
+and dislikes are often formed. I have heard men
+give as a reason for disliking some one, that he had
+forgotten to pay half a cab-fare. So in Roth&#8217;s case,
+I never got over a most ordinary experience. He
+and two other young students and myself, having
+to celebrate some festal occasion, had ordered a good
+luncheon at a restaurant. To me with my limited
+means this was a great extravagance, but I could
+not refuse to join. Roth, to my great surprise and,
+I may add, being very fond of oysters, annoyance,
+took a very unfair share of that delicacy, and whenever
+I met him in after life, whether in person or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+in writing, this incident would always crop up in
+my mind; and when later on he offered to join me
+in editing the Rig-veda, I declined, perhaps influenced
+by that early impression which I could not
+get rid of. I blame myself for so foolish a prejudice,
+but it shows what creatures of circumstance
+we are.</p>
+
+<p>With Goldst&uuml;cker I was far more intimate. He
+was some years older than myself and quite independent
+as far as money went. He knew how small
+my means were, and would gladly have lent me
+money. But through the whole of my life I never
+borrowed from my friends, or in fact from anybody,
+though I was forced sometimes when very hard up
+for ready money, and when I knew that money was
+due to me but had not arrived when I expected it,
+to apply to some friend for a temporary advance. I
+will try and recall the lines in which I once applied
+to Gathy for such a loan.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Versuch&#8217; ich&#8217;s wohl, mein herzgeliebter Gathy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mit schmeichelndem Sonnet Sie anzupumpen?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ich bitte nicht um schwere Goldesklumpen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ich bitte nur um etliche Ducati.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Auch zahl&#8217; ich wieder ultimo Monati.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Auf Wiedersehn bei Morel und Frascati<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und Nachsicht f&uuml;r den Brief, den allzu plumpen!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Zwar reiche Nabobs sind die braven Inder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doch arme Teufel die Indianisten!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reich sind hienieden schon die Heiden-Kinder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doch selig werden nur die armen Christen!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reimsucher bin ich, doch kein Reimefinder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und <i>sans critique</i> sind all die Sanscritisten.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This kind of negotiating a loan I have to confess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+to, but the idea of borrowing money, without knowing
+when I could repay it, never entered my mind.
+Relations who could have helped me I had none,
+and nothing remained to me but to work for others.
+Indeed my want of money soon began to cause me
+very serious anxiety in Paris. Little as I spent, my
+funds became lower and lower. I did not, like many
+other scholars, receive help from my Government.
+I had mapped out my course for myself, and instead
+of taking to teaching on leaving the University, had
+settled to come to Paris and continue my Sanskrit
+studies, and it was in my own hands whether I
+should swim or sink. It was, indeed, a hard struggle,
+far harder than those who have known me in
+later life would believe. All I could do to earn a
+little money was to copy and collate MSS. for other
+people. I might indeed have given private lessons,
+but I have always had a strong objection to that
+form of drudgery, and would rather sit up a whole
+night copying than give an hour to my pupils. My
+plan was as follows: to sit up the whole of one night,
+to take about three hours&#8217; rest the next night, but
+without undressing, and then to take a good night&#8217;s
+rest the third night, and start over again. It was a
+hard fight, and cannot have been very good for me
+physically, but I do not regret it now.</p>
+
+<p>Often did I go without my dinner, being quite
+satisfied with boiled eggs and bread and butter,
+which I could have at home without toiling down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+and toiling up five flights of stairs that led to my
+room. Sometimes I went with some of my young
+friends <i>hors de la barri&egrave;re</i>, that is, outside Paris,
+outside the barrier where the <i>octroi</i> has to be paid
+on meat, wine, &amp;c. Here the food was certainly
+better for the price I could afford to pay, but the society
+was sometimes peculiar. I remember once seeing
+a strange lady sitting not very far from me,
+who was the well-known Louve of Eug&egrave;ne Sue&#8217;s
+<i>Myst&egrave;res de Paris</i>. One of my companions on
+these expeditions was Karl de Schloezer, who was
+then studying Arabic in Paris. He was always
+cheerful and amusing, and a delightful companion.
+He knew much more of the world than I did, and
+often surprised me by his diplomatic wisdom. &#8220;Let
+us stand up for each other,&#8221; he said one day; &#8220;you
+say all the good you can of me, I saying all the good
+I can of you.&#8221; I became very fierce at the time,
+charging him with hypocrisy and I do not know
+what. He, however, took it all in good part, and
+we remained friends all the time he was at Paris,
+and indeed to the day of his death. He was very
+fond of music, but I was, perhaps, the better performer
+on the pianoforte. He had invited me, a
+violin, and violoncello, to play some of Mozart&#8217;s and
+Beethoven&#8217;s Sonatas. Alas! when we found that
+he murdered his part, I sat down and played the
+whole evening, leaving him to listen, not, I fear, in
+the best of moods. He took his revenge, however;
+and the next time he asked me and the two other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+musicians to his room, we found indeed everything
+ready for us to play, but our host was nowhere to
+be found. He maintained that he had been called
+away; I am certain, however, that the little trick
+was played on purpose.</p>
+
+<p>He afterwards entered the Prussian diplomatic
+service and was the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of the Princess of Prussia,
+afterwards the Empress of Germany. That was
+enough to make Bismarck dislike him, and when
+Schloezer served as Secretary of Legation under
+Bismarck as Ambassador at St. Petersburg, he committed
+the outrage of challenging his chief to a duel.
+Bismarck declined, nor would it, according to diplomatic
+etiquette, have been possible for him not to
+decline. Later on, however, Schloezer was placed
+<i>en disponibilit&eacute;</i>, that is to say, he was politely dismissed.
+He had to pay a kind of farewell visit to
+Bismarck, who was then omnipotent. Being asked
+by Bismarck what he intended to do, and whether
+he could be of any service to him, Schloezer said
+very quietly, &#8220;Yes, your Excellency, I shall take
+to writing my Memoirs, and you know that I have
+seen much in my time which many people will be
+interested to learn.&#8221; Bismarck was quiet for a time,
+looking at some papers, and then remarked quite
+unconcernedly, &#8220;You would not care to go to the
+United States as Minister?&#8221; &#8220;I am ready to go
+to-morrow,&#8221; replied Schloezer, and having carried
+his point, having in fact outwitted Bismarck, he
+started at once for Washington. Bismarck knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+that Schloezer could wield a sharp pen, and there
+was a time when he was sensitive to such pen-pricks.
+They did not see much of each other afterwards,
+but, owing to the protection of the Empress, Schloezer
+was later accredited as Prussian envoy to the
+Pope, and died too soon for his friends in beautiful
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p>One of my oldest friends at Paris was a Baron
+d&#8217;Eckstein, a kind of diplomatic agent who knew
+everybody in Paris, and wrote for the newspapers,
+French and German. He had, I believe, a pension
+from the French Government, and was, as a Roman
+Catholic, strongly allied with the Clerical Party.
+This did not concern me. What concerned me was
+his love of Sanskrit and the ancient religion of
+India. He would sit with me for hours, or take me
+to dine with him at a restaurant, discussing all the
+time the Vedas and the Upanishad and the Vedanta
+philosophy. There are several articles of his written
+at this time in the <i>Journal Asiatique</i>, and I was
+especially grateful to him, for he gave me plenty
+of work to do, particularly in the way of copying
+Sanskrit MSS. for him, and he paid me well and so
+helped me to keep afloat in Paris. Knowing as he
+did everybody, he was very anxious to introduce
+me to his friends, such as George Sand, Lamennais,
+the Comtesse d&#8217;Agoult (Daniel Stern), Lamartine,
+Victor Hugo, and others; but I much preferred
+half an hour with him or with Burnouf to paying
+formal visits. I heard afterwards many unkind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+things about Baron d&#8217;Eckstein&#8217;s political and clerical
+opinions, but though in becoming a convert to
+Roman Catholicism he may have shown weakness,
+and as a political writer may have been influenced
+by his near friends and patrons, I never found him
+otherwise than kind, tolerant, and trustworthy. His
+life was to have been written by Professor Windischmann,
+but he too died; and who knows what
+may have become of the curious memoirs which he
+left? At the time of the February revolution in
+1848, he was in the very midst of it. He knew
+Lamartine, who was the hero of the day, though of
+a few days only. He attended meetings with Lamartine,
+Odilon, Barrot, and others, and he assured
+me that there would be no revolution, because nobody
+was prepared for it.</p>
+
+<p>Lamartine who had been asked by his friends,
+all of them royalists and friends of order, whether
+he would, in case of necessity, undertake to form
+a ministry under the Duchesse d&#8217;Orl&eacute;ans as regent,
+scouted such an idea at first, but at last promised
+to be ready if he were wanted. The time came sooner
+than he expected, and the Duchesse d&#8217;Orl&eacute;ans
+counted on him when she went to the Chamber and
+her Regency was proclaimed. Lamartine was then
+so popular that he might have saved the situation.
+But the mob broke into the Chamber, shots were
+fired, and there was no Lamartine. The Duchesse
+d&#8217;Orl&eacute;ans had to fly, and fortunately escaped under
+the protection of the Duc de Nemours, the only son<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+of Louis Philippe then in Paris, and the dynasty
+of the Orl&eacute;ans was lost&mdash;never to return. Baron
+d&#8217;Eckstein lost many of his influential friends at
+that time, possibly his pension also, but he had
+enough to live upon, and he died at last as a very
+old man in a Roman Catholic monastery, a most
+interesting and charming man, whose memoirs
+would certainly have been very valuable.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to Burnouf, I never can adequately
+express my debt of gratitude to him. He was of
+the greatest assistance to me in clearing my thoughts
+and directing them into one channel. &#8220;Either one
+thing or the other,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Either study Indian
+philosophy and begin with the Upanishads and Sankara&#8217;s
+commentary, or study Indian religion and
+keep to the Rig-veda, and copy the hymns and
+S&acirc;yana&#8217;s commentary, and then you will be our
+great benefactor.&#8221; A great benefactor! that was
+too much for me, a mere dwarf in the presence of
+giants. But Burnouf&#8217;s words confirmed me more
+and more in my desire to give myself up to the
+Veda.</p>
+
+<p>Burnouf told me not only what Vedic MSS. there
+were at the Biblioth&egrave;que Royale, he also brought
+me his own MSS. and lent them to me to copy, with
+the condition, however, that I should not smoke
+while working at them. He himself did not smoke,
+and could not bear the smell of smoke, and he
+showed me several of his MSS. which had become
+quite useless to him, because they smelt of stale<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+tobacco smoke. I did all I could to guard these
+sacred treasures against such profanation.</p>
+
+<p>Another and even more useful warning came to
+me from Burnouf. &#8220;Don&#8217;t publish extracts from
+the commentary only,&#8221; he said; &#8220;if you do, you
+will publish what is easy to read, and leave out what
+is difficult.&#8221; I certainly thought that extracts
+would be sufficient, but I soon found out that here
+also Burnouf was right, though there was always
+the fear that I should never find a publisher for so
+immense a work. This fear I confided to Burnouf,
+but he always maintained his hopeful view. &#8220;The
+commentary must be published, depend upon it,
+and it will be,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>So I stuck to it and went on copying and collating
+my Sanskrit MSS., always trusting that a publisher
+would turn up at the proper time. I had, of
+course, to do all the drudgery for myself, and I soon
+found out that it was not in human nature, at least
+not in my nature, to copy Sanskrit from a MS. even
+for three or four hours without mistakes. To my
+great disappointment I found mistakes whenever
+I collated my copy with the original. I found that
+like the copyists of classical MSS. my eye had
+wandered from one line to another where the same
+word occurred, that I had left out a word when the
+next word ended with the same termination, nay
+that I had even left out whole lines. Hence I had
+either to collate my own copy, which was very tedious,
+or invent some new process. This new process<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+I discovered by using transparent paper, and thus
+tracing every letter. I had some excellent <i>papier
+v&eacute;g&eacute;tal</i> made for me, and, instead of copying, traced
+the whole Sanskrit MS. This had the great advantage
+that nothing could be left out, and that
+when the original was smudged and doubtful I
+could carefully trace whatever was clear and visible
+through the transparent paper. At first I confess
+my work was slow, but soon it went as rapidly as
+copying, and it was even less fatiguing to the eyes
+than the constant looking from the MS. to the copy,
+and from the copy to the MS. But the most important
+advantage was, that I could thus feel quite
+certain that nothing was left out, so that even now,
+after more than fifty years, these tracings are as useful
+to me as the MS. itself. There was room left
+between the lines or on the margin to note the various
+readings of other MSS.; in fact, my materials
+grew both in extent and in value.</p>
+
+<p>Still there remained the question of a publisher.
+To print the Rig-veda in six volumes quarto of about
+a thousand pages each, and to provide the editor
+with a living wage during the many years he would
+have to devote to his task, required a large capital.
+I do not know exactly how much, but what I do
+know is that, when a second edition of the text of
+the Veda in four volumes was printed at the expense
+of the Maharajah of Vizianagram, it cost that
+generous and patriotic prince four thousand pounds,
+though I then gave my work gratuitously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>While I was working at the Biblioth&egrave;que Royale,
+Humboldt had used his powerful influence with the
+king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to help me
+in publishing my edition of the Rig-veda in Germany.
+Nothing, however, came of that plan; it
+proved too costly for any private publisher, even
+with royal assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a vague offer from St. Petersburg.
+Boehtlingk, the great Sanskrit scholar, as a member
+of the Imperial Russian Academy, invited me
+to come to St. Petersburg and print the Veda there,
+in collaboration with himself, and at the expense of
+the Academy. Burnouf and Goldst&uuml;cker both
+warned me against accepting this offer, but, hopeless
+as I was of getting my Veda published elsewhere,
+I expressed my willingness to go on condition that
+some provision should be made for me before I
+decided to migrate to Russia, as I possessed absolutely
+nothing but what I was able to earn myself.
+Boehtlingk, I believe, suggested to the Academy
+that I should be appointed Assistant Keeper of the
+Oriental Museum at St. Petersburg, but his colleagues
+did not apparently consider so young a man,
+and a mere German scholar, a fit candidate for so responsible
+a post. Boehtlingk wished me to send him
+all my materials, and he would get the MSS. of the
+Rig-veda and of S&acirc;yana&#8217;s commentary from the Library
+of the East India Company, and Paris. No
+definite proposition, however, came from the Imperial
+Academy, but an announcement of Boehtlingk&#8217;s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+appeared in the papers in January, 1846, to
+the effect that he was preparing, in collaboration
+with Monsieur Max M&uuml;ller of Paris, a complete
+edition of the Rig-veda.</p>
+
+<p>All this, I confess, began to frighten me. For
+me, a poor scholar, to go to St. Petersburg without
+any official invitation, without any appointment,
+seemed reckless, and though I have no doubt that
+Boehtlingk would have done his best for me, yet
+even he could only suggest private lessons, and that
+was no cheerful outlook. The Academy would do
+nothing for me unless I joined Boehtlingk, but at
+last offered to buy my materials, on which I had
+spent so much labour and the small fund at my disposal.
+If the Academy could have got the necessary
+MSS. from Paris and London, I should have been
+perfectly helpless. Boehtlingk could have done
+the whole work himself, in some respects better
+than I, because he was my senior, and besides, he
+knew P&acirc;nini, the old Indian grammarian who is
+constantly referred to in S&acirc;yana&#8217;s Commentary,
+better than I did. With all these threatening clouds
+around me, my decision was by no means easy.</p>
+
+<p>It was Burnouf&#8217;s advice that determined me to
+remain quietly in Paris. He warned me repeatedly
+against trusting to Boehtlingk, and promised, if I
+would only stay in Paris, to give me his support
+with Guizot, who was then Minister for Foreign
+Affairs, and very much interested in Oriental
+studies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Boehtlingk seems never to have forgiven me,
+and he and several of his friends were highly displeased
+at my ultimate success in securing a publisher
+for the Rig-veda in England. Their language
+was most unbecoming, and they tried, and
+actually urged other Sanskrit scholars, to criticize
+my edition, though I must say to their credit that
+they afterwards confessed that it was all that could
+be desired.</p>
+
+<p>Many years later, Boehtlingk published a violent
+attack on me, entitled <i>F. Max M&uuml;ller als Mythendichter</i>,
+but I thought it unnecessary to take up the
+dispute, and preferred to leave my friends to judge
+for themselves between me and this propounder of
+accusations, the legitimacy of which he was utterly
+unable to establish. However, as I discovered later
+that he accused me of having acted discourteously
+towards the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg,
+with whom I had never had any direct dealings,
+and stated that he had prevented that illustrious
+body from ever making me a corresponding member,
+I thought it right to offer an explanation to the
+Secretary, and I have in my possession his reply,
+in which he wrote that there was no foundation
+whatever for Professor Boehtlingk&#8217;s statements.</p>
+
+<p>However, the outcome of it was that I did not go
+to St. Petersburg, but went on with my work at the
+Library in Paris, till one day I found it necessary to
+run over to London, to copy and collate certain
+MSS., and there I found the long-sought-for benefactors,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+who were to enable me to carry out the work
+of my life.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, during my stay in Paris there was no
+idea of my going into society, or of buying tickets
+for theatres or concerts. I went out to dinner at
+some small restaurant, but otherwise I remained at
+home, and viewed Paris life from my high windows,
+looking out on the Chambre des D&eacute;put&eacute;s on one
+side, the Madeleine close to me on the left, and the
+Porte St. Martin far away at the end of the Boulevards.
+Baron d&#8217;Eckstein, as I have said, was willing
+to introduce me into society, but I refused his
+kind offers. In fact, I was more or less of a bear,
+and I now regret having missed meeting many interesting
+characters, and having kept aloof from
+others, because my interests were absorbed elsewhere.
+Burnouf asked me sometimes to his house;
+so did a Monsieur Troyer, who had been in India
+and published some Sanskrit texts, and whose
+daughter, the Duchesse de Wagram, made much of
+me, as she was very fond of music. There were
+some German families also, some rich, some poor,
+who showed me great kindness.</p>
+
+<p>I was too much oppressed with cares and anxieties
+about my life and my literary plans to think
+much of society and enjoyment. Even of the
+students and student life I saw but little, though I
+was actually attending lectures with them. I must
+say, however, that the little I did see of student
+life in Paris gave me a very different idea from what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+is generally thought of their vagaries and extravagances.
+A Frenchman, if he once begins to work,
+can work and does work very hard. I remember
+seeing several instances of this, but it is possible
+that I may have seen the pick of the Quartier Latin
+only. One who was then a young man, preparing
+for the Church, but already with an eye to higher
+flights, was Renan. At first he still looked upon
+all young Germans with suspicion, but this feeling
+soon disappeared. I remember him chiefly at the
+Biblioth&egrave;que Royale, where he had a very small
+place in the Oriental Department. Hase, the Greek
+scholar, Reinaud, the Arabist, and Stanislas Julien,
+the Sinologue, were librarians then. Hase, a German
+by birth, was most obliging, but he was greatly
+afraid of speaking German, and insisted on our
+always speaking French to him. Often did he call
+Renan to fetch MSS. for me: &#8220;Renan,&#8221; he would
+call out very loudly, &#8220;allez chercher, pour Monsieur
+Max M&uuml;ller, le manuscrit sanscrit, num&eacute;ro
+...,&#8221; and then followed a pause, till he had translated
+&#8220;1637&#8221; into French. In later years Renan
+and I became great friends, but we German scholars
+were often puzzled at his great popularity, which
+certainly was owing to his style more even than to
+his scholarship. Some time later, when I was already
+established in England, we had a little controversy,
+and I printed a rather fierce attack on his
+<i>Grammaire S&eacute;mitique</i>. But we were intimate
+enough for me to show him my pamphlet, and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+he wrote to me, &#8220;Pardonnez-moi, je n&#8217;ai pas compris
+ce que vous vouliez dire,&#8221; I suppressed the
+pamphlet, though it was printed, and we remained
+friends for life. He translated my first article on
+Comparative Mythology, and I had a number of
+most interesting letters from him. It was his wife
+who did the translation, while he revised it. That
+French pamphlet is very scarce now; my own
+pamphlet was entirely suppressed; even I myself
+can find no copy of it among the rubbish of my early
+writings, and what I regret most, I threw away his
+letters, not thinking how interesting they would
+become in time.</p>
+
+<p>With all my work, however, I found time to attend
+some lectures at the Coll&egrave;ge de France, and
+to make the acquaintance of some distinguished
+French <i>savants</i> of the <i>Institut</i>. I went there with
+Burnouf, or Stanislas Julien, or Reinaud, little
+dreaming that I should some day belong to the same
+august body. Many of my young French friends,
+who afterwards became <i>Membres de l&#8217;Institut</i>, rose
+to that dignity much later. I was made not only a
+corresponding, but a real member of the Acad&eacute;mie
+des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1869, before
+my friends, such as G. Perrot 1874, Michel Br&eacute;al
+1875, Gaston Paris 1876, and Jules Oppert 1881,
+occupied their well-merited academical <i>fauteuils</i>.
+The struggle when I was elected in 1869 was a
+serious one; it was between Mommsen and myself,
+between classical and Oriental scholarship, and for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
+once Oriental scholarship carried the day. Mommsen,
+however, was elected in 1895, and there can be
+little doubt that his strong and outspoken political
+antipathies had something to do with the late date
+of his election.</p>
+
+<p>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 expected. Though I was
+able to express myself <i>tant bien que mal</i>, I have
+always felt hampered in a long conversation. Of
+course, the French themselves have always been
+polite enough to say that they could not have detected
+that I was a German, but I knew better than
+that, and never have I, even in later years, gained
+a perfect conversational command of that difficult
+language.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">While</span> working in Paris I constantly felt the
+want of some essential MSS. which were at the Library
+of the East India Company in London, and
+my desire to visit England consequently grew
+stronger and stronger; but I had not the wherewithal
+to pay for the journey, much less for a stay
+of even a fortnight in London. At last (June,
+1846) I thought that I had scraped together enough
+to warrant my starting. At that time I had never
+seen the sea, and I was very desirous of doing so.
+I well remember my unbounded rapture at my first
+sight of the silver stream, and like Xenophon&#8217;s
+Greeks I could have shouted, &#952;&#7937;&#955;&#945;&#964;&#964;&#945;, &#952;&#7937;&#955;&#945;&#964;&#964;&#945;.
+Once on board my rapture soon collapsed and was
+succeeded by that well-known feeling of misery
+which I have so frequently experienced since then,
+and I huddled myself up in a corner of the deck.</p>
+
+<p>There a young fellow-traveller saw the poor
+bundle of misery, and tried to comfort me, and
+brought me what he thought was good for me, not,
+however, without a certain merry twinkle in his eye
+and a few kindly jokes at my expense. We landed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+at the docks in London, a real drizzly day, rain and
+mist, and such a crowd rushing on shore that I
+missed my cheerful friend and felt quite lost. In
+addition to all this a porter had run away with my
+portmanteau, which contained my books and MSS.,
+in fact all my worldly goods. At that moment my
+young friend reappeared, and seeing the plight I
+was in, came to my assistance. &#8220;You stay here,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;and I will arrange everything for you;&#8221;
+and so he did. He fetched a four-wheeler, put my
+luggage on the top, bundled me inside, and drove
+with me through a maze of London streets to his
+rooms in the Temple. Then, still knowing nothing
+about me, he asked me to spend the night in his
+rooms, gave me a bed and everything else I wanted
+for the night. The next morning he took me out to
+look for lodgings, which we found in Essex Street,
+a small street leading out of the Strand.</p>
+
+<p>The room which I took was almost entirely filled
+by an immense four-post bed. I had never seen
+such a structure before, and during the first night
+that I slept in it, I was in constant fear that the top
+of the bed would fall and smother me as in the
+German <i>M&auml;rchen</i>. When the landlady came in to
+see me in the morning, after asking how I had slept,
+the first thing she said was, &#8220;But, sir, don&#8217;t you
+want another &#8216;pillar&#8217;?&#8221; I looked bewildered, and
+said: &#8220;Why, what shall I do with another pillar?
+and where will you put it?&#8221; She then touched the
+pillows under my head and said, &#8220;Well, sir, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+shall have another &#8216;pillar&#8217; to-morrow.&#8221; &#8220;How
+shall I ever learn English,&#8221; I said to myself, &#8220;if
+a &#8216;pillar&#8217; means really a soft pillow?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But to return to my unknown friend, he came
+every day to show me things which I ought to see
+in London, and brought me tickets for theatres and
+concerts, which he said were sent to him. His name
+was William Howard Russell, endeared to so many,
+high and low, under the name of &#8220;Billy&#8221; Russell,
+the first and most brilliant war-correspondent of
+<i>The Times</i> during the Crimean War. He remained
+my warm and true friend through life, and even
+now when we are both cripples, we delight in meeting
+and talking over very distant days.</p>
+
+<p>I had come over to London expecting to stay
+about a fortnight, but I had been there working
+at the Library in Leadenhall Street for nearly a
+month, and my work was far from done, when I
+thought that I ought to call and pay my respects to
+the Prussian Minister, Baron Bunsen. I little
+thought at the time when I was ushered into his
+presence that this acquaintance was to become the
+turning-point of my life. If I owed much to Burnouf,
+how can I tell what I owed to Bunsen? I
+was amazed at the kindness with which from the
+very first he received me. I had no claim whatever
+on him, and I had as yet done very little as a scholar.
+It is true that he had known my father in Italy, and
+that Humboldt, with his usual kindness, had written
+him a strong letter of recommendation on my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+behalf, but that was hardly sufficient reason to account
+for the real friendship with which he at once
+honoured me.</p>
+
+<p>Baroness Bunsen, in the life of her husband,
+writes: &#8220;The kindred mind, their sympathy of
+heart, the unity in highest aspirations, a congeniality
+in principles, a fellowship in the pursuit of
+favourite objects, which attracted and bound Bunsen
+to his young friend (i.&nbsp;e. myself), rendered this
+connexion one of the happiest of his life.&#8221; I am
+proud to think it was so.</p>
+
+<p>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 life,
+namely, the <i>editio princeps</i> of the Rig-veda. Often
+has he told me how, at the time when he was prosecuting
+his studies at G&ouml;ttingen, the very existence
+of such a book was unknown as yet in Germany.
+The name of Veda had no doubt been known, and
+there was a halo of mystery about it, as the oldest
+book of the world. But what it was and where it
+was to be found no one could tell. Mr. Astor, a
+pupil of Bunsen&#8217;s at G&ouml;ttingen, had arranged to
+take Bunsen to India to carry on his researches
+there. But Bunsen waited and waited in Italy, till
+at last, after maintaining himself by giving private
+lessons, he went to Rome, was taken up by Brandes
+and Niebuhr, the Prussian Ambassador there, became
+the friend of the future Frederick William
+IV, and thus gradually drifted into diplomacy, giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+up all hopes of discovering or rescuing the
+Rig-veda.</p>
+
+<p>People have hardly any idea now, how, in spite
+of the East India Company conquering and governing
+India, India itself remained a <i>terra incognita</i>,
+unapproachable by the students of England and of
+Europe. That there were literary treasures to be
+discovered in India, that the Brahmans were the
+depositaries of ancient wisdom, was known through
+the labours of some of the most eminent servants
+of the East India Company. It had been known
+even before, through the interesting communications
+of Roman Catholic missionaries in India, that
+the manuscripts themselves, at least those of the
+Veda, were not forthcoming. Even as late as the
+times of Sir W. Jones, Colebrooke, and Professor
+Wilson, the Brahmans were most unwilling to part
+with MSS. of the Veda, except the Upanishads.
+Professor Wilson told me that once, when examining
+the library of a native R&acirc;jah, he came across
+some MSS. of the Rig-veda, and began turning
+them over; but &#8220;I observed,&#8221; he said, &#8220;the ominous
+and threatening looks of some of the Brahmans
+present, and thought it wiser to beat a retreat.&#8221;
+Dr. Mill had known of a gentleman who
+had a very sacred hymn of the Veda, the Gayatri,
+printed at Calcutta. The Brahmans were furious
+at this profanation, and when the gentleman died
+soon after, they looked upon his premature death
+as the vengeance of the offended gods. Colebrooke,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+however, was allowed to possess himself of several
+most valuable Vedic MSS., and he found Brahmans
+quite ready to read with him, not only the
+classical texts, but also portions of the Veda.
+&#8220;They do not even,&#8221; he writes, &#8220;conceal from us
+the most sacred texts of the Veda.&#8221; His own
+essays on the Veda appeared in the <i>Asiatic Researches</i>
+as early as 1801. But people went on
+dreaming about the Veda, instead of reading Colebrooke&#8217;s
+essays.</p>
+
+<p>It was curious, however, that at the time when
+I prepared my edition of the Rig-veda, Vedic
+scholarship was at a very low ebb in Bengal itself,
+and there were few Brahmans there who knew
+the whole of the Rig-veda by heart, as they still
+did in the South of India. Manuscripts were never
+considered in India as of very high authority; they
+were always over-ruled by the oral traditions of
+certain schools. However, such manuscripts, good
+and bad, but mostly bad, existed, and after a time
+some of them reached England, France, and even
+Germany. Portions of those in Berlin and Paris
+I had copied and collated, so that I could show
+Bunsen the very book which he had been in search
+of in his youth. This opened his heart to me as
+well as the doors of his house. &#8220;I am glad,&#8221; he
+said, &#8220;to have lived to see the Veda. Whatever
+you want, let me know; I look upon you as myself
+grown young again.&#8221; And he did help me,
+as only a father can help his son.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he expected too much from the Veda,
+as many other people did at that time, and before
+the <i>verba ipsissima</i> were printed. As the oldest
+book that ever was composed, the Veda was supposed
+to give us a picture of what man was in his
+most primitive state, with his most primitive ideas,
+and his most primitive language. Everybody interested
+in the origin and the first development of
+language, thought, religion, and social institutions,
+looked forward to the Veda as a new revelation.
+All such dreams, natural enough before the Veda
+was known, were dispersed by my laying sacrilegious
+hands on the Veda itself, and actually publishing
+it, making it public property, to the dismay
+of the Brahmans in India, and to the delight of all
+Sanskrit scholars in Europe. The learned essays
+of Colebrooke in India, and the extracts published
+by Rosen, the Oriental librarian of the British
+Museum, might indeed have taught people that
+the Veda was not a book without any antecedents,
+that it would not tell us the secrets of Adam and
+Eve, or of Deukalion and Pyrrha. I myself had
+both said and written that the Veda, like an old
+oak tree, shows hundreds and thousands of circles
+within circles; and yet I was afterwards held
+responsible for having excited the wildest hopes
+among archaeologists, when I had done my best,
+if not to destroy them, at all events to reduce them
+to their proper level. Schelling seemed quite disappointed
+when I showed him some of the translations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+of the hymns of the Rig-veda; and Bunsen,
+who was still under Schelling&#8217;s influence, had evidently
+expected a great many more of such philosophical
+hymns as the famous one beginning:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There was not nought nor was there aught at
+that time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To the scholar, no doubt, the Veda remained
+and always will remain the oldest of real books,
+that has been preserved to us in an almost miraculous
+way. By book, however, as I often explained,
+I mean a book divided into chapters and verses,
+having a beginning and an end, and handed down
+to us in an alphabetic form of writing. China
+may have possessed older books in a half phonetic,
+half symbolic writing; Egypt certainly possessed
+older hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri; Babylon
+had its cuneiform monuments; and certain
+portions of the Old Testament may have existed
+in a written form at the time of Josiah, when Hilkiah,
+the high priest, found the law book in the
+sanctuary (2 Kings xxii. 8). But the Veda, with
+its ten books or <i>Mandalas</i>, its 1017 hymns or
+<i>Suktas</i>, with every consonant and vowel and accent
+plainly written, was a different thing. It may
+safely be called a book. No doubt it existed for a
+long time, as it does even at present, in oral tradition,
+but as it was in tradition, so it was when
+reduced to writing, and in either form I doubt
+whether any other real book can rival it in antiquity.
+More important, however, than the purely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+chronological antiquity of the book, is the antiquity
+or primitiveness of the thoughts which it contains.
+If the people of the Veda did not turn out to be
+quite such savages as was hoped and expected,
+they nevertheless disclosed to us a layer of thought
+which can be explored nowhere else. The Vedic
+poets were not ashamed of exposing their fear that
+the sun might tumble down from the sky, and
+there are no other poets, as far as I know, who still
+trembled at the same not quite unnatural thought.
+Nor do I find even savages who still wonder and
+express their surprise that black cows should produce
+white milk. Is not that childish enough for
+any ancient or modern savage? Mere chronology
+is here of as little avail as with modern savages,
+whose customs and beliefs, though known as but
+of yesterday, are represented to us as older than
+the Veda, older than Babylonian cylinders, older
+than anything written. When certain modern
+savages recognize the relationship of paternity,
+maternity, and consanguinity, this is called very
+ancient. If they admit traditional restrictions as
+to marriage, food, the treatment of the dead, nay,
+even a life to come, this too, no doubt, may be
+very old; but it may be of yesterday also. There
+are even quite new gods, whose genesis has been
+watched by living missionaries. The great difficulty
+in all such researches is to distinguish between
+what is common to human nature, and what
+is really inherited or traditional. All such questions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+have only as yet been touched upon, and they
+must wait for their answer till real scholars will
+take up the study of the language of living savages,
+in the same scholarlike spirit in which they have
+taken up the study of Vedic and Babylonian savages.
+But we must have patience and learn to
+wait. 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 civilized. It may
+safely be said of this as of other mere ideas, that it
+may be true, but that there is no evidence to show
+that it is true. At all events it takes much for
+granted, and neglects, as it would seem, the very
+lessons which the theory of evolution has taught
+us. It is the nature of evolution to be continuous,
+and not to proceed <i>per saltum</i>. Therein lies the
+beauty of genealogical evolution that we can recognize
+the fibres which connect the upper strata with
+the lower, till we strike the lowest, or at least that
+which contains what seem to be the seeds and
+germs of early thoughts, words, and acts. We can
+trace the most modern forms of language back to
+Sanskrit, or rather to that postulated linguistic
+stratum of which Sanskrit formed the most prominent
+representative, just as we can trace the French
+<i>Dieu</i> back to Latin <i>Deus</i> and Sanskrit <i>Devas</i>, the
+brilliant beings behind the phenomena of nature;
+and again behind them, <i>Dyaus</i>, the brilliant sky,
+the Greek <i>Zeus</i>, the Roman <i>Iovis</i> and <i>Iuppiter</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+the most natural of all the Aryan gods of nature.
+This is real evolution, a real causal nexus between
+the present and the past. It used to be called
+history or pragmatic history, whether we take history
+in the sense of the description of evolution,
+or in that of evolution itself. History has generally
+to begin with the present, to go back to the
+past, and to point out the palpable steps by which
+the past became again and again the present. Evolution,
+on the contrary, prefers to begin with the
+distant past, to postulate formations, even if they
+have left no traces, and to speak of those almost
+imperceptible changes by which the postulated past
+became the perceptible present, as not only necessary,
+but as real. Perhaps the difference is of no
+importance, but the historical method seems certainly
+the more accurate, and the more satisfactory
+from a purely scientific point of view.</p>
+
+<p>In all such evolutionary researches language has
+always been the most useful instrument, 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 principles.
+Here, too, no doubt, intermediate links which must
+have existed, are sometimes lost beyond recovery,
+and when we arrive at the very roots of language,
+we feel that there may have been whole aeons
+before that radical period. Here science must
+recognize her inevitable horizons, but here again
+no surviving literary monument could carry us so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+far as the Veda. Hence its supreme importance
+for Aryan philology&mdash;for the philology of the
+most important languages of historical mankind.
+Other languages, whether Babylonian or Accadian,
+whether Hottentot or Maori, may be, for all we
+know, much more ancient or much more primitive;
+but, as scientific explorers, we can only speak of
+what we know, and we must renounce all conjectures
+that go beyond facts.</p>
+
+<p>In all these researches no one took a livelier
+interest and encouraged me more than Bunsen.
+When some of my translations of the Vedic hymns
+seemed fairly satisfactory, I used to take them to
+him, and he was always delighted at seeing a little
+more of that ancient Aryan torso, though at the
+time he was more specially interested in Egyptian
+chronology and archaeology. Often when I was
+alone with him did we discuss the chronological
+and psychological dates of Egyptian and Aryan
+antiquity. Kind-hearted as he was, Bunsen could
+get very excited, nay, quite violent in arguing,
+and though these fits soon passed off, yet it made
+discussions between His Excellency the Prussian
+Minister and a young German scholar somewhat
+difficult. At that time much less was known of
+the earliest Egyptian chronology than is now.
+But I was never much impressed by mere dates.
+If a king was supposed to have lived 5,000 years
+before our era, &#8220;What is that to us?&#8221; I used to
+say, &#8220;He sits on his throne <i>in vacuo</i>, and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+is nothing to fix him by, nothing contemporary
+which alone gives interest to history. In India we
+have no dates; but whatever dates and names of
+kings and accounts of battles the Egyptian inscriptions
+may give us, as a book there is nothing so
+old in Egypt as the Veda in India. Besides, we
+have in the Veda thoughts; and in the chronology
+of thought the Veda seems to me older than even
+the Book of the Dead.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As to the actual date of the Veda, I readily
+granted that chronologically it was not so old as
+the pyramids, but supposing it had been, would
+that in any way have increased its value for our
+studies? If we were to place it at 5000 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, I
+doubt whether anybody could refute such a date,
+while if we go back beyond the Veda, and come
+to measure the time required for the formation of
+Sanskrit and of the Proto-Aryan language I doubt
+very much whether even 5,000 years would suffice
+for that. There is an unfathomable depth in
+language, layer following after layer, long before
+we arrive at roots, and what a time and what an
+effort must have been required for their elaboration,
+and for the elaboration of the ideas expressed
+in them.</p>
+
+<p>Our battles waxed sometimes very fierce, but we
+generally ended by arriving at an understanding.
+As a young man, Bunsen had clearly perceived the
+importance of the Veda for an historical study of
+mankind and the growth of the human mind, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+he was not discouraged when he saw that it gave
+us less than had been expected. &#8220;It is a fortress,&#8221;
+he used to say, &#8220;that must be besieged and taken,
+it cannot be left in our rear.&#8221; But he little knew
+how much time it would take to approach it, to
+surround it, and at last to take it. It has not been
+surrendered even now, and will not be in my time.
+It is true there are several translations of the whole
+of the Rig-veda, and their authors deserve the highest
+credit for what they have done. People have
+wondered why I have not given one of them in
+my Sacred Books of the East. I thought it was
+more honest to give, in co-operation with Oldenburg,
+specimens only in vols. xxxii and xlvi of that
+series, and let it be seen in the notes how much
+uncertainty there still is, and how much more of
+hard work is required, before we can call ourselves
+masters of the old Vedic fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Bunsen&#8217;s interest in my work, however, took a
+more practical turn than mere encouragement. It
+was no good encouraging me to copy and collate
+Sanskrit MSS. if they were not to be published.
+He saw that the East India Company were the
+proper body to undertake that work. Bunsen&#8217;s
+name was a power in England, and his patronage
+was the very best introduction that I could have
+had. It was no easy task to persuade the Board
+of Directors&mdash;all strictly practical and commercial
+men&mdash;to authorize so considerable an expenditure,
+merely to edit and print an old book that none<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+of them could understand, and many of them had
+perhaps never even heard of. Bunsen pointed out
+what a disgrace it would be to them, if some other
+country than England published this edition of the
+Sacred Books of the Brahmans.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Wilson, Librarian of the Company,
+also gave my project his support, and at last, not
+quite a year after my arrival in England, after a
+long struggle and many fears of failure, it was
+settled that the East India Company were to bear
+the cost of printing the Veda, and were meanwhile
+to enable me to stay in London, and prepare
+my work for press.</p>
+
+<p>I had already been working five years copying
+and collating, and my first volume of the Rig-veda
+was progressing, but it was only when all was
+settled that I realized how much there was still
+to do, and that I should have very hard work indeed
+before the printing could begin. I must enter
+into some details to show the real difficulties I
+had to face.</p>
+
+<p>I felt convinced that the first thing to do was to
+publish a correct text of the Rig-veda. That was
+not so difficult, though it brought me the greatest
+kudos. The MSS. were very correct, and the text
+could easily be restored by comparing the Pada
+and Sanhit&acirc; texts, i.&nbsp;e. the text in which every word
+was separated, and the text in which the words
+were united according to the rules of Sandhi. Anybody
+might have done that, yet this, as I said, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+the part of my work for which I have received the
+greatest praise.</p>
+
+<p>When my edition of the Rig-veda containing
+text and commentary was nearly finished, another
+scholar, who had assisted me in my work, and who
+had always had the use of my MSS., my Indices,
+in fact of the whole of my <i>apparatus criticus</i>,
+published a transcript of the text in Latin letters,
+and thus anticipated part of the last volume of my
+edition. His friends, who were perhaps not mine,
+seemed delighted to call him the first editor of the
+Rig-veda, though they ceased to do so when they
+discovered misprints or mistakes of my own edition
+repeated in his. He himself was far above
+such tactics. He knew, and they knew perfectly
+well that, whatever the <i>vulgus profanum</i> may
+think, my real work was the critical edition of
+S&acirc;yana&#8217;s commentary on the Rig-veda. I had determined
+that this also should be edited according
+to the strictest rules of criticism. I knew what an
+amount of labour that would involve, but I refused
+to yield to the pressure of my colleagues to proceed
+more quickly but less critically.</p>
+
+<p>S&acirc;yana quotes a number of Sanskrit works
+which, at the time when I began my edition, had
+not yet been edited. Such were the Nirukta, the
+glossary of the Rig-veda; the Aitareya-br&acirc;hmana,
+a very old explanation of the Vedic sacrifice; the
+&Acirc;sval&acirc;yana S&ucirc;tras, on the ceremonial; and sundry
+works of the same character. S&acirc;yana generally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+alludes very briefly only to these works and presupposes
+that they are known to us, so that a short
+reference would suffice for his purposes. To find
+such references and to understand them required,
+however, not only that I should copy these works,
+which I did, but that I should make indices and
+thus be able to find the place of the passages to
+which he alluded. This I did also, but over and
+over again was I stopped by some short enigmatical
+reference to P&acirc;nini&#8217;s grammar or Yaska&#8217;s glossary,
+which I could not identify. All these references
+are now added to my edition, and those who will
+look them up in the originals, will see what kind
+of work it was which I had to do before a single
+line of my edition could be printed. How often
+was I in perfect despair, because there was some
+allusion in S&acirc;yana which I could not make out,
+and which no other Sanskrit scholar, not even
+Burnouf or Wilson, could help me to clear up. It
+often took me whole days, nay, weeks, before I
+saw light. A good deal of the commentary was
+easy enough. It was like marching on the high
+road, when suddenly there rises a fortress that has
+to be taken before any further advance is to be
+thought of. In the purely mechanical part other
+men could and did help me. But whenever any
+real difficulty arose, I had to face it by myself,
+though after a time I gladly acknowledged that
+here, too, their advice was often valuable to me.
+In fact I found, and all my assistants seemed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+have found out the same, that if they were useful
+to me, the work they did for me was useful to
+them, and I am proud to say that nearly all of
+them have afterwards risen to great prominence in
+Sanskrit scholarship. From time to time I also
+worked at interpreting and translating some of the
+Vedic hymns, though I had always hoped that
+this part of the work would be taken up by other
+scholars.</p>
+
+<p>Bunsen was also my social sponsor in London,
+and my first peeps into English society were at the
+Prussian Legation. He often invited me to his
+breakfast and dinner parties, and when I saw for
+the first time the magnificent rooms crowded with
+ministers, and dukes, and bishops, and with ladies
+in their grandest dresses, I was as in a dream, and
+felt as if I had been lifted into another world.
+Men were pointed out to me such as Sir Robert
+Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Van der Weyer,
+the Belgian Minister, Thirlwall, Bishop of St.
+David&#8217;s and author of the <i>History of Greece</i>,
+Archdeacon Hare, Frederick Maurice, and many
+more whom I did not know then, though I came
+to know several of them afterwards. Anybody
+who had anything of his own to produce was welcome
+in Bunsen&#8217;s house, and among the men whom
+I remember meeting at his breakfast parties, were
+Rawlinson, Layard, Hodgson, Birch, and many
+more. Those breakfast parties were then quite a
+new institution to me, and it is curious how entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+they have gone out of fashion, though Sir
+Harry Inglis, Member for Oxford, Gladstone,
+Member for Oxford, Monckton Milnes (afterwards
+Lord Houghton), kept them up to the last, while
+in Oxford they survived perhaps longer than anywhere
+else. They had one great advantage, people
+came to them quite fresh in the morning; but they
+broke too much into the day, particularly when,
+as at Oxford, they ended with beer, champagne,
+and cigars, as was sometimes the case in undergraduates&#8217;
+rooms.</p>
+
+<p>How I was able to swim in that new stream, I
+can hardly understand even now. I had been
+quite unaccustomed to this kind of society, and
+was ignorant of its simplest rules. Bunsen, however,
+was never put out by my gaucheries, but
+gave me friendly hints in feeling my way through
+what seemed to me a perfect labyrinth. He told
+me that I had offended people by not returning
+their calls, or not leaving a card after having dined
+with them, paying the so-called digestion-visit to
+them. How should I know? Nobody had ever
+told me, and I thought it obtrusive to call. Nor
+did I know that in England to touch fish with a
+knife, or to help yourself to potatoes with a fork,
+was as fatal as to drop or put in an <i>h</i>. 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 fork, often scattering it over your
+plate and possibly over the table-cloth. I must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+confess also that fish-knives always seemed to me
+more civilized than forks in dividing fish, but fish-knives
+did not exist when I first came to England.
+The really interesting side of all this is to watch
+how customs change&mdash;come in and go out&mdash;and by
+what a slow and imperceptible process they are discarded.
+Let us hope it is by the survival of the
+fittest. When I first went to Oxford everybody
+took wine with his neighbours, now it is only at
+such conservative colleges as my own&mdash;All Souls&mdash;that
+the old custom still survives. But then we
+have not even given up wax candles yet, and we
+look upon gas as a most objectionable innovation.</p>
+
+<p>Another great difficulty I had was in writing
+letters and addressing my friends properly as Sir,
+or Mr. Smith, or Smith. I was told that the rule
+was very simple and that you addressed everybody
+exactly as they addressed you. What was the consequence?
+When I received an invitation to dine
+with the Bishop of Oxford who addressed me as
+&#8220;My dear Sir,&#8221; I wrote back &#8220;My dear Sir,&#8221; and
+said that I should be very happy. How Samuel
+Wilberforce must have chuckled when he read my
+epistle. But how is any stranger to know all the
+intricacies of social literature, particularly if he is
+wrongly informed by the highest authorities. I
+must confess that even later in life I have often
+been puzzled as to the right way of addressing my
+friends. There is no difficulty about intimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+friends, but as one grows older one knows so many
+people more or less intimately, and according to
+their different characters and stations in life, one
+often does not know whether one offends by too
+great or too little familiarity. I was once writing
+to a very eminent man in London who had been
+exceedingly friendly to me at Oxford, and I addressed
+him as &#8220;My dear Professor H.&#8221; At the
+end of his answer he wrote, &#8220;Don&#8217;t call me Professor.&#8221;
+All depends on the tone in which such
+words are said. I imagined that living in fashionable
+society in London, he did not like the somewhat
+scholastic title of Professor which, in London
+particularly, has always a by-taste of diluted omniscience
+and conceit. I accordingly addressed
+him in my next letter as &#8220;My dear Sir,&#8221; and this,
+I am sorry to say, produced quite a coldness and
+stiffness, as my friend evidently imagined that I
+declined to be on more intimate terms with him,
+the fact being that through life I have always been
+one of his most devoted admirers. I did my best
+to conform to all the British institutions, as well
+as I could, though in the beginning I must no
+doubt have made fearful blunders, and possibly
+given offence to the truly insular Briton. Bunsen
+seemed to delight in asking me whenever he had
+Princes or other grandees to lunch or dine with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>One day he took me with him to stay at Hurstmonceux
+with Archdeacon Hare, and a delightful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+time it was. There were books in every room, on
+the staircase, and in every corner of the house, and
+the Archdeacon knew every one of them, and as
+soon as a book was mentioned, he went and fetched
+it. He generally knew the very place at which the
+passage that was being discussed, occurred, and excelled
+even the famous dog, which at one of these
+literary breakfast parties&mdash;I believe in Hallam&#8217;s
+house&mdash;was ordered on the spur of the moment to
+fetch the fifth volume of Gibbon&#8217;s <i>History</i>, and
+at once climbed up the ladder and brought down
+from the shelf the very volume in which the disputed
+passage occurred. He had been taught this
+one trick of fetching a certain volume from the
+shelves of the library, and the conversation was
+turned and turned till it was brought round to a
+passage in that very volume. The guests were, no
+doubt, amazed, but as it was before the days of
+Darwin and Lubbock, it led to no more than a
+good laugh. I was surprised and delighted at the
+honesty with which the Archdeacon admitted the
+weak points of the Anglican system, and the dangers
+which threatened not only the Church, but the
+religion of England. The real danger, he evidently
+thought, came from the clergy, and their hankering
+after Rome. &#8220;They have forgotten their history,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;and the sufferings which the sway
+of a Roman priesthood has inflicted for centuries
+on their country.&#8221; I think it was he who told me
+the story of a young Romanizing curate, who declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+that he could never see what was the use of
+the laity.</p>
+
+<p>One day when I called on Bunsen with my
+books, and I frequently called when I had something
+new to show him, he said: &#8220;You must come
+with me to Oxford to the meeting of the British
+Association.&#8221; This was in 1847. Of course I did
+not know what sort of thing this British Association
+was, but Bunsen said he would explain it all
+to me, only I must at once sit down and write a
+paper. He, Bunsen, was to read a paper on the
+&#8220;Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in
+reference to Asiatic and African Ethnology and
+the Classification of Languages,&#8221; and he wanted
+Dr. Karl Meyer and myself to support him, the
+former with a paper on Celtic Philology, and myself
+with a paper on the Aryan and Aboriginal
+Languages of India. I assured him that this was
+quite beyond me. I had hardly been a year in
+England, and even if I could write, I knew but
+too well that I could not read a paper before a
+large audience. However, Bunsen would take no
+refusal. &#8220;We must show them what we have done
+in Germany for the history and philosophy of language,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;and I reckon on your help.&#8221;
+There was no escape, and to Oxford I had to go.
+I was fearfully nervous, for, as Prince Albert was
+to be present, ever so many distinguished people
+had flocked to the meeting, and likewise some not
+very friendly ethnologists, such as Dr. Latham,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+and Mr. Crawford, known by the name of the Objector
+General. Our section was presided over by
+the famous Dr. Prichard, the author of that classical
+work, <i>Researches into the Physical History of
+Mankind</i>, in five volumes, and it was he who protected
+me most chivalrously against the somewhat
+frivolous objections of certain members, who were
+not over friendly towards Prince Albert, Chevalier
+Bunsen, and all that was called German in
+scholarship. All, however, went off well. Bunsen&#8217;s
+speech was most successful, and it is a pity
+that it should be buried in the <i>Transactions of the
+British Association for 1847</i>. At that time it was
+considered a great honour that his speech should
+appear there <i>in extenso</i>. When Bunsen declared
+that he would not give it, unless Dr. Meyer&#8217;s paper
+and my own were published in the <i>Transactions</i>
+at the same time, there was renewed opposition.
+I was so little proud of my own essay, that I should
+much rather have kept it back for further improvement,
+but printed it was in the <i>Transactions</i>, and
+much canvassed at the time in different journals.</p>
+
+<p>I have always been doubtful about the advantages
+of these public meetings, so far as any scientific
+results are concerned. Everybody who pays a
+guinea may become a member and make himself
+heard, whether he knows anything on the subject
+or not. The most ignorant men often occupy the
+largest amount of time. Some people look upon
+these congresses simply as a means of advertising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+themselves, and I have actually seen quoted among
+a man&#8217;s titles to fame the fact that he had been a
+member of certain congresses. Another drawback
+is that no one, not even the best of scholars, is
+quite himself before a mixed audience. Whereas
+in a private conversation a man is glad to receive
+any new information, no one likes to be told in
+public that he ought to have known this or that, or
+that every schoolboy knows it. Then follows generally
+a squabble, and the best pleader is sure to
+have the laughter on his side, however ignorant he
+may be of the subject that is being discussed. But
+Dr. Prichard was an excellent president and moderator,
+and though he had unruly spirits to deal
+with, he succeeded in keeping up a certain decorum
+among them. Dr. Prichard&#8217;s authority stood very
+high, and justly so, and his <i>Researches into the
+Physical History of Mankind</i> still remain unparalleled
+in ethnology. His careful weighing of
+facts and difficulties went out of fashion when the
+theory of evolution became popular, and every
+change from a flea to an elephant was explained by
+imperceptible degrees. He dealt chiefly with what
+was perceptible, with well-observed facts, and
+many of the facts which he marshalled so well,
+require even now, in these post-Darwinian days I
+should venture to say, renewed consideration. Like
+all great men, he was wonderfully humble, and
+allowed me to contradict him, who ought to have
+been proud to listen and to learn from him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But though I cannot say that the result of these
+meetings and wranglings was very great or valuable,
+I spent a few most delightful days at Oxford,
+and I could not imagine a more perfect state of
+existence than to be an undergraduate, a fellow,
+or a professor there. A kind of silent love sprang
+up in my heart, though I hardly confessed it to
+myself, much less to the object of my affections.
+I knew I had to go back to be a University tutor
+or even a master in a public school in Germany,
+and that was a hard life compared with the freedom
+of Oxford. To be independent and free to
+work as I liked, that was everything to me, but
+how I ever succeeded in realizing my ideal, I
+hardly know. At that time I saw nothing but a
+life of drudgery and severe struggle before me, but
+I did not allow myself to dwell on it; I simply
+worked on, without looking either right or left,
+behind or before.</p>
+
+<p>While at Oxford on this my first flying visit, I
+had a room in University College, the very college
+in which my son was hereafter to be an undergraduate.
+My host was Dr. Plumptre, the Master
+of the College, a tall, stiff, and to my mind, very
+imposing person. He was then Vice-Chancellor,
+and I believe I never saw him except in his cap
+and gown and with two bedels walking before him,
+the one with a gold, the other with a silver poker
+in his hands. We have no Esquire bedels any
+longer! All the professors, too, and even the undergraduates,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+dressed in their mediaeval academic
+costume, looked to me very grand, and so different
+from the German students at Leipzig or still more
+at Jena, walking about the streets in pink cotton
+trousers and dressing-gowns. It seemed to me
+quite a different world, and I made new discoveries
+every day. Being with Bunsen I was invited to
+all the official dinners during the meeting of the
+British Association, and here, too, the Vice-Chancellor
+acted his part with becoming dignity. He
+never unbent; he never indulged in a joke or
+joined in the laughter of his neighbours. When
+I remarked on his immovable features, I was told
+that he slept in starched sheets&mdash;and I believed it.
+At one of these dinners, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte
+caused a titter during a speech about the
+freedom which people enjoyed in England. &#8220;In
+France,&#8221; he said, &#8220;with all the declamations about
+<i>Libert&eacute;</i>, <i>&Eacute;galit&eacute;</i>, <i>Fraternit&eacute;</i>, there is very little
+freedom, and, with all the trees of <i>libert&eacute;</i> which
+are being planted along the boulevards, there is
+very little of real liberty to be found there!&#8221;
+&#8220;But you in England,&#8221; he finished, &#8220;you have your
+old tree of liberty, which is always flowering and
+showering <i>peas</i> on the whole world.&#8221; He wanted
+to say peace. We tried to look solemn but failed,
+and a suppressed laugh went round till it reached
+the Vice-Chancellor. There it stopped. He was
+far too well bred to allow a single muscle of his
+face to move. &#8220;He throws a cold blanket on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+everything,&#8221; my neighbour said; and my knowledge
+of English was still so imperfect that I accepted
+many of these metaphorical remarks in their
+literal sense, and became more and more puzzled
+about my host. It was evidently a pleasure to my
+friends to see how easily I was taken in. On the
+walls of the houses at Oxford I saw the letters F.&nbsp;P.
+about ten feet from the ground. Of course it was
+meant for Fire Plug, but I was told that it marked
+the height of the Vice-Chancellor, whose name
+was Frederick Plumptre.</p>
+
+<p>My visit to Oxford was over all too soon, and
+I returned to London to toil away at my Sanskrit
+MSS. in the little room that had been assigned to
+me in the Old East India House in Leadenhall
+Street. That building, too, in which the reins of
+the mighty Empire of India were held, mostly by
+the hands of merchants, has vanished, and the
+place of it knoweth it no more. However, I
+thought little of India, I only thought of the library
+at the East India House, a real Eldorado for
+an eager Sanskrit student, who had never seen such
+treasures before. I saw little else there, I only
+remember seeing Tippoo Sahib&#8217;s tiger which held
+an English soldier in his claws, and was regularly
+wound up for the benefit of visitors, and then uttered
+a loud squeak, enough to disturb even the
+most absorbed of students. I felt quite dazed by
+all the books and manuscripts placed at my disposal,
+and revelled in them every day till it became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+dark, and I had to walk home through Ludgate
+Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, generally carrying
+ever so many books and papers under my arms.
+I knew nobody in the city, and no one knew me;
+and what did I care for the world, as long as I had
+my beloved manuscripts?</p>
+
+<p>In March, 1848, I had to go over to Paris to
+finish up some work there, and just came in for the
+revolution. From my windows I had a fine view of
+all that was going on. I well remember the pandemonium
+in the streets, the aspect of the savage
+mob, the wanton firing of shots at quiet spectators,
+the hoisting of Louis Philippe&#8217;s nankeen trousers on
+the flag-staff of the Tuileries. When bullets began
+to come through my windows, I thought it time to
+be off while it was still possible. Then came the
+question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts,
+&amp;c., belonging to the East India Company,
+to the train. The only railway open was the line to
+Havre, which had been broken up close to the station,
+but further on was intact, and in order to get
+there we had to climb three barricades. I offered
+my <i>concierge</i> five francs to carry my box, but his
+wife would not hear of his risking his life in the
+streets; ten francs&mdash;the same result; but at the sight
+of a louis d&#8217;or she changed her mind, and with an
+&#8220;Allez, mon ami, allez toujours,&#8221; dispatched her
+husband on his perilous expedition. Arrived in
+London I went straight to the Prussian Legation,
+and was the first to give Bunsen the news of Louis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+Philippe&#8217;s flight from Paris. Bunsen took me off
+to see Lord Palmerston, 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 Paris. So even a poor scholar had to play his
+small part in the events that go to make up history.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> had been settled that my edition of the Rig-veda
+should be printed at the Oxford University
+Press, and I found that I had often to go there
+to superintend the printing. Not that the printers
+required much supervision, as I must say that the
+printing at the University Press was, and is, excellent&mdash;far
+better than anything I had known in
+Germany. In providing copy for a work of six volumes,
+each of about 1000 pages, it was but natural
+that <i>lapsus calami</i> should occur from time to
+time. What surprised me was that several of these
+were corrected in the proof-sheets sent to me. At
+last I asked whether there was any Sanskrit scholar
+at Oxford who revised my proof-sheets before they
+were returned. I was told there was not, but
+that the queries were made by the printer himself.
+That printer was an extraordinary man. His right
+arm was slightly paralysed, and he had therefore
+been put on difficult slow work, such as Sanskrit.
+There are more than 300 types which a printer must
+know in composing Sanskrit. Many of the letters
+in Sanskrit are incompatible, i.&nbsp;e. they cannot follow
+each other, or if they do, they have to be modified.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+Every <i>d</i>, for instance, if followed by a <i>t</i>, is changed
+to <i>t</i>; every <i>dh</i> loses its aspiration, becomes likewise
+<i>t</i>, or changes the next <i>t</i> into <i>dh</i>. Thus from <i>budh</i> +
+<i>ta</i>, we have <i>Buddha</i>, i.&nbsp;e. awakened. In writing
+I had sometimes neglected these modifications, but
+in the proof-sheets these cases were always either
+queried or corrected. When I asked the printer,
+who did not of course know a word of Sanskrit,
+how he came to make these corrections, he said:
+&#8220;Well, sir, my arm gets into a regular swing from
+one compartment of types to another, and there
+are certain movements that never occur. So if
+I suddenly have to take up types which entail a
+new movement, I feel it, and I put a query.&#8221; An
+English printer might possibly be startled in the
+same way if in English he had to take up an <i>s</i>
+immediately following an <i>h</i>. 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 Sanskrit. In
+spite of the extreme accuracy of my printer, however,
+I saw, that after all it would be better for
+myself, and for the Veda, if I were on the spot, and
+I decided to migrate from London to Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>My first visit had filled me with enthusiasm for
+the beautiful old town, which I regarded as an ideal
+home for a student. Besides, I found that I was
+getting too gay in London, and in order to be able
+to devote my evenings to society, I had to get up
+and begin work soon after five. May, therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+saw me established for the first time in Oxford, in
+a small room in Walton Street. The moving of my
+books and papers from London did not take long.
+At that time my library could still be accommodated
+in my portmanteau, it had not yet risen to 12,000
+volumes, threatening to drive me out of my house.
+A happy time it was when I possessed no books
+which I had not read, and no one sent books to
+me which I did not want, and yet had to find a
+place for in my rooms, and to thank the author for
+his kindness.</p>
+
+<p>I at once found that my work went on more
+rapidly at Oxford than in London, though if I
+had expected to escape from all hospitality I certainly
+was not allowed to do that. Accustomed as
+I was to the Spartan diet of a German <i>convictorium</i>,
+or a dinner at the Palais Royal <i>&agrave; deux francs</i>, the
+dinners to which I was invited by some of the Fellows
+in Hall, or in Common Room, surprised me not
+a little. The old plate, the old furniture, and the
+whole style of living, impressed me deeply, particularly
+the after-dinner railway, an ingenious invention
+for lightening the trouble of the guests who
+took wine in Common Room. There was a small
+railway fixed before the fireplace, and on it a wagon
+containing the bottles went backwards and forwards,
+halting before every guest till he had helped himself.
+That railway, I am afraid, is gone now; and
+what is more serious, the pleasant, chatty evenings
+spent in Common Room are likewise a thing of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+past. Married Fellows, if they dine in Hall, return
+home after dinner, and junior Fellows go to their
+books or pupils. In my early Oxford days, a married
+Fellow would have sounded like a solecism.
+The story goes that married Fellows were not entirely
+unknown, and that you could hold even a fellowship,
+if you could hold your tongue. Young
+people, however, who did not possess that gift of
+silence, had often to wait till they were fifty, before
+a college living fell vacant, and the quinquagenarian
+Fellow became a young husband and a young vicar.</p>
+
+<p>What impressed me, however, even more than
+the great hospitality of Oxford, was the real friendliness
+shown to an unknown German scholar. After
+all, I had done very little as yet, but the kind words
+which Bunsen and Dr. Prichard had spoken about
+me at the meeting of the British Association, had
+evidently produced an impression in my favour far
+beyond what I deserved. I must have seemed a
+very strange bird, such as had never before built
+his nest at Oxford. I was very young, but I looked
+even younger than I was, and my knowledge of
+the manners of society, particularly of English
+society, was really nil. Few people knew what I
+was working at. Some had a kind of vague impression
+that I had discovered a very old religion,
+older than the Jewish and the Christian, which contained
+the key to many of the mysteries that had
+puzzled the ancient, nay, even the modern world.
+Frequently, when I was walking through the streets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+of Oxford, I observed how people stared at me, and
+seemed to whisper some information about me.
+Tradespeople did not always trust me, though I
+never owed a penny to anybody; when I wanted
+money I could always make it by going on faster
+with printing the Rig-veda, for which I received
+four pounds a sheet. This seemed to me then a
+large sum, though many a sheet took me at first
+more than a week to get ready, copy, collate, understand,
+and finally print. If I was interested in any
+other subject, my exchequer suffered accordingly&mdash;but
+I could always retrieve my losses by sitting up
+late at night. Poor as I was, I never had any cares
+about money, and when I once began to write in
+English for English journals, I had really more than
+I wanted. My first article in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>
+appeared in October, 1851.</p>
+
+<p>At that time the idea of settling at Oxford, of
+remaining in this academic paradise, never entered
+my head. I was here to print my Rig-veda and
+work at the Bodleian; that I should in a few years
+be an M.A. of Christ Church, a Fellow of the most
+exclusive of colleges, nay, a married Fellow&mdash;a being
+not even invented then&mdash;and a professor of the
+University, never entered into my wildest dreams.
+I could only admire, and admire with all my heart.
+Everything seemed perfect, the gardens, the walks
+in the neighbourhood, the colleges, and most of all
+the inhabitants of the colleges, both Fellows and
+undergraduates. My ideas were still so purely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+continental that I could not understand how the
+University could do such a thing as incorporate a
+foreign scholar&mdash;could, in fact, govern itself without
+a Minister of Education to appoint professors,
+without a Royal Commissioner to look after the
+undergraduates and their moral and political sentiments.
+And here at Oxford I was told that the
+Government did not know Oxford, nor Oxford the
+Government, that the only ruling power consisted
+in the Statutes of the University, that professors and
+tutors were perfectly free so long as they conformed
+to these statutes, and that certainly no minister
+could ever appoint or dismiss a professor, except the
+Regius professors. &#8220;If we want a thing done,&#8221; my
+friends used to explain to me, &#8220;we do it ourselves,
+as long as it does not run counter to the statutes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Oxford changes with every generation. It is
+always growing old, but it is always growing young
+again. There was an old Oxford four hundred years
+ago, and there was an old Oxford fifty years ago.
+To a man who is taking his M.A. degree, Oxford, as
+it was when he was a freshman, seems quite a thing
+of the past. By the public at large no place is supposed
+to be so conservative, so unchanging, nay, so
+stubborn in resisting new ideas, as Oxford; and yet
+people who knew it forty or fifty years ago, like
+myself, find it now so changed that, when they look
+back they can hardly believe it is the same place.
+Even architecturally the streets of the University
+have changed, and here not always for the better.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+Architects unfortunately object to mere imitation of
+the old Oxford style of building; they want to produce
+something entirely their own, which may be
+very good by itself, but is not always in harmony
+with the general tone of the college buildings. I
+still remember the outcry against the Taylor Institution,
+the only Palladian building at Oxford, and yet
+everybody has now grown reconciled to it, and even
+Ruskin lectured in it, which he would not have done,
+if he had disapproved of its architecture. He would
+never lecture in the Indian Institute, and wrote me a
+letter sadly reproving me for causing Broad Street to
+be defaced by such a building, when I had had absolutely
+nothing to do with it. He was very loud in his
+condemnation of other new buildings. He abused
+even the New Museum, though he had a great deal
+to do with it himself. He had hoped that it would
+be the architecture of the future, but he confessed
+after a time that he was not satisfied with the
+result.</p>
+
+<p>In his days we still had the old Magdalen Bridge,
+the Bodleian unrestored, and no trams. Ruskin was
+so offended by the new bridge, by the restored
+Bodleian, and by the tram-cars, that he would go
+ever so far round to avoid these eyesores, when he
+had to deliver his lectures; and that was by no
+means an easy pilgrimage. There was, of course,
+no use in arguing with him. Most people like the
+new Magdalen Bridge because it agrees better with
+the width of High Street; they consider the Bodleian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+well restored, particularly now that the new
+stone is gradually toning down to the colour of the
+old walls, and as to tram-cars, objectionable as they
+are in many respects, they certainly offend the eye
+less than the old dirty and rickety omnibuses. The
+new buildings of Merton, in the style of a London
+police-station, offended him deeply, and with more
+justice, particularly as he had to live next door to
+them when he had rooms at Corpus.</p>
+
+<p>These new buildings could not be helped at Oxford.
+The stone, with which most of the old colleges
+were built, was taken from a quarry close to Oxford,
+and began to peel off and to crumble in a very curious
+manner. Artists like these chequered walls, and
+by moonlight they are certainly picturesque, but
+the colleges had to think of what was safe. My own
+college, All Souls, has ever so many pinnacles, and
+we kept an architect on purpose to watch which of
+them were unsafe and had to be restored or replaced
+by new ones. Every one of these pinnacles cost us
+about fifty pounds, and at every one of our meetings
+we were told that so many pinnacles had been tested,
+and wanted repairing or replacing. Many years
+ago, when I was spending the whole Long Vacation
+at Oxford, I could watch from my windows a man
+who was supposed to be testing the strength of
+these pinnacles. He was armed with a large crowbar,
+which he ran with all his might against the
+unfortunate pinnacle. I doubt whether the walls
+of any Roman castellum could have resisted such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+a ram. I spoke to some of the Fellows, and when
+the builder made his next report to us, we rather
+objected to the large number of invalids. He was
+not to be silenced, however, so easily, but told us
+with a very grave countenance that he could not
+take the responsibility, as a pinnacle might fall any
+day on our Warden when he went to chapel. This,
+he thought, would settle the matter. But no, it
+made no impression whatever on the junior Fellows,
+and the number of annual cripples was certainly
+very much reduced in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that Oxford has always loved what is
+old better than what is new, and has resisted most
+innovations to the very last. A well-known liberal
+statesman used to say that when any measure of
+reform was before Parliament, he always rejoiced to
+see an Oxford petition against it, for that measure
+was sure to be carried very soon. It should not
+be forgotten, however, that there always has been
+a liberal minority at Oxford. It is still mentioned
+as something quite antediluvian, that Oxford, that
+is the Hebdomadal Council, petitioned against the
+Great Western Railway invading its sacred precincts;
+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 world.</p>
+
+<p>Many things, of course, have been changed, and
+are changing every year before our very eyes; but
+what can never be changed, in spite of some recent
+atrocities in brick and mortar, is the natural beauty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+of its gardens, and the historical character of its
+architecture. Whether Friar Bacon, as far back
+as the thirteenth century, admired the colleges,
+chapels, and gardens of Oxford, we do not know;
+and even if we did, few of them could have been
+the same as those which we admire to-day. We
+must not forget that Greene&#8217;s <i>Honourable History
+of Friar Bacon</i> does not give us a picture of what
+Oxford was when seen by that famous philosopher,
+who is sometimes claimed as a Fellow of Brasenose
+College, probably long before that College existed;
+but what is said in that play in praise of the University,
+may at least be taken as a recollection of what
+Greene saw himself, when he took his degree as
+Bachelor of Arts in 1578. In his play of the <i>History
+of Friar Bacon</i>, Greene introduces the Emperor
+of Germany, Henry II, 1212-50, as paying
+a visit to Henry III of England, 1216-73, and he
+puts into his mouth the following lines, which,
+though they cannot compare with Shelley&#8217;s or Mat
+Arnold&#8217;s, are at all events the earliest testimony to
+the natural attractions of Oxford. Anyhow, Shelley&#8217;s
+and Mat Arnold&#8217;s lines are well known and are
+always quoted, so that I venture to quote Greene&#8217;s
+lines, not for the sake of their beauty, but simply
+because they are probably known to very few of my
+readers:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford schools<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are richly seated near the river-side:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mountains full of fat and fallow deer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The battling<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> pastures lade with kine and flocks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The town gorgeous with high built colleges,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scholars seemly in their grave attire.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The mountains round Oxford we must accept as
+a bold poetical licence, whether they were meant for
+Headington Hill or Wytham Woods. The German
+traveller, Hentzner, who described Oxford in 1598,
+is more true to nature when he speaks of the wooded
+hills that encompass the plain in which Oxford lies.</p>
+
+<p>But while the natural beauty of Oxford has always
+been admired and praised by strangers, the
+doctors and professors of the old University have
+not always fared so well at the hands of English
+and foreign critics. I shall not quote from Giordano
+Bruno, who visited England in 1583-5, and calls Oxford
+&#8220;the widow of true science<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>,&#8221; but Milton
+surely cannot be suspected of any prejudice against
+Oxford. Yet he writes in 1656 in a letter to Richard
+Jones: &#8220;There is indeed plenty of amenity
+and salubrity in the place when you are there.
+There are books enough for the needs of a University:
+if only the amenity of the spot contributed so
+much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does to
+pleasant living, nothing would seem wanting to the
+happiness of the place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These ill-natured remarks about the Oxford Dons
+seem to go on to the very beginning of our century.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>The buildings and gardens are praised, but by way
+of contrast, it would seem, or from some kind of
+jealousy, their inhabitants are always treated with
+ridicule. Not long ago a book was published,
+<i>Memoirs of a Highland Lady</i>. Though published
+in 1898, it should be remembered that the memoirs
+go back as far as 1809. Nor should it be forgotten
+that at that time the authoress was hardly more
+than thirteen years of age, and certainly of a very
+girlish, not to say frivolous, disposition. She stayed
+some time with the then Master of University,
+Dr. Griffith, and for him, it must be said, she always
+shows a certain respect. But no one else at Oxford
+is spared. She arrived there at the time of Lord
+Grenville&#8217;s installation as Chancellor of the University.
+Though so young, she was taken to the Theatre,
+and this is her description of what she saw and
+heard:&mdash;&#8220;It was a shock to me; I had expected to
+be charmed with a play, instead of being nearly set
+to sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit. There
+were some purple, and some gold, some robes and
+some wigs, a great crowd, and some stir at times,
+while a deal of humdrum speaking and dumb show
+was followed by the noisy demonstrations of the students,
+as they applauded or condemned the honours
+bestowed; but in the main I tired of the heat and
+the mob, and the worry of these mornings, and so,
+depend upon it, did poor Lord Grenville, who sat
+up in the chair of state among the dignitaries, like
+the Grand Lama in his temple guarded by his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+priests.&#8221; One thing only she was delighted with,
+that was the singing of Catalani at one of the concerts.
+Yet even here she cannot repress her remark
+that she sang &#8220;Gott safe the King.&#8221; She evidently
+was a flippant young lady or child, and with her
+sister, who afterwards joined her at Oxford, seems
+to have found herself quite a fish out of water in
+the grave society of the University.</p>
+
+<p>The room in the Master&#8217;s Lodge which appalled
+her most and seems to have been used as a kind
+of schoolroom, was the Library, full of Divinity
+books, but without curtains, carpet, or fireplace.
+Here they had lessons in music, drawing, arithmetic,
+history, geography, and French. &#8220;And the Master,&#8221;
+she adds, &#8220;opened to us what had been till
+then a sealed book, the New Testament, so that this
+visit to Oxford proved really one of the fortunate
+chances of my life.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This speaks well for the young lady, who in later
+life seems to have occupied a most honoured and
+influential position in Scotch society. But Oxford
+society evidently found no favour in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Her uncle and aunt, as she tells us, were frequently
+out at dinner with other Heads of Houses,
+for there was, of course, no other society. These
+dinners seem to have been very sumptuous, though
+their own domestic life was certainly very simple.
+For breakfast they had tea, and butter on their
+bread, and at dinner a small glass of ale, college
+home-brewed ale. &#8220;How fat we got!&#8221; she exclaims.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+The Master seems to have been a man of refined
+taste, fond of drawing, and what was called poker-painting;
+he was given also to caricaturing, and
+writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently
+fond of his society, but of the other Oxford
+society she only mentions the ultra-Tory politics,
+and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of
+Houses. &#8220;The various Heads,&#8221; she writes, &#8220;with
+their respective wives, were extremely inferior to
+my uncle and aunt. More than half of the Doctors
+of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small
+gentry or country clergy, or even of a lower grade.
+Many of these, constant to the loves of their youth,
+brought ladies of inferior manners to grace what
+appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not
+a good style; there was little talent, and less polish,
+and no sort of knowledge of the world. And yet
+the ignorance of this class was less offensive than
+the assumption of another, when a lady of high
+degree had fallen in love with her brother&#8217;s tutor,
+and got him handsomely provided for in the Church,
+that she might excuse herself for marrying him. Of
+the lesser clergy, there were young witty ones&mdash;odious;
+young learned ones&mdash;bores; and elderly
+ones&mdash;pompous; all, however, of all grades, kind
+and hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble,
+gentle, considerate, and self-sacrificing, had no representative,
+as far as I could see, among these dealers
+in old wines, rich dinners, fine china, and massive
+plate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The religion of Oxford appeared in those days
+to consist in honouring the King and his Ministers,
+and in perpetually popping in and out of chapel.
+Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer,
+beaten on every staircase half an hour before
+by a scout. The education was suited to Divinity.
+A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the
+young, riotous community, 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 committed. There were rules that had in a
+general way to be obeyed, and lectures that had to
+be attended, but as for care to give high aims, provide
+refining amusements, give a worthy tone to
+the character of responsible beings, there was none
+ever even thought of. The very meaning of the
+word &#8216;education&#8217; did not appear to be understood.
+The college was a fit sequel to the school. The
+young men herded together; they lived in their
+rooms, and they lived out of them, in the neighbouring
+villages, where many had comfortable establishments....
+All sorts of contrivances were resorted
+to to enable the dissipated to remain out all
+night, to shield a culprit, to deceive the dignitaries.&#8221;
+This was in 1809, and even later.</p>
+
+<p>And yet with all this, and while we are told that
+those who attended lectures were laughed at, it
+seems strange that the best divines, and lawyers,
+and politicians of the first half of our century, some
+of whom we may have known ourselves, must have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+been formed under that system. We can hardly
+believe that it was as bad as here described, and we
+must remember that much of the <i>Memoirs</i> of this
+Scotch lady can have been written from memory
+only, and long after the time when she and her
+sister lived at University College. Life there, no
+doubt, may have been very dull, as there were no
+other young ladies at Oxford, and it cannot have
+been very amusing for these young girls to dine
+with sixteen Heads of Houses, all in wide silk
+cassocks, scarves and bands, one or two in powdered
+wigs, so that, as we are told, they often went home
+crying. All intercourse with the young men was
+strictly forbidden, though it seems to have been
+not altogether impossible to communicate, from the
+garden of the Master&#8217;s Lodge, with the young men
+bending out of the college windows, or climbing
+down to the gardens.</p>
+
+<p>One of these young men, who was at University
+College at the same time, might certainly not have
+been considered a very desirable companion for
+these two Scotch girls. It was no other than
+Shelley. What they say of him does not tell us
+much that is new, yet it deserves to be repeated.
+&#8220;Mr. Shelley,&#8221; we read, &#8220;afterwards so celebrated,
+was half crazy. He began his career with every
+kind of wild prank at Eton. At University he was
+very insubordinate, always infringing some rule, the
+breaking of which he knew could not be overlooked.
+He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+about these and other irregularities, he was in the
+habit of making such extraordinary gestures, expressive
+of his humility under reproof, as to overset
+first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing
+tutor. When he proceeded so far as to paste up
+atheistical squibs on the chapel doors, it was considered
+necessary to expel him privately, out of
+regard to Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who
+came up at once. He and his son left Oxford together.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>No one would recognize in this picture the University
+of Oxford, as it is at present. <i>Nous avons
+chang&eacute; tout cela</i> might be said with great truth by
+the Heads of Houses, the Professors, and Fellows
+of the present day. And yet what the Highland
+lady, or rather the Highland girl, describes, refers
+to times not so long ago but that some of the men
+we have known might have lived through it. How
+this change came about I cannot tell, though I can
+bear testimony to a few survivals of the old state of
+things.</p>
+
+<p>The Oxford of 1848 was still the Oxford of the
+Heads of Houses and of the Hebdomadal Board.
+That board consisted almost entirely of Heads of
+Houses, and a most important board it was, considering
+that the whole administration of the University
+was really in its hands. The colleges, on
+the other hand, were very jealous of their independence;
+and even the authority of the Proctors,
+who represented the University as such, was often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+contested within the gates of a college. It is
+wonderful that this old system of governing the
+University through the Heads of Houses should
+have gone on so long and so smoothly. Having
+been trusted by the Fellows of his own society with
+considerable power in the administration of his own
+college, it was supposed that the Head would prove
+equally useful in the administration of the University.
+A Head of a House became at once a
+member of the Council. And, on the whole, they
+managed to drive the coach and horses very well.
+But often when I had to take foreigners to hear
+the University Sermon, and they saw a most extraordinary
+set of old gentlemen walking into St.
+Mary&#8217;s in procession, with a most startling combination
+of colours, black and red, scarlet and pink, on
+their heavy gowns and sleeves, I found it difficult
+to explain who they were. &#8220;Are they your professors?&#8221;
+I was asked. &#8220;Oh, no,&#8221; I said, &#8220;the
+professors don&#8217;t wear red gowns, only Doctors of
+Divinity and of Civil Law, and as every Head of
+a House must have something to wear in public,
+he is invariably made a Doctor.&#8221; I remember one
+exception only, and at a much later time, namely,
+the Master of Balliol, who, like Canning at the
+Congress of Vienna, considered it among his most
+valued distinctions never to have worn the gown
+of a D.C.L. or D.D. It is well known that when
+Marshal Bl&uuml;cher was made a Doctor at Oxford he
+asked, in the innocence of his heart, that General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+Gneisenau, his right-hand man, might at least be
+made a chemist. He certainly had mixed a most
+effective powder for the French army under Napol&eacute;on.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; my friend would ask, &#8220;have you no
+<i>Senatus Academicus</i>, have you no faculties of professors
+such as there are in all other Christian universities?&#8221;
+&#8220;Yes and no,&#8221; I said. &#8220;We have
+professors, but they are not divided into faculties,
+and they certainly do not form the <i>Senatus Academicus</i>,
+or the highest authority in the University.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It seems very strange, but it is nevertheless a
+fact, that as soon as a good tutor is made a professor,
+he is considered of no good for the real teaching
+work of the colleges. His lectures are generally deserted;
+and I could quote the names of certain professors
+who afterwards rose to great eminence, but
+who at Oxford were simply ignored and their lecture-rooms
+deserted. The real teaching or coaching
+or cramming for examination is left to the tutors
+and Fellows of each college, and the examinations
+also are chiefly in their hands. Many undergraduates
+never see a professor, and, as far as the teaching
+work of the University is concerned, the professorships
+might safely be abolished. And yet, as
+I could honestly assure my foreign friends, the best
+men who take honour degrees at Oxford are quite
+the equals of the best men at Paris or Berlin. The
+professors may not be so distinguished, but that is
+due to a certain extent to the small salaries attached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+to some of the chairs. England has produced great
+names both in science and philosophy and scholarship,
+but these have generally drifted to some more
+attractive or lucrative centres. When I first came to
+Oxford one professor received &pound;40 a year, another
+&pound;1,500, and no one complained about these inequalities.
+A certain amount of land had been left by a
+king or bishop for endowing a certain chair, and
+every holder of the chair received whatever the endowment
+yielded. The mode of appointing professors
+was very curious at that time. Often the elections
+resembled parliamentary elections, far more
+regard being paid to political or theological partisanship
+than to scientific qualifications. Every M.A.
+had a vote, and these voters were scattered all over
+the country. Canvassing was carried on quite
+openly. Travelling expenses were freely paid, and
+lists were kept in each college of the men who could
+be depended on to vote for the liberal or the conservative
+candidate. Imagine a professor of medicine
+or of Greek being elected because he was a liberal!
+Some appointments rested with the Prime
+Minister, or, as it was called, the Crown; and it was
+quoted to the honour of the Duke of Wellington,
+that he, when Chancellor of the University, once
+insisted that the electors should elect the best man,
+and they had to yield, though there were electors
+who would declare their own candidate the best
+man, whatever the opinion of really qualified judges
+might be. All this election machinery is much improved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+now, though an infallible system of electing
+the best men has not yet been discovered. One single
+elector, who is not troubled by too tender a conscience,
+may even now vitiate a whole election; to
+say nothing of the painful position in which an
+elector is placed, if he has to vote against a personal
+friend or a member of his own college, 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 University.</p>
+
+<p>It took me some time before I could gain an insight
+into all this. The old system passed away
+before my very eyes, not without evident friction
+between my different friends, and then came the
+difficulty of learning to understand the working of
+the new machinery which had been devised and
+sanctioned by Parliament. Reformers arose even
+among the Heads of Houses, as, for instance, Dr.
+Jeune, the Master of Pembroke College, who was
+credited with having <i>rajeuni l&#8217;ancienne universit&eacute;</i>.
+But he was by no means the only, or even the
+chief actor in University reform. Many of my
+personal friends, such as Dr. Tait, afterwards Archbishop
+of Canterbury, the Rev. H.&nbsp;G. Liddell, afterwards
+Dean of Christ Church, Professor Baden-Powell,
+and the Rev. G.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;S. Johnson, afterwards
+Dean of Wells, with Stanley and Goldwin Smith
+as Secretaries, did honest service in the various
+Royal and Parliamentary Commissions, and spent
+much of their valuable time in serving the University<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+and the country. I could do no more than answer
+the questions addressed to me by the Commissioners
+and by my friends, and this is really all the
+share I had at that time in the reform of the University,
+or what was called Germanizing the English
+Universities. 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 dinner, because the Heads of Houses
+would no longer admit him to their hospitable
+boards.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly to have been a member of the much
+abused Hebdomadal Board, and a Head of a College
+in those pre-reform days must have been a delightful
+life. Before the days of agricultural distress the income
+of the colleges was abundant; the authority of
+the Heads was unquestioned in their own colleges;
+not only undergraduates, but Fellows also had to
+be submissive. No junior Fellow would then have
+dared to oppose his Head at college meetings.
+If there was by chance an obstreperous junior, he
+was easily silenced or requested to retire. The
+days had not yet come when a Master of Trinity
+ventured to remark that even a junior Fellow
+might possibly be mistaken. Colleges seemed to
+be the property of the Heads, and in some of them
+the Fellows were really chosen by them, and the
+rest of the Fellows after some kind of examination.
+The management of University affairs was likewise
+entirely in the hands of the Heads of Colleges, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+it was on rare occasions only that a theological question
+stirred the interest of non-resident M.A.s, and
+brought them to Oxford to record their vote for or
+against the constituted authorities. Men like the
+Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, the Warden
+of Wadham, Dr. Parsons, and the Provost of Oriel,
+Dr. Hawkins, were in their dominions supreme, till
+the rebellious spirit began to show itself in such men
+as Dr. Jeune, Professor Baden-Powell, A.&nbsp;P. Stanley,
+Goldwin Smith and others.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were there many very flagrant abuses under
+the old r&eacute;gime. It was rather the want of life that
+was complained of. It began to be felt that Oxford
+should take its place as an equal by the side of
+foreign Universities, not only as a high school, but
+as a home of what then was called for the first
+time &#8220;original research.&#8221; There can be no question
+that as a teaching body, as a high school at the
+head of all the public schools in England, Oxford
+did its duty nobly. A man who at that time could
+take a Double First was indeed a strong man, well
+fitted for any work in after life. He would not
+necessarily turn out an original thinker, a scholar,
+or a discoverer in physical science, but he would
+know what it was to know anything thoroughly.
+To take honours at the same time in classics and
+mathematics required strength and grasp, and the
+effort was certainly considerable, as I found out
+when occasionally I read a Greek or Latin author
+with a young undergraduate friend. What struck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+me most was the accurate knowledge a candidate
+acquired of special authors and special books, but
+also the want of that familiarity with the language,
+Greek or Latin, which would enable him to read
+any new author with comparative ease. The young
+men whom I knew at the time they went in for
+their final examination, were certainly well grounded
+in classics, and what they knew they knew thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>The personal relations existing between undergraduates
+and their tutors were very intimate.
+A tutor took a pride in his pupils, and often became
+their friend for life. The teaching was almost
+private teaching, and the idea of reading a written
+lecture to a class in college did not exist as yet.
+It was real teaching with questions and answers;
+while lectures, written and read out, were looked
+down upon as good enough for professors, but entirely
+useless for the schools. The social tone of the
+University was excellent. Many of the tutors and
+of the undergraduates came of good families, and
+the struggle for life, or for a college living, or college
+office, was not, as yet, so fierce as it became
+afterwards. College tutors toiled on for life, and
+certainly did their work to the last most conscientiously.
+There was perhaps little ambition, little
+scheming or pushing, but the work of the University,
+such as the country would have it, was well done.
+If the Honour-Lists were small, the number of utter
+failures also was not very large.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For a young scholar, like myself, who came to
+live at Oxford in those distant days, the peace and
+serenity of life were most congenial, though several
+of my friends were among the first who began to
+fret, and wished for more work to be done and for
+better use to be made of the wealth and the opportunities
+of the University. My impression at that
+time was the same as it has been ever since, that
+a reform of the Universities was impossible till the
+public schools had been thoroughly reformed. The
+Universities must take what the schools send them.
+There is every year a limited number of boys from
+the best schools who would do credit to any University.
+But a large number of the young men
+who are sent up to matriculate at Oxford are not
+up to an academic standard. Unless the colleges
+agree to stand empty for a year or two, they cannot
+help themselves, but have to keep the standard of
+the matriculation examination low, and in fact do,
+to a great extent, the work that ought to have been
+done at school. Think of boys being sent up to
+Oxford, who, after having spent on an average six
+years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line
+of Greek or Latin which they have not seen before.
+Yet so it was, and so it is, unless I am very much misinformed.
+It is easy for some colleges who keep up
+a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class
+men; 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 degree, and few people have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+any idea how little a pass degree may mean. Those
+tutors have indeed hard work to do and get little
+credit for it, though their devotion to their college
+and their pupils is highly creditable. Fifty years
+ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is
+now, because candidates were not allowed to pass in
+different subjects at different times, but the whole
+examination had to be done all at once, or not
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>I had naturally made it a rule at Oxford to stand
+aloof from the conflict of parties, whether academical,
+theological, or political. I had my own work to
+do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude
+my opinions, which naturally were different from
+those prevalent at Oxford. Most people like to wash
+their dirty linen among themselves; and though I
+gladly talked over such matters with my friends who
+often consulted me, I did not feel called upon to join
+in the fray. I lived through several severe crises at
+Oxford, and though I had some intimate friends on
+either side, I remained throughout a looker on.</p>
+
+<p>Seldom has a University passed through such a
+complete change as Oxford has since the year 1854.
+And yet the change was never violent, and the
+University has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated
+and reinvigorated. It has been said that
+our constitution has now become too democratic,
+and that a University should be ruled by a Senatus
+rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain
+extent. There has been too much unrest, too constant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+changes, and a lack of continuity in the studies
+and in the government of the University. Every
+three years a new wave of young masters came in,
+carried a reform in the system of teaching and
+examining, and then left to make room for a new
+wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones
+had a fair trial. Senior members of the University,
+heads of houses and professors, have no more voting
+power than the young men who have just taken
+their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than
+these young Masters, who always meet together and
+form a kind of compact phalanx when votes are to
+be taken. There was even a Non-placet club, ready
+to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate
+from the reforming party, or threatened to change
+any established customs, whether beneficial or otherwise
+to the University. The University, as such,
+was far less considered than the colleges, and money
+drawn from the colleges for University purposes
+was looked upon as robbery, though of course the
+colleges profited by the improvement of the University,
+and the interests of the two ought never to
+have been divided, as little as the interests of an
+army can be divided from the interests of each
+regiment.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to Oxford there was still practically
+no society except that of the Heads of Houses, and
+there were no young ladies to grace their dinners.
+Each head took his turn in succession, and had twice
+or three times during term to feed his colleagues.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+These dinners were sumptuous repasts, though they
+often took place as early as five. To be invited to
+them was considered a great distinction, and, though
+a very young man, I was allowed now and then to
+be present, and I highly appreciated the honour.
+The company consisted almost entirely of Heads of
+Houses, Canons, and Professors; sometimes there
+was a sprinkling of distinguished persons from London,
+and even of ladies of various ages and degrees.
+I confess I often sat among them, as we say in German,
+<i>verrathen und verkauft</i>. After dinner I saw
+a number of young men streaming in, and thought
+the evening would now become more lively. But
+far from it. These young men with white ties and
+in evening dress stood in their scanty gowns huddled
+together on one side of the room. They received
+a cup of tea, but no one noticed them or
+spoke to them, and they hardly dared to speak
+among themselves. This, as I was told, was called
+&#8220;doing the perpendicular,&#8221; and they must have felt
+much relieved when towards ten o&#8217;clock they were
+allowed to depart, and exchange the perpendicular
+for a more comfortable position, indulging in songs
+and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to
+join.</p>
+
+<p>At that time I remember only very few houses
+outside the circle of Heads of Houses, where there
+was a lady and a certain amount of social life&mdash;the
+houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor
+Baden-Powell, Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+In their houses there was less of the strict academical
+etiquette, and as they were fond of music, particularly
+the Donkins, I spent some really delightful
+evenings with them. Nay, as I played on the
+pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses began to
+patronize music at their evening parties, though no
+gentleman at that time would have played at Oxford.
+I being a German, and Professor Donkin
+being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play,
+and we certainly had an appreciative, though not
+always a silent, audience.</p>
+
+<p>In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships
+was still very perceptible in the society of the
+University. No Fellows were allowed to marry,
+and the natural consequence was that most of them
+waited for a college living, a professorship or librarianship,
+which generally came to them when they
+were no longer young men. Headships of colleges
+also had so long to be waited for that most of them
+were generally filled by very senior and mostly unmarried
+men. Besides, headships were but seldom
+given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even
+divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity,
+and for business habits. Some of the Fellows gave
+pleasant and, as I thought, very Lucullic dinners
+in college; and I still remember my surprise when
+I was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at
+Jesus College. My host was Mr. Ffoulkes, who
+afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an
+Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+the whole furniture and the plate quite confounded
+me, 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 English.</p>
+
+<p>The City society was completely separated from
+the University society, so that even rich bankers
+and other gentlemen would never have ventured to
+ask members of the University to dine.</p>
+
+<p>Considering the position then held by the Heads
+of Houses, I feel I ought to devote some pages to
+describing some of the most prominent of them.
+At my age I may well hold to the maxim <i>seniores
+priores</i>, and will therefore begin with Dr. Routh,
+the centenarian President of Magdalen, as, though,
+the headship of a house seems to be an excellent prescription
+for longevity, there was no one to dispute
+the venerable doctor&#8217;s claim to precedence in this
+respect. He was then nearly a hundred years old,
+and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his
+wish to have the <i>C, anno centesimo</i>, on his gravestone,
+for, though tired of life, he often declared, so
+I was told, that he would not be outdone in this respect
+by another very old man, who was a dissenter;
+he never liked to see the Church beaten. I might
+have made his personal acquaintance, some friends
+of the old President offering to present me to him.
+But I did not avail myself of their offer, because
+I knew the old man did not like to be shown as
+a curiosity. When I saw him sitting at his window<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+he always wore a wig, and few had seen him without
+his wig and without his academic gown. He was
+certainly an exceptional man, and I believe he stood
+alone in the whole history of literature, as having
+published books at an interval of seventy years.
+His edition of the <i>Enthymemes</i> and <i>Gorgias of
+Plato</i> was published in 1784, his papers on the
+<i>Ignatian Epistles</i> in 1854. His <i>Reliquia Sacra</i>
+first appeared in 1814, and they are a work which
+at that time would have made the reputation of any
+scholar and divine. His editions of historical works,
+such as Burnet&#8217;s <i>History of his own Time</i> and the
+<i>History of the reign of King James</i>, show his considerable
+acquaintance with English history. I have
+already mentioned how he used to speak of events
+long before his time, such as the execution of
+Charles I, as if he had been present; nor did he
+hesitate to declare that even Bishop Burnet was a
+great liar. He certainly had seen many things
+which connected him with the past. He had seen
+Samuel Johnson mounting the steps of the Clarendon
+building in Broad Street, and though he had
+not himself seen Charles I when he held his Parliament
+at Oxford, he had known a lady whose mother
+had seen the king walking round the Parks at Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>However, we must not forget that many stories
+about the old President were more or less mythical,
+as indeed many Oxford stories are. I was told
+that he actually slept in wig, cap and gown, so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+once when an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle
+of his College, he put his head out of window
+in an incredibly short time, fully equipped as above.
+Many of these stories or &#8220;Common-Roomers&#8221; as
+they were called, still lived in the Common Rooms
+in my time, when the Fellows of each College assembled
+regularly after dinner, to take wine and
+dessert, and to talk on anything but what was called
+<i>Shop</i>, i.&nbsp;e. Greek and Latin. No one inquired about
+the truth of these stories, as long as they were well
+told. In a place like Oxford there exists a regular
+descent, by inheritance, of good stories. I remember
+stories told of Dr. Jenkins, as Master of Balliol,
+and afterwards transferred to his successor, Mr.
+Jowett. Bodleian stories descended in like manner
+from Dr. Bandinell to Mr. Coxe, and will probably
+be told of successive librarians till they become
+quite incongruous. I am old enough to have
+watched the descent of stories at Oxford, just as
+one recognizes the same furniture in college rooms
+occupied by successive generations of undergraduates.
+To me they sometimes seem threadbare like
+the old Turkish carpets in the college rooms, but I
+never spoil them by betraying their age, and, if
+well told, I can enjoy them as much as if I had
+never heard them before.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, was quite a representative
+of Old Oxford, and a well-known character
+in the University. I had been introduced to
+him by Baron Bunsen, and he showed me much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+hospitality. I was warned that I should find him
+very stiff and forbidding. His own Fellows called
+him the East-wind. But though he certainly was
+condescending, he treated me with great urbanity.
+He had a very peculiar habit; when he had to
+shake hands with people whom he considered his
+inferiors, he stretched out two fingers, and if some
+of them who knew this peculiarity of his, tendered
+him two fingers in return, the shaking of hands
+became rather awkward. One of the Fellows of his
+college told me that, as long as he was only a Fellow,
+he never received more than two fingers; when,
+however, he became Head Master of a school, he
+was rewarded with three fingers, or even with the
+whole hand, but, as soon as he gave up this place,
+and returned to live in college, he was at once reduced
+to the statutable two fingers. I don&#8217;t recollect
+exactly how many fingers I was treated to, and
+I may have shaken them with my whole hand.
+Anyhow, I am quite conscious now of how many
+times I must have offended against academic etiquette.
+How, for instance, is a man to know that
+people who live at Oxford during term-time never
+shake hands except once during term? I doubt, in
+fact, whether that etiquette existed when I first
+came to Oxford, but it certainly had existed for
+some time before I discovered it.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jenkins, Master of Balliol, was also the hero
+of many anecdotes. It was of him that it was first
+told how he once found fault with an undergraduate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+because, whenever he looked out of window, he
+invariably saw the young man loitering about in
+the quad; to which the undergraduate replied:
+&#8220;How very curious, for whenever I cross the quad,
+I always see you, Sir, looking out of window.&#8221; He
+had a quiet humour of his own, and delighted in
+saying things which made others laugh, but never
+disturbed a muscle of his own face. One of his
+undergraduates was called Wyndham, and he had
+to say a few sharp words to him at &#8220;handshaking,&#8221;
+that is, at the end of term. After saying all he
+wanted, he finished in Latin: &#8220;Et nunc valeas
+Wyndhamme,&#8221;&mdash;the last two syllables being pronounced
+with great emphasis. The Master&#8217;s regard
+for his own dignity was very great. Once, when
+returning from a solitary walk, he slipped and fell.
+Two undergraduates seeing the accident ran to assist
+him, and were just laying hands on him to lift
+him up, when he descried a Master of Arts coming.
+&#8220;Stop,&#8221; he cried, &#8220;stop, I see a Master of Arts
+coming down the street.&#8221; And he dismissed the
+undergraduates with many thanks, and was helped
+on to his legs by the M.A.</p>
+
+<p>Accidents, or slips of the tongue, will happen to
+everybody, even to a Head of a House. One of
+these old gentlemen, Dr. Symons, of Wadham,
+when presiding at a missionary meeting, had to
+introduce Sir Peregrine Maitland, a most distinguished
+officer, and a thoroughly good man. When
+dilating on the Christian work which Sir Peregrine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+had done in India, he called him again and again
+Sir Peregrine Pickle. The effect was most ludicrous,
+for everybody was evidently well acquainted
+with <i>Roderick Random</i>, and Sir Peregrine had great
+difficulty in remaining serious when the Chairman
+called on Sir Peregrine Pickle once more to address
+his somewhat perplexed audience.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever may be said about the old Heads
+of Houses, most of them were certainly gentlemen
+both by birth and by nature. They are forgotten
+now, but they did good in their time, and much of
+their good work remains. If I consider who were
+the Dean and Canons and Students I met at Christ
+Church when I first became a member of the House,
+I should have to give a very different account from
+that given by the Highland lady in her <i>Memoirs</i>.
+The Dean of Christ Church, who received me, who
+proposed me for the degree of M.A., and afterwards
+allowed me to become a member of the House, was
+Dr. Gaisford, a real scholar, though it may be of
+the old school. He was considered very rough and
+rude, but I can only say he showed me more of real
+courtesy in those days than anybody else at Oxford.
+He was, I believe, a little shy, and easily put out
+when he suspected anybody, particularly the young
+men, of want of consideration. I can quite believe
+that when an undergraduate, in addressing him,
+stepped on the hearthrug on which he was standing,
+he may have said: &#8220;Get down from my hearthrug,&#8221;
+meaning, &#8220;keep at your proper distance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>&#8221;
+I can only say that I never found him anything but
+kind and courteous. It so happened that he had
+been made a Member of the Bavarian Academy,
+and I, though very young, had received the same
+distinction as a reward for my Sanskrit work, and
+the Dean was rather pleased when he heard it.
+When I asked him whether he would put my name
+on the books of the House, he certainly hesitated
+a little, and asked me at last to come again next
+day and dine with him. I went, but I confess
+I was rather afraid that the Dean would raise difficulties.
+However, he spoke to me very nicely,
+&#8220;I have looked through the books,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and
+I find two precedents of Germans being members
+of the House, one of the name of Wernerus, and
+another of the name of Nitzschius,&#8221; or some such
+name. &#8220;But,&#8221; he continued, smiling, &#8220;even if
+I had not found these names, I should not have
+minded making a precedent of your case.&#8221; People
+were amazed at Oxford when they heard of the
+Dean&#8217;s courtesy, but I can only repeat that I never
+found him anything but courteous.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the Heads of Houses asked me to dine
+with them by sending me an invitation. The Dean
+alone first came and called on me. I was then
+living in a small room in Walton Street in which
+I worked, and dined, and smoked. My bedroom
+was close by, and I generally got up early, and
+shaved and finished my toilet at about 11 o&#8217;clock.
+I had just gone into my bedroom to shave, my face<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+was half covered with lather, when my landlady
+rushed in and told me the Dean had called, and
+my dogs were pulling him about. The fact was
+I had a Scotch terrier with a litter of puppies in
+a basket, and when the Dean entered in full academical
+dress, the dogs flew at him, pulling the
+sleeves of his gown and barking furiously. Covered
+with lather as I was, I had to rush in to quiet the
+dogs, and in this state I had to receive the Very Rev.
+the Dean, and explain to him the nature of the work
+that brought me to Oxford. It was certainly awkward,
+but in spite of the disorder of my room, in
+spite also of the tobacco smoke of which the Dean
+did not approve, all went off well, though, I confess,
+I felt somewhat ashamed. In the same interview
+the Dean asked me about an Icelandic Dictionary
+which had been offered to the press by Cleasby and
+Dasent. &#8220;Surely it is a small barbarous island,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;and how can they have any literature?&#8221;
+I tried, as well as I could, to explain to the Dean the
+extent and the value of Icelandic literature, and
+soon after the press, which was then the Dean, accepted
+the Dictionary which was brought out later
+by Dr. Vigfusson, in a most careful and scholarlike
+manner. It might indeed safely be called his Dictionary,
+considering how many dictionaries are
+called, not after the name of the compiler or compilers,
+but after that of their editor.</p>
+
+<p>This Dr. Vigfusson was quite a character. He
+was perfectly pale and bloodless, and had but one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+wish, that of being left alone. He came to Oxford
+first to assist Dr. Dasent, to whom Cleasby, when
+he died, had handed over his collections; but afterwards
+he stayed, taking it for granted that the
+University would give him the little he wanted.
+But even that little was difficult to provide, as there
+were no funds that could be used for that purpose,
+however uselessly other funds might seem to be
+squandered. That led to constant grumbling on
+his part. Ever so many expedients were tried to
+satisfy him, but none quite succeeded. At last
+he fell ill and died, and when he was a patient at
+the Acland Home, where the nurses did all they
+could for him, he several times said to me when
+I sat with him, that he had never been so happy in
+his life as in that Home. I sometimes blame myself
+for not having seen more of him at Oxford. But
+he always seemed to me full of suspicions and very
+easily offended, and that made any free intercourse
+with him difficult and far from pleasant. Perhaps
+it was my fault also. He may have felt that he
+might have claimed a professorship of Icelandic
+quite as well as I, and he may have grudged my
+settled position in Oxford, my independence and my
+freedom. Whenever we did work together, I always
+found him pleasant at first, but very soon
+he would become wayward and sensitive, do what
+I would, and I had to let him go his own way, as
+I went mine.</p>
+
+<p>I remember dining with the famous Dr. Bull,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+Canon of Christ Church, who certainly managed to
+produce a dinner that would have done credit to
+any French chef. He was one of the last pluralists,
+and many stories were told about him. One story,
+which however was perfectly true, showed at all
+events his great sagacity. A well-known banker
+had been for years the banker of Christ Church.
+Dr. Bull who was the College Bursar had to transact
+all the financial business with him. No one
+suspected the banking house which he represented.
+Dr. Bull, however, the last time he invited him to
+dinner, was struck by his very pious and orthodox
+remarks, and by the change of tone in his conversation,
+such as might suit a Canon of Christ Church,
+but not a luxurious banker from London. Without
+saying a word, Dr. Bull went to London next day,
+drew out all the money of the college, took all his
+papers from the bank, and the day after, to the dismay
+of London, the bank failed, the depositors lost
+their money, but Christ Church was unhurt.</p>
+
+<p>Another of the Canons of Christ Church at that
+time had spent half a century in the place, and read
+the lessons there twice every day. Of course he
+knew the prayer-book by heart, and as long as he
+could see to read there was no harm in his reading.
+But when his eyesight failed him and he had to
+trust entirely to his memory, he would often go
+from some word in the evening prayer to the same
+word in the marriage service, and from there to
+the burial service, with an occasional slip into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+baptism. 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
+away. I frequently stayed at Oxford during vacation,
+and thought of course that the evening service
+would never end, till at last I was asked to name
+the child, and then I went home.</p>
+
+<p>One Sunday I remember going to chapel, and
+after prayers had begun the following conversation
+took place, loud enough to be heard all through
+the chapel. Enter old Canon preceded by a beadle.
+He goes straight to his stall, and finding it occupied
+by a well-known D.D. from London, who is deeply
+engaged in prayer, he stands and looks at the interloper,
+and when that produces no effect, he says
+to the beadle: &#8220;Tell that man this is my stall; tell
+him to get out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beadle: &#8220;Dr. A.&#8217;s compliments, and whether you
+would kindly occupy another stall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>D.D.: &#8220;Very sorry; I shall change immediately.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Old Canon settles in his stall, prayers continue,
+and after about ten minutes the Canon shouts:
+&#8220;Beadle, tell that man to dine with me at five.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beadle: &#8220;Dr. A.&#8217;s compliments, and whether you
+would give him the pleasure of your company at
+dinner at five.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>D.D.: &#8220;Very sorry, I am engaged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beadle: &#8220;D.D. regrets he is engaged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Old Canon: &#8220;Oh, he won&#8217;t dine!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The cathedral was very empty, and fortunately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+this conversation was listened to by a small congregation
+only. I can, however, vouch for it, as
+I was sitting close by and heard it myself.</p>
+
+<p>Bodley&#8217;s Library, too, was full of good stories,
+though many of them do not bear repeating. When
+I first began to work there, Dr. Bandinell was
+Bodleian Librarian. Working in the Bodleian was
+then like working in one&#8217;s private library. One
+could have as many books and MSS. as one desired,
+and the six hours during which the Library was
+open were a very fair allowance for such tiring
+work as copying and collating Sanskrit MSS. I
+well remember my delight when I first sat down
+at my table near one of the windows looking into
+the garden of Exeter. It seemed a perfect paradise
+for a student. I must confess that I slightly altered
+my opinion when I had to sit there every day
+during a severe winter without any fire, shivering
+and shaking, and almost unable to hold my pen, till
+kind Mr. Coxe, the sub-librarian, took compassion
+on me and brought me a splendid fur that had been
+sent him as a present by a Russian scholar, who had
+witnessed the misery of the Librarian in this Siberian
+Library. Now all this is changed. The Library
+is so full of students, both male and female, that
+one has difficulty in finding a place, certainly in
+finding a quiet place; and all sorts of regulations
+have been introduced which have no doubt become
+necessary on account of the large number of readers,
+but which have completely changed, or as some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+would say, improved the character of the place. As
+to one improvement, however, there can be no two
+opinions. The Library and the reading-room, the
+so-called Camera, are now comfortably warmed,
+and students may in the latter place read for twelve
+hours uninterruptedly, and not be turned out as
+we were by a warning bell at four o&#8217;clock. And
+woe to you if you failed to obey the warning. One
+day an unfortunate reader was so absorbed in his
+book that he did not hear the bell, and was locked
+in. He tried in vain to attract attention from the
+windows, for it was no pleasant prospect to pass
+a night among so many ghosts. At last he saw
+a solitary woman, and shouted to her that he was
+locked in. &#8220;No,&#8221; she said, &#8220;you are not. The
+Library is closed at four.&#8221; Whether he spent the
+night among the books is not known. Let us hope
+that he met with a less logical person to release him
+from his cold prison.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bandinell ruled supreme in his library, and
+even the Curators trembled before him when he told
+them what had been the invariable custom of the
+Library for years, and could not be altered. And,
+curiously enough, he had always funds at his disposal,
+which is not the case now, and whenever
+there was a collection of valuable MSS. in the
+market he often prided himself on having secured
+it long before any other library had the money
+ready. Now and then, it is true, he allowed himself
+to be persuaded by a plausible seller of rare books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+or MSS., but generally he was very wary. He was
+not always very courteous to visitors, and still less so
+to his under-librarians. The Oriental under-librarian
+Professor Reay, in particular, who was old and
+somewhat infirm, had much to suffer from him, and
+the language in which he was ordered about was
+such as would not now be addressed to any menial.
+And yet Professor Reay belonged to a very good
+family, though Dr. Bandinell would insist on calling
+him Ray, and declared that he had no right to
+the e in his name. In revenge some people would
+give him an additional i and call him Dr. Bandinelli,
+which made him very angry, because, as he would
+say to me, &#8220;he had never been one of those dirty
+foreigners.&#8221; Silence was enjoined in the library,
+but the librarian&#8217;s voice broke through all rules of
+silence. I remember once, when Professor Reay
+had been looking for ever so long to find his spectacles
+without which he could not read the Arabic
+MSS., and had asked everybody whether they had
+seen them, a voice came at last thundering through
+the library: &#8220;You left your spectacles on my chair,
+you old &mdash;&mdash;, and I sat on them!&#8221; There was
+an end of spectacles and Arabic MSS. after that.
+There were two men only of whom Dr. Bandinell
+and H.&nbsp;O. Coxe also were afraid, Dr. Pusey, who
+was one of the Curators, and later on, Jowett, the
+Master of Balliol.</p>
+
+<p>There was a vacancy in the Oriental sub-librarianship,
+and a very distinguished young Hebrew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+scholar, William Wright, afterwards Professor at
+Cambridge, was certainly by far the best candidate.
+But as ill-luck&mdash;I mean ill-luck for the Library&mdash;would
+have it, he had given offence by a lecture at
+Dublin, in which he declared that the people of
+Canaan were Semitic, and not, as stated in Genesis,
+the children of Ham. No one doubts this now, and
+every new inscription has confirmed it. Still a
+strong effort was made to represent Dr. Wright as
+a most dangerous young man, and thus to prevent
+his appointment at Oxford. The appointment was
+really in the hands of Dr. Bandinell; and after I
+had frankly explained to him the motives of this
+mischievous agitation against Dr. Wright, and assured
+him that he was a scholar and by no means
+given to what was then called &#8220;free-handling of the
+Old Testament,&#8221; he promised me that he would
+appoint him and no one else. However, poor man,
+he was urged and threatened and frightened, and
+to my great surprise the appointment was given to
+some one else, who at that time had given hardly
+any proofs of independent work as a Semitic scholar,
+though he afterwards rendered very good and honest
+service. I did not disguise my opinion of what
+had happened; and for more than a year Dr. Bandinell
+never spoke to me nor I to him, though we
+met almost daily at the library. At last the old
+man, evidently feeling that he had been wrong,
+came to tell me that he was sorry for what had happened,
+but that it was not his fault: after this, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+course, all was forgotten. Dr. Wright had a much
+more brilliant career opened to him, first at the
+British Museum, and then as professor at Cambridge,
+than he could possibly have had as sub-librarian
+at Oxford. He always remained a scholar, and
+never dabbled in theology.</p>
+
+<p>Some very heated correspondence passed at the
+time, and I remember keeping the letters for a long
+while. They were curious as showing the then state
+of theological opinion at Oxford; but I have evidently
+put the correspondence away so carefully
+that nowhere can I find it now. Let it be forgotten
+and forgiven.</p>
+
+<p>Many, if not all, of the stories that I have written
+down in this chapter may be legendary, and
+they naturally lose or gain as told by different people.
+Who has not heard different versions of the
+story of a well-known Canon of Christ Church in
+my early days, who, when rowing on the river, saw
+a drowning man laying hold of his boat and nearly
+upsetting it. &#8220;Providentially,&#8221; he explained, &#8220;I
+had brought my umbrella, and I had presence of
+mind enough to hit him over the knuckles. He let
+go, sank, and never rose again.&#8221; Nobody, I imagine,
+would have vouched for the truth of this
+story, but it was so often repeated that it provided
+the old gentleman with a nickname, that stuck to
+him always.</p>
+
+<p>I could add more Oxford stories, but it seems almost
+ill-natured to do so, and I could only say in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+most cases <i>relata refero</i>. When I first came here
+Oxford and Oxford society were to me so strange
+that I probably accepted many similar stories as
+gospel truth. My young friends hardly treated me
+quite fairly in this respect. I had many questions
+to ask, and my friends evidently thought it great
+fun to chaff me and to tell me stories which I naturally
+believed, for there were many things which
+seemed to me very strange, and yet they were true
+and I had to believe them. The existence of Fellows
+who received from &pound;300 to &pound;800 a year, as a
+mere sinecure for life, provided they did not marry,
+seemed to me at first perfectly incredible. 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 employments,
+particularly if they could gain an exhibition
+or scholarship. But after a man had passed his examinations,
+the country or the government had
+nothing more to do with him. &#8220;Swim or drown&#8221;
+was the maxim followed everywhere; and it was
+but natural that the first years of professional life,
+whether as lawyers, medical men, or clergymen,
+were years of great self-denial. But they were also
+years of intense struggle, 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 employment.
+To imagine that after the country had
+done its duty by providing schools and universities,
+it would provide crutches for men who ought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+learn to walk by themselves, was beyond my comprehension,
+particularly when I was told how large
+a sum was yearly spent by the colleges in paying
+these fellowships without requiring any <i>quid pro
+quo</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Having once come to believe that, and several
+other to me unintelligible things at Oxford, I was
+ready to believe almost anything my friends told
+me. There are some famous stone images, for instance,
+round the Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum.
+They are hideous, for the sandstone of which
+they are made has crumbled away again and again,
+but even when they were restored, the same brittle
+stone was used. They are in the form of Hermae,
+and were planned by no less an architect than Sir
+Christopher Wren. When I asked what they were
+meant for, I was assured quite seriously that they
+were images of former Heads of Houses. I believed
+it, though I expressed my surprise that the stone-mason
+who made new heads, when the old showed
+hardly more than two eyes and a nose, and a very
+wide mouth, should carefully copy the crumbling
+faces, because, as I was informed, he had been told
+to copy the former gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly a very common amusement of
+my young undergraduate friends to make fun of
+the Heads of Houses. They did not seem to feel
+that shiver of unspeakable awe for them of which
+Bishop Thorold speaks; nay, they were anything
+but respectful in speaking of the Doctors of Divinity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
+in their red gowns with black velvet sleeves. If
+it is difficult for old men always to understand
+young men, it is certainly even more difficult for
+young men to understand old men. There is a very
+old saying, &#8220;Young men think that old men are
+fools, but old men know that young men are.&#8221;
+Though very young myself, I came to know several
+of the old Heads of Houses, and though they certainly
+had their peculiarities, they did by no means
+all belong to the age of the Dodo. They were enjoying
+their <i>otium cum dignitate</i>, as befits gentlemen,
+scholars, and divines, and they certainly deserved
+greater respect from the undergraduates than
+they received.</p>
+
+<p>At the annual <i>Encaenia</i>, a great deal of licence
+was allowed to the young men; and I know of several
+strangers, especially foreigners, who have been
+scandalized at the riotous behaviour of the undergraduates
+in the Theatre, the Oxford <i>Aula</i>, when
+the Vice-Chancellor stood up to address the assembled
+audience. My first experience of this was with
+Dr. Plumptre, who, as I have said, was very tall
+and stately; when his first words were not quite distinct,
+the undergraduates shouted, &#8220;Speak up, old
+stick.&#8221; When the Warden of Wadham, the Rev.
+Dr. Symons, was showing some pretty young ladies
+to their seats in the Theatre, he was threatened by
+the young men, who yelled at the top of their voices,
+&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell Lydia, you wicked old man.&#8221; Now Lydia
+was his most excellent spouse. At first the remarks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
+of the undergraduates at the <i>Encaenia</i>, or rather
+<i>Saturnalia</i>, were mostly good-natured and at least
+witty; but they at last became so rude that distinguished
+men, whom the University wished to
+honour by conferring on them honorary degrees,
+felt deeply offended. Sir Arthur Helps declared
+that he came to receive an honour, and received an
+insult. Well do I remember the Rev. Dr. Salmon,
+who was asked where he had left his lobster sauce;
+Dr. Wendell Holmes was shouted at, whether he
+had come across the Atlantic in his &#8220;One Hoss
+Shay&#8221;; the Right Hon. W.&nbsp;H. Smith, First Lord
+of the Admiralty, was presented with a Pinafore,
+and Lord Wolseley with a Black Watch. There
+was a certain amount of wit in these allusions, and
+the best way to take the academic row and riot was
+Tennyson&#8217;s, who told me on coming out that &#8220;he
+felt all the time as if standing on the shingle of the
+sea shore, the storm howling, and the spray covering
+him right and left.&#8221; After a time, however, these
+<i>Saturnalia</i> had to be stopped, and they were stopped
+in a curious way, by giving ladies seats among the
+undergraduates. It speaks well for them that their
+regard for the ladies restrained them, and made
+them behave like gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>The reign of the Heads of Houses, which was in
+full force when I first settled in Oxford, began to
+wane when it was least expected. There had, however,
+been grumblings among the Fellows and Tutors
+at Oxford, who felt themselves aggrieved by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
+the self-willed interference of the Heads of Colleges
+in their tutorial work, and, it may be, resented the
+airs assumed by men who, after all, were their
+equals, and in no sense their betters, in the University.</p>
+
+<p>Society distinctly profited when Fellows and Tutors
+were allowed to marry, and when several of
+the newly-elected of the Heads of Houses, having
+wives and daughters, opened their houses, and had
+interesting people to dine with them from the
+neighbourhood and from London.</p>
+
+<p>The Deanery of Christ Church was not only
+made architecturally into a new house, but under
+Dr. Liddell, with his charming wife and daughters,
+became a social centre not easily rivalled anywhere
+else. There one met not only royalty, the young
+Prince of Wales, but many eminent writers, artists,
+and political men from London, Gladstone, Disraeli,
+Richmond, Ruskin, and many others. Another
+bright house of the new era was that of the Principal
+of Brasenose, Dr. Cradock, and his cheerful
+and most amusing wife. There one often met such
+men as Lord Russell, Sir George C. Lewis, young
+Harcourt, and many more. She was the true Dresden
+china marquise, with her amusing sallies, which
+no doubt often gave offence to grave Heads of
+Houses and sedate Professors. No one knew her
+age, she was so young; and yet she had been maid
+of honour to some Queen, as I told her once, to
+Queen Anne. Having been maid of honour, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+never concealed her own peculiar feelings about
+people who had not been presented. When she
+wanted to be left alone, she would look out of window,
+and tell visitors who came to call, &#8220;Very sorry,
+but I am not at home to-day.&#8221; Queen&#8217;s College
+also, under Dr. Thomson, the future Archbishop
+of York, was a most hospitable house. Mrs. Thomson
+presided over it with her peculiar grace and genuine
+kindness, and many a pleasant evening I spent
+there with musical performances. But here, too,
+the old leaven of Oxford burst forth sometimes. Of
+course, we generally performed the music of Handel
+and other classical authors; Mendelssohn&#8217;s compositions
+were still considered as mere twaddle by
+some of the old school. At one of these evenings,
+the old organist of New College, with his wooden
+leg, after sitting through a rehearsal of Mendelssohn&#8217;s
+<i>Hymn of Praise</i>, which I was conducting at
+the pianoforte, walked up to me, as I thought, to
+thank me; but no, he burst out in a torrent of real
+and somewhat coarse abuse of me, for venturing to
+introduce such flimsy music at Oxford. I did not
+feel very guilty, and fortunately I remained silent,
+whether from actual bewilderment or from a better
+cause, I can hardly tell.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="Max30" id="Max30"></a><a href="images/illo268.jpg"><img src="images/illo268_th.jpg"
+alt="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 30" title="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 30" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><i>F. Max M&uuml;ller</i><br />
+
+<i>Aged 30.</i></p>
+
+<p>Long before Commissions came down on Oxford
+a new life seemed to be springing up there, and
+what was formerly the exception became more and
+more the rule among the young Fellows and Tutors.
+They saw what a splendid opportunity was theirs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
+having the very flower of England to educate, having
+the future of English society to form. They
+certainly made the best of it, helped, I believe, by
+the so-called Oxford Movement, which, whatever
+came of it afterwards, was certainly in the beginning
+thoroughly genuine and conscientious. The
+Tutors saw a good deal of the young men confided
+to their care, and the result was that even what was
+called the &#8220;fast set&#8221; thought it a fine thing to
+take a good class. I could mention a number of
+young noblemen and wealthy undergraduates who,
+in my early years, read for a first class and took it;
+and my experience has certainly been that those who
+took a first class came out in later life as eminent
+and useful members of society. Not that eminence
+in political, clerical, literary, and scientific life was
+restricted to first classes, far from it. But first-class
+men rarely failed to appear again on the surface in
+later life. It may be true that a first class did not
+always mean a first-class man, but it always seemed
+to mean a man who had learned how to work
+honestly, whether he became Prime Minister or
+Archbishop, or spent his days in one of the public
+offices, or even in a counting-house or newspaper
+office.</p>
+
+<p>I felt it was an excellent mixture if a young man,
+after taking a good degree at Oxford, spent a year
+or two at a German University. He generally came
+back with fresh ideas, knew what kind of work still
+had to be done in the different branches of study,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
+and did it with a perseverance that soon produced
+most excellent results. Of course there was always
+the difficulty that young men wished to make their
+way in life, that is to make a living. The Church,
+the bar, and the hospital, absorbed many of those
+who in Germany would have looked forward to a
+University career. In my own subject more particularly,
+my very best pupils did not see their way
+to gaining even an independence, unless they gave
+their time to first securing a curacy, or a mastership
+at school; and they usually found that, in order to
+do their work conscientiously, they had to give up
+their favourite studies in which they would certainly
+have done excellent work, if there had been
+no <i>dira necessitas</i>. 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 studies. But the feeling of the
+majority was always against what was called derisively
+Original Research, and the fellowship-funds
+continued to be frittered away, payment by results
+being considered a totally mistaken principle, so
+that often, as in the case of the new septennial fellowships,
+there remained the payment only, but no
+results.</p>
+
+<p>Still all this became clear to me at a much later
+time only. My first years at Oxford were spent
+in a perfect bewilderment of joy and admiration.
+No one can see that University for the first time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
+particularly in spring or autumn, without being
+enchanted with it. To me it seemed a perfect paradise,
+and I could have wished for myself no better
+lot than that which the kindness of my friends later
+secured for me there.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Will it be believed that the battels (bills) in College are connected
+with this word?</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Opere</i>, ed. Wagner, i. p. 179.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I was</span> still very young when I came to settle at
+Oxford, only twenty-four in fact; and, though occasionally
+honoured by invitations from Heads of
+Houses and Professors, I naturally lived chiefly
+with undergraduates and junior Fellows, such as
+Grant, Sellar, Palgrave, Morier, and others. Grant,
+afterwards Sir Alexander Grant and Principal of
+the University of Edinburgh, was a delightful companion.
+He had always something new in his mind,
+and discussed with many flashes of wit and satire.
+He possessed an aristocratic contempt for anything
+commonplace, or self-evident, so that one had to be
+careful in conversing with him. But he was generous,
+and his laugh reconciled one to some of his
+sharp sallies. How little one anticipates the future
+greatness of one&#8217;s friends. They all seem to us no
+better than ourselves, when suddenly they emerge.
+Grant had shown what he could do by his edition
+of Aristotle&#8217;s <i>Ethics</i>. He became one of the Professors
+at the new University at Bombay and contributed
+much to the first starting of that University,
+so warmly patronized by Sir Charles Trevelyan.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+On returning to this country he was chosen
+to fill the distinguished place of Principal of the
+Edinburgh University. More was expected of him
+when he enjoyed this <i>otium cum dignitate</i>, but his
+health seemed to have suffered in the enervating climate
+of India, and, though he enjoyed his return
+to his friends most fully and spending his life as a
+friend among friends, he died comparatively young,
+and perhaps without fulfilling all the hopes that
+were entertained of him. But he was a thoroughly
+genial man, and his handshake and the twinkle of
+his eye when meeting an old friend will not easily be
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Sellar was another Scotchman whom I knew as
+an undergraduate at Balliol. When I first came
+to know him he was full of anxieties about his
+health, and greatly occupied with the usual doubts
+about religion, particularly the presence of evil or
+of anything imperfect in this world. He was an
+honest fellow, warmly attached to his friends; and
+no one could wish to have a better friend to stand
+up for him on all occasions and against all odds.
+He afterwards became happily married and a useful
+Professor of Latin at Edinburgh. I stayed with
+him later in life in Scotland and found him always
+the same, really enjoying his friends&#8217; society and
+a talk over old days. He had begun to ail when
+I saw him last, but the old boy was always there,
+even when he was miserable about his chiefly imaginary
+miseries. Soon after I had left him I received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+his last message and farewell from his deathbed.
+We are told that all this is very natural and
+what we must be prepared for&mdash;but what cold gaps
+it leaves. My thoughts often return to him, as if
+he were still among the living, and then one feels
+one&#8217;s own loneliness and friendlessness again and
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Palgrave roused great expectations among undergraduates
+at Oxford, but he kept us waiting for
+some time. He took early to office life in the Educational
+Department, and this seems to have ground
+him down and unfitted him for other work. He had
+a wonderful gift of admiring, his great hero being
+Tennyson, and he was more than disappointed if
+others did not join in his unqualified panegyrics of
+the great poet. At last, somewhat late in life, he
+was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and gave
+some most learned and instructive lectures. His
+knowledge of English Literature, particularly poetry,
+was quite astounding. I certainly never went
+to him to ask him a question that he did not answer
+at once and with exhaustive fullness. Some of his
+friends complained of his great command of language,
+and even Tennyson, I am told, found it
+sometimes too much. All I can say is that to me
+it was a pleasure to listen to him. I owe him particular
+thanks for having, in the kindest manner,
+revised my first English compositions. He was always
+ready and indefatigable, and I certainly owed
+a good deal to his corrections and his unstinted advice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+His <i>Golden Treasury</i> has become a national
+possession, and certainly speaks well both for his
+extensive knowledge and for his good taste.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly there was Morier, of whom certainly no
+one expected when he was at Balliol that he would
+rise to be British Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
+His early education had been somewhat neglected,
+but when he came to Balliol he worked hard to
+pass a creditable examination. He was a giant in
+size, very good-looking, and his manners, when he
+liked, most charming and attractive. Being the
+son of a diplomatist there was something both English
+and foreign in his manner, and he certainly was
+a general favourite at Oxford. His great desire
+was to enter the diplomatic service, but when that
+was impossible, he found employment for a time
+in the Education Office. But society in London
+was too much for him, he was made for society,
+and society was delighted to receive him. But it
+was difficult for him at the same time to fulfil his
+duties at the Education Office, and the result was
+that he had to give up his place. Things began
+to look serious, when fortunately Lord Aberdeen,
+a great friend of his father, found him some diplomatic
+employment; and that once found, Morier
+was in his element. He was often almost reckless;
+but while several of his friends came altogether to
+grief, he managed always to fall on his feet and
+keep afloat while others went down. As an undergraduate
+he came to me to read Greek with me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+and I confess that with such mistakes in his Greek
+papers as &#959;&#7985; &#960;&#7937;&#952;&#959;&#953; instead of &#964;&#7936; &#960;&#7937;&#952;&#951;, I trembled
+for his examinations. However, he did well in the
+schools, knowing how to hide his weak points and
+how to make the best of his strong ones. I travelled
+with him in Germany, and when the Schleswig-Holstein
+question arose, he wrote a pamphlet which
+certainly might have cost him his diplomatic career.
+He asked me to allow it to be understood that the
+pamphlet, which did full justice to the claims of
+Holstein and of Germany, had been written by me.
+I received many compliments, which I tried to parry
+as well as I could. Fortunately Lord John Russell
+stood by Morier, and his prophecies did certainly
+turn out true. &#8220;Don&#8217;t let the Germans awake from
+their slumbers and find a work ready made for them
+on which they all agree.&#8221; But the signatories of
+the treaty of London did the very thing against
+which Morier had raised his warning voice, as the
+friend of Germany as it was, though perhaps not
+of the Germany that was to be. Schleswig-Holstein
+<i>meer-umschlungen</i> became the match, (the Schwefel-h&ouml;lzchen),
+that was to light the fire of German
+unity, a unity which for a time may not have been
+exactly what England could have wished for, but
+which in the future will become, we hope, the safety
+of Europe and the support of England.</p>
+
+<p>Morier&#8217;s later advance in his diplomatic career
+was certainly most successful. He possessed the
+very important art of gaining the confidence of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+crowned heads and ministers he had to deal with.
+Bismarck, it is true, could not bear him, and tried
+several times to trip him up. Even while Morier
+was at Berlin, as a Secretary of Legation, Bismarck
+asked for his removal, but Lord Granville simply
+declined to remove a young diplomatist who gave
+him information on all parties in Germany, and to
+do so had to mix with people whom Bismarck did
+not approve of. Besides, Morier was always a
+<i>persona grata</i> with the Crown Prince and the
+Crown Princess, and that was enough to make Bismarck
+dislike him. Later in life Bismarck accused
+him of having conveyed private information of the
+military position of the Germans to the French
+Guards, such information being derived from the
+English Court. The charge was ridiculous. Morier
+was throughout the war a sympathizer with Germany
+as against France. The English Court had
+no military information to convey or to communicate
+to Morier, and Morier was too much of a diplomatist
+and a gentleman, if by accident he had
+possessed any such information, to betray such a
+secret to an enemy in the field. Bismarck was completely
+routed, though his son seemed inclined to
+fasten a duel on the English diplomatist. Morier
+rose higher and higher, and at last became Ambassador
+at St. Petersburg. When I laughed and congratulated
+him he said, &#8220;He must be a great fool
+who does not reach the top of the diplomatic tree.&#8221;
+That was too much modesty, and yet modesty was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
+not exactly his fault; but he agreed with me as to
+<i>quam parva sapientia regitur mundus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could seem more prosperous than my
+friend Morier&#8217;s career; but few people knew how
+utterly miserable he really was. He had one son,
+in many respects the very image of his father, a
+giant in stature, very handsome, and most attractive.
+In spite of all we said to him he would not
+send his son to a public school in England, but kept
+him with him at the different embassies, where his
+only companions were the young attach&eacute;s and secretaries.
+He had a private tutor, and when that
+tutor declared that young Morier was fit for the
+University, his father managed to get him into Balliol,
+recommending him to the special care of the
+Master. He actually lived in the Master&#8217;s house for
+a time, but enjoyed the greatest liberty that an
+undergraduate at Oxford may enjoy. His father
+was wrapped up in his boy, but at the same time
+tried to frighten him into hard work, or at least
+into getting through the examinations. All was in
+vain; young Morier was so nervous that he could
+never pass an examination. What might be expected
+followed, and the father had at last to remove
+him to begin work as an honorary attach&eacute; at his own
+embassy. I liked the young man very much, but
+my own impression is that his nervousness quite unfitted
+him for serious work. The end was beyond
+description sad. He went to South Africa in the
+police force, distinguished himself very much, came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
+back to England, and then on his second voyage
+to the Cape died suddenly on board the steamer. I
+have seldom seen such utter misery as his father&#8217;s.
+He loved his son and the son loved his father passionately,
+but the father expected more than it
+was physically and mentally possible for the son to
+do. Hence arose misunderstandings, and yet beneath
+the surface there was this passionate love, like
+the love of lovers. When I saw my old friend last,
+he cried and sobbed like a child: his heart was really
+broken. He went on for a few years more, suffering
+much from ill health, but really killed at last
+by his utter misery. I knew him in the bright
+morning of his life, at the meridian of his great success,
+and last in the dark night when light and life
+seems gone, when the moon and all the stars are
+extinguished, and nothing remains but patient suffering
+and the hope of a brighter morn to come.</p>
+
+<p>How little one dreamt of all this when we were
+young, and when an ambassador, nay, even a professor,
+seemed to us far beyond the reach of our
+ambition. I could go on mentioning many more
+names of men with whom I lived at Oxford in the
+most delightful intimacy, and who afterwards
+turned up as bishops, archbishops, judges, ministers,
+and all the rest. True, it is quite natural that it
+should be so with a man who, as I did, began his
+English life almost as an undergraduate among undergraduates.
+Nearly all Englishmen who receive
+a liberal education must pass either through Oxford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+or through Cambridge, and I was no doubt lucky
+in making thus early the acquaintance of a number
+of men who later in life became deservedly eminent.
+The only drawback was that, knowing my friends
+very intimately, 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 demand.</p>
+
+<p>Thomson was a dear friend of mine when he was
+still a fellow of Queen&#8217;s College. We worked together,
+as may be seen by my contributions to his
+<i>Laws of Thought</i>, and the translation of a Vedic
+hymn which he helped me to make. I think he
+had a kind of anticipation of what was in store for
+him. Though for a time he had to be satisfied, even
+when he was married, with a very small London
+living, he soon rose in the Church, at a time when
+clergymen of a liberal way of thinking had not
+much chance of Crown preferment. But having
+gone at the head of a deputation to Lord Palmerston,
+to inform him that Gladstone&#8217;s next election
+as member for Oxford was becoming doubtful, owing
+to all the bishoprics being given to the Low
+Church party&mdash;the party of Lord Shaftesbury&mdash;Palmerston
+remembered his stately and courteous
+bearing, and when the see of Gloucester fell vacant,
+gave him that bishopric to silence Gladstone&#8217;s supporters.
+This was a very unexpected preferment
+at Oxford, but Thomson made such good use of his
+opportunity that, when the Archbishopric of York<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
+became vacant, and Palmerston found it difficult
+to make his own or Lord Shaftesbury&#8217;s nominee
+acceptable to the Queen, he suggested that any one
+of the lately elected bishops approved of by the
+Crown might go to York, and some one else fill the
+see thus vacated. It so happened that Thomson&#8217;s
+name was the first to be mentioned, and he was
+made Archbishop, probably one of the youngest
+Archbishops England has ever known. He certainly
+fulfilled all expectations and proved himself
+the people&#8217;s Archbishop, for he was himself the son
+of a small tradesman, a fact of which he was never
+ashamed, though his enemies did not fail to cast
+it in his teeth. 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 me, and was now His
+Grace the Lord Archbishop, with a palace to inhabit
+and an income of about &pound;10,000 a year.
+However, though as a German and as a friend of
+Bunsen I was looked upon as a kind of heretic, I
+never made the Archbishop blush for his old friend,
+and I always found him the same to the end of his
+life, kind, courteous, and ready to help, though it
+is but fair to remember that an Archbishop of York
+is one of the first subjects of the Queen, and cannot
+do or say everything that he might like to do or to
+say. When I had to ask him to do something for
+a friend of mine, who as a clergyman had given
+great offence by his very liberal opinions, he did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>
+all he could do, though he might have incurred
+great obloquy by so doing.</p>
+
+<p>But when I think of these men, friends and acquaintances
+of mine, whom I remember as young
+men, very able and hard working no doubt, yet not
+so entirely different from others who through life
+remained unknown, it is as if I had slept through
+a number of years and dreamt, and had then suddenly
+awoke to a new life. Some of my friends,
+I am glad to say, I always found the same, whether
+in ermine or in lawn sleeves; others, however, I am
+sorry to say, had <i>become</i> something, the old boy in
+them had vanished, and nothing was to be seen except
+the bishop, the judge, or the minister.</p>
+
+<p>It was not for me to remind them of their former
+self, and to make them doubt their own identity,
+but I often felt the truth of Matthew Arnold&#8217;s
+speeches, who, in social position, never rose beyond
+that of inspector of schools, and who often laughed
+when at great dinners he found himself surrounded
+by their Graces, their Excellencies, and my Lords,
+recognizing faces that sat below him at school and
+whose names in the class lists did not occupy so high
+a place as his own. Not that Matthew Arnold was
+dissatisfied; he knew his worth, but, as he himself
+asked for nothing, it is strange that his friends
+should never have asked for something for him,
+which would have shown to the world at large that
+he had not been left behind in the race. It strikes
+one that while he was at Oxford, few people only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+detected in Arnold the poet or the man of remarkable
+genius. I had many letters from him, but I
+never kept them, and I often blame myself now that
+in his, as in other cases, I should have thrown away
+letters as of no importance. Then suddenly came
+the time when he returned to Oxford as the poet,
+as the Professor of poetry, nay, afterwards as the
+philosopher also, placed high by public opinion
+among the living worthies of England. What was
+sometimes against him was his want of seriousness.
+A laugh from his hearers or readers seemed to be
+more valued by him than their serious opposition,
+or their convinced assent. He trusted, like others,
+to <i>persiflage</i>, and the result was that when he tried
+to be serious, people could not forget that he might
+at any time turn round and smile, and decline to
+be taken <i>au grand s&eacute;rieux</i>. People do not know
+what a dangerous game this French <i>persiflage</i> is,
+particularly in England, and how difficult it becomes
+to exchange it afterwards for real seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>Those early Oxford days were bright days for
+me, and now, when those young and old faces,
+whether undergraduates or archbishops, rise up
+again before me, I being almost the only one left
+of that happy company, I ask again, &#8220;Did they
+also belong to a mere dreamland, they who gave
+life to my life, and made England my real home?&#8221;
+When I first saw them at Oxford, I was really an
+undergraduate, though I had taken my Doctor&#8217;s
+degree at Leipzig. I lived, in fact, my happy university<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>
+life over again, and it would be difficult to
+say which academical years I enjoyed more, those
+at Leipzig and Berlin, or those at Oxford. There
+were intermediate years in Paris, but during my
+stay there I saw but little of students and student
+life. I was too much oppressed with cares and
+anxieties about my present and future to think
+much of society and enjoyment. At Oxford, these
+cares had become far less, and I could by hard work
+earn as much money as I wanted, and cared to
+spend. In Paris, I was already something of a
+scholar and writer; at Oxford I became once more
+the undergraduate.</p>
+
+<p>This young society into which I was received was
+certainly most attractive, though that it contained
+the germs of future greatness never struck me at
+the time. What struck me was the general tone of
+the conversation. Of course, as Lord Palmerston
+said of himself when he was no longer very young,
+&#8220;boys will be boys,&#8221; but there never was anything
+rude or vulgar in their conversation, and I hardly
+ever heard an offensive remark among them. Most
+of my friends came from Balliol, and were serious-minded
+men, many of them occupied and troubled
+by religious, philosophical, and social problems.</p>
+
+<p>What puzzled me most was the entire absence of
+duels. Occasionally there were squabbles and high
+words, which among German students could have
+had one result only&mdash;a duel. But at Oxford, either
+a man apologized at once or the next morning, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>
+the matter was forgotten, or, if a man proved himself
+a cad or a snob, he was simply dropped. I do
+not mean to condemn the students&#8217; duels in Germany
+altogether. Considering how mixed the society
+of German universities is, and the perfect
+equality that reigns among them&mdash;they all called
+each other &#8220;thou&#8221; in my time&mdash;the son of a gentleman
+required some kind of protection against the
+son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing and
+fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students,
+so that there remained nothing to a young student
+who wanted to escape from the insults of a young
+ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a challenge
+was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was
+the power of public opinion at the universities that
+not another word of insult would be uttered. In
+this way much mischief is prevented. Besides,
+every precaution is taken to guard against fatal
+accident, and I believe there are fewer serious accidents
+on the <i>mensura</i> than in the hunting-field in
+England. When I was at Leipzig, where we had
+at least four hundred duels during the year, only
+two fatal accidents happened, and they were, indeed,
+accidents, such as will happen even at football.
+Of course duels can never be defended, but for keeping
+up good manners, also for bringing out a man&#8217;s
+character, these academic duels seem useful. However
+small the danger is, it frightens the coward
+and restrains the poltroon. For all that, what has
+taken place in England may in time take place in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+Germany also, and men will cease to think that it
+is impossible to defend their honour without a piece
+of steel or a pistol. The last thing that a German
+student desires to do in a duel is to kill his adversary.
+Hence pistol duels, which are generally
+preferred by theological students, because they cannot
+easily get a living if their face is scarred all over,
+are generally the most harmless, except perhaps for
+the seconds.</p>
+
+<p>Before closing this chapter, I should like to say
+a few words on the impressions which the theological
+atmosphere of Oxford in 1848 produced on
+me, and which even now fills me with wonder and
+amazement.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to Oxford, I was strongly recommended
+to Stanley on one side, and to Manuel
+Johnson on the other,&mdash;a curious mixture. Johnson,
+the Observer, was extremely kind and hospitable
+to me. He was a genial man, full of love, possibly
+a little weak, but thoroughly honest, nay,
+transparently so. I met at his house nearly all the
+leaders of the High Church movement, though I
+never met Newman himself, who had then already
+gone to reside at his retreat at Littlemore. On the
+other hand, Stanley received me with open arms as
+a friend of Bunsen, Frederick Maurice, and Julius
+Hare, and as I came straight from the February
+revolution in 1848, he was full of interest and curiosity
+to know from me what I had seen in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>At first I knew nothing, and understood nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+of the movement, call it ecclesiastical or theological,
+that was going on at Oxford at that time. I dined
+almost every Sunday at Johnson&#8217;s house, and at his
+dinners and Sunday afternoon garden parties I met
+men such as Church, Mozley, Buckle, Palgrave,
+Pollen, Rigaud, Burgon, and Chr&eacute;tian, who inspired
+me with great respect, both for their learning
+and for what I could catch of their character. Stanley,
+on the other hand, Froude, and Jowett, proved
+themselves true friends to me in making me feel
+at home, and initiating me into the secrets of the
+place. There was, however, a curious reticence on
+both sides, and it was by sudden glimpses only that
+I came to understand that these two sets were quite
+divided, nay, opposed, and had very different ideals
+before them.</p>
+
+<p>I had been at a German university, and the historical
+study of Christianity was to me as familiar
+as the study of Roman history. Professors whom
+I had looked up to as great authorities, implicitly
+to be trusted, such as Lotze and Weisse at Leipzig,
+Schelling and Michelet at Berlin, had, after causing
+in me a certain surprise at first, left me with the
+firm conviction that the Old and New Testament
+were historical books, and to be treated according
+to the same critical principles as any other ancient
+book, particularly the sacred books of the East of
+which so little was then known, and of which I too
+knew very little as yet; enough, however, to see
+that they contained nothing but what under the circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+they could contain, traditions of extreme
+antiquity collected by men who gathered all
+they thought would be useful for the education of
+the people. Anything like revelation in the old
+sense of the word, a belief that these books had
+been verbally communicated by the Deity, or that
+what seemed miraculous in them was to be accepted
+as historically real, simply because it was recorded
+in these sacred books, was to me a standpoint long
+left behind. To me the questions that occupied my
+thoughts were to what date these books, such as
+we have them, could be assigned, what portions of
+them were of importance to us, what were the simple
+truths they contained, and what had been added
+to them by later collectors. Well do I remember
+when, before going to Oxford, I spoke to Bunsen
+of the preface to my Rig-veda, and used the expression,
+&#8220;the great revelations of the world,&#8221; he,
+perfectly understanding what I meant, warned me
+in his loud and warm voice, &#8220;Don&#8217;t say that at Oxford.&#8221;
+I could see no harm, nor Bunsen either, nor
+his son who was an Oxford man and a clergyman
+of the Church of England; but I was told that I
+should be misunderstood. I knew far too little to
+imagine that I had a right to speak of what was
+fermenting and growing within me. During my
+stay at Leipzig and Berlin, and afterwards in my
+intercourse with Renan and Burnouf, the principles
+of the historical school had become quite familiar
+to me, but the application of these principles to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>
+early history of religion was a different matter.
+How far the Old and the New Testament would
+stand the critical tests enunciated by Niebuhr was a
+frequent subject of controversy, during the time I
+spent at Paris, between young Renan and myself.
+Though I did not go with him in his reconstruction
+of the history of the Jews and the Jewish religion,
+and of the early Christians and the Christian religion,
+I agreed with him in principle, objecting only
+to his too free and too idyllic reconstruction of these
+great religious movements. Besides, before all
+things, I was at that time given to philosophical
+studies, chiefly to an inquiry into the limits of our
+knowledge in the Kantian sense of the word, the
+origin of thought and language, the first faltering
+and half-mythological steps of language in the
+search for causes or divine agents. All this occupied
+me far more than the age of the Fourth Gospel
+and its position by the side of the Synoptic Gospels.
+I had talked with Schelling and Schopenhauer, and
+little as I appreciated or understood all their teachings,
+there were certain aspirations left in my mind
+which led me far away beyond the historical foundations
+of Christianity. What can we know? was
+the question which I often opposed to Renan at the
+very beginning of our conversations and controversies.
+That there were great truths in the teaching
+and preaching of Christ, Renan was always ready to
+admit, but while it interested me how the truths proclaimed
+by Christ could have sprung up in His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+mind and at that time in the history of the human
+race, Renan&#8217;s eyes were always directed to the evidence,
+and to what we could still know of the early
+history of Christianity and its Founder. I could
+not deny that, historically speaking, we knew very
+little of the life, the work, and the teachings of
+Christ; 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 Christ. To this
+opinion I remained true through life. I claimed
+for each man the liberty of believing in his own
+Christ, but I objected to Renan&#8217;s idyllic Christ as
+I objected to Niebuhr&#8217;s filling the canvas of ancient
+Roman history with the figures of his own imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, when I came to Oxford, I thought
+these things were familiar to all, however much
+they might admit of careful correction. Nor have
+I any doubt that to some of my friends who were
+great theologians, they were better known than to
+a young Oriental scholar like myself. But unless
+engaged in conversation on these subjects, and this
+was chiefly the case with my friends of the Stanley
+party, I did not feel called upon to preach what, as
+I thought, every serious student knew quite as well
+and probably much better than myself, though he
+might for some reason or other prefer to keep silence
+thereon.</p>
+
+<p>What was my surprise when I found that most of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+these excellent and really learned men were much
+more deeply interested in purely ecclesiastical questions,
+in the validity of Anglican orders, in the
+wearing of either gowns or surplices in the pulpit,
+in the question of candlesticks and genuflections.
+&#8220;What has all this to do with true religion?&#8221; I
+once said to dear Johnson. He laughed with his
+genial laugh, and blowing the smoke of his cigar
+away, said, &#8220;Oh, you don&#8217;t understand!&#8221; But I
+did understand, and a great deal more than he expected.
+Truly religious men, I thought, might
+please themselves with incense and candlesticks,
+provided they gave no offence to their neighbours.
+It seemed to me quite natural also that men like
+Johnson, with a taste for art, should prefer the Roman
+ritual to the simple and sometimes rather bare
+service of the Anglican Church, but that things
+such as incense and censers, surplice and gown,
+should be taken as they are, as paraphernalia, the
+work of human beings, the outcome of personal and
+local influences, as church-service, no doubt, but
+not as service of God. God has to be served by
+very different things, and there is the danger of the
+formal prevailing over the essential, the danger of
+idolatry of symbols as realities, whenever too much
+importance is attributed to the external forms of
+worship and divine service.</p>
+
+<p>The validity of Anglican orders was often discussed
+at the Observatory, and I no doubt gave
+great offence by openly declaring in my imperfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
+English that I considered Luther a better channel
+for the transmission of the Holy Ghost than a Caesar
+Borgia or even a Wolsey. Anyhow I could not
+bring myself to see the importance of such questions,
+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 God. That is what I called a truly
+religious and truly Christian life. What struck me
+particularly, both on the Newman side, and among
+those whom I met at Jowett&#8217;s and Froude&#8217;s, was a
+curious want of openness and manliness in discussing
+these simple questions, simple, if not complicated
+by ecclesiastical theories. When Newman at
+Iffley was spoken of, it was in hushed tones, and
+when rumours of his going over to Rome reached his
+friends at Oxford, their consternation seemed to
+be like that of people watching the deathbed of a
+friend. I am sorry I saw nothing of Newman at
+that time; when I sat with him afterwards in his
+study at Birmingham, he was evidently tired of
+controversy, and unwilling to reopen questions
+which to him were settled once for all, or if not
+settled, at all events closed and relinquished. I
+could never form a clear idea of the man, much as
+I admired his sermons; his brother and his own
+friends gave such different accounts of him. That
+even at Littlemore he was still faithful to his own
+national Church, anxious only to bring it nearer to
+its ancient possibly Roman type, can hardly be
+doubted. When he wrote from Littlemore to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+friend De Lisle, he had no reason to economize the
+truth. De Lisle hoped that Newman would soon
+openly join the Church of Rome, but Newman answered:
+&#8220;You must allow me to be honest with you
+in adding one thing. 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 ... I must assure
+you then with great sincerity that I have not
+the shadow of an internal movement known to myself
+towards such a step. While God is with me
+where I am, I will not seek Him elsewhere. I
+might almost say in the words of Scripture, &#8216;We
+have found the Messias!&#8217;...&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>How true this is, and yet the same Newman went
+over to the unreformed Church, because the Archbishop
+of Canterbury had sanctioned Bunsen&#8217;s proposal
+of an Anglo-German bishopric of Jerusalem,
+quite forgetful of the fact that Synesius also had
+been bishop of Ptolemais. Again I say, What have
+such matters to do with true religion, such as we
+read of in the New Testament, as an ideal to be
+realized in our life on earth? And it so happened
+that at the same time I knew of families rendered
+miserable through Newman&#8217;s influence, of young
+girls, daughters of narrow-minded Anglicans, hurried
+over to Rome, of young men at Oxford with
+their troubled consciences which under Newman&#8217;s
+direct or indirect guidance could end only in Rome.
+Newman&#8217;s influence must have been extraordinary;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+the tone in which people who wished to free themselves
+from him, who had actually left him, spoke
+of him, seemed tremulous with awe. I would give
+anything to have known him at that time, when
+I knew him through his disciples only. They were
+caught in various ways. I know of one, a brilliant
+writer, who had been entrusted by Newman with
+writing some of the <i>Lives of the Saints</i>. He did
+it with great industry, 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
+insipid, and might be the inventions of their friends;
+such legends, he felt, would take no root on English
+soil, at all events not in the present generation. In
+consequence he informed Newman that he could
+not keep his promise, or that, if he did so, he must
+speak the truth, tell people what they might believe
+about these Saints, and what was purely fanciful
+in the accounts of their lives. And what was Newman&#8217;s
+answer? He did not respect the young man&#8217;s
+scruples, but encouraged him to go on, because, as
+he said, people would never believe more than half
+of these Lives, and that therefore some of these unsupported
+legends also might prove useful, if only
+as a kind of ballast.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I rejoice to hear of your success,&#8221; he writes,
+August 21, 1843. &#8220;As to St. Grimball, of course
+we must expect such deficiencies; where matter is
+found, it is all gain, and there are plenty of Lives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
+to put together, as you will see, when you see the
+whole list.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am rather for <i>inserting</i> (of course discreetly
+and in way of selection) the miracles for which you
+have not good evidence. (1) They are beautiful,
+you say, and will tell in the narrative. (2) Next
+you can say that the evidence is weak, and this
+will be bringing credit for the others where you
+say the evidence is strong. People will never go
+<i>so far</i> as your narrative. Cut it down to what is
+true, and they will disbelieve a part of <i>it</i>; put in
+these legends and they will compound for the true
+at the sacrifice of what may be true, but is not
+well attested.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I confess I cannot quite follow. If a man like
+Newman believed in these saints and their miracles,
+his pleading would become intelligible, but
+it seems from this very letter that he did not, and
+yet he tried to persuade his young friend to go on
+and not to gather the tares, &#8220;lest haply he might
+root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together
+until the harvest.&#8221; I do not like to judge,
+but I doubt whether this kind of teaching could
+have strengthened the healthy moral fibre of a
+man&#8217;s conscience and have led him to depend entirely
+on his sense of truth. And yet this was the
+man who at one time was supposed to draw the best
+spirits of Oxford with him to Rome. This was the
+man to whom some of the best spirits at Oxford
+confessed all they had to confess, and that could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+have been very little, and of whom they spoke with
+a subdued whisper as the apostle who would restore
+all faith, and bring back the Anglican sheep to the
+Roman fold.</p>
+
+<p>I saw and heard all that was going on, the hopes
+deferred, the secret visits to Littlemore, the rumours
+and more than rumours of Newman&#8217;s defection.
+Such was the devotion of some of these disciples
+that they expected day by day a great catastrophe
+or a great victory, for after the publication of so
+many letters written at the time by Wiseman, Manning,
+De Lisle, and others, there can be little doubt
+that a great conversion or perversion of England
+to the Romish Church was fully expected. De
+Lisle writes: &#8220;England is now in full career of a
+great Religious Revolution, this time back to Catholicism
+and to the Roman See as its true centre
+... the best friends of Rome in the Anglican
+Church are obliged still to be guarded.&#8221; Such
+words admit of one meaning only, and if Newman
+had been followed by a large number of his Oxford
+friends, the results for England might really have
+been most terrible. But here, no doubt, the English
+national feeling came in. What England had
+suffered under Roman ecclesiastical rule had not
+yet been entirely forgotten, and the idea that a
+foreign potentate and a foreign priesthood should
+interfere with the highest interests of the nation,
+was fortunately as distasteful as ever, not only to a
+large party of the clergy, but to a still larger party<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+of the laity also. It seemed to me very curious that
+so many of Newman&#8217;s followers did not see the
+unpatriotic character of their agitation. Either
+subjection to Rome or civil war at home was the
+inevitable outcome of what they discussed very
+innocently at the Observatory, and little as I
+understood their schemes for the future, I often
+felt surprised at what sounded to me like very
+unpatriotic utterances.</p>
+
+<p>Another thing that struck me as utterly un-English
+and has often been dwelt on by the historians
+of this movement, was the curiously secret character
+of the agitation. What has an Englishman
+to fear when he openly protests against what he
+disapproves of in Church or State? But Newman&#8217;s
+friends at Oxford behaved really, as has been often
+said, like so many naughty schoolboys, or like conspirators,
+yet they were neither. A very similar
+charge, however, was brought against the liberal
+party. They also seemed to think that they were
+out of bounds, and were doing in secret what they
+did not dare to do openly. It is well known that
+one friend of Newman&#8217;s, who afterwards became a
+Roman Catholic, had a small chapel set up in his
+bedroom in college, with pictures and candles and
+instruments of flagellation. No one was allowed
+to see this room, till one evening when the flagellant
+had retired after dinner and fallen asleep, the servants
+found him lying before the altar. Nothing
+remained to him then but to exchange his comfortable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>
+college rooms for the less comfortable cell of a
+Roman monastery, and little was done by his new
+friends to make the evening of his life serene and
+free from anxiety. These things were known and
+talked about in Oxford, and generally with anything
+but the seriousness that the subject seemed
+to me to require. Again at the Observatory a point
+was made of having games in the garden such as
+boccia on a Sunday afternoon, thus evading the
+strict observance of the Sabbath, without openly
+trying to restore to it the character which it had
+in Roman Catholic countries.</p>
+
+<p>German theology was talked about as a kind of
+forbidden fruit, as if it was not right for them to
+look at it, to taste it, or to examine it. Even years
+later people were afraid to meet Professor Ewald,
+Bishop Colenso, and other so-called heretics at my
+house. They even fell on poor Ewald at an evening
+party. Ewald was staying with me and working
+hard at some Hebrew MSS. at the Bodleian. He
+was then already an old man, but in his appearance
+a powerful and venerable champion. He is the only
+man I remember who, after copying Hebrew MSS.
+for twelve hours at the Bodleian with nothing but
+a sandwich to sustain him, complained of the short
+time allowed there for work. He came home for
+dinner very tired, and when the conversation or
+rather the disputation began between him and some
+of our young liberal theologians, he spoke in short
+pithy sentences only. He considered himself perfectly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+orthodox, nay, one of the pillars of religion in
+Germany, and laid down the law with unhesitating
+conviction. As far as I can remember, he was
+answering a number of questions about St. Paul,
+and what he thought of Christ, of the Kingdom of
+Christ, and the Life to come, and being pestered
+and driven into a corner by his various questioners,
+and asked at last how he knew St. Paul&#8217;s secret
+thoughts, he not knowing how to express himself
+in fluent English, exclaimed in a loud voice, &#8220;I
+know it by the Holy Ghost.&#8221; Here the conversation
+naturally stopped, and poor Ewald was allowed
+to finish his dinner in peace. He had been
+Professor at Bonn, when Pusey came there as a
+young man to study Hebrew after he had been appointed
+Canon of Christ Church and Professor of
+Hebrew, and he expressed to me a wish to see Dr.
+Pusey. I told him it would not be easy to arrange
+a meeting, considering how strongly opposed Dr.
+Pusey was to Ewald&#8217;s opinions. Personally I always
+found Pusey tolerant, and his kindness to me
+was a surprise to all my young friends. But the
+fact was, we moved on different planes, and though
+he knew my religious opinions well, they only excited
+a smile, and he often said with a sigh, &#8220;I know
+you are a German.&#8221; 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 terror. He had read more
+heresy, he used to say, than anybody, and he wished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+no one to pass through the trials and agonies
+through which he had passed, chiefly, I should think,
+during his stay at a German university. The historical
+element was wanting in him, nay, like Hegel,
+he sometimes seemed to lay stress on the unhistorical
+character of Christianity. My idea, on the contrary,
+was that Christianity was a true historical
+event, prepared by many events that had gone before
+and alone made it possible and real. Even the
+abyss, if there were such an abyss, was, as it seemed
+to me, meant to be there on our passage through life,
+and was to be faced with a brave heart.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to my first experiences of the
+theological atmosphere of Oxford, I confess I felt
+puzzled to see men, whose learning and character
+I sincerely admired, absorbed in subjects which to
+my mind seemed simply childish. I expected I
+should hear from them some new views on the date
+of the gospels, the meaning of revelation, the historical
+value of revelation, or the early history of
+the Church. No, of all this not a word. Nothing
+but discussions on vestments, on private confession,
+on candles on the altar, whether they were wanted
+or not, on the altar being made of stone or of wood,
+of consecrated wine being mixed with water, of the
+priest turning his back on the congregation, &amp;c.
+I could not understand how these men, so high
+above the ordinary level of men in all other respects,
+could put aside the fundamental questions of Christianity
+and give their whole mind to what seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+to me rightly called in the newspapers &#8220;mere millinery.&#8221;
+I sought information from Stanley, but
+he shrugged his shoulders and advised me to keep
+aloof and say nothing. This I was most willing to
+do; I cared for none of these things. My mind
+was occupied with far more serious problems, such
+as I had heard explained by men of profound learning
+and honest purpose in the great universities of
+Germany; these troubles arose from questions
+which seemed to me to have no connexion with true
+religion at all. Even the differences between the
+reformed and unreformed churches were to me
+mere questions of history, mere questions of human
+expediency. I did not consider Roman Catholics
+as heretics&mdash;I had known too many of them of unblemished
+character in Germany. I might have
+regretted the abuses which called for reform, the
+excrescences which had disfigured Christianity like
+many other religions, but which might be tolerated
+as long as they did not lead to toleration for intolerance.
+Luther might no longer appear to me in the
+light of a perfect saint, but that he was right in
+suppressing the time-honoured abuses of the Roman
+Church admitted with me of no doubt whatsoever.
+Large numbers always had that effect on me, and
+when I saw how many good and excellent men were
+satisfied with the unreformed teaching of the Roman
+Church, I felt convinced that they must attach
+a different meaning to certain doctrines and ecclesiastical
+practices from what we did. I had learned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+to discover what was good and true in all religions,
+and I could fully agree with Macaulay when he
+said, &#8220;If people had lived in a country where very
+sensible people worshipped the cow, they would
+not fall out with people who worship saints.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I know that many of my friends on both sides
+looked upon me as a latitudinarian, but my conviction
+has always been that we could not be broad
+enough. They looked upon me as wishing to keep
+on good terms with high and low and broad, and
+I made no secret of it, that I thought I could understand
+Pusey as well as Stanley, and assign to each
+his proper place. Stanley was of course more after
+my own heart than Pusey, but Pusey too was a man
+who interested me very much. I saw that he might
+become a great power whether for good or for evil
+in England. He was, in fact, a historical character,
+and these were always the men who interested me.
+He was fully aware of his importance in England,
+and the great influence which his name exercised.
+That influence was not always exercised in the right
+way, so at least it seemed to me, particularly when
+it was directed against such friends of mine as
+Kingsley, Froude, or Jowett. Once, I remember,
+when he had come to my house, 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 God. Curious to
+say, he relented, and admitted that he had used too
+strong language. To me everything that was said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>
+of God seemed imperfect, and never to apply to God
+Himself but only to the idea which the human mind
+had formed of Him. To me even the Hindu, if he
+spoke of Brahman or Krishna, seemed to have
+aimed at the true God, in spite of the idolatrous
+epithets which he used; then how could a man like
+Frederic Maurice be said to have worshipped a different
+God, considering that we all can but feel
+after Him in the dark, not being able to do more
+than exclude all that seems to us unworthy of Deity?</p>
+
+<p>A very important element in the ecclesiastical
+views of some of my friends was, no doubt, the artistic.
+If Johnson leant towards Rome, it was the
+more ornate and beautiful service that touched and
+attracted him. I sat near to him in St. Giles&#8217;
+Church; he told me what to do and what not to
+do during service. In spite of the Prayer-book, it
+is by no means so easy as people imagine to do exactly
+the right thing in church, and I had of course
+to learn a number of prayers and responses by heart.
+To me the service, as it was in my parish church,
+seemed already too ornate, accustomed as I had been
+to the somewhat bare and cold service in the Lutheran
+Church at Dessau. But Johnson constantly
+complained about the monotonous and mechanical
+performances of the clergy. He had a strong feeling
+for all that was beautiful and impressive in art,
+and he wanted to see the service of God in church
+full both of reverence and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson&#8217;s private collection of artistic treasures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
+was very considerable, and I learnt much from the
+Italian engravings and Dutch etchings which he
+possessed and delighted in showing. I often spent
+happy hours with him examining his portfolios, and
+wondered how he could afford to buy such treasures.
+But he knew when and where to buy, and I believe
+when his collection was sold after his death, it
+brought a good deal more than it had cost him.
+Another collection of art was that of Dr. Wellesley,
+the Principal of New Inn Hall, who was a friend of
+Johnson&#8217;s and had collected most valuable antiquities
+during his long stay in Italy. He was the
+son of the Marquis of Wellesley, a handsome man,
+with all the refinement and courtesy of the old
+English gentleman. Though not perhaps very
+useful in the work of the University, he was most
+pleasant to live with, and full of information in his
+own line of study, the history of art, chiefly of
+Italian art.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful services of the Roman Church
+abroad, and particularly at Rome, certainly exercised
+a kind of magic attraction on many of the
+friends of Wiseman and Newman, though one wonders
+that the sunny grandeur of St. Peter&#8217;s at Rome
+should ever have seemed more impressive than the
+sombre sublimity and serene magnificence of Westminster
+Abbey. Unfortunately, the introduction of
+a more ornate service, even of harmless candlesticks
+and the often very useful incense, had always a
+secret meaning. They were used as symbols of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
+something of which the people had no conception,
+whereas in the early Church they had been really
+natural and useful.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of all this commotion, and chiefly
+secret commotion, I felt a perfect stranger; I saw
+the bright and dark sides, but I confess I saw little
+of what I called religion. Though my own religious
+struggles lay behind me, still there were many questions
+which pressed for a solution, but for which my
+friends at Oxford seemed either indifferent or unprepared.
+My practical religion was what I had
+learnt from my mother; that remained unshaken in
+all storms, and in its extreme simplicity and childishness
+answered all the purposes for which religion
+is meant. Then followed, in the Universities of
+Leipzig and Berlin, the purely historical and scientific
+treatment of religion, which, while it explained
+many things and destroyed many things, never interfered
+with my early ideas of right and wrong,
+never disturbed my life with God and in God, and
+seemed to satisfy all my religious wants. I never
+was frightened or shaken by the critical writings of
+Strauss or Ewald, of Renan or Colenso. If what
+they said had an honest ring, I was delighted, for
+I felt quite certain that they could never deprive
+me of the little I really wanted. That little could
+never be little enough; it was like a stronghold with
+no fortifications, no trenches, and no walls around it.
+Suppose it was proved to me that, on geological
+evidence, the earth or the world could not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+been created in six days, what was that to me?
+Suppose it was proved to me that Christ could never
+have given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into
+the swine, what was that to me? Let Colenso and
+Bishop Wilberforce, let Huxley and Gladstone fight
+about such matters; their turbulent waves could
+never disturb me, could never even reach me in my
+safe harbour. I had little to carry, no learned
+impedimenta to safeguard my faith. If a man possesses
+this one pearl of great price, he may save himself
+and his treasure, but neither the tinselled vestments
+of a Cardinal, nor the triple tiara that crowns
+the Head of the Church, will serve as life-belts in
+the gales of doubt and controversy. My friends at
+Oxford did not know that, though with my one
+jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I was really richer
+and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor
+of Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer,
+may be very long, but the prayer of the Publican
+may have been more efficient than that of the
+Pharisee.</p>
+
+<p>After a time I made an even more painful discovery:
+I found men, who were considered quite
+orthodox, but who really were without any belief.
+They spoke to me very freely, because they imagined
+that as a German I would think as they did,
+and that I should not be surprised if they looked on
+me as not quite sincere. It was not only honest
+doubt that disturbed them. They had done with
+honest doubt, and they were satisfied with a kind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+of Voltairian philosophy, which at last ended in pure
+agnosticism. But even that, even professed agnosticism,
+I could understand, because it often meant no
+more than a confession of ignorance with regard to
+God, which we all confess, and need not necessarily
+amount to the denial of the existence of Deity.
+But that Voltairian levity which scoffs at everything
+connected with religion was certainly something
+I did not expect to meet with at Oxford, and
+which even now perplexes me. Of course, I should
+never think of mentioning names, but it seemed to
+me necessary to mention the fact, to complete the
+curious mosaic of theological and religious thought
+that existed at Oxford at the time of my arrival.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>A CONFESSION</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">One</span> confession I have to make, and one for
+which I can hardly hope for absolution, whether
+from my friends or from my enemies. I have never
+done anything; I have never been a doer, a canvasser,
+a wirepuller, a manager, in the ordinary
+sense of these words. I have also shrunk from
+agitation, from clubs and from cliques, even from
+most respectable associations and societies. Many
+people would call me an idle, useless, and indolent
+man, and though I have not wasted many hours of
+my life, I cannot deny the charge that I have
+neither fought battles, nor helped to conquer new
+countries, nor joined any syndicate to roll up a fortune.
+I have been a scholar, a <i>Stubengelehrter</i>, and
+<i>voil&agrave; tout</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Much as I admired Ruskin when I saw him with
+his spade and wheelbarrow, encouraging and helping
+his undergraduate friends to make a new road
+from one village to another, I never myself took to
+digging, and shovelling, and carting. Nor could
+I quite agree with him, happy as I always felt in
+listening to him, when he said: &#8220;What we think, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+what we know, or what we believe, is in the end of
+little consequence. The only thing of consequence
+is what we do.&#8221; My view of life has always been
+the very opposite! What we do, or what we build
+up, has always seemed to me of little consequence.
+Even Nineveh is now a mere desert of sand, and
+Ruskin&#8217;s new road also has long since been worn
+away. The only thing of consequence, to my mind,
+is what we think, what we know, what we believe!
+To Ruskin&#8217;s ears such a sentiment was downright
+heresy, and I know quite well that it would be condemned
+as extremely dangerous, if not downright
+wicked, by most people, particularly in England.
+My friend, Charles Kingsley, preached muscular
+Christianity, that is, he was always up and doing.
+Another old friend of mine, Carlyle, preached all
+his life that &#8220;it was no use talking, if one would not
+do.&#8221; There is an old proverb in German, too,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Die nicht mit thaten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Die nicht mit rathen&#8221;;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">actually denying the right of giving advice to those
+who had not taken a part in the fight.</p>
+
+<p>However, though I have not been a doer, a
+<i>faiseur</i>, as the French would say, I do not wish
+to represent myself as a mere idle drone during the
+long years of my quiet life. Nor did I stand quite
+alone in looking on a scholar&#8217;s life&mdash;even when I
+was living in a garret <i>au cinqui&egrave;me</i>&mdash;as a paradise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+on earth. Did not Emerson write, &#8220;The scholar
+is the man of the age&#8221;? Did not even Mazzini,
+who certainly was constantly up and trying to do,
+did not even he confess that men must die, but
+that the amount of truth they have discovered does
+not die with them? And Carlyle? Did he ever
+try to get into Parliament? Did he ever accept
+directorates? Did he join either the Chartists or
+the Special Constables in Trafalgar Square? As
+in a concert you want listeners as well as performers,
+so in public life, those who look on are quite
+as essential as those who shout and deal heavy
+blows.</p>
+
+<p>Nature has not endowed everybody with the
+requisite muscle to be a muscular Christian. But
+it may be said, that even if Carlyle and Ruskin
+were absolved from doing muscular work in Trafalgar
+Square, what excuse could they plead for not
+walking in procession to Hyde Park, climbing up
+one of the platforms and haranguing the men and
+women and children? I suppose they had the feeling
+which the razor has when it is used for cutting
+stones: they would feel that it was not exactly
+their <i>m&eacute;tier</i>. Arguing when reason meets reason
+is most delightful, whether we win or lose; but
+arguing against unreason, against anything that is
+by nature thick, dense, impenetrable, irrational, has
+always seemed to me the most disheartening occupation.
+Majorities, mere numerical majorities,
+by which the world is governed now, strike me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>
+as mere brute force, though to argue against them
+is no doubt as foolish as arguing against a railway
+train that is going to crush you. Gladstone could
+harangue multitudes; so could Disraeli; all honour
+to them for it. But think of Carlyle or Ruskin
+doing so! Stroking the shell of a tortoise, or the
+cupola of St. Paul&#8217;s, would have been no more
+attractive to them than addressing the discontented,
+when in their hundreds and their thousands they
+descended into the streets. All I claim is that
+there must be a division of labour, and as little
+as Wayland Smith was useless in his smithy, when
+he hardened the iron in the fire for making swords
+or horse-shoes, was Carlyle a man that could be
+spared, while he sat in his study preparing thoughts
+that would not bend or break.</p>
+
+<p>But I cannot even claim to have been a man of
+action in the sense in which Carlyle was in England,
+or Emerson in America. They were men who in
+their books were constantly teaching and preaching.
+&#8220;Do this!&#8221; they said; &#8220;Do not do that!&#8221; The
+Jewish prophets did much the same, and they are
+not considered to have been useless men, though
+they did not make bricks, or fight battles like Jehu.
+But the poor <i>Stubengelehrte</i> has not even that comfort.
+Only now and then he gets some unexpected
+recognition, as when Lord Derby, then Secretary
+of State for India, declared that the scholars who
+had discovered and proved the close relationship between
+Sanskrit and English, had rendered more valuable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
+service to the Government of India than many
+a regiment. This may be called a mere assertion,
+and it is true that it cannot be proved mathematically,
+but what could have induced a man like Lord
+Derby to make such a statement, except the sense
+of its truth produced on his mind by long experience?</p>
+
+<p>However, I can only speak for myself, and of my
+idea of work. I felt satisfied when my work led me
+to a new discovery, whether it was the discovery of
+a new continent of thought, or of the smallest desert
+island in the vast ocean of truth. I would gladly go
+so far as to try to convince my friends by a simple
+statement of facts. Let them follow the same course
+and see whether I was right or wrong. But to make
+propaganda, to attempt to persuade by bringing
+pressure to bear, to canvass and to organize, to
+found societies, to start new journals, to call meetings
+and have them reported in the papers, has always
+been to me very much against the grain. If we
+know some truth, what does it matter whether a few
+millions, more or less, see the truth as we see it?
+Truth is truth, whether it is accepted now or in
+millions of years. Truth is in no hurry, at least it
+always seemed to me so. When face to face with
+a man, or a body of men, who would not be convinced,
+I never felt inclined to run my head against
+a stone wall, or to become an advocate and use the
+tricks of a lawyer. I have often been blamed for it,
+I have sometimes even regretted my indolence or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
+my quiet happiness, when I felt that truth was on
+my side and by my side. I suppose there is no
+harm in personal canvassing, but as much as I disliked
+being canvassed, did I feel it degrading to
+canvass others. I know quite well how often it
+happened at a meeting when either a measure or
+a candidate was to be carried, that the voters had
+evidently been spoken to privately beforehand, had
+in the conscience of their heart promised their votes.
+The facts and arguments at the meeting itself might
+all be on one side, but the majority was in favour of
+the other. Men whose time was of little value had
+been round from house to house, a majority had
+been compacted into an inert unreasoning mass;
+and who would feel inclined to use his spade of
+reason against so much unreason? Some people,
+more honest than the rest, after the mischief was
+done, would say, &#8220;Why did you not call? why did
+you not write letters?&#8221; I may be quite wrong, but
+I can only say that it seemed to me like taking an
+unfair advantage, unfair to our opponents, and almost
+insulting to our friends. Still, from a worldly
+point of view, I was no doubt wrong, and it is certainly
+true that I was often left in a minority. My
+friends have told me again and again that if a good
+measure or a good man is to be carried, good men
+must do some dirty work. If they cannot do that,
+they are of no use, and I doubt not that I have often
+been considered a very useless man by my political
+and academic friends, because I trusted to reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
+where there was no reason to trust to. I was asked
+to write letters, to address and post letters, to promise
+travelling expenses or even convivial entertainments
+at Oxford, to get leaders and leaderettes inserted
+in newspapers. I simply loathed it, and at
+last declined to do it. If a measure is carried by
+promise, not by argument, if an election is carried
+by personal influence, not by reason, what happens
+is very often the same as what happens when fruit
+is pulled off a tree before it is ripe. It is expected
+to ripen by itself, but it never becomes sweet, and
+often it rots. A premature measure may be carried
+through the House by a minister with a powerful
+majority, but it does not acquire vitality and maturity
+by being carried; it often remains on the Statute-book
+a dead letter, till in the end it has to be
+abolished with other rubbish.</p>
+
+<p>However, I have learnt to admire the indefatigable
+assiduity of men who have slowly and partially
+secured their converts and their recruits, and thus
+have carried in the end what they thought right and
+reasonable. I have seen it particularly at Oxford,
+where undergraduates were indoctrinated by their
+tutors, till they had taken their degree and could
+vote with their betters. I take all the blame and
+shame upon myself as a useless member of Congregation
+and Convocation, and of society at large.
+I was wrong in supposing that the walls of Jericho
+would fall before the blast of reason, and wrong in
+abstaining from joining in the braying of rams<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>&#8217;
+horns and the shouts of the people. I was fortunate,
+however, in counting among my most intimate
+friends some of the most active and influential reformers
+in University, Church, and State, and it is
+quite possible that I may often have influenced
+them in the hours of sweet converse; nay, that
+standing in the second rank, I may have helped to
+load the guns which they fired off with much effect
+afterwards. I felt that my open partnership might
+even injure them more than it could help them; for
+was it not always open to my opponents to say that
+I was a German, and therefore could not possibly
+understand purely English questions? Besides,
+there is another peculiarity which I have often observed
+in England. People like to do what has to
+be done by themselves. It seemed to me sometimes
+as if I had offended my friends if I did anything by
+myself, and without consulting them. Besides, my
+position, even after I had been in England for so
+many years, was always peculiar; for though I had
+spent nearly a whole life in the service of my
+adopted country, though my political allegiance was
+due and was gladly given to England, still I was,
+and have always remained, a German.</p>
+
+<p>And next to Germany, which was young and
+full of ideals when I was young, there came India,
+and Indian thought which exercised their quieting
+influence on me. From a very early time I became
+conscious of the narrow horizon of this life on earth,
+and the purely phenomenal character of the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+in which for a few years we have to live and move
+and have our being. As students of classical and
+other Oriental history we come to admire the great
+empires with their palaces and pyramids and temples
+and capitols. What could have seemed more real,
+more grand, more likely to impress the young mind
+than Babylon and Nineveh, Thebes and Alexandria,
+Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome? And now where
+are they? The very names of their great rulers and
+heroes are known to few people only and have to be
+learnt by heart, without telling us much of those
+who wore them. Many things for which thousands
+of human beings were willing to lay down their
+lives, and actually did lay them down, are to us mere
+words and dreams, myths, fables, and legends. If
+ever there was a doer, it was Hercules, and now we
+are told that he was a mere myth!</p>
+
+<p>If one reads the description of Babylonian and
+Egyptian campaigns, as recorded on cuneiform cylinders
+and on the walls of ancient Egyptian temples,
+the number of people slaughtered seems immense,
+the issues overwhelming; and yet what has become
+of it all? The inroads of the Huns, the expeditions
+of Genghis Khan and Timur, so fully described by
+historians, shook the whole world to its foundations,
+and now the sand of the desert disturbed by their
+armies lies as smooth as ever.</p>
+
+<p>What India teaches us is that in a state advancing
+towards civilization, there must be always two castes
+or two classes of men, a caste of Brahmans or of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+thinkers, and a caste of Kshatriyas, who are to
+fight; possibly other castes also of those who are
+to work and of those who are to serve. Great wars
+went on in India, but they were left to be fought
+by the warriors by profession. The peasants in their
+villages remained quiet, accepting the consequences,
+whatever they might be, and the Brahmans lived
+on, thinking and dreaming in their forests, satisfied
+to rule after the battle was over.</p>
+
+<p>And what applies to military struggles seems to
+me to apply to all struggles&mdash;political, religious,
+social, commercial, and even literary. Let those
+who love to fight, fight; but let others who are fond
+of quiet work go on undisturbed in their own special
+callings. That was, as far as we can see, the
+old Indian idea, or at all events the ideal which
+the Brahmans wished to see realized. I do not stand
+up for utter idleness or sloth, not even for drones,
+though nature does not seem to condemn even <i>hoc
+genus</i> altogether. All I plead for, as a scholar and
+a thinker, is freedom from canvassing, from letter-reading
+and letter-writing, from committees, deputations,
+meetings, public dinners, and all the rest.
+That will sound very selfish to the ears of practical
+men, and I understand why they should look upon
+men like myself as hardly worth their salt. But
+what would they say to one of the greatest fighters
+in the history of the world? What would they
+say to Julius Caesar, when he declares that the
+triumphs and the laurel wreaths of Cicero are as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+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
+people?</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Abiturienten</span>, Examination at Zerbst, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li>Acland, Dr., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li>Admiration, power of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
+
+<li>Aitareya-br&acirc;hmana, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li>All Souls&#8217; Fellowship, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; pinnacles, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+
+<li>Altenstein, Minister of Instruction, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li>Anglican system, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; orders, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li>
+
+<li>Anhalt-Dessau, Duchy of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li>Antiquities hid in etymologies, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+
+<li>Anti-Semitism, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+
+<li>Arnim, Count, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>-<a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
+
+<li>Artistic element in the Oxford movement, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
+
+<li>Aryan speakers may differ in blood, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash; and aboriginal languages of India, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s paper on, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
+
+<li>Aryans of India, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li>Aryas, meaning of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li>Asval&acirc;yana S&ucirc;tras, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li>Atavism, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>Atavistic influences, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+
+<li>Autobiography, object of M.&nbsp;M. in writing his, <a href="#Page_vi">vi</a></li>
+
+<li>Autos, the, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Babies</span>, studying, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>Bach family, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>Baden-Powell, Professor, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li>Bandinell, Dr., <a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
+
+<li>Bardelli, Abb&eacute;, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li>Basedow, von, President, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; the Pedagogue, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>
+
+<li>Bathing, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li>Bernays, Professor, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li>
+
+<li>Biblioth&egrave;que Royale, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li>Biographies, too lenient, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; best kind of history, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+
+<li>Bismarck, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
+
+<li>Bl&uuml;cher, Marshal, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li>
+
+<li>Blum, Robert, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li>Boden Professorship of Sanskrit, <a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></li>
+
+<li>Bodleian Library, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li>
+
+<li>Boehtlingk, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
+
+<li>Books, scarcity of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+
+<li>Bopp, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>&mdash; his lectures, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li>
+
+<li>Brahmo Somaj, service for the, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
+
+<li>Breakfast parties, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>British Association at Oxford, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li>Brockhaus, Professor, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li>Buckle, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Bull, Dr., <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li>
+
+<li>Bunsen, Baron, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; first visit to, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his kindness, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li>Burgon, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Burnouf, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>-<a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Camerarius</span>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+
+<li>Canon of Christ Church, an old, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>-<a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
+
+<li>Canvassing, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li>
+
+<li>Carlyle, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li>
+
+<li>Carus, Professor, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Chartist Deputation, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+
+<li>Chr&eacute;tian, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Christianity, historical teaching of, in Germany, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; an historical event, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
+
+<li>Church, Dr., <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Church, not for young children, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li>
+
+<li>Circumstances, influence of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li>Clarke, Sir Andrew, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>Classics, exaggerated praise of the, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; reactions from, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; nothing takes their place, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li>Colebrooke, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li>Colenso, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
+
+<li>Collegien-Buch, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+
+<li>Comparative Philology, Professorship of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li>Congregation and Convocation, why M.&nbsp;M. kept away from, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li>
+
+<li>Conscience, the voice of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li>
+
+<li>Coxe, Mr., <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
+
+<li>Cradock, Dr. and Mrs., <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
+
+<li>Crawford, Mr., the Objector General, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
+
+<li>Curtius, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Darwin</span>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li>David, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Deafness in M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s family, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li>De Lisle, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li>Dessau, Dukes of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; cheapness of life at, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Gottesacker at, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; only two classes at, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; trade of, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; public school at, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; its walls, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s world, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; simplicity of life at, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; effect on the character, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; moral sayings, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
+
+<li>Devas, &#920;&#949;&#8001;&#962;, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li>
+
+<li>Dieu, Deus, Devas, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li>Donkin, Professor, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
+
+<li>Double First, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
+
+<li>Drobisch, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+
+<li>Duels at University, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>Dyaus, Zeus, Iovis, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Early life</span>, roughing it, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li>
+
+<li>East India Company, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+
+<li>East India House, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li>Eckart, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Eckstein, Baron d&#8217;, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Edinburgh Review,&#8221; first article in, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li>Egyptian chronology, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Elsie Venner,&#8221; <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+
+<li>Emerson, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li>
+
+<li>Encaenia, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; jokes at, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
+
+<li>English and German Doctors, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li>Environment, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
+
+<li>Ernst, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Eternal, <i>ewig</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>Etymologies, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li>Evolution, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li>Ewald, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Fairy tales</span>, influence of, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>-<a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+
+<li>Fear, the feeling of, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>
+
+<li>Feast of Tabernacles, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+
+<li>Fellowships, old system of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li>
+
+<li>Forbiger, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>French master at Dessau, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
+
+<li>French Revolution, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li>
+
+<li>Friar Bacon, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+
+<li>Fr&ouml;ge, Professor, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his wife and Mendelssohn, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Froude, J.&nbsp;A., <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Funkh&auml;nel, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li>Gaisford, Dr., <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>-<a href="#Page_254">254</a></li>
+
+<li>Gathy, M., <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li>German regiments, hymns sung by, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; students, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li>Germany and Germans, prejudice against, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; religious feeling in, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+
+<li>Germ-plasm, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Gewandhaus Concerts, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+
+<li>Giordano Bruno on Oxford, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+
+<li>Goethe, not always admired, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>
+
+<li>Goldst&uuml;cker, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>-<a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li>Goldwin Smith, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+
+<li>Gottesacker at Dessau, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li>Grabau, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s concerts with, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Grandfather of M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_79">79</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
+
+<li>Grandmother of M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li>Grant, Sir Alexander, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
+
+<li>Greene&#8217;s Oxford, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+
+<li>Greenhill, Dr., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li>Grenville, Lord, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li>Greswell, Mr., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li>Griffith, Dr., Master of University, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li>Grimm, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>Gr&uuml;nder, ein, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Guizot, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Habits</span> acquired not hereditable, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>Hagedorn, Baron, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; journey with him, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his plan of life for M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>Hahnemann, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>Hallam&#8217;s literary dog, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li>
+
+<li>Hare, Archdeacon, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; visit to, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li>Hase, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li>Haupt, his Latin Society, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his dislike to modern philology, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li>Hawkins, Dr., <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li>Headaches, suffering from, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+<li>&mdash; how cured, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li>Heads of Houses, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; their power, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li>
+
+<li>Hebdomadal Board, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li>
+
+<li>Hebrew taught at the Nicolai-Schule, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>Hegel, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his philosophy, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+
+<li>Hegel&#8217;s idea, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>-<a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &#8220;Philosophy of Nature,&#8221; <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &#8220;Philosophy of Religion,&#8221; <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &#8220;Metaphysics,&#8221; <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li>Heinroth, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+
+<li>Helps, Sir Arthur, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>Hentzner, his description of Oxford, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+
+<li>Herbart, school of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li>Heredity, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
+
+<li>Hermann, Gottfried, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; welcomed modern philology, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his kindness to M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li>Hermae round the Theatre, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
+
+<li>Highland lady at Oxford, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li>Hiller, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his oratorio, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Historical method, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; events, their influence transitory, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li>
+
+<li>Hitopadesa, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+
+<li>Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>H&ouml;nicke, Dr., <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li>
+
+<li>Horace, &#8220;cheekiness&#8221; of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+
+<li>Human weaknesses, allowance must be made for, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+
+<li>Humboldt, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Imprisonment</span>, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, at University, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+
+<li>Indian thought, influence of, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li>
+
+<li>Indolence, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
+
+<li>Inherited and acquired qualities, difference between, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>Inspiration and infallibility, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
+
+<li>Institut de France, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; M.&nbsp;M. made Member, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Jenkins</span>, Dr., Master of Balliol, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>
+
+<li>Jerusalem, Bishopric of, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
+
+<li>Jews at Dessau, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>&mdash; their privileges in Germany, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li>Johnson, Manuel, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his art treasures, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li>
+
+<li>Jowett, Professor, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Kaliwoda</span>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+
+<li>Kant&#8217;s &#8220;Kritik,&#8221; <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+
+<li>Kaspar Hauser, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>Keshub Chunder Sen, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
+
+<li>Kingsley, Charles, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; and muscular Christianity, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li>
+
+<li>Klengel, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li>Kuhn, A., <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lamartine</span>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li>Language, influence of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; differentiation of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; science of, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li>Lassen, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+
+<li>Latham, Dr., <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li>
+
+<li>Layard, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Leipzig, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; school at, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; University, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
+
+<li>Lepsius, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li>
+
+<li>Liberals at University, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+
+<li>Liddell, Dr., <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; and Mrs., <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
+
+<li>Liddell&#8217;s Dictionary, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>Liszt, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>London, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; society, peeps into, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s social difficulties, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>-<a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li>Longchamps, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li>Lotze, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Louis Lucien Bonaparte, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li>Louis Napoleon, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+
+<li>Luther, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his love of fairy tales, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; tercentenary, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Maitland, Sir Peregrine</span>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
+
+<li>Mammoth, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>Manning, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li>Masters, influence of, in German and English schools, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li>Maurice, Frederick, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Pusey&#8217;s attack on, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
+
+<li>Memory changes, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+
+<li>Mendelssohn family, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>Mendelssohn, Felix, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his death, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his concert for Liszt, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>Mendelssohn&#8217;s &#8220;Hymn of Praise,&#8221; <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; music in Oxford, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li>
+
+<li>Metternich, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his system, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li>Mezzofanti, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>Michelet, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Mill, John Stuart, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his Autos, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li>Mill, Dr., mention of a Vedic hymn printed at Calcutta, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li>Milton on Oxford, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+
+<li>Modern Literature, Professorship of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li>Mommsen, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>Moncalm, &#8220;L&#8217;origine de la Pens&eacute;e,&#8221; <a href="#Page_10">10</a> <i>n.</i></li>
+
+<li>Monk, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s wish to be a, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li>Monument-raising, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+
+<li>Morier, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>-<a href="#Page_279">279</a></li>
+
+<li>Mother, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; her relations, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
+
+<li>Mozley, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>MSS., copying, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+
+<li>Mulde, excursion on foot along the, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>M&uuml;ller, Wilhelm, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his poems, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his family, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his home and society, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; early death, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; monument to, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li>Music, its influence on M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; wished to make it his career, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Myst&egrave;res de Paris,&#8221; <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Natural Science</span> and Mathematics little taught at Nicolai-Schule, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>Neander, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li>Newman, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>-<a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; want of openness in his friends, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his influence, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; on &#8220;Lives of the Saints,&#8221; <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li>
+
+<li>Newspapers few in number, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; influence of modern, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; old, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li>
+
+<li>Nicolai-Schule, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; chiefly for classics, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a></li>
+
+<li>Niebuhr, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+
+<li>Niedner, Dr., <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li>Nirukta, the, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li>Nobbe, Dr., <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his testimonial, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Old</span> and young men, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+
+<li>Oriental languages, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li>Orl&eacute;ans, Duchesse d&#8217;, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li>Oxford, first visit to, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; settled at, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; social life at, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; changes in, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>-<a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; new buildings, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; conservative, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Greene&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Hentzner&#8217;s description of, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Giordano Bruno on, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Milton on, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; society in 1810, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; great changes in, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; society at, in the forties and fifties, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; city society of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; high tone of talk, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; theological atmosphere at, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; trivial questions of ceremony in, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Palgrave</span>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Palm, Dr., <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>Palmerston, Lord, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li>
+
+<li>P&acirc;nini, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his grammar, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li>Pantschatantra, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+
+<li>Paper, scarcity of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+
+<li>Parental influences, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>Paris, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li>Paris, journey to, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; meals there, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; hard struggles in, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
+
+<li>Patagonians as types of humanity, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>
+
+<li>Peel, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Philanthropinum, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>
+
+<li>Philology, love of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li>Philosophy, studied by M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li>Physical science, revolt of, against Hegel, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+
+<li>Pillar and pillow, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Pitar,&#8221; father, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li>Pitcairn Islands, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>Plumptre, Dr., <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
+
+<li>Poems, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>Pollen, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Pott, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li>Pranks at University, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Presence of mind,&#8221; <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
+
+<li>Prichard, Dr., <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li>Professor&#8217;s lectures and fees, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li>Professors, feeling of German students for their, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
+
+<li>Proto-Aryan language, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li>Prowe, Professor, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li>Public schools in Germany, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; in England need reforming, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
+
+<li>Pusey, Dr., <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Race</span>, differentiation of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li>Rawlinson, Sir H., <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Reay, Professor, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li>
+
+<li>Reinaud, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+
+<li>Religion, practical, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li>
+
+<li>Religious feeling in Germany, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; great tolerance in, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; sentiments must be taught at home, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; teaching in school, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li>
+
+<li>Renan, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
+
+<li>Research, fellowships for, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li>
+
+<li>Revelation, subjective not objective, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; in the old sense, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li>
+
+<li>Rigaud, John, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Rig-veda, how to publish the, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; printing of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li>Roman Catholic Church, English national feeling opposed to, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li>
+
+<li>Rose-bush, vision of the, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li>Roth, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li>
+
+<li>Routh, Dr., <a href="#Page_247">247</a>-<a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li>Rubens, Levy, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
+
+<li>Ruskin, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
+
+<li>Russell, Sir W., <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Sadowa</span>, and Sixty-six, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li>St. Hilaire, Barth&eacute;lemy, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li>St. Petersburg, idea of going to, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
+
+<li>Salis-Schwabe, Madame, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+
+<li>Salmon at Dessau, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>&#8220;Salve caput cruentatum,&#8221; <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+
+<li>Sanskrit Professorship, vii, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; chair of, at Leipzig, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; feeling against, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; unedited works, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li>Savigny, Professor, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li>S&acirc;yana&#8217;s Commentary, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>-<a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li>Schelling, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+
+<li>Schlegel&#8217;s &#8220;Weisheit der Indier,&#8221; <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li>Schleswig-Holstein question, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
+
+<li>Schloezer, Karl von, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li>School teaching, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; success at, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; routine of learning, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li>
+
+<li>Schopenhauer, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+
+<li>Selbst-Kritik, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li>Self, the, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li>Sellar, Professor, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li>
+
+<li>Seminaries and societies at University, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
+
+<li>Senatus Academicus, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li>
+
+<li>Shelley, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+
+<li>Simolin, Baron, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
+
+<li>Sister, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li>Spiegel, Professor, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li>Sport, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s dislike of, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>Stanislas Julien, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li>Stanley, Dr., <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
+
+<li>Steel pens, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+
+<li>Stories in Oxford, regular descent of, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li>
+
+<li>Strauss, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
+
+<li>Stubengelehrter, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li>
+
+<li>Student Clubs, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li>Student life in Paris, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li>Sunday games at the Observatory, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
+
+<li>Sykes, Colonel, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+
+<li>Symons, Dr., <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
+
+<li>Sympathy in the joys and sufferings of others, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Tait, Dr.</span>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+
+<li>Talents in families, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li>Taylorian Professorship, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li>Telegraphs, old, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+
+<li>Testimonials, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+
+<li>Thalberg, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>Thirlwall, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Thomson, Dr. and Mrs., <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li>
+
+<li>Tippoo Sahib&#8217;s tiger, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li>Travelling in the thirties, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>Troyer, M., and the Duchesse de Wagram, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li>Truth, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
+
+<li>Turanian languages, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s letter on, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li>Tutors and Fellows, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; their influence, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">University</span>, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s life at, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; pranks, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; duels at, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>-<a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li>University Press, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
+
+<li>Upanishads, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Van der Weyer</span>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>Veda, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>-<a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>
+
+<li>Veda, a mystery, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; MSS. of, in India, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; brought to Europe, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; oldest of real books, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; primitive thought in the, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; date of, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; translations of, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; East India Company and the, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; forming correct text of the Rig-, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; enormous work involved, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li>Vedic scholarship, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Veih</i>, home, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Vernunft</i> and <i>Verstand</i>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
+
+<li>Vigfusson, Dr., <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li>
+
+<li>Voltairian philosophy at Oxford, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Weismann</span>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>-<a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>Weisse, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Wellesley, Dr., <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
+
+<li>Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Westminster Abbey and St. Peter&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
+
+<li>Wilberforce, Samuel, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li>Wilson, Professor, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li>
+
+<li>Wiseman, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li>Wolf, F.&nbsp;A., <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Wolseley, Lord, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>Wren, Sir Christopher, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
+
+<li>Wright, Dr., <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Youth</span> painted by the old, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Zerbst</span>, examined at, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s examiners at, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li>Zeus, Dyaus, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<div class="advertisements">
+<h2 style="border-bottom: solid black 1px; padding-bottom: 1em"><a name="OTHER_BOOKS_BY_MAX_MUeLLER" id="OTHER_BOOKS_BY_MAX_MUeLLER"></a>OTHER BOOKS BY MAX M&Uuml;LLER</h2>
+
+
+<h3>Auld Lang Syne</h3>
+
+<h4><i>First Series.</i> Illustrated. 8vo, $2.00</h4>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;This book, the fruit of enforced leisure, as its
+author tells us, is a charming mass of gossip about
+people whom Professor Max M&uuml;ller has known
+during his long career&mdash;musicians, literary men,
+princes, and beggars. The last class is not, perhaps,
+the least interesting or amusing. To our
+mind, however, the chapter on musicians, with its
+delightful pictures of the author&#8217;s early life, and
+the na&iuml;ve confessions as to musical tastes, with
+some of the stories about celebrated composers,
+forms the most interesting portion of a work which
+has not one dull page.&#8221;&mdash;<i>The Spectator.</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One of the most charming examples of reminiscent
+literature that has recently seen the light.&#8221;&mdash;New
+York <i>Sun</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h3>Auld Lang Syne</h3>
+
+<h4><i>Second Series.</i> <b>My Indian Friends.</b> 8vo, $2.00.</h4>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;The professor&#8217;s &#8216;Indian Friends&#8217; are not all
+of the nineteenth century. His oldest friends are
+in the Veda, about which he has always loved to
+write. Indeed, he spent the best years of his life
+over the text of the Rig Veda, and has a clear
+right to be heard upon the classic he has done so
+much to make familiar.... But the real charm
+of his recollections lies rather in their peaceful
+kindliness, in their wide and tolerant sympathies,
+and in their earnest aim, which will surely be
+attained in some measure, of bringing what is best
+in India closer home to foreigners.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Literature.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Science of Language</h3>
+
+<h4>Founded on Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution.
+<i>New Edition from New Plates. Largely
+Re-written.</i> In 2 vols., crown 8vo, $6.00.</h4>
+
+<p><i>CONTENTS:&mdash;Vol. I.&mdash;The Science of Language one of
+the Physical Sciences; The Growth of Language in Contradistinction
+to the History of Language; The Empirical Stage
+in the Science of Language; The Classificatory Stage in the
+Science of Language; The Genealogical Classification of
+Languages; Comparative Grammar; The Constituent Elements
+of Language; The Morphological Classification of
+Languages; The Theoretical Stage in the Science of Language&mdash;Origin
+of Language; Genealogical Tables of Languages.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>CONTENTS:&mdash;Vol. II.&mdash;Introductory Lecture. New
+Materials for the Science of Language and New Theories;
+Language and Reason; The Physiological Alphabet; Phonetic
+Change; Grimm&#8217;s Law; On the Principles of Etymology;
+On the Powers of Roots; Metaphor; The Mythology of the
+Greeks; Jupiter, The Supreme Aryan God; Myths of the
+Dawn; Modern Mythology.</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In practical value to the student of the science
+of language, the work stands alone.&#8221;&mdash;Boston
+<i>Transcript</i>.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h3>Ramakrishna</h3>
+
+<h4><b>His Life and Sayings.</b> Crown 8vo, $1.50 <i>net</i>.</h4>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;As a whole the little book marks one of the
+summit points of recent scientific religious literature.
+Max M&uuml;ller&#8217;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&#8217;s personality and
+teaching.&#8221;&mdash;<i>American Historical Review.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Science of Thought</h3>
+
+<h4><i>Two Volumes.</i> Crown 8vo, $4.00.</h4>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of the portion of the work in which the
+author exemplifies and illustrates his theory&mdash;his
+analysis of the Sanskrit roots, his chapters on Kant&#8217;s
+philosophy, on the formation of words, on propositions
+and syllogisms&mdash;it is only necessary to say
+that while they contain, along with much that will
+reward a careful study, not a little that will arouse
+controversy, they have, like all the author&#8217;s former
+productions, the prime merit of being free
+from the two greatest of literary faults&mdash;obscurity
+and dulness. A work in which two of the driest
+and hardest of studies, analytic philology and
+mental philosophy, are made at once lucid and
+attractive, is an acquisition for which all students
+of those mysteries have reason to be grateful.&#8221;&mdash;New
+York <i>Evening Post</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h3>Science of Religion</h3>
+
+<h4>Lectures on the Science of Religion; with
+Papers on Buddhism, and a Translation of the
+Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue. Crown 8vo,
+$2.00.</h4>
+
+<p><i>CONTENTS:&mdash;LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF
+RELIGION; BUDDHIST NIHILISM; BUDDHA&#8217;S
+DHAMMAPADA, OR &#8220;PATH OF VIRTUE&#8221;; Introduction;
+The Twin-Verses; On Reflection; Thought;
+Flowers; The Fool; The Wise Man; The Venerable; The
+Thousands; Evil; Punishment; Old Age; Self; The World;
+The Awakened (Buddha); Happiness; Pleasure; Anger;
+Impurity; The Just; The Way; Miscellaneous; The Downward
+Course; The Elephant; Thirst; The Bhikshu (Mendicant);
+The Brahmana.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Chips from a German
+Workshop</h3>
+
+<h4><i>Five Volumes.</i> Crown 8vo, $2.00 per vol.; the set, $10.00.</h4>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">
+Vol. I. Essays on the Science of Religion.<br />
+<br />
+Vol. II. Essays on Mythology, Traditions and Customs.<br />
+<br />
+Vol. III. Essays on Literature, Biography and Antiquities.<br />
+<br />
+Vol. IV. Comparative Philology, Mythology, etc.<br />
+<br />
+Vol. V. Miscellaneous. Later Essays.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="ads"><b>Lectures on the Origin and Growth of
+Religion</b>, as Illustrated by the Religions of
+India. [<i>Hibbert Lectures for 1878.</i>] Crown
+8vo, $1.50 <i>net</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ads"><b>Biographical Essays</b>: R&acirc;mmohun Roy&mdash;Keshub
+Chunder Sen&mdash;Day&acirc;nanda Sarasvat&icirc;&mdash;Bunyiu
+Nanjio&mdash;Kenjiu Kasawara&mdash;Mohl&mdash;Kingsley.
+Crown 8vo, $2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="ads"><b>The German Classics.</b> From the Fourth to
+the Nineteenth Century. With biographical
+notices, translations into modern German and
+notes. <i>A New Edition, Revised, Enlarged
+and Adapted to</i> <span class="smcap">Sherer&#8217;s</span> &#8220;History of German
+Literature.&#8221;  2 vols, $6.00 <i>net</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center" style="padding-top: 1em">
+<span class="smcap">Charles Scribner&#8217;s Sons</span>, <i>Publishers</i><br />
+
+153-157 <span class="smcap">Fifth Avenue, New York</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30269 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
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+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #30269 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30269)
diff --git a/old/30269-0.txt b/old/30269-0.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Autobiography, by F. Max Müller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My Autobiography
+       A Fragment
+
+Author: F. Max Müller
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2009 [EBook #30269]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Irma Spehar and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Müller Aged 4._]
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+A FRAGMENT
+
+
+BY THE
+
+
+RT. HON. PROFESSOR F. MAX MÜLLER, K.M.
+
+
+_WITH PORTRAITS_
+
+
+New York
+CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+1901
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY
+CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+
+
+TROW DIRECTORY
+PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
+NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+For some years past my father had, in the intervals of more serious
+work, occupied his leisure moments in jotting down reminiscences of
+his early life. In 1898 and 1899 he issued the two volumes of _Auld
+Lang Syne_, which contained recollections of his friends, but very
+little about his own life and career. In the Introductory Chapter to
+the Autobiography he explains fully the reasons which led him, at his
+advanced age, to undertake the task of writing his own Life, and he
+began, but alas! too late, to gather together the fragments that he
+had written at different times. But even during the last two years of
+his life, and after the first attack of the illness which finally
+proved fatal, he would not devote himself entirely to what he
+considered mere recreation, as can be seen from such a work as his
+_Six Systems of Indian Philosophy_ published in May, 1889, and from
+the numerous articles which continued to appear up to the very time of
+his death.
+
+During the last weeks of his life, when we all knew that the end could
+not be far off, the Autobiography was constantly in his thoughts, and
+his great desire was to leave as much as possible ready for
+publication. Even when he was lying in bed far too weak to sit up in a
+chair, he continued to work at the manuscript with me. I would read
+portions aloud to him, and he would suggest alterations and dictate
+additions. I see that we were actually at work on this up to the 19th
+of October, and on the 28th he was taken to his well-earned rest. One
+of the last letters that I read to him was a letter from Messrs.
+Longmans, his lifelong publishers, urging the publication of the
+fragments of the Autobiography that he had then written.
+
+My father’s object in writing his Autobiography was twofold: firstly,
+to show what he considered to have been his mission in life, to lay
+bare the thread that connected all his labours; and secondly, to
+encourage young struggling scholars by letting them see how it had
+been possible for one of themselves, without fortune, a stranger in a
+strange land, to arrive at the position to which he attained, without
+ever sacrificing his independence, or abandoning the unprofitable and
+not very popular subjects to which he had determined to devote his
+life.
+
+Unfortunately the last chapter takes us but little beyond the
+threshold of his career. There is enough, however, to enable us to see
+how from his earliest student days his leanings were philosophical and
+religious rather than classical; how the study of Herbart’s philosophy
+encouraged him in the work in which he was engaged as a mere student,
+the Science of Language and Etymology; how his desire to know
+something special, that no other philosopher would know, led him to
+explore the virgin fields of Oriental literature and religions. With
+this motive he began the study of Arabic, Persian, and finally
+Sanskrit, devoting himself more especially to the latter under
+Brockhaus and Rückert, and subsequently under Burnouf, who persuaded
+him to undertake the colossal work of editing the Rig-veda.
+
+The Autobiography breaks off before the end of the period during which
+he devoted himself exclusively to Sanskrit. It is idle to speculate
+what course his life’s work might have taken, had he been elected to
+the Boden Professorship of Sanskrit; but he lived long enough to
+realize that his rejection for that chair in 1860, which was so hard
+to bear at the time, was really a blessing in disguise, as it enabled
+him to turn his attention to more general subjects, and devote himself
+to those philological, philosophical, religious and mythological
+studies, which found their expression in a series of works commencing
+with his _Lectures on the Science of Language_, 1861, and terminating
+with his _Contributions to the Science of Mythology_, 1897,—“the
+thread that connects the origin of thought and language with the
+origin of mythology and religion.”
+
+As to his advice to struggling scholars, the self-depreciation,
+which, as Professor Jowett said, is one of the greatest dangers of an
+autobiography, makes my father rather conceal the real causes of his
+success in life. He even goes so far as to say, “everything in my
+career came about most naturally, not by my own effort, but owing to
+those circumstances or to that environment, of which we have heard so
+much of late”: or again, “it was really my friends who did everything
+for me and helped me over many a stile and many a ditch.” No doubt in
+one sense this is true, but not in the sense in which it would have
+been true had he, when at the University, accepted the offer which he
+tells us a wealthy cousin made him, to adopt him and send him into the
+Austrian diplomatic service, and even to procure him a wife and a
+title into the bargain. The friends who helped him, men such as
+Humboldt, Burnouf, Bunsen, Stanley, Kingsley, Liddell, to mention only
+a few, were men whose very friendship was the surest proof of my
+father’s merits. The real secret of his success lay not in his
+friends, but in himself;—in the knowledge that his success or failure
+in life depended entirely on his own efforts; in the fixity of purpose
+which made him refuse all offers that would lead him from the pathway
+that he had laid down for himself; and in the unflagging industry with
+which he strove to reach the goal of his ambition. “My very
+struggles,” he writes, “were certainly a help to me.”
+
+When I came to examine the manuscript with a view to sending it to
+press, I found that there was a good deal of work necessary before it
+could be published in book form. The fragments were in many cases
+incomplete; there was no division into chapters, no connexion between
+the various periods and episodes of his life; important incidents were
+omitted; while, owing to the intermittent way in which he had been
+writing, there were frequent repetitions. My father was always most
+critical of his own style, and would often, when correcting his
+proof-sheets, alter a whole page, because a word or a phrase
+displeased him, or because some new idea, some happier mode of
+expression, occurred to him; but in the case of his Autobiography, the
+only revision that he was able to give, was on his deathbed, while I
+read the manuscript aloud to him.
+
+My father points out how rarely the sons of great musicians or great
+painters become distinguished in the same line themselves. “It seems,”
+he says, “almost as if the artistic talent were exhausted by one
+generation or one individual”; and I fear that, in my case at all
+events, the same remark applies to literary talent. I have done my
+best to string the fragments together into one connected whole, only
+making such insertions, elisions and alterations as appeared strictly
+necessary. Any deficiency in literary style that may be noticeable in
+portions of the book should be ascribed to the inexperience of the
+editor.
+
+I have thought it right to insert the last chapter, which I call “A
+Confession,” though I am not sure that my father intended it to be
+included in his Autobiography. It will, however, explain the attitude
+which he observed throughout his life, in keeping aloof, as far as
+possible, from the arena of academic contention at Oxford. He was
+never chosen a member of the Hebdomadal Council, he rarely attended
+meetings of Convocation or Congregation; he felt that other people,
+with more leisure at their disposal, could be of more use there; but
+he never refused to work for his University, when he felt that he was
+able to render good service, and he acted for years as a Curator of
+the Bodleian Library and of the Taylorian Institute, and as a Delegate
+of the Clarendon Press.
+
+With reference to the illustrations, it may be of interest to readers
+to know that the portraits of my grandfather and grandmother are taken
+from pencil-drawings by Adolf Hensel, the husband of Mendelssohn’s
+sister Fanny, herself a great musician, who, as my father tells us in
+_Auld Lang Syne_, really composed several of the airs that Mendelssohn
+published as his _Songs without Words_. The last portrait of my father
+is from a photograph taken soon after his arrival in Oxford by his
+great friend Thomson, afterwards Archbishop of York.
+
+Nothing now remains for me but to acknowledge the debt that I owe
+personally to this book. “Work,” my father used often to say to me,
+“is the best healer of sorrow. In grief or disappointment, try hard
+work; it will not fail you.” And certainly during these three sad
+months, I have proved the truth of this saying. He could not have left
+me a surer comfort or more welcome distraction than the duty of
+preparing for press these pages, the last fruits of that mind which
+remained active and fertile to the last.
+
+                                          W. G. MAX MÜLLER.
+
+  OXFORD, _January_, 1901.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                               PAGE
+
+   I. INTRODUCTORY                     1
+
+  II. CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU             46
+
+ III. SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG          97
+
+  IV. UNIVERSITY                     115
+
+   V. PARIS                          162
+
+  VI. ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND             188
+
+ VII. EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD           218
+
+VIII. EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD        272
+
+  IX. A CONFESSION                   308
+
+      INDEX                          319
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF PORTRAITS
+
+
+F. MAX MÜLLER, AGED FOUR        _Frontispiece_
+
+                                 FACING PAGE
+
+MY FATHER                            46
+
+MY MOTHER                            58
+
+F. MAX MÜLLER, AGED FOURTEEN        106
+
+    "    "     AGED TWENTY          156
+
+    "    "     AGED THIRTY          268
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+After the publication of the second volume of my _Auld Lang Syne_,
+1899, I had a good deal of correspondence, of public criticism, and of
+private communings also with myself, whether I should continue my
+biographical records in the form hitherto adopted, or give a more
+personal character to my recollections. Some of my friends were
+evidently dissatisfied. “The recollections of your friends and the
+account of the influence they exercised on you,” they said, “are
+interesting, no doubt, as far as they go, but we want more. We want to
+know the springs, the aspirations, the struggles, the failures, and
+achievements of your life. We want to know how you yourself look at
+yourself and at your past life and its various incidents.” What they
+really wanted was, in fact, an autobiography. “No one,” as a friend of
+mine, not an Irishman, said, “could do that so well as yourself, and
+you will never escape a biographer.” I confess that did not frighten
+me very much. I did not think the danger of a biography very
+imminent. Besides, I had already revised two biographies and several
+biographical notices even during my lifetime. No sensible man ought to
+care about posthumous praise or posthumous blame. Enough for the day
+is the evil thereof. Our contemporaries are our right judges, our
+peers have to give their votes in the great academies and learned
+societies, and if they on the whole are not dissatisfied with the
+little we have done, often under far greater difficulties than the
+world was aware of, why should we care for the distant future? Who was
+a greater giant in philosophy than Hegel? Who towered higher than
+Darwin in natural science? Yet in one of the best German reviews[1]
+the following words of a young German biologist[2] are quoted, and not
+without a certain approval: “Darwinism belongs now to history, like
+that other _curiosum_ of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both
+are variations on the theme, How can a generation be led by the nose?
+and they are not calculated to raise our departing century in the eyes
+of later generations.”
+
+  [1] _Deutsche Rundschau_, Feb., 1900, p. 249.
+
+  [2] Driesch, _Biologisches Centralblatt_, 1896, p. 335.
+
+If I was afraid of anything, it was not so much the severity of future
+judges, as the extreme kindness and leniency which distinguish most
+biographies in our days. It is true, 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 murmurings. It might be said that in my own case the thread
+that connects all my labours is very visible, namely, the thread that
+connects the origin of thought and languages with the origin of
+mythology and religion. Everything I have done was, no doubt,
+subordinate to these four great problems, but to lay bare the
+connecting links between what I have written and what I wanted to
+write and never found time to write, is by no means easy, not even for
+the author himself. Besides, what author has ever said the last word
+he wanted to say, and who has not had to close his eyes before he
+could write Finis to his work? There are many things still which I
+should like to say, but I am getting tired, and others will say them
+much better than I could, and will no doubt carry on the work where I
+had to leave it unfinished. We owe much to others, and we have to
+leave much to others. For throwing light on such points an
+autobiography is, no doubt, better adapted than any biography written
+by a stranger, if only we can at the same time completely forget that
+the man who is described is the same as the man who describes.
+
+“Friends,” as Professor Jowett said, “always think it necessary
+(except Boswell, that great genius) to tell lies about their deceased
+friend; they leave out all his faults lest the public should
+exaggerate them. But we want to know his faults,—hat is probably
+the most interesting part of him.”
+
+Jowett knew quite well, and he did not hesitate to say so, that to do
+much good in this world, you must be a very able and honest man,
+thinking of nothing else day and night; and he adds, “you must also be
+a considerable piece of a rogue, having many reticences and
+concealments; and I believe a good sort of roguery is never to say a
+word against anybody, however much they may deserve it.”
+
+Now Professor Jowett has certainly done some good work at Oxford, but
+if any one were to say that he also was a considerable piece of a
+rogue, what an outcry there would be among the sons of Balliol. Jowett
+thought that the only chance of a good biography was for a man to
+write memoirs of himself, and what a pity that he did not do so in his
+own case. His friends, however, who had to write his Life were wise,
+and he escaped what of late has happened to several eminent men. He
+escaped the testimonials for this, and testimonials for another life,
+such as they are often published in our days.
+
+Testimonials are bad enough in this life, when we have to select one
+out of many candidates as best fitted for an office, and it is but
+natural that the electors will hardly ever look at them, but will try
+to get their information through some other channel. But what are
+called _post obit_ testimonials really go beyond everything yet known
+in funeral panegyrics. Of course, as no one is asked for such
+testimonials except those who are known to have been friends of the
+departed, these testimonials hardly ever contain one word of blame.
+One feels ashamed to write such testimonials, but if you are asked,
+what can you do without giving offence? We are placed altogether in a
+false position. Let any one try to speak the truth and nothing but the
+truth, and he will find that it is almost impossible to put down
+anything that in the slightest way might seem to reflect on the
+departed. The mention of the most innocent failings in an obituary
+notice is sure to offend somebody, the widow or the children, or some
+dear friend. I thought that my Recollections had hitherto contained
+nothing that could possibly offend anybody, nothing that could not
+have been published during the lifetime of the man to whom it
+referred. But no; I had ever so many complaints, and I gladly left
+out, in later editions, names which in many cases were really of no
+consequence compared with what they said and did.
+
+Surely every man has his faults and his little and often ridiculous
+weaknesses, and these weaknesses belong quite as much to a man’s
+character as his strength; nay, with the suppression of the former the
+latter would often become almost unintelligible.
+
+I like the biographies of such friends of mine as Dean Stanley,
+Charles Kingsley, and Baron Bunsen. But even these are deficient in
+those shadows which would but help to bring out all the more clearly
+the bright points in their character. We should remember the words of
+Dr. Wendell Holmes: “We all want to draw perfect ideals, and all the
+coin that comes from Nature’s mint is more or less clipped, filed,
+‘sweated,’ or bruised, and bent and worn, even if it was pure metal
+when stamped, which is more than we can claim, I suppose, for anything
+human.” True, very true; and what would the departed himself say to
+such biographies as are now but too common,—most flattering pictures
+no doubt, but pictures without one spot or wrinkle? In Germany it was
+formerly not an uncommon thing for the author of a book to write a
+self-review (Selbst-Kritik), and these were generally far better than
+reviews written by friends or enemies. For who knows the strong and
+weak points of a book so well as the author? True; but a whole life is
+more difficult to review and to criticize than a single book.
+Nevertheless it must be admitted that an autobiography has many
+advantages, and it might be well if every man of note, nay, every man
+who has something to say for himself that he wishes posterity to know,
+should say it himself. This would in time form a wonderful archive for
+psychological study. Something of the kind has been done already at
+Berlin in preserving private correspondences. Of course it is
+difficult to keep such archives within reasonable limits, but here
+again I am not afraid of self-laudation so much as of self-depreciation.
+
+Professor Jowett, who did not write his own biography, was quite
+right in saying that there is great danger of an autobiography being
+rather self-depreciatory; there is certainly something so nauseous in
+self-praise that most people would shrink far more from self-praise
+than from self-blame. There may be some kind of subtle self-admiration
+even in the fault-finding of an outspoken autobiographer; but who can
+dive into those deepest depths of the human soul? To me it seems that
+if an honest man takes himself by the neck, and shakes himself, he can
+do it far better than anybody else, and the castigation, if well
+deserved, comes certainly with a far better grace from himself than if
+administered by others.
+
+Few men, I believe, know their real goodness and greatness. Some of
+the most handsome women, so we are assured, pass through life without
+ever knowing from their looking-glass that they are handsome. And it
+is certainly true that men, from sad experience, know their weak
+points far better than their good points, which they look on as no
+more than natural.
+
+The Autos, for instance, described by John Stuart Mill, has no cause
+to be grateful to the Autos that wrote his biography. Mill had been
+threatened by several future biographers, and he therefore wrote the
+short biographical account of himself almost in self-defence. But
+besides the truly miraculous, and, if related by anybody else, hardly
+credible achievements of his early boyhood and youth, his great
+achievements in later life, the influence which he exercised both by
+his writings and still more by his personal and public character,
+would have found a far more eloquent and truthful interpreter in a
+stranger than in Mill himself. I remember another case where a most
+distinguished author tried to escape the oil and the blessings,
+perhaps the opposite also, from the hands of his future biographers.
+Froude destroyed the whole of his correspondence, and he wished
+particularly that all letters written to him in the fullest confidence
+should be burnt,—and they were. I think it was a pity, for I know
+what valuable letters were destroyed in that _auto da fé_; and yet
+when he had done all this, he seems to have been seized with fear, and
+just before he returned to Oxford as Regius Professor of Modern
+History he began to write a sketch of his own life, which was found
+among his papers. Interesting it certainly was, but fortunately his
+best friends prevented its publication. It would have added nothing to
+what we know of him in his writings, and would never have put his real
+merits in their proper light. Besides, it came to an end with his
+youth and told us little of his real life.
+
+I flattered myself that I had found the true way out of all these
+difficulties, by writing not exactly my own life, but recollections of
+my friends and acquaintances who had influenced me most, and guided me
+in my not always easy passage through life. As in describing the
+course of a river, we cannot do better than to describe the shores
+which hem in and divert the river and are reflected on its waves, I
+thought that by describing my environment, my friends, and fellow
+workers, I could best describe the course of my own life. I hoped also
+that in this way I myself could keep as much as possible in the
+background, and yet in describing the wooded or rocky shores with
+their herds, their cottages, and churches, describe their reflected
+image on the passing river.
+
+But now I am asked to give a much fuller account of myself, not only
+of what I have seen, but also of what I have been, what were the
+objects or ideals of my life, how far I have succeeded in carrying
+them out, and, as I said, how often I have failed to accomplish what I
+had sketched out as my task in life. People wished to know how a boy,
+born and educated in a small and almost unknown town in the centre of
+Germany, should have come to England, should have been chosen there to
+edit the oldest book of the world, the Veda of the Brahmans, never
+published before, whether in India or in Europe, should have passed
+the best part of his life as a professor in the most famous and, as it
+was thought, the most exclusive University in England, and should
+actually have ended his days as a Member of Her Majesty’s most
+honourable Privy Council. I confess myself it seems a very strange
+career, yet everything came about most naturally, not by my own
+effort, but owing again to those circumstances or to that environment
+of which we have heard so much of late.
+
+Young, struggling men also have written to me, 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
+England. They knew, for I had never made any secret of it, how poor I
+was in worldly goods, and how, as I said at Glasgow, I had nothing to
+depend on after I left the University, but those fingers with which I
+still hold my pen and write so badly that I can hardly read my
+manuscript myself. When I arrived I had no family connections in
+England, nor any influential friends, “and yet,” I was told, “in a
+foreign country, you managed to reach the top of your profession. Tell
+us how you did it; and how you preserved at the same time your
+independence and never forsook the not very popular subjects, such as
+language, mythology, religion, and philosophy, on which you continued
+to write to the very end of your life.”
+
+I generally said that most of these questions could best be answered
+from my books, but they replied that few people had time to read all I
+had written, and many would feel grateful for a thread to lead them
+through this labyrinth of books, essays, and pamphlets, which have
+issued from my workshop during the last fifty years.[3]
+
+  [3] As giving a clear and complete abstract of my writings I
+  may now recommend M. Montcalm’s _L’origine de la Pensée et de
+  la Parole_, Paris, 1900.
+
+All I could say was that each man must find his own way in life, but
+if there was any secret about my success, it was simply due to the
+fact that I had perfect faith, and went on never doubting even when
+everything looked grey and black about me. I felt convinced that what
+I cared for, and what I thought worthy of a whole life of hard work,
+must in the end be recognized by others also as of value, and as
+worthy of a certain support from the public. Had not Layard gained a
+hearing for Assyrian bulls? Did not Darwin induce the world to take an
+interest in Worms, and in the Fertilization of Orchids? And should the
+oldest book and the oldest thoughts of the Aryan world remain despised
+and neglected?
+
+For many years I never thought of appointments or of getting on in the
+world in a pecuniary sense. My friends often laughed at me, and when I
+think of it now, I confess I must have seemed very Quixotic to many of
+those who tried for this and that, got lucrative appointments, married
+rich wives, became judges and bishops, ambassadors and ministers, and
+could hardly understand what I was driving at with my Sanskrit
+manuscripts, my proof-sheets and revises. Perhaps I did not know
+myself. Still I was not quite so foolish as they imagined. True, I
+declined several offers made to me which seemed very advantageous in a
+worldly sense, but would have separated me entirely from my favourite
+work.
+
+When at last a professorship of Modern Literature was offered me at
+Oxford, I made up my mind, though it was not exactly what I should
+have liked, to give up half of my time to studies required by this
+professorship, keeping half of my time for the Veda and for Sanskrit
+in general. This was not so bad after all. People often laughed at me
+for being professor of the most modern languages, and giving so much
+of my time and labour to the most ancient language and literature in
+the world. Perhaps it was not quite right my giving up so much of my
+time to modern languages, a subject so remote from my work in life,
+but it was a concession which I could make with a good conscience,
+having always held that language was one and indivisible, and that
+there never had been a break between Sanskrit, Latin, and French, or
+Sanskrit, Gothic, and German. One of my first lectures at Oxford was
+“On the antiquity of modern languages,” so that I gave full notice to
+the University as to how I meant to treat my subject, and on the whole
+the University seems to have been satisfied with my professorial work,
+so that when afterwards for very good reasons, whether financial,
+theological, or national, I, or rather my friends, failed to secure a
+majority in Convocation for a professorship of Sanskrit, the
+University actually founded for me a Professorship of Comparative
+Philology, an honour of which I had never dreamt, and to secure which
+I certainly had never taken any steps.
+
+Here is all my secret. At first, as I said, it required faith, but it
+also required for many years a perfect indifference as to worldly
+success. And here again in my career as a Sanskrit scholar, mere
+circumstances were of great importance. They were circumstances which
+I was glad to accept, but which I could never have created myself. 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 each. It was at the time
+when the fate of the Company hung in the balance, and when Bunsen, the
+Prussian Minister, made himself _persona grata_ by delivering a speech
+at one of the public dinners in the City, setting forth in eloquent
+words the undeniable merits of the Old Company and the wonderful work
+they had achieved. It was likewise a mere accident that I should have
+become known to Bunsen, and that he should have shown me so much
+kindness in my literary work. He had himself tried hard to go to India
+to discover the Rig-veda, nay, to find out whether there was still
+such a thing as the Veda in India. The same Bunsen, His Excellency
+Baron Bunsen, the Prussian Minister in London, on his own accord went
+afterwards to see the Chairman and the Directors of the East India
+Company, and explained to them what the Rig-veda was, and that it
+would be a real disgrace if such a work were published in Germany; and
+they agreed to vote a sum of money such as they had never voted
+before for any literary undertaking. Though after the mutiny nothing
+could save them, 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 Company,—much abused though
+splendidly defended also by no less a man than John Stuart Mill.
+
+This is what I mean by friends and circumstances, 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 myself.
+Small and large things work wonderfully together. It was the change
+threatening the government of India, and a mighty change it was, that
+gave me the chance of publishing the Veda, a very small matter as it
+may seem in the eyes of most people, and yet intended to bring about
+quite as mighty a change in our views of the ancient people of the
+world, particularly of their languages and religions. This, too—the
+development of language and religion—seems of importance to some
+people who do not care two straws for the East India Company,
+particularly if it helps us to learn what we really are ourselves, and
+how we came to be what we are.
+
+In one sense biographies and autobiographies are certainly among the
+most valuable materials for the historian. Biography, as Heinrich
+Simon, not Henri Simon, said, is the best kind of history, and the
+life of one man, if laid open before us with all he thought and all he
+did, gives us a better insight into the history of his time than any
+general account of it can possibly do.
+
+Now it is quite true that the life of a quiet scholar has little to do
+with history, except it may be the history of his own branch of study,
+which some people consider quite unimportant, while to others it seems
+all-important. This is as it ought to be, till the universal historian
+finds the right perspective, and assigns to each branch of study and
+activity its proper place in the panorama of the progress of mankind
+towards its ideals. Even a quiet scholar, if he keeps his eyes open,
+may now and then see something that is of importance to the historian.
+While I was living in small rooms at Leipzig, or lodging _au
+cinquième_ in the Rue Royale at Paris, or copying manuscripts in a
+dark room of the old East India House in Leadenhall Street, I now and
+then caught glimpses of the mighty stream of history as it was rushing
+by. At Leipzig I saw much of Robert Blum who was afterwards _fusillé_
+at Vienna by Windischgrätz in defiance of all international law, for
+he was a member of the German Diet, then sitting at Frankfurt. From my
+windows at Paris I looked over the _Boulevard de la Madeleine_, and
+down on the right to the _Chambre des Députés_, and I saw from my
+windows the throne of Louis Philippe carried along by its four legs by
+four women on horseback, with Phrygian caps and red scarfs, 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
+street. In my small study at the East India House I saw several of the
+Directors, Colonel Sykes and others, and heard them discussing the
+fate of the East India Company and of the vast empire of India too,
+and at the same time the private interests of those who hoped to be
+Members of the new India Council, and those who despaired of that
+distinction. I was the first to bring the news of the French
+Revolution in February to London, and presented a bullet that had
+smashed the windows of my room at Paris, to Bunsen, who took it in the
+evening to Lord Palmerston. After I had seen the Revolution in Paris
+and the flight of the King and the Duchesse d’Orléans, I was in time
+to see in London the Chartist Deputation to Parliament, and the
+assembled police in Trafalgar Square, when Louis Napoleon served as a
+Special Constable, and I heard the Duke of Wellington explain to
+Bunsen, that though no soldier was seen in the streets there was
+artillery hidden under the bridges, and ready to act if wanted. I
+could add more, but I must not anticipate, and after all, to me all
+these great events seemed but small compared with a new manuscript of
+the Veda sent from India, or a better reading of an obscure passage.
+_Diversos diversa iuvant_, and it is fortunate that it should be so.
+
+All these things, I thought, should form part of my Recollections,
+and my own little self should disappear as much as possible. Even the
+pronoun I should meet the reader but seldom, though in Recollections
+it was as impossible to leave it out altogether as it would be to take
+away the lens from a photographic camera. Now I believe I have always
+been most willing to yield to my friends, 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 struggles; but I must on the
+whole adhere to my old plan. I could not, if I would, neglect the
+environment of my life, and the many friends that advised and helped
+me, and enabled me to achieve the little that I may have achieved in
+my own line of study.
+
+If my friends had been different from what they were, should I not
+have become a different man myself, whether for good or for evil? And
+the same applies to our natural surroundings also. And here I must
+invoke the patience of my readers, if I try to explain in as few words
+as possible what I think about _environment_, and what about
+_heredity_ or _atavism_.
+
+I was a thorough Darwinian in ascribing the shaping of my career to
+environment, though I was always very averse to atavism, of which we
+have heard so much lately in most biographies. Even with respect to
+environment, however, I could not go quite so far as certain of our
+Darwinian friends, who maintain that everything is the result of
+environment, or translated into biographical language, that everybody
+is a creature of circumstances. No, I could not go so far as that.
+Environment may shape our course and may shape us, but there must be
+something that is shaped, and allows itself to be shaped. 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 life. That he
+grew then a thicker fur, I knew, but that surely does not explain the
+whole of the Mammoth, with and without a thick fur, before and after
+the fur. It is really a pity to see for how many of these downright
+absurdities Darwin is made responsible by the Darwinians. He has
+clearly shown how in many cases the individual may be modified almost
+beyond recognition by environment, but the individual must always have
+been there first. Before we had a spaniel and a Newfoundland dog there
+must have been some kind of dog, neither so small as the spaniel nor
+so large as the Newfoundland, and no one would now doubt that these
+two belonged to the same species and presupposed some kind of a less
+modified canine creature. It is equally true that every individual man
+has been modified by his surroundings or environment, if not to the
+same extent as certain animals, yet very considerably, as in the case
+of Kaspar Hauser, the man with the iron mask, or the mutineers of the
+_Bounty_ in the Pitcairn Islands. But there must have been the man
+first, before he could be so modified. Now it was this very
+individual, my own self in fact, the spiritual self even more than the
+physical, that interested my critics, while I thought that the
+circumstances which moulded that self would be of far greater interest
+than the self itself. Of course all the modifications that men now
+undergo are nothing if compared to the early modifications which
+produced what we speak of as racial, linguistic, or even national
+peculiarities. That we are English or German, that we are white or
+black, nay, if you like, that we are human beings at all, all this has
+modified our self, or our germ-plasm, far more powerfully than
+anything that can happen to us as individuals now.
+
+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 young,
+struggling man, all I could say was that here again it was really my
+friends who did everything for me, and helped me over many a stile,
+and many a ditch, nay, without whom I should never have done whatever
+I did for the Sciences of Language, of Mythology, and Religion, in
+fact for Anthropology in the widest sense of that word. My very
+struggles were certainly a help to me, even my opponents were most
+useful to me. The subjects on which I wrote had hardly been touched on
+in England, at least from the historical point of view which I took,
+and I had not only to overcome the indifference of the public, but to
+disarm as much as possible the prejudices often felt, and sometimes
+expressed also, against anything made in Germany! Now I confess I
+could never understand such a prejudice among men of science. Was I
+more right or more wrong because I was born in Germany? Is scientific
+truth the exclusive property of one nation, of Germany, or of England?
+If I say two and two make four in German, is that less true because it
+is said by a German? and if I say, no language without thought, no
+thought without language, has that anything to do with my native
+country? The prejudice against strangers and particularly against
+Germans is, no doubt, much stronger now than it was at the time when I
+first came to England. I had spent nearly two years in Paris, and
+there too there existed then so little of unfriendly feeling towards
+Germany, that one of the best reviews to which the rising scholars and
+best writers of Paris contributed was actually called _Revue
+Germanique_. Who would now venture to publish in Paris such a review
+and under such a title? If there existed such an anti-German feeling
+anywhere in England when I arrived here in the year 1846, one would
+suppose that it existed most strongly at Oxford. And so it did, no
+doubt, particularly among theologians. With them German meant much the
+same as unorthodox, and unorthodox was enough at that time to taboo a
+man at Oxford. In one of the sermons preached in these early days at
+St. Mary’s, German theologians such as Strauss and Neander (_sic_)
+were spoken of as fit only to be drowned in the German Ocean, before
+they reached the shores of England. I do not add what followed: the
+story is too well known. I was chiefly amused by the juxtaposition of
+Strauss and Neander, whose most orthodox lectures on the history of
+the Christian Church I had attended at Berlin. Neander was certainly
+to us at Berlin the very pattern of orthodoxy, and people wondered at
+my attending his lectures. But they were good and honest lectures. He
+was quite a character, and I feel tempted to go a little out of my way
+in speaking of him. By birth a Jew, he became one of the most learned
+Christian divines. Ever so many stories were told of him, some true,
+some no doubt invented. I saw him often walking to and from the
+University to give his lectures in a large fur coat, with high black
+polished boots beneath, but showing occasionally as he walked along.
+It was told that he once sent for a doctor because he was lame. The
+doctor on examining his feet, saw that one boot was covered with mud,
+while the other was perfectly clean. The Professor had walked with one
+foot on the pavement, with the other in the gutter, and was far too
+much absorbed in his ideas to discover the true cause of his
+discomfort. He lived with his sister, who took complete care of him
+and saw to his wardrobe also. She knew that he wore one pair of
+trousers, and that on a certain day in the year the tailor brought him
+a new pair. Great was her amazement when one day, after her brother
+had gone to the University, she discovered his pair of trousers lying
+on a chair near his bed. She at once sent a servant to the Professor’s
+lecture-room to inquire whether he had his trousers on. The hilarity
+of his class may be imagined. The fact was it was the very day on
+which the tailor was in the habit of bringing the new pair of
+trousers, which the Professor had put on, leaving his usual garment
+behind.
+
+Many more stories of his absent-mindedness were _en vogue_ about Dr.
+Neander, but that this man, a pillar of strength to the orthodox in
+Germany, who was looked up to as an infallible Pope, should have his
+name coupled with that of Strauss certainly gave one a little shock.
+Yet it was at Oxford that I pitched my tent, chiefly in order to
+superintend the printing of my Rig-veda at the University Press there,
+and never dreaming that a fellowship, still less a professorship in
+that ancient Tory University, would ever be offered to me.
+
+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
+Pope; and yet in time I was chosen a Fellow of All Souls, and the
+first married Fellow of the College, and even a professorship was
+offered to me when I least expected it. The fact is, I never thought
+of either, and no one was more surprised than myself when I was asked
+to act as deputy, and then as full Taylorian Professor; no one could
+have mistrusted his eyes more than I did, 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 fellows. My ambition had never soared
+so high. I was thinking of returning to Leipzig as a _Privat-docent_,
+to rise afterwards to an extraordinary and, if all went well, to an
+ordinary professorship.
+
+But after these two appointments at Oxford had secured to me what I
+thought a fair social and financial position in England, I did not
+feel justified in attempting to begin life again in Germany. I had not
+asked for a professorship or fellowship. They were offered me, and my
+ambition never went beyond securing what was necessary for my
+independence. In Germany I was supposed to have become quite wealthy;
+in England people knew how small my income really was, and wondered
+how I managed to live on it. 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 Oxford. I could not see anything anomalous in a German holding
+a professorship in England. There were several cases of the same kind
+in Germany. Lassen (1800-1876), our great Sanskrit professor at Bonn,
+was a Norwegian by birth, and no one ever thought of his nationality.
+What had that to do with his knowledge of Sanskrit? Nor was I ever
+treated as an alien or as intruder at Oxford, at least not at that
+early time. As to myself, I had now obtained what seemed to me a small
+but sufficient income with perfect independence. The quiet life of a
+quiet student had been from my earliest days my ideal in life. Even at
+school at Dessau, when we boys talked of what we hoped to be, I
+remember how my ideal was that of a monk, undisturbed in his
+monastery, surrounded by books and by a few friends. The idea that I
+should ever rise to be a professor in a university, or that any career
+like that of my father, grandfather, and other members of my family
+would ever be open to me, never entered my mind then. It seemed to me
+almost disloyal to think of ever taking their places. Even when I saw
+that there were no longer any Protestant monks, no Benedictines, the
+place of an assistant in a large library, sitting in a quiet corner,
+was my highest ambition.
+
+I do not see why it should have been so, for all my relations and
+friends occupied high places in the public service, but as I had no
+father to open my eyes, 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 mother, whose one desire
+was to be left alone, much as the world tempted her, then not yet
+thirty years old, to give up her mourning and to return to society.
+Thus it soon became my own philosophy of life, to be left alone, free
+to go my own way, or like Diogenes, to live in my own tub. Here we see
+what I call the influence of circumstances, of surroundings, or as
+others call it, of environment. This, however, is very different from
+atavism, as we shall see presently. Atavism also has been called a
+kind of environment, attacking us and influencing us from the past,
+and as it were, from behind, from the North in fact instead of the
+South, the East, and the West, and from all the points of the compass.
+
+But atavism means really a very different thing, if indeed it means
+anything at all.
+
+I must ease my conscience once for all on this point, and say what I
+feel about atavism and environment. Environment in the shape of
+friends, of locality, and other material circumstances, has certainly
+influenced my life very much, and I could never see why such a hybrid
+word as environment should be used instead of surroundings or
+circumstances. Creatures of circumstances would be far better
+understood than creatures of environment; but environment, I suppose,
+would sound more scientific. Atavism also is a new word, instead of
+family likeness, but unless carefully defined, the word is very apt to
+mislead us.
+
+When it is said[4] that children often resemble their grandfathers or
+grandmothers more than their immediate parents, and that this
+propensity is termed atavism, this does not seem quite correct even
+etymologically, for atavus in Latin did not mean father or
+grandfather, but at first great-great-great-grandfather, and then
+only ancestors; and what should be made quite clear is that this
+mysterious atavism should not be used by careful speakers, to express
+the supposed influence of parents or even grandparents, but that of
+more distant ancestors only, and possibly of a whole family.
+
+  [4] _Oxford Dictionary_, s. v.; J. Rennie, _Science of
+  Gardening_, p. 113.
+
+Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin their works with a
+long account not only of father and mother, but of grandparents and of
+ever so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined the
+outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written.
+Who would deny that there is some truth, or at least some
+plausibility, in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in giving
+an intelligible account of it? It is supposed to affect the moral as
+well as the physical peculiarities of the offspring, and that here,
+too, physical and moral qualities often go together cannot be denied.
+A blind person, for instance, is generally cautious, but happy and
+quite at his ease in large societies. A deaf person is often
+suspicious and unhappy in society. In inheriting blindness, therefore,
+a man could well be said to have inherited cautiousness; in inheriting
+deafness, suspiciousness would seem to have come to him by
+inheritance.
+
+But is blindness really inherited? Is the son of a father who has lost
+his eyesight blind, and necessarily blind? We must distinguish between
+atavistic and parental influences. Parental influences would mean the
+influence of qualities acquired by the parents, and directly
+bequeathed to their offspring; atavistic influences would refer to
+qualities inherited and transmitted, it may be, through several
+generations, and engrained in a whole family. In keeping these two
+classes separate, we should only be following Weismann’s example, who
+denies altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable. His
+examples are most interesting and most important, and many Darwinians
+have had to accept his amendment. Besides, we should always consider
+whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family or inconstant.
+If a father is a drunkard, surely it does not follow that his sons
+must be drunkards. Neither does it follow that all the children must
+be sober if the parents are sober. Of course, in ordinary conversation
+both parental and ancestral influences seem clear enough. But if a
+child is said to favour his mother, because like her he has blue eyes
+and fair hair, what becomes of the heritage from the father who may
+have brown eyes and dark hair? Whatever may happen to the children,
+there is always an excuse, only an excuse is not an explanation. If
+the daughter of a beautiful woman grows up very plain, the Frenchman
+was no doubt right when he remarked, _C’était alors le père qui
+n’était pas bien_, and if the son of a teetotaller should later in
+life become a drunkard, the conclusion would be even worse. In fact,
+this kind of atavistic or parental influence is a very pleasant
+subject for gossips, but from a scientific point of view, it is
+perfectly futile. If it is not the father, it is the mother; if it is
+not the grandmother, it is the grandfather; in fact, family influences
+can always be traced to some source or other, if the whole pedigree
+may be dug up and ransacked. But for that very reason they are of no
+scientific value whatever. They can neither be accounted for, nor can
+they be used to account for anything themselves. Even of twins, though
+very like each other in many respects, one may be phlegmatic, the
+other passionate. Some scientists, such as Weismann and others, have
+therefore denied, and I believe rightly, that any acquired characters,
+whether physical or mental, can ever be inherited by children from
+their parents. Whatever similarity there is, and there is plenty, is
+traced back by him to what he calls the germ-plasm, working on
+continuously in spite of all individual changes. If that germ-plasm is
+liable to certain peculiar modifications in the father or grandfather,
+it is liable to the same or similar modifications in the offspring,
+that is, if the father could become a drunkard, so could the son, only
+we must not think that the _post hoc_ is here the same as the _propter
+hoc_. If we compare the germ-plasm to the molecules constituting the
+stem or branches of a vine, its grapes and leaves in their similarity
+and their variety would be comparable to the individuals belonging to
+the same family, and springing from the same family tree. But then the
+grape we see would not be what the grape of last year, or the grape
+immediately preceding it on the same branch, had made it, though there
+can be no doubt that the antecedent possibilities of the new grape
+were the same as those of the last. If one grape is blue, the next
+will be blue too, but no one would say that it was blue because the
+last grape was blue. The real cause would be that the molecules of the
+protoplasm have been so affected by long continued generation, that
+some of the peculiar qualities of the vine have become constant.
+
+The child of a negro must always be a negro; his peculiarities are
+constant, though it may be quite true that the negro and other races
+are not different species, but only varieties rendered constant by
+immense periods of time. What the cause of these constant and
+inconstant peculiarities may be, not even Weismann has yet been able
+to explain satisfactorily.
+
+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
+influence, as something belonging to the environment of my life; it
+never frightened me as an atavistic evil. It justified me in being
+cautious and in being prepared for the worst, and so far it may be
+said to have helped in shaping or narrowing the course of my life.
+Fortunately, however, this tendency to deafness seems now to have
+exhausted itself. In my own generation there is one case only, and the
+next two generations, children and grandchildren of mine, show no
+signs of it. If, on the other hand, my son was congratulated when
+entering the diplomatic service, on being the son of his father, it is
+clear that the difference between inherited and acquired qualities, so
+strongly insisted on by Weismann, had not been fully appreciated by
+his friends. Besides, my own power of speaking foreign languages has
+always been very limited, and I have many times declined the
+compliment of being a second Mezzofanti.[5] I worked at languages as a
+musician studies the nature and capacities of musical instruments,
+though without attempting to perform on every one of them. There was
+no time left for acquiring a practical familiarity with languages, if
+I wanted to carry on my researches into the origin, the nature and
+history of language. My own study of languages could therefore have
+been of very little use to me, nor did my son himself perceive such an
+advantage in learning to converse in French, Spanish, Turkish, &c. The
+facts were wrong, and the theory of atavism perfectly unreasonable as
+applied to such a case.
+
+  [5] _Science of Language_, vol. i. p. 24 (1861).
+
+If the theory of atavism were stretched so far, it would soon do away
+with free will altogether. That heredity has something to do with our
+moral character, no one would deny who knows the influence of our
+national, nay even of racial character. We are Aryan by heredity; we
+might be Negroes or Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals
+also have their instincts. Only while animals, like serpents for
+instance, would never hesitate to follow their innate propensity, man,
+when he feels the power of what we may call inherited human instinct,
+feels also that he can fight against it, and preserve his freedom,
+even while wearing the chains of his slavery. This may have removed
+some of Dr. Wendell Holmes’ scruples in writing his powerful story,
+_Elsie Venner_, and may likewise quiet the fears of his many critics.
+
+I believe that language also—our own inherited language—exercises
+the most powerful influence on our reason and our will, far more
+powerful than we are aware of.
+
+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 Cicero, and this simply on account of the language which
+they had to speak, whether Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish. We cannot
+tell whether the original differentiation of language, symbolized by
+the story of the Tower of Babel, took place before or after the racial
+differentiation of men. Anyhow it must have taken place in quite
+primordial times. Without speaking positively on this point, I
+certainly hold as strongly as ever that language makes the man, and
+that therefore for classificatory purposes also language is far more
+useful than colour of skin, hair, cranial or gnathic peculiarities.
+Whether it be true that with every new language we speak we become
+new men, certain it is that language prepares for us channels in which
+our thoughts have to run, unless they are so powerful as to break all
+dams and dykes, and to dig for themselves new beds.
+
+For a long time people would not see that languages can be classified;
+and as languages always presuppose speakers of language, these
+speakers also can be classified accordingly. It is quite true that
+some of these Aryan speakers may in some cases have Negro blood and
+Negro features, as when a Negro becomes an English bishop. Conquered
+tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language of their
+conquerors, but this too is exceptional, and if we call them Aryas, we
+do not commit ourselves to any opinion as to their blood, their bones,
+or their hair. These will never submit to the same classification as
+their speech, and why should they? Nor should it be forgotten that
+wherever a mixture of language takes place, mixed marriages also would
+most likely take place at the same time. But whatever confusion may
+have arisen in later times in language and in blood, no language could
+have arisen without speakers, and we mean by Aryas no more than
+speakers of Aryan languages, whatever their skulls or their hair may
+have been. An Octoroon, and even a Quadroon, may have blonde waving
+hair, but if he speaks English he would be classified as Aryan, if
+Berber as a Negro. But who is injured by such a classification? Let
+blood and skulls and hair and jaws be classified by all means, but let
+us speak no longer of Aryan skulls or Semitic blood. We might as well
+speak of a prognathic language.
+
+While fully admitting, therefore, the influence which family,
+nationality, race, and language exercise on us, it should be clearly
+perceived that habits acquired by our parents are not heritable, that
+the sons of drunkards need not be drunkards, as little as the sons of
+sober people must be sober. But though biographers may agree to this
+in general they seem inclined, to hold out very strongly for what are
+called _special talents in certain families_. This subject is
+decidedly amusing, but it admits of no scientific treatment, as far as
+I can see.
+
+The grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for instance, though
+not a composer, was evidently a man of genius, a philosopher of
+considerable intellectual capacity and moral strength. The father of
+the composer was a rich banker at Berlin, and he used to say: “When I
+was young I was the son of the great Mendelssohn, now that I am old, I
+am the father of the great Mendelssohn; then what am I?” Even a poor
+man to become a rich banker must be a kind of genius, and so far the
+son may be said to have come of a good stock. But the great musical
+talent that was developed in the third generation both in Felix and
+his sisters, failed entirely in his brother, who, to save his life,
+could never have sung “God save the Queen.” In the little theatrical
+performances of the whole family for which Felix composed the music,
+and his sister Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical
+brother—was it not Paul?—had generally to be provided with some such
+part as that of a night watchman, and he managed to get through his
+song with as much credit as the _Nachtwächter_ in the little town of
+Germany, where he sang or repeated, as I well remember, in his cracked
+voice:
+
+    “Hört, ihr Herren, und lasst euch sagen,
+     Die Glock’ hat zwölf geschlagen;
+     Wahret das Feuer und auch das Licht,
+     Dass Keinem kein Schade geschicht.”
+
+    “Listen, gents, and let me tell,
+     The clock struck twelve by its last knell;
+     Watch o’er the fire and o’er the light
+     That no one suffer any plight.”
+
+I have known in my life many musicians and their families, but I
+remember very few instances indeed, where the son of a distinguished
+musician was a great musician himself. If the children take to music
+at all they may become very fair musicians, but never anything
+extraordinary. The Bach family may be quoted against me, but music,
+before Sebastian Bach, was almost like a profession, and could be
+learned like any other handicraft.
+
+Nor are the cases of painters being the sons of great painters, or of
+poets being the sons of great poets, more numerous. It seems almost as
+if the artistic talent was exhausted by one generation or one
+individual, so that we often see the sons of great men by no means
+great, and if they do anything in the same line as their fathers, we
+must remember that there was much to induce them to follow in their
+steps without admitting any atavistic influences.
+
+For the present, I can only repeat the conclusion I arrived at after
+weighing all the arguments of my friends and critics, namely, to
+continue my Recollections much as I began them, to try to explain what
+made me what I am, to describe, in fact, my environment; though as my
+years advance, and my labours and plans grow wider and wider, I shall,
+no doubt, have to say a great deal more about myself than in the
+volumes of _Auld Lang Syne_. In fact, my Recollections will become
+more and more of an autobiography, and the I and the Autos will appear
+more frequently than I could have wished.
+
+In an autobiography the painter is of course supposed to be the same
+as the sitter, but quite apart from the metaphysical difficulties of
+such a supposition, there is the physical difficulty when the writer
+is an old man, and the model is a young boy. Is the old man likely to
+be a fair judge of the young man, whether it be himself or some one
+else? As a rule, old men are very indulgent, while young men are apt
+to be stern and strict in their judgments. The very fact that they
+often invent excuses for themselves shows that they feel that they
+want excuses. The words of the Preacher, vii. 16: “Be not righteous
+over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy
+thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why
+shouldest thou die before thy time?” are evidently the words of an old
+man when judging of himself or of others. A young man would have
+spoken differently. He would have made no allowance; for anything like
+compassion for an erring friend is as yet unknown to him. In an
+autobiography written by an old man there is therefore a double
+danger, first the indulgence of the old man, and secondly the kindly
+feeling of the writer towards the object of his remarks.
+
+All these difficulties stand before me like a mountain wall. And it
+seems better to confess at once that an old man writing his own life
+can never be quite just, however honest he tries to be. He may be too
+indulgent, but he may also be too strict and stern. To say, for
+instance, of a man that he has not kept his promise, would be a very
+serious charge if brought against anybody else. Yet my oldest friend
+in the world knows how many times he has made a promise to himself,
+and has not only not kept it but has actually found excuses why he did
+not keep it. The more sensitive our conscience becomes, the more
+blameworthy many an act of our life seems to be, and what to an
+ordinary conscience is no fault at all, becomes almost a sin under a
+fiercer light.
+
+This changes the moral atmosphere of youth when painted by an old man,
+but the physical atmosphere also assumes necessarily a different hue.
+Whether we like it or not, distance will always lend enchantment to
+the view. If the azure hue is inseparable from distant mountains and
+from the distant sky, we need not wonder that it veils the distant
+paradise of youth. A man who keeps a diary from his earliest years,
+and who as an old man simply copies from its yellow pages, may give us
+a very accurate black and white image of what he saw as a boy, but as
+in old faded photographs, the life and light are gone out of them,
+while unassisted memory may often preserve tints of their former
+reality. There is life and light in such recollections, but I am
+willing to admit that memory can be very treacherous also. Thus in my
+own case I can vouch that whatever I relate is carefully and
+accurately transcribed from the tablets of my memory, as I see them
+now, but though I can claim truthfulness to myself and to my memory, I
+cannot pretend to photographic accuracy. 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 narrators.
+
+I doubt whether any historian would accept a statement made thirty
+years after the event without independent confirmation. I could not
+give the date of the battle of Sadowa, though I well remember reading
+the full account of it in the _Times_ from day to day. I can of
+course get at the date from historical books, and from that kind of
+artificial memory which arises by itself without any _memoria
+technica_. There is a favourite German game of cards called Sixty-six,
+and it was reported that when the French in 1870 shouted _À Berlin_,
+the then Crown-Prince who had won the battle of Sadowa, or Königgrätz,
+said: “Ah, they want another game of Sixty-six!” that is they want a
+battle like that of Sadowa. In this way I shall always remember the
+date of that decisive battle. But I could not give the date of the
+Crimean battles nor a trustworthy account of the successive stages of
+that war. I doubt whether even my old friend, Sir William H. Russell,
+could do that now without referring to his letters in the _Times_.
+After thirty years no one, I believe, could take an oath to the
+accuracy of any statement of what he saw or heard so many years ago.
+
+All then that I can vouch for is that I read my memory as I should the
+leaves of an old MS. from which many letters, nay, whole words and
+lines have vanished, and where I am often driven to decipher and to
+guess, as in a palimpsest, what the original uncial writing may have
+been. I am the first to confess that there may be flaws in my memory,
+there may be before my eyes that magic azure which surrounds the
+distant past; but I can promise that there shall be no invention, no
+_Dichtung_ instead of _Wahrheit_, but always, as far as in me lies,
+truth. I know quite well that even a certain dislocation of facts is
+not always to be avoided in an old memory. I know it from sad
+experience. As the spires of a city—of Oxford for instance—arrange
+themselves differently as we pass the old place on the railway, so
+that now one and now the other stands in the centre and seems to rise
+above the heads of the rest, so it is with our friends and
+acquaintances. Some who seemed giants at one time assume smaller
+proportions as others come into view towering above them. The whole
+scenery changes from year to year. Who does not remember the trees in
+our garden that seemed like giants in our childhood, but when we see
+them again in our old age, they have shrunk, and not from old age
+only?
+
+And must I make one more confession? 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 present, in fact that he had won
+that battle. I also remember Dr. Routh, the venerable president of
+Magdalen College, who died in his hundredth year, and who had so often
+repeated all the circumstances of the execution of Charles I, that
+when Macaulay expressed a wish to see him, he declined “because that
+young man has given quite a wrong account of the last moments of the
+king,” which he then proceeded to relate, as if he had been an
+eye-witness throughout.
+
+Are we not liable to the same hallucination, though, let us hope, in a
+more mitigated form? Have we never told a story as if it were our
+own, not from any wish to deceive, but simply because it seemed
+shorter and easier to do so than to explain step by step how it
+reached us? And after doing that once or twice, is there not great
+danger of our being surprised at somebody else claiming the story as
+his own, or actually maintaining that it was he who told it to us?
+
+Not very long ago I remember reading in a journal a story of the Duke
+of Wellington. His servant had been sent before to order dinner for
+him at an out-of-the-way hotel, and in order to impress the landlord
+with the dignity of his coming guest, he had recited a number of the
+Duke’s titles, which were very numerous. The landlord, thinking that
+the Duke of Vittoria, the Prince of Waterloo, the Marquis of Torres
+Vedras, and all the rest, were friends invited to dine with the Duke
+of Wellington, ordered accordingly a very sumptuous banquet to the
+great dismay of the real Duke. This may or may not be a very old and a
+very true story; all I know is that much the same thing was told at
+Oxford of Dr. Bull, who was Canon of Christ Church, Canon of Exeter,
+Prebendary of York, Vicar of Staverton, and lastly, the Rev. Dr. Bull
+himself. Dinner was provided for each of these persons, and we are
+told that the reverend pluralist had to eat all the dishes on the
+table and pay for them. This also may have been no more than one of
+the many “Common-roomers” which abounded in Oxford when Common Rooms
+were more frequented than they are now. But what I happen to know as a
+fact is that Dean Stanley received no less than four invitations to a
+hall at Blenheim, addressed A. P. Stanley, Esq., the Rev. A. P.
+Stanley, Canon Stanley, Professor Stanley, all evidently copied from
+some books of reference.
+
+I may perhaps claim one advantage in trying to describe what happened
+to myself in my passage through life. From the earliest days that I
+can recollect, I felt myself as a twofold being—as a subject and an
+object, as a spectator and as an actor. I suppose we all talk to
+ourselves, and say to our better and worse selves, O thou fool! or,
+Well done, my boy! Well this inward conversation began with me at a
+very early time, and left the impression that I was the coachman, but
+at the same time the horse too which he drove and sometimes whipped
+very cruelly. And this phase of thought, or rather this state of
+feeling, seems soon to have led me on to another view which likewise
+dates from a very early time, though it afterwards vanished. As a
+little boy, when I could not have the same toys which other boys
+possessed, I could fully enjoy what they enjoyed, as if they had been
+my own. There is a German phrase, “Ich freue mich in deiner Seele,”
+which exactly expressed what I often felt. It was not the result of
+teaching, still less of reasoning—it was a sentiment given me and
+which certainty did not leave me till much later in life, when
+competition, rivalry, jealousy, and envy seemed to accentuate my own I
+as against all other I’s or Thou’s. I suppose we all remember how the
+sight of a wound of a fellow creature, nay even of a dog, gives us a
+sharp twitch in the same part of our own body. That bodily sympathy
+has never left me, I suffer from it even now as I did seventy years
+ago. And is there anybody who has not felt his eyes moisten at the
+sudden happiness of his friends? All this seems to me to account, to a
+certain extent at least, for that feeling of identity with so-called
+strangers, which came to me from my earliest days, and has returned
+again with renewed strength in my old age. The “know thyself,”
+ascribed to Chilon and other sages of ancient Greece, gains a deeper
+meaning with every year, till at last the I which we looked upon as
+the most certain and undoubted fact, vanishes from our grasp to become
+the Self, free from the various accidents and limitations which make
+up the I, and therefore one with the Self that underlies all
+individual and therefore vanishing I’s. What that common Self may be
+is a question to be reserved for later times, though I may say at once
+that the only true answer given to it seems to me that of the
+Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy. Only we must take care not to
+mistake the moral Self, that finds fault with the active Self, for the
+Highest Self that knows no longer of good or evil deeds.
+
+Long before I had worked and thought out this problem as the
+fundamental truth of all philosophy, it presented itself to me as if
+by intuition, long before I could have fathomed it in its metaphysical
+meaning. I had just heard of the death of a dear little child, and was
+standing in our garden, looking at a rose-bush, covered in summer with
+hundreds of rose-buds and rose-flowers. While I was looking I broke
+off one small withered bud from the midst of a large cluster of roses,
+and after I had done so a question came to me, and I said to myself,
+What has happened? Is it only that one small bud is dead and gone, or
+have not all the other roses been touched by the breath of death that
+fell on it? Have they not all suffered from the death of their sister,
+for they all spring from the same stem, they all have their life from
+the same source? And if one rose suffers, must not all the others
+suffer with it? Then all the buds and flowers of the cluster seemed to
+me to become one, as it were a family of roses, and each single bud
+seemed but the repetition of the same thing, the manifestation of the
+same thought, namely the thought of the rose. But my eyes were carried
+still further, and the stem from which the bunch of roses sprang was
+lost with other stems in a branch, and it was that branch on which all
+the roses of the branchlets and stems depended, and without which they
+could not flower or exist. The single roses thus became identified
+with the branch from which they had sprung, and by which they lived. I
+wondered more and more, and after another look all the branches with
+all their branchlets became absorbed in the stem, and the stem was the
+tree, and the tree sprang from a seed, or as it is now called, the
+protoplasm; but beyond that seed there was nothing else that the eye
+could see or the mind could grasp. And while this vision floated
+before my eyes I thought of my little friend, and the home from which
+she had been broken off, and the same vision which had changed the
+rose-bush with all its flowers, and buds, and branchlets, and
+branches, into a stem and a tree, and at last into one invisible germ
+and seed, seemed now to change my little friend and her brothers and
+sisters, her parents too and all her family, into one being which,
+like an old oak tree, started from an invisible stem, or an invisible
+seed, or from an invisible thought, and that divine thought was man,
+as the other divine thought had been rose.
+
+Perhaps I did not see it so fully then as I see it now, and I
+certainly did not reason about it. I simply felt that in the death of
+my little friend, something of myself had gone, though she was no
+relation, but only a stray human friend. We see many things as
+children which we cannot see as grown-up men and women, for, as
+Longfellow said, “the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts.” Nay,
+I feel convinced that He who spoke the parable of the vine had seen
+the same vision when He said: “I am the vine, ye are the branches.
+Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself
+except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.”
+And it is on this vision, or this parable of the vine, that
+immediately afterwards follows the lesson, “Love one another, as I
+have loved you.” In loving one another we are in truth loving the
+others as ourselves, as one with ourselves; and while we are loving
+Him who is the vine, we are loving the branches, ourselves—aye, even
+our own little selves.
+
+Such vague visions or intuitions often remain with us for life, but
+while they seem to be the same, they vary as we vary ourselves. We
+imagine we saw their deepest meaning from the first, but, like a
+parable, they gain in meaning every time they come back to us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU
+
+
+In a small town such as Dessau was when I lived there as a child and
+as a boy, one lived as in an enchanted island. The horizon was very
+narrow, and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the little oasis.
+The Duchy was indeed a little oasis in the large desert of Central
+Germany. The landscape was beautiful: there were rivers small and
+large—the Mulde and the Elbe; there were magnificent oak forests;
+there were regiments of firs standing in regular columns like so many
+grenadiers; there were parks such as one sees in England only. The
+town, the capital of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, had been cared for by
+successive rulers—men mostly far in advance of their time—who had
+read and travelled, and brought home the best they could find abroad.
+Their old castle, centuries old, over-awed the town; it was by far the
+largest building, though there were several other smaller places in
+the town for members of the ducal family. All the public buildings,
+theatres, libraries, schools, and barracks, had been erected by the
+Dukes, as well as several private residences intended for some of the
+higher officials. The whole town was, in fact, the creation of the
+Dukes; the whole ground on which it stood had been originally their
+property, but it was mostly held as freehold by those who had built
+their own private houses on it. No one would have built a house on
+leasehold land, 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 years. The same family often remained in their house for
+generations, and the different stories were occupied by three
+generations at the same time—by grandparents, parents, and children.
+In this small town I was born on December 6, 1823. My father, Wilhelm
+Müller, was Librarian of the Ducal Library, and one of the most
+popular poets in Germany. A national monument was erected to his
+memory at Dessau in the year 1891, nearly a hundred years after his
+birth.
+
+  [Illustration: MY FATHER]
+
+What a blessing it would be if such a rule were followed with all
+great men, who seem so great at the time of their death, and who, a
+hundred years later, are almost forgotten, or at all events
+appreciated by a small number of admirers only. This Monument- and
+Society-mania is indeed becoming very objectionable, for if for some
+time there has been no room for tombs and statues in Westminster
+Abbey, there will soon be no room for them in the streets of London.
+The result is that many of the people who walk along the Thames
+Embankment, particularly foreigners, often ask, “Cur?” when looking at
+the human idols in bronze and marble put up there; while historians,
+remembering the really great men of England, would ask quite as often,
+“Cur non?” There is a curious race of people, who, as soon as a man of
+any note dies, are ready to found anything for him—a monument, a
+picture, a school, a prize, a society—to keep alive his memory. Of
+course these societies want presidents, members of council,
+committees, secretaries, &c., and at last, subscriptions also. Thus it
+has happened that the name of founder (_Gründer_) has assumed,
+particularly in Germany, a perfume by no means sweet. Those who are
+asked to subscribe to such testimonials know how disagreeable it is to
+decline to give at least their name, deeply as they feel that in
+giving it they are offending against all the rules of historical
+perspective. I should not say that my father was one of the great
+poets of Germany, though Heine, no mean critic, declared that he
+placed his lyric poetry next to that of Goethe. Besides, he was barely
+thirty-three when he died. He had been a favourite pupil of F. A.
+Wolf, and had proved his classical scholarship by his _Homerische
+Vorschule_, and other publications. His poems became popular in the
+true sense of the word, and there are some which the people in the
+street sing even now without being aware of the name of their author.
+Schubert’s compositions also have contributed much to the wide
+popularity of his _Schöne Müllerin_ and his _Winterreise_, so that
+though it might truly be said of him that he wanted no monument in
+bronze or stone, it seemed but natural that a small town like Dessau
+should wish to honour itself by honouring the memory of one of its
+sons. In the company of Mendelssohn, the philosopher, and of F.
+Schneider, the composer, a monument of my father in the principal
+street of his native town, and before the school in which he had been
+a pupil and a teacher, could hardly seem out of place. That the Greek
+Parliament voted the Pentelican marble for the poet of the
+_Griechenlieder_, as it had done for Lord Byron, was another
+inducement for his fellow citizens to do honour to their honoured
+poet. He died when I was hardly four years old, so that my
+recollection of him is very faint and vague, made up, I believe, to a
+great extent, of pictures, and things that my mother told me. I seem
+to remember him as a bright, sunny, and thoroughly joyful man,
+delighted with our little naughtinesses. One book I still possess
+which he bought for me and which was to be the first book of my
+library. It was a small volume of Horace, printed by Pickering in
+1820. It has now almost vanished among the 12,000 big volumes that
+form my library, but I am delighted that I am still able, at
+seventy-six, to read it without spectacles. I think I remember my
+father taking my sister and me on his knees, and telling us the most
+delightful stories, that set us wondering and laughing and crying till
+we could laugh and cry no longer. He had been a fellow worker with the
+brothers Grimm, and the stories he told were mostly from their
+collection, though he knew how to embellish them with anything that
+could make a child cry and laugh.
+
+People have little idea how great and how lasting an influence such
+popular stories about kings and queens, and princesses and knights,
+about ogres and witches, about men that have been changed into
+animals, and about animals that talk and behave like human beings,
+exercise on the imagination of young children. While we listened, a
+new world seemed to open before us, and anything like doubt as to the
+reality of these beings never existed. What was reality or unreality
+to young children of four and five? How few people know what real
+reality is, even after they have reached the age of fifty or sixty.
+For children, such names as reality and unreality do not exist, nor
+the ideas which they express. They listen to what their father tells
+them, and they cannot see any difference between what he tells them of
+Frederick Barbarossa, of Romulus and Remus suckled by a wolf, or of
+the dwarfs that guarded the coffin of Schneewittchen.
+
+Some people, however, have thought that from an educational point of
+view, a belief in this imaginary world must be mischievous. I doubt
+it, and it would be easy to show that originally these stories and
+fables were really meant to inculcate right and good principles.
+Luther declared that he would not lose these wonderful stories of his
+tender childhood for any sum of money, and Camerarius (_Fabulae
+Aesopeae_, p. 406, Lipsiae, 1570) speaks of these German fables as
+filling the minds of the people, and particularly of children, with
+terror, hope, and religion. The oldest collections in which some of
+these Aesopean fables occur, the Pantschatantra and Hitopadesa in
+Sanskrit, were distinctly intended for the education of princes, and
+though they may make the young listeners inclined to be superstitious,
+such superstitiousness is not likely to last long. Children delight in
+_Märchen_ as in a kind of pantomime, and when the curtain has fallen
+on that fairy world they often think of it as of a beautiful dream
+that has passed away. The stories are certainly more impressive than
+the proverbs and wise saws which many of them were meant to
+illustrate, without always saying, _haec fabula docet_. Even if some
+of these stories touch sometimes on what may not seem to us quite
+correct, it is done to make children laugh rather at the silliness
+than cry at the downright wickedness of some of the heroes. It is by
+no means uncommon, for instance, that a good-for-nothing fellow
+succeeds, while his virtuous companions fail. But there is either a
+reason for it, or the injustice provokes the indignation of children,
+long before they have learnt that in real life also virtue does not
+always receive its reward, while falsehood often prospers, at least
+for a time. There is no harm, I think, in a certain dreaminess in
+children. I remember that I have often laughed with all my heart at
+Rumpelstilzchen, and shed bitter tears at Brüderchen and
+Schwesterchen. I seemed to see brother and sister driven into the
+wood, the brother being changed into a deer, and the sister sleeping
+with her head on his warm fur, till at last the deer was killed by a
+huntsman, and the little sister had to travel on quite alone in the
+forest. Of course in the end she became a princess, and the brother a
+prince who married a queen, and all ended in great joy and jubilation
+in which we all joined. How good for children that they should for a
+time at least have lived in such a dreamland, in which truthfulness
+was as a rule rewarded, and falsehood punished in the end.
+
+It was like a recollection of a Paradise, and such a recollection,
+even if it brought out the contrast between the dream-world and the
+real world, would often set children musing on what ought and what
+ought not to be. They did not long believe in Dornröschen and
+Schneewittchen, they learnt but too soon that Dornröschen and
+Schneewittchen belonged to another world. They may even have come to
+learn that Dornröschen (thorn-rose) and Schneewittchen (snow-white)
+were meant originally for the sleep or death of nature in her
+snow-white shroud, and the return of the sun; but woe to the boy who
+on first learning these stories should have declared that they were
+mere bosh, or, as Sir Walter Scott says, the detritus of nature-myths.
+
+My father’s father, whom I never knew, seems not to have been
+distinguished in any way. He was, however, a useful tradesman and a
+respected citizen of Dessau, and, as I see, the founder of the first
+lending library in that small town. He married a second time, a rich
+widow, chiefly, as I was told, to enable him to give his son, my
+father, a liberal education. She grew to be very old, and I well
+remember her, to me, forbidding and terrifying appearance. She quite
+belonged to a past generation, and when I saw her again after having
+been in England, she asked me whether I had seen Napoleon who had been
+taken prisoner and sent to England, but had lately escaped and resumed
+his throne in Paris. She evidently mixed up the two Napoleons, and I
+did not contradict her. To me her conversation was interesting as
+showing how little the traditions of the people can be relied on, and
+how easily, by the side of real history, a popular history could grow
+up. After all, the poems of Charlemagne besieging Jerusalem owed their
+origin very likely to some similar confusion in the minds of old
+women. My sister and I were always terrified when we were sent to
+visit her, for with her dishevelled grey hair, her thin white face,
+and her piercing eyes, she was to us the old grandmother, or the witch
+of Grimm’s stories; and the language she used was such that, if we
+repeated it at home, we were severely reprimanded. She knew very
+little about my father, but her memory about her first husband and
+about her own youth and childhood was very clear, though not always
+edifying. Her stories about ghosts, witches, ogres, nickers, and the
+whole of that race were certainly enough to frighten a child, and some
+of them clung to me for a very long time. On my mother’s side my
+relations were more civilized, and they had but little social
+intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives. My mother’s father
+was von Basedow, the President, that is Prime Minister of the Duchy of
+Anhalt-Dessau, a position in which he was succeeded by his eldest son,
+my uncle. He was the first man in the town; the Duke and he really
+ruled the Duchy exactly as they pleased. There was no check on them of
+any kind, and yet no one, as far as I know, ever complained of any
+tyranny. My grandfather’s father again was the famous reformer of
+public education in Germany. He (1723-1790) had to brave the
+conservative and clerical parties throughout the country. His home at
+Hamburg was burnt in a riot, and it was then that he migrated to
+Dessau, to become the founder of the _Philanthropinum_, and at the
+same time the path-breaker for men such as Pestalozzi (1746-1827) and
+Froebel (1782-1852). Considering his lifelong struggles, he deserved a
+better monument at Dessau than he has found there. No doubt he was a
+passionate and violent man, and his outbreaks are still remembered at
+Dessau, while his beneficial activity has almost been forgotten. I was
+often told that I took after my mother’s family, whatever that may
+mean, and this was certainly the case in outward appearance, though I
+hope not in temper. My great grandfather, the Pedagogue as he was
+called, was a friend of Goethe’s, and is mentioned in his poems.
+
+My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a
+widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was
+heart-broken. The few years of her married life had been most bright
+and brilliant. My father was a rising poet, and such was his
+popularity that he was able to indulge his tastes as he liked, whether
+in travelling or in making his house a pleasant centre of social life.
+Contemporaries and friends of my father, particularly Baron Simolin, a
+very intimate friend, who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house,
+have written of the bright gaiety, the whole-hearted enjoyment of life
+that reigned there, and have told how, though his income was to say
+the least of it small, Wilhelm Müller’s home was the rallying-point
+for all the cultivated, scientific, and artistic society of Dessau,
+who felt attracted by the simple and unaffected yet truly genial
+disposition of the master of the house.
+
+It would be interesting to know how much an author could make at that
+time by his pen. Publishers seem to have been far more liberal then
+than they are now. The circumstances were different. The number of
+writers was of course much smaller, and the sale of really popular
+books probably much larger. Anyhow, my father, whose salary was
+minute, seems to have been able to enjoy the few years of his married
+life in great comfort. The thought of saving money, however, seems
+never to have entered his poetical mind, and after his unexpected
+death, due to paralysis of the heart, it was found that hardly any
+provision had been made for his family. Even the life insurance, which
+is obligatory on every civil servant, and the pension granted by the
+Duke, gave my mother but a very small income, fabulously small, when
+one considers that she had to bring up two children on it. It has been
+a riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.
+
+However, it was done, and could only have been done in a small town
+like Dessau, where education was as good as it was cheap, and where
+very little was expected by society. We must also take into account
+the very low prices which then ruled at Dessau with regard to almost
+all the necessaries of life. I see from the old newspapers that beef
+sold at about threepence a pound (two groschen), mutton at about
+twopence. Wine was sold at seven to eight groschen a bottle, a better
+sort for twelve to fourteen groschen—a groschen being about a penny.
+People drank mostly beer, and this was sold under Government
+inspection at two to three groschen per quart. Fish was equally cheap,
+and such, at the beginning of the century, was the abundance of salmon
+caught in the Elbe, and even in the Mulde at Dessau, that it was
+stipulated as in Scotland, that servants should not have salmon more
+than twice or thrice in the week. The lowest price for salmon was
+then twopence halfpenny a pound. As a boy I can remember seeing the
+salmon in large numbers leap over a weir in the very town of Dessau,
+and though they had travelled for so many miles inland, the fish was
+very good, though not so good as Severn salmon. Game also was very
+cheap, and sold for not much more than mutton, nay, at certain times
+it was given away; it could not be exported. Corn was sold at three
+shillings per _Scheffel_, and by corn was chiefly meant rye. No one
+took wheaten bread, and the bread was therefore called brown bread and
+black bread. White bread was only taken with coffee, and peasants in
+the villages would not have touched it, because it was not supposed to
+make such strong bones as rye-bread. With such prices we can
+understand that a salary of £300 was considered sufficient for the
+highest officers of state.
+
+My mother’s relations, who were all high in the public service, my
+grandfather, as I said, being the Duke’s chief minister, made life
+more easy and pleasant for us; but for many years my mother never went
+into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family
+only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her
+two children day after day to the beautiful _Gottesacker_ (God’s
+Acre), where she stood for hours at our father’s grave, and sobbed and
+cried. It was a beautiful and restful place, covered with old acacia
+trees. The inscription over the gateway was one of my earliest
+puzzles. _Tod ist nicht Tod, ist nur Veredlung menschlicher Natur_
+(Death is not death, ’tis but the ennobling of man’s nature). On each
+side there stood a figure, representing the genius of sleep and the
+genius of death. All this was the work of the old Duke, Leopold
+Friedrich Franz, who tried to educate his people as he had educated
+himself, partly by travel, partly by intercourse with the best men he
+could attract to Dessau.
+
+  [Illustration: MY MOTHER]
+
+At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and
+thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of
+course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my
+chief happiness was to be with my mother. I shared her grief without
+understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her
+children, and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of
+life to her, she gave to us, she lived for us only, and tried very
+hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness. She was certainly
+most beautiful, and quite different from all other ladies at Dessau,
+not only in the eyes of her son, but as it seemed to me, of everybody.
+Then she had a most perfect voice, and when I first began music she
+helped and encouraged me in every possible way. We played _à quatre
+mains_, and soon she made me accompany her when she sang. As far as I
+can recollect, I was never so happy as when I could be with her. She
+read so much to us that I was quite satisfied, and saw perhaps less of
+my young friends than I ought. When my mother said she wished to
+die, and to be with our father, I feel sure that my sister and I were
+only anxious that she should take us with her, for there were few
+golden chains that bound us as yet to this life. I see her now,
+sitting on a winter’s evening near the warm stove, a candle on the
+table, and a book from which she read to us in her hands, while the
+spinning-wheel worked by the servant-maid in the corner went on
+humming all the time. She read Paul Gerhard’s translation of St.
+Bernard’s:
+
+    “Salve caput cruentatum,
+     Totum spinis coronatum,
+     Conquassatum, vulneratum,
+     Arundine verberatum,
+     Facies sputis illita.”
+
+    “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,
+     Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!
+     O Haupt zu Spott gebunden
+     Mit einer Dornenkron,
+     O Haupt sonst schön gezieret
+     Mit höchster Ehr und Zier,
+     Jetzt aber hoch schimpfiret:
+     Gegrüsset seist du mir!”
+
+Though the German translation does not come near the powerful majesty
+of the original, yet such was the effect produced on me that I saw the
+bleeding head before my eyes, 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 church. How deeply such scenes
+seem engraved on the memory; how vividly they return when the rubbish
+of many years is swept away and all is again as it was then, and the
+_caput cruentatum_ looks down on us once more, as it did then, with
+the human eyes full of divine love, so truly human that one could say
+with St. Bernard, “Tuum caput huc inclina, in meis pausa brachiis.”
+But willingly as I listened to these readings at home, and full as my
+heart was of love to Christ, I suffered intensely when I was taken to
+church as a young boy. It was a very large church, and in winter
+bitterly cold. Even though I liked the singing, the long sermon was
+real torture to me. I could not understand a word of it, and being
+thinly clad my teeth would have chattered if I had not been told that
+it was wrong “to make a noise in church.” Oh! what misery is inflicted
+on childhood by this enforced attendance at church. When a church can
+be warmed the suffering is less intense, 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
+church. These early impressions often remain for life, and the worst
+of it is that the idea remains in the minds of children, and of
+grown-up people too, that by going to church and repeating the same
+prayers over and over again, and listening to long and often dreary
+sermons, they are actually doing a service to God (_Gottesdienst_).
+Why does no new prophet arise and say in the name of God, as David did
+in the name of Jehovah, “Sermons and long prayers ‘thou didst not
+desire’”?
+
+Many years later I had to discuss the same question with Keshub
+Chunder Sen, the Indian Reformer. He wanted to know what kind of
+service should be adopted by his new church, the Brahmo Somaj; his
+friends thought of sermons, singing, and processions with flags and
+flowers through the streets. “No,” I said to him, “service of God
+should be service of men; if you want divine service, let it be a real
+service, such as God would approve of. Let other people go to church,
+to their mosques or their temples, but take you your own friends on
+certain days of the week to whatever you like to call your
+meeting-place, and after a short prayer or a few words of advice send
+some of them to the poorest streets in the city, others to the
+prisons, others to the hospitals. Let them pray with all who wish to
+pray, but let them speak words of true love and comfort also, and when
+they can, let them help them with their alms. That would be a real
+Divine Service and a divine Sunday for you, and you would all come
+home, it may be sadder, but certainly wiser and better men.”
+
+I am afraid he did not agree with me. He did not think that true
+religion was to visit the poor and the afflicted. That might do for a
+practical people like the English, but the Hindu wanted something
+else, he wanted some outward show and ceremony for the people, and at
+the same time some silent communion with God. Who can tell what
+different people understand by religion? and who can prescribe the
+spiritual food that is best for them? “Only,” I said, “do not call it
+practical to encourage millions of people to waste hours and hours in
+mere repetition, and to spend millions and millions in supplying this
+cold comfort, when next door to the magnificent cathedral there are
+squalid streets, and squalid houses, and squalid beds to lie and die
+on.”
+
+The religious and devotional element is very strong in Germany, but
+the churches are mostly empty. A German keeps his religion for
+weekdays rather than for Sunday. When the German regiments marched,
+and when they made ready for battle, they did not sing ribald songs,
+they sang the songs of Luther and Paul Gerhard, which they knew by
+heart and which strengthened them to face death as it ought to be
+faced.
+
+Fortunately, while enforced attendance at church was apt to produce
+the strongest aversion in the young heart against anything that was
+called religion, religious instruction both at home and at school too
+was excellent, and undid much of the mischief that had been done
+during cold winter days. True religious sentiments can be planted in
+the soul at home only, by a mother better even than by a father. The
+sense of a divine presence everywhere, πἁντα πλἡρη θεὡν, once planted
+in the heart of a child remains for life. Of course the child soon
+begins to argue, and says to his mother that God cannot be at the same
+time in two rooms. But only let a mother show to the child the rays of
+the sun in the sky, in the streets, and in every corner of the house,
+and it will begin to understand that nothing can be hid from the eyes
+of Him who is greater than the sun. And when a child doubts whether
+the voice of conscience can be the voice of God, and asks how he could
+hear that voice without seeing the speaker, ask him only whose voice
+it can be that tells him not to do what he himself wishes to do, and
+not to say what he could say without any fear of men; and his idea of
+God will be raised from that of a visible being like the sun, to the
+concept of a presence that never vanishes, that is not only without,
+in the sky, in the mountains, and in the storm, but nearer also
+within, in the sense of fear, in the sense of shame, and in the hope
+of pardon and love.
+
+At school our religious teaching was chiefly historical and moral.
+There was no difficulty in finding proper teachers for that, and there
+were no attempts on the part of parents to interfere with religious
+instruction or to demand separate teaching for each sect. It is true
+that religious sects are not so numerous in Germany as they are in
+England. Some, though by no means all, children of Roman Catholic and
+Jewish parents were allowed to be absent from religious lessons. 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 children. Respect for historical truth, and an
+implanted sense of the reverence due to children, would keep any
+teacher from making the history of the Christian Church, whether
+before or after the Reformation, an excuse for offending one of the
+little ones committed to his care. If Jews or Roman Catholics wished
+for any special religious instruction it was given by their own
+priests or Rabbis, and was given without any interference on the part
+of the Government. But such was at my time the state of public feeling
+that I hardly knew at school who among my young friends were Roman
+Catholics, or Lutherans, or Reformed. I must admit, however, that the
+very name of Luther might have offended Roman Catholics. He was
+represented to us as a perfect saint, almost as inspired and
+infallible. His hymns sung in church seemed to us little different
+from the Psalms of David, and I well remember what a shock it gave me
+when at Oxford, much later in life, I heard Luther spoken of like any
+other mortal, nay, as a heretic, and a most dangerous heretic too.
+When I was a boy I remember that in some places the same building had
+to be used for Protestant and Roman Catholic services. All that, I am
+afraid, is now changed, and the old liberal and tolerant feeling then
+prevailing on all sides is now often stigmatized as indifference, and
+by other ugly names. It should really be called the golden age of
+Christianity, and this so-called indifference should be classed among
+the highest Christian virtues, and as the fullest realization of the
+spirit of Christ.
+
+Thus we grew up from our earliest youth, being taught to look upon
+Christianity as an historical fact, on Christ and His disciples as
+historical characters, on the Old and New Testaments as real
+historical books. Though we did not understand as yet the deeper
+meaning of Christ and of His words, we had at least nothing to unlearn
+in later times, or to feel that our parents had ever told us what they
+themselves could not have held to be true. Our simple faith was not
+shaken by mere questions of criticism, or by the problem how any human
+being could take upon himself to declare any book to be revealed,
+unless he claimed for himself a more than human insight. The simplest
+rules of logic should make such a declaration impossible, whatever the
+sacred book may be to which it is applied. Granted that the Pope was
+infallible, how could the Cardinals know that he was, unless they
+claimed for themselves the same or even greater infallibility? It is
+far more easy to be inspired than to know some one else is or was
+inspired; the true inspiration is, and always has been, the spirit of
+truth within, and this is but another name for the spirit of God. It
+is truth that makes inspiration, not inspiration that makes truth.
+Whoever knows what truth is, knows also what inspiration is: not only
+_theopneustos_, blown into the soul by God, but the very voice of God,
+the real presence of God, the only presence in which we, as human
+beings, can ever perceive Him.
+
+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
+objective, but must always be subjective. I may return to this
+question at a later period of my life, when I had to discuss with
+Renan, at Paris, with Froude, Kingsley, and Liddon, in England, and
+tried to show how entirely self-made some of their difficulties were.
+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 own; as Samson, when
+he awoke, found himself bound with seven green withs and had to break
+them with all his might before he could hope to escape from the
+Philistines. The Philistines never bound me. During my early
+school-days these difficulties did not exist, but I have often been
+grateful in after life that the seven locks of my head have never been
+woven with the web.
+
+I remember a number of small events in my school-life at Dessau, but
+though they were full of interest to me, nay, full of meaning, and not
+without an influence on my later life, they would have no meaning and
+no interest for others, and may remain as if they had never been. The
+influence which music exercised on my mind, and, I believe, on my
+heart also, I have related in my _Musical Recollections_. The image of
+those passing years, though its general tone was melancholy, chiefly
+owing to my mother’s melancholy, seemed to me at the time free from
+all unhappiness. My work at school and at home was not too heavy; I
+was fond of it, and very fond of books. Books were scarce then, and
+whoever possessed a new and valuable book was expected to lend it to
+his friends in the little town. If a man was known to possess, say,
+Goethe’s works or Jean Paul’s works, the consequence was that one went
+to him or to her to ask for the loan of them. And not only books, but
+paper and pens also were scarce. The first steel pens came in when I
+was still in the lower school, and bad as they were they were looked
+upon as real treasures by the schoolboys who possessed them. Paper was
+so dear that one had to be very sparing in its use. Every margin and
+cover was scribbled over before it was thrown away, 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 Christmas. I am sorry to say I have had to suffer
+all my life from the inefficiency of our writing master, or maybe from
+the fact that my thoughts were too quick for my pen. In other subjects
+I did well, but though I was among the first in each class, I was by
+no means cleverer than other boys. In the lower school work was more
+like conversation or like hearing news from our teachers. The idea of
+effort did not yet exist. The drudgery began, however, when I entered
+the upper school, the gymnasium, and learnt the elements of Latin and
+Greek. Though our teachers were very conscientious, they tried to make
+our work no burden to us, and the constant change of places in each
+class kept up a lively rivalry among the boys, though I am not sure
+that it did not make me rather ambitious and at times conceited.
+Still, I had few enemies, and it seemed of much more consequence who
+could knock down another boy than who could gain a place above him. I
+feel sure I could have done a great deal more at school than I did,
+but it was partly my music and partly my incessant headaches that
+interfered with my school work.
+
+I remember as a boy that certain streets were inhabited exclusively by
+Jewish families. A large number of Jews had been received at Dessau by
+a former Duke; but though he granted them leave to settle at Dessau
+when they were persecuted in other parts of Germany, he stipulated
+that they should only settle in certain streets. These streets were by
+no means the worst streets of the town; on the contrary they showed
+greater comfort and hardly any of the squalor which disgraced the
+Jewish quarters in other towns in Germany. As children we were brought
+up without any prejudice against the Jews, though we had, no doubt, a
+certain feeling that they were tolerated only, and were not quite on
+the same level with ourselves. We also felt the religious difficulty
+sometimes very strongly. Were not the Jews the murderers of Christ?
+and had they not said: “the blood be on us and on our children”? But
+as we were told that it was wrong to harbour feelings of revenge, we
+boys soon forgot and forgave, and played together as the best friends.
+I remember picking up a number of Jewish words which would not have
+been understood anywhere else. I was hardly aware that they were
+Jewish and used them like any other words. But I once gave great
+offence to my friend Professor Bernays, who was a Jew. He had uttered
+some quite incredible statement, and I exclaimed, “Sind Sie denn ganz
+maschukke?”—Hebrew for “mad.” I meant no harm, but he was very much
+hurt.
+
+I knew several Jewish families, and received much kindness from them
+as a boy. Many of these families were wealthy, but they never
+displayed their wealth, and in consequence excited no envy. All that
+is changed now. The children of the Jews who formerly lived in a very
+quiet style at Dessau, now occupy the best houses, indulge in most
+expensive tastes, and try in every way to outshine their non-Jewish
+neighbours. They buy themselves titles, and, when they can, stipulate
+for stars and orders as rewards for successful financial operations,
+carried out with the money of princely personages. Hence the
+revulsion of feeling all over Germany, or what is called
+Anti-Semitism, which has assumed not only a social but a political
+significance. I doubt whether there is anything religious in it, as
+there was when we were boys. The Anti-Semitic hatred is the hatred of
+money-making, more particularly of that kind of money-making which
+requires no hard work, but only a large capital to begin with, and
+boldness and astuteness in speculating, that is in buying and selling
+at the right moment. The sinews of war for that kind of financial
+warfare were mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of the
+present generation. Sometimes, no doubt, the capital was lost, and in
+those cases it must be said that the Jewish speculator disappears from
+the stage without a sigh or a cry. He begins again, and if he should
+have to do what his grandfather did, walk from house to house with a
+bag on his back, he does not whine.
+
+One cannot blame the Jews or any other speculators for using their
+opportunities, but they must not complain either if they excite envy,
+and if that envy assumes in the end a dangerous character. The Jews,
+so far from suffering from disabilities, enjoy really certain
+privileges over their Christian competitors in Germany. They belong to
+a _regnum_, but also to a _regnum in regno_. They have, so to say, our
+Sunday and likewise their Sabbath. Jew will always help Jew against a
+Christian; and again who can blame them for that? All one can say is
+that they should not complain of their unpopularity, but take into
+account the risk they are running. No one hated the Jews such as they
+were in Dessau fifty years ago. They had their own schools and
+synagogues, and no one interfered with them when they built their
+bowers in the streets at the time of their Feast of Tabernacles, and
+lived, feasted, and slept in them to keep up the memory of their
+sojourning in the desert. They indulged in even more offensive
+practices, such as, for instance, putting three stones in the coffins
+to be thrown by the dead at the Virgin Mary, her husband, and their
+Son. No one suspected or accused them of kidnapping Christian
+children, or offering sacrifices with their blood. They were known too
+well for that. Conversions of Jews were not infrequent, and converted
+Jews were not persecuted by their former co-religionists as they are
+now. Even marriages between Christians and Jews were by no means
+uncommon, particularly when the young Jewesses were beautiful or rich,
+still better if they were both. Disgraceful as the Anti-Semitic riots
+have been in Germany and Russia, there can be no doubt that in this as
+in most cases both sides were to blame, and there is little prospect
+of peace being re-established till many more heads have been broken.
+
+What helped very much to keep the peace in the small town of Dessau,
+as it did all over Germany, nay, all over the world, till about the
+year 1848, was the small number of newspapers. In my childhood and
+youth their number was very small. In Dessau I only knew of one, which
+was then called the _Wochenblatt_, afterwards the _Staatsanzeiger_. At
+that time newspapers were really read for the news which they
+contained, not for leading or misleading articles and all the rest.
+What a happy time it was when a newspaper consisted of a sheet, or
+half a sheet in quarto, with short paragraphs about actual events,
+which had often taken place weeks and months before. A battle might
+have been fought in Spain or Turkey, in India or China, and no one
+knew of it till some official information was vouchsafed by the
+respective Governments or by Jewish bankers. War-correspondents or
+regular reporters did not exist, and the old telegraphic dispatches
+were sent by wooden telegraphs fixed on high towers, which from a
+distance looked like gallows on which a criminal was hanging and
+gesticulating with arms and feet. Anybody who watched these signals
+could decipher them far more easily than a hieroglyphic inscription.
+
+The peace of Europe, nay, of the whole world, was then in the keeping
+of sovereigns and their ministers, and Prince Metternich might
+certainly take some credit for having kept what he called the Thirty
+Years’ Peace. Shall we ever, as long as there are newspapers, have
+peace again—peace between the great nations of the world, and peace
+at home between contending parties, and peace in our mornings at home
+which are now so ruthlessly broken in upon, nay, swallowed up by
+those paper-giants, most unwelcome yet irresistible callers, just when
+we want to settle down to a quiet day’s work? It is no use protesting
+against the inevitable, 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 politics. 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 Augustus. When
+unsuccessful _littérateurs_ or bankrupt bankers’ clerks were the chief
+contributors to the newspapers, their influence might have been small;
+but when Bismarcks turned journalists, and Gortchakoffs prompted,
+newspapers could hardly be called _quantités négligeables_.
+
+The horizon of Dessau was very narrow, but within its bounds there was
+a busy and happy life. Everybody did his work honestly and
+conscientiously. There were, of course, two classes, the educated and
+the uneducated. The educated consisted of the members of the
+Government service, the clergy, the schoolmasters, doctors, artists,
+and officers; the uneducated were the tradesmen, mechanics, and
+labourers. The trade was mostly in the hands of Jews, it had become
+almost a Jewish monopoly. When one of these tradesmen went bankrupt,
+there was a commotion over the whole town, and I remember being taken
+to see one of these bankrupt shops, expecting to find the whole house
+broken up and demolished, and being surprised to see the tradesman
+standing whole, and sound, and smiling, in his accustomed place. My
+etymological tastes must have developed very early, for I had asked
+why this poor Jew was called a bankrupt, and had been duly informed
+that it was because his bank had been broken, _banca rotta_, which of
+course I took in a literal sense, and expected to see all the
+furniture broken to pieces. The commercial relations of our Dessau
+tradesmen did not extend much beyond Leipzig, Berlin, possibly Hamburg
+and Cologne. If a burgher of Dessau travelled to these or to more
+distant parts the whole town knew of it and talked about it, whereas a
+journey to Paris or London was an event worthy to be mentioned and
+discussed in the newspapers. These old newspapers are full of curious
+information. We find that if a person wished to travel to Cologne or
+further, he advertised for a companion, and it was for the Burgomaster
+to make the necessary arrangements for him.
+
+French was studied and spoken, particularly at Court, but English was
+a rare acquirement, still more Italian or Spanish. There was, however,
+a small inner circle where these languages were studied, chiefly in
+order to read the master-works of modern literature. And this was all
+the more creditable because there were no good teachers to be found at
+Dessau, and people had to learn what they wished to learn by
+themselves, with the help of a grammar and dictionary. We learnt
+French at school, but the result was deplorable. As in all public
+schools, the French master who had to teach the language at the Ducal
+Gymnasium could not keep order among the boys. He of course spoke
+French, but that was all. He did not know how to teach, and could not
+excite any interest in the boys, who insisted on pronouncing French as
+if it were German. The poor man’s life was made a burden to him. His
+name was Noel, and he had all the pleasing manners of a Frenchman, but
+that served only to rouse the antagonism of the young barbarians. The
+result was that we learnt very little, and I was sent to an old Jew to
+learn French and a little English. That old Jew, called Levy Rubens,
+was a perfect gentleman. He probably had been a commercial traveller
+in his early days, though no one knew exactly where he came from or
+how he had learnt languages. He had taught my father and grandfather
+and he was delighted to teach the third generation. He certainly spoke
+French and English fluently, but with the strongest Jewish accent, and
+this was inherited by all his pupils at Dessau. I feel ashamed when I
+think of the tricks we played the old man—putting mice into his
+pockets, upsetting inkstands over his table, and placing crackers
+under his chairs. But he never lost his temper; he never would have
+dared to punish us as we deserved; but he went on with his lesson as
+if nothing had happened. He took his small pay, and was satisfied
+when his lessons were over and he could settle down to his long pipe
+and his books. He lived quite alone and died quite alone, a
+hardworking, honest, poor Jew, not exactly despised or persecuted, but
+not treated with the respect which he certainly deserved, and which he
+would have received if he had not been a Jew.
+
+Our public school was as good as any in Germany. These small duchies
+generally followed the example of Prussia, and they carried out the
+instructions issued by the Ministry of Education at Berlin according
+to the very letter. Besides, several of the reigning dukes had taken a
+very warm and personal interest in popular education, and at the
+beginning of the century the eyes of the whole of Germany, nay, of
+Europe, were turned towards the educational experiments carried on by
+my great-grandfather, Basedow,[6] at the so-called Philanthropinum at
+Dessau under the patronage of the Duke and of several of the more
+enlightened sovereigns of Europe, such as the Empress Catherine of
+Russia, the King of Denmark, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, Prince
+Adam Czartoryski, &c. Even after Basedow’s death the interest in
+education was kept alive in Dessau, and all was done that could be
+done in so small a town to keep the different schools—elementary,
+middle-class, and high schools—on the highest possible level of
+efficiency.
+
+  [6] Johann Bernhard Basedow, von seinem Urenkel, F. M. M.
+  (Essays, Band IV).
+
+Bathing was a very healthful recreation, though I very nearly came to
+grief from trusting to my seniors. They could swim and I could not
+yet. But while bathing with two of my friends in a part of the river
+which was safe, they swam along and asked me to follow them. Having
+complete confidence in them I jumped in from the shore, but very soon
+began to sink. My shouts brought my friends back, and they rescued me,
+not without some difficulty, from drowning.
+
+In an English school the influence of the master is, of course, more
+constant, because one of the masters is always within call, while in
+Germany he is visible during school-hours only. If a master is fond of
+his pupils, and takes an interest in them individually, he can do them
+more good than parents at home, or the teacher at a day school. The
+boys at a German school are, no doubt, a very mixed crew, but that
+cannot be helped. This mixture of classes may be a drawback in some
+respects, but from an educational point of view the sons of very rich
+parents are by no means more valuable than the poor boys. Far from it.
+Many of the evils of schoolboy life come from the sons of the rich,
+while the sons of poor parents are generally well behaved. But for all
+that, there was a rough and rude tone among some of the boys at
+school, arising from defects in the education at home, and this
+sometimes embittered what ought to be the happiest time of life,
+particularly in the case of delicate boys. The son of a Minister has
+often to sit by the side of the son of a wealthy butcher, and the very
+fact that he is the son of a gentleman often exposes the more refined
+boy to the bullying of his muscular neighbour. I was fortunate at
+school. I could hold my own with the boys, and as to the masters,
+several of them had known my father or had been his pupils, and they
+took a personal interest in me.
+
+I remember more particularly one young master who was very kind to me,
+and took me home for private lessons and for giving me some good
+advice. There was something sad and very attractive about him, and I
+found out afterwards that he knew that he was dying of consumption,
+and that besides that he was liable to be prosecuted for political
+liberalism, which at that time was almost like high treason. I believe
+he was actually condemned and sent to prison like many others, and he
+died soon after I had left Dessau. His name was Dr. Hönicke, and he
+was the first to try to impress on me that I ought to show myself
+worthy of my father, an idea which had never entered my mind before,
+nay, which at first I could hardly understand, but which,
+nevertheless, slumbered on in my mind till years afterwards it was
+called out and became a strong influence for the whole of my life. I
+still have some lines which he wrote for my album. They were the
+well-known lines from Horace, which, at the time, I had great
+difficulty in construing, but which have remained graven in my memory
+ever since:
+
+    “Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,
+     Est in iuvencis est in equis patrum
+       Virtus nec imbellem feroces
+         Progenerant aquilae columbam.
+     Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
+     Rectique cultus pectora roborant;
+       Utcunque defecere mores,
+         Dedecorant bene nata culpae.”
+
+In my childhood I had to pass through the ordinary illnesses, but it
+was the faith in our doctor that always saved me. The doctor was to my
+mind the man who was called in to make me well again, and while my
+mother was agitated about her only son, I never dreamt of any danger.
+The very idea of death never came near me till my grandfather died
+(1835), but even then I was only about twelve years old, and though I
+had seen much of him, particularly during the years that my mother
+lived again in his house, yet he was too old to take much share in his
+grandchildren’s amusements. He left a gap, no doubt, in our life, but
+that gap was filled again with new figures in the life of a boy of
+twelve. He was only sixty-one years old when he died, and yet my idea
+of him was always that of a very old man. Everything was done for him,
+his servant dressed him every morning, he was lifted into his carriage
+and out of it, and he certainly lived the life of an invalid, such as
+I should not consent to own to at seventy-six. He made no secret that
+he cared more for the son of his son who was the heir, and was to
+perpetuate the name of von Basedow, than for the son of his daughter.
+He was very fond of driving and of shooting, and he frequently took my
+cousin out shooting with him. When my cousin came home with a hare he
+had shot, I confess I was sometimes jealous, but I was soon cured of
+my wish to go with my grandfather into the forest. Once when I was
+with him in his little carriage, my grandfather, not being able to see
+well, had the misfortune to kill a doe which had come out with her two
+little ones. The misery of the mother and afterwards of her two young
+ones, was heart-rending, and from that day on I made up my mind never
+to go out shooting, and never to kill an animal. And I have kept my
+word, though I was much laughed at. It may be that later in life and
+after my grandfather’s death I had little opportunity of shooting, 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 life.
+
+My grandfather, though he aged early, remained in harness as Prime
+Minister to the end of his life, and it was his great desire to
+benefit his country by new institutions. It was he who, at the time
+when people hardly knew yet what railroads meant, succeeded in getting
+the line from Berlin to Halle and Leipzig to pass by Dessau. He
+offered to build the bridge across the Elbe and to give the land and
+the wood for the sleepers gratis, and what seemed at the time a far
+too generous offer has proved a blessing to the duchy, making it as it
+were the centre of the great railway connecting Berlin, Leipzig,
+Magdeburg, the Elbe, Hanover, Bremen, nay, Cologne also, the Rhine,
+and Western Europe. He was in his way a good statesman, though we are
+too apt to measure a man’s real greatness by the circumstances in
+which he moves.
+
+As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor
+could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and
+though I watched it carefully I could not trace it to any fault of
+mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It
+came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always
+the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes
+for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it
+seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly
+strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I
+was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and
+try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had
+been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had
+peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week, and
+as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was
+scolded and punished, really without any fault of my own. After all
+remedies had failed which the doctor and nurses prescribed (and I well
+remember my grandmother using massage on my neck, which must have
+been about 1833 to 1835) I was handed over to Hahnemann, the founder
+of homeopathy. Hahnemann (born 1755) had been practising as doctor at
+Dessau as early as 1780—that is somewhat before my time—but had left
+it, and when in 1820 he had been prohibited by the Government from
+practising and lecturing at Leipzig, he took refuge once more in the
+neighbouring town of Coethen. From there he paid visits to Dessau as
+consulting physician, and after I had explained to him as well as I
+could all the symptoms of my chronic headache, he assured my mother
+that he would cure it at once. He was an imposing personality—a
+powerful man with a gigantic head and strong eyes and a most
+persuasive voice. I can quite understand that his personal influence
+would have gone far to effect a cure of many diseases. People forget
+too much how strong a curative power resides in the patient’s faith in
+his doctor, in fact how much the mind can do in depressing and in
+reinvigorating the body. I shall never forget in later years
+consulting Sir Andrew Clarke, and telling him of ever so many, to my
+mind, most serious symptoms. I had lost sleep and appetite, and
+imagined myself in a very bad state indeed. He examined me and knocked
+me about for full three quarters of an hour, and instead of
+pronouncing my doom as I fully expected, he told me with a bright look
+and most convincing voice that he had examined many men who had worked
+their brains too much, but had never seen a man at my time of life so
+perfectly sound in every organ. I felt young and strong at once, and
+meeting my old friend Morier on my way home, we ate some dozens of
+oysters together and drank some pints of porter without the slightest
+bad effect. In fact I was cured without a pill or a drop of medicine.
+
+And who does not know how, if one makes up one’s mind at last to have
+a tooth pulled out, the pain seems to cease as soon as we pull the
+bell at the dentist’s?
+
+However, Hahnemann did not succeed with me. I swallowed a number of
+his silver and gold globules, but the migraine kept its regular
+course, right to left and left to right, and this went on till about
+the year 1860. Then my doctor, the late Mr. Symonds of Oxford, told me
+exactly what Hahnemann had told me—that he would cure me, if I would
+go on taking some medicine regularly for six months or a year. He told
+me that he and his brother had made a special study of headaches, and
+that there were ever so many kinds of headache, each requiring its own
+peculiar treatment. When I asked him to what category of headaches
+mine belonged, I was not a little abashed on being told that my
+headache was what they called the Alderman’s headache. “Surely,” I
+said, “I don’t overeat, or overdrink.” I had thought that mine was a
+mysterious nervous headache, arising from the brain. But no, it seemed
+to be due to turtle soup and port wine. However, the doctor, seeing my
+surprise, comforted me by telling me that it was the nerves of the
+head which affected the stomach, and thus produced indirectly the same
+disturbance in my digestion as an aldermanic diet. Whether this was
+true or was only meant as a _solatium_ I do not know. But what I do
+know is, that by taking the medicine regularly for about half a year,
+the frequency and violence of my headaches were considerably reduced,
+while after about a year they vanished completely. I was a new being,
+and my working time was doubled.
+
+One lesson may be learnt from this, namely, that the English system of
+doctoring is very imperfect. In England we wait till we are ill, then
+go to a doctor, describe our symptoms as well as we can, pay one
+guinea, or two, get our prescription, take drastic medicine for a
+month and expect to be well. My German doctor, when he saw the
+prescription of my English doctor, told me that he would not give it
+to a horse. If after a month we are not better we go again; he
+possibly changes our medicine, and we take it more or less regularly
+for another month. The doctor cannot watch the effect of his medicine,
+he is not sure even whether his prescriptions have been carefully
+followed; and he knows but too well that anything like a chronic
+complaint requires a chronic treatment. The important thing, however,
+was that my headaches yielded gradually to the continued use of
+medicine; it would hardly have produced the desired effect if I had
+taken it by fits and starts. All this seems to me quite natural; but
+though my English doctor cured me, and my German doctors did not, I
+still hold that the German system is better. Most families have their
+doctor in Germany, who calls from time to time to watch the health of
+the old and young members of the family, particularly when under
+medical treatment, and receives his stipulated annual payment, which
+secures him a safe income that can be raised, of course, by attendance
+on occasional patients. Perhaps the Chinese system is the best; they
+pay their doctor while they are well, and stop payment as long as they
+are ill. 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 England. If my remarks
+refer to the study and practice of medicine I am asked whether more
+men are killed in England than in Germany; if I refer to the study and
+practice of law I am assured that quite as many murderers are hanged
+in England as in Germany; and if I venture to hint that the study of
+theology might on certain points be improved at Oxford, I am told that
+quite as many souls are saved in England as in Germany, nay, a good
+many more. As I cannot ascertain the facts from trustworthy
+statistics, I have nothing to reply; all I feel is that most nations,
+like most individuals, are perfect in their own eyes, but that those
+are most perfect who are willing to admit that there is something to
+be learnt from their neighbours.
+
+But to return to Hahnemann. He was very kind to me, and I looked up to
+him as a giant both in body and in mind. But he could not deliver me
+from my enemy, the ever recurrent migraine. The cures, however, both
+at Dessau and at Coethen, where he had been made a _Hofrath_ by the
+reigning Duke, were very extraordinary. Hahnemann remained in Coethen
+till 1835, and in that year, when he was eighty, he married a young
+French lady, Melanie d’Hervilly, and was carried off by her to Paris,
+where he soon gained a large practice, and died in 1843, that is at
+the age of eighty-eight. Much of his success, I feel sure, was due to
+his presence and to the confidence which he inspired. How do I know
+that Sir Andrew Clarke, seeing that I was in low spirits about my
+health, did not think it right to encourage me, and by encouraging me
+did certainly make me feel confident about myself, and thus raised my
+vitality, my spirits, or whatever we like to call it? “Thy faith hath
+made thee whole” is a lesson which doctors ought not to neglect.
+
+How little we know the effect of the environment in which we grow up.
+My old granny has drawn deeper furrows through my young soul than all
+my teachers and preachers put together. I am not going to add a
+chapter to that most unsatisfactory of all studies, child-psychology.
+It is an impossible subject. The victim—the child—cannot be
+interrogated till it is too late. The influences that work on the
+child’s senses and mind cannot be determined; they are too many, and
+too intangible. The observers of babies, mostly young fathers proud of
+their first offspring, remind me always of a very learned friend of
+mine, who presented to the Royal Society most laborious pages
+containing his lifelong observations on certain deviations of the
+magnetic needle, and who had forgotten that in making these
+observations he always had a pair of steel spectacles on his nose.
+However, I have nothing to say against these observations, nor against
+their more or less successful interpretations. 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 condition, whether as a
+hairy or a hairless creature. To imagine that we can learn from the
+way in which children begin to use our old words, how the primitive
+language of mankind was formed, seems to me like imagining that
+children playing with counters would teach us how and for what purpose
+the first money was coined. There is no doubt a grain of truth in this
+infantile psychology, but it requires as many caveats as that which is
+called ethnological psychology, which makes us see in the savages of
+the present day the representation of the first ancestors of our race,
+and would teach us to discover in their superstitions the antecedents
+of the mythology and religion of the Aryan or Semitic races. 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 Brahmans, Greeks, or Romans, 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
+Homer. They look upon the Patagonians as the _tabula rasa_ of
+humanity, and they forget that even if we admitted that the ancestors
+of the Aryan race had once been more savage than the Patagonians, it
+would not follow that their savagery was identical with that of the
+people of Tierra del Fuego. Why should not the distance between
+Patagonian and Vedic Rishis have been at least as great as that
+between Vedic Rishis and Homeric bards? If there are ever so many
+kinds of civilized life, was there only one and the same savagery?
+
+To take, for instance, the feeling of fear; is it likely that we shall
+find out whether it is innate in human nature or acquired and
+intensified in each generation, by shaking our fists in the face of a
+little baby, to see whether it will wink or shrink or shriek? Some
+children may be more fearless than others, but whether that
+fearlessness arises from ignorance or from stolidity is again by no
+means easy to determine. A burnt child fears the fire, an unburnt
+child might boldly grasp a glowing coal, but all this would not help
+us to determine whether fear is an innate or an acquired tendency or
+habit.
+
+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
+grandmothers, and that I had to make a strong effort of will before I
+could bring myself to walk across a churchyard in the dark. This shows
+how much our character is shaped by circumstances, even when we are
+least aware of it. I did not believe in ghosts and I was not a coward,
+but I felt through life a kind of shiver in dark passages and at the
+sound of mysterious noises, 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 there,
+and that caused me, particularly in my younger days, many a moment of
+discomfort.
+
+All such experiences constitute what may be called the background of
+our life. My first ideas of men and women, and of the world at large,
+that is of the unknown world, were formed within the narrow walls of
+Dessau, for Dessau was still surrounded by walls, and the gates of the
+city were closed every night, though the fears of a foreign enemy were
+but small. Of course the views of life prevailing at Dessau were very
+narrow, but they were wide enough for our purposes. Though we heard of
+large towns like Dresden or Berlin, and of large countries like France
+and Italy, my real world was Dessau and its neighbourhood. We had no
+interests outside the walls of our town or the frontiers of our
+duchy. If we heard of things that had happened at Leipzig or Berlin,
+in Paris or London, they had no more reality for us than what we had
+read about Abraham, or Romulus and Remus, or Alexander the Great. To
+us the pulse of the world seemed to beat in the _Haupt- und
+Residenzstadt_ of Dessau, though we knew perfectly well how small it
+was in comparison with other towns.
+
+And this, too, has left its impression on my thoughts all through
+life, if only by making everything that I saw in later life in such
+towns as Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, and London, appear quite
+overwhelmingly grand. Boys brought up in any of these large towns
+start with a different view of the world, and with a different measure
+for what they see in later life. I do not know that they are to be
+envied for that, for there is pleasure in admiration, pleasure even in
+being stunned by the first sight of the life in the streets of Paris
+or London. I certainly have been a great admirer all my life, and I
+ascribe this disposition to the small surroundings of my early years
+at Dessau.
+
+And so it was with everything else. Having admired our
+Cavalier-Strasse, I could admire all the more the Boulevards in Paris,
+and Regent Street in London. Having enjoyed our small theatre, I stood
+aghast at the Grand Opera, and at Drury Lane. This power of admiration
+and enjoyment extended even to dinners and other domestic amusements.
+Having been brought up on very simple fare, I fully enjoyed the
+dinners which the Old East India Company gave, when we sat down about
+400 people, and, as I was told, four pounds was paid for each guest. 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
+entertainments, even if not quite at four pounds a head, 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 years.
+
+I remember the time when I woke with my breath frozen on my bedclothes
+into a thin sheet of ice. 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 morning, and where, when we tried to break the ice in the
+jug, there were only a few drops of water left at the bottom with
+which to wash. No wonder that the ablutions were expeditious. After
+they were performed we had our speedy breakfast, consisting of a cup
+of coffee and a _semmel_ or roll, and then we rushed to school, often
+through the snow that had not yet been swept away from the pavement.
+We sat in school from eight to eleven or twelve, rushed home again,
+had our very simple dinner, and then back to school, from two to four.
+How we lived through it I sometimes wonder, for we were thinly clad
+and often wet with rain or snow; and yet we enjoyed our life as boys
+only can enjoy it, and had no time to be ill. 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 consequence. The
+background of my life at Dessau and at Leipzig may seem dark, but it
+has only served to make the later years of my life all the brighter
+and warmer.
+
+The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I
+feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by
+it. The unspoiled primitiveness of life at Dessau as it was when I was
+at school there till the age of twelve, would be extremely difficult
+to describe in all its details. Everybody seemed to know everybody and
+everything about everybody. Everybody knew that he was watched, and
+gossip, in the best sense of the word, ruled supreme in the little
+town. Gossip was, in fact, public opinion with all its good and all
+its bad features. Still the result was that no one could afford to
+lose caste, and that everybody behaved as well as he could. I really
+believe that the private life of the people of Dessau at the beginning
+of the century was blameless. The great evils of society did not
+exist, and if now and then there was a black sheep, his or her life
+became a burden to them. Everybody knew what had happened, and society
+being on the whole so blameless, was all the more merciless on the
+sinners, whether their sins were great or small. So from the very
+first my idea was that there were only two classes—one class quite
+perfect and pure as angels, the other black sheep, and altogether
+unspeakable. There was no transition, no intermediate links, no
+shading of light and dark. A man was either black or white, and this
+rigid rule applied not only to moral character, but intellectual
+excellence also was measured by the same standard. A work of art was
+either superlatively beautiful, or it was contemptible. A man of
+science was either a giant or a humbug. Some people spoke of Goethe as
+the greatest of all poets and philosophers the world had ever known;
+others called him a wicked man and an overvalued poet.[7]
+
+  [7] That this was not only the case at Dessau, 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 find.
+
+It is dangerous, no doubt, to go through life with so imperfect a
+measure, and I have for a long time suffered from it, particularly in
+cases where I ought to have been able to make allowance for small
+failings. But as I had been brought up to approach people with a
+complete trust in their rectitude, and with an unlimited admiration of
+their genius, it took me many years before I learnt to make allowance
+for human weaknesses or temporary failures. I have lost many a
+charming companion and excellent friend in my journey through life,
+because I weighed them with my rusty Dessau balance. I had to learn by
+long experience that there may be a spot, nay, several spots on the
+soft skin of a peach, and yet the whole fruit may be perfect. I acted
+very much like the merchant who tested a whole field of rice by the
+first handful of grains, and who, if he found one or two bad grains,
+would have nothing to do with the whole field. I had to learn what
+was, perhaps, the most difficult lesson of all, that a trusted friend
+could not always be trusted, and yet need not therefore be altogether
+a reprobate. What was most difficult for me to digest was an untruth:
+finding out that one who professed to be a friend had said and done
+most unfriendly things behind one’s back. Still, in a long life one
+finds out that even that may not be a deadly sin, and that if we are
+so loth to forgive it, it is partly because the falsehood affected our
+own interests. 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 honest, straightforward, and trustworthy, by a large number
+of his own friends. We see this over and over again with men occupying
+eminent positions in Church and State. We see how a prime minister or
+an archbishop is represented by men who know him as a liar and a
+hypocrite, while by others he is spoken of as a paragon of honour and
+honesty, and a true Christian. My narrow Dessau views became a little
+widened when I went to school at Leipzig; still more when I spent two
+years and a half at the University of Leipzig, and afterwards at
+Berlin. Still, during all this time I saw but little of what is called
+society, I only knew of people whom I loved and of people whom I
+disliked. There was no room as yet for indifferent people, whom one
+tolerates and is civil to without caring whether one sees them again
+or not. Of the simplest duties of society also I was completely
+ignorant. No one ever told me what to say and what to do, or what not
+to say and what not to do. What I felt I said, what I thought right I
+did. There was, in fact, in my small native town very little that
+could be called society. One lived in one’s family and with one’s
+intimate friends without any ceremony. It is a pity that children are
+not taught a few rules of life-wisdom by their seniors. I know that
+the Jews do not neglect that duty, 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-houses, but had
+been planted out full grown by their seniors. The only rules of
+worldly wisdom which I remember, came to me through proverbs and
+little verses which we had either to copy or to learn by heart, such
+as:
+
+    “Wer einmal lügt, dem glaubt man nicht
+     Und wenn er auch die Wahrheit spricht.”
+
+    “Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde.”
+
+    “Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen,
+     Er kommt doch endlich an die Sonnen.”
+
+    “Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied.”
+
+Some lines which hung over my bed I have carried with me all through
+life, and I still think they are very true and very terse:
+
+    “Im Glück nicht jubeln und im Sturm nicht zagen,
+     Das Unvermeidliche mit Würde tragen,
+     Das Rechte thun, am Schönen sich erfreuen,
+     Das Leben lieben und den Tod nicht scheuen,
+     Und fest an Gott und bessere Zukunft glauben,
+     Heisst leben, heisst dem Tod sein Bitteres rauben.”
+
+Still, all this formed a very small viaticum for a journey through
+life, 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
+horns. Again and again I had to say to myself, “That would have done
+very well at home, but it was a mistake for all that.” My social
+rawness and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as the Dessau
+dialect remained with me for life; at least I was assured by my
+friends that though I had spoken French and English for so many years,
+they could always detect in my German that I came from Dessau or
+Leipzig.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG
+
+
+It was certainly a poor kind of armour in which I set out from Dessau.
+My mother, devoted as she was to me, had judged rightly that it was
+best for me to be with other boys and under the supervision of a man.
+I had been somewhat spoiled by her passionate love, and also by her
+passionate severity in correcting the ordinary naughtinesses of a boy.
+So having risen from form to form in the school at Dessau, I was sent,
+at the age of twelve, to Leipzig, to live in the house of Professor
+Carus and attend the famous Nicolai-Schule with his son, who was of
+the same age as myself and who likewise wanted a companion. It was
+thought that there would be a certain emulation between us, and so, no
+doubt, there was, though we always remained the best of friends. The
+house in which we lived stood in a garden and was really an
+orthopaedic institution for girls. There were about twenty or thirty
+of these young girls living in the house or spending the day there,
+and their joyous company was very pleasant. Of course the names and
+faces of my young friends have, with one or two exceptions, vanished
+from my memory, but I was surprised when a few years ago (1895) I was
+staying with Madame Salis-Schwabe at her delightful place on the Menai
+Straits, and discovered that we had known each other more than fifty
+years before in the house of Professor Carus at Leipzig. Though we had
+met from time to time, we never knew of our early meeting at Leipzig,
+till in comparing notes we discovered how we had spent a whole year in
+the same house and among the same friends. Hers has been a life full
+of work and entirely devoted to others. To the very end of her days
+she was spending her large income in founding schools on the system
+recommended by Froebel, not only in England, but in Italy. She died at
+Naples in 1896, while visiting a large school that had been founded by
+her with the assistance of the Italian Government. Her own house in
+Wales was full of treasures of art, and full of memorials of her many
+friends, such as Bunsen, Renan, Mole, Ary Scheffer, and many more. How
+far her charity went may be judged by her being willing to part with
+some of the most precious of Ary Scheffer’s pictures, in order to keep
+her schools well endowed, and able to last after her death, which she
+felt to be imminent.
+
+Public schools are nearly all day schools in Germany. The boys live at
+home, mostly in their own families, but they spend six hours every day
+at school, and it is a mistake to imagine that they are not attached
+to it, that they have no games together, and that they do not grow up
+manly or independent. Most schools have playgrounds, and in summer
+swimming is a favourite amusement for all the boys. There were two
+good public schools at Leipzig, the Nicolai School and the Thomas
+School. There was plenty of _esprit de corps_ in them, and often when
+the boys met it showed itself not only in words but in blows, and the
+discussions over the merits of their schools were often continued in
+later life. I was very fortunate in being sent to the Nicolai School,
+under Dr. Nobbe as head master. He was at the same time Professor at
+the University of Leipzig, and is well known in England also as the
+editor of Cicero. He was very proud that his school counted Leibniz[8]
+among its former pupils. He was a classical scholar of the old school.
+During the last three years of our school life we had to write plenty
+of Latin and Greek verse, and were taught to speak Latin. The speaking
+of Latin came readily enough, but the verses never attained a very
+high level. Besides Nobbe we had Forbiger, well known by his books on
+ancient geography, and Palm, editor of the same Greek Dictionary
+which, in the hands of Dr. Liddell, has reached its highest
+perfection. Then there was Funkhänel, known beyond Germany by his
+edition of the Orations of Demosthenes, and his studies on Greek
+orators. We were indeed well off for masters, and most of them seemed
+to enjoy their work and to be fond of the boys. Our head master was
+very popular. He was a man of the old German type, powerfully built,
+with a large square head, very much like Luther, and, strange to say,
+when in 1839 a great Luther festival was celebrated all over Germany,
+he published a book in which he proved that he was a direct descendant
+of Luther.
+
+  [8] His own spelling of his name.
+
+The school was carried on very much on the old plan of teaching
+chiefly classics, but teaching them thoroughly. Modern languages,
+mathematics, and physical science had a poor chance, though they
+clamoured for recognition. Latin and Greek verse were considered far
+more important. In the two highest forms we had to speak Latin, and
+such as it was it seemed to us much easier than to speak French.
+Hebrew was also taught as an optional subject during the last four
+years, and the little I know of Hebrew dates chiefly from my
+school-days. Schoolboys soon find out what their masters think of the
+value of the different subjects taught at school, and they are apt to
+treat not only the subjects themselves but the teachers also according
+to that standard. Hence our modern language and our physical science
+masters had a hard time of it. They could not keep their classes in
+order, and it was by no means unusual for many of the boys simply to
+stay away from their lessons. The old mathematical master, before
+beginning his lesson, used to rub his spectacles, and after looking
+round the half empty classroom, mutter in a plaintive voice: “I see
+again many boys who are not here to-day.” When the same old master
+began to lecture on physical science, he told the boys to bring a frog
+to be placed under a glass from which the air had been extracted by an
+air-pump. Of course every one of the twenty or thirty boys brought two
+or three frogs, and when the experiment was to be made all these frogs
+were hopping about the lecture-room, and the whole army of boys were
+hopping after them over chairs and tables to catch them. No wonder
+that during this tumult the master did not succeed with his
+experiment, and when at last the glass bowl was lifted up and we were
+asked to see the frog, great was the joy of all the boys when the frog
+hopped out and escaped from the hands of its executioner. 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 kept, and destroyed some of the precious instruments
+supplied by Government. Severe punishments followed, but they did not
+serve to make physical science more popular.
+
+We certainly did very well in Greek and Latin, and read a number of
+classical texts, not only critically at school, but also cursorily at
+home, having to give a weekly account of what we had thus read by
+ourselves. I liked my classics, 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 teachers, nay, that as compared to German
+poets and prose writers they were somewhat overpraised. Still, it
+would have been very conceited not to admire what our masters admired,
+and as in duty bound we went into the usual raptures about Homer and
+Sophocles, about Horace and Cicero. Many things which in later life we
+learn to admire in the classics could hardly appeal to the taste of
+boys. The directness, the simplicity and originality of the ancient,
+as compared with modern writers, cannot be appreciated by them, and I
+well remember being struck with what we disrespectful boys called the
+cheekiness of Horace expecting immortality (_non omnis moriar_) for
+little poems which we were told were chiefly written after Greek
+patterns. We had to admit that there were fewer false quantities in
+his Latin verses than in our own, but in other respects we could not
+see that his odes were so infinitely superior to ours. His hope of
+immortality has certainly been fulfilled beyond what could have been
+his own expectations. With so little of ancient history known to him,
+his idea of the immortality of poetry must have been far more modest
+in his time than in our own. He may have known the past glories of the
+Persian Empire, but as to ancient literature, there was nothing for
+him to know, whether in Persia, in Babylonia, in Assyria, or even in
+Egypt, least of all in India. Literary fame existed for him in Greece
+only, and in the Roman Empire, and his own ambition could therefore
+hardly have extended beyond these limits. The exaggeration in the
+panegyrics passed on everything Greek or Latin dates from the
+classical scholars of the Middle Ages, who knew nothing that could be
+compared to the classics, and who were loud in praising what they
+possessed the monopoly of selling. Successive generations of scholars
+followed suit, so that even in our time it seemed high treason to
+compare Goethe with Horace, or Schiller with Sophocles. Of late,
+however, 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 Plato. The fact is that we have learnt from them and
+imitated them, till in some cases the imitations have equalled or even
+excelled the originals, while now the taste for classical correctness
+has been wellnigh supplanted by an appetite for what is called
+realistic, original, and extravagant.
+
+With all that has been said or written against making classical
+studies the most important element in a liberal education, or rather
+against retaining them in their time-honoured position, nothing has as
+yet been suggested to take their place. For after all, 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 Latin; it is in order to learn
+to understand the old world on which our modern world is founded; it
+is in order to think the old thoughts, which are the feeders of our
+own intellectual life, that we become in our youth the pupils of
+Greeks and Romans. In order to know what we are, we have to learn how
+we have come to be what we are. Our very languages form an unbroken
+chain between us and Cicero and Aristotle, and in order to use many of
+our words intelligently, we must know the soil from which they sprang,
+and the atmosphere in which they grew up and developed.
+
+I enjoyed my work at school very much, and I seem to have passed
+rapidly from class to class. I frequently received prizes both in
+money and in books, but I see a warning attached to some of them that
+I ought not to be conceited, which probably meant no more than that I
+should not show when I was pleased with my successes. At least I do
+not know what I could have been conceited about. What I feel about my
+learning at school is that it was entirely passive. I acquired
+knowledge such as it was presented to me. I did not doubt whatever my
+teachers taught me, I did not, as far as I can recollect, work up any
+subject by myself. I find only one paper of mine of that early time,
+and, curiously enough, it was on mythology; but it contains no inkling
+of comparative mythology, but simply a chronological arrangement of
+the sources from which we draw our knowledge of Greek mythology. I see
+also from some old papers, that I began to write poetry, and that
+twice or thrice I was chosen at great festivities to recite poems
+written by myself. In the year 1839 three hundred years had passed
+since Luther preached at Leipzig in the Church of St. Nicolai, and the
+tercentenary of this event was celebrated all over Germany. My poem
+was selected for recitation at a large meeting of the friends of our
+school and the notables of the town, and I had to recite it, not
+without fear and trembling. I was then but sixteen years of age.
+
+In the next year, 1840, Leipzig celebrated the invention of printing
+in 1440. It was on this occasion that Mendelssohn wrote his famous
+_Hymn of Praise_. I formed part of the chorus, and I well remember the
+magnificent effect which the music produced in the Church of St.
+Thomas. Again a poem of mine was selected, and I had to recite it at a
+large gathering in the Nicolai-Schule on July 18, 1840.
+
+On December 23 another celebration took place at our school, at which
+I had to recite a Latin poem of mine, _In Schillerum_. Lastly, there
+was my valedictory poem when I left the school in 1841, and a Latin
+poem “Ad Nobbium,” our head master.
+
+I have found among my mother’s treasures the far too often flattering
+testimonial addressed to her by Professor Nobbe on that occasion,
+which ends thus: “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 point, first-rate,
+and of intellectual capacities excellent throughout. May his young
+mind develop more and more, may the fruits of his labours hereafter be
+a comfort to his mother for the sorrows and cares of the past.”
+
+It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examination for
+admission to the University (_Abiturienten-Examen_) not at my own
+school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable
+me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government. The schools in
+Anhalt were modelled after the Prussian schools, and laid far more
+stress on mathematics, physical science, and modern languages than the
+schools in Saxony. I had therefore to get up in a very short time
+several quite new subjects, and did not do so well in them as in Greek
+and Latin. However, I passed with a first class, and obtained my
+scholarship, small as it was. 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 examination. He reminds me that among my examiners
+there were such men as Dr. Ritter, the two Sentenis, and Professor
+Werner, and he says that he watched me when I came upstairs and
+entered the locked room to do my paper work. My friend’s career in
+life had been that of Director of a Life Insurance Company, probably a
+more lucrative career than what mine has been.
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Müller Aged 14._]
+
+During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of Professor Carus, and
+afterwards as a student at the University, my chief enjoyment was
+certainly music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but I pity
+the man who has not known the charm of it. At that time Leipzig was
+really the centre of music in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was there,
+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 Concerts. I find among my letters a few descriptions of
+concerts and other musical entertainments, which even at present may
+be of some interest. I was asked to be present at some concerts where
+quartettes and other pieces were performed by Mendelssohn, Hiller,
+Kaliwoda, David, and Eckart. Liszt also made his triumphant entry into
+Germany at Leipzig, and everybody was full of expectation and
+excitement. His concert had been advertised long before his arrival.
+It was to consist of an Overture of Weber’s; a Cavatina from _Robert
+le Diable_, sung by Madame Schlegel; a Concerto of Weber’s, to be
+played by Liszt, the same which I had shortly before heard played by
+Madame Pleyel; Beethoven’s Overture to _Prometheus_; Fantasia on _La
+Juive_; Schubert’s _Ave Maria_ and _Serenade_, as arranged by Liszt. I
+was the more delighted because I had myself played some of these
+pieces. But suddenly there appeared a placard stating that Liszt, on
+hearing that tickets were sold at one thaler (three shillings), had
+declared he would play a few pieces only and without an orchestra. In
+spite of that disappointment, the whole house was full, the staircase
+crowded from top to bottom, and when we had pushed our way through, we
+found that about 300 places had been retained for one and a half
+thalers (four shillings and sixpence), while tickets at the box-office
+were sold for two thalers (six shillings). Nevertheless, I managed to
+get a very good place, by simply not seeing a number of ladies who
+were pushing behind me. When Liszt appeared there was a terrible
+hissing—he looked as if petrified, glanced like a demon at the
+public, but nevertheless began to play the Scherzo and Finale of the
+Pastoral Symphony. Then there burst out a perfect thunder of applause,
+and all seemed pacified, while Madame Schmidt sang a song accompanied
+by a certain Mr. Kermann. As soon as that was over, a new storm of
+hisses arose, which was meant for this Mr. Kermann, who was a pupil,
+but at the same time the man of business of Liszt. He and three other
+men had made all arrangements, and Liszt knew nothing about them, as
+he cared very little for the money, which went chiefly to his
+managers. A Fantasia by Liszt followed, and lastly a _Galop
+Chromatique_—but the public would not go away, and at length Liszt
+was induced to play _Une grande Valse_. It was no doubt a new
+experience; but I could not go into ecstasies like others, for after
+all it was merely mechanical, though no doubt in the highest
+perfection. The day after Liszt advertised that his original Programme
+would be played, but at six o’clock Professor Carus, with whom I
+lived, was called to see Liszt, who was said to be ill; the fact being
+he had only sold fifty tickets at the raised prices. Many strangers
+who had come to Leipzig to hear him went away, anything but pleased
+with the new musical genius. At one concert, where he appeared in
+Magyar costume, the ladies offered him a golden laurel wreath and
+sword. He had just published his arrangement of _Adelaida_, which he
+promised to play in one of the concerts.
+
+Another very musical family at Leipzig was that of Professor Fröge. He
+was a rich man, and had married a famous singer, Fräulein Schlegel.
+One evening the _Sonnambula_ was performed in their house, which had
+been changed into a theatre. She acted the Sonnambula, and her singing
+as well as her acting was most finished and delightful. Mendelssohn
+was much in their house, and made her sing his songs as soon as they
+were written and before they were published. They were great friends,
+the bond of their friendship being music. He actually died when
+playing while she was singing. People talked as they always will talk
+about what they cannot understand, but they evidently did not know
+either Mendelssohn or Madame Fröge.
+
+The house of Professor Carus was always open to musical geniuses, and
+many an evening men like Hiller, Mendelssohn, David, Eckart, &c., came
+there to play, while Madame Carus sang, and sang most charmingly. I
+too was asked sometimes to play at these evening parties. I see that
+Ernst gave a concert at Leipzig, and no doubt his execution was
+admirable. Still, I could not understand what David meant when he
+declared that after hearing Ernst he would throw his own instrument
+into the fire.
+
+Mendelssohn, who was delighted with Liszt—and no one could judge him
+better than he—gave a soirée in honour of him. About 400 people were
+invited—I among the rest, being one of the tenors who sang in the
+Oratorio that Hiller was then rehearsing for the first performance. I
+think it was the _Destruction of Babylon_. There was a complete
+orchestra at Mendelssohn’s party, and we heard a symphony of Schubert
+(posthumous), Mendelssohn’s psalm “As the hart pants,” and his
+overture _Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt_. After that there was
+supper for all the guests, and then followed a chorus from his _St.
+Paul_, and a triple concerto of Bach, played on three pianofortes by
+Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Hiller. It was a difficult piece—difficult to
+play and difficult to follow. Lastly, Liszt played his new fantasia on
+_Lucia di Lammermoor_, and his arrangement of the _Erlkönig_. All was
+really perfect; and hearing so much music, I became more and more
+absorbed in it. I even gave some concerts with Grabau, a great
+violoncellist, at Merseburg, and at a Count Arnim’s, a very rich
+nobleman near Merseburg, who had invited Liszt for one evening and
+paid him 100 ducats. This seemed at that time a very large sum,
+almost senseless. As a ducat was about nine shillings, it was after
+all only £45, which would not seem excessive at present for an artist
+such as Liszt.
+
+I also heard Thalberg at Leipzig. They all came to see Mendelssohn,
+and I believe did their best to please him. At that time my idea of
+devoting myself altogether to the study of music became very strong;
+and as Professor Carus married again, I proposed to leave Leipzig, and
+to enter the musical school of Schneider at Dessau. But nothing came
+of that, and I think on the whole it was as well.
+
+While at school at Leipzig I had but little opportunity of travelling,
+for my mother was always anxious to have me home during the holidays,
+and I was equally anxious to be with her and to see my relations at
+Dessau. Generally I went in a wretched carriage from Leipzig to
+Dessau. It was only seven German miles (about thirty-five English
+miles), but it took a whole day to get there; and during part of the
+journey, when we had to cross the deep and desert-like sands, walking
+on foot was much more expeditious than sitting inside the carriage.
+But then we paid only one thaler for the whole journey, and sometimes,
+in order to save that, I walked on foot the whole way. That also took
+me a whole day; but when I tried it the first time, being then quite
+young and rather delicate in health, I had to give in about an hour
+before I came to Dessau, my legs refusing to go further, and my
+muscles being cramped and stiff from exertion, I had to sit down by
+the road. During one vacation I remember exploring the valley of the
+Mulde with some other boys. We travelled for about a fortnight from
+village to village, and lived in the simplest way. A more ambitious
+journey I took in 1841 with a friend of mine, Baron von Hagedorn. He
+was a curious and somewhat mysterious character. He had been brought
+up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he was entrusted as a baby. No one
+knew his parents, but they must have been rich, for he possessed a
+large fortune. He had a country place near Munich, and he spent the
+greater part of the year in travelling about, and amusing himself. He
+had been brought up with my mother and other members of our family,
+and he took a very kind interest in me. I see from my letters that in
+1841 he took me from Dessau to Coethen, Brunswick, and Magdeburg. At
+Brunswick we saw the picture gallery, the churches, and the tomb of
+Schill, one of the German volunteers in the War of Independence
+against France. We also explored Hildesheim, saw the rose-tree
+planted, as we were told, by Charlemagne; then proceeded to Göttingen,
+and saw its famous library. We passed through Minden, where the Fulda
+and Werra join, and arrived late at Cassel. From Cassel we explored
+Wilhelmshöhe, the beautiful park where thirty years later Napoleon III
+was kept as a prisoner.
+
+Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional exaggeration,
+was certainly a good friend to me. He often gave me good advice, and
+was more of a father to me than a mere friend. He was a man of the
+world; and he forgot that I never meant to be a man of the world, and
+therefore his advice was not always what I wanted. He was also a great
+friend of my cousin who was married to a Prince of Dessau, and they
+had agreed among themselves that I should go to the Oriental Academy
+at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and then enter the diplomatic
+service. As there were no children from the Prince’s marriage, I was
+to be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune was not enough
+to tempt me, I was told that even a wife had been chosen for me, and
+that I should have a new name and title, after being adopted by the
+Prince. To other young men this might have seemed irresistible. I at
+once said no. It seemed to interfere with my freedom, with my studies,
+with my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything was
+presented to me by my cousin as on a silver tray, I shook my head and
+remained true to my first love, Sanskrit and all the rest. Hagedorn
+could not understand this; he thought a brilliant life preferable to
+the quiet life of a professor. Not so I. He little knew where true
+happiness was to be found, and he was often in a very melancholy mood.
+He did not live long, but I shall never forget how much I owed him.
+When I went to Paris, he allowed me to live in his rooms. They were,
+it is true, _au cinquième_, but they were in the best quarter of
+Paris, in the Rue Royale St. Honoré, opposite the Madeleine, and very
+prettily furnished. This kept me from living in dusty lodgings in the
+Quartier Latin, and the five flights of stairs may have strengthened
+my lungs. 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 again. But in those days one did not know what it meant to be
+tired. Whether my friends grumbled, I cannot tell, but I myself pitied
+some of them who were old and gouty when they arrived at my door out
+of breath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+UNIVERSITY
+
+
+In order to enable me to go to the University, my mother and sister
+moved to Leipzig and kept house for me during all the time I was
+there—that is, for two years and a half. In spite of the _res angusta
+domi_, I enjoyed my student-life thoroughly, while my home was made
+very agreeable by my mother and sister. My mother was full of
+resource, and she was wise enough not to interfere with my freedom. My
+sister, who was about two years older than myself, was most
+kind-hearted and devoted both to me and to our mother. There was
+nothing selfish in her, and we three lived together in perfect love,
+peace, and harmony. My sister enjoyed what little there was of
+society, whereas I kept sternly aloof from it. She was much admired,
+and soon became engaged to a young doctor, Dr. A. Krug, the son of the
+famous professor of philosophy at Leipzig, whose works, particularly
+his _Dictionary of Philosophy_, hold a distinguished place in the
+history of German philosophy. He was a thorough patriot, and so public
+spirited that he thought it right to leave a considerable sum of money
+to the University, without making sufficient provision for his
+children. However, the young married couple lived happily at Chemnitz,
+and my sister was proud in the possession of her children. It was the
+sudden death of several of these children that broke her heart and
+ruined her health; she died very young. Standing by the grave of her
+children, she said to me shortly before her death, “Half of me is dead
+already, and lies buried there; the other half will soon follow.”
+
+Of society, in the ordinary sense of the word, I saw hardly anything.
+I am afraid I was rather a bear, and declined even to invest in
+evening dress. I joined a student club which formed part of the
+_Burschenschaft_, but which in order to escape prosecution adopted the
+title of _Gemeinschaft_. I went there in the evening to drink beer and
+smoke, and I made some delightful acquaintances and friendships. What
+fine characters were there, often behind a very rough exterior! My
+dearest friend was Prowe, of Thorn in East Prussia—so honest, so
+true, so straightforward, so over-conscientious in the smallest
+things. He was a classical scholar, and later on entered the Prussian
+educational service. As a master at the principal school at Thorn his
+time was fully occupied, and of course he was cut off there from the
+enlivening influences of literary society. Still he kept up his
+interest in higher questions, and published some extremely valuable
+books on Copernicus, a native of Thorn, for which he received the
+thanks of astronomers and historians, and flattering testimonials
+from learned societies. We met but seldom later in life, and my own
+life in England was so busy and full that even our correspondence was
+not regular. But I met him once more at Ems with a charming wife, and
+decidedly happy in his own sphere of activity. These early friendships
+form the distant landscape of life on which we like to dwell when the
+present ceases to absorb all our thoughts. Our memory dwells on them
+as a golden horizon, and there remains a constant yearning which makes
+us feel the incompleteness of this life. After all, the number of our
+true friends is small; and yet how few even of that small number
+remain with us for life. There are other faces and other names that
+rise from beyond the clouds which more and more divide us from our
+early years.
+
+There were some wild spirits among us who fretted at the narrow-minded
+policy which went by the name of the Metternich system. Repression was
+the panacea which Metternich recommended to all the governments of
+Germany, large and small. No doubt the system of keeping things quiet
+secured to Germany and to Europe at large a thirty years’ peace, but
+it could not prevent the accumulation of inflammable material which,
+after several threatenings, burst forth at last in the conflagration
+of 1848. Among my friends I remember several who were ready for the
+wildest schemes in order to have Germany united, respected abroad,
+and under constitutional government at home. Splendid fellows they
+were, but they either ended their days within the walls of a prison,
+or had to throw up everything and migrate to America. What has become
+of them? Some have risen to the surface in America, others have
+yielded to the inevitable and become peaceful citizens at home; nay, I
+am grieved to say, have even accepted service under Government to spy
+on their former friends and fellow-dreamers. But not a few saw the
+whole of their life wrecked either in prison or in poverty, though
+they had done no wrong, and in many cases were the finest characters
+it has been my good fortune to know. They were before their time, the
+fruit was not ripe as it was in 1871, but Germany certainly lost some
+of her best sons in those miserable years; and if my father escaped
+this political persecution, it was probably due to the influence of
+the reigning Duke and the Duchess, a Princess of Prussia, who knew
+that he was not a dangerous man, and not likely to blow up the German
+Diet.
+
+I myself got a taste of prison life for the offence of wearing the
+ribbon of a club which the police regarded with disfavour. I cannot
+say that either the disgrace or the discomfort of my two days’ durance
+vile weighed much with me, as my friends were allowed free access to
+me, 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
+scholarship, which alone enabled me to continue my studies at
+Leipzig, and which, as a rule, was forfeited for political offences.
+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 club. I assured him that
+I was innocent of any political propaganda, and that the loss of my
+stipendium would entail my leaving the University. Much to my relief,
+the old gentleman replied: “I have heard nothing about this; and if I
+do, how am I to know that it refers to you, there are many Müllers in
+the University?” Fortunately the distinctive prefix Max had not yet
+been added to my name.
+
+I must confess that I and my boon companions were sometimes guilty of
+practices which in more modern days, and certainly at Oxford or
+Cambridge, 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 in.
+
+Duelling was then, as it is now, a favourite pastime among the
+students; and though not by nature a brawler, I find that in my
+student days at Leipzig I fought three duels, of two of which I carry
+the marks to the present day.
+
+I remember that on one occasion before the introduction of cabs we
+hired all the sedan-chairs in Leipzig, with their yellow-coated
+porters, and went in procession through the streets, much to the
+astonishment of the good citizens, and annoyance also, as they were
+unable to hire any means of conveyance till a peremptory stop was put
+to our fun. Not content with this exploit, when the first cabs were
+introduced into Leipzig, thirty or forty being put on the street at
+first, I and my friends secured the use of all of them for the day,
+and proceeded out into the country. The inhabitants who were eagerly
+looking forward to a drive in one of the new conveyances were
+naturally annoyed at finding themselves forestalled, 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 time.
+
+Very innocent amusements, if perhaps foolish, but very happy days all
+the same; 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 life.
+
+It is in every respect a great jump from a German school to a German
+university. At school a boy even in the highest form, has little
+choice. All his lessons are laid down for him; he has to learn what he
+is told, whether he likes it or not. Few only venture on books outside
+the prescribed curriculum. There is an examination at the end of every
+half-year, and a boy must pass it well in order to get into a higher
+form. Boys at a public school (gymnasium), if they cannot pass their
+examination at the proper time, are advised to go to another school,
+and to prepare for a career in which classical languages are of less
+importance.
+
+I must say at once that when I matriculated at Leipzig, in the summer
+of 1841, I was still very young and very immature. I had determined to
+study philology, chiefly Greek and Latin, but the fare spread out by
+the professors was much too tempting. I read Greek and Latin without
+difficulty; I often read classical authors without ever attempting to
+translate them; I also wrote and spoke Latin easily. Some of the
+professors lectured in Latin, and at our academic societies Latin was
+always spoken. I soon became a member of the classical seminary under
+Gottfried Hermann, and of the Latin Society under Professor Haupt.
+Admission to these seminaries and societies was obtained by submitting
+essays, and it was no doubt a distinction to belong to them. It was
+also useful, for not only had we to write essays and discuss them with
+the other members, generally teachers, and with the professor, but we
+could also get some useful advice from the professor for our private
+studies. In that respect the German universities do very little for
+the students, unless one has the good fortune to belong to one of
+these societies. The young men are let loose, and they can choose
+whatever lectures they want. I still have my _Collegien-Buch_, in
+which every professor has to attest what lectures one has attended.
+The number of lectures on various subjects which I attended is quite
+amazing, and I should have attended still more if the honorarium had
+not frightened me away. Every professor lectured _publice_ and
+_privatim_, and for the more important courses, four lectures a week,
+he charged ten shillings, for more special courses less or nothing.
+This seems little, but it was often too much for me; and if one added
+these honoraria to the salary of a popular professor, his income was
+considerable, and was more than the income of most public servants. I
+have known professors who had four or five hundred auditors. This gave
+them £250 twice a year, and that, added to their salary, was
+considered a good income at that time. All this has been much changed.
+Salaries have been raised, and likewise the honoraria, so that I well
+remember the case of Professor von Savigny, who, when he was chosen
+Minister of Justice at Berlin, declared that he would gladly accept if
+only his salary was raised to what his income had been as Professor of
+Law. Of course, professors of Arabic or Sanskrit were badly off, and
+_Privatdocenten_ (tutors) fared still worse, but the _professores
+ordinarii_, particularly if they lectured on an obligatory subject and
+were likewise examiners, were very well off. In fact, it struck me
+sometimes as very unworthy of them to keep a _famulus_, a student who
+had to tell every one who wished to hear a distinguished professor
+once or twice, that he would not allow him to come a third time.
+
+One great drawback of the professorial system is certainly the small
+measure of personal advice that a student may get from the professors.
+Unless he is known to them personally, or has gained admission to
+their societies or seminaries, the young student or freshman is quite
+bewildered by the rich fare in the shape of lectures that is placed
+before him. Some students, no doubt, particularly in their early
+terms, solve this difficulty by attending none at all, and there is no
+force to make them do so, except the examinations looming in the
+distance. But there are many young men most anxious to learn, only
+they do not know where to begin. I open my old _Collegien-Buch_ and I
+find that in the first term or Semester I attended the following
+lectures, and I may say I attended them regularly, took careful notes,
+and read such books as were recommended by the professors. I find
+
+   1. The first book of Thucydides          Gottfried Hermann.
+   2. On Scenic Antiquities                 The same.
+   3. On Propertius                         P. M. Haupt.
+   4. History of German Literature          The same.
+   5. The Ranae of Aristophanes             Stallbaum.
+   6. Disputatorium (in Latin)              Nobbe.
+   7. Aesthetics                            Weisse.
+   8. Anthropology                          Lotze.
+   9. Systems of Harmonic Composition       Fink.
+  10. Hebrew Grammar                        Fürst.
+  11. Demosthenes                           Westermann.
+  12. Psychology                            Heinroth.
+
+This was enough for the summer half-year. Except Greek and Latin, the
+other subjects were entirely new to me, and what I wanted was to get
+an idea of what I should like to study. It may be interesting to add
+the other Semesters as far as I have them in my _Collegien-Buch_.
+
+  13. Aeschyli Persae                       Hermann.
+  14. On Criticism                          The same.
+  15. German Grammar                        Haupt.
+  16. Walther von der Vogelweide            The same.
+  17. Tacitus, Agricola, and De Oratoribus  The same.
+  18. On Hegel                              Weisse.
+  19. Disputatorium (Latin)                 Nobbe.
+  20. Modern History                        Wachsmuth.
+  21. Sanskrit Grammar                      Brockhaus.
+  22. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+
+Then follows the summer term of 1842.
+
+  23. Pindar                                Hermann.
+  24. Nibelungen                            Haupt.
+  25. Nala                                  Brockhaus.
+  26. History of Oriental Literature        The same.
+  27. Arabic Grammar                        Fleischer.
+  28. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+  29. Plauti Trinumus                       Becker.
+
+Winter term, 1842.
+
+  30. Prabodha Chandrodaya                  Brockhaus.
+  31. History of Indian Literature          The same.
+  32. Aristophanes’ Vespae                  Hermann.
+  33. Plauti Rudens                         The same.
+  34. Greek Syntax                          The same.
+  35. Juvenal                               Becker.
+  36. Metaphysics and Logic                 Weisse.
+  37. Philosophy of History                 The same.
+  38. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+  39. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+  40. Philosophical Society                 Weisse.
+  41. Philosophical Society                 Drobisch.
+
+Summer term, 1843.
+
+  42. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+  43. Philosophical Society                 Drobisch.
+  44. Philosophical Society                 Weisse.
+  45. Soma-deva                             Brockhaus.
+  46. Hitopadesa                            The same.
+  47. History of Greeks and Romans          Wachsmuth.
+  48. History of Civilization               The same.
+  49. History after the Fifteenth Century   Flathe.
+  50. History of Ancient Philosophy         Niedner.
+
+Winter term, 1843-4.
+
+  51. Rig-veda                              Brockhaus.
+  52. Elementa Persica                      Fleischer.
+  53. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+
+Here my _Collegien-Buch_ breaks off, the fact being that I was
+preparing to go to Berlin to hear the lectures of Bopp and Schelling.
+
+It will be clear from the above list that I certainly attempted too
+much. I ought either to have devoted all my time to classical studies
+exclusively, or carried on my philosophical studies more
+systematically. I confess that, delighted as I was with Gottfried
+Hermann and Haupt as my guides and teachers in classics, I found
+little that could rouse my enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature,
+and I always required a dose of that to make me work hard. Everything
+seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to
+the plough, no ruins on which to try one’s own spade. Hermann and
+Haupt gave me work to do, but it was all in the critical line—the
+genealogical relation of various MSS., or, again, the peculiarities of
+certain poets, long before I had fully grasped their general
+character. What Latin vowels could or could not form elision in
+Horace, Propertius, or Ovid, was a subject that cost me much labour,
+and yet left very small results as far as I was personally concerned.
+One clever conjecture, or one indication to show that one MS. was
+dependent on the other, was rewarded with a Doctissime or
+Excellentissime, but a paper on Aeschylus and his view of a divine
+government of the world received but a nodding approval.
+
+They certainly taught their pupils what accuracy meant; they gave us
+the new idea that MSS. are not everything, unless their real value has
+been discovered first by finding the place which they occupy in the
+pedigree of the MSS. of every author. They also taught us that there
+are mistakes in MSS. which are inevitable, and may safely be left to
+conjectural emendation; that MSS. of modern date may be and often are
+more valuable than more ancient MSS., for the simple reason that they
+were copied from a still more ancient MS., and that often a badly
+written and hardly legible MS. proves more helpful than others
+written by a calligraphist, because it is the work of a scholar who
+copied for himself and not for the market. All these things we learnt
+and learnt by practical experience under Hermann and Haupt, but what
+we failed to acquire was a large knowledge of Greek and Latin
+literature, of the character of each author and of the spirit which
+pervaded their works. I ought to have read in Latin, Cicero, Tacitus,
+and Lucretius; in Greek, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle;
+but as I read only portions of them, my knowledge of the men
+themselves and their objects in life remained very fragmentary. For
+instance, my real acquaintance with Plato and Aristotle was confined
+to a few dialogues of the former and some of the logical works of the
+latter. The rest I learnt from such works as Ritter and Preller’s
+_Historia Philosophiae Graecae et Romanae ex fontium locis contexta_,
+and from the very useful lectures of Niedner on the history of ancient
+philosophy. However, I thought I had to do what my professors told me,
+and shaped my reading so that they should approve of my work.
+
+This must not be understood as in any way disparaging my teachers.
+Such an idea never entered my head at the time. People have no idea in
+England what kind of worship is paid by German students to their
+professors. To find fault with them or to doubt their _ipse dixit_
+never entered our minds. What they said of other classical scholars
+from whom they differed, as Hermann did from Otfried Müller, or Haupt
+from Orelli, was gospel, and remained engraved on our memory for a
+long time. Once when attending Hermann’s lectures, another student who
+was sitting at the same table with me made disrespectful remarks about
+old Hermann. I asked him to be quiet, and when he went on with his
+foolish remarks, I could only stop him by calling him out. As soon as
+the challenge was accepted he had of course to be quiet, and a few
+days after we fought our duel without much damage to either of us. I
+only mention this because it shows what respect and admiration we felt
+for our professor, also because it exemplifies the usefulness of
+duelling in a German university, where after a challenge not another
+word can be said or violence be threatened even by the rudest
+undergraduate. A duel for a Greek conjecture may seem very absurd, but
+in duels of this kind all that is wanted is really a certain knowledge
+of fencing, care being taken that nothing serious shall happen. And
+yet, though that is so, the feeling of a possible danger is there, and
+keeps up a certain etiquette and a certain proper behaviour among men
+taken from all strata of society. Nor can I quite deny that when I
+went in the morning to a beautiful wood in the neighbourhood of
+Leipzig, certain misgivings were difficult to suppress. I saw myself
+severely wounded, possibly killed, by my antagonist, and carried to a
+house where my mother and sister were looking for me. This went off
+when I met the large assembly of students, beautifully attired in
+their club uniforms, the beer barrels pushed up on one side, the
+surgeon and his instruments waiting on the other. There were ever so
+many, thirty or forty couples I think, waiting to fight their duels
+that morning. Some fenced extremely well, and it was a pleasure to
+look on; and when one’s own turn came, all one thought of was how to
+stand one’s ground boldly, and how to fence well. Some of the
+combatants came on horseback or in carriages, and there was a small
+river close by to enable us to escape if the police should have heard
+of our meeting. For popular as these duels are, they are forbidden and
+punished, and the severest punishment seemed always to be the loss of
+our uniforms, our arms, our flags, and our barrels of beer. However,
+we escaped all interference this time, and enjoyed our breakfast in
+the forest thoroughly, nothing happening to disturb the hilarity of
+the morning.
+
+Not being satisfied with what seemed to me a mere chewing of the cud
+in Greek and Latin, I betook myself to systematic philosophy, and even
+during the first terms read more of that than of Plato and Aristotle.
+I belonged to the philosophical societies of Weisse, of Drobisch, and
+of Lotze, a membership in each of which societies entailed a
+considerable amount of reading and writing.
+
+At Leipzig, Professor Drobisch represented the school of Herbart,
+which prided itself on its clearness and logical accuracy, 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 difficulties. I wished to know what it all meant, for
+I was not satisfied with mere words. There is hardly a word that has
+so many meanings as Idea, and I doubt whether any of the raw recruits,
+just escaped from school, and unacquainted with the history of
+philosophy, could have had any idea of what Hegel’s Idea was meant
+for. Yet they talked about it very eloquently and very positively over
+their glasses of beer; and anybody who came from Berlin and could
+speak mysteriously or rapturously about the Idea and its evolution by
+the dialectic process, was listened to with silent wonder by the young
+Saxons, who had been brought up on Kant and Krug. The Hegelian fever
+was still very high at that time. It is true Hegel himself was dead
+(1831), and though he was supposed to have declared on his deathbed
+that he left only one true disciple, and that that disciple had
+misunderstood him, to be a Hegelian was considered a _sine qua non_,
+not only among philosophers, but quite as much among theologians, men
+of science, lawyers, artists, in fact, in every branch of human
+knowledge, at least in Prussia. If Christianity in its Protestant form
+was the state-religion of the kingdom, Hegelianism was its
+state-philosophy. Beginning with the Minister of Instruction down to
+the village schoolmaster, everybody claimed to be a Hegelian, and
+this was supposed to be the best road to advancement. Though
+Altenstein, who was then at the head of the Ministry of Instruction,
+began to waver in his allegiance to Hegel, even he could not resist
+the rush of public and of official opinion. It was he who, when a new
+professor of philosophy was recommended to him either by Hegel himself
+or by some of his followers, is reported to have said: “Gentlemen, I
+have read some of the young man’s books, and I cannot understand a
+word of them. However, you are the best judges, 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 possible, and dismissed him with the
+words: ‘Enfin, si je peux y entrer, je ne les prendrai pas.’ This
+seems to me very much what you say of your young philosopher. If I can
+understand his books, I am not to take him.” This Hegelian fever was
+very much like what we have passed through ourselves at the time of
+the Darwinian fever; Darwin’s natural evolution was looked upon very
+much like Hegel’s dialectic process, as the general solvent of all
+difficulties. The most egregious nonsense was passed under that name,
+as it was under the name of evolution. Hegel knew very well what he
+meant, so did Darwin. But the empty enthusiasm of his followers became
+so wild that Darwin himself, the most humble of all men, became quite
+ashamed of it. The master, of course, was not responsible for the
+folly of his so-called disciples, but the result was inevitable.
+After the bow had been stretched to the utmost, a reaction followed,
+and in the case of Hegelianism, a complete collapse. Even at Berlin
+the popularity of Hegelianism came suddenly to an end, and after a
+time no truly scientific man liked to be called a Hegelian. These
+sudden collapses in Germany are very instructive. As long as a German
+professor is at the head of affairs and can do something for his
+pupils, his pupils are very loud in their encomiums, both in public
+and in private. They not only exalt him, but help to belittle all who
+differ from him. So it was with Hegel, so it was at a later time with
+Bopp, and Curtius, and other professors, particularly if they had the
+ear of the Minister of Education. But soon after the death of these
+men, particularly if another influential star was rising, the change
+of tone was most sudden and most surprising; even the sale of their
+books dwindled down, and they were referred to only as landmarks,
+showing the rapid advance made by living celebrities. Perhaps all this
+cannot be helped, as long as human nature is what it is, but it is
+nevertheless painful to observe.
+
+I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with Hegelianism through
+Professor Christian Weisse at Leipzig, who, though he was considered a
+Hegelian, was a very sober Hegelian, a critic quite as much as an
+admirer of Hegel. He had a very small audience, because his manner of
+lecturing was certainly most trying and tantalizing. But by being
+brought into personal contact with him one was able to get help from
+him wherever he could give it. Though Weisse was convinced of the
+truth of Hegel’s Dialectic Method, he often differed from him in its
+application. This Dialectic Method consisted in showing how thought is
+constantly and irresistibly driven from an affirmative to a negative
+position, then reconciles the two opposites, and from that point
+starts afresh, repeating once more the same process. Pure being, for
+instance, from which Hegel’s ideal evolution starts, was shown to be
+the same as empty being, that is to say, nothing, and both were
+presented as identical, and in their identity giving us the new
+concept of Becoming (_Werden_), which is being and not-being at the
+same time. All this may appear to the lay reader rather obscure, but
+could not well be passed over.
+
+So far Weisse followed the great thinker, and I possess still, in his
+own writing, 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 categories, like
+angels of God, ascend and descend from heaven to earth. We must
+remember that the true Hegelian regarded the Ideas as the thoughts of
+God. Hegel looked upon this evolution of thought as at the same time
+the evolution of Being, the Idea being the only thing that could be
+said to be truly real. In order to understand this, we must remember
+that the historical key to Hegel’s Idea was really the Neo-Platonic
+or Alexandrian Logos. But of this Logos we ignorant undergraduates,
+sitting at the feet of Prof. Weisse, knew absolutely nothing, and even
+if the Idea was sometimes placed before us as the Absolute, the
+Infinite, or the Divine, it was to us, at least to most of us, myself
+included, _vox et praeterea nihil_. We watched the wonderful
+evolutions and convolutions of the Idea in its Dialectic development,
+but of the Idea itself or himself we had no idea whatever. It was all
+darkness, a vast abyss, and we sat patiently and wrote down what we
+could catch and comprehend of the Professor’s explanations, but the
+Idea itself we never could lay hold of. It would not have been so
+difficult if the Professor had spoken out more boldly. But whenever he
+came to the relation of the Idea to what we mean by God, there was
+always even with him, who was a very honest man, a certain theological
+hesitation. Hegel himself seems to shrink occasionally from the
+consequence that the Idea really stands in the place of God, and that
+it is in the self-conscious spirit of humanity that the ideal God
+becomes first conscious of himself. Still, that is the last word of
+Hegel’s philosophy, though others maintain that the Idea with Hegel
+was the thought of God, and that human thought was but a repetition of
+that divine thought. With Hegel there is first the evolution of the
+Idea in the pure ether of logic from the simplest to the highest
+category. Then follows Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature, that is, the
+evolution of the Idea in nature, the Idea having by the usual
+dialectic process negatived itself and entered into its opposite
+(_Anderssein_), passing through a new process of space and time, and
+ending in the self-conscious human soul. Thus nature and spirit were
+represented as dominated by the Idea in its logical development.
+Nature was one manifestation of the Idea, History the other, and it
+became the task of the philosopher to discover its traces both in the
+progress of nature and in the historical progress of thought.
+
+And here it was where the strongest protests began to be heard.
+Physical Science revolted, and Historical Research soon joined the
+rebellion. Professor Weisse also, in spite of his great admiration for
+Hegel, protested in his Lectures against this idealization of history,
+and showed how often Hegel, if he could not find the traces he was
+looking for in the historical development of the Idea, was misled by
+his imperfect knowledge of facts, and discovered what was not there,
+but what he felt convinced ought to have been there. Nowhere has this
+become so evident as in Hegel’s _Philosophy of Religion_. The
+conception was grand of seeing in the historical development of
+religion a repetition of the Dialectic Progress of the Idea. But facts
+are stubborn things, and do not yield even to the supreme command of
+the Idea. Besides, if the historical facts of religion were really
+such as the Dialectic Process of the Idea required, these facts are
+no longer what they were before 1831, and what would become then of
+the Idea which, as he wrote in his preface to his _Metaphysics_, could
+not possibly be changed to please the new facts? It was this part of
+Weisse’s lectures, it was the protest of the historical conscience
+against the demands of the Idea, that interested me most. I see as
+clearly the formal truth as the material untruth of Hegel’s
+philosophy. The thorough excellence of its method and the desperate
+baldness of its results, strike me with equal force. Though I did not
+yet know what kind of thing or person the Idea was really meant for, I
+knew myself enough of ancient Greek philosophy and of Oriental
+religions to venture to criticize Hegel’s representation and
+disposition of the facts themselves. I could not accept the answer of
+my more determined Hegelian friends, _Tant pis pour les faits_, but
+felt more and more the old antagonism between what ought to be and
+what is, between the reasonableness of the Idea, and the
+unreasonableness of facts. I found a strong supporter in a young
+Privat-Docent who at that time began his brilliant career at Leipzig,
+Dr. Lotze. He had made a special study of mathematics and physical
+science, 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 Religion_. I joined his philosophical society, and
+I lately found among my old papers several essays which I had written
+for our meetings. They amused me very much, but I should be sorry to
+see them published now. It is curious that after many years I, as a
+Delegate of the University Press at Oxford, was instrumental in
+getting the first English translation of Lotze’s _Metaphysics_
+published in England; and it is still more curious that Mark Pattison,
+the late Rector of Lincoln, should have opposed it with might and main
+as a useless book which would never pay its expenses. I stood up for
+my old teacher, and I am glad to say to the honour of English
+philosophers, that the translation passed through several editions,
+and helped not a little to establish Lotze’s position in England and
+America. He died in 1881.
+
+It is extraordinary how the young minds in German universities survive
+the storms and fogs through which they have to pass in their academic
+career. I confess I myself felt quite bewildered for a time, and began
+to despair altogether of my reasoning powers. Why should I not be able
+to understand, I asked myself, what other people seemed to understand
+without any effort? We speak the same language, why should we not be
+able to think the same thought? I took refuge for a time in
+history—the history of language, of religion, and of philosophy.
+There was a very learned professor at Leipzig, Dr. Niedner, who
+lectured on the History of Greek Philosophy, and whose _Manual for the
+History of Philosophy_ has been of use to me through the whole of my
+life. Socrates said of Heraclitus: “What I have understood of his
+book is excellent, and I suppose therefore that even what I have not
+understood is so too; but one must be a Delian swimmer not to be
+drowned in it.” I tried for a long time to follow this advice with
+regard to Hegel and Weisse, and though disheartened did not despair. I
+understood some of it, why should not the rest follow in time? Thus, I
+never gave up the study of philosophy at Leipzig and afterwards at
+Berlin, and my first contributions to philosophical journals date from
+that early time, when I was a student in the University of Leipzig. My
+very earliest, though very unsuccessful, struggles to find an entrance
+into the mysteries of philosophy date even from my school-days.
+
+I remember some years before, when I was quite young, perhaps no more
+than fifteen years of age, listening with bated breath to some
+professors at Leipzig who were talking very excitedly about philosophy
+in my presence. I had no idea what was meant by philosophy, still less
+could I follow when they began to discuss Kant’s _Kritik der reinen
+Vernunft_. One of my friends, whom I looked up to as a great
+authority, confessed that he had read the book again and again, but
+could not understand the whole of it. My curiosity was much excited,
+and once, while he was taking a walk with me, I asked him very timidly
+what Kant’s book was about, and how a man could write a book that
+other men could not understand. He tried to explain what Kant’s book
+was about, but it was all perfect darkness before my eyes; I was
+trying to lay hold of a word here and there, but it all floated before
+my mind like mist, without a single ray of light, without any way out
+of all that maze of words. But when at last he said he would lend me
+the book, I fell on it and pored over it hour after hour. The result
+was the same. My little brain could not take in the simplest ideas of
+the first chapters—that space and time were nothing by themselves;
+that we ourselves gave the form of space and time to what was given us
+by the senses. But though defeated I would not give in; I tried again
+and again, but of course it was all in vain. The words were here and I
+could construe them, but there was nothing in my mind which the words
+could have laid hold on. It was like rain on hard soil, it all ran
+off, or remained standing in puddles and muddles on my poor brain.
+
+At last I gave it up in despair, but I had fully made up my mind that
+as soon as I went to the University I would find out what philosophy
+really was, and what Kant meant by saying that space and time were
+forms of our sensuous intuition. I see that, accordingly, in the
+summer of 1841, I attended lectures on Aesthetics by Professor Weisse,
+on Anthropology by Lotze, and on Psychology by Professor Heinroth, and
+I slowly learnt to distinguish between what was going on within me,
+and what I had been led to imagine existed outside me, or at least
+quite independent of me. But before I had got a firm grasp of Kant,
+of his forms of intuition, and the categories of the understanding, I
+was thrown into Hegelianism. This, too, was at first entire darkness,
+but I was not disheartened. I attended Professor Weisse’s lectures on
+Hegel in the winter of 1841-2, and again in the winter of 1842-3 I
+attended his lectures on Logic and Metaphysics, and on the Philosophy
+of History. He took an interest in me, and I felt most strongly
+attracted by him. Soon after I joined his Philosophical Society, and
+likewise that of Professor Drobisch. In these societies every member,
+when his turn came, had to write an essay and defend it against the
+professor and the other members of the society. All this was very
+helpful, but it was not till I had heard a course of lectures on the
+History of Philosophy, by Professor Niedner, that my interest in
+Philosophy became strong and healthy. While Weisse was a leading
+Hegelian philosopher, and Drobisch represented the opposite philosophy
+of Herbart, Niedner was purely historical, and this appealed most to
+my taste. Still, my philosophical studies remained very disjointed. At
+last I was admitted to Lotze’s Philosophical Society also, and here we
+chiefly read and discussed Kant’s _Kritik_. Lotze was then quite a
+young man, undecided as yet himself between physical science and pure
+philosophy.
+
+Weisse was certainly the most stirring lecturer, but his delivery was
+fearful. He did not read his lectures, as many professors did, but
+would deliver them _extempore_. He had no command of language, and
+there was a pause after almost every sentence. He was really thinking
+out the problem while he was lecturing; he was constantly repeating
+his sentences, and any new thought that crossed his mind would carry
+him miles away from his subject. It happened sometimes in these
+rhapsodies that he contradicted himself, but when I walked home with
+him after his lecture to a village near Leipzig where he lived, he
+would readily explain how it happened, how he meant something quite
+different from what he had said, or what I had understood. In fact he
+would give the whole lecture over again, only much more freely and
+more intelligibly. I was fully convinced at that time that Hegel’s
+philosophy was the final solution of all problems; I only hesitated
+about his philosophy of history as applied to the history of religion.
+I could not bring myself to admit that the history of religion, nor
+even the history of philosophy as we know it from Thales to Kant, was
+really running side by side with his Logic, showing how the leading
+concepts of the human mind, as elaborated in the Logic, had found
+successive expression in the history and development of the schools of
+philosophy as known to us. Weisse was strong both in his analysis of
+concepts and in his knowledge of history, and though he taught Hegel
+as a faithful interpreter, he always warned us against trusting too
+much in the parallelism between Logic and History. Study the writings
+of the good philosophers, he would say, and then see whether they will
+or will not fit into the Procrustean bed of Hegel’s Logic. And this
+was the best lesson he could have given to young men. How well founded
+and necessary the warning was I found out myself, the more I studied
+the religion and philosophies of the East, and then compared what I
+saw in the original documents with the account given by Hegel in his
+_Philosophy of Religion_. It is quite true that Hegel at the time when
+he wrote, could not have gained a direct or accurate knowledge of the
+principal religions of the East. But what I could not help seeing was
+that what Hegel represented as the necessity in the growth of
+religious thought, was far away from the real growth, as I had watched
+it in some of the sacred books of these religions. This shook my
+belief in the correctness of Hegel’s fundamental principles more than
+anything else.
+
+At that time Herbart’s philosophy, as taught by Drobisch at Leipzig,
+came to me as a most useful antidote. The chief object of that
+philosophy is, as is well known, the analysing and clearing, so to
+speak, of our concepts. This was exactly what I wanted, only that
+occupied as I was with the problems of language, I at once translated
+the object of his philosophy into a definition of words. Henceforth
+the object of my own philosophical occupations was the accurate
+definition of every word. All words, such as reason, pure reason,
+mind, thought, were carefully taken to pieces and traced back, if
+possible, to their first birth, and then through their further
+developments. My interest in this analytical process soon took an
+historical, that is etymological, character in so far as I tried to
+find out why any words should now mean exactly what, according to our
+definition, they ought to mean. For instance, in examining such words
+as _Vernunft_ or _Verstand_, a little historical retrospect showed
+that their distinction as reason and understanding was quite modern,
+and chiefly due to a scientific definition given and maintained by the
+Kantian school of philosophy. Of course every generation has a right
+to define its philosophical terms, but from an historical point of
+view Kant might have used with equal right _Vernunft_ for _Verstand_,
+and _Verstand_ for _Vernunft_. Etymologically or historically both
+words have much the same meaning. _Vernunft_, from _Vernehmen_, meant
+originally no more than perception, while _Verstand_ meant likewise
+perception, but soon came to imply a kind of understanding, even a
+kind of technical knowledge, though from a purely etymological
+standpoint it had nothing that fitted it more for carrying the
+meaning, which is now assigned to it in German in distinction to
+_Vernunft_, than understanding had as distinguished from reason. It
+requires, of course, a very minute historical research to trace the
+steps by which such words as reason and understanding diverge in
+different directions, in the language of the people and in
+philosophical parlance. This teaches us a very important distinction,
+namely that between the popular development of the meaning of a word,
+and its meaning as defined and asserted by a philosopher or by a poet
+in the plenitude of his power. Etymological definition is very useful
+for the first stages in the history of a word. It is useful to know,
+for instance, that _deus_, God, meant originally bright, bright
+whether applied to sky, sun, moon, stars, dawn, morning, dayspring,
+spring of the year, and many other bright objects in nature, that it
+thus assumed a meaning common to them all, splendid, or heavenly,
+beneficent, powerful, so that when in the Veda already we find a
+number of heavenly bodies, or of terrestrial bodies, or even of
+periods of time called Devas, this word has assumed a more general,
+more comprehensive, and more exalted meaning. It did not yet mean what
+the Greeks called θεοἱ or gods, but it meant something common to all
+these θεοἱ, and thus could naturally rise to express what the Greeks
+wanted to express by that word. There was as yet no necessity for
+defining deva or θεὁς, when applied to what was meant by gods, but of
+course the most opposite meanings had clustered round it. While a
+philosophical Greek would maintain that θεὁς meant what was one and
+never many, a poetical Greek or an ordinary Greek would hold that it
+meant what was by nature many. But while in such a case philosophical
+analysis and historical genealogy would support each other, there are
+ever so many cases where etymological analysis is as hopeless as
+logical analysis. Who is to define _romantic_, in such expressions as
+romantic literature. Etymologically we know that romantic goes back
+finally to Rome, but the mass of incongruous meanings that have been
+thrown at random into the caldron of that word, is so great that no
+definition could be contrived to comprehend them all. And how should
+we define _Gothic_ or _Romanic_ architecture, remembering that as no
+Goths had anything to do with pointed arches, neither were any Romans
+responsible for the flat roofs of the German churches of the Saxon
+emperors.
+
+Enough to show what I meant when I said that Professor Drobisch, in
+his Lectures on Herbart, gave one great encouragement in the special
+work in which I was already engaged as a mere student, the Science of
+Language and Etymology. If Herbart declared philosophy to consist in a
+thorough examination (_Bearbeitung_) of concepts, or conceptual
+knowledge, my answer was, Only let it be historical, nay, in the
+beginning, etymological; I was not so foolish as to imagine that a
+word as used at present, meant what it meant etymologically. _Deus_ no
+longer meant brilliant, but it should be the object of the true
+historian of language to prove how _Deus_, having meant originally
+brilliant, came to mean what it means now.
+
+For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher, and that sounded so
+grand that the idea of preparing for a mere schoolmaster, teaching
+Greek and Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a sphere. Soon,
+however, while dreaming of a chair of philosophy at a German
+University, I began to feel that I must know something special,
+something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn
+Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. I had only heard what we call in German
+the chiming, not the striking of the bells of Indian philosophy; I had
+read Frederick Schlegel’s explanatory book _Über die Sprache und
+Weisheit der Indier_ (1808), and looked into Windischmann’s _Die
+Philosophie im Fortgange der Weltgeschichte_ (1827-1834). These books
+are hardly opened now—they are antiquated, and more than antiquated;
+they are full of mistakes as to facts, and mistakes as to the
+conclusions drawn from them. But they had ushered new ideas into the
+world of thought, and they left on many, as they did on me, that
+feeling which the digger who prospects for minerals is said to have,
+that there must be gold beneath the surface, if people would only dig.
+That feeling was very vague as yet, and might have been entirely
+deceptive, nor did I see my way to go beyond the point reached by
+these two dreamers or explorers. The thought remained in the
+rubbish-chamber of my mind, and though forgotten at the time, broke
+forth again when there was an opportunity. It was a fortunate
+coincidence that at that very time, in the winter of 1841, a new
+professorship was founded at Leipzig and given to Professor Brockhaus.
+Uncertain as I was about the course I had to follow in my studies, I
+determined to see what there was to be learnt in Sanskrit. There was a
+charm in the unknown, and, I must confess, a charm also in studying
+something which my friends and fellow students did not know. I called
+on Professor Brockhaus, and found that there were only two other
+students to attend his lectures, one Spiegel, who already knew the
+elements of Sanskrit, and who is still alive in Erlangen,[9] as a
+famous professor of Sanskrit and Zend, though no longer lecturing, and
+another, Klengel; both several years my seniors, but both extremely
+amiable to their younger fellow student. Klengel was a scholar, a
+philosopher, and a musician, and though after a term or two he had to
+give up his study of Sanskrit, he was very useful to me by his good
+advice. He encouraged me and praised me for my progress in Sanskrit,
+which was no doubt more rapid than his own, and he confirmed me in my
+conviction that something might be made of Sanskrit by the philologist
+and by the philosopher. It should not be forgotten that at that time
+there was a strong prejudice against Sanskrit among classical
+scholars. The number of men who stood up for it, though it included
+names such as W. von Humboldt, F. and A. W. von Schlegel, was still
+very small. Even Herder’s and Goethe’s prophetic words produced
+little effect. It is said that when the Government had been persuaded,
+chiefly by the two Humboldts, to found a chair of Sanskrit at the
+University of Würzburg, and had nominated Bopp as its first occupant,
+the philological faculty of the University protested against such a
+desecration, and the appointment fell through. It is true, no doubt,
+that in their first enthusiasm the students of Sanskrit had uttered
+many exaggerated opinions. Sanskrit was represented as the mother of
+all languages, instead of being the elder sister of the Aryan family.
+The beginning of all language, of all thought, of all religion was
+traced back to India, and when Greek scholars were told that Zeus
+existed in the Veda under the name of Dyaus, there was a great flutter
+in the dovecots of classical scholarship. Many of these enthusiastic
+utterances had afterwards to be toned down. How we did enjoy those
+enthusiastic days, which even in their exaggerated hopes were not
+without some use. Problems such as the beginning of language, of
+thought, of mythology and religion, were started with youthful hope
+that the Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis had been
+present at the first outburst of roots, of concepts, nay, that like
+Pelops and other descendants of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed
+daily intercourse with the gods, and had been present at the
+mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of Kronos. We may be
+ashamed to-day of some of the dreams of the early spring of man’s
+sojourn on earth, but they were enchanting dreams, 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 it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally the
+bright sky, something actually seen, but something that had to become
+something unseen. All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by
+mankind at large, must have begun with what the senses can perceive,
+before it could rise to signify something unperceived by the senses.
+Only after the blue aether had been perceived and named, was it
+possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active, as an agent, as a
+god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus be called the most sublime, he who
+resides in the aether, αἰθἑρι ναἱων ὑψἱζυγος, the heavenly one, or
+οὐρἁνιος ὕπατος and ὕψιστος, the highest, and at last _Iupiter Optimus
+Maximus_, a name applied even to the true God. When Zeus had once
+become like the sky, all seeing or omniscient (ἐπὁψιος), would he not
+naturally be supposed to see, not only the good, but the evil deeds of
+men also, nay, their very thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if
+so, would he not be the avenger of evil, the watcher of oaths
+(ὅρκιος), the protector of the helpless (ἱκἑσιος)? Yet, if conceived,
+as for a long time all the gods were conceived and could only be
+conceived, namely, as human in their shape, should we not necessarily
+get that strange amalgamation of a human being doing superhuman
+work—hurling the thunderbolt, shouting in thunder, hidden by dark
+clouds, and smiling in the serene blue of the sky with its brilliant
+scintillations? All this and much more became perfectly intelligible,
+the step from the visible to the invisible, from the perceived to the
+conceived, from nature to nature’s gods, and from nature’s god to a
+more sublime unseen and spiritual power. All this seemed to pass
+before our very eyes in the Veda, and then to be reflected in Homer
+and Pindar.
+
+  [9] Herr Geheimrath von Spiegel now lives at Munich.
+
+Some details of this restored picture of the world of gods and men in
+early times, nay, in the very spring of time, may have to be altered,
+but the picture, the eidyllion remained, and nothing could curb the
+adventurous spirit and keep it from pushing forward and trying to do
+what seemed to others almost impossible, namely, to watch the growth
+of the human mind as reflected in the petrifactions of language.
+Language itself spoke to us with a different voice, and a formerly
+unsuspected meaning.
+
+We knew, for instance, that _ewig_ meant eternal, but whence eternal.
+Nothing eternal was ever seen, and it seemed to the philosopher that
+eternal could be expressed by a negation only, by a negation of what
+was temporary. But we now learnt that _ewig_ was derived in word and
+therefore in thought from the Gothic _aiwar_, time. _Ewigkeit_ was
+therefore originally time, and “for all time” came naturally to mean
+“for all eternity.” Eternity also came from _aeternus_, that is
+_aeviternus_, for time, i. e. for all time, and thus for eternity,
+while _aevum_ meant life, lifetime, age. But now came the question, if
+_aevum_ shows the growth of this word, and its origin, and how it
+arrives in the end at the very opposite pole, life and time coming to
+mean eternity, could we not by the same process discover the origin
+and growth of such short Greek words as ἀεἱ and aἰeἱ? It seems almost
+impossible, yet remembering that _aevum_ meant originally life, we
+find in Vedic Sanskrit _eva_, course, way, life, the same as _aevum_,
+while the Sanskrit _âyush_, likewise derived from _i_, to go, forms
+its locative _âyushi_. _Âyushi_, or originally _âyasi_, would mean “in
+life, in time,” and turned into Greek would regularly become then
+aἰeἱ, lifelong, or ever. It was not difficult to find fault with this
+and other etymologies, and to ask for an explanation of αἰἑν and αἰἑς,
+as derived from the same word _âyus_. It is curious that people will
+not see that etymologies, and particularly the gradual development in
+the form and meaning of words, can hardly ever be a matter of
+mathematical certainty.
+
+Historical, nay, even individual, influences come in which prevent the
+science of language from becoming purely mechanical. Pott, and
+Curtius, and others stood up against Bopp and Grimm, maintaining that
+there could be nothing irregular in language, particularly in phonetic
+changes. If this means no more than that under the same circumstances
+the same changes will always take place, it would be of course a mere
+truism. The question is only whether we can ever know all the
+circumstances, and whether there are not some of these circumstances
+which cause what we are apt to call irregularities. When Bopp said
+that Sanskrit _d_ corresponds to a Greek δ, but often also to a Greek
+θ, I doubt whether this is often the case. All I say is, if _deva_
+corresponds to θεὁς, we must try to find the reason or the
+circumstances which caused so unusual a correspondence. If no more is
+meant than that there must be a reason for all that seems irregular,
+no one would gainsay that, neither Bopp nor Grimm, and no one ever
+doubted that as a principle. But to establish these reasons is the
+very difficulty with which the Science of Language has to deal.
+
+There is no word that has not an etymology, only if we consider the
+distance of time that separates us from the historical facts we are
+trying to account for, we should sometimes be satisfied with
+probabilities and not always stipulate for absolute certainty. Many of
+Bopp’s, Grimm’s, and Pott’s etymologies have had to be surrendered,
+and yet our suzerainty over that distant country which they conquered,
+over the Aryan home, remains. If there is an etymology containing
+something irregular, and for which no reason has as yet been found, we
+must wait till some better etymology can be suggested, or a reason be
+found for that apparent irregularity. If the etymological meaning of
+_duhitar_, daughter, as milkmaid, is doubted, let us have a better
+explanation, not a worse; but the general picture of the early family
+among the Aryans “somewhere in Asia” is not thereby destroyed. The
+father, Sk. _pitar_, remains the protector or nourisher, though the
+_i_ for _a_ in _pater_ and πατἡρ is irregular. The mother, _mâtar_,
+remains the bearer of children, though _mâ_ is no longer used in that
+sense in any of the Aryan languages. _Pati_ is the lord, the strong
+one—therefore the husband; _vadhû_, the yoke-fellow, or the wife as
+brought home, possibly as carried off by force. _Vis_ or _vesa_ is the
+home, οἰκος or _vicus_, what was entered for shelter. _Svasura_,
+ἑκυρὁς, _Socer_, the father-in-law, is the old man of the _svas_, the
+_famuli_, or the family, or the clients, though the first _s_ is
+irregular, and can be defended only on the ground of mistaken analogy.
+_Bhrâtar_, _frater_, brother, was the supporter; _svastar_, _soror_,
+sister, the comforter, &c.
+
+What do a few objections signify? The whole picture remains, as if we
+could look into the _vesa_, the οἰκος the _veih_, the home, the
+village of the ancient Aryans, and watch them, the _svas_, the people,
+in their mutual relations. Even compound words, such as _vis-pati_,
+lord of a family or a village, have been preserved to the present day
+in the Lithuanian _Veszpats_, lord, whether King or God. It is enough
+for us to see that the relationship between husband and wife, between
+parents and children, between brothers and sisters, nay, even between
+children-in-law and parents-in-law, had been recognized and sanctified
+by names. That there are, and always will be, doubts and slight
+differences of opinion on these prehistoric thoughts and words, is
+easily understood. We were pleased for a long time to see in _vidua_,
+widow, the Sanskrit _vidua_, i. e. without a man or a husband. We now
+derive _vi-dhavâ_, widow, from _vidh_, to be separated, to be without
+(cf. _vido_ in _divido_, and Sk. _vidh_), but the picture of the Aryan
+family remains much the same.
+
+When these and similar antiquities were for the first time brought to
+light by Bopp, Grimm, and Pott, what wonder that we young men should
+have jumped at them, and shouted with delight, more even than the
+diggers who dug up Babylonian palaces or Egyptian temples! No one did
+more for these antiquarian finds and restorations than A. Kuhn, a
+simple schoolmaster, but afterwards a most distinguished member of the
+Berlin Academy. How often did I sit with him in his study as he
+worked, surrounded by his Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit books. In later
+times also, when I had made some discoveries myself as to the
+mythological names or beings identical in Vedic and Greek writings,
+how pleasant was it to see him rub his hands or shake his head. Long
+before I had published my identifications they were submitted to him,
+and he communicated to me his own guesses as I communicated mine to
+him. Kuhn would never appropriate what belonged to anybody else, and
+even in cases where we agreed, he would always make it clear that we
+had both arrived independently at the same result.
+
+It is in the nature of things that every new generation of scholars
+should perfect their tools, and with these discover flaws in the work
+left by their predecessors. Still, what is the refined chiselling of
+later scholars compared with the rough-hewn stones of men like Bopp or
+Grimm? If the Cyclopean stones of the Pelasgians are not like the
+finished works of art by Phidias, what would the Parthenon be without
+the walls ascribed to the Cyclops? It is the same in all sciences, and
+we must try to be just, both to the genius of those who created, and
+to the diligence of those who polished and refined.
+
+For all this, however, I met with but small sympathy and encouragement
+at Leipzig; nay, I had to be very careful in uttering what were
+supposed to be heretical or unscholarlike opinions in the seminary of
+Gottfried Hermann, or in the Latin society of Haupt. The latter
+particularly, though he knew very well how much light had been spread
+on the growth of language by the researches of Bopp, Grimm, and Pott,
+and though Grimm was his intimate friend of whom he always spoke with
+real veneration, could not bear his own pupils dabbling in this
+subject. And of course at that time my knowledge of comparative
+philology was a mere dabbling. If he could discover a false quantity
+in any etymology, great was his delight, and his sarcasm truly
+withering, particularly as it was poured out in very classical Latin.
+Gottfried Hermann was a different character. He saw there was a new
+light and he would not turn his back to it. He knew how lightly his
+antagonist, Otfried Müller, valued Sanskrit in his mythological
+essays, and he set to work, and in one of his last academical programs
+actually gave the paradigms of Sanskrit verbs as compared with those
+of Greek. He saw that the coincidences between the two could not be
+casual, and if they were so overwhelming in the mere termination of
+verbs, what might we not expect in words and names, even in
+mythological names? He by no means discouraged me, nay, he was sorry
+to lose me, when in my third year I went to Berlin. He showed me great
+kindness on several occasions, and when the time came to take my
+degree of M.A. and Ph.D., he, as Dean of the Faculty, invited me to
+return to Leipzig, offering me an exhibition to cover the expenses of
+the Degree.
+
+  [Illustration: F. MAX MÜLLER _Aged Twenty_]
+
+My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire to hear Bopp, but
+yet more from a desire to make the acquaintance of Schelling. My
+inclination towards philosophy had become stronger and stronger; I had
+my own ideas about the mythological as a necessary form of ancient
+philosophy, and when I saw that the old philosopher had advertised his
+lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not resist, and went to
+Berlin in 1844. I must say at once that Professor Bopp, though he was
+extremely kind to me, was at that time, if not old—he was only
+fifty-three—very infirm. In his lectures he simply read his
+_Comparative Grammar_ with a magnifying glass, and added very little
+that was new. He lent me some manuscripts which he had copied in Latin
+in his younger days, but I could not get much help from him when I
+came to really difficult passages. This, I confess, puzzled me at the
+time, for I looked on every professor as omniscient. The time comes,
+however, when we learn that even at fifty-three a man may have
+forgotten certain things, nay, may have let many books and new
+discoveries even in his own subject pass by, because he has plenty to
+do with his own particular studies. We remember the old story of the
+professor who, when charged by a young and rather impertinent student
+with not knowing this or that, replied: “Sir, I have forgotten more
+than you ever knew.” And so it is indeed. Human nature and human
+memory are very strong during youth and manhood, but even at fifty
+there is with many people a certain decline of mental vigour that
+tells chiefly on the memory. Things are not exactly forgotten, but
+they do not turn up at the right time. They just leave a certain
+knowledge of where the missing information can be found; they leave
+also a kind of feeling that the ground is not quite safe and that we
+must no longer trust entirely to our memory. In one respect this
+feeling is very useful, for instead of writing down anything, trusting
+to our memory as we used to do, we feel it necessary to verify many
+things which formerly were perfectly clear and certain in our memory
+without such reference to books.
+
+I remember being struck with the same thing in the case of Professor
+Wilson, the well-known Oxford Professor of Sanskrit. He was kind
+enough to read with me, and I certainly was often puzzled, not only by
+what he knew, but also by what he had forgotten. I feel now that I
+misjudged him, and that his open declaration, “I don’t know, let us
+look it up,” really did him great honour. I still have in my
+possession a portion of Pânini’s Vedic grammar translated by him. I
+put by the side of it my own translation, and he openly acknowledged
+that mine, with the passages taken from the Veda, was right. There was
+no humbug about Wilson. He never posed as a scholar; nay, I remember
+his saying to me more than once, “You see, I am not a scholar, I am a
+gentleman who likes Sanskrit, and that is all.” He certainly did like
+Sanskrit, and he knew it better than many a professor, but in his own
+way. He had enjoyed the assistance of really learned Pandits, and he
+never forgot to record their services. But he had himself cleared the
+ground—he had really done original work. In fact, he had done nothing
+but original work, and then he was abused for not having always found
+at the first trial what others discovered when standing on his
+shoulders. Again, he was found fault with for not having had a
+classical education. His education was, I believe, medical, but when
+once in the Indian Civil Service, he made himself useful in many ways,
+educational and otherwise. When he left India he was Master of the
+Mint. Such a man might not know Greek and Latin like F. A. von
+Schlegel, or any other professor, but he knew his own subject, 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 Sanskrit. Such a feeling is natural among small
+schoolmasters, but it is dying out at last among real scholars. I have
+known very good Sanskrit scholars who knew no Greek at all, and very
+little Latin. And I have also known Greek scholars who knew no
+Sanskrit and yet attempted comparisons between the two. When Lepsius
+was made a Member of the Berlin Academy, Lachmann, who ought to have
+known better, used to say of him: “He knows many things which nobody
+knows, but he also is ignorant of many things which everybody knows.”
+Such remarks never speak well for the man who makes them.
+
+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 age, and is still violently assailed for opinions he may have
+uttered fifty years ago. When quite a young man I wrote, at Baron
+Bunsen’s request, a long letter on the Turanian Languages. It was
+published in 1854, but it still continues to be criticized as if it
+had been published last year. Of course, considering the rapid advance
+of linguistic studies, a great part of that letter became antiquated
+long ago; but at the time of its first appearance it contained nearly
+all that could then be known on these allophylian, that is, non-Aryan
+and non-Semitic languages; and I may, perhaps, quote the opinion of
+Professor Pott, no mean authority at that time, who, after severely
+criticizing my letter, declared that it belonged to the most important
+publications that had appeared on linguistic subjects for many years.
+And yet, though I have again and again protested that I could not
+possibly have known in 1854 what has been discovered since as to a
+number of these Turanian languages, everybody who writes on any of
+them seems to be most anxious to show that in 1894 he knows more than
+I did in 1854. No astronomer is blamed for not having known the planet
+Neptune before its discovery in 1846, or for having been wrong in
+accounting for the irregularities of Saturn. But let that pass; I only
+share the fate of others who have lived too long.
+
+After all, all our knowledge, whatever show we may make of it, is very
+imperfect, and the more we know the better we learn how little it is
+that we do know, and how much of unexplored country there is beyond
+the country which we have explored. We must judge a man by what he has
+done—by his own original work. There are many scholars, and very
+useful they are in their own way, but if their books are examined, one
+easily finds the stores from which they borrowed their materials. They
+may add some notes of their own and even some corrections,
+particularly corrections of the authors from whom they have borrowed
+most; but at the end where is the fresh ore that they have raised;
+where is the gold they have extracted and coined? There are cases
+where the original worker is quite forgotten, whereas the retailers
+flourish. Well, facts are facts, whether known or not known, and the
+triumphal chariot of truth has to be dragged along by many hands and
+many shoulders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PARIS
+
+
+My stay in Paris from March, 1845, to June, 1846, was a very useful
+intermezzo. It opened my mind and showed me a new world; showed me, in
+fact, that there was a world besides Germany, though even of Germany
+and German society I had seen as yet very little. I had been working
+away at school and university, but with the exception of my short stay
+in Berlin, I had little experience of men and manners outside the
+small sphere of Dessau and Leipzig.
+
+I had been at Berlin some nine months when, in December, 1844, my old
+friend Baron Hagedorn came to see me, and invited me to spend some
+time with him in Paris. He had his own apartments there, and promised
+to look after me. At the same time my cousin, Baroness Stolzenberg,
+whom I have mentioned before as wishing me to enter the Austrian
+diplomatic service, offered to send me to England at her expense as a
+teacher. I hesitated for some days between these two offers. I knew
+that my own patrimony had been nearly spent at Leipzig and Berlin, and
+the time had come for me to begin to support myself; and how was I to
+do that in Paris? On the other hand, I had long felt that for
+continuing my Sanskrit studies a stay in Paris, and later perhaps in
+London also, was indispensable. I had also to consider the feelings of
+my mother, whose whole heart was absorbed in her only son. However,
+Sanskrit, and my love of an independent life won the day, and I
+decided to accept Hagedorn’s proposal. My mind once made up, I wanted
+to be off at once, but Hagedorn could not fix the exact time when he
+would be free to leave, and told me to keep myself in readiness to
+start whenever he found himself free to go. I accordingly went to stay
+with my mother and my married sister at Chemnitz, and indulged in
+idleness and the unwonted dissipations of parties, dances, and long
+skating expeditions. At last, feeling I could not afford to wait any
+longer, I went off to Dessau to see Hagedorn, and found to my great
+disappointment that he was detained by important legal business in
+connection with his property near Munich, and could not yet fix a date
+for his departure. So it was settled that I was to go on to Paris
+without him, and instal myself in his apartment, 25, Rue Royale St.
+Honoré.
+
+I got my passport wherein I was carefully described with all my
+particular marks, and started off on my foreign travels. At first all
+went well. I stopped a few days at Bonn, and again at Brussels, where
+I had my first experience of hearing a foreign language spoken round
+me, and found that my French was sadly deficient. But from Brussels
+on, my experiences were anything but agreeable. The journey to Paris
+took twenty-four hours, and we travelled day and night without any
+stop for meals. Most of the passengers were well provided with food
+and wine, but had it not been for the kindness of some old ladies, my
+fellow-travellers, I should really have starved. When we crossed the
+frontier the luggage of all passengers was carefully examined. But the
+_douanier_, in trying to open my portmanteau, broke the lock, and then
+began a fearful cursing and swearing. I was perfectly helpless. I
+could hardly understand what the French _douaniers_ said, still less
+make them understand what I had to say. They had done the damage, but
+would do nothing to remedy it. The train would not wait, and I should
+certainly have been left behind if the other travellers had not taken
+my part, and I was allowed to go on to Paris. I looked a mere boy,
+very harmless, not at all the clever smuggler the officials took me to
+be. 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 Sanskrit.
+
+But my miseries were not yet over, on the contrary, they became much
+worse. On my arrival in Paris I got a _fiacre_ and told the man to
+drive to 25, Rue St. Honoré; _Royale_ I considered of no importance;
+but, alas! at the right number of the Rue St. Honoré, the _concierge_
+stared at me, telling me that no Baron Hagedorn lived there. Try
+Faubourg St. Honoré, they said, but here the same thing happened. And
+all this was on a rainy afternoon, I being tired out with travelling
+and fasting, and perfectly overwhelmed by the immensity of Paris. I
+knew nobody at Paris, having trusted for all such things to Baron
+Hagedorn, in fact I was _au désespoir_. Then as I was driving along
+the Boulevard des Italiens, looking out of window, I saw a familiar
+figure—a little hunchback whom I had known at Dessau, where he
+studied music under Schneider. It was M. Gathy, a man well known by
+his musical writings, particularly his _Dictionary of Music_. I
+shrieked Gathy! Gathy! and he was as much surprised when he recognized
+the little boy from Dessau, as I was when in this vast Paris I
+discovered at last a face which I knew. I jumped out of my carriage,
+told Gathy all that had happened to me, being all the time between
+complete despair and perfect delight. He knew Hagedorn and his rooms
+very well. It was the Rue Royale St. Honoré. The _concierge_ was quite
+prepared for my arrival, and took us both to the rooms which were _au
+cinquième_, but large and extremely well furnished. I was so tired
+that I lay down on the sofa, and called out in my best French,
+_Donnez-moi quelque chose à manger et à boire_. This was not so easily
+done as said, but at last, after toiling up and down five flights of
+stairs, he brought me what I wanted; I restored myself in the true
+sense of the word, and then began to discuss the most necessary
+matters with M. Gathy. He was the most charming of men, half German,
+half French, full of _esprit_, and, what was more important to me,
+full of real kindness and love. As soon as I saw him I felt I was
+safe, and so I was, though I had still some battles to fight. First of
+all, I had taken but little money with me, looking upon Hagedorn as my
+banker. Fortunately I remembered the name of one of his friends, about
+whom Hagedorn had often spoken to me and who was in Rothschild’s Bank.
+I went there to find that he was away, but another gentleman there
+told me that I could have as much as I liked till Hagedorn or his
+friend came back. So I was lucky, unlucky as I had been before.
+
+The next step I had to consider was what I should do for my breakfast,
+luncheon, and dinner. Breakfast I could have at home, but for the
+other meals I had to go out and get what I wanted wherever I could. It
+was not always what I wanted, for it had to be cheap, and even a
+dinner _à deux francs_ in the Palais Royal seemed to me extravagant. I
+became more knowing by-and-by, and discovered smaller and simpler
+restaurants, where Frenchmen dined and had arranged for a less showy
+but more wholesome diet.
+
+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 memory. My
+principal amusement at first was to go on voyages of discovery through
+the town. The beauty of the city itself, and the rush and crowd in
+the streets delighted me, and I remember specially a few days after my
+arrival, when I went to watch “le tout Paris” going out to the races
+at Longchamps, that I was so struck by the difference between these
+streets full of equipages of all sorts, ladies in resplendent dresses,
+and well-groomed gentlemen, and the quiet streets that I had been
+accustomed to in Dessau and Leipzig, that I could hardly keep myself
+from laughing out loud. However, when the novelty wore off there was
+another contrast that struck me, and made me more inclined to cry this
+time than to laugh, and that was, that while at home I knew almost
+every face I passed, here in these crowds I was a stranger and knew no
+one, and I suffered cruelly from the solitude at first.
+
+I began my work, however, at once, and on the third day after my
+arrival I was at the Bibliothèque Royale armed with a letter of
+introduction from Humboldt, and the very next day was already at work
+collating the MSS. of the _Kathaka Upanishad_. I had also to devote
+some hours daily to the study of French; for, much as I grudged these
+hours, I fully realized that in order to get full advantage from my
+stay in Paris, I must first master French.
+
+Next came the great question, how to make the acquaintance of Burnouf.
+I did not know the world. I did not know whether I should write to him
+first, in what language, and to what address. I knew Burnouf from his
+books, and I felt a desperate respect for him. After a time Gathy
+discovered his address for me, and I summoned up courage to call on
+him. My French was very poor as yet, but I walked in and found a dear
+old gentleman in his _robe de chambre_, 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 day. He received me with great civility, such as I had not
+been accustomed to before. He spoke of some little book which I had
+published, and inquired warmly after my teachers in Germany, such as
+Brockhaus, Bopp, and Lassen. He told me I might attend his lectures in
+the Collège de France, and he would always be most happy to give me
+advice and help.
+
+I at once felt perfect trust in the man, and was really _aux cieux_ to
+have found such an adviser. He was, indeed, a fine specimen of the
+real French savant. He was small, and his face was decidedly German,
+with the _tête carrée_ which one sees so often in Germany, only
+lighted up by a constant sparkle, which is distinctively French. I
+must have seemed very stupid to him when I tried to explain to him
+what I really wanted to do in Paris. He told me himself afterwards
+that he could not make me out at first. I wanted to study the Veda,
+but I had told him at the same time that I thought the Vedic hymns
+very stupid, and that I cared chiefly for their philosophy, that is,
+the Upanishads. This was really not true, but it came up first in
+conversation, and I thought it would show Burnouf that my interest in
+the Veda was not simply philological, but philosophical also. No doubt
+at first I chiefly copied the Upanishads and their commentaries, but
+Burnouf was not pleased. “We know what is in the Upanishads,” he used
+to say, “but we want the hymns and their native comments.” I soon came
+to understand what he meant; I carefully attended his lectures, which
+were on the hymns of the Rig-veda and opened an entirely new world to
+my mind. We had the first book of the Rig-veda as published by Rosen,
+and Burnouf’s explanations were certainly delightful. He spoke freely
+and conversationally in his lectures, and one could almost assist at
+the elaboration of his thoughts. His audience was certainly small;
+there was nothing like Renan’s eloquence and wit. But Burnouf had ever
+so many new facts to communicate to us. He explained to us his own
+researches, he showed us new MSS. which he had received from India, in
+fact he did all he could to make us fellow workers. Often did he tell
+us to look up some passage in the Veda, to compare and copy the
+commentaries, and to let him have the result of our researches at the
+next lecture. All this was very inspiriting, particularly as Burnouf,
+upon examining our work, was very generous in his approval, and quite
+ready, if we had failed, to point out to us new sources that should
+be examined. He never asserted his own authority, and if ever we had
+found out something which he had not known before, he was delighted to
+let us have the full credit for it. After all, it was a new and
+unknown country, that had to be explored and mapped out, and even a
+novice might sometimes find a grain of gold.
+
+His select class contained some good men. There were Barthélemy St.
+Hilaire, the famous translator of Aristotle, and for a time Minister
+of Foreign Affairs in France, the Abbé Bardelli, R. Roth, Th.
+Goldstücker, and a few more.
+
+Barthélemy St. Hilaire was a personal friend of Burnouf, and came to
+the Collège de France not so much to learn Sanskrit as to hear
+Burnouf’s lucid exposition of ancient Indian religion and philosophy.
+Bardelli was a regular Italian Abbé, studying Sanskrit at Paris, but
+chiefly interested in Coptic. He was, like St. Hilaire, much my
+senior, but we became great friends, and he once confided to me what
+had certainly puzzled me—his reasons for becoming an ecclesiastic. He
+had been deeply in love with a young lady; his love was returned, but
+he was too poor to marry, and she was persuaded and almost forced to
+marry a rich man. Dear old Abbé, always taking snuff while he told me
+his agonies, and then finishing up by saying that he became a priest
+so as to put an end for ever to his passion. Who would have suspected
+such a background to his jovial face? I don’t know how it was that
+people, much my seniors, so often confided to me their secret
+sufferings. I may have to mention some other cases, and I feel that
+after my friends are gone, and so many years have passed over their
+graves, there is no indiscretion in speaking of their confidences. It
+may possibly teach us to remember how much often lies buried under a
+grave bright with flowers. I saw Bardelli’s own grave many years later
+in the famous cemetery at Pisa. R. Roth and Th. Goldstücker were both
+strenuous Sanskrit scholars. Both owed much to Burnouf, Roth even more
+than Goldstücker, though the latter has perhaps more frequently spoken
+of what he owed to Burnouf. Roth was my senior by several years, and
+engaged in much the same work as myself. But we never got on well
+together. It is curious from what small things and slight impressions
+our likes and dislikes are often formed. I have heard men give as a
+reason for disliking some one, that he had forgotten to pay half a
+cab-fare. So in Roth’s case, I never got over a most ordinary
+experience. He and two other young students and myself, having to
+celebrate some festal occasion, had ordered a good luncheon at a
+restaurant. To me with my limited means this was a great extravagance,
+but I could not refuse to join. Roth, to my great surprise and, I may
+add, being very fond of oysters, annoyance, took a very unfair share
+of that delicacy, and whenever I met him in after life, whether in
+person or in writing, this incident would always crop up in my mind;
+and when later on he offered to join me in editing the Rig-veda, I
+declined, perhaps influenced by that early impression which I could
+not get rid of. I blame myself for so foolish a prejudice, but it
+shows what creatures of circumstance we are.
+
+With Goldstücker I was far more intimate. He was some years older than
+myself and quite independent as far as money went. He knew how small
+my means were, and would gladly have lent me money. But through the
+whole of my life I never borrowed from my friends, or in fact from
+anybody, though I was forced sometimes when very hard up for ready
+money, and when I knew that money was due to me but had not arrived
+when I expected it, to apply to some friend for a temporary advance. I
+will try and recall the lines in which I once applied to Gathy for
+such a loan.
+
+    Versuch’ ich’s wohl, mein herzgeliebter Gathy,
+    Mit schmeichelndem Sonnet Sie anzupumpen?
+    Ich bitte nicht um schwere Goldesklumpen,
+    Ich bitte nur um etliche Ducati.
+    Auch zahl’ ich wieder ultimo Monati.
+    Auf Wiedersehn bei Morel und Frascati
+    Und Nachsicht für den Brief, den allzu plumpen!
+    Zwar reiche Nabobs sind die braven Inder,
+    Doch arme Teufel die Indianisten!
+    Reich sind hienieden schon die Heiden-Kinder,
+    Doch selig werden nur die armen Christen!
+    Reimsucher bin ich, doch kein Reimefinder,
+    Und _sans critique_ sind all die Sanscritisten.
+
+This kind of negotiating a loan I have to confess to, but the idea of
+borrowing money, without knowing when I could repay it, never entered
+my mind. Relations who could have helped me I had none, and nothing
+remained to me but to work for others. Indeed my want of money soon
+began to cause me very serious anxiety in Paris. Little as I spent, my
+funds became lower and lower. I did not, like many other scholars,
+receive help from my Government. I had mapped out my course for
+myself, and instead of taking to teaching on leaving the University,
+had settled to come to Paris and continue my Sanskrit studies, and it
+was in my own hands whether I should swim or sink. It was, indeed, a
+hard struggle, far harder than those who have known me in later life
+would believe. All I could do to earn a little money was to copy and
+collate MSS. for other people. I might indeed have given private
+lessons, but I have always had a strong objection to that form of
+drudgery, and would rather sit up a whole night copying than give an
+hour to my pupils. My plan was as follows: to sit up the whole of one
+night, to take about three hours’ rest the next night, but without
+undressing, and then to take a good night’s rest the third night, and
+start over again. It was a hard fight, and cannot have been very good
+for me physically, but I do not regret it now.
+
+Often did I go without my dinner, being quite satisfied with boiled
+eggs and bread and butter, which I could have at home without toiling
+down and toiling up five flights of stairs that led to my room.
+Sometimes I went with some of my young friends _hors de la barrière_,
+that is, outside Paris, outside the barrier where the _octroi_ has to
+be paid on meat, wine, &c. Here the food was certainly better for the
+price I could afford to pay, but the society was sometimes peculiar. I
+remember once seeing a strange lady sitting not very far from me, who
+was the well-known Louve of Eugène Sue’s _Mystères de Paris_. One of
+my companions on these expeditions was Karl de Schloezer, who was then
+studying Arabic in Paris. He was always cheerful and amusing, and a
+delightful companion. He knew much more of the world than I did, and
+often surprised me by his diplomatic wisdom. “Let us stand up for each
+other,” he said one day; “you say all the good you can of me, I saying
+all the good I can of you.” I became very fierce at the time, charging
+him with hypocrisy and I do not know what. He, however, took it all in
+good part, and we remained friends all the time he was at Paris, and
+indeed to the day of his death. He was very fond of music, but I was,
+perhaps, the better performer on the pianoforte. He had invited me, a
+violin, and violoncello, to play some of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s
+Sonatas. Alas! when we found that he murdered his part, I sat down and
+played the whole evening, leaving him to listen, not, I fear, in the
+best of moods. He took his revenge, however; and the next time he
+asked me and the two other musicians to his room, we found indeed
+everything ready for us to play, but our host was nowhere to be found.
+He maintained that he had been called away; I am certain, however,
+that the little trick was played on purpose.
+
+He afterwards entered the Prussian diplomatic service and was the
+protégé of the Princess of Prussia, afterwards the Empress of Germany.
+That was enough to make Bismarck dislike him, and when Schloezer
+served as Secretary of Legation under Bismarck as Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg, he committed the outrage of challenging his chief to a
+duel. Bismarck declined, nor would it, according to diplomatic
+etiquette, have been possible for him not to decline. Later on,
+however, Schloezer was placed _en disponibilité_, that is to say, he
+was politely dismissed. He had to pay a kind of farewell visit to
+Bismarck, who was then omnipotent. Being asked by Bismarck what he
+intended to do, and whether he could be of any service to him,
+Schloezer said very quietly, “Yes, your Excellency, I shall take to
+writing my Memoirs, and you know that I have seen much in my time
+which many people will be interested to learn.” Bismarck was quiet for
+a time, looking at some papers, and then remarked quite unconcernedly,
+“You would not care to go to the United States as Minister?” “I am
+ready to go to-morrow,” replied Schloezer, and having carried his
+point, having in fact outwitted Bismarck, he started at once for
+Washington. Bismarck knew that Schloezer could wield a sharp pen, and
+there was a time when he was sensitive to such pen-pricks. They did
+not see much of each other afterwards, but, owing to the protection of
+the Empress, Schloezer was later accredited as Prussian envoy to the
+Pope, and died too soon for his friends in beautiful Italy.
+
+One of my oldest friends at Paris was a Baron d’Eckstein, a kind of
+diplomatic agent who knew everybody in Paris, and wrote for the
+newspapers, French and German. He had, I believe, a pension from the
+French Government, and was, as a Roman Catholic, strongly allied with
+the Clerical Party. This did not concern me. What concerned me was his
+love of Sanskrit and the ancient religion of India. He would sit with
+me for hours, or take me to dine with him at a restaurant, discussing
+all the time the Vedas and the Upanishad and the Vedanta philosophy.
+There are several articles of his written at this time in the _Journal
+Asiatique_, and I was especially grateful to him, for he gave me
+plenty of work to do, particularly in the way of copying Sanskrit MSS.
+for him, and he paid me well and so helped me to keep afloat in Paris.
+Knowing as he did everybody, he was very anxious to introduce me to
+his friends, such as George Sand, Lamennais, the Comtesse d’Agoult
+(Daniel Stern), Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and others; but I much
+preferred half an hour with him or with Burnouf to paying formal
+visits. I heard afterwards many unkind things about Baron
+d’Eckstein’s political and clerical opinions, but though in becoming a
+convert to Roman Catholicism he may have shown weakness, and as a
+political writer may have been influenced by his near friends and
+patrons, I never found him otherwise than kind, tolerant, and
+trustworthy. His life was to have been written by Professor
+Windischmann, but he too died; and who knows what may have become of
+the curious memoirs which he left? At the time of the February
+revolution in 1848, he was in the very midst of it. He knew Lamartine,
+who was the hero of the day, though of a few days only. He attended
+meetings with Lamartine, Odilon, Barrot, and others, and he assured me
+that there would be no revolution, because nobody was prepared for it.
+
+Lamartine who had been asked by his friends, all of them royalists and
+friends of order, whether he would, in case of necessity, undertake to
+form a ministry under the Duchesse d’Orléans as regent, scouted such
+an idea at first, but at last promised to be ready if he were wanted.
+The time came sooner than he expected, and the Duchesse d’Orléans
+counted on him when she went to the Chamber and her Regency was
+proclaimed. Lamartine was then so popular that he might have saved the
+situation. But the mob broke into the Chamber, shots were fired, and
+there was no Lamartine. The Duchesse d’Orléans had to fly, and
+fortunately escaped under the protection of the Duc de Nemours, the
+only son of Louis Philippe then in Paris, and the dynasty of the
+Orléans was lost—never to return. Baron d’Eckstein lost many of his
+influential friends at that time, possibly his pension also, but he
+had enough to live upon, and he died at last as a very old man in a
+Roman Catholic monastery, a most interesting and charming man, whose
+memoirs would certainly have been very valuable.
+
+But to return to Burnouf, I never can adequately express my debt of
+gratitude to him. He was of the greatest assistance to me in clearing
+my thoughts and directing them into one channel. “Either one thing or
+the other,” he said. “Either study Indian philosophy and begin with
+the Upanishads and Sankara’s commentary, or study Indian religion and
+keep to the Rig-veda, and copy the hymns and Sâyana’s commentary, and
+then you will be our great benefactor.” A great benefactor! that was
+too much for me, a mere dwarf in the presence of giants. But Burnouf’s
+words confirmed me more and more in my desire to give myself up to the
+Veda.
+
+Burnouf told me not only what Vedic MSS. there were at the
+Bibliothèque Royale, he also brought me his own MSS. and lent them to
+me to copy, with the condition, however, that I should not smoke while
+working at them. He himself did not smoke, and could not bear the
+smell of smoke, and he showed me several of his MSS. which had become
+quite useless to him, because they smelt of stale tobacco smoke. I
+did all I could to guard these sacred treasures against such
+profanation.
+
+Another and even more useful warning came to me from Burnouf. “Don’t
+publish extracts from the commentary only,” he said; “if you do, you
+will publish what is easy to read, and leave out what is difficult.” I
+certainly thought that extracts would be sufficient, but I soon found
+out that here also Burnouf was right, though there was always the fear
+that I should never find a publisher for so immense a work. This fear
+I confided to Burnouf, but he always maintained his hopeful view. “The
+commentary must be published, depend upon it, and it will be,” he
+said.
+
+So I stuck to it and went on copying and collating my Sanskrit MSS.,
+always trusting that a publisher would turn up at the proper time. I
+had, of course, to do all the drudgery for myself, and I soon found
+out that it was not in human nature, at least not in my nature, to
+copy Sanskrit from a MS. even for three or four hours without
+mistakes. To my great disappointment I found mistakes whenever I
+collated my copy with the original. I found that like the copyists of
+classical MSS. my eye had wandered from one line to another where the
+same word occurred, that I had left out a word when the next word
+ended with the same termination, nay that I had even left out whole
+lines. Hence I had either to collate my own copy, which was very
+tedious, or invent some new process. This new process I discovered by
+using transparent paper, and thus tracing every letter. I had some
+excellent _papier végétal_ made for me, and, instead of copying,
+traced the whole Sanskrit MS. This had the great advantage that
+nothing could be left out, and that when the original was smudged and
+doubtful I could carefully trace whatever was clear and visible
+through the transparent paper. At first I confess my work was slow,
+but soon it went as rapidly as copying, and it was even less fatiguing
+to the eyes than the constant looking from the MS. to the copy, and
+from the copy to the MS. But the most important advantage was, that I
+could thus feel quite certain that nothing was left out, so that even
+now, after more than fifty years, these tracings are as useful to me
+as the MS. itself. There was room left between the lines or on the
+margin to note the various readings of other MSS.; in fact, my
+materials grew both in extent and in value.
+
+Still there remained the question of a publisher. To print the
+Rig-veda in six volumes quarto of about a thousand pages each, and to
+provide the editor with a living wage during the many years he would
+have to devote to his task, required a large capital. I do not know
+exactly how much, but what I do know is that, when a second edition of
+the text of the Veda in four volumes was printed at the expense of the
+Maharajah of Vizianagram, it cost that generous and patriotic prince
+four thousand pounds, though I then gave my work gratuitously.
+
+While I was working at the Bibliothèque Royale, Humboldt had used his
+powerful influence with the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to
+help me in publishing my edition of the Rig-veda in Germany. Nothing,
+however, came of that plan; it proved too costly for any private
+publisher, even with royal assistance.
+
+Then came a vague offer from St. Petersburg. Boehtlingk, the great
+Sanskrit scholar, as a member of the Imperial Russian Academy, invited
+me to come to St. Petersburg and print the Veda there, in
+collaboration with himself, and at the expense of the Academy. Burnouf
+and Goldstücker both warned me against accepting this offer, but,
+hopeless as I was of getting my Veda published elsewhere, I expressed
+my willingness to go on condition that some provision should be made
+for me before I decided to migrate to Russia, as I possessed
+absolutely nothing but what I was able to earn myself. Boehtlingk, I
+believe, suggested to the Academy that I should be appointed Assistant
+Keeper of the Oriental Museum at St. Petersburg, but his colleagues
+did not apparently consider so young a man, and a mere German scholar,
+a fit candidate for so responsible a post. Boehtlingk wished me to
+send him all my materials, and he would get the MSS. of the Rig-veda
+and of Sâyana’s commentary from the Library of the East India Company,
+and Paris. No definite proposition, however, came from the Imperial
+Academy, but an announcement of Boehtlingk’s appeared in the papers
+in January, 1846, to the effect that he was preparing, in
+collaboration with Monsieur Max Müller of Paris, a complete edition of
+the Rig-veda.
+
+All this, I confess, began to frighten me. For me, a poor scholar, to
+go to St. Petersburg without any official invitation, without any
+appointment, seemed reckless, and though I have no doubt that
+Boehtlingk would have done his best for me, yet even he could only
+suggest private lessons, and that was no cheerful outlook. The Academy
+would do nothing for me unless I joined Boehtlingk, but at last
+offered to buy my materials, on which I had spent so much labour and
+the small fund at my disposal. If the Academy could have got the
+necessary MSS. from Paris and London, I should have been perfectly
+helpless. Boehtlingk could have done the whole work himself, in some
+respects better than I, because he was my senior, and besides, he knew
+Pânini, the old Indian grammarian who is constantly referred to in
+Sâyana’s Commentary, better than I did. With all these threatening
+clouds around me, my decision was by no means easy.
+
+It was Burnouf’s advice that determined me to remain quietly in Paris.
+He warned me repeatedly against trusting to Boehtlingk, and promised,
+if I would only stay in Paris, to give me his support with Guizot, who
+was then Minister for Foreign Affairs, and very much interested in
+Oriental studies.
+
+Boehtlingk seems never to have forgiven me, and he and several of his
+friends were highly displeased at my ultimate success in securing a
+publisher for the Rig-veda in England. Their language was most
+unbecoming, and they tried, and actually urged other Sanskrit
+scholars, to criticize my edition, though I must say to their credit
+that they afterwards confessed that it was all that could be desired.
+
+Many years later, Boehtlingk published a violent attack on me,
+entitled _F. Max Müller als Mythendichter_, but I thought it
+unnecessary to take up the dispute, and preferred to leave my friends
+to judge for themselves between me and this propounder of accusations,
+the legitimacy of which he was utterly unable to establish. However,
+as I discovered later that he accused me of having acted
+discourteously towards the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, with
+whom I had never had any direct dealings, and stated that he had
+prevented that illustrious body from ever making me a corresponding
+member, I thought it right to offer an explanation to the Secretary,
+and I have in my possession his reply, in which he wrote that there
+was no foundation whatever for Professor Boehtlingk’s statements.
+
+However, the outcome of it was that I did not go to St. Petersburg,
+but went on with my work at the Library in Paris, till one day I found
+it necessary to run over to London, to copy and collate certain MSS.,
+and there I found the long-sought-for benefactors, who were to enable
+me to carry out the work of my life.
+
+Of course, during my stay in Paris there was no idea of my going into
+society, or of buying tickets for theatres or concerts. I went out to
+dinner at some small restaurant, but otherwise I remained at home, and
+viewed Paris life from my high windows, looking out on the Chambre des
+Députés on one side, the Madeleine close to me on the left, and the
+Porte St. Martin far away at the end of the Boulevards. Baron
+d’Eckstein, as I have said, was willing to introduce me into society,
+but I refused his kind offers. In fact, I was more or less of a bear,
+and I now regret having missed meeting many interesting characters,
+and having kept aloof from others, because my interests were absorbed
+elsewhere. Burnouf asked me sometimes to his house; so did a Monsieur
+Troyer, who had been in India and published some Sanskrit texts, and
+whose daughter, the Duchesse de Wagram, made much of me, as she was
+very fond of music. There were some German families also, some rich,
+some poor, who showed me great kindness.
+
+I was too much oppressed with cares and anxieties about my life and my
+literary plans to think much of society and enjoyment. Even of the
+students and student life I saw but little, though I was actually
+attending lectures with them. I must say, however, 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 extravagances. A
+Frenchman, if he once begins to work, can work and does work very
+hard. I remember seeing several instances of this, but it is possible
+that I may have seen the pick of the Quartier Latin only. One who was
+then a young man, preparing for the Church, but already with an eye to
+higher flights, was Renan. At first he still looked upon all young
+Germans with suspicion, but this feeling soon disappeared. I remember
+him chiefly at the Bibliothèque Royale, where he had a very small
+place in the Oriental Department. Hase, the Greek scholar, Reinaud,
+the Arabist, and Stanislas Julien, the Sinologue, were librarians
+then. Hase, a German by birth, was most obliging, but he was greatly
+afraid of speaking German, and insisted on our always speaking French
+to him. Often did he call Renan to fetch MSS. for me: “Renan,” he
+would call out very loudly, “allez chercher, pour Monsieur Max Müller,
+le manuscrit sanscrit, numéro ...,” and then followed a pause, till he
+had translated “1637” into French. In later years Renan and I became
+great friends, but we German scholars were often puzzled at his great
+popularity, which certainly was owing to his style more even than to
+his scholarship. Some time later, when I was already established in
+England, we had a little controversy, and I printed a rather fierce
+attack on his _Grammaire Sémitique_. But we were intimate enough for
+me to show him my pamphlet, and when he wrote to me, “Pardonnez-moi,
+je n’ai pas compris ce que vous vouliez dire,” I suppressed the
+pamphlet, though it was printed, and we remained friends for life. He
+translated my first article on Comparative Mythology, and I had a
+number of most interesting letters from him. It was his wife who did
+the translation, while he revised it. That French pamphlet is very
+scarce now; my own pamphlet was entirely suppressed; even I myself can
+find no copy of it among the rubbish of my early writings, and what I
+regret most, I threw away his letters, not thinking how interesting
+they would become in time.
+
+With all my work, however, I found time to attend some lectures at the
+Collège de France, and to make the acquaintance of some distinguished
+French _savants_ of the _Institut_. I went there with Burnouf, or
+Stanislas Julien, or Reinaud, little dreaming that I should some day
+belong to the same august body. Many of my young French friends, who
+afterwards became _Membres de l’Institut_, rose to that dignity much
+later. I was made not only a corresponding, but a real member of the
+Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1869, before my
+friends, such as G. Perrot 1874, Michel Bréal 1875, Gaston Paris 1876,
+and Jules Oppert 1881, occupied their well-merited academical
+_fauteuils_. The struggle when I was elected in 1869 was a serious
+one; it was between Mommsen and myself, between classical and Oriental
+scholarship, and for once Oriental scholarship carried the day.
+Mommsen, however, was elected in 1895, and there can be little doubt
+that his strong and outspoken political antipathies had something to
+do with the late date of his election.
+
+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 expected.
+Though I was able to express myself _tant bien que mal_, I have always
+felt hampered in a long conversation. Of course, the French themselves
+have always been polite enough to say that they could not have
+detected that I was a German, but I knew better than that, and never
+have I, even in later years, gained a perfect conversational command
+of that difficult language.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND
+
+
+While working in Paris I constantly felt the want of some essential
+MSS. which were at the Library of the East India Company in London,
+and my desire to visit England consequently grew stronger and
+stronger; but I had not the wherewithal to pay for the journey, much
+less for a stay of even a fortnight in London. At last (June, 1846) I
+thought that I had scraped together enough to warrant my starting. At
+that time I had never seen the sea, and I was very desirous of doing
+so. I well remember my unbounded rapture at my first sight of the
+silver stream, and like Xenophon’s Greeks I could have shouted,
+θἁλαττα, θἁλαττα. Once on board my rapture soon collapsed and was
+succeeded by that well-known feeling of misery which I have so
+frequently experienced since then, and I huddled myself up in a corner
+of the deck.
+
+There a young fellow-traveller saw the poor bundle of misery, and
+tried to comfort me, and brought me what he thought was good for me,
+not, however, without a certain merry twinkle in his eye and a few
+kindly jokes at my expense. We landed at the docks in London, a real
+drizzly day, rain and mist, and such a crowd rushing on shore that I
+missed my cheerful friend and felt quite lost. In addition to all this
+a porter had run away with my portmanteau, which contained my books
+and MSS., in fact all my worldly goods. At that moment my young friend
+reappeared, and seeing the plight I was in, came to my assistance.
+“You stay here,” he said, “and I will arrange everything for you;” and
+so he did. He fetched a four-wheeler, put my luggage on the top,
+bundled me inside, and drove with me through a maze of London streets
+to his rooms in the Temple. Then, still knowing nothing about me, he
+asked me to spend the night in his rooms, gave me a bed and everything
+else I wanted for the night. The next morning he took me out to look
+for lodgings, which we found in Essex Street, a small street leading
+out of the Strand.
+
+The room which I took was almost entirely filled by an immense
+four-post bed. I had never seen such a structure before, and during
+the first night that I slept in it, I was in constant fear that the
+top of the bed would fall and smother me as in the German _Märchen_.
+When the landlady came in to see me in the morning, after asking how I
+had slept, the first thing she said was, “But, sir, don’t you want
+another ‘pillar’?” I looked bewildered, and said: “Why, what shall I
+do with another pillar? and where will you put it?” She then touched
+the pillows under my head and said, “Well, sir, you shall have
+another ‘pillar’ to-morrow.” “How shall I ever learn English,” I said
+to myself, “if a ‘pillar’ means really a soft pillow?”
+
+But to return to my unknown friend, he came every day to show me
+things which I ought to see in London, and brought me tickets for
+theatres and concerts, which he said were sent to him. His name was
+William Howard Russell, endeared to so many, high and low, under the
+name of “Billy” Russell, the first and most brilliant
+war-correspondent of _The Times_ during the Crimean War. He remained
+my warm and true friend through life, and even now when we are both
+cripples, we delight in meeting and talking over very distant days.
+
+I had come over to London expecting to stay about a fortnight, but I
+had been there working at the Library in Leadenhall Street for nearly
+a month, and my work was far from done, when I thought that I ought to
+call and pay my respects to the Prussian Minister, Baron Bunsen. I
+little thought at the time when I was ushered into his presence that
+this acquaintance was to become the turning-point of my life. If I
+owed much to Burnouf, how can I tell what I owed to Bunsen? I was
+amazed at the kindness with which from the very first he received me.
+I had no claim whatever on him, and I had as yet done very little as a
+scholar. It is true that he had known my father in Italy, and that
+Humboldt, with his usual kindness, had written him a strong letter of
+recommendation on my behalf, but that was hardly sufficient reason to
+account for the real friendship with which he at once honoured me.
+
+Baroness Bunsen, in the life of her husband, writes: “The kindred
+mind, their sympathy of heart, the unity in highest aspirations, a
+congeniality in principles, a fellowship in the pursuit of favourite
+objects, which attracted and bound Bunsen to his young friend (i. e.
+myself), rendered this connexion one of the happiest of his life.” I
+am proud to think it was so.
+
+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
+life, namely, the _editio princeps_ of the Rig-veda. Often has he told
+me how, at the time when he was prosecuting his studies at Göttingen,
+the very existence of such a book was unknown as yet in Germany. The
+name of Veda had no doubt been known, and there was a halo of mystery
+about it, as the oldest book of the world. But what it was and where
+it was to be found no one could tell. Mr. Astor, a pupil of Bunsen’s
+at Göttingen, had arranged to take Bunsen to India to carry on his
+researches there. But Bunsen waited and waited in Italy, till at last,
+after maintaining himself by giving private lessons, he went to Rome,
+was taken up by Brandes and Niebuhr, the Prussian Ambassador there,
+became the friend of the future Frederick William IV, and thus
+gradually drifted into diplomacy, giving up all hopes of discovering
+or rescuing the Rig-veda.
+
+People have hardly any idea now, how, in spite of the East India
+Company conquering and governing India, India itself remained a _terra
+incognita_, unapproachable by the students of England and of Europe.
+That there were literary treasures to be discovered in India, that the
+Brahmans were the depositaries of ancient wisdom, was known through
+the labours of some of the most eminent servants of the East India
+Company. It had been known even before, through the interesting
+communications of Roman Catholic missionaries in India, that the
+manuscripts themselves, at least those of the Veda, were not
+forthcoming. Even as late as the times of Sir W. Jones, Colebrooke,
+and Professor Wilson, the Brahmans were most unwilling to part with
+MSS. of the Veda, except the Upanishads. Professor Wilson told me that
+once, when examining the library of a native Râjah, he came across
+some MSS. of the Rig-veda, and began turning them over; but “I
+observed,” he said, “the ominous and threatening looks of some of the
+Brahmans present, and thought it wiser to beat a retreat.” Dr. Mill
+had known of a gentleman who had a very sacred hymn of the Veda, the
+Gayatri, printed at Calcutta. The Brahmans were furious at this
+profanation, and when the gentleman died soon after, they looked upon
+his premature death as the vengeance of the offended gods.
+Colebrooke, however, was allowed to possess himself of several most
+valuable Vedic MSS., and he found Brahmans quite ready to read with
+him, not only the classical texts, but also portions of the Veda.
+“They do not even,” he writes, “conceal from us the most sacred texts
+of the Veda.” His own essays on the Veda appeared in the _Asiatic
+Researches_ as early as 1801. But people went on dreaming about the
+Veda, instead of reading Colebrooke’s essays.
+
+It was curious, however, that at the time when I prepared my edition
+of the Rig-veda, Vedic scholarship was at a very low ebb in Bengal
+itself, and there were few Brahmans there who knew the whole of the
+Rig-veda by heart, as they still did in the South of India.
+Manuscripts were never considered in India as of very high authority;
+they were always over-ruled by the oral traditions of certain schools.
+However, such manuscripts, good and bad, but mostly bad, existed, and
+after a time some of them reached England, France, and even Germany.
+Portions of those in Berlin and Paris I had copied and collated, so
+that I could show Bunsen the very book which he had been in search of
+in his youth. This opened his heart to me as well as the doors of his
+house. “I am glad,” he said, “to have lived to see the Veda. Whatever
+you want, let me know; I look upon you as myself grown young again.”
+And he did help me, as only a father can help his son.
+
+Perhaps he expected too much from the Veda, as many other people did
+at that time, and before the _verba ipsissima_ were printed. As the
+oldest book that ever was composed, the Veda was supposed to give us a
+picture of what man was in his most primitive state, with his most
+primitive ideas, and his most primitive language. Everybody interested
+in the origin and the first development of language, thought,
+religion, and social institutions, looked forward to the Veda as a new
+revelation. All such dreams, natural enough before the Veda was known,
+were dispersed by my laying sacrilegious hands on the Veda itself, and
+actually publishing it, making it public property, to the dismay of
+the Brahmans in India, and to the delight of all Sanskrit scholars in
+Europe. The learned essays of Colebrooke in India, and the extracts
+published by Rosen, the Oriental librarian of the British Museum,
+might indeed have taught people that the Veda was not a book without
+any antecedents, that it would not tell us the secrets of Adam and
+Eve, or of Deukalion and Pyrrha. I myself had both said and written
+that the Veda, like an old oak tree, shows hundreds and thousands of
+circles within circles; and yet I was afterwards held responsible for
+having excited the wildest hopes among archaeologists, when I had done
+my best, if not to destroy them, at all events to reduce them to their
+proper level. Schelling seemed quite disappointed when I showed him
+some of the translations of the hymns of the Rig-veda; and Bunsen,
+who was still under Schelling’s influence, had evidently expected a
+great many more of such philosophical hymns as the famous one
+beginning:
+
+“There was not nought nor was there aught at that time.”
+
+To the scholar, no doubt, the Veda remained and always will remain the
+oldest of real books, that has been preserved to us in an almost
+miraculous way. By book, however, as I often explained, I mean a book
+divided into chapters and verses, having a beginning and an end, and
+handed down to us in an alphabetic form of writing. China may have
+possessed older books in a half phonetic, half symbolic writing; Egypt
+certainly possessed older hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri;
+Babylon had its cuneiform monuments; and certain portions of the Old
+Testament may have existed in a written form at the time of Josiah,
+when Hilkiah, the high priest, found the law book in the sanctuary (2
+Kings xxii. 8). But the Veda, with its ten books or _Mandalas_, its
+1017 hymns or _Suktas_, with every consonant and vowel and accent
+plainly written, was a different thing. It may safely be called a
+book. No doubt it existed for a long time, as it does even at present,
+in oral tradition, but as it was in tradition, so it was when reduced
+to writing, and in either form I doubt whether any other real book can
+rival it in antiquity. More important, however, than the purely
+chronological antiquity of the book, is the antiquity or primitiveness
+of the thoughts which it contains. If the people of the Veda did not
+turn out to be quite such savages as was hoped and expected, they
+nevertheless disclosed to us a layer of thought which can be explored
+nowhere else. The Vedic poets were not ashamed of exposing their fear
+that the sun might tumble down from the sky, and there are no other
+poets, as far as I know, who still trembled at the same not quite
+unnatural thought. Nor do I find even savages who still wonder and
+express their surprise that black cows should produce white milk. Is
+not that childish enough for any ancient or modern savage? Mere
+chronology is here of as little avail as with modern savages, whose
+customs and beliefs, though known as but of yesterday, are represented
+to us as older than the Veda, older than Babylonian cylinders, older
+than anything written. When certain modern savages recognize the
+relationship of paternity, maternity, and consanguinity, this is
+called very ancient. If they admit traditional restrictions as to
+marriage, food, the treatment of the dead, nay, even a life to come,
+this too, no doubt, may be very old; but it may be of yesterday also.
+There are even quite new gods, whose genesis has been watched by
+living missionaries. The great difficulty in all such researches is to
+distinguish between what is common to human nature, and what is really
+inherited or traditional. All such questions have only as yet been
+touched upon, and they must wait for their answer till real scholars
+will take up the study of the language of living savages, in the same
+scholarlike spirit in which they have taken up the study of Vedic and
+Babylonian savages. But we must have patience and learn to wait. 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 civilized. It may safely be said of this
+as of other mere ideas, that it may be true, but that there is no
+evidence to show that it is true. At all events it takes much for
+granted, and neglects, as it would seem, the very lessons which the
+theory of evolution has taught us. It is the nature of evolution to be
+continuous, and not to proceed _per saltum_. Therein lies the beauty
+of genealogical evolution that we can recognize the fibres which
+connect the upper strata with the lower, till we strike the lowest, or
+at least that which contains what seem to be the seeds and germs of
+early thoughts, words, and acts. We can trace the most modern forms of
+language back to Sanskrit, or rather to that postulated linguistic
+stratum of which Sanskrit formed the most prominent representative,
+just as we can trace the French _Dieu_ back to Latin _Deus_ and
+Sanskrit _Devas_, the brilliant beings behind the phenomena of nature;
+and again behind them, _Dyaus_, the brilliant sky, the Greek _Zeus_,
+the Roman _Iovis_ and _Iuppiter_, the most natural of all the Aryan
+gods of nature. This is real evolution, a real causal nexus between
+the present and the past. It used to be called history or pragmatic
+history, whether we take history in the sense of the description of
+evolution, or in that of evolution itself. History has generally to
+begin with the present, to go back to the past, and to point out the
+palpable steps by which the past became again and again the present.
+Evolution, on the contrary, prefers to begin with the distant past, to
+postulate formations, even if they have left no traces, and to speak
+of those almost imperceptible changes by which the postulated past
+became the perceptible present, as not only necessary, but as real.
+Perhaps the difference is of no importance, but the historical method
+seems certainly the more accurate, and the more satisfactory from a
+purely scientific point of view.
+
+In all such evolutionary researches language has always been the most
+useful instrument, 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 principles. Here, too, no doubt,
+intermediate links which must have existed, are sometimes lost beyond
+recovery, and when we arrive at the very roots of language, we feel
+that there may have been whole aeons before that radical period. Here
+science must recognize her inevitable horizons, but here again no
+surviving literary monument could carry us so far as the Veda. Hence
+its supreme importance for Aryan philology—for the philology of the
+most important languages of historical mankind. Other languages,
+whether Babylonian or Accadian, whether Hottentot or Maori, may be,
+for all we know, much more ancient or much more primitive; but, as
+scientific explorers, we can only speak of what we know, and we must
+renounce all conjectures that go beyond facts.
+
+In all these researches no one took a livelier interest and encouraged
+me more than Bunsen. When some of my translations of the Vedic hymns
+seemed fairly satisfactory, I used to take them to him, and he was
+always delighted at seeing a little more of that ancient Aryan torso,
+though at the time he was more specially interested in Egyptian
+chronology and archaeology. Often when I was alone with him did we
+discuss the chronological and psychological dates of Egyptian and
+Aryan antiquity. Kind-hearted as he was, Bunsen could get very
+excited, nay, quite violent in arguing, and though these fits soon
+passed off, yet it made discussions between His Excellency the
+Prussian Minister and a young German scholar somewhat difficult. At
+that time much less was known of the earliest Egyptian chronology than
+is now. But I was never much impressed by mere dates. If a king was
+supposed to have lived 5,000 years before our era, “What is that to
+us?” I used to say, “He sits on his throne _in vacuo_, and there is
+nothing to fix him by, nothing contemporary which alone gives interest
+to history. In India we have no dates; but whatever dates and names of
+kings and accounts of battles the Egyptian inscriptions may give us,
+as a book there is nothing so old in Egypt as the Veda in India.
+Besides, we have in the Veda thoughts; and in the chronology of
+thought the Veda seems to me older than even the Book of the Dead.”
+
+As to the actual date of the Veda, I readily granted that
+chronologically it was not so old as the pyramids, but supposing it
+had been, would that in any way have increased its value for our
+studies? If we were to place it at 5000 B. C., I doubt whether anybody
+could refute such a date, while if we go back beyond the Veda, and
+come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit and of
+the Proto-Aryan language I doubt very much whether even 5,000 years
+would suffice for that. There is an unfathomable depth in language,
+layer following after layer, long before we arrive at roots, and what
+a time and what an effort must have been required for their
+elaboration, and for the elaboration of the ideas expressed in them.
+
+Our battles waxed sometimes very fierce, but we generally ended by
+arriving at an understanding. As a young man, Bunsen had clearly
+perceived the importance of the Veda for an historical study of
+mankind and the growth of the human mind, but he was not discouraged
+when he saw that it gave us less than had been expected. “It is a
+fortress,” he used to say, “that must be besieged and taken, it cannot
+be left in our rear.” But he little knew how much time it would take
+to approach it, to surround it, and at last to take it. It has not
+been surrendered even now, and will not be in my time. It is true
+there are several translations of the whole of the Rig-veda, and their
+authors deserve the highest credit for what they have done. People
+have wondered why I have not given one of them in my Sacred Books of
+the East. I thought it was more honest to give, in co-operation with
+Oldenburg, specimens only in vols. xxxii and xlvi of that series, and
+let it be seen in the notes how much uncertainty there still is, and
+how much more of hard work is required, before we can call ourselves
+masters of the old Vedic fortress.
+
+Bunsen’s interest in my work, however, took a more practical turn than
+mere encouragement. It was no good encouraging me to copy and collate
+Sanskrit MSS. if they were not to be published. He saw that the East
+India Company were the proper body to undertake that work. Bunsen’s
+name was a power in England, and his patronage was the very best
+introduction that I could have had. It was no easy task to persuade
+the Board of Directors—all strictly practical and commercial men—to
+authorize so considerable an expenditure, merely to edit and print an
+old book that none of them could understand, and many of them had
+perhaps never even heard of. Bunsen pointed out what a disgrace it
+would be to them, if some other country than England published this
+edition of the Sacred Books of the Brahmans.
+
+Professor Wilson, Librarian of the Company, also gave my project his
+support, and at last, not quite a year after my arrival in England,
+after a long struggle and many fears of failure, it was settled that
+the East India Company were to bear the cost of printing the Veda, and
+were meanwhile to enable me to stay in London, and prepare my work for
+press.
+
+I had already been working five years copying and collating, and my
+first volume of the Rig-veda was progressing, but it was only when all
+was settled that I realized how much there was still to do, and that I
+should have very hard work indeed before the printing could begin. I
+must enter into some details to show the real difficulties I had to
+face.
+
+I felt convinced that the first thing to do was to publish a correct
+text of the Rig-veda. That was not so difficult, though it brought me
+the greatest kudos. The MSS. were very correct, and the text could
+easily be restored by comparing the Pada and Sanhitâ texts, i. e. the
+text in which every word was separated, and the text in which the
+words were united according to the rules of Sandhi. Anybody might have
+done that, yet this, as I said, was the part of my work for which I
+have received the greatest praise.
+
+When my edition of the Rig-veda containing text and commentary was
+nearly finished, another scholar, who had assisted me in my work, and
+who had always had the use of my MSS., my Indices, in fact of the
+whole of my _apparatus criticus_, published a transcript of the text
+in Latin letters, and thus anticipated part of the last volume of my
+edition. His friends, who were perhaps not mine, seemed delighted to
+call him the first editor of the Rig-veda, though they ceased to do so
+when they discovered misprints or mistakes of my own edition repeated
+in his. He himself was far above such tactics. He knew, and they knew
+perfectly well that, whatever the _vulgus profanum_ may think, my real
+work was the critical edition of Sâyana’s commentary on the Rig-veda.
+I had determined that this also should be edited according to the
+strictest rules of criticism. I knew what an amount of labour that
+would involve, but I refused to yield to the pressure of my colleagues
+to proceed more quickly but less critically.
+
+Sâyana quotes a number of Sanskrit works which, at the time when I
+began my edition, had not yet been edited. Such were the Nirukta, the
+glossary of the Rig-veda; the Aitareya-brâhmana, a very old
+explanation of the Vedic sacrifice; the Âsvalâyana Sûtras, on the
+ceremonial; and sundry works of the same character. Sâyana generally
+alludes very briefly only to these works and presupposes that they are
+known to us, so that a short reference would suffice for his purposes.
+To find such references and to understand them required, however, not
+only that I should copy these works, which I did, but that I should
+make indices and thus be able to find the place of the passages to
+which he alluded. This I did also, but over and over again was I
+stopped by some short enigmatical reference to Pânini’s grammar or
+Yaska’s glossary, which I could not identify. All these references are
+now added to my edition, and those who will look them up in the
+originals, will see what kind of work it was which I had to do before
+a single line of my edition could be printed. How often was I in
+perfect despair, because there was some allusion in Sâyana which I
+could not make out, and which no other Sanskrit scholar, not even
+Burnouf or Wilson, could help me to clear up. It often took me whole
+days, nay, weeks, before I saw light. A good deal of the commentary
+was easy enough. It was like marching on the high road, when suddenly
+there rises a fortress that has to be taken before any further advance
+is to be thought of. In the purely mechanical part other men could and
+did help me. But whenever any real difficulty arose, I had to face it
+by myself, though after a time I gladly acknowledged that here, too,
+their advice was often valuable to me. In fact I found, and all my
+assistants seemed to have found out the same, that if they were
+useful to me, the work they did for me was useful to them, and I am
+proud to say that nearly all of them have afterwards risen to great
+prominence in Sanskrit scholarship. From time to time I also worked at
+interpreting and translating some of the Vedic hymns, though I had
+always hoped that this part of the work would be taken up by other
+scholars.
+
+Bunsen was also my social sponsor in London, and my first peeps into
+English society were at the Prussian Legation. He often invited me to
+his breakfast and dinner parties, and when I saw for the first time
+the magnificent rooms crowded with ministers, and dukes, and bishops,
+and with ladies in their grandest dresses, I was as in a dream, and
+felt as if I had been lifted into another world. Men were pointed out
+to me such as Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Van der Weyer,
+the Belgian Minister, Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David’s and author of
+the _History of Greece_, Archdeacon Hare, Frederick Maurice, and many
+more whom I did not know then, though I came to know several of them
+afterwards. Anybody who had anything of his own to produce was welcome
+in Bunsen’s house, and among the men whom I remember meeting at his
+breakfast parties, were Rawlinson, Layard, Hodgson, Birch, and many
+more. Those breakfast parties were then quite a new institution to me,
+and it is curious how entirely they have gone out of fashion, though
+Sir Harry Inglis, Member for Oxford, Gladstone, Member for Oxford,
+Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), kept them up to the last,
+while in Oxford they survived perhaps longer than anywhere else. They
+had one great advantage, people came to them quite fresh in the
+morning; but they broke too much into the day, particularly when, as
+at Oxford, they ended with beer, champagne, and cigars, as was
+sometimes the case in undergraduates’ rooms.
+
+How I was able to swim in that new stream, I can hardly understand
+even now. I had been quite unaccustomed to this kind of society, and
+was ignorant of its simplest rules. Bunsen, however, was never put out
+by my gaucheries, but gave me friendly hints in feeling my way through
+what seemed to me a perfect labyrinth. He told me that I had offended
+people by not returning their calls, or not leaving a card after
+having dined with them, paying the so-called digestion-visit to them.
+How should I know? Nobody had ever told me, and I thought it obtrusive
+to call. Nor did I know that in England to touch fish with a knife, or
+to help yourself to potatoes with a fork, was as fatal as to drop or
+put in an _h_. 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
+fork, often scattering it over your plate and possibly over the
+table-cloth. I must confess also that fish-knives always seemed to me
+more civilized than forks in dividing fish, but fish-knives did not
+exist when I first came to England. 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 discarded. Let us hope it is
+by the survival of the fittest. When I first went to Oxford everybody
+took wine with his neighbours, now it is only at such conservative
+colleges as my own—All Souls—that the old custom still survives. But
+then we have not even given up wax candles yet, and we look upon gas
+as a most objectionable innovation.
+
+Another great difficulty I had was in writing letters and addressing
+my friends properly as Sir, or Mr. Smith, or Smith. I was told that
+the rule was very simple and that you addressed everybody exactly as
+they addressed you. What was the consequence? When I received an
+invitation to dine with the Bishop of Oxford who addressed me as “My
+dear Sir,” I wrote back “My dear Sir,” and said that I should be very
+happy. How Samuel Wilberforce must have chuckled when he read my
+epistle. But how is any stranger to know all the intricacies of social
+literature, particularly if he is wrongly informed by the highest
+authorities. I must confess that even later in life I have often been
+puzzled as to the right way of addressing my friends. There is no
+difficulty about intimate friends, but as one grows older one knows
+so many people more or less intimately, and according to their
+different characters and stations in life, one often does not know
+whether one offends by too great or too little familiarity. I was once
+writing to a very eminent man in London who had been exceedingly
+friendly to me at Oxford, and I addressed him as “My dear Professor
+H.” At the end of his answer he wrote, “Don’t call me Professor.” All
+depends on the tone in which such words are said. I imagined that
+living in fashionable society in London, he did not like the somewhat
+scholastic title of Professor which, in London particularly, has
+always a by-taste of diluted omniscience and conceit. I accordingly
+addressed him in my next letter as “My dear Sir,” and this, I am sorry
+to say, produced quite a coldness and stiffness, as my friend
+evidently imagined that I declined to be on more intimate terms with
+him, the fact being that through life I have always been one of his
+most devoted admirers. I did my best to conform to all the British
+institutions, as well as I could, though in the beginning I must no
+doubt have made fearful blunders, and possibly given offence to the
+truly insular Briton. Bunsen seemed to delight in asking me whenever
+he had Princes or other grandees to lunch or dine with him.
+
+One day he took me with him to stay at Hurstmonceux with Archdeacon
+Hare, and a delightful time it was. There were books in every room,
+on the staircase, and in every corner of the house, and the Archdeacon
+knew every one of them, and as soon as a book was mentioned, he went
+and fetched it. He generally knew the very place at which the passage
+that was being discussed, occurred, and excelled even the famous dog,
+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 _History_, and at once climbed up the ladder
+and brought down from the shelf the very volume in which the disputed
+passage occurred. He had been taught this one trick of fetching a
+certain volume from the shelves of the library, and the conversation
+was turned and turned till it was brought round to a passage in that
+very volume. The guests were, no doubt, amazed, but as it was before
+the days of Darwin and Lubbock, it led to no more than a good laugh. I
+was surprised and delighted at the honesty with which the Archdeacon
+admitted the weak points of the Anglican system, and the dangers which
+threatened not only the Church, but the religion of England. The real
+danger, he evidently thought, came from the clergy, and their
+hankering after Rome. “They have forgotten their history,” he said,
+“and the sufferings which the sway of a Roman priesthood has inflicted
+for centuries on their country.” I think it was he who told me the
+story of a young Romanizing curate, who declared that he could never
+see what was the use of the laity.
+
+One day when I called on Bunsen with my books, and I frequently called
+when I had something new to show him, he said: “You must come with me
+to Oxford to the meeting of the British Association.” This was in
+1847. Of course I did not know what sort of thing this British
+Association was, but Bunsen said he would explain it all to me, only I
+must at once sit down and write a paper. He, Bunsen, was to read a
+paper on the “Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference
+to Asiatic and African Ethnology and the Classification of Languages,”
+and he wanted Dr. Karl Meyer and myself to support him, the former
+with a paper on Celtic Philology, and myself with a paper on the Aryan
+and Aboriginal Languages of India. I assured him that this was quite
+beyond me. I had hardly been a year in England, and even if I could
+write, I knew but too well that I could not read a paper before a
+large audience. However, Bunsen would take no refusal. “We must show
+them what we have done in Germany for the history and philosophy of
+language,” he said, “and I reckon on your help.” There was no escape,
+and to Oxford I had to go. I was fearfully nervous, for, as Prince
+Albert was to be present, ever so many distinguished people had
+flocked to the meeting, and likewise some not very friendly
+ethnologists, such as Dr. Latham, and Mr. Crawford, known by the name
+of the Objector General. Our section was presided over by the famous
+Dr. Prichard, the author of that classical work, _Researches into the
+Physical History of Mankind_, in five volumes, and it was he who
+protected me most chivalrously against the somewhat frivolous
+objections of certain members, who were not over friendly towards
+Prince Albert, Chevalier Bunsen, and all that was called German in
+scholarship. All, however, went off well. Bunsen’s speech was most
+successful, and it is a pity that it should be buried in the
+_Transactions of the British Association for 1847_. At that time it
+was considered a great honour that his speech should appear there _in
+extenso_. When Bunsen declared that he would not give it, unless Dr.
+Meyer’s paper and my own were published in the _Transactions_ at the
+same time, there was renewed opposition. I was so little proud of my
+own essay, that I should much rather have kept it back for further
+improvement, but printed it was in the _Transactions_, and much
+canvassed at the time in different journals.
+
+I have always been doubtful about the advantages of these public
+meetings, so far as any scientific results are concerned. Everybody
+who pays a guinea may become a member and make himself heard, whether
+he knows anything on the subject or not. The most ignorant men often
+occupy the largest amount of time. Some people look upon these
+congresses simply as a means of advertising themselves, and I have
+actually seen quoted among a man’s titles to fame the fact that he had
+been a member of certain congresses. Another drawback is that no one,
+not even the best of scholars, is quite himself before a mixed
+audience. Whereas in a private conversation a man is glad to receive
+any new information, no one likes to be told in public that he ought
+to have known this or that, or that every schoolboy knows it. Then
+follows generally a squabble, and the best pleader is sure to have the
+laughter on his side, however ignorant he may be of the subject that
+is being discussed. But Dr. Prichard was an excellent president and
+moderator, and though he had unruly spirits to deal with, he succeeded
+in keeping up a certain decorum among them. Dr. Prichard’s authority
+stood very high, and justly so, and his _Researches into the Physical
+History of Mankind_ still remain unparalleled in ethnology. His
+careful weighing of facts and difficulties went out of fashion when
+the theory of evolution became popular, and every change from a flea
+to an elephant was explained by imperceptible degrees. He dealt
+chiefly with what was perceptible, with well-observed facts, and many
+of the facts which he marshalled so well, require even now, in these
+post-Darwinian days I should venture to say, renewed consideration.
+Like all great men, he was wonderfully humble, and allowed me to
+contradict him, who ought to have been proud to listen and to learn
+from him.
+
+But though I cannot say that the result of these meetings and
+wranglings was very great or valuable, I spent a few most delightful
+days at Oxford, and I could not imagine a more perfect state of
+existence than to be an undergraduate, a fellow, or a professor there.
+A kind of silent love sprang up in my heart, though I hardly confessed
+it to myself, much less to the object of my affections. I knew I had
+to go back to be a University tutor or even a master in a public
+school in Germany, and that was a hard life compared with the freedom
+of Oxford. To be independent and free to work as I liked, that was
+everything to me, but how I ever succeeded in realizing my ideal, I
+hardly know. At that time I saw nothing but a life of drudgery and
+severe struggle before me, but I did not allow myself to dwell on it;
+I simply worked on, without looking either right or left, behind or
+before.
+
+While at Oxford on this my first flying visit, I had a room in
+University College, the very college in which my son was hereafter to
+be an undergraduate. My host was Dr. Plumptre, the Master of the
+College, a tall, stiff, and to my mind, very imposing person. He was
+then Vice-Chancellor, and I believe I never saw him except in his cap
+and gown and with two bedels walking before him, the one with a gold,
+the other with a silver poker in his hands. We have no Esquire bedels
+any longer! All the professors, too, and even the undergraduates,
+dressed in their mediaeval academic costume, looked to me very grand,
+and so different from the German students at Leipzig or still more at
+Jena, walking about the streets in pink cotton trousers and
+dressing-gowns. It seemed to me quite a different world, and I made
+new discoveries every day. Being with Bunsen I was invited to all the
+official dinners during the meeting of the British Association, and
+here, too, the Vice-Chancellor acted his part with becoming dignity.
+He never unbent; he never indulged in a joke or joined in the laughter
+of his neighbours. When I remarked on his immovable features, I was
+told that he slept in starched sheets—and I believed it. At one of
+these dinners, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte caused a titter during a
+speech about the freedom which people enjoyed in England. “In France,”
+he said, “with all the declamations about _Liberté_, _Égalité_,
+_Fraternité_, there is very little freedom, and, with all the trees of
+_liberté_ which are being planted along the boulevards, there is very
+little of real liberty to be found there!” “But you in England,” he
+finished, “you have your old tree of liberty, which is always
+flowering and showering _peas_ on the whole world.” He wanted to say
+peace. We tried to look solemn but failed, and a suppressed laugh went
+round till it reached the Vice-Chancellor. There it stopped. He was
+far too well bred to allow a single muscle of his face to move. “He
+throws a cold blanket on everything,” my neighbour said; and my
+knowledge of English was still so imperfect that I accepted many of
+these metaphorical remarks in their literal sense, and became more and
+more puzzled about my host. It was evidently a pleasure to my friends
+to see how easily I was taken in. On the walls of the houses at Oxford
+I saw the letters F. P. about ten feet from the ground. Of course it
+was meant for Fire Plug, but I was told that it marked the height of
+the Vice-Chancellor, whose name was Frederick Plumptre.
+
+My visit to Oxford was over all too soon, and I returned to London to
+toil away at my Sanskrit MSS. in the little room that had been
+assigned to me in the Old East India House in Leadenhall Street. That
+building, too, in which the reins of the mighty Empire of India were
+held, mostly by the hands of merchants, has vanished, and the place of
+it knoweth it no more. However, I thought little of India, I only
+thought of the library at the East India House, a real Eldorado for an
+eager Sanskrit student, who had never seen such treasures before. I
+saw little else there, I only remember seeing Tippoo Sahib’s tiger
+which held an English soldier in his claws, and was regularly wound up
+for the benefit of visitors, and then uttered a loud squeak, enough to
+disturb even the most absorbed of students. I felt quite dazed by all
+the books and manuscripts placed at my disposal, and revelled in them
+every day till it became dark, and I had to walk home through Ludgate
+Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, generally carrying ever so many books
+and papers under my arms. I knew nobody in the city, and no one knew
+me; and what did I care for the world, as long as I had my beloved
+manuscripts?
+
+In March, 1848, I had to go over to Paris to finish up some work
+there, and just came in for the revolution. From my windows I had a
+fine view of all that was going on. I well remember the pandemonium in
+the streets, the aspect of the savage mob, the wanton firing of shots
+at quiet spectators, the hoisting of Louis Philippe’s nankeen trousers
+on the flag-staff of the Tuileries. When bullets began to come through
+my windows, I thought it time to be off while it was still possible.
+Then came the question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts,
+&c., belonging to the East India Company, to the train. The only
+railway open was the line to Havre, which had been broken up close to
+the station, but further on was intact, and in order to get there we
+had to climb three barricades. I offered my _concierge_ five francs to
+carry my box, but his wife would not hear of his risking his life in
+the streets; ten francs—the same result; but at the sight of a louis
+d’or she changed her mind, and with an “Allez, mon ami, allez
+toujours,” dispatched her husband on his perilous expedition. Arrived
+in London I went straight to the Prussian Legation, and was the first
+to give Bunsen the news of Louis Philippe’s flight from Paris. Bunsen
+took me off to see Lord Palmerston, 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 Paris. So even a poor scholar had to
+play his small part in the events that go to make up history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD
+
+
+It had been settled that my edition of the Rig-veda should be printed
+at the Oxford University Press, and I found that I had often to go
+there to superintend the printing. Not that the printers required much
+supervision, as I must say that the printing at the University Press
+was, and is, excellent—far better than anything I had known in
+Germany. In providing copy for a work of six volumes, each of about
+1000 pages, it was but natural that _lapsus calami_ should occur from
+time to time. What surprised me was that several of these were
+corrected in the proof-sheets sent to me. At last I asked whether
+there was any Sanskrit scholar at Oxford who revised my proof-sheets
+before they were returned. I was told there was not, but that the
+queries were made by the printer himself. That printer was an
+extraordinary man. His right arm was slightly paralysed, and he had
+therefore been put on difficult slow work, such as Sanskrit. There are
+more than 300 types which a printer must know in composing Sanskrit.
+Many of the letters in Sanskrit are incompatible, i. e. they cannot
+follow each other, or if they do, they have to be modified. Every
+_d_, for instance, if followed by a _t_, is changed to _t_; every _dh_
+loses its aspiration, becomes likewise _t_, or changes the next _t_
+into _dh_. Thus from _budh_ + _ta_, we have _Buddha_, i. e. awakened.
+In writing I had sometimes neglected these modifications, but in the
+proof-sheets these cases were always either queried or corrected. When
+I asked the printer, who did not of course know a word of Sanskrit,
+how he came to make these corrections, he said: “Well, sir, my arm
+gets into a regular swing from one compartment of types to another,
+and there are certain movements that never occur. So if I suddenly
+have to take up types which entail a new movement, I feel it, and I
+put a query.” An English printer might possibly be startled in the
+same way if in English he had to take up an _s_ immediately following
+an _h_. 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 Sanskrit. In spite of the extreme accuracy of my
+printer, however, I saw, that after all it would be better for myself,
+and for the Veda, if I were on the spot, and I decided to migrate from
+London to Oxford.
+
+My first visit had filled me with enthusiasm for the beautiful old
+town, which I regarded as an ideal home for a student. Besides, I
+found that I was getting too gay in London, and in order to be able to
+devote my evenings to society, I had to get up and begin work soon
+after five. May, therefore, saw me established for the first time in
+Oxford, in a small room in Walton Street. The moving of my books and
+papers from London did not take long. At that time my library could
+still be accommodated in my portmanteau, it had not yet risen to
+12,000 volumes, threatening to drive me out of my house. A happy time
+it was when I possessed no books which I had not read, and no one sent
+books to me which I did not want, and yet had to find a place for in
+my rooms, and to thank the author for his kindness.
+
+I at once found that my work went on more rapidly at Oxford than in
+London, though if I had expected to escape from all hospitality I
+certainly was not allowed to do that. Accustomed as I was to the
+Spartan diet of a German _convictorium_, or a dinner at the Palais
+Royal _à deux francs_, the dinners to which I was invited by some of
+the Fellows in Hall, or in Common Room, surprised me not a little. The
+old plate, the old furniture, and the whole style of living, impressed
+me deeply, particularly the after-dinner railway, an ingenious
+invention for lightening the trouble of the guests who took wine in
+Common Room. There was a small railway fixed before the fireplace, and
+on it a wagon containing the bottles went backwards and forwards,
+halting before every guest till he had helped himself. That railway, I
+am afraid, is gone now; and what is more serious, the pleasant, chatty
+evenings spent in Common Room are likewise a thing of the past.
+Married Fellows, if they dine in Hall, return home after dinner, and
+junior Fellows go to their books or pupils. In my early Oxford days, a
+married Fellow would have sounded like a solecism. The story goes that
+married Fellows were not entirely unknown, and that you could hold
+even a fellowship, if you could hold your tongue. Young people,
+however, who did not possess that gift of silence, had often to wait
+till they were fifty, before a college living fell vacant, and the
+quinquagenarian Fellow became a young husband and a young vicar.
+
+What impressed me, however, even more than the great hospitality of
+Oxford, was the real friendliness shown to an unknown German scholar.
+After all, I had done very little as yet, but the kind words which
+Bunsen and Dr. Prichard had spoken about me at the meeting of the
+British Association, had evidently produced an impression in my favour
+far beyond what I deserved. I must have seemed a very strange bird,
+such as had never before built his nest at Oxford. I was very young,
+but I looked even younger than I was, and my knowledge of the manners
+of society, particularly of English society, was really nil. Few
+people knew what I was working at. Some had a kind of vague impression
+that I had discovered a very old religion, older than the Jewish and
+the Christian, which contained the key to many of the mysteries that
+had puzzled the ancient, nay, even the modern world. Frequently, when
+I was walking through the streets of Oxford, I observed how people
+stared at me, and seemed to whisper some information about me.
+Tradespeople did not always trust me, though I never owed a penny to
+anybody; when I wanted money I could always make it by going on faster
+with printing the Rig-veda, for which I received four pounds a sheet.
+This seemed to me then a large sum, though many a sheet took me at
+first more than a week to get ready, copy, collate, understand, and
+finally print. If I was interested in any other subject, my exchequer
+suffered accordingly—but I could always retrieve my losses by sitting
+up late at night. Poor as I was, I never had any cares about money,
+and when I once began to write in English for English journals, I had
+really more than I wanted. My first article in the _Edinburgh Review_
+appeared in October, 1851.
+
+At that time the idea of settling at Oxford, of remaining in this
+academic paradise, never entered my head. I was here to print my
+Rig-veda and work at the Bodleian; that I should in a few years be an
+M.A. of Christ Church, a Fellow of the most exclusive of colleges,
+nay, a married Fellow—a being not even invented then—and a professor
+of the University, never entered into my wildest dreams. I could only
+admire, and admire with all my heart. Everything seemed perfect, the
+gardens, the walks in the neighbourhood, the colleges, and most of all
+the inhabitants of the colleges, both Fellows and undergraduates. 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—could, in fact, govern itself without a Minister of Education
+to appoint professors, without a Royal Commissioner to look after the
+undergraduates and their moral and political sentiments. And here at
+Oxford I was told that the Government did not know Oxford, nor Oxford
+the Government, that the only ruling power consisted in the Statutes
+of the University, that professors and tutors were perfectly free so
+long as they conformed to these statutes, and that certainly no
+minister could ever appoint or dismiss a professor, except the Regius
+professors. “If we want a thing done,” my friends used to explain to
+me, “we do it ourselves, as long as it does not run counter to the
+statutes.”
+
+But Oxford changes with every generation. It is always growing old,
+but it is always growing young again. There was an old Oxford four
+hundred years ago, and there was an old Oxford fifty years ago. To a
+man who is taking his M.A. degree, Oxford, as it was when he was a
+freshman, seems quite a thing of the past. By the public at large no
+place is supposed to be so conservative, so unchanging, nay, so
+stubborn in resisting new ideas, as Oxford; and yet people who knew it
+forty or fifty years ago, like myself, find it now so changed that,
+when they look back they can hardly believe it is the same place. Even
+architecturally the streets of the University have changed, and here
+not always for the better. Architects unfortunately object to mere
+imitation of the old Oxford style of building; they want to produce
+something entirely their own, which may be very good by itself, but is
+not always in harmony with the general tone of the college buildings.
+I still remember the outcry against the Taylor Institution, the only
+Palladian building at Oxford, and yet everybody has now grown
+reconciled to it, and even Ruskin lectured in it, which he would not
+have done, if he had disapproved of its architecture. He would never
+lecture in the Indian Institute, and wrote me a letter sadly reproving
+me for causing Broad Street to be defaced by such a building, when I
+had had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was very loud in his
+condemnation of other new buildings. He abused even the New Museum,
+though he had a great deal to do with it himself. He had hoped that it
+would be the architecture of the future, but he confessed after a time
+that he was not satisfied with the result.
+
+In his days we still had the old Magdalen Bridge, the Bodleian
+unrestored, and no trams. Ruskin was so offended by the new bridge, by
+the restored Bodleian, and by the tram-cars, that he would go ever so
+far round to avoid these eyesores, when he had to deliver his
+lectures; and that was by no means an easy pilgrimage. There was, of
+course, no use in arguing with him. Most people like the new Magdalen
+Bridge because it agrees better with the width of High Street; they
+consider the Bodleian well restored, particularly now that the new
+stone is gradually toning down to the colour of the old walls, and as
+to tram-cars, objectionable as they are in many respects, they
+certainly offend the eye less than the old dirty and rickety
+omnibuses. The new buildings of Merton, in the style of a London
+police-station, offended him deeply, and with more justice,
+particularly as he had to live next door to them when he had rooms at
+Corpus.
+
+These new buildings could not be helped at Oxford. The stone, with
+which most of the old colleges were built, was taken from a quarry
+close to Oxford, and began to peel off and to crumble in a very
+curious manner. Artists like these chequered walls, and by moonlight
+they are certainly picturesque, but the colleges had to think of what
+was safe. My own college, All Souls, has ever so many pinnacles, and
+we kept an architect on purpose to watch which of them were unsafe and
+had to be restored or replaced by new ones. Every one of these
+pinnacles cost us about fifty pounds, and at every one of our meetings
+we were told that so many pinnacles had been tested, and wanted
+repairing or replacing. Many years ago, when I was spending the whole
+Long Vacation at Oxford, I could watch from my windows a man who was
+supposed to be testing the strength of these pinnacles. He was armed
+with a large crowbar, which he ran with all his might against the
+unfortunate pinnacle. I doubt whether the walls of any Roman castellum
+could have resisted such a ram. I spoke to some of the Fellows, and
+when the builder made his next report to us, we rather objected to the
+large number of invalids. He was not to be silenced, however, so
+easily, but told us with a very grave countenance that he could not
+take the responsibility, as a pinnacle might fall any day on our
+Warden when he went to chapel. This, he thought, would settle the
+matter. But no, it made no impression whatever on the junior Fellows,
+and the number of annual cripples was certainly very much reduced in
+consequence.
+
+It is true that Oxford has always loved what is old better than what
+is new, and has resisted most innovations to the very last. A
+well-known liberal statesman used to say that when any measure of
+reform was before Parliament, he always rejoiced to see an Oxford
+petition against it, for that measure was sure to be carried very
+soon. It should not be forgotten, however, that there always has been
+a liberal minority at Oxford. It is still mentioned as something quite
+antediluvian, that Oxford, that is the Hebdomadal Council, petitioned
+against the Great Western Railway invading its sacred precincts; 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
+world.
+
+Many things, of course, have been changed, and are changing every year
+before our very eyes; but what can never be changed, in spite of some
+recent atrocities in brick and mortar, is the natural beauty of its
+gardens, and the historical character of its architecture. Whether
+Friar Bacon, as far back as the thirteenth century, admired the
+colleges, chapels, and gardens of Oxford, we do not know; and even if
+we did, few of them could have been the same as those which we admire
+to-day. 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 philosopher, who is sometimes claimed as a Fellow of Brasenose
+College, probably long before that College existed; but what is said
+in that play in praise of the University, may at least be taken as a
+recollection of what Greene saw himself, when he took his degree as
+Bachelor of Arts in 1578. In his play of the _History of Friar Bacon_,
+Greene introduces the Emperor of Germany, Henry II, 1212-50, as paying
+a visit to Henry III of England, 1216-73, and he puts into his mouth
+the following lines, which, though they cannot compare with Shelley’s
+or Mat Arnold’s, are at all events the earliest testimony to the
+natural attractions of Oxford. Anyhow, Shelley’s and Mat Arnold’s
+lines are well known and are always quoted, so that I venture to quote
+Greene’s lines, not for the sake of their beauty, but simply because
+they are probably known to very few of my readers:
+
+    “Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford schools
+     Are richly seated near the river-side:
+     The mountains full of fat and fallow deer,
+     The battling[10] pastures lade with kine and flocks,
+     The town gorgeous with high built colleges,
+     And scholars seemly in their grave attire.”
+
+  [10] Will it be believed that the battels (bills) in College
+  are connected with this word?
+
+The mountains round Oxford we must accept as a bold poetical licence,
+whether they were meant for Headington Hill or Wytham Woods. The
+German traveller, Hentzner, who described Oxford in 1598, is more true
+to nature when he speaks of the wooded hills that encompass the plain
+in which Oxford lies.
+
+But while the natural beauty of Oxford has always been admired and
+praised by strangers, the doctors and professors of the old University
+have not always fared so well at the hands of English and foreign
+critics. I shall not quote from Giordano Bruno, who visited England in
+1583-5, and calls Oxford “the widow of true science[11],” but Milton
+surely cannot be suspected of any prejudice against Oxford. Yet he
+writes in 1656 in a letter to Richard Jones: “There is indeed plenty
+of amenity and salubrity in the place when you are there. There are
+books enough for the needs of a University: if only the amenity of the
+spot contributed so much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does
+to pleasant living, nothing would seem wanting to the happiness of the
+place.”
+
+  [11] _Opere_, ed. Wagner, i. p. 179.
+
+These ill-natured remarks about the Oxford Dons seem to go on to the
+very beginning of our century. The buildings and gardens are praised,
+but by way of contrast, it would seem, or from some kind of jealousy,
+their inhabitants are always treated with ridicule. Not long ago a
+book was published, _Memoirs of a Highland Lady_. Though published in
+1898, it should be remembered that the memoirs go back as far as 1809.
+Nor should it be forgotten that at that time the authoress was hardly
+more than thirteen years of age, and certainly of a very girlish, not
+to say frivolous, disposition. She stayed some time with the then
+Master of University, Dr. Griffith, and for him, it must be said, she
+always shows a certain respect. But no one else at Oxford is spared.
+She arrived there at the time of Lord Grenville’s installation as
+Chancellor of the University. Though so young, she was taken to the
+Theatre, and this is her description of what she saw and heard:—“It
+was a shock to me; I had expected to be charmed with a play, instead
+of being nearly set to sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit.
+There were some purple, and some gold, some robes and some wigs, a
+great crowd, and some stir at times, while a deal of humdrum speaking
+and dumb show was followed by the noisy demonstrations of the
+students, as they applauded or condemned the honours bestowed; but in
+the main I tired of the heat and the mob, and the worry of these
+mornings, and so, depend upon it, did poor Lord Grenville, who sat up
+in the chair of state among the dignitaries, like the Grand Lama in
+his temple guarded by his priests.” One thing only she was delighted
+with, that was the singing of Catalani at one of the concerts. Yet
+even here she cannot repress her remark that she sang “Gott safe the
+King.” She evidently was a flippant young lady or child, and with her
+sister, who afterwards joined her at Oxford, seems to have found
+herself quite a fish out of water in the grave society of the
+University.
+
+The room in the Master’s Lodge which appalled her most and seems to
+have been used as a kind of schoolroom, was the Library, full of
+Divinity books, but without curtains, carpet, or fireplace. Here they
+had lessons in music, drawing, arithmetic, history, geography, and
+French. “And the Master,” she adds, “opened to us what had been till
+then a sealed book, the New Testament, so that this visit to Oxford
+proved really one of the fortunate chances of my life.”
+
+This speaks well for the young lady, who in later life seems to have
+occupied a most honoured and influential position in Scotch society.
+But Oxford society evidently found no favour in her eyes.
+
+Her uncle and aunt, as she tells us, were frequently out at dinner
+with other Heads of Houses, for there was, of course, no other
+society. These dinners seem to have been very sumptuous, though their
+own domestic life was certainly very simple. For breakfast they had
+tea, and butter on their bread, and at dinner a small glass of ale,
+college home-brewed ale. “How fat we got!” she exclaims. The Master
+seems to have been a man of refined taste, fond of drawing, and what
+was called poker-painting; he was given also to caricaturing, and
+writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently fond of his
+society, but of the other Oxford society she only mentions the
+ultra-Tory politics, and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of
+Houses. “The various Heads,” she writes, “with their respective wives,
+were extremely inferior to my uncle and aunt. More than half of the
+Doctors of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small gentry or
+country clergy, or even of a lower grade. Many of these, constant to
+the loves of their youth, brought ladies of inferior manners to grace
+what appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not a good style;
+there was little talent, and less polish, and no sort of knowledge of
+the world. And yet the ignorance of this class was less offensive than
+the assumption of another, when a lady of high degree had fallen in
+love with her brother’s tutor, and got him handsomely provided for in
+the Church, that she might excuse herself for marrying him. Of the
+lesser clergy, there were young witty ones—odious; young learned
+ones—bores; and elderly ones—pompous; all, however, of all grades,
+kind and hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble, gentle,
+considerate, and self-sacrificing, had no representative, as far as I
+could see, among these dealers in old wines, rich dinners, fine china,
+and massive plate.”
+
+“The religion of Oxford appeared in those days to consist in honouring
+the King and his Ministers, and in perpetually popping in and out of
+chapel. Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer, beaten on
+every staircase half an hour before by a scout. The education was
+suited to Divinity. A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the
+young, riotous community, 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 committed. There were rules that had in a
+general way to be obeyed, and lectures that had to be attended, but as
+for care to give high aims, provide refining amusements, give a worthy
+tone to the character of responsible beings, there was none ever even
+thought of. The very meaning of the word ‘education’ did not appear to
+be understood. The college was a fit sequel to the school. The young
+men herded together; they lived in their rooms, and they lived out of
+them, in the neighbouring villages, where many had comfortable
+establishments.... All sorts of contrivances were resorted to to
+enable the dissipated to remain out all night, to shield a culprit, to
+deceive the dignitaries.” This was in 1809, and even later.
+
+And yet with all this, and while we are told that those who attended
+lectures were laughed at, it seems strange that the best divines, and
+lawyers, and politicians of the first half of our century, some of
+whom we may have known ourselves, must have been formed under that
+system. We can hardly believe that it was as bad as here described,
+and we must remember that much of the _Memoirs_ of this Scotch lady
+can have been written from memory only, and long after the time when
+she and her sister lived at University College. Life there, no doubt,
+may have been very dull, as there were no other young ladies at
+Oxford, and it cannot have been very amusing for these young girls to
+dine with sixteen Heads of Houses, all in wide silk cassocks, scarves
+and bands, one or two in powdered wigs, so that, as we are told, they
+often went home crying. All intercourse with the young men was
+strictly forbidden, though it seems to have been not altogether
+impossible to communicate, from the garden of the Master’s Lodge, with
+the young men bending out of the college windows, or climbing down to
+the gardens.
+
+One of these young men, who was at University College at the same
+time, might certainly not have been considered a very desirable
+companion for these two Scotch girls. It was no other than Shelley.
+What they say of him does not tell us much that is new, yet it
+deserves to be repeated. “Mr. Shelley,” we read, “afterwards so
+celebrated, was half crazy. He began his career with every kind of
+wild prank at Eton. At University he was very insubordinate, always
+infringing some rule, the breaking of which he knew could not be
+overlooked. He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to about
+these and other irregularities, he was in the habit of making such
+extraordinary gestures, expressive of his humility under reproof, as
+to overset first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing
+tutor. When he proceeded so far as to paste up atheistical squibs on
+the chapel doors, it was considered necessary to expel him privately,
+out of regard to Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who came up at once.
+He and his son left Oxford together.”
+
+No one would recognize in this picture the University of Oxford, as it
+is at present. _Nous avons changé tout cela_ might be said with great
+truth by the Heads of Houses, the Professors, and Fellows of the
+present day. And yet what the Highland lady, or rather the Highland
+girl, describes, refers to times not so long ago but that some of the
+men we have known might have lived through it. How this change came
+about I cannot tell, though I can bear testimony to a few survivals of
+the old state of things.
+
+The Oxford of 1848 was still the Oxford of the Heads of Houses and of
+the Hebdomadal Board. That board consisted almost entirely of Heads of
+Houses, and a most important board it was, considering that the whole
+administration of the University was really in its hands. The
+colleges, on the other hand, were very jealous of their independence;
+and even the authority of the Proctors, who represented the University
+as such, was often contested within the gates of a college. It is
+wonderful that this old system of governing the University through the
+Heads of Houses should have gone on so long and so smoothly. Having
+been trusted by the Fellows of his own society with considerable power
+in the administration of his own college, it was supposed that the
+Head would prove equally useful in the administration of the
+University. A Head of a House became at once a member of the Council.
+And, on the whole, they managed to drive the coach and horses very
+well. But often when I had to take foreigners to hear the University
+Sermon, and they saw a most extraordinary set of old gentlemen walking
+into St. Mary’s in procession, with a most startling combination of
+colours, black and red, scarlet and pink, on their heavy gowns and
+sleeves, I found it difficult to explain who they were. “Are they your
+professors?” I was asked. “Oh, no,” I said, “the professors don’t wear
+red gowns, only Doctors of Divinity and of Civil Law, and as every
+Head of a House must have something to wear in public, he is
+invariably made a Doctor.” I remember one exception only, and at a
+much later time, namely, the Master of Balliol, who, like Canning at
+the Congress of Vienna, considered it among his most valued
+distinctions never to have worn the gown of a D.C.L. or D.D. It is
+well known that when Marshal Blücher was made a Doctor at Oxford he
+asked, in the innocence of his heart, that General Gneisenau, his
+right-hand man, might at least be made a chemist. He certainly had
+mixed a most effective powder for the French army under Napoléon.
+
+“But,” my friend would ask, “have you no _Senatus Academicus_, have
+you no faculties of professors such as there are in all other
+Christian universities?” “Yes and no,” I said. “We have professors,
+but they are not divided into faculties, and they certainly do not
+form the _Senatus Academicus_, or the highest authority in the
+University.”
+
+It seems very strange, but it is nevertheless a fact, that as soon as
+a good tutor is made a professor, he is considered of no good for the
+real teaching work of the colleges. His lectures are generally
+deserted; and I could quote the names of certain professors who
+afterwards rose to great eminence, but who at Oxford were simply
+ignored and their lecture-rooms deserted. The real teaching or
+coaching or cramming for examination is left to the tutors and Fellows
+of each college, and the examinations also are chiefly in their hands.
+Many undergraduates never see a professor, and, as far as the teaching
+work of the University is concerned, the professorships might safely
+be abolished. And yet, as I could honestly assure my foreign friends,
+the best men who take honour degrees at Oxford are quite the equals of
+the best men at Paris or Berlin. The professors may not be so
+distinguished, but that is due to a certain extent to the small
+salaries attached to some of the chairs. England has produced great
+names both in science and philosophy and scholarship, but these have
+generally drifted to some more attractive or lucrative centres. When I
+first came to Oxford one professor received £40 a year, another
+£1,500, and no one complained about these inequalities. A certain
+amount of land had been left by a king or bishop for endowing a
+certain chair, and every holder of the chair received whatever the
+endowment yielded. The mode of appointing professors was very curious
+at that time. Often the elections resembled parliamentary elections,
+far more regard being paid to political or theological partisanship
+than to scientific qualifications. Every M.A. had a vote, and these
+voters were scattered all over the country. Canvassing was carried on
+quite openly. Travelling expenses were freely paid, and lists were
+kept in each college of the men who could be depended on to vote for
+the liberal or the conservative candidate. Imagine a professor of
+medicine or of Greek being elected because he was a liberal! Some
+appointments rested with the Prime Minister, or, as it was called, the
+Crown; and it was quoted to the honour of the Duke of Wellington, that
+he, when Chancellor of the University, once insisted that the electors
+should elect the best man, and they had to yield, though there were
+electors who would declare their own candidate the best man, whatever
+the opinion of really qualified judges might be. All this election
+machinery is much improved now, though an infallible system of
+electing the best men has not yet been discovered. One single elector,
+who is not troubled by too tender a conscience, may even now vitiate a
+whole election; to say nothing of the painful position in which an
+elector is placed, if he has to vote against a personal friend or a
+member of his own college, 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 University.
+
+It took me some time before I could gain an insight into all this. The
+old system passed away before my very eyes, not without evident
+friction between my different friends, and then came the difficulty of
+learning to understand the working of the new machinery which had been
+devised and sanctioned by Parliament. Reformers arose even among the
+Heads of Houses, as, for instance, Dr. Jeune, the Master of Pembroke
+College, who was credited with having _rajeuni l’ancienne université_.
+But he was by no means the only, or even the chief actor in University
+reform. Many of my personal friends, such as Dr. Tait, afterwards
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rev. H. G. Liddell, afterwards Dean of
+Christ Church, Professor Baden-Powell, and the Rev. G. H. S. Johnson,
+afterwards Dean of Wells, with Stanley and Goldwin Smith as
+Secretaries, did honest service in the various Royal and Parliamentary
+Commissions, and spent much of their valuable time in serving the
+University and the country. I could do no more than answer the
+questions addressed to me by the Commissioners and by my friends, and
+this is really all the share I had at that time in the reform of the
+University, or what was called Germanizing the English Universities.
+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 dinner, because the Heads of Houses would no longer
+admit him to their hospitable boards.
+
+Certainly to have been a member of the much abused Hebdomadal Board,
+and a Head of a College in those pre-reform days must have been a
+delightful life. Before the days of agricultural distress the income
+of the colleges was abundant; the authority of the Heads was
+unquestioned in their own colleges; not only undergraduates, but
+Fellows also had to be submissive. No junior Fellow would then have
+dared to oppose his Head at college meetings. If there was by chance
+an obstreperous junior, he was easily silenced or requested to retire.
+The days had not yet come when a Master of Trinity ventured to remark
+that even a junior Fellow might possibly be mistaken. Colleges seemed
+to be the property of the Heads, and in some of them the Fellows were
+really chosen by them, and the rest of the Fellows after some kind of
+examination. The management of University affairs was likewise
+entirely in the hands of the Heads of Colleges, and it was on rare
+occasions only that a theological question stirred the interest of
+non-resident M.A.s, and brought them to Oxford to record their vote
+for or against the constituted authorities. Men like the Dean of
+Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, the Warden of Wadham, Dr. Parsons, and
+the Provost of Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, were in their dominions supreme,
+till the rebellious spirit began to show itself in such men as Dr.
+Jeune, Professor Baden-Powell, A. P. Stanley, Goldwin Smith and
+others.
+
+Nor were there many very flagrant abuses under the old régime. It was
+rather the want of life that was complained of. It began to be felt
+that Oxford should take its place as an equal by the side of foreign
+Universities, not only as a high school, but as a home of what then
+was called for the first time “original research.” There can be no
+question that as a teaching body, as a high school at the head of all
+the public schools in England, Oxford did its duty nobly. A man who at
+that time could take a Double First was indeed a strong man, well
+fitted for any work in after life. He would not necessarily turn out
+an original thinker, a scholar, or a discoverer in physical science,
+but he would know what it was to know anything thoroughly. To take
+honours at the same time in classics and mathematics required strength
+and grasp, and the effort was certainly considerable, as I found out
+when occasionally I read a Greek or Latin author with a young
+undergraduate friend. What struck me most was the accurate knowledge
+a candidate acquired of special authors and special books, but also
+the want of that familiarity with the language, Greek or Latin, which
+would enable him to read any new author with comparative ease. The
+young men whom I knew at the time they went in for their final
+examination, were certainly well grounded in classics, and what they
+knew they knew thoroughly.
+
+The personal relations existing between undergraduates and their
+tutors were very intimate. A tutor took a pride in his pupils, and
+often became their friend for life. The teaching was almost private
+teaching, and the idea of reading a written lecture to a class in
+college did not exist as yet. It was real teaching with questions and
+answers; while lectures, written and read out, were looked down upon
+as good enough for professors, but entirely useless for the schools.
+The social tone of the University was excellent. Many of the tutors
+and of the undergraduates came of good families, and the struggle for
+life, or for a college living, or college office, was not, as yet, so
+fierce as it became afterwards. College tutors toiled on for life, and
+certainly did their work to the last most conscientiously. There was
+perhaps little ambition, little scheming or pushing, but the work of
+the University, such as the country would have it, was well done. If
+the Honour-Lists were small, the number of utter failures also was not
+very large.
+
+For a young scholar, like myself, who came to live at Oxford in those
+distant days, the peace and serenity of life were most congenial,
+though several of my friends were among the first who began to fret,
+and wished for more work to be done and for better use to be made of
+the wealth and the opportunities of the University. My impression at
+that time was the same as it has been ever since, that a reform of the
+Universities was impossible till the public schools had been
+thoroughly reformed. The Universities must take what the schools send
+them. There is every year a limited number of boys from the best
+schools who would do credit to any University. But a large number of
+the young men who are sent up to matriculate at Oxford are not up to
+an academic standard. Unless the colleges agree to stand empty for a
+year or two, they cannot help themselves, but have to keep the
+standard of the matriculation examination low, and in fact do, to a
+great extent, the work that ought to have been done at school. Think
+of boys being sent up to Oxford, who, after having spent on an average
+six years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line of Greek
+or Latin which they have not seen before. Yet so it was, and so it is,
+unless I am very much misinformed. It is easy for some colleges who
+keep up a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class men;
+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 degree, and few
+people have any idea how little a pass degree may mean. Those tutors
+have indeed hard work to do and get little credit for it, though their
+devotion to their college and their pupils is highly creditable. Fifty
+years ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is now,
+because candidates were not allowed to pass in different subjects at
+different times, but the whole examination had to be done all at once,
+or not at all.
+
+I had naturally made it a rule at Oxford to stand aloof from the
+conflict of parties, whether academical, theological, or political. I
+had my own work to do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude
+my opinions, which naturally were different from those prevalent at
+Oxford. Most people like to wash their dirty linen among themselves;
+and though I gladly talked over such matters with my friends who often
+consulted me, I did not feel called upon to join in the fray. I lived
+through several severe crises at Oxford, and though I had some
+intimate friends on either side, I remained throughout a looker on.
+
+Seldom has a University passed through such a complete change as
+Oxford has since the year 1854. And yet the change was never violent,
+and the University has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated
+and reinvigorated. It has been said that our constitution has now
+become too democratic, and that a University should be ruled by a
+Senatus rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain extent.
+There has been too much unrest, too constant changes, and a lack of
+continuity in the studies and in the government of the University.
+Every three years a new wave of young masters came in, carried a
+reform in the system of teaching and examining, and then left to make
+room for a new wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones had a
+fair trial. Senior members of the University, heads of houses and
+professors, have no more voting power than the young men who have just
+taken their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than these
+young Masters, who always meet together and form a kind of compact
+phalanx when votes are to be taken. There was even a Non-placet club,
+ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the
+reforming party, or threatened to change any established customs,
+whether beneficial or otherwise to the University. The University, as
+such, was far less considered than the colleges, and money drawn from
+the colleges for University purposes was looked upon as robbery,
+though of course the colleges profited by the improvement of the
+University, and the interests of the two ought never to have been
+divided, as little as the interests of an army can be divided from the
+interests of each regiment.
+
+When I came to Oxford there was still practically no society except
+that of the Heads of Houses, and there were no young ladies to grace
+their dinners. Each head took his turn in succession, and had twice or
+three times during term to feed his colleagues. These dinners were
+sumptuous repasts, though they often took place as early as five. To
+be invited to them was considered a great distinction, and, though a
+very young man, I was allowed now and then to be present, and I highly
+appreciated the honour. The company consisted almost entirely of Heads
+of Houses, Canons, and Professors; sometimes there was a sprinkling of
+distinguished persons from London, and even of ladies of various ages
+and degrees. I confess I often sat among them, as we say in German,
+_verrathen und verkauft_. After dinner I saw a number of young men
+streaming in, and thought the evening would now become more lively.
+But far from it. These young men with white ties and in evening dress
+stood in their scanty gowns huddled together on one side of the room.
+They received a cup of tea, but no one noticed them or spoke to them,
+and they hardly dared to speak among themselves. This, as I was told,
+was called “doing the perpendicular,” and they must have felt much
+relieved when towards ten o’clock they were allowed to depart, and
+exchange the perpendicular for a more comfortable position, indulging
+in songs and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to join.
+
+At that time I remember only very few houses outside the circle of
+Heads of Houses, where there was a lady and a certain amount of social
+life—the houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor Baden-Powell,
+Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell. In their houses there was less of
+the strict academical etiquette, and as they were fond of music,
+particularly the Donkins, I spent some really delightful evenings with
+them. Nay, as I played on the pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses
+began to patronize music at their evening parties, though no gentleman
+at that time would have played at Oxford. I being a German, and
+Professor Donkin being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play,
+and we certainly had an appreciative, though not always a silent,
+audience.
+
+In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships was still very
+perceptible in the society of the University. No Fellows were allowed
+to marry, and the natural consequence was that most of them waited for
+a college living, a professorship or librarianship, which generally
+came to them when they were no longer young men. Headships of colleges
+also had so long to be waited for that most of them were generally
+filled by very senior and mostly unmarried men. Besides, headships
+were but seldom given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even
+divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity, and for business
+habits. Some of the Fellows gave pleasant and, as I thought, very
+Lucullic dinners in college; and I still remember my surprise when I
+was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at Jesus College. My host
+was Mr. Ffoulkes, who afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an
+Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains, the whole
+furniture and the plate quite confounded me, 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 English.
+
+The City society was completely separated from the University society,
+so that even rich bankers and other gentlemen would never have
+ventured to ask members of the University to dine.
+
+Considering the position then held by the Heads of Houses, I feel I
+ought to devote some pages to describing some of the most prominent of
+them. At my age I may well hold to the maxim _seniores priores_, and
+will therefore begin with Dr. Routh, the centenarian President of
+Magdalen, as, though, the headship of a house seems to be an excellent
+prescription for longevity, there was no one to dispute the venerable
+doctor’s claim to precedence in this respect. He was then nearly a
+hundred years old, and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his
+wish to have the _C, anno centesimo_, on his gravestone, for, though
+tired of life, he often declared, so I was told, that he would not be
+outdone in this respect by another very old man, who was a dissenter;
+he never liked to see the Church beaten. I might have made his
+personal acquaintance, some friends of the old President offering to
+present me to him. But I did not avail myself of their offer, because
+I knew the old man did not like to be shown as a curiosity. When I saw
+him sitting at his window he always wore a wig, and few had seen him
+without his wig and without his academic gown. He was certainly an
+exceptional man, and I believe he stood alone in the whole history of
+literature, as having published books at an interval of seventy years.
+His edition of the _Enthymemes_ and _Gorgias of Plato_ was published
+in 1784, his papers on the _Ignatian Epistles_ in 1854. His _Reliquia
+Sacra_ first appeared in 1814, and they are a work which at that time
+would have made the reputation of any scholar and divine. His editions
+of historical works, such as Burnet’s _History of his own Time_ and
+the _History of the reign of King James_, show his considerable
+acquaintance with English history. I have already mentioned how he
+used to speak of events long before his time, such as the execution of
+Charles I, as if he had been present; nor did he hesitate to declare
+that even Bishop Burnet was a great liar. He certainly had seen many
+things which connected him with the past. He had seen Samuel Johnson
+mounting the steps of the Clarendon building in Broad Street, and
+though he had not himself seen Charles I when he held his Parliament
+at Oxford, he had known a lady whose mother had seen the king walking
+round the Parks at Oxford.
+
+However, we must not forget that many stories about the old President
+were more or less mythical, as indeed many Oxford stories are. I was
+told that he actually slept in wig, cap and gown, so that once when
+an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle of his College, he put
+his head out of window in an incredibly short time, fully equipped as
+above. Many of these stories or “Common-Roomers” as they were called,
+still lived in the Common Rooms in my time, when the Fellows of each
+College assembled regularly after dinner, to take wine and dessert,
+and to talk on anything but what was called _Shop_, i. e. Greek and
+Latin. No one inquired about the truth of these stories, as long as
+they were well told. In a place like Oxford there exists a regular
+descent, by inheritance, of good stories. I remember stories told of
+Dr. Jenkins, as Master of Balliol, and afterwards transferred to his
+successor, Mr. Jowett. Bodleian stories descended in like manner from
+Dr. Bandinell to Mr. Coxe, and will probably be told of successive
+librarians till they become quite incongruous. I am old enough to have
+watched the descent of stories at Oxford, just as one recognizes the
+same furniture in college rooms occupied by successive generations of
+undergraduates. To me they sometimes seem threadbare like the old
+Turkish carpets in the college rooms, but I never spoil them by
+betraying their age, and, if well told, I can enjoy them as much as if
+I had never heard them before.
+
+Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, was quite a representative of Old
+Oxford, and a well-known character in the University. I had been
+introduced to him by Baron Bunsen, and he showed me much hospitality.
+I was warned that I should find him very stiff and forbidding. His own
+Fellows called him the East-wind. But though he certainly was
+condescending, he treated me with great urbanity. He had a very
+peculiar habit; when he had to shake hands with people whom he
+considered his inferiors, he stretched out two fingers, and if some of
+them who knew this peculiarity of his, tendered him two fingers in
+return, the shaking of hands became rather awkward. One of the Fellows
+of his college told me that, as long as he was only a Fellow, he never
+received more than two fingers; when, however, he became Head Master
+of a school, he was rewarded with three fingers, or even with the
+whole hand, but, as soon as he gave up this place, and returned to
+live in college, he was at once reduced to the statutable two fingers.
+I don’t recollect exactly how many fingers I was treated to, and I may
+have shaken them with my whole hand. Anyhow, I am quite conscious now
+of how many times I must have offended against academic etiquette.
+How, for instance, is a man to know that people who live at Oxford
+during term-time never shake hands except once during term? I doubt,
+in fact, whether that etiquette existed when I first came to Oxford,
+but it certainly had existed for some time before I discovered it.
+
+Dr. Jenkins, Master of Balliol, was also the hero of many anecdotes.
+It was of him that it was first told how he once found fault with an
+undergraduate because, whenever he looked out of window, he
+invariably saw the young man loitering about in the quad; to which the
+undergraduate replied: “How very curious, for whenever I cross the
+quad, I always see you, Sir, looking out of window.” He had a quiet
+humour of his own, and delighted in saying things which made others
+laugh, but never disturbed a muscle of his own face. One of his
+undergraduates was called Wyndham, and he had to say a few sharp words
+to him at “handshaking,” that is, at the end of term. After saying all
+he wanted, he finished in Latin: “Et nunc valeas Wyndhamme,”—the last
+two syllables being pronounced with great emphasis. The Master’s
+regard for his own dignity was very great. Once, when returning from a
+solitary walk, he slipped and fell. Two undergraduates seeing the
+accident ran to assist him, and were just laying hands on him to lift
+him up, when he descried a Master of Arts coming. “Stop,” he cried,
+“stop, I see a Master of Arts coming down the street.” And he
+dismissed the undergraduates with many thanks, and was helped on to
+his legs by the M.A.
+
+Accidents, or slips of the tongue, will happen to everybody, even to a
+Head of a House. One of these old gentlemen, Dr. Symons, of Wadham,
+when presiding at a missionary meeting, had to introduce Sir Peregrine
+Maitland, a most distinguished officer, and a thoroughly good man.
+When dilating on the Christian work which Sir Peregrine had done in
+India, he called him again and again Sir Peregrine Pickle. The effect
+was most ludicrous, for everybody was evidently well acquainted with
+_Roderick Random_, and Sir Peregrine had great difficulty in remaining
+serious when the Chairman called on Sir Peregrine Pickle once more to
+address his somewhat perplexed audience.
+
+But whatever may be said about the old Heads of Houses, most of them
+were certainly gentlemen both by birth and by nature. They are
+forgotten now, but they did good in their time, and much of their good
+work remains. If I consider who were the Dean and Canons and Students
+I met at Christ Church when I first became a member of the House, I
+should have to give a very different account from that given by the
+Highland lady in her _Memoirs_. The Dean of Christ Church, who
+received me, who proposed me for the degree of M.A., and afterwards
+allowed me to become a member of the House, was Dr. Gaisford, a real
+scholar, though it may be of the old school. He was considered very
+rough and rude, but I can only say he showed me more of real courtesy
+in those days than anybody else at Oxford. He was, I believe, a little
+shy, and easily put out when he suspected anybody, particularly the
+young men, of want of consideration. I can quite believe that when an
+undergraduate, in addressing him, stepped on the hearthrug on which he
+was standing, he may have said: “Get down from my hearthrug,” meaning,
+“keep at your proper distance.” I can only say that I never found him
+anything but kind and courteous. It so happened that he had been made
+a Member of the Bavarian Academy, and I, though very young, had
+received the same distinction as a reward for my Sanskrit work, and
+the Dean was rather pleased when he heard it. When I asked him whether
+he would put my name on the books of the House, he certainly hesitated
+a little, and asked me at last to come again next day and dine with
+him. I went, but I confess I was rather afraid that the Dean would
+raise difficulties. However, he spoke to me very nicely, “I have
+looked through the books,” he said, “and I find two precedents of
+Germans being members of the House, one of the name of Wernerus, and
+another of the name of Nitzschius,” or some such name. “But,” he
+continued, smiling, “even if I had not found these names, I should not
+have minded making a precedent of your case.” People were amazed at
+Oxford when they heard of the Dean’s courtesy, but I can only repeat
+that I never found him anything but courteous.
+
+Most of the Heads of Houses asked me to dine with them by sending me
+an invitation. The Dean alone first came and called on me. I was then
+living in a small room in Walton Street in which I worked, and dined,
+and smoked. My bedroom was close by, and I generally got up early, and
+shaved and finished my toilet at about 11 o’clock. I had just gone
+into my bedroom to shave, my face was half covered with lather, when
+my landlady rushed in and told me the Dean had called, and my dogs
+were pulling him about. The fact was I had a Scotch terrier with a
+litter of puppies in a basket, and when the Dean entered in full
+academical dress, the dogs flew at him, pulling the sleeves of his
+gown and barking furiously. Covered with lather as I was, I had to
+rush in to quiet the dogs, and in this state I had to receive the Very
+Rev. the Dean, and explain to him the nature of the work that brought
+me to Oxford. It was certainly awkward, but in spite of the disorder
+of my room, in spite also of the tobacco smoke of which the Dean did
+not approve, all went off well, though, I confess, I felt somewhat
+ashamed. In the same interview the Dean asked me about an Icelandic
+Dictionary which had been offered to the press by Cleasby and Dasent.
+“Surely it is a small barbarous island,” he said, “and how can they
+have any literature?” I tried, as well as I could, to explain to the
+Dean the extent and the value of Icelandic literature, and soon after
+the press, which was then the Dean, accepted the Dictionary which was
+brought out later by Dr. Vigfusson, in a most careful and scholarlike
+manner. It might indeed safely be called his Dictionary, considering
+how many dictionaries are called, not after the name of the compiler
+or compilers, but after that of their editor.
+
+This Dr. Vigfusson was quite a character. He was perfectly pale and
+bloodless, and had but one wish, that of being left alone. He came to
+Oxford first to assist Dr. Dasent, to whom Cleasby, when he died, had
+handed over his collections; but afterwards he stayed, taking it for
+granted that the University would give him the little he wanted. But
+even that little was difficult to provide, as there were no funds that
+could be used for that purpose, however uselessly other funds might
+seem to be squandered. That led to constant grumbling on his part.
+Ever so many expedients were tried to satisfy him, but none quite
+succeeded. At last he fell ill and died, and when he was a patient at
+the Acland Home, where the nurses did all they could for him, he
+several times said to me when I sat with him, that he had never been
+so happy in his life as in that Home. I sometimes blame myself for not
+having seen more of him at Oxford. But he always seemed to me full of
+suspicions and very easily offended, and that made any free
+intercourse with him difficult and far from pleasant. Perhaps it was
+my fault also. He may have felt that he might have claimed a
+professorship of Icelandic quite as well as I, and he may have grudged
+my settled position in Oxford, my independence and my freedom.
+Whenever we did work together, I always found him pleasant at first,
+but very soon he would become wayward and sensitive, do what I would,
+and I had to let him go his own way, as I went mine.
+
+I remember dining with the famous Dr. Bull, Canon of Christ Church,
+who certainly managed to produce a dinner that would have done credit
+to any French chef. He was one of the last pluralists, and many
+stories were told about him. One story, which however was perfectly
+true, showed at all events his great sagacity. A well-known banker had
+been for years the banker of Christ Church. Dr. Bull who was the
+College Bursar had to transact all the financial business with him. No
+one suspected the banking house which he represented. Dr. Bull,
+however, the last time he invited him to dinner, was struck by his
+very pious and orthodox remarks, and by the change of tone in his
+conversation, such as might suit a Canon of Christ Church, but not a
+luxurious banker from London. Without saying a word, Dr. Bull went to
+London next day, drew out all the money of the college, took all his
+papers from the bank, and the day after, to the dismay of London, the
+bank failed, the depositors lost their money, but Christ Church was
+unhurt.
+
+Another of the Canons of Christ Church at that time had spent half a
+century in the place, and read the lessons there twice every day. Of
+course he knew the prayer-book by heart, and as long as he could see
+to read there was no harm in his reading. But when his eyesight failed
+him and he had to trust entirely to his memory, he would often go from
+some word in the evening prayer to the same word in the marriage
+service, and from there to the burial service, with an occasional slip
+into baptism. 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 away. I frequently stayed at Oxford during vacation, and
+thought of course that the evening service would never end, till at
+last I was asked to name the child, and then I went home.
+
+One Sunday I remember going to chapel, and after prayers had begun the
+following conversation took place, loud enough to be heard all through
+the chapel. Enter old Canon preceded by a beadle. He goes straight to
+his stall, and finding it occupied by a well-known D.D. from London,
+who is deeply engaged in prayer, he stands and looks at the
+interloper, and when that produces no effect, he says to the beadle:
+“Tell that man this is my stall; tell him to get out.”
+
+Beadle: “Dr. A.’s compliments, and whether you would kindly occupy
+another stall.”
+
+D.D.: “Very sorry; I shall change immediately.”
+
+Old Canon settles in his stall, prayers continue, and after about ten
+minutes the Canon shouts: “Beadle, tell that man to dine with me at
+five.”
+
+Beadle: “Dr. A.’s compliments, and whether you would give him the
+pleasure of your company at dinner at five.”
+
+D.D.: “Very sorry, I am engaged.”
+
+Beadle: “D.D. regrets he is engaged.”
+
+Old Canon: “Oh, he won’t dine!”
+
+The cathedral was very empty, and fortunately this conversation was
+listened to by a small congregation only. I can, however, vouch for
+it, as I was sitting close by and heard it myself.
+
+Bodley’s Library, too, was full of good stories, though many of them
+do not bear repeating. When I first began to work there, Dr. Bandinell
+was Bodleian Librarian. Working in the Bodleian was then like working
+in one’s private library. One could have as many books and MSS. as one
+desired, and the six hours during which the Library was open were a
+very fair allowance for such tiring work as copying and collating
+Sanskrit MSS. I well remember my delight when I first sat down at my
+table near one of the windows looking into the garden of Exeter. It
+seemed a perfect paradise for a student. I must confess that I
+slightly altered my opinion when I had to sit there every day during a
+severe winter without any fire, shivering and shaking, and almost
+unable to hold my pen, till kind Mr. Coxe, the sub-librarian, took
+compassion on me and brought me a splendid fur that had been sent him
+as a present by a Russian scholar, who had witnessed the misery of the
+Librarian in this Siberian Library. Now all this is changed. The
+Library is so full of students, both male and female, that one has
+difficulty in finding a place, certainly in finding a quiet place; and
+all sorts of regulations have been introduced which have no doubt
+become necessary on account of the large number of readers, but which
+have completely changed, or as some would say, improved the character
+of the place. As to one improvement, however, there can be no two
+opinions. The Library and the reading-room, the so-called Camera, are
+now comfortably warmed, and students may in the latter place read for
+twelve hours uninterruptedly, and not be turned out as we were by a
+warning bell at four o’clock. And woe to you if you failed to obey the
+warning. One day an unfortunate reader was so absorbed in his book
+that he did not hear the bell, and was locked in. He tried in vain to
+attract attention from the windows, for it was no pleasant prospect to
+pass a night among so many ghosts. At last he saw a solitary woman,
+and shouted to her that he was locked in. “No,” she said, “you are
+not. The Library is closed at four.” Whether he spent the night among
+the books is not known. Let us hope that he met with a less logical
+person to release him from his cold prison.
+
+Dr. Bandinell ruled supreme in his library, and even the Curators
+trembled before him when he told them what had been the invariable
+custom of the Library for years, and could not be altered. And,
+curiously enough, he had always funds at his disposal, which is not
+the case now, and whenever there was a collection of valuable MSS. in
+the market he often prided himself on having secured it long before
+any other library had the money ready. Now and then, it is true, he
+allowed himself to be persuaded by a plausible seller of rare books
+or MSS., but generally he was very wary. He was not always very
+courteous to visitors, and still less so to his under-librarians. The
+Oriental under-librarian Professor Reay, in particular, who was old
+and somewhat infirm, had much to suffer from him, and the language in
+which he was ordered about was such as would not now be addressed to
+any menial. And yet Professor Reay belonged to a very good family,
+though Dr. Bandinell would insist on calling him Ray, and declared
+that he had no right to the e in his name. In revenge some people
+would give him an additional i and call him Dr. Bandinelli, which made
+him very angry, because, as he would say to me, “he had never been one
+of those dirty foreigners.” Silence was enjoined in the library, but
+the librarian’s voice broke through all rules of silence. I remember
+once, when Professor Reay had been looking for ever so long to find
+his spectacles without which he could not read the Arabic MSS., and
+had asked everybody whether they had seen them, a voice came at last
+thundering through the library: “You left your spectacles on my chair,
+you old ----, and I sat on them!” There was an end of spectacles and
+Arabic MSS. after that. There were two men only of whom Dr. Bandinell
+and H. O. Coxe also were afraid, Dr. Pusey, who was one of the
+Curators, and later on, Jowett, the Master of Balliol.
+
+There was a vacancy in the Oriental sub-librarianship, and a very
+distinguished young Hebrew scholar, William Wright, afterwards
+Professor at Cambridge, was certainly by far the best candidate. But
+as ill-luck—I mean ill-luck for the Library—would have it, he had
+given offence by a lecture at Dublin, in which he declared that the
+people of Canaan were Semitic, and not, as stated in Genesis, the
+children of Ham. No one doubts this now, and every new inscription has
+confirmed it. Still a strong effort was made to represent Dr. Wright
+as a most dangerous young man, and thus to prevent his appointment at
+Oxford. The appointment was really in the hands of Dr. Bandinell; and
+after I had frankly explained to him the motives of this mischievous
+agitation against Dr. Wright, and assured him that he was a scholar
+and by no means given to what was then called “free-handling of the
+Old Testament,” he promised me that he would appoint him and no one
+else. However, poor man, he was urged and threatened and frightened,
+and to my great surprise the appointment was given to some one else,
+who at that time had given hardly any proofs of independent work as a
+Semitic scholar, though he afterwards rendered very good and honest
+service. I did not disguise my opinion of what had happened; and for
+more than a year Dr. Bandinell never spoke to me nor I to him, though
+we met almost daily at the library. At last the old man, evidently
+feeling that he had been wrong, came to tell me that he was sorry for
+what had happened, but that it was not his fault: after this, of
+course, all was forgotten. Dr. Wright had a much more brilliant career
+opened to him, first at the British Museum, and then as professor at
+Cambridge, than he could possibly have had as sub-librarian at Oxford.
+He always remained a scholar, and never dabbled in theology.
+
+Some very heated correspondence passed at the time, and I remember
+keeping the letters for a long while. They were curious as showing the
+then state of theological opinion at Oxford; but I have evidently put
+the correspondence away so carefully that nowhere can I find it now.
+Let it be forgotten and forgiven.
+
+Many, if not all, of the stories that I have written down in this
+chapter may be legendary, and they naturally lose or gain as told by
+different people. Who has not heard different versions of the story of
+a well-known Canon of Christ Church in my early days, who, when rowing
+on the river, saw a drowning man laying hold of his boat and nearly
+upsetting it. “Providentially,” he explained, “I had brought my
+umbrella, and I had presence of mind enough to hit him over the
+knuckles. He let go, sank, and never rose again.” Nobody, I imagine,
+would have vouched for the truth of this story, but it was so often
+repeated that it provided the old gentleman with a nickname, that
+stuck to him always.
+
+I could add more Oxford stories, but it seems almost ill-natured to do
+so, and I could only say in most cases _relata refero_. When I first
+came here Oxford and Oxford society were to me so strange that I
+probably accepted many similar stories as gospel truth. My young
+friends hardly treated me quite fairly in this respect. I had many
+questions to ask, and my friends evidently thought it great fun to
+chaff me and to tell me stories which I naturally believed, for there
+were many things which seemed to me very strange, and yet they were
+true and I had to believe them. The existence of Fellows who received
+from £300 to £800 a year, as a mere sinecure for life, provided they
+did not marry, seemed to me at first perfectly incredible. 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
+employments, particularly if they could gain an exhibition or
+scholarship. But after a man had passed his examinations, the country
+or the government had nothing more to do with him. “Swim or drown” was
+the maxim followed everywhere; and it was but natural that the first
+years of professional life, whether as lawyers, medical men, or
+clergymen, were years of great self-denial. But they were also years
+of intense struggle, 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 employment. To imagine that after the country had done
+its duty by providing schools and universities, it would provide
+crutches for men who ought to learn to walk by themselves, was beyond
+my comprehension, particularly when I was told how large a sum was
+yearly spent by the colleges in paying these fellowships without
+requiring any _quid pro quo_.
+
+Having once come to believe that, and several other to me
+unintelligible things at Oxford, I was ready to believe almost
+anything my friends told me. There are some famous stone images, for
+instance, round the Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum. They are
+hideous, for the sandstone of which they are made has crumbled away
+again and again, but even when they were restored, the same brittle
+stone was used. They are in the form of Hermae, and were planned by no
+less an architect than Sir Christopher Wren. When I asked what they
+were meant for, I was assured quite seriously that they were images of
+former Heads of Houses. I believed it, though I expressed my surprise
+that the stone-mason who made new heads, when the old showed hardly
+more than two eyes and a nose, and a very wide mouth, should carefully
+copy the crumbling faces, because, as I was informed, he had been told
+to copy the former gentlemen.
+
+It was certainly a very common amusement of my young undergraduate
+friends to make fun of the Heads of Houses. They did not seem to feel
+that shiver of unspeakable awe for them of which Bishop Thorold
+speaks; nay, they were anything but respectful in speaking of the
+Doctors of Divinity in their red gowns with black velvet sleeves. If
+it is difficult for old men always to understand young men, it is
+certainly even more difficult for young men to understand old men.
+There is a very old saying, “Young men think that old men are fools,
+but old men know that young men are.” Though very young myself, I came
+to know several of the old Heads of Houses, and though they certainly
+had their peculiarities, they did by no means all belong to the age of
+the Dodo. They were enjoying their _otium cum dignitate_, as befits
+gentlemen, scholars, and divines, and they certainly deserved greater
+respect from the undergraduates than they received.
+
+At the annual _Encaenia_, a great deal of licence was allowed to the
+young men; and I know of several strangers, especially foreigners, who
+have been scandalized at the riotous behaviour of the undergraduates
+in the Theatre, the Oxford _Aula_, when the Vice-Chancellor stood up
+to address the assembled audience. My first experience of this was
+with Dr. Plumptre, who, as I have said, was very tall and stately;
+when his first words were not quite distinct, the undergraduates
+shouted, “Speak up, old stick.” When the Warden of Wadham, the Rev.
+Dr. Symons, was showing some pretty young ladies to their seats in the
+Theatre, he was threatened by the young men, who yelled at the top of
+their voices, “I’ll tell Lydia, you wicked old man.” Now Lydia was his
+most excellent spouse. At first the remarks of the undergraduates at
+the _Encaenia_, or rather _Saturnalia_, were mostly good-natured and
+at least witty; but they at last became so rude that distinguished
+men, whom the University wished to honour by conferring on them
+honorary degrees, felt deeply offended. Sir Arthur Helps declared that
+he came to receive an honour, and received an insult. Well do I
+remember the Rev. Dr. Salmon, who was asked where he had left his
+lobster sauce; Dr. Wendell Holmes was shouted at, whether he had come
+across the Atlantic in his “One Hoss Shay”; the Right Hon. W. H.
+Smith, First Lord of the Admiralty, was presented with a Pinafore, and
+Lord Wolseley with a Black Watch. There was a certain amount of wit in
+these allusions, and the best way to take the academic row and riot
+was Tennyson’s, who told me on coming out that “he felt all the time
+as if standing on the shingle of the sea shore, the storm howling, and
+the spray covering him right and left.” After a time, however, these
+_Saturnalia_ had to be stopped, and they were stopped in a curious
+way, by giving ladies seats among the undergraduates. It speaks well
+for them that their regard for the ladies restrained them, and made
+them behave like gentlemen.
+
+The reign of the Heads of Houses, which was in full force when I first
+settled in Oxford, began to wane when it was least expected. There
+had, however, been grumblings among the Fellows and Tutors at Oxford,
+who felt themselves aggrieved by the self-willed interference of the
+Heads of Colleges in their tutorial work, and, it may be, resented the
+airs assumed by men who, after all, were their equals, and in no sense
+their betters, in the University.
+
+Society distinctly profited when Fellows and Tutors were allowed to
+marry, and when several of the newly-elected of the Heads of Houses,
+having wives and daughters, opened their houses, and had interesting
+people to dine with them from the neighbourhood and from London.
+
+The Deanery of Christ Church was not only made architecturally into a
+new house, but under Dr. Liddell, with his charming wife and
+daughters, became a social centre not easily rivalled anywhere else.
+There one met not only royalty, the young Prince of Wales, but many
+eminent writers, artists, and political men from London, Gladstone,
+Disraeli, Richmond, Ruskin, and many others. Another bright house of
+the new era was that of the Principal of Brasenose, Dr. Cradock, and
+his cheerful and most amusing wife. There one often met such men as
+Lord Russell, Sir George C. Lewis, young Harcourt, and many more. She
+was the true Dresden china marquise, with her amusing sallies, which
+no doubt often gave offence to grave Heads of Houses and sedate
+Professors. No one knew her age, she was so young; and yet she had
+been maid of honour to some Queen, as I told her once, to Queen Anne.
+Having been maid of honour, she never concealed her own peculiar
+feelings about people who had not been presented. When she wanted to
+be left alone, she would look out of window, and tell visitors who
+came to call, “Very sorry, but I am not at home to-day.” Queen’s
+College also, under Dr. Thomson, the future Archbishop of York, was a
+most hospitable house. Mrs. Thomson presided over it with her peculiar
+grace and genuine kindness, and many a pleasant evening I spent there
+with musical performances. But here, too, the old leaven of Oxford
+burst forth sometimes. Of course, we generally performed the music of
+Handel and other classical authors; Mendelssohn’s compositions were
+still considered as mere twaddle by some of the old school. At one of
+these evenings, the old organist of New College, with his wooden leg,
+after sitting through a rehearsal of Mendelssohn’s _Hymn of Praise_,
+which I was conducting at the pianoforte, walked up to me, as I
+thought, to thank me; but no, he burst out in a torrent of real and
+somewhat coarse abuse of me, for venturing to introduce such flimsy
+music at Oxford. I did not feel very guilty, and fortunately I
+remained silent, whether from actual bewilderment or from a better
+cause, I can hardly tell.
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Müller Aged 30._]
+
+Long before Commissions came down on Oxford a new life seemed to be
+springing up there, and what was formerly the exception became more
+and more the rule among the young Fellows and Tutors. They saw what a
+splendid opportunity was theirs, having the very flower of England
+to educate, having the future of English society to form. They
+certainly made the best of it, helped, I believe, by the so-called
+Oxford Movement, which, whatever came of it afterwards, was certainly
+in the beginning thoroughly genuine and conscientious. The Tutors saw
+a good deal of the young men confided to their care, and the result
+was that even what was called the “fast set” thought it a fine thing
+to take a good class. I could mention a number of young noblemen and
+wealthy undergraduates who, in my early years, read for a first class
+and took it; and my experience has certainly been that those who took
+a first class came out in later life as eminent and useful members of
+society. Not that eminence in political, clerical, literary, and
+scientific life was restricted to first classes, far from it. But
+first-class men rarely failed to appear again on the surface in later
+life. It may be true that a first class did not always mean a
+first-class man, but it always seemed to mean a man who had learned
+how to work honestly, whether he became Prime Minister or Archbishop,
+or spent his days in one of the public offices, or even in a
+counting-house or newspaper office.
+
+I felt it was an excellent mixture if a young man, after taking a good
+degree at Oxford, spent a year or two at a German University. He
+generally came back with fresh ideas, knew what kind of work still had
+to be done in the different branches of study, and did it with a
+perseverance that soon produced most excellent results. Of course
+there was always the difficulty that young men wished to make their
+way in life, that is to make a living. The Church, the bar, and the
+hospital, absorbed many of those who in Germany would have looked
+forward to a University career. In my own subject more particularly,
+my very best pupils did not see their way to gaining even an
+independence, unless they gave their time to first securing a curacy,
+or a mastership at school; and they usually found that, in order to do
+their work conscientiously, they had to give up their favourite
+studies in which they would certainly have done excellent work, if
+there had been no _dira necessitas_. 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 studies. But the feeling
+of the majority was always against what was called derisively Original
+Research, and the fellowship-funds continued to be frittered away,
+payment by results being considered a totally mistaken principle, so
+that often, as in the case of the new septennial fellowships, there
+remained the payment only, but no results.
+
+Still all this became clear to me at a much later time only. My first
+years at Oxford were spent in a perfect bewilderment of joy and
+admiration. No one can see that University for the first time,
+particularly in spring or autumn, without being enchanted with it. To
+me it seemed a perfect paradise, and I could have wished for myself no
+better lot than that which the kindness of my friends later secured
+for me there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD
+
+
+I was still very young when I came to settle at Oxford, only
+twenty-four in fact; and, though occasionally honoured by invitations
+from Heads of Houses and Professors, I naturally lived chiefly with
+undergraduates and junior Fellows, such as Grant, Sellar, Palgrave,
+Morier, and others. Grant, afterwards Sir Alexander Grant and
+Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was a delightful companion.
+He had always something new in his mind, and discussed with many
+flashes of wit and satire. He possessed an aristocratic contempt for
+anything commonplace, or self-evident, so that one had to be careful
+in conversing with him. But he was generous, and his laugh reconciled
+one to some of his sharp sallies. How little one anticipates the
+future greatness of one’s friends. They all seem to us no better than
+ourselves, when suddenly they emerge. Grant had shown what he could do
+by his edition of Aristotle’s _Ethics_. He became one of the
+Professors at the new University at Bombay and contributed much to the
+first starting of that University, so warmly patronized by Sir Charles
+Trevelyan. On returning to this country he was chosen to fill the
+distinguished place of Principal of the Edinburgh University. More was
+expected of him when he enjoyed this _otium cum dignitate_, but his
+health seemed to have suffered in the enervating climate of India,
+and, though he enjoyed his return to his friends most fully and
+spending his life as a friend among friends, he died comparatively
+young, and perhaps without fulfilling all the hopes that were
+entertained of him. But he was a thoroughly genial man, and his
+handshake and the twinkle of his eye when meeting an old friend will
+not easily be forgotten.
+
+Sellar was another Scotchman whom I knew as an undergraduate at
+Balliol. When I first came to know him he was full of anxieties about
+his health, and greatly occupied with the usual doubts about religion,
+particularly the presence of evil or of anything imperfect in this
+world. He was an honest fellow, warmly attached to his friends; and no
+one could wish to have a better friend to stand up for him on all
+occasions and against all odds. He afterwards became happily married
+and a useful Professor of Latin at Edinburgh. I stayed with him later
+in life in Scotland and found him always the same, really enjoying his
+friends’ society and a talk over old days. He had begun to ail when I
+saw him last, but the old boy was always there, even when he was
+miserable about his chiefly imaginary miseries. Soon after I had left
+him I received his last message and farewell from his deathbed. We
+are told that all this is very natural and what we must be prepared
+for—but what cold gaps it leaves. My thoughts often return to him, as
+if he were still among the living, and then one feels one’s own
+loneliness and friendlessness again and again.
+
+Palgrave roused great expectations among undergraduates at Oxford, but
+he kept us waiting for some time. He took early to office life in the
+Educational Department, and this seems to have ground him down and
+unfitted him for other work. He had a wonderful gift of admiring, his
+great hero being Tennyson, and he was more than disappointed if others
+did not join in his unqualified panegyrics of the great poet. At last,
+somewhat late in life, he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford,
+and gave some most learned and instructive lectures. His knowledge of
+English Literature, particularly poetry, was quite astounding. I
+certainly never went to him to ask him a question that he did not
+answer at once and with exhaustive fullness. Some of his friends
+complained of his great command of language, and even Tennyson, I am
+told, found it sometimes too much. All I can say is that to me it was
+a pleasure to listen to him. I owe him particular thanks for having,
+in the kindest manner, revised my first English compositions. He was
+always ready and indefatigable, and I certainly owed a good deal to
+his corrections and his unstinted advice. His _Golden Treasury_ has
+become a national possession, and certainly speaks well both for his
+extensive knowledge and for his good taste.
+
+Lastly there was Morier, of whom certainly no one expected when he was
+at Balliol that he would rise to be British Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg. His early education had been somewhat neglected, but when
+he came to Balliol he worked hard to pass a creditable examination. He
+was a giant in size, very good-looking, and his manners, when he
+liked, most charming and attractive. Being the son of a diplomatist
+there was something both English and foreign in his manner, and he
+certainly was a general favourite at Oxford. His great desire was to
+enter the diplomatic service, but when that was impossible, he found
+employment for a time in the Education Office. But society in London
+was too much for him, he was made for society, and society was
+delighted to receive him. But it was difficult for him at the same
+time to fulfil his duties at the Education Office, and the result was
+that he had to give up his place. Things began to look serious, when
+fortunately Lord Aberdeen, a great friend of his father, found him
+some diplomatic employment; and that once found, Morier was in his
+element. He was often almost reckless; but while several of his
+friends came altogether to grief, he managed always to fall on his
+feet and keep afloat while others went down. As an undergraduate he
+came to me to read Greek with me, and I confess that with such
+mistakes in his Greek papers as οἱ πἁθοι instead of τἀ πἁθη, I
+trembled for his examinations. However, he did well in the schools,
+knowing how to hide his weak points and how to make the best of his
+strong ones. I travelled with him in Germany, and when the
+Schleswig-Holstein question arose, he wrote a pamphlet which certainly
+might have cost him his diplomatic career. He asked me to allow it to
+be understood that the pamphlet, which did full justice to the claims
+of Holstein and of Germany, had been written by me. I received many
+compliments, which I tried to parry as well as I could. Fortunately
+Lord John Russell stood by Morier, and his prophecies did certainly
+turn out true. “Don’t let the Germans awake from their slumbers and
+find a work ready made for them on which they all agree.” But the
+signatories of the treaty of London did the very thing against which
+Morier had raised his warning voice, as the friend of Germany as it
+was, though perhaps not of the Germany that was to be. Schleswig-Holstein
+_meer-umschlungen_ became the match, (the Schwefel-hölzchen), that was
+to light the fire of German unity, a unity which for a time may not
+have been exactly what England could have wished for, but which in the
+future will become, we hope, the safety of Europe and the support of
+England.
+
+Morier’s later advance in his diplomatic career was certainly most
+successful. He possessed the very important art of gaining the
+confidence of the crowned heads and ministers he had to deal with.
+Bismarck, it is true, could not bear him, and tried several times to
+trip him up. Even while Morier was at Berlin, as a Secretary of
+Legation, Bismarck asked for his removal, but Lord Granville simply
+declined to remove a young diplomatist who gave him information on all
+parties in Germany, and to do so had to mix with people whom Bismarck
+did not approve of. Besides, Morier was always a _persona grata_ with
+the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess, and that was enough to make
+Bismarck dislike him. Later in life Bismarck accused him of having
+conveyed private information of the military position of the Germans
+to the French Guards, such information being derived from the English
+Court. The charge was ridiculous. Morier was throughout the war a
+sympathizer with Germany as against France. The English Court had no
+military information to convey or to communicate to Morier, and Morier
+was too much of a diplomatist and a gentleman, if by accident he had
+possessed any such information, to betray such a secret to an enemy in
+the field. Bismarck was completely routed, though his son seemed
+inclined to fasten a duel on the English diplomatist. Morier rose
+higher and higher, and at last became Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
+When I laughed and congratulated him he said, “He must be a great fool
+who does not reach the top of the diplomatic tree.” That was too much
+modesty, and yet modesty was not exactly his fault; but he agreed
+with me as to _quam parva sapientia regitur mundus_.
+
+Nothing could seem more prosperous than my friend Morier’s career; but
+few people knew how utterly miserable he really was. He had one son,
+in many respects the very image of his father, a giant in stature,
+very handsome, and most attractive. In spite of all we said to him he
+would not send his son to a public school in England, but kept him
+with him at the different embassies, where his only companions were
+the young attachés and secretaries. He had a private tutor, and when
+that tutor declared that young Morier was fit for the University, his
+father managed to get him into Balliol, recommending him to the
+special care of the Master. He actually lived in the Master’s house
+for a time, but enjoyed the greatest liberty that an undergraduate at
+Oxford may enjoy. His father was wrapped up in his boy, but at the
+same time tried to frighten him into hard work, or at least into
+getting through the examinations. All was in vain; young Morier was so
+nervous that he could never pass an examination. What might be
+expected followed, and the father had at last to remove him to begin
+work as an honorary attaché at his own embassy. I liked the young man
+very much, but my own impression is that his nervousness quite
+unfitted him for serious work. The end was beyond description sad. He
+went to South Africa in the police force, distinguished himself very
+much, came back to England, and then on his second voyage to the Cape
+died suddenly on board the steamer. I have seldom seen such utter
+misery as his father’s. He loved his son and the son loved his father
+passionately, but the father expected more than it was physically and
+mentally possible for the son to do. Hence arose misunderstandings,
+and yet beneath the surface there was this passionate love, like the
+love of lovers. When I saw my old friend last, he cried and sobbed
+like a child: his heart was really broken. He went on for a few years
+more, suffering much from ill health, but really killed at last by his
+utter misery. I knew him in the bright morning of his life, at the
+meridian of his great success, and last in the dark night when light
+and life seems gone, when the moon and all the stars are extinguished,
+and nothing remains but patient suffering and the hope of a brighter
+morn to come.
+
+How little one dreamt of all this when we were young, and when an
+ambassador, nay, even a professor, seemed to us far beyond the reach
+of our ambition. I could go on mentioning many more names of men with
+whom I lived at Oxford in the most delightful intimacy, and who
+afterwards turned up as bishops, archbishops, judges, ministers, and
+all the rest. True, it is quite natural that it should be so with a
+man who, as I did, began his English life almost as an undergraduate
+among undergraduates. Nearly all Englishmen who receive a liberal
+education must pass either through Oxford or through Cambridge, and I
+was no doubt lucky in making thus early the acquaintance of a number
+of men who later in life became deservedly eminent. The only drawback
+was that, knowing my friends very intimately, 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 demand.
+
+Thomson was a dear friend of mine when he was still a fellow of
+Queen’s College. We worked together, as may be seen by my
+contributions to his _Laws of Thought_, and the translation of a Vedic
+hymn which he helped me to make. I think he had a kind of anticipation
+of what was in store for him. Though for a time he had to be
+satisfied, even when he was married, with a very small London living,
+he soon rose in the Church, at a time when clergymen of a liberal way
+of thinking had not much chance of Crown preferment. But having gone
+at the head of a deputation to Lord Palmerston, to inform him that
+Gladstone’s next election as member for Oxford was becoming doubtful,
+owing to all the bishoprics being given to the Low Church party—the
+party of Lord Shaftesbury—Palmerston remembered his stately and
+courteous bearing, and when the see of Gloucester fell vacant, gave
+him that bishopric to silence Gladstone’s supporters. This was a very
+unexpected preferment at Oxford, but Thomson made such good use of his
+opportunity that, when the Archbishopric of York became vacant, and
+Palmerston found it difficult to make his own or Lord Shaftesbury’s
+nominee acceptable to the Queen, he suggested that any one of the
+lately elected bishops approved of by the Crown might go to York, and
+some one else fill the see thus vacated. It so happened that Thomson’s
+name was the first to be mentioned, and he was made Archbishop,
+probably one of the youngest Archbishops England has ever known. He
+certainly fulfilled all expectations and proved himself the people’s
+Archbishop, for he was himself the son of a small tradesman, a fact of
+which he was never ashamed, though his enemies did not fail to cast it
+in his teeth. 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 me, and was now His Grace the
+Lord Archbishop, with a palace to inhabit and an income of about
+£10,000 a year. However, though as a German and as a friend of Bunsen
+I was looked upon as a kind of heretic, I never made the Archbishop
+blush for his old friend, and I always found him the same to the end
+of his life, kind, courteous, and ready to help, though it is but fair
+to remember that an Archbishop of York is one of the first subjects of
+the Queen, and cannot do or say everything that he might like to do or
+to say. When I had to ask him to do something for a friend of mine,
+who as a clergyman had given great offence by his very liberal
+opinions, he did all he could do, though he might have incurred great
+obloquy by so doing.
+
+But when I think of these men, friends and acquaintances of mine, whom
+I remember as young men, very able and hard working no doubt, yet not
+so entirely different from others who through life remained unknown,
+it is as if I had slept through a number of years and dreamt, and had
+then suddenly awoke to a new life. Some of my friends, I am glad to
+say, I always found the same, whether in ermine or in lawn sleeves;
+others, however, I am sorry to say, had _become_ something, the old
+boy in them had vanished, and nothing was to be seen except the
+bishop, the judge, or the minister.
+
+It was not for me to remind them of their former self, and to make
+them doubt their own identity, but I often felt the truth of Matthew
+Arnold’s speeches, who, in social position, never rose beyond that of
+inspector of schools, and who often laughed when at great dinners he
+found himself surrounded by their Graces, their Excellencies, and my
+Lords, recognizing faces that sat below him at school and whose names
+in the class lists did not occupy so high a place as his own. Not that
+Matthew Arnold was dissatisfied; he knew his worth, but, as he himself
+asked for nothing, it is strange that his friends should never have
+asked for something for him, which would have shown to the world at
+large that he had not been left behind in the race. It strikes one
+that while he was at Oxford, few people only detected in Arnold the
+poet or the man of remarkable genius. I had many letters from him, but
+I never kept them, and I often blame myself now that in his, as in
+other cases, I should have thrown away letters as of no importance.
+Then suddenly came the time when he returned to Oxford as the poet, as
+the Professor of poetry, nay, afterwards as the philosopher also,
+placed high by public opinion among the living worthies of England.
+What was sometimes against him was his want of seriousness. A laugh
+from his hearers or readers seemed to be more valued by him than their
+serious opposition, or their convinced assent. He trusted, like
+others, to _persiflage_, and the result was that when he tried to be
+serious, people could not forget that he might at any time turn round
+and smile, and decline to be taken _au grand sérieux_. People do not
+know what a dangerous game this French _persiflage_ is, particularly
+in England, and how difficult it becomes to exchange it afterwards for
+real seriousness.
+
+Those early Oxford days were bright days for me, and now, when those
+young and old faces, whether undergraduates or archbishops, rise up
+again before me, I being almost the only one left of that happy
+company, I ask again, “Did they also belong to a mere dreamland, they
+who gave life to my life, and made England my real home?” When I first
+saw them at Oxford, I was really an undergraduate, though I had taken
+my Doctor’s degree at Leipzig. I lived, in fact, my happy university
+life over again, and it would be difficult to say which academical
+years I enjoyed more, those at Leipzig and Berlin, or those at Oxford.
+There were intermediate years in Paris, but during my stay there I saw
+but little of students and student life. I was too much oppressed with
+cares and anxieties about my present and future to think much of
+society and enjoyment. At Oxford, these cares had become far less, and
+I could by hard work earn as much money as I wanted, and cared to
+spend. In Paris, I was already something of a scholar and writer; at
+Oxford I became once more the undergraduate.
+
+This young society into which I was received was certainly most
+attractive, though that it contained the germs of future greatness
+never struck me at the time. What struck me was the general tone of
+the conversation. Of course, as Lord Palmerston said of himself when
+he was no longer very young, “boys will be boys,” but there never was
+anything rude or vulgar in their conversation, and I hardly ever heard
+an offensive remark among them. Most of my friends came from Balliol,
+and were serious-minded men, many of them occupied and troubled by
+religious, philosophical, and social problems.
+
+What puzzled me most was the entire absence of duels. Occasionally
+there were squabbles and high words, which among German students could
+have had one result only—a duel. But at Oxford, either a man
+apologized at once or the next morning, and the matter was forgotten,
+or, if a man proved himself a cad or a snob, he was simply dropped. I
+do not mean to condemn the students’ duels in Germany altogether.
+Considering how mixed the society of German universities is, and the
+perfect equality that reigns among them—they all called each other
+“thou” in my time—the son of a gentleman required some kind of
+protection against the son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing
+and fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students, so that there
+remained nothing to a young student who wanted to escape from the
+insults of a young ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a
+challenge was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was the power
+of public opinion at the universities that not another word of insult
+would be uttered. In this way much mischief is prevented. Besides,
+every precaution is taken to guard against fatal accident, and I
+believe there are fewer serious accidents on the _mensura_ than in the
+hunting-field in England. When I was at Leipzig, where we had at least
+four hundred duels during the year, only two fatal accidents happened,
+and they were, indeed, accidents, such as will happen even at
+football. Of course duels can never be defended, but for keeping up
+good manners, also for bringing out a man’s character, these academic
+duels seem useful. However small the danger is, it frightens the
+coward and restrains the poltroon. For all that, what has taken place
+in England may in time take place in Germany also, and men will cease
+to think that it is impossible to defend their honour without a piece
+of steel or a pistol. The last thing that a German student desires to
+do in a duel is to kill his adversary. Hence pistol duels, which are
+generally preferred by theological students, because they cannot
+easily get a living if their face is scarred all over, are generally
+the most harmless, except perhaps for the seconds.
+
+Before closing this chapter, I should like to say a few words on the
+impressions which the theological atmosphere of Oxford in 1848
+produced on me, and which even now fills me with wonder and amazement.
+
+When I came to Oxford, I was strongly recommended to Stanley on one
+side, and to Manuel Johnson on the other,—a curious mixture. Johnson,
+the Observer, was extremely kind and hospitable to me. He was a genial
+man, full of love, possibly a little weak, but thoroughly honest, nay,
+transparently so. I met at his house nearly all the leaders of the
+High Church movement, though I never met Newman himself, who had then
+already gone to reside at his retreat at Littlemore. On the other
+hand, Stanley received me with open arms as a friend of Bunsen,
+Frederick Maurice, and Julius Hare, and as I came straight from the
+February revolution in 1848, he was full of interest and curiosity to
+know from me what I had seen in Paris.
+
+At first I knew nothing, and understood nothing of the movement, call
+it ecclesiastical or theological, that was going on at Oxford at that
+time. I dined almost every Sunday at Johnson’s house, and at his
+dinners and Sunday afternoon garden parties I met men such as Church,
+Mozley, Buckle, Palgrave, Pollen, Rigaud, Burgon, and Chrétian, who
+inspired me with great respect, both for their learning and for what I
+could catch of their character. Stanley, on the other hand, Froude,
+and Jowett, proved themselves true friends to me in making me feel at
+home, and initiating me into the secrets of the place. There was,
+however, a curious reticence on both sides, and it was by sudden
+glimpses only that I came to understand that these two sets were quite
+divided, nay, opposed, and had very different ideals before them.
+
+I had been at a German university, and the historical study of
+Christianity was to me as familiar as the study of Roman history.
+Professors whom I had looked up to as great authorities, implicitly to
+be trusted, such as Lotze and Weisse at Leipzig, Schelling and
+Michelet at Berlin, had, after causing in me a certain surprise at
+first, left me with the firm conviction that the Old and New Testament
+were historical books, and to be treated according to the same
+critical principles as any other ancient book, particularly the sacred
+books of the East of which so little was then known, and of which I
+too knew very little as yet; enough, however, to see that they
+contained nothing but what under the circumstances they could
+contain, traditions of extreme antiquity collected by men who gathered
+all they thought would be useful for the education of the people.
+Anything like revelation in the old sense of the word, a belief that
+these books had been verbally communicated by the Deity, or that what
+seemed miraculous in them was to be accepted as historically real,
+simply because it was recorded in these sacred books, was to me a
+standpoint long left behind. To me the questions that occupied my
+thoughts were to what date these books, such as we have them, could be
+assigned, what portions of them were of importance to us, what were
+the simple truths they contained, and what had been added to them by
+later collectors. Well do I remember when, before going to Oxford, I
+spoke to Bunsen of the preface to my Rig-veda, and used the
+expression, “the great revelations of the world,” he, perfectly
+understanding what I meant, warned me in his loud and warm voice,
+“Don’t say that at Oxford.” I could see no harm, nor Bunsen either,
+nor his son who was an Oxford man and a clergyman of the Church of
+England; but I was told that I should be misunderstood. I knew far too
+little to imagine that I had a right to speak of what was fermenting
+and growing within me. During my stay at Leipzig and Berlin, and
+afterwards in my intercourse with Renan and Burnouf, the principles of
+the historical school had become quite familiar to me, but the
+application of these principles to the early history of religion was
+a different matter. How far the Old and the New Testament would stand
+the critical tests enunciated by Niebuhr was a frequent subject of
+controversy, during the time I spent at Paris, between young Renan and
+myself. Though I did not go with him in his reconstruction of the
+history of the Jews and the Jewish religion, and of the early
+Christians and the Christian religion, I agreed with him in principle,
+objecting only to his too free and too idyllic reconstruction of these
+great religious movements. Besides, before all things, I was at that
+time given to philosophical studies, chiefly to an inquiry into the
+limits of our knowledge in the Kantian sense of the word, the origin
+of thought and language, the first faltering and half-mythological
+steps of language in the search for causes or divine agents. All this
+occupied me far more than the age of the Fourth Gospel and its
+position by the side of the Synoptic Gospels. I had talked with
+Schelling and Schopenhauer, and little as I appreciated or understood
+all their teachings, there were certain aspirations left in my mind
+which led me far away beyond the historical foundations of
+Christianity. What can we know? was the question which I often opposed
+to Renan at the very beginning of our conversations and controversies.
+That there were great truths in the teaching and preaching of Christ,
+Renan was always ready to admit, 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 race, Renan’s eyes were always
+directed to the evidence, and to what we could still know of the early
+history of Christianity and its Founder. I could not deny that,
+historically speaking, we knew very little of the life, the work, and
+the teachings of Christ; 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
+Christ. To this opinion I remained true through life. I claimed for
+each man the liberty of believing in his own Christ, 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 imagination.
+
+Naturally, when I came to Oxford, I thought these things were familiar
+to all, however much they might admit of careful correction. Nor have
+I any doubt that to some of my friends who were great theologians,
+they were better known than to a young Oriental scholar like myself.
+But unless engaged in conversation on these subjects, and this was
+chiefly the case with my friends of the Stanley party, I did not feel
+called upon to preach what, as I thought, every serious student knew
+quite as well and probably much better than myself, though he might
+for some reason or other prefer to keep silence thereon.
+
+What was my surprise when I found that most of these excellent and
+really learned men were much more deeply interested in purely
+ecclesiastical questions, in the validity of Anglican orders, in the
+wearing of either gowns or surplices in the pulpit, in the question of
+candlesticks and genuflections. “What has all this to do with true
+religion?” I once said to dear Johnson. He laughed with his genial
+laugh, and blowing the smoke of his cigar away, said, “Oh, you don’t
+understand!” But I did understand, and a great deal more than he
+expected. Truly religious men, I thought, might please themselves with
+incense and candlesticks, provided they gave no offence to their
+neighbours. It seemed to me quite natural also that men like Johnson,
+with a taste for art, should prefer the Roman ritual to the simple and
+sometimes rather bare service of the Anglican Church, but that things
+such as incense and censers, surplice and gown, should be taken as
+they are, as paraphernalia, the work of human beings, the outcome of
+personal and local influences, as church-service, no doubt, but not as
+service of God. God has to be served by very different things, and
+there is the danger of the formal prevailing over the essential, the
+danger of idolatry of symbols as realities, whenever too much
+importance is attributed to the external forms of worship and divine
+service.
+
+The validity of Anglican orders was often discussed at the
+Observatory, 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
+Wolsey. Anyhow I could not bring myself to see the importance of such
+questions, 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 God. That is what
+I called a truly religious and truly Christian life. What struck me
+particularly, both on the Newman side, and among those whom I met at
+Jowett’s and Froude’s, was a curious want of openness and manliness in
+discussing these simple questions, simple, if not complicated by
+ecclesiastical theories. When Newman at Iffley was spoken of, it was
+in hushed tones, and when rumours of his going over to Rome reached
+his friends at Oxford, their consternation seemed to be like that of
+people watching the deathbed of a friend. I am sorry I saw nothing of
+Newman at that time; when I sat with him afterwards in his study at
+Birmingham, he was evidently tired of controversy, and unwilling to
+reopen questions which to him were settled once for all, or if not
+settled, at all events closed and relinquished. I could never form a
+clear idea of the man, much as I admired his sermons; his brother and
+his own friends gave such different accounts of him. That even at
+Littlemore he was still faithful to his own national Church, anxious
+only to bring it nearer to its ancient possibly Roman type, can hardly
+be doubted. When he wrote from Littlemore to his friend De Lisle, he
+had no reason to economize the truth. De Lisle hoped that Newman would
+soon openly join the Church of Rome, but Newman answered: “You must
+allow me to be honest with you in adding one thing. 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 ... I must assure you then with great sincerity that I have
+not the shadow of an internal movement known to myself towards such a
+step. While God is with me where I am, I will not seek Him elsewhere.
+I might almost say in the words of Scripture, ‘We have found the
+Messias!’...”
+
+How true this is, and yet the same Newman went over to the unreformed
+Church, because the Archbishop of Canterbury had sanctioned Bunsen’s
+proposal of an Anglo-German bishopric of Jerusalem, quite forgetful of
+the fact that Synesius also had been bishop of Ptolemais. Again I say,
+What have such matters to do with true religion, such as we read of in
+the New Testament, as an ideal to be realized in our life on earth?
+And it so happened that at the same time I knew of families rendered
+miserable through Newman’s influence, of young girls, daughters of
+narrow-minded Anglicans, hurried over to Rome, of young men at Oxford
+with their troubled consciences which under Newman’s direct or
+indirect guidance could end only in Rome. Newman’s influence must have
+been extraordinary; the tone in which people who wished to free
+themselves from him, who had actually left him, spoke of him, seemed
+tremulous with awe. I would give anything to have known him at that
+time, when I knew him through his disciples only. They were caught in
+various ways. I know of one, a brilliant writer, who had been
+entrusted by Newman with writing some of the _Lives of the Saints_. He
+did it with great industry, 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 insipid, and might be the inventions of their friends; such
+legends, he felt, would take no root on English soil, at all events
+not in the present generation. In consequence he informed Newman that
+he could not keep his promise, or that, if he did so, he must speak
+the truth, tell people what they might believe about these Saints, and
+what was purely fanciful in the accounts of their lives. And what was
+Newman’s answer? He did not respect the young man’s scruples, but
+encouraged him to go on, because, as he said, people would never
+believe more than half of these Lives, and that therefore some of
+these unsupported legends also might prove useful, if only as a kind
+of ballast.
+
+“I rejoice to hear of your success,” he writes, August 21, 1843. “As
+to St. Grimball, of course we must expect such deficiencies; where
+matter is found, it is all gain, and there are plenty of Lives to put
+together, as you will see, when you see the whole list.
+
+“I am rather for _inserting_ (of course discreetly and in way of
+selection) the miracles for which you have not good evidence. (1) They
+are beautiful, you say, and will tell in the narrative. (2) Next you
+can say that the evidence is weak, and this will be bringing credit
+for the others where you say the evidence is strong. People will never
+go _so far_ as your narrative. Cut it down to what is true, and they
+will disbelieve a part of _it_; put in these legends and they will
+compound for the true at the sacrifice of what may be true, but is not
+well attested.”
+
+I confess I cannot quite follow. If a man like Newman believed in
+these saints and their miracles, his pleading would become
+intelligible, but it seems from this very letter that he did not, and
+yet he tried to persuade his young friend to go on and not to gather
+the tares, “lest haply he might root up the wheat with them. Let both
+grow together until the harvest.” I do not like to judge, 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 truth. And yet this was the man who at one time was
+supposed to draw the best spirits of Oxford with him to Rome. This was
+the man to whom some of the best spirits at Oxford confessed all they
+had to confess, and that could have been very little, and of whom
+they spoke with a subdued whisper as the apostle who would restore all
+faith, and bring back the Anglican sheep to the Roman fold.
+
+I saw and heard all that was going on, the hopes deferred, the secret
+visits to Littlemore, the rumours and more than rumours of Newman’s
+defection. Such was the devotion of some of these disciples that they
+expected day by day a great catastrophe or a great victory, for after
+the publication of so many letters written at the time by Wiseman,
+Manning, De Lisle, and others, there can be little doubt that a great
+conversion or perversion of England to the Romish Church was fully
+expected. De Lisle writes: “England is now in full career of a great
+Religious Revolution, this time back to Catholicism and to the Roman
+See as its true centre ... the best friends of Rome in the Anglican
+Church are obliged still to be guarded.” Such words admit of one
+meaning only, and if Newman had been followed by a large number of his
+Oxford friends, the results for England might really have been most
+terrible. But here, no doubt, the English national feeling came in.
+What England had suffered under Roman ecclesiastical rule had not yet
+been entirely forgotten, and the idea that a foreign potentate and a
+foreign priesthood should interfere with the highest interests of the
+nation, was fortunately as distasteful as ever, not only to a large
+party of the clergy, but to a still larger party of the laity also.
+It seemed to me very curious that so many of Newman’s followers did
+not see the unpatriotic character of their agitation. Either
+subjection to Rome or civil war at home was the inevitable outcome of
+what they discussed very innocently at the Observatory, and little as
+I understood their schemes for the future, I often felt surprised at
+what sounded to me like very unpatriotic utterances.
+
+Another thing that struck me as utterly un-English and has often been
+dwelt on by the historians of this movement, was the curiously secret
+character of the agitation. What has an Englishman to fear when he
+openly protests against what he disapproves of in Church or State? But
+Newman’s friends at Oxford behaved really, as has been often said,
+like so many naughty schoolboys, or like conspirators, yet they were
+neither. A very similar charge, however, was brought against the
+liberal party. They also seemed to think that they were out of bounds,
+and were doing in secret what they did not dare to do openly. It is
+well known that one friend of Newman’s, who afterwards became a Roman
+Catholic, had a small chapel set up in his bedroom in college, with
+pictures and candles and instruments of flagellation. No one was
+allowed to see this room, till one evening when the flagellant had
+retired after dinner and fallen asleep, the servants found him lying
+before the altar. Nothing remained to him then but to exchange his
+comfortable college rooms for the less comfortable cell of a Roman
+monastery, and little was done by his new friends to make the evening
+of his life serene and free from anxiety. These things were known and
+talked about in Oxford, and generally with anything but the
+seriousness that the subject seemed to me to require. Again at the
+Observatory a point was made of having games in the garden such as
+boccia on a Sunday afternoon, thus evading the strict observance of
+the Sabbath, without openly trying to restore to it the character
+which it had in Roman Catholic countries.
+
+German theology was talked about as a kind of forbidden fruit, as if
+it was not right for them to look at it, to taste it, or to examine
+it. Even years later people were afraid to meet Professor Ewald,
+Bishop Colenso, and other so-called heretics at my house. They even
+fell on poor Ewald at an evening party. Ewald was staying with me and
+working hard at some Hebrew MSS. at the Bodleian. He was then already
+an old man, but in his appearance a powerful and venerable champion.
+He is the only man I remember who, after copying Hebrew MSS. for
+twelve hours at the Bodleian with nothing but a sandwich to sustain
+him, complained of the short time allowed there for work. He came home
+for dinner very tired, and when the conversation or rather the
+disputation began between him and some of our young liberal
+theologians, he spoke in short pithy sentences only. He considered
+himself perfectly orthodox, nay, one of the pillars of religion in
+Germany, and laid down the law with unhesitating conviction. As far as
+I can remember, he was answering a number of questions about St. Paul,
+and what he thought of Christ, of the Kingdom of Christ, and the Life
+to come, and being pestered and driven into a corner by his various
+questioners, and asked at last how he knew St. Paul’s secret thoughts,
+he not knowing how to express himself in fluent English, exclaimed in
+a loud voice, “I know it by the Holy Ghost.” Here the conversation
+naturally stopped, and poor Ewald was allowed to finish his dinner in
+peace. He had been Professor at Bonn, when Pusey came there as a young
+man to study Hebrew after he had been appointed Canon of Christ Church
+and Professor of Hebrew, and he expressed to me a wish to see Dr.
+Pusey. I told him it would not be easy to arrange a meeting,
+considering how strongly opposed Dr. Pusey was to Ewald’s opinions.
+Personally I always found Pusey tolerant, and his kindness to me was a
+surprise to all my young friends. But the fact was, we moved on
+different planes, and though he knew my religious opinions well, they
+only excited a smile, and he often said with a sigh, “I know you are a
+German.” 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 terror. He had read more heresy, he used to
+say, than anybody, and he wished no one to pass through the trials
+and agonies through which he had passed, chiefly, I should think,
+during his stay at a German university. The historical element was
+wanting in him, nay, like Hegel, he sometimes seemed to lay stress on
+the unhistorical character of Christianity. My idea, on the contrary,
+was that Christianity was a true historical event, prepared by many
+events that had gone before and alone made it possible and real. Even
+the abyss, if there were such an abyss, was, as it seemed to me, meant
+to be there on our passage through life, and was to be faced with a
+brave heart.
+
+But to return to my first experiences of the theological atmosphere of
+Oxford, I confess I felt puzzled to see men, whose learning and
+character I sincerely admired, absorbed in subjects which to my mind
+seemed simply childish. I expected I should hear from them some new
+views on the date of the gospels, the meaning of revelation, the
+historical value of revelation, or the early history of the Church.
+No, of all this not a word. Nothing but discussions on vestments, on
+private confession, on candles on the altar, whether they were wanted
+or not, on the altar being made of stone or of wood, of consecrated
+wine being mixed with water, of the priest turning his back on the
+congregation, &c. I could not understand how these men, so high above
+the ordinary level of men in all other respects, could put aside the
+fundamental questions of Christianity and give their whole mind to
+what seemed to me rightly called in the newspapers “mere millinery.”
+I sought information from Stanley, but he shrugged his shoulders and
+advised me to keep aloof and say nothing. This I was most willing to
+do; I cared for none of these things. My mind was occupied with far
+more serious problems, such as I had heard explained by men of
+profound learning and honest purpose in the great universities of
+Germany; these troubles arose from questions which seemed to me to
+have no connexion with true religion at all. Even the differences
+between the reformed and unreformed churches were to me mere questions
+of history, mere questions of human expediency. I did not consider
+Roman Catholics as heretics—I had known too many of them of
+unblemished character in Germany. I might have regretted the abuses
+which called for reform, the excrescences which had disfigured
+Christianity like many other religions, but which might be tolerated
+as long as they did not lead to toleration for intolerance. Luther
+might no longer appear to me in the light of a perfect saint, but that
+he was right in suppressing the time-honoured abuses of the Roman
+Church admitted with me of no doubt whatsoever. Large numbers always
+had that effect on me, and when I saw how many good and excellent men
+were satisfied with the unreformed teaching of the Roman Church, I
+felt convinced that they must attach a different meaning to certain
+doctrines and ecclesiastical practices from what we did. I had
+learned to discover what was good and true in all religions, and I
+could fully agree with Macaulay when he said, “If people had lived in
+a country where very sensible people worshipped the cow, they would
+not fall out with people who worship saints.”
+
+I know that many of my friends on both sides looked upon me as a
+latitudinarian, but my conviction has always been that we could not be
+broad enough. They looked upon me as wishing to keep on good terms
+with high and low and broad, and I made no secret of it, that I
+thought I could understand Pusey as well as Stanley, and assign to
+each his proper place. Stanley was of course more after my own heart
+than Pusey, but Pusey too was a man who interested me very much. I saw
+that he might become a great power whether for good or for evil in
+England. He was, in fact, a historical character, and these were
+always the men who interested me. He was fully aware of his importance
+in England, and the great influence which his name exercised. That
+influence was not always exercised in the right way, so at least it
+seemed to me, particularly when it was directed against such friends
+of mine as Kingsley, Froude, or Jowett. Once, I remember, when he had
+come to my house, 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 God. Curious to say, he relented, and
+admitted that he had used too strong language. To me everything that
+was said of God seemed imperfect, and never to apply to God Himself
+but only to the idea which the human mind had formed of Him. To me
+even the Hindu, if he spoke of Brahman or Krishna, seemed to have
+aimed at the true God, in spite of the idolatrous epithets which he
+used; then how could a man like Frederic Maurice be said to have
+worshipped a different God, considering that we all can but feel after
+Him in the dark, not being able to do more than exclude all that seems
+to us unworthy of Deity?
+
+A very important element in the ecclesiastical views of some of my
+friends was, no doubt, the artistic. If Johnson leant towards Rome, it
+was the more ornate and beautiful service that touched and attracted
+him. I sat near to him in St. Giles’ Church; he told me what to do and
+what not to do during service. In spite of the Prayer-book, it is by
+no means so easy as people imagine to do exactly the right thing in
+church, and I had of course to learn a number of prayers and responses
+by heart. To me the service, as it was in my parish church, seemed
+already too ornate, accustomed as I had been to the somewhat bare and
+cold service in the Lutheran Church at Dessau. But Johnson constantly
+complained about the monotonous and mechanical performances of the
+clergy. He had a strong feeling for all that was beautiful and
+impressive in art, and he wanted to see the service of God in church
+full both of reverence and beauty.
+
+Johnson’s private collection of artistic treasures was very
+considerable, and I learnt much from the Italian engravings and Dutch
+etchings which he possessed and delighted in showing. I often spent
+happy hours with him examining his portfolios, and wondered how he
+could afford to buy such treasures. But he knew when and where to buy,
+and I believe when his collection was sold after his death, it brought
+a good deal more than it had cost him. Another collection of art was
+that of Dr. Wellesley, the Principal of New Inn Hall, who was a friend
+of Johnson’s and had collected most valuable antiquities during his
+long stay in Italy. He was the son of the Marquis of Wellesley, a
+handsome man, with all the refinement and courtesy of the old English
+gentleman. Though not perhaps very useful in the work of the
+University, he was most pleasant to live with, and full of information
+in his own line of study, the history of art, chiefly of Italian art.
+
+The beautiful services of the Roman Church abroad, and particularly at
+Rome, certainly exercised a kind of magic attraction on many of the
+friends of Wiseman and Newman, though one wonders that the sunny
+grandeur of St. Peter’s at Rome should ever have seemed more
+impressive than the sombre sublimity and serene magnificence of
+Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, the introduction of a more ornate
+service, even of harmless candlesticks and the often very useful
+incense, had always a secret meaning. They were used as symbols of
+something of which the people had no conception, whereas in the early
+Church they had been really natural and useful.
+
+In the midst of all this commotion, and chiefly secret commotion, I
+felt a perfect stranger; I saw the bright and dark sides, but I
+confess I saw little of what I called religion. Though my own
+religious struggles lay behind me, still there were many questions
+which pressed for a solution, but for which my friends at Oxford
+seemed either indifferent or unprepared. My practical religion was
+what I had learnt from my mother; that remained unshaken in all
+storms, and in its extreme simplicity and childishness answered all
+the purposes for which religion is meant. Then followed, in the
+Universities of Leipzig and Berlin, the purely historical and
+scientific treatment of religion, which, while it explained many
+things and destroyed many things, never interfered with my early ideas
+of right and wrong, never disturbed my life with God and in God, and
+seemed to satisfy all my religious wants. I never was frightened or
+shaken by the critical writings of Strauss or Ewald, of Renan or
+Colenso. If what they said had an honest ring, I was delighted, for I
+felt quite certain that they could never deprive me of the little I
+really wanted. That little could never be little enough; it was like a
+stronghold with no fortifications, no trenches, and no walls around
+it. Suppose it was proved to me that, on geological evidence, the
+earth or the world could not have been created in six days, what was
+that to me? Suppose it was proved to me that Christ could never have
+given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into the swine, what was
+that to me? Let Colenso and Bishop Wilberforce, let Huxley and
+Gladstone fight about such matters; their turbulent waves could never
+disturb me, could never even reach me in my safe harbour. I had little
+to carry, no learned impedimenta to safeguard my faith. If a man
+possesses this one pearl of great price, he may save himself and his
+treasure, but neither the tinselled vestments of a Cardinal, nor the
+triple tiara that crowns the Head of the Church, will serve as
+life-belts in the gales of doubt and controversy. My friends at Oxford
+did not know that, though with my one jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I
+was really richer and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor of
+Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer, may be very long, but
+the prayer of the Publican may have been more efficient than that of
+the Pharisee.
+
+After a time I made an even more painful discovery: I found men, who
+were considered quite orthodox, but who really were without any
+belief. They spoke to me very freely, because they imagined that as a
+German I would think as they did, and that I should not be surprised
+if they looked on me as not quite sincere. It was not only honest
+doubt that disturbed them. They had done with honest doubt, and they
+were satisfied with a kind of Voltairian philosophy, which at last
+ended in pure agnosticism. But even that, even professed agnosticism,
+I could understand, because it often meant no more than a confession
+of ignorance with regard to God, which we all confess, and need not
+necessarily amount to the denial of the existence of Deity. But that
+Voltairian levity which scoffs at everything connected with religion
+was certainly something I did not expect to meet with at Oxford, and
+which even now perplexes me. Of course, I should never think of
+mentioning names, but it seemed to me necessary to mention the fact,
+to complete the curious mosaic of theological and religious thought
+that existed at Oxford at the time of my arrival.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CONFESSION
+
+
+One confession I have to make, and one for which I can hardly hope for
+absolution, whether from my friends or from my enemies. I have never
+done anything; I have never been a doer, a canvasser, a wirepuller, a
+manager, in the ordinary sense of these words. I have also shrunk from
+agitation, from clubs and from cliques, even from most respectable
+associations and societies. Many people would call me an idle,
+useless, and indolent man, and though I have not wasted many hours of
+my life, I cannot deny the charge that I have neither fought battles,
+nor helped to conquer new countries, nor joined any syndicate to roll
+up a fortune. I have been a scholar, a _Stubengelehrter_, and _voilà
+tout_!
+
+Much as I admired Ruskin when I saw him with his spade and
+wheelbarrow, encouraging and helping his undergraduate friends to make
+a new road from one village to another, I never myself took to
+digging, and shovelling, and carting. Nor could I quite agree with
+him, happy as I always felt in listening to him, when he said: “What
+we think, or what we know, or what we believe, is in the end of
+little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do.” My
+view of life has always been the very opposite! What we do, or what we
+build up, has always seemed to me of little consequence. Even Nineveh
+is now a mere desert of sand, and Ruskin’s new road also has long
+since been worn away. The only thing of consequence, to my mind, is
+what we think, what we know, what we believe! To Ruskin’s ears such a
+sentiment was downright heresy, and I know quite well that it would be
+condemned as extremely dangerous, if not downright wicked, by most
+people, particularly in England. My friend, Charles Kingsley, preached
+muscular Christianity, that is, he was always up and doing. Another
+old friend of mine, Carlyle, preached all his life that “it was no use
+talking, if one would not do.” There is an old proverb in German, too,
+
+    “Die nicht mit thaten,
+     Die nicht mit rathen”;
+
+actually denying the right of giving advice to those who had not taken
+a part in the fight.
+
+However, though I have not been a doer, a _faiseur_, as the French
+would say, I do not wish to represent myself as a mere idle drone
+during the long years of my quiet life. Nor did I stand quite alone in
+looking on a scholar’s life—even when I was living in a garret _au
+cinquième_—as a paradise on earth. Did not Emerson write, “The
+scholar is the man of the age”? Did not even Mazzini, who certainly
+was constantly up and trying to do, did not even he confess that men
+must die, but that the amount of truth they have discovered does not
+die with them? And Carlyle? Did he ever try to get into Parliament?
+Did he ever accept directorates? Did he join either the Chartists or
+the Special Constables in Trafalgar Square? As in a concert you want
+listeners as well as performers, so in public life, those who look on
+are quite as essential as those who shout and deal heavy blows.
+
+Nature has not endowed everybody with the requisite muscle to be a
+muscular Christian. But it may be said, that even if Carlyle and
+Ruskin were absolved from doing muscular work in Trafalgar Square,
+what excuse could they plead for not walking in procession to Hyde
+Park, climbing up one of the platforms and haranguing the men and
+women and children? I suppose they had the feeling which the razor has
+when it is used for cutting stones: they would feel that it was not
+exactly their _métier_. Arguing when reason meets reason is most
+delightful, whether we win or lose; but arguing against unreason,
+against anything that is by nature thick, dense, impenetrable,
+irrational, has always seemed to me the most disheartening occupation.
+Majorities, mere numerical majorities, by which the world is governed
+now, strike me as mere brute force, though to argue against them is
+no doubt as foolish as arguing against a railway train that is going
+to crush you. Gladstone could harangue multitudes; so could Disraeli;
+all honour to them for it. But think of Carlyle or Ruskin doing so!
+Stroking the shell of a tortoise, or the cupola of St. Paul’s, would
+have been no more attractive to them than addressing the discontented,
+when in their hundreds and their thousands they descended into the
+streets. All I claim is that there must be a division of labour, and
+as little as Wayland Smith was useless in his smithy, when he hardened
+the iron in the fire for making swords or horse-shoes, was Carlyle a
+man that could be spared, while he sat in his study preparing thoughts
+that would not bend or break.
+
+But I cannot even claim to have been a man of action in the sense in
+which Carlyle was in England, or Emerson in America. They were men who
+in their books were constantly teaching and preaching. “Do this!” they
+said; “Do not do that!” The Jewish prophets did much the same, and
+they are not considered to have been useless men, though they did not
+make bricks, or fight battles like Jehu. But the poor _Stubengelehrte_
+has not even that comfort. Only now and then he gets some unexpected
+recognition, as when Lord Derby, then Secretary of State for India,
+declared that the scholars who had discovered and proved the close
+relationship between Sanskrit and English, had rendered more valuable
+service to the Government of India than many a regiment. This may be
+called a mere assertion, and it is true that it cannot be proved
+mathematically, but what could have induced a man like Lord Derby to
+make such a statement, except the sense of its truth produced on his
+mind by long experience?
+
+However, I can only speak for myself, and of my idea of work. I felt
+satisfied when my work led me to a new discovery, whether it was the
+discovery of a new continent of thought, or of the smallest desert
+island in the vast ocean of truth. I would gladly go so far as to try
+to convince my friends by a simple statement of facts. Let them follow
+the same course and see whether I was right or wrong. But to make
+propaganda, to attempt to persuade by bringing pressure to bear, to
+canvass and to organize, to found societies, to start new journals, to
+call meetings and have them reported in the papers, has always been to
+me very much against the grain. If we know some truth, what does it
+matter whether a few millions, more or less, see the truth as we see
+it? Truth is truth, whether it is accepted now or in millions of
+years. Truth is in no hurry, at least it always seemed to me so. When
+face to face with a man, or a body of men, who would not be convinced,
+I never felt inclined to run my head against a stone wall, or to
+become an advocate and use the tricks of a lawyer. I have often been
+blamed for it, I have sometimes even regretted my indolence or my
+quiet happiness, when I felt that truth was on my side and by my side.
+I suppose there is no harm in personal canvassing, but as much as I
+disliked being canvassed, did I feel it degrading to canvass others. I
+know quite well how often it happened at a meeting when either a
+measure or a candidate was to be carried, that the voters had
+evidently been spoken to privately beforehand, had in the conscience
+of their heart promised their votes. The facts and arguments at the
+meeting itself might all be on one side, but the majority was in
+favour of the other. Men whose time was of little value had been round
+from house to house, a majority had been compacted into an inert
+unreasoning mass; and who would feel inclined to use his spade of
+reason against so much unreason? Some people, more honest than the
+rest, after the mischief was done, would say, “Why did you not call?
+why did you not write letters?” I may be quite wrong, but I can only
+say that it seemed to me like taking an unfair advantage, unfair to
+our opponents, and almost insulting to our friends. Still, from a
+worldly point of view, I was no doubt wrong, and it is certainly true
+that I was often left in a minority. My friends have told me again and
+again that if a good measure or a good man is to be carried, good men
+must do some dirty work. If they cannot do that, they are of no use,
+and I doubt not that I have often been considered a very useless man
+by my political and academic friends, because I trusted to reason
+where there was no reason to trust to. I was asked to write letters,
+to address and post letters, to promise travelling expenses or even
+convivial entertainments at Oxford, to get leaders and leaderettes
+inserted in newspapers. I simply loathed it, and at last declined to
+do it. If a measure is carried by promise, not by argument, if an
+election is carried by personal influence, not by reason, what happens
+is very often the same as what happens when fruit is pulled off a tree
+before it is ripe. It is expected to ripen by itself, but it never
+becomes sweet, and often it rots. A premature measure may be carried
+through the House by a minister with a powerful majority, but it does
+not acquire vitality and maturity by being carried; it often remains
+on the Statute-book a dead letter, till in the end it has to be
+abolished with other rubbish.
+
+However, I have learnt to admire the indefatigable assiduity of men
+who have slowly and partially secured their converts and their
+recruits, and thus have carried in the end what they thought right and
+reasonable. I have seen it particularly at Oxford, where
+undergraduates were indoctrinated by their tutors, till they had taken
+their degree and could vote with their betters. I take all the blame
+and shame upon myself as a useless member of Congregation and
+Convocation, and of society at large. I was wrong in supposing that
+the walls of Jericho would fall before the blast of reason, and wrong
+in abstaining from joining in the braying of rams’ horns and the
+shouts of the people. I was fortunate, however, in counting among my
+most intimate friends some of the most active and influential
+reformers in University, Church, and State, and it is quite possible
+that I may often have influenced them in the hours of sweet converse;
+nay, that standing in the second rank, I may have helped to load the
+guns which they fired off with much effect afterwards. I felt that my
+open partnership might even injure them more than it could help them;
+for was it not always open to my opponents to say that I was a German,
+and therefore could not possibly understand purely English questions?
+Besides, there is another peculiarity which I have often observed in
+England. People like to do what has to be done by themselves. It
+seemed to me sometimes as if I had offended my friends if I did
+anything by myself, and without consulting them. Besides, my position,
+even after I had been in England for so many years, was always
+peculiar; for though I had spent nearly a whole life in the service of
+my adopted country, though my political allegiance was due and was
+gladly given to England, still I was, and have always remained, a
+German.
+
+And next to Germany, which was young and full of ideals when I was
+young, there came India, and Indian thought which exercised their
+quieting influence on me. From a very early time I became conscious of
+the narrow horizon of this life on earth, and the purely phenomenal
+character of the world in which for a few years we have to live and
+move and have our being. As students of classical and other Oriental
+history we come to admire the great empires with their palaces and
+pyramids and temples and capitols. What could have seemed more real,
+more grand, more likely to impress the young mind than Babylon and
+Nineveh, Thebes and Alexandria, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome? And now
+where are they? The very names of their great rulers and heroes are
+known to few people only and have to be learnt by heart, without
+telling us much of those who wore them. Many things for which
+thousands of human beings were willing to lay down their lives, and
+actually did lay them down, are to us mere words and dreams, myths,
+fables, and legends. If ever there was a doer, it was Hercules, and
+now we are told that he was a mere myth!
+
+If one reads the description of Babylonian and Egyptian campaigns, as
+recorded on cuneiform cylinders and on the walls of ancient Egyptian
+temples, the number of people slaughtered seems immense, the issues
+overwhelming; and yet what has become of it all? The inroads of the
+Huns, the expeditions of Genghis Khan and Timur, so fully described by
+historians, shook the whole world to its foundations, and now the sand
+of the desert disturbed by their armies lies as smooth as ever.
+
+What India teaches us is that in a state advancing towards
+civilization, there must be always two castes or two classes of men, a
+caste of Brahmans or of thinkers, and a caste of Kshatriyas, who are
+to fight; possibly other castes also of those who are to work and of
+those who are to serve. Great wars went on in India, but they were
+left to be fought by the warriors by profession. The peasants in their
+villages remained quiet, accepting the consequences, whatever they
+might be, and the Brahmans lived on, thinking and dreaming in their
+forests, satisfied to rule after the battle was over.
+
+And what applies to military struggles seems to me to apply to all
+struggles—political, religious, social, commercial, and even
+literary. Let those who love to fight, fight; but let others who are
+fond of quiet work go on undisturbed in their own special callings.
+That was, as far as we can see, the old Indian idea, or at all events
+the ideal which the Brahmans wished to see realized. I do not stand up
+for utter idleness or sloth, not even for drones, though nature does
+not seem to condemn even _hoc genus_ altogether. All I plead for, as a
+scholar and a thinker, is freedom from canvassing, from letter-reading
+and letter-writing, from committees, deputations, meetings, public
+dinners, and all the rest. That will sound very selfish to the ears of
+practical men, and I understand why they should look upon men like
+myself as hardly worth their salt. But what would they say to one of
+the greatest fighters in the history of the world? What would they say
+to Julius Caesar, 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 people?
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abiturienten, Examination at Zerbst, 106
+
+Acland, Dr., 245
+
+Admiration, power of, 90
+
+Aitareya-brâhmana, 203
+
+All Souls’ Fellowship, 23
+  -- -- pinnacles, 225, 226
+
+Altenstein, Minister of Instruction, 131
+
+Anglican system, 209
+  -- orders, 291
+
+Anhalt-Dessau, Duchy of, 46
+
+Antiquities hid in etymologies, 152-154
+
+Anti-Semitism, 70, 71
+
+Arnim, Count, 110
+
+Arnold, Matthew, 282-283
+
+Artistic element in the Oxford movement, 303, 304
+
+Aryan speakers may differ in blood, 32
+  -- and aboriginal languages of India, M. M.’s paper on, 210, 211
+
+Aryans of India, 197
+
+Aryas, meaning of, 32
+
+Asvalâyana Sûtras, 203
+
+Atavism, 17, 25, 26, 27, 30
+
+Atavistic influences, 27
+
+Autobiography, object of M. M. in writing his, vi
+
+Autos, the, 35
+
+
+Babies, studying, 86
+
+Bach family, 34
+
+Baden-Powell, Professor, 238, 245
+
+Bandinell, Dr., 259-261
+
+Bardelli, Abbé, 170
+
+Basedow, von, President, 54
+  -- the Pedagogue, 55, 76
+
+Bathing, 77
+
+Bernays, Professor, 69
+
+Bibliothèque Royale, 167
+
+Biographies, too lenient, 2
+  -- best kind of history, 14
+
+Bismarck, 175
+
+Blücher, Marshal, 235
+
+Blum, Robert, 15
+
+Boden Professorship of Sanskrit, vii
+
+Bodleian Library, 258, 259
+
+Boehtlingk, 181, 182, 183
+
+Books, scarcity of, 67
+
+Bopp, 125, 132, 148, 151, 156
+  -- his lectures, 156, 157
+
+Brahmo Somaj, service for the, 61
+
+Breakfast parties, 205
+
+British Association at Oxford, 210, 215
+
+Brockhaus, Professor, 147
+
+Buckle, 287
+
+Bull, Dr., 40, 255, 256
+
+Bunsen, Baron, 5, 13, 16
+  -- first visit to, 190, 191
+  -- his kindness, 193, 199, 221
+
+Burgon, 287
+
+Burnouf, 167, 169, 178, 179-182, 288
+
+
+Camerarius, 51
+
+Canon of Christ Church, an old, 256-258
+
+Canvassing, 312, 313
+
+Carlyle, 310, 311
+
+Carus, Professor, 98, 109
+
+Chartist Deputation, 16
+
+Chrétian, 287
+
+Christianity, historical teaching of, in Germany, 65, 287, 291
+  -- an historical event, 300
+
+Church, Dr., 287
+
+Church, not for young children, 60
+
+Circumstances, influence of, 24
+
+Clarke, Sir Andrew, 82, 86
+
+Classics, exaggerated praise of the, 101, 102
+  -- -- reactions from, 103
+  -- nothing takes their place, 103
+
+Colebrooke, 192
+
+Colenso, 298, 305
+
+Collegien-Buch, 121, 123-125
+
+Comparative Philology, Professorship of, 12
+
+Congregation and Convocation, why M. M. kept away from, 314, 315
+
+Conscience, the voice of, 63
+
+Coxe, Mr., 258
+
+Cradock, Dr. and Mrs., 267
+
+Crawford, Mr., the Objector General, 211
+
+Curtius, 132, 151
+
+
+Darwin, 2, 11, 17, 131
+
+David, 107, 109
+
+Deafness in M. M.’s family, 29
+
+De Lisle, 293, 296
+
+Dessau, Dukes of, 46
+  -- cheapness of life at, 56, 57
+  -- Gottesacker at, 57
+  -- only two classes at, 73
+  -- trade of, 73
+  -- public school at, 76
+  -- its walls, 89
+  -- M. M.’s world, 89
+  -- simplicity of life at, 92
+  -- -- effect on the character, 92, 96
+  -- moral sayings, 96
+
+Devas, Θεὁς, 144
+
+Dieu, Deus, Devas, 197
+
+Donkin, Professor, 246
+
+Double First, 240
+
+Drobisch, 129, 140, 142, 145
+
+Duels at University, 119, 128, 129, 284, 286
+
+Dyaus, Zeus, Iovis, 197
+
+
+Early life, roughing it, 91
+
+East India Company, 14
+
+East India House, 16, 215
+
+Eckart, 107, 109
+
+Eckstein, Baron d’, 176, 177
+
+“Edinburgh Review,” first article in, 222
+
+Egyptian chronology, 199
+
+“Elsie Venner,” 31
+
+Emerson, 310
+
+Encaenia, 265, 266
+  -- jokes at, 265
+
+English and German Doctors, 84, 85
+
+Environment, 17, 18, 25
+
+Ernst, 110
+
+Eternal, _ewig_, 150, 151
+
+Etymologies, 152
+
+Evolution, 198
+
+Ewald, 298, 299, 305
+
+
+Fairy tales, influence of, 50-52
+
+Fear, the feeling of, 88
+
+Feast of Tabernacles, 71
+
+Fellowships, old system of, 246, 247, 263
+
+Forbiger, 99
+
+French master at Dessau, 75
+
+French Revolution, 16, 216
+
+Friar Bacon, 227
+
+Fröge, Professor, 109
+  -- his wife and Mendelssohn, 109
+
+Froude, J. A., 8, 287
+
+Funkhänel, 99
+
+
+Gaisford, Dr., 240, 252-254
+
+Gathy, M., 165, 172
+
+German regiments, hymns sung by, 62
+  -- students, 213
+
+Germany and Germans, prejudice against, 20, 21
+  -- religious feeling in, 62
+
+Germ-plasm, 19, 28
+
+Gewandhaus Concerts, 107
+
+Giordano Bruno on Oxford, 228
+
+Goethe, not always admired, 93
+
+Goldstücker, 170-172
+
+Goldwin Smith, 238
+
+Gottesacker at Dessau, 57
+
+Grabau, M. M.’s concerts with, 110
+
+Grandfather of M. M., 79-81
+
+Grandmother of M. M., 53
+
+Grant, Sir Alexander, 272, 273
+
+Greene’s Oxford, 227
+
+Greenhill, Dr., 245
+
+Grenville, Lord, 229
+
+Greswell, Mr., 245
+
+Griffith, Dr., Master of University, 229
+
+Grimm, 151
+
+Gründer, ein, 48
+
+Guizot, 182
+
+
+Habits acquired not hereditable, 33
+
+Hagedorn, Baron, 112-114, 162
+  -- journey with him, 112
+  -- his plan of life for M. M., 113
+
+Hahnemann, 82 _et seq._, 86
+
+Hallam’s literary dog, 209
+
+Hare, Archdeacon, 205, 286
+  -- visit to, 208
+
+Hase, 185
+
+Haupt, his Latin Society, 121, 125
+  -- his dislike to modern philology, 155, 156
+
+Hawkins, Dr., 240, 249
+
+Headaches, suffering from, 81 _et seq._
+  -- how cured, 83
+
+Heads of Houses, 234, 264
+  -- -- their power, 239
+
+Hebdomadal Board, 239, 255
+
+Hebrew taught at the Nicolai-Schule, 100
+
+Hegel, 2
+  -- his philosophy, 130-138
+
+Hegel’s idea, 133-135
+  -- “Philosophy of Nature,” 135, 136
+  -- “Philosophy of Religion,” 135, 142
+  -- “Metaphysics,” 136
+
+Heinroth, 139
+
+Helps, Sir Arthur, 266
+
+Hentzner, his description of Oxford, 228
+
+Herbart, school of, 129, 140, 142
+
+Heredity, 17
+
+Hermann, Gottfried, 121, 125, 128
+  -- welcomed modern philology, 155
+  -- his kindness to M. M., 156
+
+Hermae round the Theatre, 264
+
+Highland lady at Oxford, 229
+
+Hiller, 107, 109
+  -- his oratorio, 110
+
+Historical method, 198
+  -- events, their influence transitory, 315, 316
+
+Hitopadesa, 51
+
+Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 6, 266
+
+Hönicke, Dr., 78
+
+Horace, “cheekiness” of, 102
+
+Human weaknesses, allowance must be made for, 93, 94
+
+Humboldt, 181
+
+
+Imprisonment, M. M.’s, at University, 118, 119
+
+Indian thought, influence of, 315, 317
+
+Indolence, M. M.’s, 312
+
+Inherited and acquired qualities, difference between, 33
+
+Inspiration and infallibility, 65, 66
+
+Institut de France, 186
+  -- M. M. made Member, 186, 187
+
+
+Jenkins, Dr., Master of Balliol, 250
+
+Jerusalem, Bishopric of, 293
+
+Jews at Dessau, 68, 70
+  -- their privileges in Germany, 70
+
+Johnson, Manuel, 286, 303
+  -- his art treasures, 303
+
+Jowett, Professor, 4, 6, 287
+
+
+Kaliwoda, 107
+
+Kant’s “Kritik,” 138
+
+Kaspar Hauser, 18
+
+Keshub Chunder Sen, 61
+
+Kingsley, Charles, 5
+  -- and muscular Christianity, 309
+
+Klengel, 147
+
+Kuhn, A., 154
+
+
+Lamartine, 177
+
+Language, influence of, 31
+  -- differentiation of, 31, 32, 33
+  -- science of, 198
+
+Lassen, 23
+
+Latham, Dr., 210
+
+Layard, 11, 205
+
+Leipzig, 15
+  -- school at, 97
+  -- University, 115
+
+Lepsius, 159
+
+Liberals at University, 117, 118
+
+Liddell, Dr., 238
+  -- and Mrs., 267
+
+Liddell’s Dictionary, 99
+
+Liszt, 107-111
+
+London, 188
+  -- society, peeps into, 205
+  -- M. M.’s social difficulties, 206-208
+
+Longchamps, 167
+
+Lotze, 129, 136, 139, 287
+
+Louis Lucien Bonaparte, 214
+
+Louis Napoleon, 16
+
+Luther, 64
+  -- his love of fairy tales, 50, 51
+  -- tercentenary, 105
+
+
+Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 251
+
+Mammoth, 18
+
+Manning, 296
+
+Masters, influence of, in German and English schools, 77
+
+Maurice, Frederick, 205, 286
+  -- Pusey’s attack on, 302
+
+Memory changes, 39
+
+Mendelssohn family, 33, 34
+
+Mendelssohn, Felix, 107, 110
+  -- his death, 110
+  -- his concert for Liszt, 110, 111
+
+Mendelssohn’s “Hymn of Praise,” 105
+  -- music in Oxford, 268
+
+Metternich, 72
+  -- his system, 117
+
+Mezzofanti, 30
+
+Michelet, 287
+
+Mill, John Stuart, 7, 14
+  -- his Autos, 7
+
+Mill, Dr., mention of a Vedic hymn printed at Calcutta, 192
+
+Milton on Oxford, 228
+
+Modern Literature, Professorship of, 12
+
+Mommsen, 186, 187
+
+Moncalm, “L’origine de la Pensée,” 10 _n._
+
+Monk, M. M.’s wish to be a, 24
+
+Monument-raising, 47
+
+Morier, 275-279
+
+Mother, M. M.’s, 57-59
+  -- her relations, 54, 55
+
+Mozley, 287
+
+MSS., copying, 179
+
+Mulde, excursion on foot along the, 112
+
+Müller, Wilhelm, 47, 48
+  -- his poems, 48
+  -- his family, 52, 53
+  -- his home and society, 55
+  -- early death, 56
+  -- monument to, 49
+Music, its influence on M. M., 67
+  -- wished to make it his career, 111
+
+“Mystères de Paris,” 174
+
+
+Natural Science and Mathematics little taught at Nicolai-Schule, 100
+
+Neander, 21, 22
+
+Newman, 286, 292-296
+  -- want of openness in his friends, 292, 296
+  -- his influence, 293
+  -- on “Lives of the Saints,” 294, 295
+
+Newspapers few in number, 71
+  -- influence of modern, 72
+  -- old, 74
+
+Nicolai-Schule, 99
+  -- chiefly for classics, 99-101
+
+Niebuhr, 191, 289
+
+Niedner, Dr., 127, 137, 140
+
+Nirukta, the, 203
+
+Nobbe, Dr., 99
+  -- his testimonial, 105
+
+
+Old and young men, 36
+
+Oriental languages, 146
+
+Orléans, Duchesse d’, 177
+
+Oxford, first visit to, 213
+  -- settled at, 220
+  -- social life at, 220, 221
+  -- changes in, 223-226
+  -- new buildings, 224, 225
+  -- conservative, 226
+  -- Greene’s, 227
+  -- Hentzner’s description of, 228
+  -- Giordano Bruno on, 228
+  -- Milton on, 228
+  -- society in 1810, 229-231
+  -- great changes in, 243, 244
+  -- society at, in the forties and fifties, 244, 245
+  -- city society of, 245, 246
+  -- high tone of talk, 284
+  -- theological atmosphere at, 286
+  -- trivial questions of ceremony in, 291, 292, 300, 301
+
+
+Palgrave, 274, 287
+
+Palm, Dr., 99
+
+Palmerston, Lord, 16, 217
+
+Pânini, 182
+  -- his grammar, 204
+
+Pantschatantra, 51
+
+Paper, scarcity of, 67
+
+Parental influences, 27
+
+Paris, 15, 162
+
+Paris, journey to, 163, 164
+  -- meals there, 166
+  -- hard struggles in, 173, 283
+
+Patagonians as types of humanity, 88
+
+Peel, Sir Robert, 205
+
+Philanthropinum, 54, 76
+
+Philology, love of, 121
+
+Philosophy, studied by M. M., 129, 137, 146
+
+Physical science, revolt of, against Hegel, 135
+
+Pillar and pillow, 189
+
+“Pitar,” father, 153
+
+Pitcairn Islands, 18
+
+Plumptre, Dr., 213, 215, 265
+
+Poems, M. M.’s, 104, 105
+
+Pollen, 287
+
+Pott, 151, 160
+
+Pranks at University, 119, 120
+
+“Presence of mind,” 262
+
+Prichard, Dr., 211, 212, 221
+
+Professor’s lectures and fees, 121, 122
+
+Professors, feeling of German students for their, 127
+
+Proto-Aryan language, 200
+
+Prowe, Professor, 116, 117
+
+Public schools in Germany, 98
+  -- -- in England need reforming, 242
+
+Pusey, Dr., 261, 299, 302
+
+
+Race, differentiation of, 35
+
+Rawlinson, Sir H., 205
+
+Reay, Professor, 260
+
+Reinaud, 186
+
+Religion, practical, 305, 306
+
+Religious feeling in Germany, 68
+  -- -- great tolerance in, 70, 71
+  -- sentiments must be taught at home, 62
+  -- teaching in school, 63
+
+Renan, 185, 186, 288, 289, 290, 305
+
+Research, fellowships for, 270
+
+Revelation, subjective not objective, 66
+  -- in the old sense, 288
+
+Rigaud, John, 287
+
+Rig-veda, how to publish the, 181, 182
+  -- printing of, 222
+
+Roman Catholic Church, English national feeling opposed to, 296, 297
+
+Rose-bush, vision of the, 43, 44
+
+Roth, 170, 171
+
+Routh, Dr., 247-249
+
+Rubens, Levy, 75
+
+Ruskin, 224
+
+Russell, Sir W., 37, 190
+
+
+Sadowa, and Sixty-six, 38
+
+St. Hilaire, Barthélemy, 170
+
+St. Petersburg, idea of going to, 181, 183
+
+Salis-Schwabe, Madame, 98
+
+Salmon at Dessau, 56, 57
+
+“Salve caput cruentatum,” 59
+
+Sanskrit Professorship, vii, 12
+  -- chair of, at Leipzig, 147
+  -- feeling against, 147
+  -- unedited works, 204
+
+Savigny, Professor, 122
+
+Sâyana’s Commentary, 202-204
+
+Schelling, 156, 195, 287, 289
+
+Schlegel’s “Weisheit der Indier,” 146
+
+Schleswig-Holstein question, 276
+
+Schloezer, Karl von, 174, 176
+
+School teaching, 67, 68
+  -- success at, 104, 105
+  -- routine of learning, 120
+
+Schopenhauer, 289
+
+Selbst-Kritik, 6
+
+Self, the, 42
+
+Sellar, Professor, 273, 274
+
+Seminaries and societies at University, 123
+
+Senatus Academicus, 236, 237
+
+Shelley, 233
+
+Simolin, Baron, 55
+
+Sister, M. M.’s, 115, 116
+
+Spiegel, Professor, 147
+
+Sport, M. M.’s dislike of, 80
+
+Stanislas Julien, 185
+
+Stanley, Dr., 5, 41, 238, 286, 287, 302
+
+Steel pens, 67
+
+Stories in Oxford, regular descent of, 248
+
+Strauss, 21, 305
+
+Stubengelehrter, 308, 311
+
+Student Clubs, 116
+
+Student life in Paris, 184
+
+Sunday games at the Observatory, 298
+
+Sykes, Colonel, 16
+
+Symons, Dr., 239, 240, 251
+
+Sympathy in the joys and sufferings of others, 41, 42
+
+
+Tait, Dr., 238
+
+Talents in families, 33-35
+
+Taylorian Professorship, 22
+
+Telegraphs, old, 72
+
+Testimonials, 4
+
+Thalberg, 111
+
+Thirlwall, 205
+
+Thomson, Dr. and Mrs., 267, 268, 280, 281
+
+Tippoo Sahib’s tiger, 215
+
+Travelling in the thirties, 111
+
+Troyer, M., and the Duchesse de Wagram, 184
+
+Truth, 312
+
+Turanian languages, M. M.’s letter on, 160, 161
+
+Tutors and Fellows, 236
+  -- -- their influence, 241, 268, 269
+
+
+University, M. M.’s life at, 115, 116
+  -- pranks, 119, 120
+  -- duels at, 119, 128-130
+
+University Press, 218, 219
+
+Upanishads, 169
+
+
+Van der Weyer, 205
+
+Veda, 9, 12-14, 148, 168
+
+Veda, a mystery, 191, 194
+  -- MSS. of, in India, 192
+  -- -- brought to Europe, 193
+  -- oldest of real books, 195
+  -- primitive thought in the, 195, 197-199
+  -- date of, 200
+  -- translations of, 201
+  -- East India Company and the, 201
+  -- forming correct text of the Rig-, 202
+  -- enormous work involved, 204
+
+Vedic scholarship, 193
+
+_Veih_, home, 153
+
+_Vernunft_ and _Verstand_, 143
+
+Vigfusson, Dr., 254
+
+Voltairian philosophy at Oxford, 307
+
+
+Weismann, 27-30
+
+Weisse, 129, 132-135, 139-142, 287
+
+Wellesley, Dr., 304
+
+Wellington, Duke of, 16, 40, 205
+
+Westminster Abbey and St. Peter’s, 304
+
+Wilberforce, Samuel, 207, 208
+
+Wilson, Professor, 158, 159
+
+Wiseman, 296
+
+Wolf, F. A., 48
+
+Wolseley, Lord, 266
+
+Wren, Sir Christopher, 264
+
+Wright, Dr., 261, 262
+
+
+Youth painted by the old, 35, 36
+
+
+Zerbst, examined at, 106
+  -- M. M.’s examiners at, 106
+
+Zeus, Dyaus, 148, 149
+
+
+
+
+OTHER BOOKS BY MAX MÜLLER
+
+
+Auld Lang Syne
+
+_First Series._ Illustrated. 8vo, $2.00
+
+“This book, the fruit of enforced leisure, as its author tells us, is
+a charming mass of gossip about people whom Professor Max Müller has
+known during his long career—musicians, literary men, princes, and
+beggars. The last class is not, perhaps, the least interesting or
+amusing. To our mind, however, the chapter on musicians, with its
+delightful pictures of the author’s early life, and the naïve
+confessions as to musical tastes, with some of the stories about
+celebrated composers, forms the most interesting portion of a work
+which has not one dull page.”—_The Spectator._
+
+“One of the most charming examples of reminiscent literature that has
+recently seen the light.”—New York _Sun_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Auld Lang Syne
+
+_Second Series._ =My Indian Friends.= 8vo, $2.00.
+
+“The professor’s ‘Indian Friends’ are not all of the nineteenth
+century. His oldest friends are in the Veda, about which he has always
+loved to write. Indeed, he spent the best years of his life over the
+text of the Rig Veda, and has a clear right to be heard upon the
+classic he has done so much to make familiar.... But the real charm of
+his recollections lies rather in their peaceful kindliness, in their
+wide and tolerant sympathies, and in their earnest aim, which will
+surely be attained in some measure, of bringing what is best in India
+closer home to foreigners.”—_Literature._
+
+
+Science of Language
+
+Founded on Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution. _New Edition
+from New Plates. Largely Re-written._ In 2 vols., crown 8vo, $6.00.
+
+_CONTENTS:—Vol. I.—The Science of Language one of the Physical
+Sciences; The Growth of Language in Contradistinction to the History
+of Language; The Empirical Stage in the Science of Language; The
+Classificatory Stage in the Science of Language; The Genealogical
+Classification of Languages; Comparative Grammar; The Constituent
+Elements of Language; The Morphological Classification of Languages;
+The Theoretical Stage in the Science of Language—Origin of Language;
+Genealogical Tables of Languages._
+
+_CONTENTS:—Vol. II.—Introductory Lecture. New Materials for the
+Science of Language and New Theories; Language and Reason; The
+Physiological Alphabet; Phonetic Change; Grimm’s Law; On the
+Principles of Etymology; On the Powers of Roots; Metaphor; The
+Mythology of the Greeks; Jupiter, The Supreme Aryan God; Myths of the
+Dawn; Modern Mythology._
+
+“In practical value to the student of the science of language, the
+work stands alone.”—Boston _Transcript_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Ramakrishna
+
+=His Life and Sayings.= Crown 8vo, $1.50 _net_.
+
+“As a whole the little book marks one of the summit points of recent
+scientific religious literature. Max Müller’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 teaching.”—_American Historical
+Review._
+
+
+Science of Thought
+
+_Two Volumes._ Crown 8vo, $4.00.
+
+“Of the portion of the work in which the author exemplifies and
+illustrates his theory—his analysis of the Sanskrit roots, his
+chapters on Kant’s philosophy, on the formation of words, on
+propositions and syllogisms—it is only necessary to say that while
+they contain, along with much that will reward a careful study, not a
+little that will arouse controversy, they have, like all the author’s
+former productions, the prime merit of being free from the two
+greatest of literary faults—obscurity and dulness. A work in which
+two of the driest and hardest of studies, analytic philology and
+mental philosophy, are made at once lucid and attractive, is an
+acquisition for which all students of those mysteries have reason to
+be grateful.”—New York _Evening Post_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Science of Religion
+
+=Lectures on the Science of Religion=; with Papers on Buddhism, and a
+Translation of the Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue. Crown 8vo, $2.00.
+
+_CONTENTS:—LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION; BUDDHIST NIHILISM;
+BUDDHA’S DHAMMAPADA, OR “PATH OF VIRTUE”; Introduction; The
+Twin-Verses; On Reflection; Thought; Flowers; The Fool; The Wise Man;
+The Venerable; The Thousands; Evil; Punishment; Old Age; Self; The
+World; The Awakened (Buddha); Happiness; Pleasure; Anger; Impurity;
+The Just; The Way; Miscellaneous; The Downward Course; The Elephant;
+Thirst; The Bhikshu (Mendicant); The Brahmana._
+
+
+Chips from a German Workshop
+
+_Five Volumes._ Crown 8vo, $2.00 per vol.; the set, $10.00.
+
+Vol. I. Essays on the Science of Religion.
+
+Vol. II. Essays on Mythology, Traditions and Customs.
+
+Vol. III. Essays on Literature, Biography and Antiquities.
+
+Vol. IV. Comparative Philology, Mythology, etc.
+
+Vol. V. Miscellaneous. Later Essays.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion=, as Illustrated by the
+Religions of India. [_Hibbert Lectures for 1878._] Crown 8vo, $1.50
+_net_.
+
+=Biographical Essays=: Râmmohun Roy—Keshub Chunder Sen—Dayânanda
+Sarasvatî—Bunyiu Nanjio—Kenjiu Kasawara—Mohl—Kingsley. Crown 8vo,
+$2.00.
+
+=The German Classics.= From the Fourth to the Nineteenth Century. With
+biographical notices, translations into modern German and notes. _A
+New Edition, Revised, Enlarged and Adapted to_ SHERER’S “History of
+German Literature.” 2 vols, $6.00 _net_.
+
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, _Publishers_
+
+153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Autobiography, by F. Max Müller
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Autobiography, by F. Max M�ller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My Autobiography
+       A Fragment
+
+Author: F. Max M�ller
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2009 [EBook #30269]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Irma Spehar and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max M�ller Aged 4._]
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+A FRAGMENT
+
+
+BY THE
+
+
+RT. HON. PROFESSOR F. MAX M�LLER, K.M.
+
+
+_WITH PORTRAITS_
+
+
+New York
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+1901
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+TROW DIRECTORY
+PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
+NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+For some years past my father had, in the intervals of more serious
+work, occupied his leisure moments in jotting down reminiscences of
+his early life. In 1898 and 1899 he issued the two volumes of _Auld
+Lang Syne_, which contained recollections of his friends, but very
+little about his own life and career. In the Introductory Chapter to
+the Autobiography he explains fully the reasons which led him, at his
+advanced age, to undertake the task of writing his own Life, and he
+began, but alas! too late, to gather together the fragments that he
+had written at different times. But even during the last two years of
+his life, and after the first attack of the illness which finally
+proved fatal, he would not devote himself entirely to what he
+considered mere recreation, as can be seen from such a work as his
+_Six Systems of Indian Philosophy_ published in May, 1889, and from
+the numerous articles which continued to appear up to the very time of
+his death.
+
+During the last weeks of his life, when we all knew that the end could
+not be far off, the Autobiography was constantly in his thoughts, and
+his great desire was to leave as much as possible ready for
+publication. Even when he was lying in bed far too weak to sit up in a
+chair, he continued to work at the manuscript with me. I would read
+portions aloud to him, and he would suggest alterations and dictate
+additions. I see that we were actually at work on this up to the 19th
+of October, and on the 28th he was taken to his well-earned rest. One
+of the last letters that I read to him was a letter from Messrs.
+Longmans, his lifelong publishers, urging the publication of the
+fragments of the Autobiography that he had then written.
+
+My father's object in writing his Autobiography was twofold: firstly,
+to show what he considered to have been his mission in life, to lay
+bare the thread that connected all his labours; and secondly, to
+encourage young struggling scholars by letting them see how it had
+been possible for one of themselves, without fortune, a stranger in a
+strange land, to arrive at the position to which he attained, without
+ever sacrificing his independence, or abandoning the unprofitable and
+not very popular subjects to which he had determined to devote his
+life.
+
+Unfortunately the last chapter takes us but little beyond the
+threshold of his career. There is enough, however, to enable us to see
+how from his earliest student days his leanings were philosophical and
+religious rather than classical; how the study of Herbart's philosophy
+encouraged him in the work in which he was engaged as a mere student,
+the Science of Language and Etymology; how his desire to know
+something special, that no other philosopher would know, led him to
+explore the virgin fields of Oriental literature and religions. With
+this motive he began the study of Arabic, Persian, and finally
+Sanskrit, devoting himself more especially to the latter under
+Brockhaus and R�ckert, and subsequently under Burnouf, who persuaded
+him to undertake the colossal work of editing the Rig-veda.
+
+The Autobiography breaks off before the end of the period during which
+he devoted himself exclusively to Sanskrit. It is idle to speculate
+what course his life's work might have taken, had he been elected to
+the Boden Professorship of Sanskrit; but he lived long enough to
+realize that his rejection for that chair in 1860, which was so hard
+to bear at the time, was really a blessing in disguise, as it enabled
+him to turn his attention to more general subjects, and devote himself
+to those philological, philosophical, religious and mythological
+studies, which found their expression in a series of works commencing
+with his _Lectures on the Science of Language_, 1861, and terminating
+with his _Contributions to the Science of Mythology_, 1897,--"the
+thread that connects the origin of thought and language with the
+origin of mythology and religion."
+
+As to his advice to struggling scholars, the self-depreciation,
+which, as Professor Jowett said, is one of the greatest dangers of an
+autobiography, makes my father rather conceal the real causes of his
+success in life. He even goes so far as to say, "everything in my
+career came about most naturally, not by my own effort, but owing to
+those circumstances or to that environment, of which we have heard so
+much of late": or again, "it was really my friends who did everything
+for me and helped me over many a stile and many a ditch." No doubt in
+one sense this is true, but not in the sense in which it would have
+been true had he, when at the University, accepted the offer which he
+tells us a wealthy cousin made him, to adopt him and send him into the
+Austrian diplomatic service, and even to procure him a wife and a
+title into the bargain. The friends who helped him, men such as
+Humboldt, Burnouf, Bunsen, Stanley, Kingsley, Liddell, to mention only
+a few, were men whose very friendship was the surest proof of my
+father's merits. The real secret of his success lay not in his
+friends, but in himself;--in the knowledge that his success or failure
+in life depended entirely on his own efforts; in the fixity of purpose
+which made him refuse all offers that would lead him from the pathway
+that he had laid down for himself; and in the unflagging industry with
+which he strove to reach the goal of his ambition. "My very
+struggles," he writes, "were certainly a help to me."
+
+When I came to examine the manuscript with a view to sending it to
+press, I found that there was a good deal of work necessary before it
+could be published in book form. The fragments were in many cases
+incomplete; there was no division into chapters, no connexion between
+the various periods and episodes of his life; important incidents were
+omitted; while, owing to the intermittent way in which he had been
+writing, there were frequent repetitions. My father was always most
+critical of his own style, and would often, when correcting his
+proof-sheets, alter a whole page, because a word or a phrase
+displeased him, or because some new idea, some happier mode of
+expression, occurred to him; but in the case of his Autobiography, the
+only revision that he was able to give, was on his deathbed, while I
+read the manuscript aloud to him.
+
+My father points out how rarely the sons of great musicians or great
+painters become distinguished in the same line themselves. "It seems,"
+he says, "almost as if the artistic talent were exhausted by one
+generation or one individual"; and I fear that, in my case at all
+events, the same remark applies to literary talent. I have done my
+best to string the fragments together into one connected whole, only
+making such insertions, elisions and alterations as appeared strictly
+necessary. Any deficiency in literary style that may be noticeable in
+portions of the book should be ascribed to the inexperience of the
+editor.
+
+I have thought it right to insert the last chapter, which I call "A
+Confession," though I am not sure that my father intended it to be
+included in his Autobiography. It will, however, explain the attitude
+which he observed throughout his life, in keeping aloof, as far as
+possible, from the arena of academic contention at Oxford. He was
+never chosen a member of the Hebdomadal Council, he rarely attended
+meetings of Convocation or Congregation; he felt that other people,
+with more leisure at their disposal, could be of more use there; but
+he never refused to work for his University, when he felt that he was
+able to render good service, and he acted for years as a Curator of
+the Bodleian Library and of the Taylorian Institute, and as a Delegate
+of the Clarendon Press.
+
+With reference to the illustrations, it may be of interest to readers
+to know that the portraits of my grandfather and grandmother are taken
+from pencil-drawings by Adolf Hensel, the husband of Mendelssohn's
+sister Fanny, herself a great musician, who, as my father tells us in
+_Auld Lang Syne_, really composed several of the airs that Mendelssohn
+published as his _Songs without Words_. The last portrait of my father
+is from a photograph taken soon after his arrival in Oxford by his
+great friend Thomson, afterwards Archbishop of York.
+
+Nothing now remains for me but to acknowledge the debt that I owe
+personally to this book. "Work," my father used often to say to me,
+"is the best healer of sorrow. In grief or disappointment, try hard
+work; it will not fail you." And certainly during these three sad
+months, I have proved the truth of this saying. He could not have left
+me a surer comfort or more welcome distraction than the duty of
+preparing for press these pages, the last fruits of that mind which
+remained active and fertile to the last.
+
+                                          W. G. MAX M�LLER.
+
+  OXFORD, _January_, 1901.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                               PAGE
+
+   I. INTRODUCTORY                     1
+
+  II. CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU             46
+
+ III. SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG          97
+
+  IV. UNIVERSITY                     115
+
+   V. PARIS                          162
+
+  VI. ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND             188
+
+ VII. EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD           218
+
+VIII. EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD        272
+
+  IX. A CONFESSION                   308
+
+      INDEX                          319
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF PORTRAITS
+
+
+F. MAX M�LLER, AGED FOUR        _Frontispiece_
+
+                                 FACING PAGE
+
+MY FATHER                            46
+
+MY MOTHER                            58
+
+F. MAX M�LLER, AGED FOURTEEN        106
+
+    "    "     AGED TWENTY          156
+
+    "    "     AGED THIRTY          268
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+After the publication of the second volume of my _Auld Lang Syne_,
+1899, I had a good deal of correspondence, of public criticism, and of
+private communings also with myself, whether I should continue my
+biographical records in the form hitherto adopted, or give a more
+personal character to my recollections. Some of my friends were
+evidently dissatisfied. "The recollections of your friends and the
+account of the influence they exercised on you," they said, "are
+interesting, no doubt, as far as they go, but we want more. We want to
+know the springs, the aspirations, the struggles, the failures, and
+achievements of your life. We want to know how you yourself look at
+yourself and at your past life and its various incidents." What they
+really wanted was, in fact, an autobiography. "No one," as a friend of
+mine, not an Irishman, said, "could do that so well as yourself, and
+you will never escape a biographer." I confess that did not frighten
+me very much. I did not think the danger of a biography very
+imminent. Besides, I had already revised two biographies and several
+biographical notices even during my lifetime. No sensible man ought to
+care about posthumous praise or posthumous blame. Enough for the day
+is the evil thereof. Our contemporaries are our right judges, our
+peers have to give their votes in the great academies and learned
+societies, and if they on the whole are not dissatisfied with the
+little we have done, often under far greater difficulties than the
+world was aware of, why should we care for the distant future? Who was
+a greater giant in philosophy than Hegel? Who towered higher than
+Darwin in natural science? Yet in one of the best German reviews[1]
+the following words of a young German biologist[2] are quoted, and not
+without a certain approval: "Darwinism belongs now to history, like
+that other _curiosum_ of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both
+are variations on the theme, How can a generation be led by the nose?
+and they are not calculated to raise our departing century in the eyes
+of later generations."
+
+  [1] _Deutsche Rundschau_, Feb., 1900, p. 249.
+
+  [2] Driesch, _Biologisches Centralblatt_, 1896, p. 335.
+
+If I was afraid of anything, it was not so much the severity of future
+judges, as the extreme kindness and leniency which distinguish most
+biographies in our days. It is true, 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 murmurings. It might be said that in my own case the thread
+that connects all my labours is very visible, namely, the thread that
+connects the origin of thought and languages with the origin of
+mythology and religion. Everything I have done was, no doubt,
+subordinate to these four great problems, but to lay bare the
+connecting links between what I have written and what I wanted to
+write and never found time to write, is by no means easy, not even for
+the author himself. Besides, what author has ever said the last word
+he wanted to say, and who has not had to close his eyes before he
+could write Finis to his work? There are many things still which I
+should like to say, but I am getting tired, and others will say them
+much better than I could, and will no doubt carry on the work where I
+had to leave it unfinished. We owe much to others, and we have to
+leave much to others. For throwing light on such points an
+autobiography is, no doubt, better adapted than any biography written
+by a stranger, if only we can at the same time completely forget that
+the man who is described is the same as the man who describes.
+
+"Friends," as Professor Jowett said, "always think it necessary
+(except Boswell, that great genius) to tell lies about their deceased
+friend; they leave out all his faults lest the public should
+exaggerate them. But we want to know his faults,--hat is probably
+the most interesting part of him."
+
+Jowett knew quite well, and he did not hesitate to say so, that to do
+much good in this world, you must be a very able and honest man,
+thinking of nothing else day and night; and he adds, "you must also be
+a considerable piece of a rogue, having many reticences and
+concealments; and I believe a good sort of roguery is never to say a
+word against anybody, however much they may deserve it."
+
+Now Professor Jowett has certainly done some good work at Oxford, but
+if any one were to say that he also was a considerable piece of a
+rogue, what an outcry there would be among the sons of Balliol. Jowett
+thought that the only chance of a good biography was for a man to
+write memoirs of himself, and what a pity that he did not do so in his
+own case. His friends, however, who had to write his Life were wise,
+and he escaped what of late has happened to several eminent men. He
+escaped the testimonials for this, and testimonials for another life,
+such as they are often published in our days.
+
+Testimonials are bad enough in this life, when we have to select one
+out of many candidates as best fitted for an office, and it is but
+natural that the electors will hardly ever look at them, but will try
+to get their information through some other channel. But what are
+called _post obit_ testimonials really go beyond everything yet known
+in funeral panegyrics. Of course, as no one is asked for such
+testimonials except those who are known to have been friends of the
+departed, these testimonials hardly ever contain one word of blame.
+One feels ashamed to write such testimonials, but if you are asked,
+what can you do without giving offence? We are placed altogether in a
+false position. Let any one try to speak the truth and nothing but the
+truth, and he will find that it is almost impossible to put down
+anything that in the slightest way might seem to reflect on the
+departed. The mention of the most innocent failings in an obituary
+notice is sure to offend somebody, the widow or the children, or some
+dear friend. I thought that my Recollections had hitherto contained
+nothing that could possibly offend anybody, nothing that could not
+have been published during the lifetime of the man to whom it
+referred. But no; I had ever so many complaints, and I gladly left
+out, in later editions, names which in many cases were really of no
+consequence compared with what they said and did.
+
+Surely every man has his faults and his little and often ridiculous
+weaknesses, and these weaknesses belong quite as much to a man's
+character as his strength; nay, with the suppression of the former the
+latter would often become almost unintelligible.
+
+I like the biographies of such friends of mine as Dean Stanley,
+Charles Kingsley, and Baron Bunsen. But even these are deficient in
+those shadows which would but help to bring out all the more clearly
+the bright points in their character. We should remember the words of
+Dr. Wendell Holmes: "We all want to draw perfect ideals, and all the
+coin that comes from Nature's mint is more or less clipped, filed,
+'sweated,' or bruised, and bent and worn, even if it was pure metal
+when stamped, which is more than we can claim, I suppose, for anything
+human." True, very true; and what would the departed himself say to
+such biographies as are now but too common,--most flattering pictures
+no doubt, but pictures without one spot or wrinkle? In Germany it was
+formerly not an uncommon thing for the author of a book to write a
+self-review (Selbst-Kritik), and these were generally far better than
+reviews written by friends or enemies. For who knows the strong and
+weak points of a book so well as the author? True; but a whole life is
+more difficult to review and to criticize than a single book.
+Nevertheless it must be admitted that an autobiography has many
+advantages, and it might be well if every man of note, nay, every man
+who has something to say for himself that he wishes posterity to know,
+should say it himself. This would in time form a wonderful archive for
+psychological study. Something of the kind has been done already at
+Berlin in preserving private correspondences. Of course it is
+difficult to keep such archives within reasonable limits, but here
+again I am not afraid of self-laudation so much as of self-depreciation.
+
+Professor Jowett, who did not write his own biography, was quite
+right in saying that there is great danger of an autobiography being
+rather self-depreciatory; there is certainly something so nauseous in
+self-praise that most people would shrink far more from self-praise
+than from self-blame. There may be some kind of subtle self-admiration
+even in the fault-finding of an outspoken autobiographer; but who can
+dive into those deepest depths of the human soul? To me it seems that
+if an honest man takes himself by the neck, and shakes himself, he can
+do it far better than anybody else, and the castigation, if well
+deserved, comes certainly with a far better grace from himself than if
+administered by others.
+
+Few men, I believe, know their real goodness and greatness. Some of
+the most handsome women, so we are assured, pass through life without
+ever knowing from their looking-glass that they are handsome. And it
+is certainly true that men, from sad experience, know their weak
+points far better than their good points, which they look on as no
+more than natural.
+
+The Autos, for instance, described by John Stuart Mill, has no cause
+to be grateful to the Autos that wrote his biography. Mill had been
+threatened by several future biographers, and he therefore wrote the
+short biographical account of himself almost in self-defence. But
+besides the truly miraculous, and, if related by anybody else, hardly
+credible achievements of his early boyhood and youth, his great
+achievements in later life, the influence which he exercised both by
+his writings and still more by his personal and public character,
+would have found a far more eloquent and truthful interpreter in a
+stranger than in Mill himself. I remember another case where a most
+distinguished author tried to escape the oil and the blessings,
+perhaps the opposite also, from the hands of his future biographers.
+Froude destroyed the whole of his correspondence, and he wished
+particularly that all letters written to him in the fullest confidence
+should be burnt,--and they were. I think it was a pity, for I know
+what valuable letters were destroyed in that _auto da f�_; and yet
+when he had done all this, he seems to have been seized with fear, and
+just before he returned to Oxford as Regius Professor of Modern
+History he began to write a sketch of his own life, which was found
+among his papers. Interesting it certainly was, but fortunately his
+best friends prevented its publication. It would have added nothing to
+what we know of him in his writings, and would never have put his real
+merits in their proper light. Besides, it came to an end with his
+youth and told us little of his real life.
+
+I flattered myself that I had found the true way out of all these
+difficulties, by writing not exactly my own life, but recollections of
+my friends and acquaintances who had influenced me most, and guided me
+in my not always easy passage through life. As in describing the
+course of a river, we cannot do better than to describe the shores
+which hem in and divert the river and are reflected on its waves, I
+thought that by describing my environment, my friends, and fellow
+workers, I could best describe the course of my own life. I hoped also
+that in this way I myself could keep as much as possible in the
+background, and yet in describing the wooded or rocky shores with
+their herds, their cottages, and churches, describe their reflected
+image on the passing river.
+
+But now I am asked to give a much fuller account of myself, not only
+of what I have seen, but also of what I have been, what were the
+objects or ideals of my life, how far I have succeeded in carrying
+them out, and, as I said, how often I have failed to accomplish what I
+had sketched out as my task in life. People wished to know how a boy,
+born and educated in a small and almost unknown town in the centre of
+Germany, should have come to England, should have been chosen there to
+edit the oldest book of the world, the Veda of the Brahmans, never
+published before, whether in India or in Europe, should have passed
+the best part of his life as a professor in the most famous and, as it
+was thought, the most exclusive University in England, and should
+actually have ended his days as a Member of Her Majesty's most
+honourable Privy Council. I confess myself it seems a very strange
+career, yet everything came about most naturally, not by my own
+effort, but owing again to those circumstances or to that environment
+of which we have heard so much of late.
+
+Young, struggling men also have written to me, 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
+England. They knew, for I had never made any secret of it, how poor I
+was in worldly goods, and how, as I said at Glasgow, I had nothing to
+depend on after I left the University, but those fingers with which I
+still hold my pen and write so badly that I can hardly read my
+manuscript myself. When I arrived I had no family connections in
+England, nor any influential friends, "and yet," I was told, "in a
+foreign country, you managed to reach the top of your profession. Tell
+us how you did it; and how you preserved at the same time your
+independence and never forsook the not very popular subjects, such as
+language, mythology, religion, and philosophy, on which you continued
+to write to the very end of your life."
+
+I generally said that most of these questions could best be answered
+from my books, but they replied that few people had time to read all I
+had written, and many would feel grateful for a thread to lead them
+through this labyrinth of books, essays, and pamphlets, which have
+issued from my workshop during the last fifty years.[3]
+
+  [3] As giving a clear and complete abstract of my writings I
+  may now recommend M. Montcalm's _L'origine de la Pens�e et de
+  la Parole_, Paris, 1900.
+
+All I could say was that each man must find his own way in life, but
+if there was any secret about my success, it was simply due to the
+fact that I had perfect faith, and went on never doubting even when
+everything looked grey and black about me. I felt convinced that what
+I cared for, and what I thought worthy of a whole life of hard work,
+must in the end be recognized by others also as of value, and as
+worthy of a certain support from the public. Had not Layard gained a
+hearing for Assyrian bulls? Did not Darwin induce the world to take an
+interest in Worms, and in the Fertilization of Orchids? And should the
+oldest book and the oldest thoughts of the Aryan world remain despised
+and neglected?
+
+For many years I never thought of appointments or of getting on in the
+world in a pecuniary sense. My friends often laughed at me, and when I
+think of it now, I confess I must have seemed very Quixotic to many of
+those who tried for this and that, got lucrative appointments, married
+rich wives, became judges and bishops, ambassadors and ministers, and
+could hardly understand what I was driving at with my Sanskrit
+manuscripts, my proof-sheets and revises. Perhaps I did not know
+myself. Still I was not quite so foolish as they imagined. True, I
+declined several offers made to me which seemed very advantageous in a
+worldly sense, but would have separated me entirely from my favourite
+work.
+
+When at last a professorship of Modern Literature was offered me at
+Oxford, I made up my mind, though it was not exactly what I should
+have liked, to give up half of my time to studies required by this
+professorship, keeping half of my time for the Veda and for Sanskrit
+in general. This was not so bad after all. People often laughed at me
+for being professor of the most modern languages, and giving so much
+of my time and labour to the most ancient language and literature in
+the world. Perhaps it was not quite right my giving up so much of my
+time to modern languages, a subject so remote from my work in life,
+but it was a concession which I could make with a good conscience,
+having always held that language was one and indivisible, and that
+there never had been a break between Sanskrit, Latin, and French, or
+Sanskrit, Gothic, and German. One of my first lectures at Oxford was
+"On the antiquity of modern languages," so that I gave full notice to
+the University as to how I meant to treat my subject, and on the whole
+the University seems to have been satisfied with my professorial work,
+so that when afterwards for very good reasons, whether financial,
+theological, or national, I, or rather my friends, failed to secure a
+majority in Convocation for a professorship of Sanskrit, the
+University actually founded for me a Professorship of Comparative
+Philology, an honour of which I had never dreamt, and to secure which
+I certainly had never taken any steps.
+
+Here is all my secret. At first, as I said, it required faith, but it
+also required for many years a perfect indifference as to worldly
+success. And here again in my career as a Sanskrit scholar, mere
+circumstances were of great importance. They were circumstances which
+I was glad to accept, but which I could never have created myself. 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 each. It was at the time
+when the fate of the Company hung in the balance, and when Bunsen, the
+Prussian Minister, made himself _persona grata_ by delivering a speech
+at one of the public dinners in the City, setting forth in eloquent
+words the undeniable merits of the Old Company and the wonderful work
+they had achieved. It was likewise a mere accident that I should have
+become known to Bunsen, and that he should have shown me so much
+kindness in my literary work. He had himself tried hard to go to India
+to discover the Rig-veda, nay, to find out whether there was still
+such a thing as the Veda in India. The same Bunsen, His Excellency
+Baron Bunsen, the Prussian Minister in London, on his own accord went
+afterwards to see the Chairman and the Directors of the East India
+Company, and explained to them what the Rig-veda was, and that it
+would be a real disgrace if such a work were published in Germany; and
+they agreed to vote a sum of money such as they had never voted
+before for any literary undertaking. Though after the mutiny nothing
+could save them, 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 Company,--much abused though
+splendidly defended also by no less a man than John Stuart Mill.
+
+This is what I mean by friends and circumstances, 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 myself.
+Small and large things work wonderfully together. It was the change
+threatening the government of India, and a mighty change it was, that
+gave me the chance of publishing the Veda, a very small matter as it
+may seem in the eyes of most people, and yet intended to bring about
+quite as mighty a change in our views of the ancient people of the
+world, particularly of their languages and religions. This, too--the
+development of language and religion--seems of importance to some
+people who do not care two straws for the East India Company,
+particularly if it helps us to learn what we really are ourselves, and
+how we came to be what we are.
+
+In one sense biographies and autobiographies are certainly among the
+most valuable materials for the historian. Biography, as Heinrich
+Simon, not Henri Simon, said, is the best kind of history, and the
+life of one man, if laid open before us with all he thought and all he
+did, gives us a better insight into the history of his time than any
+general account of it can possibly do.
+
+Now it is quite true that the life of a quiet scholar has little to do
+with history, except it may be the history of his own branch of study,
+which some people consider quite unimportant, while to others it seems
+all-important. This is as it ought to be, till the universal historian
+finds the right perspective, and assigns to each branch of study and
+activity its proper place in the panorama of the progress of mankind
+towards its ideals. Even a quiet scholar, if he keeps his eyes open,
+may now and then see something that is of importance to the historian.
+While I was living in small rooms at Leipzig, or lodging _au
+cinqui�me_ in the Rue Royale at Paris, or copying manuscripts in a
+dark room of the old East India House in Leadenhall Street, I now and
+then caught glimpses of the mighty stream of history as it was rushing
+by. At Leipzig I saw much of Robert Blum who was afterwards _fusill�_
+at Vienna by Windischgr�tz in defiance of all international law, for
+he was a member of the German Diet, then sitting at Frankfurt. From my
+windows at Paris I looked over the _Boulevard de la Madeleine_, and
+down on the right to the _Chambre des D�put�s_, and I saw from my
+windows the throne of Louis Philippe carried along by its four legs by
+four women on horseback, with Phrygian caps and red scarfs, 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
+street. In my small study at the East India House I saw several of the
+Directors, Colonel Sykes and others, and heard them discussing the
+fate of the East India Company and of the vast empire of India too,
+and at the same time the private interests of those who hoped to be
+Members of the new India Council, and those who despaired of that
+distinction. I was the first to bring the news of the French
+Revolution in February to London, and presented a bullet that had
+smashed the windows of my room at Paris, to Bunsen, who took it in the
+evening to Lord Palmerston. After I had seen the Revolution in Paris
+and the flight of the King and the Duchesse d'Orl�ans, I was in time
+to see in London the Chartist Deputation to Parliament, and the
+assembled police in Trafalgar Square, when Louis Napoleon served as a
+Special Constable, and I heard the Duke of Wellington explain to
+Bunsen, that though no soldier was seen in the streets there was
+artillery hidden under the bridges, and ready to act if wanted. I
+could add more, but I must not anticipate, and after all, to me all
+these great events seemed but small compared with a new manuscript of
+the Veda sent from India, or a better reading of an obscure passage.
+_Diversos diversa iuvant_, and it is fortunate that it should be so.
+
+All these things, I thought, should form part of my Recollections,
+and my own little self should disappear as much as possible. Even the
+pronoun I should meet the reader but seldom, though in Recollections
+it was as impossible to leave it out altogether as it would be to take
+away the lens from a photographic camera. Now I believe I have always
+been most willing to yield to my friends, 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 struggles; but I must on the
+whole adhere to my old plan. I could not, if I would, neglect the
+environment of my life, and the many friends that advised and helped
+me, and enabled me to achieve the little that I may have achieved in
+my own line of study.
+
+If my friends had been different from what they were, should I not
+have become a different man myself, whether for good or for evil? And
+the same applies to our natural surroundings also. And here I must
+invoke the patience of my readers, if I try to explain in as few words
+as possible what I think about _environment_, and what about
+_heredity_ or _atavism_.
+
+I was a thorough Darwinian in ascribing the shaping of my career to
+environment, though I was always very averse to atavism, of which we
+have heard so much lately in most biographies. Even with respect to
+environment, however, I could not go quite so far as certain of our
+Darwinian friends, who maintain that everything is the result of
+environment, or translated into biographical language, that everybody
+is a creature of circumstances. No, I could not go so far as that.
+Environment may shape our course and may shape us, but there must be
+something that is shaped, and allows itself to be shaped. 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 life. That he
+grew then a thicker fur, I knew, but that surely does not explain the
+whole of the Mammoth, with and without a thick fur, before and after
+the fur. It is really a pity to see for how many of these downright
+absurdities Darwin is made responsible by the Darwinians. He has
+clearly shown how in many cases the individual may be modified almost
+beyond recognition by environment, but the individual must always have
+been there first. Before we had a spaniel and a Newfoundland dog there
+must have been some kind of dog, neither so small as the spaniel nor
+so large as the Newfoundland, and no one would now doubt that these
+two belonged to the same species and presupposed some kind of a less
+modified canine creature. It is equally true that every individual man
+has been modified by his surroundings or environment, if not to the
+same extent as certain animals, yet very considerably, as in the case
+of Kaspar Hauser, the man with the iron mask, or the mutineers of the
+_Bounty_ in the Pitcairn Islands. But there must have been the man
+first, before he could be so modified. Now it was this very
+individual, my own self in fact, the spiritual self even more than the
+physical, that interested my critics, while I thought that the
+circumstances which moulded that self would be of far greater interest
+than the self itself. Of course all the modifications that men now
+undergo are nothing if compared to the early modifications which
+produced what we speak of as racial, linguistic, or even national
+peculiarities. That we are English or German, that we are white or
+black, nay, if you like, that we are human beings at all, all this has
+modified our self, or our germ-plasm, far more powerfully than
+anything that can happen to us as individuals now.
+
+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 young,
+struggling man, all I could say was that here again it was really my
+friends who did everything for me, and helped me over many a stile,
+and many a ditch, nay, without whom I should never have done whatever
+I did for the Sciences of Language, of Mythology, and Religion, in
+fact for Anthropology in the widest sense of that word. My very
+struggles were certainly a help to me, even my opponents were most
+useful to me. The subjects on which I wrote had hardly been touched on
+in England, at least from the historical point of view which I took,
+and I had not only to overcome the indifference of the public, but to
+disarm as much as possible the prejudices often felt, and sometimes
+expressed also, against anything made in Germany! Now I confess I
+could never understand such a prejudice among men of science. Was I
+more right or more wrong because I was born in Germany? Is scientific
+truth the exclusive property of one nation, of Germany, or of England?
+If I say two and two make four in German, is that less true because it
+is said by a German? and if I say, no language without thought, no
+thought without language, has that anything to do with my native
+country? The prejudice against strangers and particularly against
+Germans is, no doubt, much stronger now than it was at the time when I
+first came to England. I had spent nearly two years in Paris, and
+there too there existed then so little of unfriendly feeling towards
+Germany, that one of the best reviews to which the rising scholars and
+best writers of Paris contributed was actually called _Revue
+Germanique_. Who would now venture to publish in Paris such a review
+and under such a title? If there existed such an anti-German feeling
+anywhere in England when I arrived here in the year 1846, one would
+suppose that it existed most strongly at Oxford. And so it did, no
+doubt, particularly among theologians. With them German meant much the
+same as unorthodox, and unorthodox was enough at that time to taboo a
+man at Oxford. In one of the sermons preached in these early days at
+St. Mary's, German theologians such as Strauss and Neander (_sic_)
+were spoken of as fit only to be drowned in the German Ocean, before
+they reached the shores of England. I do not add what followed: the
+story is too well known. I was chiefly amused by the juxtaposition of
+Strauss and Neander, whose most orthodox lectures on the history of
+the Christian Church I had attended at Berlin. Neander was certainly
+to us at Berlin the very pattern of orthodoxy, and people wondered at
+my attending his lectures. But they were good and honest lectures. He
+was quite a character, and I feel tempted to go a little out of my way
+in speaking of him. By birth a Jew, he became one of the most learned
+Christian divines. Ever so many stories were told of him, some true,
+some no doubt invented. I saw him often walking to and from the
+University to give his lectures in a large fur coat, with high black
+polished boots beneath, but showing occasionally as he walked along.
+It was told that he once sent for a doctor because he was lame. The
+doctor on examining his feet, saw that one boot was covered with mud,
+while the other was perfectly clean. The Professor had walked with one
+foot on the pavement, with the other in the gutter, and was far too
+much absorbed in his ideas to discover the true cause of his
+discomfort. He lived with his sister, who took complete care of him
+and saw to his wardrobe also. She knew that he wore one pair of
+trousers, and that on a certain day in the year the tailor brought him
+a new pair. Great was her amazement when one day, after her brother
+had gone to the University, she discovered his pair of trousers lying
+on a chair near his bed. She at once sent a servant to the Professor's
+lecture-room to inquire whether he had his trousers on. The hilarity
+of his class may be imagined. The fact was it was the very day on
+which the tailor was in the habit of bringing the new pair of
+trousers, which the Professor had put on, leaving his usual garment
+behind.
+
+Many more stories of his absent-mindedness were _en vogue_ about Dr.
+Neander, but that this man, a pillar of strength to the orthodox in
+Germany, who was looked up to as an infallible Pope, should have his
+name coupled with that of Strauss certainly gave one a little shock.
+Yet it was at Oxford that I pitched my tent, chiefly in order to
+superintend the printing of my Rig-veda at the University Press there,
+and never dreaming that a fellowship, still less a professorship in
+that ancient Tory University, would ever be offered to me.
+
+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
+Pope; and yet in time I was chosen a Fellow of All Souls, and the
+first married Fellow of the College, and even a professorship was
+offered to me when I least expected it. The fact is, I never thought
+of either, and no one was more surprised than myself when I was asked
+to act as deputy, and then as full Taylorian Professor; no one could
+have mistrusted his eyes more than I did, 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 fellows. My ambition had never soared
+so high. I was thinking of returning to Leipzig as a _Privat-docent_,
+to rise afterwards to an extraordinary and, if all went well, to an
+ordinary professorship.
+
+But after these two appointments at Oxford had secured to me what I
+thought a fair social and financial position in England, I did not
+feel justified in attempting to begin life again in Germany. I had not
+asked for a professorship or fellowship. They were offered me, and my
+ambition never went beyond securing what was necessary for my
+independence. In Germany I was supposed to have become quite wealthy;
+in England people knew how small my income really was, and wondered
+how I managed to live on it. 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 Oxford. I could not see anything anomalous in a German holding
+a professorship in England. There were several cases of the same kind
+in Germany. Lassen (1800-1876), our great Sanskrit professor at Bonn,
+was a Norwegian by birth, and no one ever thought of his nationality.
+What had that to do with his knowledge of Sanskrit? Nor was I ever
+treated as an alien or as intruder at Oxford, at least not at that
+early time. As to myself, I had now obtained what seemed to me a small
+but sufficient income with perfect independence. The quiet life of a
+quiet student had been from my earliest days my ideal in life. Even at
+school at Dessau, when we boys talked of what we hoped to be, I
+remember how my ideal was that of a monk, undisturbed in his
+monastery, surrounded by books and by a few friends. The idea that I
+should ever rise to be a professor in a university, or that any career
+like that of my father, grandfather, and other members of my family
+would ever be open to me, never entered my mind then. It seemed to me
+almost disloyal to think of ever taking their places. Even when I saw
+that there were no longer any Protestant monks, no Benedictines, the
+place of an assistant in a large library, sitting in a quiet corner,
+was my highest ambition.
+
+I do not see why it should have been so, for all my relations and
+friends occupied high places in the public service, but as I had no
+father to open my eyes, 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 mother, whose one desire
+was to be left alone, much as the world tempted her, then not yet
+thirty years old, to give up her mourning and to return to society.
+Thus it soon became my own philosophy of life, to be left alone, free
+to go my own way, or like Diogenes, to live in my own tub. Here we see
+what I call the influence of circumstances, of surroundings, or as
+others call it, of environment. This, however, is very different from
+atavism, as we shall see presently. Atavism also has been called a
+kind of environment, attacking us and influencing us from the past,
+and as it were, from behind, from the North in fact instead of the
+South, the East, and the West, and from all the points of the compass.
+
+But atavism means really a very different thing, if indeed it means
+anything at all.
+
+I must ease my conscience once for all on this point, and say what I
+feel about atavism and environment. Environment in the shape of
+friends, of locality, and other material circumstances, has certainly
+influenced my life very much, and I could never see why such a hybrid
+word as environment should be used instead of surroundings or
+circumstances. Creatures of circumstances would be far better
+understood than creatures of environment; but environment, I suppose,
+would sound more scientific. Atavism also is a new word, instead of
+family likeness, but unless carefully defined, the word is very apt to
+mislead us.
+
+When it is said[4] that children often resemble their grandfathers or
+grandmothers more than their immediate parents, and that this
+propensity is termed atavism, this does not seem quite correct even
+etymologically, for atavus in Latin did not mean father or
+grandfather, but at first great-great-great-grandfather, and then
+only ancestors; and what should be made quite clear is that this
+mysterious atavism should not be used by careful speakers, to express
+the supposed influence of parents or even grandparents, but that of
+more distant ancestors only, and possibly of a whole family.
+
+  [4] _Oxford Dictionary_, s. v.; J. Rennie, _Science of
+  Gardening_, p. 113.
+
+Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin their works with a
+long account not only of father and mother, but of grandparents and of
+ever so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined the
+outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written.
+Who would deny that there is some truth, or at least some
+plausibility, in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in giving
+an intelligible account of it? It is supposed to affect the moral as
+well as the physical peculiarities of the offspring, and that here,
+too, physical and moral qualities often go together cannot be denied.
+A blind person, for instance, is generally cautious, but happy and
+quite at his ease in large societies. A deaf person is often
+suspicious and unhappy in society. In inheriting blindness, therefore,
+a man could well be said to have inherited cautiousness; in inheriting
+deafness, suspiciousness would seem to have come to him by
+inheritance.
+
+But is blindness really inherited? Is the son of a father who has lost
+his eyesight blind, and necessarily blind? We must distinguish between
+atavistic and parental influences. Parental influences would mean the
+influence of qualities acquired by the parents, and directly
+bequeathed to their offspring; atavistic influences would refer to
+qualities inherited and transmitted, it may be, through several
+generations, and engrained in a whole family. In keeping these two
+classes separate, we should only be following Weismann's example, who
+denies altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable. His
+examples are most interesting and most important, and many Darwinians
+have had to accept his amendment. Besides, we should always consider
+whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family or inconstant.
+If a father is a drunkard, surely it does not follow that his sons
+must be drunkards. Neither does it follow that all the children must
+be sober if the parents are sober. Of course, in ordinary conversation
+both parental and ancestral influences seem clear enough. But if a
+child is said to favour his mother, because like her he has blue eyes
+and fair hair, what becomes of the heritage from the father who may
+have brown eyes and dark hair? Whatever may happen to the children,
+there is always an excuse, only an excuse is not an explanation. If
+the daughter of a beautiful woman grows up very plain, the Frenchman
+was no doubt right when he remarked, _C'�tait alors le p�re qui
+n'�tait pas bien_, and if the son of a teetotaller should later in
+life become a drunkard, the conclusion would be even worse. In fact,
+this kind of atavistic or parental influence is a very pleasant
+subject for gossips, but from a scientific point of view, it is
+perfectly futile. If it is not the father, it is the mother; if it is
+not the grandmother, it is the grandfather; in fact, family influences
+can always be traced to some source or other, if the whole pedigree
+may be dug up and ransacked. But for that very reason they are of no
+scientific value whatever. They can neither be accounted for, nor can
+they be used to account for anything themselves. Even of twins, though
+very like each other in many respects, one may be phlegmatic, the
+other passionate. Some scientists, such as Weismann and others, have
+therefore denied, and I believe rightly, that any acquired characters,
+whether physical or mental, can ever be inherited by children from
+their parents. Whatever similarity there is, and there is plenty, is
+traced back by him to what he calls the germ-plasm, working on
+continuously in spite of all individual changes. If that germ-plasm is
+liable to certain peculiar modifications in the father or grandfather,
+it is liable to the same or similar modifications in the offspring,
+that is, if the father could become a drunkard, so could the son, only
+we must not think that the _post hoc_ is here the same as the _propter
+hoc_. If we compare the germ-plasm to the molecules constituting the
+stem or branches of a vine, its grapes and leaves in their similarity
+and their variety would be comparable to the individuals belonging to
+the same family, and springing from the same family tree. But then the
+grape we see would not be what the grape of last year, or the grape
+immediately preceding it on the same branch, had made it, though there
+can be no doubt that the antecedent possibilities of the new grape
+were the same as those of the last. If one grape is blue, the next
+will be blue too, but no one would say that it was blue because the
+last grape was blue. The real cause would be that the molecules of the
+protoplasm have been so affected by long continued generation, that
+some of the peculiar qualities of the vine have become constant.
+
+The child of a negro must always be a negro; his peculiarities are
+constant, though it may be quite true that the negro and other races
+are not different species, but only varieties rendered constant by
+immense periods of time. What the cause of these constant and
+inconstant peculiarities may be, not even Weismann has yet been able
+to explain satisfactorily.
+
+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
+influence, as something belonging to the environment of my life; it
+never frightened me as an atavistic evil. It justified me in being
+cautious and in being prepared for the worst, and so far it may be
+said to have helped in shaping or narrowing the course of my life.
+Fortunately, however, this tendency to deafness seems now to have
+exhausted itself. In my own generation there is one case only, and the
+next two generations, children and grandchildren of mine, show no
+signs of it. If, on the other hand, my son was congratulated when
+entering the diplomatic service, on being the son of his father, it is
+clear that the difference between inherited and acquired qualities, so
+strongly insisted on by Weismann, had not been fully appreciated by
+his friends. Besides, my own power of speaking foreign languages has
+always been very limited, and I have many times declined the
+compliment of being a second Mezzofanti.[5] I worked at languages as a
+musician studies the nature and capacities of musical instruments,
+though without attempting to perform on every one of them. There was
+no time left for acquiring a practical familiarity with languages, if
+I wanted to carry on my researches into the origin, the nature and
+history of language. My own study of languages could therefore have
+been of very little use to me, nor did my son himself perceive such an
+advantage in learning to converse in French, Spanish, Turkish, &c. The
+facts were wrong, and the theory of atavism perfectly unreasonable as
+applied to such a case.
+
+  [5] _Science of Language_, vol. i. p. 24 (1861).
+
+If the theory of atavism were stretched so far, it would soon do away
+with free will altogether. That heredity has something to do with our
+moral character, no one would deny who knows the influence of our
+national, nay even of racial character. We are Aryan by heredity; we
+might be Negroes or Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals
+also have their instincts. Only while animals, like serpents for
+instance, would never hesitate to follow their innate propensity, man,
+when he feels the power of what we may call inherited human instinct,
+feels also that he can fight against it, and preserve his freedom,
+even while wearing the chains of his slavery. This may have removed
+some of Dr. Wendell Holmes' scruples in writing his powerful story,
+_Elsie Venner_, and may likewise quiet the fears of his many critics.
+
+I believe that language also--our own inherited language--exercises
+the most powerful influence on our reason and our will, far more
+powerful than we are aware of.
+
+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 Cicero, and this simply on account of the language which
+they had to speak, whether Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish. We cannot
+tell whether the original differentiation of language, symbolized by
+the story of the Tower of Babel, took place before or after the racial
+differentiation of men. Anyhow it must have taken place in quite
+primordial times. Without speaking positively on this point, I
+certainly hold as strongly as ever that language makes the man, and
+that therefore for classificatory purposes also language is far more
+useful than colour of skin, hair, cranial or gnathic peculiarities.
+Whether it be true that with every new language we speak we become
+new men, certain it is that language prepares for us channels in which
+our thoughts have to run, unless they are so powerful as to break all
+dams and dykes, and to dig for themselves new beds.
+
+For a long time people would not see that languages can be classified;
+and as languages always presuppose speakers of language, these
+speakers also can be classified accordingly. It is quite true that
+some of these Aryan speakers may in some cases have Negro blood and
+Negro features, as when a Negro becomes an English bishop. Conquered
+tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language of their
+conquerors, but this too is exceptional, and if we call them Aryas, we
+do not commit ourselves to any opinion as to their blood, their bones,
+or their hair. These will never submit to the same classification as
+their speech, and why should they? Nor should it be forgotten that
+wherever a mixture of language takes place, mixed marriages also would
+most likely take place at the same time. But whatever confusion may
+have arisen in later times in language and in blood, no language could
+have arisen without speakers, and we mean by Aryas no more than
+speakers of Aryan languages, whatever their skulls or their hair may
+have been. An Octoroon, and even a Quadroon, may have blonde waving
+hair, but if he speaks English he would be classified as Aryan, if
+Berber as a Negro. But who is injured by such a classification? Let
+blood and skulls and hair and jaws be classified by all means, but let
+us speak no longer of Aryan skulls or Semitic blood. We might as well
+speak of a prognathic language.
+
+While fully admitting, therefore, the influence which family,
+nationality, race, and language exercise on us, it should be clearly
+perceived that habits acquired by our parents are not heritable, that
+the sons of drunkards need not be drunkards, as little as the sons of
+sober people must be sober. But though biographers may agree to this
+in general they seem inclined, to hold out very strongly for what are
+called _special talents in certain families_. This subject is
+decidedly amusing, but it admits of no scientific treatment, as far as
+I can see.
+
+The grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for instance, though
+not a composer, was evidently a man of genius, a philosopher of
+considerable intellectual capacity and moral strength. The father of
+the composer was a rich banker at Berlin, and he used to say: "When I
+was young I was the son of the great Mendelssohn, now that I am old, I
+am the father of the great Mendelssohn; then what am I?" Even a poor
+man to become a rich banker must be a kind of genius, and so far the
+son may be said to have come of a good stock. But the great musical
+talent that was developed in the third generation both in Felix and
+his sisters, failed entirely in his brother, who, to save his life,
+could never have sung "God save the Queen." In the little theatrical
+performances of the whole family for which Felix composed the music,
+and his sister Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical
+brother--was it not Paul?--had generally to be provided with some such
+part as that of a night watchman, and he managed to get through his
+song with as much credit as the _Nachtw�chter_ in the little town of
+Germany, where he sang or repeated, as I well remember, in his cracked
+voice:
+
+    "H�rt, ihr Herren, und lasst euch sagen,
+     Die Glock' hat zw�lf geschlagen;
+     Wahret das Feuer und auch das Licht,
+     Dass Keinem kein Schade geschicht."
+
+    "Listen, gents, and let me tell,
+     The clock struck twelve by its last knell;
+     Watch o'er the fire and o'er the light
+     That no one suffer any plight."
+
+I have known in my life many musicians and their families, but I
+remember very few instances indeed, where the son of a distinguished
+musician was a great musician himself. If the children take to music
+at all they may become very fair musicians, but never anything
+extraordinary. The Bach family may be quoted against me, but music,
+before Sebastian Bach, was almost like a profession, and could be
+learned like any other handicraft.
+
+Nor are the cases of painters being the sons of great painters, or of
+poets being the sons of great poets, more numerous. It seems almost as
+if the artistic talent was exhausted by one generation or one
+individual, so that we often see the sons of great men by no means
+great, and if they do anything in the same line as their fathers, we
+must remember that there was much to induce them to follow in their
+steps without admitting any atavistic influences.
+
+For the present, I can only repeat the conclusion I arrived at after
+weighing all the arguments of my friends and critics, namely, to
+continue my Recollections much as I began them, to try to explain what
+made me what I am, to describe, in fact, my environment; though as my
+years advance, and my labours and plans grow wider and wider, I shall,
+no doubt, have to say a great deal more about myself than in the
+volumes of _Auld Lang Syne_. In fact, my Recollections will become
+more and more of an autobiography, and the I and the Autos will appear
+more frequently than I could have wished.
+
+In an autobiography the painter is of course supposed to be the same
+as the sitter, but quite apart from the metaphysical difficulties of
+such a supposition, there is the physical difficulty when the writer
+is an old man, and the model is a young boy. Is the old man likely to
+be a fair judge of the young man, whether it be himself or some one
+else? As a rule, old men are very indulgent, while young men are apt
+to be stern and strict in their judgments. The very fact that they
+often invent excuses for themselves shows that they feel that they
+want excuses. The words of the Preacher, vii. 16: "Be not righteous
+over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy
+thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why
+shouldest thou die before thy time?" are evidently the words of an old
+man when judging of himself or of others. A young man would have
+spoken differently. He would have made no allowance; for anything like
+compassion for an erring friend is as yet unknown to him. In an
+autobiography written by an old man there is therefore a double
+danger, first the indulgence of the old man, and secondly the kindly
+feeling of the writer towards the object of his remarks.
+
+All these difficulties stand before me like a mountain wall. And it
+seems better to confess at once that an old man writing his own life
+can never be quite just, however honest he tries to be. He may be too
+indulgent, but he may also be too strict and stern. To say, for
+instance, of a man that he has not kept his promise, would be a very
+serious charge if brought against anybody else. Yet my oldest friend
+in the world knows how many times he has made a promise to himself,
+and has not only not kept it but has actually found excuses why he did
+not keep it. The more sensitive our conscience becomes, the more
+blameworthy many an act of our life seems to be, and what to an
+ordinary conscience is no fault at all, becomes almost a sin under a
+fiercer light.
+
+This changes the moral atmosphere of youth when painted by an old man,
+but the physical atmosphere also assumes necessarily a different hue.
+Whether we like it or not, distance will always lend enchantment to
+the view. If the azure hue is inseparable from distant mountains and
+from the distant sky, we need not wonder that it veils the distant
+paradise of youth. A man who keeps a diary from his earliest years,
+and who as an old man simply copies from its yellow pages, may give us
+a very accurate black and white image of what he saw as a boy, but as
+in old faded photographs, the life and light are gone out of them,
+while unassisted memory may often preserve tints of their former
+reality. There is life and light in such recollections, but I am
+willing to admit that memory can be very treacherous also. Thus in my
+own case I can vouch that whatever I relate is carefully and
+accurately transcribed from the tablets of my memory, as I see them
+now, but though I can claim truthfulness to myself and to my memory, I
+cannot pretend to photographic accuracy. 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 narrators.
+
+I doubt whether any historian would accept a statement made thirty
+years after the event without independent confirmation. I could not
+give the date of the battle of Sadowa, though I well remember reading
+the full account of it in the _Times_ from day to day. I can of
+course get at the date from historical books, and from that kind of
+artificial memory which arises by itself without any _memoria
+technica_. There is a favourite German game of cards called Sixty-six,
+and it was reported that when the French in 1870 shouted _� Berlin_,
+the then Crown-Prince who had won the battle of Sadowa, or K�niggr�tz,
+said: "Ah, they want another game of Sixty-six!" that is they want a
+battle like that of Sadowa. In this way I shall always remember the
+date of that decisive battle. But I could not give the date of the
+Crimean battles nor a trustworthy account of the successive stages of
+that war. I doubt whether even my old friend, Sir William H. Russell,
+could do that now without referring to his letters in the _Times_.
+After thirty years no one, I believe, could take an oath to the
+accuracy of any statement of what he saw or heard so many years ago.
+
+All then that I can vouch for is that I read my memory as I should the
+leaves of an old MS. from which many letters, nay, whole words and
+lines have vanished, and where I am often driven to decipher and to
+guess, as in a palimpsest, what the original uncial writing may have
+been. I am the first to confess that there may be flaws in my memory,
+there may be before my eyes that magic azure which surrounds the
+distant past; but I can promise that there shall be no invention, no
+_Dichtung_ instead of _Wahrheit_, but always, as far as in me lies,
+truth. I know quite well that even a certain dislocation of facts is
+not always to be avoided in an old memory. I know it from sad
+experience. As the spires of a city--of Oxford for instance--arrange
+themselves differently as we pass the old place on the railway, so
+that now one and now the other stands in the centre and seems to rise
+above the heads of the rest, so it is with our friends and
+acquaintances. Some who seemed giants at one time assume smaller
+proportions as others come into view towering above them. The whole
+scenery changes from year to year. Who does not remember the trees in
+our garden that seemed like giants in our childhood, but when we see
+them again in our old age, they have shrunk, and not from old age
+only?
+
+And must I make one more confession? 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 present, in fact that he had won
+that battle. I also remember Dr. Routh, the venerable president of
+Magdalen College, who died in his hundredth year, and who had so often
+repeated all the circumstances of the execution of Charles I, that
+when Macaulay expressed a wish to see him, he declined "because that
+young man has given quite a wrong account of the last moments of the
+king," which he then proceeded to relate, as if he had been an
+eye-witness throughout.
+
+Are we not liable to the same hallucination, though, let us hope, in a
+more mitigated form? Have we never told a story as if it were our
+own, not from any wish to deceive, but simply because it seemed
+shorter and easier to do so than to explain step by step how it
+reached us? And after doing that once or twice, is there not great
+danger of our being surprised at somebody else claiming the story as
+his own, or actually maintaining that it was he who told it to us?
+
+Not very long ago I remember reading in a journal a story of the Duke
+of Wellington. His servant had been sent before to order dinner for
+him at an out-of-the-way hotel, and in order to impress the landlord
+with the dignity of his coming guest, he had recited a number of the
+Duke's titles, which were very numerous. The landlord, thinking that
+the Duke of Vittoria, the Prince of Waterloo, the Marquis of Torres
+Vedras, and all the rest, were friends invited to dine with the Duke
+of Wellington, ordered accordingly a very sumptuous banquet to the
+great dismay of the real Duke. This may or may not be a very old and a
+very true story; all I know is that much the same thing was told at
+Oxford of Dr. Bull, who was Canon of Christ Church, Canon of Exeter,
+Prebendary of York, Vicar of Staverton, and lastly, the Rev. Dr. Bull
+himself. Dinner was provided for each of these persons, and we are
+told that the reverend pluralist had to eat all the dishes on the
+table and pay for them. This also may have been no more than one of
+the many "Common-roomers" which abounded in Oxford when Common Rooms
+were more frequented than they are now. But what I happen to know as a
+fact is that Dean Stanley received no less than four invitations to a
+hall at Blenheim, addressed A. P. Stanley, Esq., the Rev. A. P.
+Stanley, Canon Stanley, Professor Stanley, all evidently copied from
+some books of reference.
+
+I may perhaps claim one advantage in trying to describe what happened
+to myself in my passage through life. From the earliest days that I
+can recollect, I felt myself as a twofold being--as a subject and an
+object, as a spectator and as an actor. I suppose we all talk to
+ourselves, and say to our better and worse selves, O thou fool! or,
+Well done, my boy! Well this inward conversation began with me at a
+very early time, and left the impression that I was the coachman, but
+at the same time the horse too which he drove and sometimes whipped
+very cruelly. And this phase of thought, or rather this state of
+feeling, seems soon to have led me on to another view which likewise
+dates from a very early time, though it afterwards vanished. As a
+little boy, when I could not have the same toys which other boys
+possessed, I could fully enjoy what they enjoyed, as if they had been
+my own. There is a German phrase, "Ich freue mich in deiner Seele,"
+which exactly expressed what I often felt. It was not the result of
+teaching, still less of reasoning--it was a sentiment given me and
+which certainty did not leave me till much later in life, when
+competition, rivalry, jealousy, and envy seemed to accentuate my own I
+as against all other I's or Thou's. I suppose we all remember how the
+sight of a wound of a fellow creature, nay even of a dog, gives us a
+sharp twitch in the same part of our own body. That bodily sympathy
+has never left me, I suffer from it even now as I did seventy years
+ago. And is there anybody who has not felt his eyes moisten at the
+sudden happiness of his friends? All this seems to me to account, to a
+certain extent at least, for that feeling of identity with so-called
+strangers, which came to me from my earliest days, and has returned
+again with renewed strength in my old age. The "know thyself,"
+ascribed to Chilon and other sages of ancient Greece, gains a deeper
+meaning with every year, till at last the I which we looked upon as
+the most certain and undoubted fact, vanishes from our grasp to become
+the Self, free from the various accidents and limitations which make
+up the I, and therefore one with the Self that underlies all
+individual and therefore vanishing I's. What that common Self may be
+is a question to be reserved for later times, though I may say at once
+that the only true answer given to it seems to me that of the
+Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy. Only we must take care not to
+mistake the moral Self, that finds fault with the active Self, for the
+Highest Self that knows no longer of good or evil deeds.
+
+Long before I had worked and thought out this problem as the
+fundamental truth of all philosophy, it presented itself to me as if
+by intuition, long before I could have fathomed it in its metaphysical
+meaning. I had just heard of the death of a dear little child, and was
+standing in our garden, looking at a rose-bush, covered in summer with
+hundreds of rose-buds and rose-flowers. While I was looking I broke
+off one small withered bud from the midst of a large cluster of roses,
+and after I had done so a question came to me, and I said to myself,
+What has happened? Is it only that one small bud is dead and gone, or
+have not all the other roses been touched by the breath of death that
+fell on it? Have they not all suffered from the death of their sister,
+for they all spring from the same stem, they all have their life from
+the same source? And if one rose suffers, must not all the others
+suffer with it? Then all the buds and flowers of the cluster seemed to
+me to become one, as it were a family of roses, and each single bud
+seemed but the repetition of the same thing, the manifestation of the
+same thought, namely the thought of the rose. But my eyes were carried
+still further, and the stem from which the bunch of roses sprang was
+lost with other stems in a branch, and it was that branch on which all
+the roses of the branchlets and stems depended, and without which they
+could not flower or exist. The single roses thus became identified
+with the branch from which they had sprung, and by which they lived. I
+wondered more and more, and after another look all the branches with
+all their branchlets became absorbed in the stem, and the stem was the
+tree, and the tree sprang from a seed, or as it is now called, the
+protoplasm; but beyond that seed there was nothing else that the eye
+could see or the mind could grasp. And while this vision floated
+before my eyes I thought of my little friend, and the home from which
+she had been broken off, and the same vision which had changed the
+rose-bush with all its flowers, and buds, and branchlets, and
+branches, into a stem and a tree, and at last into one invisible germ
+and seed, seemed now to change my little friend and her brothers and
+sisters, her parents too and all her family, into one being which,
+like an old oak tree, started from an invisible stem, or an invisible
+seed, or from an invisible thought, and that divine thought was man,
+as the other divine thought had been rose.
+
+Perhaps I did not see it so fully then as I see it now, and I
+certainly did not reason about it. I simply felt that in the death of
+my little friend, something of myself had gone, though she was no
+relation, but only a stray human friend. We see many things as
+children which we cannot see as grown-up men and women, for, as
+Longfellow said, "the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts." Nay,
+I feel convinced that He who spoke the parable of the vine had seen
+the same vision when He said: "I am the vine, ye are the branches.
+Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself
+except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me."
+And it is on this vision, or this parable of the vine, that
+immediately afterwards follows the lesson, "Love one another, as I
+have loved you." In loving one another we are in truth loving the
+others as ourselves, as one with ourselves; and while we are loving
+Him who is the vine, we are loving the branches, ourselves--aye, even
+our own little selves.
+
+Such vague visions or intuitions often remain with us for life, but
+while they seem to be the same, they vary as we vary ourselves. We
+imagine we saw their deepest meaning from the first, but, like a
+parable, they gain in meaning every time they come back to us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU
+
+
+In a small town such as Dessau was when I lived there as a child and
+as a boy, one lived as in an enchanted island. The horizon was very
+narrow, and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the little oasis.
+The Duchy was indeed a little oasis in the large desert of Central
+Germany. The landscape was beautiful: there were rivers small and
+large--the Mulde and the Elbe; there were magnificent oak forests;
+there were regiments of firs standing in regular columns like so many
+grenadiers; there were parks such as one sees in England only. The
+town, the capital of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, had been cared for by
+successive rulers--men mostly far in advance of their time--who had
+read and travelled, and brought home the best they could find abroad.
+Their old castle, centuries old, over-awed the town; it was by far the
+largest building, though there were several other smaller places in
+the town for members of the ducal family. All the public buildings,
+theatres, libraries, schools, and barracks, had been erected by the
+Dukes, as well as several private residences intended for some of the
+higher officials. The whole town was, in fact, the creation of the
+Dukes; the whole ground on which it stood had been originally their
+property, but it was mostly held as freehold by those who had built
+their own private houses on it. No one would have built a house on
+leasehold land, 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 years. The same family often remained in their house for
+generations, and the different stories were occupied by three
+generations at the same time--by grandparents, parents, and children.
+In this small town I was born on December 6, 1823. My father, Wilhelm
+M�ller, was Librarian of the Ducal Library, and one of the most
+popular poets in Germany. A national monument was erected to his
+memory at Dessau in the year 1891, nearly a hundred years after his
+birth.
+
+  [Illustration: MY FATHER]
+
+What a blessing it would be if such a rule were followed with all
+great men, who seem so great at the time of their death, and who, a
+hundred years later, are almost forgotten, or at all events
+appreciated by a small number of admirers only. This Monument- and
+Society-mania is indeed becoming very objectionable, for if for some
+time there has been no room for tombs and statues in Westminster
+Abbey, there will soon be no room for them in the streets of London.
+The result is that many of the people who walk along the Thames
+Embankment, particularly foreigners, often ask, "Cur?" when looking at
+the human idols in bronze and marble put up there; while historians,
+remembering the really great men of England, would ask quite as often,
+"Cur non?" There is a curious race of people, who, as soon as a man of
+any note dies, are ready to found anything for him--a monument, a
+picture, a school, a prize, a society--to keep alive his memory. Of
+course these societies want presidents, members of council,
+committees, secretaries, &c., and at last, subscriptions also. Thus it
+has happened that the name of founder (_Gr�nder_) has assumed,
+particularly in Germany, a perfume by no means sweet. Those who are
+asked to subscribe to such testimonials know how disagreeable it is to
+decline to give at least their name, deeply as they feel that in
+giving it they are offending against all the rules of historical
+perspective. I should not say that my father was one of the great
+poets of Germany, though Heine, no mean critic, declared that he
+placed his lyric poetry next to that of Goethe. Besides, he was barely
+thirty-three when he died. He had been a favourite pupil of F. A.
+Wolf, and had proved his classical scholarship by his _Homerische
+Vorschule_, and other publications. His poems became popular in the
+true sense of the word, and there are some which the people in the
+street sing even now without being aware of the name of their author.
+Schubert's compositions also have contributed much to the wide
+popularity of his _Sch�ne M�llerin_ and his _Winterreise_, so that
+though it might truly be said of him that he wanted no monument in
+bronze or stone, it seemed but natural that a small town like Dessau
+should wish to honour itself by honouring the memory of one of its
+sons. In the company of Mendelssohn, the philosopher, and of F.
+Schneider, the composer, a monument of my father in the principal
+street of his native town, and before the school in which he had been
+a pupil and a teacher, could hardly seem out of place. That the Greek
+Parliament voted the Pentelican marble for the poet of the
+_Griechenlieder_, as it had done for Lord Byron, was another
+inducement for his fellow citizens to do honour to their honoured
+poet. He died when I was hardly four years old, so that my
+recollection of him is very faint and vague, made up, I believe, to a
+great extent, of pictures, and things that my mother told me. I seem
+to remember him as a bright, sunny, and thoroughly joyful man,
+delighted with our little naughtinesses. One book I still possess
+which he bought for me and which was to be the first book of my
+library. It was a small volume of Horace, printed by Pickering in
+1820. It has now almost vanished among the 12,000 big volumes that
+form my library, but I am delighted that I am still able, at
+seventy-six, to read it without spectacles. I think I remember my
+father taking my sister and me on his knees, and telling us the most
+delightful stories, that set us wondering and laughing and crying till
+we could laugh and cry no longer. He had been a fellow worker with the
+brothers Grimm, and the stories he told were mostly from their
+collection, though he knew how to embellish them with anything that
+could make a child cry and laugh.
+
+People have little idea how great and how lasting an influence such
+popular stories about kings and queens, and princesses and knights,
+about ogres and witches, about men that have been changed into
+animals, and about animals that talk and behave like human beings,
+exercise on the imagination of young children. While we listened, a
+new world seemed to open before us, and anything like doubt as to the
+reality of these beings never existed. What was reality or unreality
+to young children of four and five? How few people know what real
+reality is, even after they have reached the age of fifty or sixty.
+For children, such names as reality and unreality do not exist, nor
+the ideas which they express. They listen to what their father tells
+them, and they cannot see any difference between what he tells them of
+Frederick Barbarossa, of Romulus and Remus suckled by a wolf, or of
+the dwarfs that guarded the coffin of Schneewittchen.
+
+Some people, however, have thought that from an educational point of
+view, a belief in this imaginary world must be mischievous. I doubt
+it, and it would be easy to show that originally these stories and
+fables were really meant to inculcate right and good principles.
+Luther declared that he would not lose these wonderful stories of his
+tender childhood for any sum of money, and Camerarius (_Fabulae
+Aesopeae_, p. 406, Lipsiae, 1570) speaks of these German fables as
+filling the minds of the people, and particularly of children, with
+terror, hope, and religion. The oldest collections in which some of
+these Aesopean fables occur, the Pantschatantra and Hitopadesa in
+Sanskrit, were distinctly intended for the education of princes, and
+though they may make the young listeners inclined to be superstitious,
+such superstitiousness is not likely to last long. Children delight in
+_M�rchen_ as in a kind of pantomime, and when the curtain has fallen
+on that fairy world they often think of it as of a beautiful dream
+that has passed away. The stories are certainly more impressive than
+the proverbs and wise saws which many of them were meant to
+illustrate, without always saying, _haec fabula docet_. Even if some
+of these stories touch sometimes on what may not seem to us quite
+correct, it is done to make children laugh rather at the silliness
+than cry at the downright wickedness of some of the heroes. It is by
+no means uncommon, for instance, that a good-for-nothing fellow
+succeeds, while his virtuous companions fail. But there is either a
+reason for it, or the injustice provokes the indignation of children,
+long before they have learnt that in real life also virtue does not
+always receive its reward, while falsehood often prospers, at least
+for a time. There is no harm, I think, in a certain dreaminess in
+children. I remember that I have often laughed with all my heart at
+Rumpelstilzchen, and shed bitter tears at Br�derchen and
+Schwesterchen. I seemed to see brother and sister driven into the
+wood, the brother being changed into a deer, and the sister sleeping
+with her head on his warm fur, till at last the deer was killed by a
+huntsman, and the little sister had to travel on quite alone in the
+forest. Of course in the end she became a princess, and the brother a
+prince who married a queen, and all ended in great joy and jubilation
+in which we all joined. How good for children that they should for a
+time at least have lived in such a dreamland, in which truthfulness
+was as a rule rewarded, and falsehood punished in the end.
+
+It was like a recollection of a Paradise, and such a recollection,
+even if it brought out the contrast between the dream-world and the
+real world, would often set children musing on what ought and what
+ought not to be. They did not long believe in Dornr�schen and
+Schneewittchen, they learnt but too soon that Dornr�schen and
+Schneewittchen belonged to another world. They may even have come to
+learn that Dornr�schen (thorn-rose) and Schneewittchen (snow-white)
+were meant originally for the sleep or death of nature in her
+snow-white shroud, and the return of the sun; but woe to the boy who
+on first learning these stories should have declared that they were
+mere bosh, or, as Sir Walter Scott says, the detritus of nature-myths.
+
+My father's father, whom I never knew, seems not to have been
+distinguished in any way. He was, however, a useful tradesman and a
+respected citizen of Dessau, and, as I see, the founder of the first
+lending library in that small town. He married a second time, a rich
+widow, chiefly, as I was told, to enable him to give his son, my
+father, a liberal education. She grew to be very old, and I well
+remember her, to me, forbidding and terrifying appearance. She quite
+belonged to a past generation, and when I saw her again after having
+been in England, she asked me whether I had seen Napoleon who had been
+taken prisoner and sent to England, but had lately escaped and resumed
+his throne in Paris. She evidently mixed up the two Napoleons, and I
+did not contradict her. To me her conversation was interesting as
+showing how little the traditions of the people can be relied on, and
+how easily, by the side of real history, a popular history could grow
+up. After all, the poems of Charlemagne besieging Jerusalem owed their
+origin very likely to some similar confusion in the minds of old
+women. My sister and I were always terrified when we were sent to
+visit her, for with her dishevelled grey hair, her thin white face,
+and her piercing eyes, she was to us the old grandmother, or the witch
+of Grimm's stories; and the language she used was such that, if we
+repeated it at home, we were severely reprimanded. She knew very
+little about my father, but her memory about her first husband and
+about her own youth and childhood was very clear, though not always
+edifying. Her stories about ghosts, witches, ogres, nickers, and the
+whole of that race were certainly enough to frighten a child, and some
+of them clung to me for a very long time. On my mother's side my
+relations were more civilized, and they had but little social
+intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives. My mother's father
+was von Basedow, the President, that is Prime Minister of the Duchy of
+Anhalt-Dessau, a position in which he was succeeded by his eldest son,
+my uncle. He was the first man in the town; the Duke and he really
+ruled the Duchy exactly as they pleased. There was no check on them of
+any kind, and yet no one, as far as I know, ever complained of any
+tyranny. My grandfather's father again was the famous reformer of
+public education in Germany. He (1723-1790) had to brave the
+conservative and clerical parties throughout the country. His home at
+Hamburg was burnt in a riot, and it was then that he migrated to
+Dessau, to become the founder of the _Philanthropinum_, and at the
+same time the path-breaker for men such as Pestalozzi (1746-1827) and
+Froebel (1782-1852). Considering his lifelong struggles, he deserved a
+better monument at Dessau than he has found there. No doubt he was a
+passionate and violent man, and his outbreaks are still remembered at
+Dessau, while his beneficial activity has almost been forgotten. I was
+often told that I took after my mother's family, whatever that may
+mean, and this was certainly the case in outward appearance, though I
+hope not in temper. My great grandfather, the Pedagogue as he was
+called, was a friend of Goethe's, and is mentioned in his poems.
+
+My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a
+widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was
+heart-broken. The few years of her married life had been most bright
+and brilliant. My father was a rising poet, and such was his
+popularity that he was able to indulge his tastes as he liked, whether
+in travelling or in making his house a pleasant centre of social life.
+Contemporaries and friends of my father, particularly Baron Simolin, a
+very intimate friend, who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house,
+have written of the bright gaiety, the whole-hearted enjoyment of life
+that reigned there, and have told how, though his income was to say
+the least of it small, Wilhelm M�ller's home was the rallying-point
+for all the cultivated, scientific, and artistic society of Dessau,
+who felt attracted by the simple and unaffected yet truly genial
+disposition of the master of the house.
+
+It would be interesting to know how much an author could make at that
+time by his pen. Publishers seem to have been far more liberal then
+than they are now. The circumstances were different. The number of
+writers was of course much smaller, and the sale of really popular
+books probably much larger. Anyhow, my father, whose salary was
+minute, seems to have been able to enjoy the few years of his married
+life in great comfort. The thought of saving money, however, seems
+never to have entered his poetical mind, and after his unexpected
+death, due to paralysis of the heart, it was found that hardly any
+provision had been made for his family. Even the life insurance, which
+is obligatory on every civil servant, and the pension granted by the
+Duke, gave my mother but a very small income, fabulously small, when
+one considers that she had to bring up two children on it. It has been
+a riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.
+
+However, it was done, and could only have been done in a small town
+like Dessau, where education was as good as it was cheap, and where
+very little was expected by society. We must also take into account
+the very low prices which then ruled at Dessau with regard to almost
+all the necessaries of life. I see from the old newspapers that beef
+sold at about threepence a pound (two groschen), mutton at about
+twopence. Wine was sold at seven to eight groschen a bottle, a better
+sort for twelve to fourteen groschen--a groschen being about a penny.
+People drank mostly beer, and this was sold under Government
+inspection at two to three groschen per quart. Fish was equally cheap,
+and such, at the beginning of the century, was the abundance of salmon
+caught in the Elbe, and even in the Mulde at Dessau, that it was
+stipulated as in Scotland, that servants should not have salmon more
+than twice or thrice in the week. The lowest price for salmon was
+then twopence halfpenny a pound. As a boy I can remember seeing the
+salmon in large numbers leap over a weir in the very town of Dessau,
+and though they had travelled for so many miles inland, the fish was
+very good, though not so good as Severn salmon. Game also was very
+cheap, and sold for not much more than mutton, nay, at certain times
+it was given away; it could not be exported. Corn was sold at three
+shillings per _Scheffel_, and by corn was chiefly meant rye. No one
+took wheaten bread, and the bread was therefore called brown bread and
+black bread. White bread was only taken with coffee, and peasants in
+the villages would not have touched it, because it was not supposed to
+make such strong bones as rye-bread. With such prices we can
+understand that a salary of �300 was considered sufficient for the
+highest officers of state.
+
+My mother's relations, who were all high in the public service, my
+grandfather, as I said, being the Duke's chief minister, made life
+more easy and pleasant for us; but for many years my mother never went
+into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family
+only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her
+two children day after day to the beautiful _Gottesacker_ (God's
+Acre), where she stood for hours at our father's grave, and sobbed and
+cried. It was a beautiful and restful place, covered with old acacia
+trees. The inscription over the gateway was one of my earliest
+puzzles. _Tod ist nicht Tod, ist nur Veredlung menschlicher Natur_
+(Death is not death, 'tis but the ennobling of man's nature). On each
+side there stood a figure, representing the genius of sleep and the
+genius of death. All this was the work of the old Duke, Leopold
+Friedrich Franz, who tried to educate his people as he had educated
+himself, partly by travel, partly by intercourse with the best men he
+could attract to Dessau.
+
+  [Illustration: MY MOTHER]
+
+At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and
+thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of
+course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my
+chief happiness was to be with my mother. I shared her grief without
+understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her
+children, and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of
+life to her, she gave to us, she lived for us only, and tried very
+hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness. She was certainly
+most beautiful, and quite different from all other ladies at Dessau,
+not only in the eyes of her son, but as it seemed to me, of everybody.
+Then she had a most perfect voice, and when I first began music she
+helped and encouraged me in every possible way. We played _� quatre
+mains_, and soon she made me accompany her when she sang. As far as I
+can recollect, I was never so happy as when I could be with her. She
+read so much to us that I was quite satisfied, and saw perhaps less of
+my young friends than I ought. When my mother said she wished to
+die, and to be with our father, I feel sure that my sister and I were
+only anxious that she should take us with her, for there were few
+golden chains that bound us as yet to this life. I see her now,
+sitting on a winter's evening near the warm stove, a candle on the
+table, and a book from which she read to us in her hands, while the
+spinning-wheel worked by the servant-maid in the corner went on
+humming all the time. She read Paul Gerhard's translation of St.
+Bernard's:
+
+    "Salve caput cruentatum,
+     Totum spinis coronatum,
+     Conquassatum, vulneratum,
+     Arundine verberatum,
+     Facies sputis illita."
+
+    "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,
+     Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!
+     O Haupt zu Spott gebunden
+     Mit einer Dornenkron,
+     O Haupt sonst sch�n gezieret
+     Mit h�chster Ehr und Zier,
+     Jetzt aber hoch schimpfiret:
+     Gegr�sset seist du mir!"
+
+Though the German translation does not come near the powerful majesty
+of the original, yet such was the effect produced on me that I saw the
+bleeding head before my eyes, 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 church. How deeply such scenes
+seem engraved on the memory; how vividly they return when the rubbish
+of many years is swept away and all is again as it was then, and the
+_caput cruentatum_ looks down on us once more, as it did then, with
+the human eyes full of divine love, so truly human that one could say
+with St. Bernard, "Tuum caput huc inclina, in meis pausa brachiis."
+But willingly as I listened to these readings at home, and full as my
+heart was of love to Christ, I suffered intensely when I was taken to
+church as a young boy. It was a very large church, and in winter
+bitterly cold. Even though I liked the singing, the long sermon was
+real torture to me. I could not understand a word of it, and being
+thinly clad my teeth would have chattered if I had not been told that
+it was wrong "to make a noise in church." Oh! what misery is inflicted
+on childhood by this enforced attendance at church. When a church can
+be warmed the suffering is less intense, 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
+church. These early impressions often remain for life, and the worst
+of it is that the idea remains in the minds of children, and of
+grown-up people too, that by going to church and repeating the same
+prayers over and over again, and listening to long and often dreary
+sermons, they are actually doing a service to God (_Gottesdienst_).
+Why does no new prophet arise and say in the name of God, as David did
+in the name of Jehovah, "Sermons and long prayers 'thou didst not
+desire'"?
+
+Many years later I had to discuss the same question with Keshub
+Chunder Sen, the Indian Reformer. He wanted to know what kind of
+service should be adopted by his new church, the Brahmo Somaj; his
+friends thought of sermons, singing, and processions with flags and
+flowers through the streets. "No," I said to him, "service of God
+should be service of men; if you want divine service, let it be a real
+service, such as God would approve of. Let other people go to church,
+to their mosques or their temples, but take you your own friends on
+certain days of the week to whatever you like to call your
+meeting-place, and after a short prayer or a few words of advice send
+some of them to the poorest streets in the city, others to the
+prisons, others to the hospitals. Let them pray with all who wish to
+pray, but let them speak words of true love and comfort also, and when
+they can, let them help them with their alms. That would be a real
+Divine Service and a divine Sunday for you, and you would all come
+home, it may be sadder, but certainly wiser and better men."
+
+I am afraid he did not agree with me. He did not think that true
+religion was to visit the poor and the afflicted. That might do for a
+practical people like the English, but the Hindu wanted something
+else, he wanted some outward show and ceremony for the people, and at
+the same time some silent communion with God. Who can tell what
+different people understand by religion? and who can prescribe the
+spiritual food that is best for them? "Only," I said, "do not call it
+practical to encourage millions of people to waste hours and hours in
+mere repetition, and to spend millions and millions in supplying this
+cold comfort, when next door to the magnificent cathedral there are
+squalid streets, and squalid houses, and squalid beds to lie and die
+on."
+
+The religious and devotional element is very strong in Germany, but
+the churches are mostly empty. A German keeps his religion for
+weekdays rather than for Sunday. When the German regiments marched,
+and when they made ready for battle, they did not sing ribald songs,
+they sang the songs of Luther and Paul Gerhard, which they knew by
+heart and which strengthened them to face death as it ought to be
+faced.
+
+Fortunately, while enforced attendance at church was apt to produce
+the strongest aversion in the young heart against anything that was
+called religion, religious instruction both at home and at school too
+was excellent, and undid much of the mischief that had been done
+during cold winter days. True religious sentiments can be planted in
+the soul at home only, by a mother better even than by a father. The
+sense of a divine presence everywhere, [Greek: panta pl�re the�n],
+once planted in the heart of a child remains for life. Of course the
+child soon begins to argue, and says to his mother that God cannot be
+at the same time in two rooms. But only let a mother show to the child
+the rays of the sun in the sky, in the streets, and in every corner of
+the house, and it will begin to understand that nothing can be hid
+from the eyes of Him who is greater than the sun. And when a child
+doubts whether the voice of conscience can be the voice of God, and
+asks how he could hear that voice without seeing the speaker, ask him
+only whose voice it can be that tells him not to do what he himself
+wishes to do, and not to say what he could say without any fear of
+men; and his idea of God will be raised from that of a visible being
+like the sun, to the concept of a presence that never vanishes, that
+is not only without, in the sky, in the mountains, and in the storm,
+but nearer also within, in the sense of fear, in the sense of shame,
+and in the hope of pardon and love.
+
+At school our religious teaching was chiefly historical and moral.
+There was no difficulty in finding proper teachers for that, and there
+were no attempts on the part of parents to interfere with religious
+instruction or to demand separate teaching for each sect. It is true
+that religious sects are not so numerous in Germany as they are in
+England. Some, though by no means all, children of Roman Catholic and
+Jewish parents were allowed to be absent from religious lessons. 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 children. Respect for historical truth, and an
+implanted sense of the reverence due to children, would keep any
+teacher from making the history of the Christian Church, whether
+before or after the Reformation, an excuse for offending one of the
+little ones committed to his care. If Jews or Roman Catholics wished
+for any special religious instruction it was given by their own
+priests or Rabbis, and was given without any interference on the part
+of the Government. But such was at my time the state of public feeling
+that I hardly knew at school who among my young friends were Roman
+Catholics, or Lutherans, or Reformed. I must admit, however, that the
+very name of Luther might have offended Roman Catholics. He was
+represented to us as a perfect saint, almost as inspired and
+infallible. His hymns sung in church seemed to us little different
+from the Psalms of David, and I well remember what a shock it gave me
+when at Oxford, much later in life, I heard Luther spoken of like any
+other mortal, nay, as a heretic, and a most dangerous heretic too.
+When I was a boy I remember that in some places the same building had
+to be used for Protestant and Roman Catholic services. All that, I am
+afraid, is now changed, and the old liberal and tolerant feeling then
+prevailing on all sides is now often stigmatized as indifference, and
+by other ugly names. It should really be called the golden age of
+Christianity, and this so-called indifference should be classed among
+the highest Christian virtues, and as the fullest realization of the
+spirit of Christ.
+
+Thus we grew up from our earliest youth, being taught to look upon
+Christianity as an historical fact, on Christ and His disciples as
+historical characters, on the Old and New Testaments as real
+historical books. Though we did not understand as yet the deeper
+meaning of Christ and of His words, we had at least nothing to unlearn
+in later times, or to feel that our parents had ever told us what they
+themselves could not have held to be true. Our simple faith was not
+shaken by mere questions of criticism, or by the problem how any human
+being could take upon himself to declare any book to be revealed,
+unless he claimed for himself a more than human insight. The simplest
+rules of logic should make such a declaration impossible, whatever the
+sacred book may be to which it is applied. Granted that the Pope was
+infallible, how could the Cardinals know that he was, unless they
+claimed for themselves the same or even greater infallibility? It is
+far more easy to be inspired than to know some one else is or was
+inspired; the true inspiration is, and always has been, the spirit of
+truth within, and this is but another name for the spirit of God. It
+is truth that makes inspiration, not inspiration that makes truth.
+Whoever knows what truth is, knows also what inspiration is: not only
+_theopneustos_, blown into the soul by God, but the very voice of God,
+the real presence of God, the only presence in which we, as human
+beings, can ever perceive Him.
+
+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
+objective, but must always be subjective. I may return to this
+question at a later period of my life, when I had to discuss with
+Renan, at Paris, with Froude, Kingsley, and Liddon, in England, and
+tried to show how entirely self-made some of their difficulties were.
+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 own; as Samson, when
+he awoke, found himself bound with seven green withs and had to break
+them with all his might before he could hope to escape from the
+Philistines. The Philistines never bound me. During my early
+school-days these difficulties did not exist, but I have often been
+grateful in after life that the seven locks of my head have never been
+woven with the web.
+
+I remember a number of small events in my school-life at Dessau, but
+though they were full of interest to me, nay, full of meaning, and not
+without an influence on my later life, they would have no meaning and
+no interest for others, and may remain as if they had never been. The
+influence which music exercised on my mind, and, I believe, on my
+heart also, I have related in my _Musical Recollections_. The image of
+those passing years, though its general tone was melancholy, chiefly
+owing to my mother's melancholy, seemed to me at the time free from
+all unhappiness. My work at school and at home was not too heavy; I
+was fond of it, and very fond of books. Books were scarce then, and
+whoever possessed a new and valuable book was expected to lend it to
+his friends in the little town. If a man was known to possess, say,
+Goethe's works or Jean Paul's works, the consequence was that one went
+to him or to her to ask for the loan of them. And not only books, but
+paper and pens also were scarce. The first steel pens came in when I
+was still in the lower school, and bad as they were they were looked
+upon as real treasures by the schoolboys who possessed them. Paper was
+so dear that one had to be very sparing in its use. Every margin and
+cover was scribbled over before it was thrown away, 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 Christmas. I am sorry to say I have had to suffer
+all my life from the inefficiency of our writing master, or maybe from
+the fact that my thoughts were too quick for my pen. In other subjects
+I did well, but though I was among the first in each class, I was by
+no means cleverer than other boys. In the lower school work was more
+like conversation or like hearing news from our teachers. The idea of
+effort did not yet exist. The drudgery began, however, when I entered
+the upper school, the gymnasium, and learnt the elements of Latin and
+Greek. Though our teachers were very conscientious, they tried to make
+our work no burden to us, and the constant change of places in each
+class kept up a lively rivalry among the boys, though I am not sure
+that it did not make me rather ambitious and at times conceited.
+Still, I had few enemies, and it seemed of much more consequence who
+could knock down another boy than who could gain a place above him. I
+feel sure I could have done a great deal more at school than I did,
+but it was partly my music and partly my incessant headaches that
+interfered with my school work.
+
+I remember as a boy that certain streets were inhabited exclusively by
+Jewish families. A large number of Jews had been received at Dessau by
+a former Duke; but though he granted them leave to settle at Dessau
+when they were persecuted in other parts of Germany, he stipulated
+that they should only settle in certain streets. These streets were by
+no means the worst streets of the town; on the contrary they showed
+greater comfort and hardly any of the squalor which disgraced the
+Jewish quarters in other towns in Germany. As children we were brought
+up without any prejudice against the Jews, though we had, no doubt, a
+certain feeling that they were tolerated only, and were not quite on
+the same level with ourselves. We also felt the religious difficulty
+sometimes very strongly. Were not the Jews the murderers of Christ?
+and had they not said: "the blood be on us and on our children"? But
+as we were told that it was wrong to harbour feelings of revenge, we
+boys soon forgot and forgave, and played together as the best friends.
+I remember picking up a number of Jewish words which would not have
+been understood anywhere else. I was hardly aware that they were
+Jewish and used them like any other words. But I once gave great
+offence to my friend Professor Bernays, who was a Jew. He had uttered
+some quite incredible statement, and I exclaimed, "Sind Sie denn ganz
+maschukke?"--Hebrew for "mad." I meant no harm, but he was very much
+hurt.
+
+I knew several Jewish families, and received much kindness from them
+as a boy. Many of these families were wealthy, but they never
+displayed their wealth, and in consequence excited no envy. All that
+is changed now. The children of the Jews who formerly lived in a very
+quiet style at Dessau, now occupy the best houses, indulge in most
+expensive tastes, and try in every way to outshine their non-Jewish
+neighbours. They buy themselves titles, and, when they can, stipulate
+for stars and orders as rewards for successful financial operations,
+carried out with the money of princely personages. Hence the
+revulsion of feeling all over Germany, or what is called
+Anti-Semitism, which has assumed not only a social but a political
+significance. I doubt whether there is anything religious in it, as
+there was when we were boys. The Anti-Semitic hatred is the hatred of
+money-making, more particularly of that kind of money-making which
+requires no hard work, but only a large capital to begin with, and
+boldness and astuteness in speculating, that is in buying and selling
+at the right moment. The sinews of war for that kind of financial
+warfare were mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of the
+present generation. Sometimes, no doubt, the capital was lost, and in
+those cases it must be said that the Jewish speculator disappears from
+the stage without a sigh or a cry. He begins again, and if he should
+have to do what his grandfather did, walk from house to house with a
+bag on his back, he does not whine.
+
+One cannot blame the Jews or any other speculators for using their
+opportunities, but they must not complain either if they excite envy,
+and if that envy assumes in the end a dangerous character. The Jews,
+so far from suffering from disabilities, enjoy really certain
+privileges over their Christian competitors in Germany. They belong to
+a _regnum_, but also to a _regnum in regno_. They have, so to say, our
+Sunday and likewise their Sabbath. Jew will always help Jew against a
+Christian; and again who can blame them for that? All one can say is
+that they should not complain of their unpopularity, but take into
+account the risk they are running. No one hated the Jews such as they
+were in Dessau fifty years ago. They had their own schools and
+synagogues, and no one interfered with them when they built their
+bowers in the streets at the time of their Feast of Tabernacles, and
+lived, feasted, and slept in them to keep up the memory of their
+sojourning in the desert. They indulged in even more offensive
+practices, such as, for instance, putting three stones in the coffins
+to be thrown by the dead at the Virgin Mary, her husband, and their
+Son. No one suspected or accused them of kidnapping Christian
+children, or offering sacrifices with their blood. They were known too
+well for that. Conversions of Jews were not infrequent, and converted
+Jews were not persecuted by their former co-religionists as they are
+now. Even marriages between Christians and Jews were by no means
+uncommon, particularly when the young Jewesses were beautiful or rich,
+still better if they were both. Disgraceful as the Anti-Semitic riots
+have been in Germany and Russia, there can be no doubt that in this as
+in most cases both sides were to blame, and there is little prospect
+of peace being re-established till many more heads have been broken.
+
+What helped very much to keep the peace in the small town of Dessau,
+as it did all over Germany, nay, all over the world, till about the
+year 1848, was the small number of newspapers. In my childhood and
+youth their number was very small. In Dessau I only knew of one, which
+was then called the _Wochenblatt_, afterwards the _Staatsanzeiger_. At
+that time newspapers were really read for the news which they
+contained, not for leading or misleading articles and all the rest.
+What a happy time it was when a newspaper consisted of a sheet, or
+half a sheet in quarto, with short paragraphs about actual events,
+which had often taken place weeks and months before. A battle might
+have been fought in Spain or Turkey, in India or China, and no one
+knew of it till some official information was vouchsafed by the
+respective Governments or by Jewish bankers. War-correspondents or
+regular reporters did not exist, and the old telegraphic dispatches
+were sent by wooden telegraphs fixed on high towers, which from a
+distance looked like gallows on which a criminal was hanging and
+gesticulating with arms and feet. Anybody who watched these signals
+could decipher them far more easily than a hieroglyphic inscription.
+
+The peace of Europe, nay, of the whole world, was then in the keeping
+of sovereigns and their ministers, and Prince Metternich might
+certainly take some credit for having kept what he called the Thirty
+Years' Peace. Shall we ever, as long as there are newspapers, have
+peace again--peace between the great nations of the world, and peace
+at home between contending parties, and peace in our mornings at home
+which are now so ruthlessly broken in upon, nay, swallowed up by
+those paper-giants, most unwelcome yet irresistible callers, just when
+we want to settle down to a quiet day's work? It is no use protesting
+against the inevitable, 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 politics. 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 Augustus. When
+unsuccessful _litt�rateurs_ or bankrupt bankers' clerks were the chief
+contributors to the newspapers, their influence might have been small;
+but when Bismarcks turned journalists, and Gortchakoffs prompted,
+newspapers could hardly be called _quantit�s n�gligeables_.
+
+The horizon of Dessau was very narrow, but within its bounds there was
+a busy and happy life. Everybody did his work honestly and
+conscientiously. There were, of course, two classes, the educated and
+the uneducated. The educated consisted of the members of the
+Government service, the clergy, the schoolmasters, doctors, artists,
+and officers; the uneducated were the tradesmen, mechanics, and
+labourers. The trade was mostly in the hands of Jews, it had become
+almost a Jewish monopoly. When one of these tradesmen went bankrupt,
+there was a commotion over the whole town, and I remember being taken
+to see one of these bankrupt shops, expecting to find the whole house
+broken up and demolished, and being surprised to see the tradesman
+standing whole, and sound, and smiling, in his accustomed place. My
+etymological tastes must have developed very early, for I had asked
+why this poor Jew was called a bankrupt, and had been duly informed
+that it was because his bank had been broken, _banca rotta_, which of
+course I took in a literal sense, and expected to see all the
+furniture broken to pieces. The commercial relations of our Dessau
+tradesmen did not extend much beyond Leipzig, Berlin, possibly Hamburg
+and Cologne. If a burgher of Dessau travelled to these or to more
+distant parts the whole town knew of it and talked about it, whereas a
+journey to Paris or London was an event worthy to be mentioned and
+discussed in the newspapers. These old newspapers are full of curious
+information. We find that if a person wished to travel to Cologne or
+further, he advertised for a companion, and it was for the Burgomaster
+to make the necessary arrangements for him.
+
+French was studied and spoken, particularly at Court, but English was
+a rare acquirement, still more Italian or Spanish. There was, however,
+a small inner circle where these languages were studied, chiefly in
+order to read the master-works of modern literature. And this was all
+the more creditable because there were no good teachers to be found at
+Dessau, and people had to learn what they wished to learn by
+themselves, with the help of a grammar and dictionary. We learnt
+French at school, but the result was deplorable. As in all public
+schools, the French master who had to teach the language at the Ducal
+Gymnasium could not keep order among the boys. He of course spoke
+French, but that was all. He did not know how to teach, and could not
+excite any interest in the boys, who insisted on pronouncing French as
+if it were German. The poor man's life was made a burden to him. His
+name was Noel, and he had all the pleasing manners of a Frenchman, but
+that served only to rouse the antagonism of the young barbarians. The
+result was that we learnt very little, and I was sent to an old Jew to
+learn French and a little English. That old Jew, called Levy Rubens,
+was a perfect gentleman. He probably had been a commercial traveller
+in his early days, though no one knew exactly where he came from or
+how he had learnt languages. He had taught my father and grandfather
+and he was delighted to teach the third generation. He certainly spoke
+French and English fluently, but with the strongest Jewish accent, and
+this was inherited by all his pupils at Dessau. I feel ashamed when I
+think of the tricks we played the old man--putting mice into his
+pockets, upsetting inkstands over his table, and placing crackers
+under his chairs. But he never lost his temper; he never would have
+dared to punish us as we deserved; but he went on with his lesson as
+if nothing had happened. He took his small pay, and was satisfied
+when his lessons were over and he could settle down to his long pipe
+and his books. He lived quite alone and died quite alone, a
+hardworking, honest, poor Jew, not exactly despised or persecuted, but
+not treated with the respect which he certainly deserved, and which he
+would have received if he had not been a Jew.
+
+Our public school was as good as any in Germany. These small duchies
+generally followed the example of Prussia, and they carried out the
+instructions issued by the Ministry of Education at Berlin according
+to the very letter. Besides, several of the reigning dukes had taken a
+very warm and personal interest in popular education, and at the
+beginning of the century the eyes of the whole of Germany, nay, of
+Europe, were turned towards the educational experiments carried on by
+my great-grandfather, Basedow,[6] at the so-called Philanthropinum at
+Dessau under the patronage of the Duke and of several of the more
+enlightened sovereigns of Europe, such as the Empress Catherine of
+Russia, the King of Denmark, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, Prince
+Adam Czartoryski, &c. Even after Basedow's death the interest in
+education was kept alive in Dessau, and all was done that could be
+done in so small a town to keep the different schools--elementary,
+middle-class, and high schools--on the highest possible level of
+efficiency.
+
+  [6] Johann Bernhard Basedow, von seinem Urenkel, F. M. M.
+  (Essays, Band IV).
+
+Bathing was a very healthful recreation, though I very nearly came to
+grief from trusting to my seniors. They could swim and I could not
+yet. But while bathing with two of my friends in a part of the river
+which was safe, they swam along and asked me to follow them. Having
+complete confidence in them I jumped in from the shore, but very soon
+began to sink. My shouts brought my friends back, and they rescued me,
+not without some difficulty, from drowning.
+
+In an English school the influence of the master is, of course, more
+constant, because one of the masters is always within call, while in
+Germany he is visible during school-hours only. If a master is fond of
+his pupils, and takes an interest in them individually, he can do them
+more good than parents at home, or the teacher at a day school. The
+boys at a German school are, no doubt, a very mixed crew, but that
+cannot be helped. This mixture of classes may be a drawback in some
+respects, but from an educational point of view the sons of very rich
+parents are by no means more valuable than the poor boys. Far from it.
+Many of the evils of schoolboy life come from the sons of the rich,
+while the sons of poor parents are generally well behaved. But for all
+that, there was a rough and rude tone among some of the boys at
+school, arising from defects in the education at home, and this
+sometimes embittered what ought to be the happiest time of life,
+particularly in the case of delicate boys. The son of a Minister has
+often to sit by the side of the son of a wealthy butcher, and the very
+fact that he is the son of a gentleman often exposes the more refined
+boy to the bullying of his muscular neighbour. I was fortunate at
+school. I could hold my own with the boys, and as to the masters,
+several of them had known my father or had been his pupils, and they
+took a personal interest in me.
+
+I remember more particularly one young master who was very kind to me,
+and took me home for private lessons and for giving me some good
+advice. There was something sad and very attractive about him, and I
+found out afterwards that he knew that he was dying of consumption,
+and that besides that he was liable to be prosecuted for political
+liberalism, which at that time was almost like high treason. I believe
+he was actually condemned and sent to prison like many others, and he
+died soon after I had left Dessau. His name was Dr. H�nicke, and he
+was the first to try to impress on me that I ought to show myself
+worthy of my father, an idea which had never entered my mind before,
+nay, which at first I could hardly understand, but which,
+nevertheless, slumbered on in my mind till years afterwards it was
+called out and became a strong influence for the whole of my life. I
+still have some lines which he wrote for my album. They were the
+well-known lines from Horace, which, at the time, I had great
+difficulty in construing, but which have remained graven in my memory
+ever since:
+
+    "Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,
+     Est in iuvencis est in equis patrum
+       Virtus nec imbellem feroces
+         Progenerant aquilae columbam.
+     Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
+     Rectique cultus pectora roborant;
+       Utcunque defecere mores,
+         Dedecorant bene nata culpae."
+
+In my childhood I had to pass through the ordinary illnesses, but it
+was the faith in our doctor that always saved me. The doctor was to my
+mind the man who was called in to make me well again, and while my
+mother was agitated about her only son, I never dreamt of any danger.
+The very idea of death never came near me till my grandfather died
+(1835), but even then I was only about twelve years old, and though I
+had seen much of him, particularly during the years that my mother
+lived again in his house, yet he was too old to take much share in his
+grandchildren's amusements. He left a gap, no doubt, in our life, but
+that gap was filled again with new figures in the life of a boy of
+twelve. He was only sixty-one years old when he died, and yet my idea
+of him was always that of a very old man. Everything was done for him,
+his servant dressed him every morning, he was lifted into his carriage
+and out of it, and he certainly lived the life of an invalid, such as
+I should not consent to own to at seventy-six. He made no secret that
+he cared more for the son of his son who was the heir, and was to
+perpetuate the name of von Basedow, than for the son of his daughter.
+He was very fond of driving and of shooting, and he frequently took my
+cousin out shooting with him. When my cousin came home with a hare he
+had shot, I confess I was sometimes jealous, but I was soon cured of
+my wish to go with my grandfather into the forest. Once when I was
+with him in his little carriage, my grandfather, not being able to see
+well, had the misfortune to kill a doe which had come out with her two
+little ones. The misery of the mother and afterwards of her two young
+ones, was heart-rending, and from that day on I made up my mind never
+to go out shooting, and never to kill an animal. And I have kept my
+word, though I was much laughed at. It may be that later in life and
+after my grandfather's death I had little opportunity of shooting, 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 life.
+
+My grandfather, though he aged early, remained in harness as Prime
+Minister to the end of his life, and it was his great desire to
+benefit his country by new institutions. It was he who, at the time
+when people hardly knew yet what railroads meant, succeeded in getting
+the line from Berlin to Halle and Leipzig to pass by Dessau. He
+offered to build the bridge across the Elbe and to give the land and
+the wood for the sleepers gratis, and what seemed at the time a far
+too generous offer has proved a blessing to the duchy, making it as it
+were the centre of the great railway connecting Berlin, Leipzig,
+Magdeburg, the Elbe, Hanover, Bremen, nay, Cologne also, the Rhine,
+and Western Europe. He was in his way a good statesman, though we are
+too apt to measure a man's real greatness by the circumstances in
+which he moves.
+
+As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor
+could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and
+though I watched it carefully I could not trace it to any fault of
+mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It
+came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always
+the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes
+for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it
+seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly
+strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I
+was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and
+try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had
+been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had
+peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week, and
+as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was
+scolded and punished, really without any fault of my own. After all
+remedies had failed which the doctor and nurses prescribed (and I well
+remember my grandmother using massage on my neck, which must have
+been about 1833 to 1835) I was handed over to Hahnemann, the founder
+of homeopathy. Hahnemann (born 1755) had been practising as doctor at
+Dessau as early as 1780--that is somewhat before my time--but had left
+it, and when in 1820 he had been prohibited by the Government from
+practising and lecturing at Leipzig, he took refuge once more in the
+neighbouring town of Coethen. From there he paid visits to Dessau as
+consulting physician, and after I had explained to him as well as I
+could all the symptoms of my chronic headache, he assured my mother
+that he would cure it at once. He was an imposing personality--a
+powerful man with a gigantic head and strong eyes and a most
+persuasive voice. I can quite understand that his personal influence
+would have gone far to effect a cure of many diseases. People forget
+too much how strong a curative power resides in the patient's faith in
+his doctor, in fact how much the mind can do in depressing and in
+reinvigorating the body. I shall never forget in later years
+consulting Sir Andrew Clarke, and telling him of ever so many, to my
+mind, most serious symptoms. I had lost sleep and appetite, and
+imagined myself in a very bad state indeed. He examined me and knocked
+me about for full three quarters of an hour, and instead of
+pronouncing my doom as I fully expected, he told me with a bright look
+and most convincing voice that he had examined many men who had worked
+their brains too much, but had never seen a man at my time of life so
+perfectly sound in every organ. I felt young and strong at once, and
+meeting my old friend Morier on my way home, we ate some dozens of
+oysters together and drank some pints of porter without the slightest
+bad effect. In fact I was cured without a pill or a drop of medicine.
+
+And who does not know how, if one makes up one's mind at last to have
+a tooth pulled out, the pain seems to cease as soon as we pull the
+bell at the dentist's?
+
+However, Hahnemann did not succeed with me. I swallowed a number of
+his silver and gold globules, but the migraine kept its regular
+course, right to left and left to right, and this went on till about
+the year 1860. Then my doctor, the late Mr. Symonds of Oxford, told me
+exactly what Hahnemann had told me--that he would cure me, if I would
+go on taking some medicine regularly for six months or a year. He told
+me that he and his brother had made a special study of headaches, and
+that there were ever so many kinds of headache, each requiring its own
+peculiar treatment. When I asked him to what category of headaches
+mine belonged, I was not a little abashed on being told that my
+headache was what they called the Alderman's headache. "Surely," I
+said, "I don't overeat, or overdrink." I had thought that mine was a
+mysterious nervous headache, arising from the brain. But no, it seemed
+to be due to turtle soup and port wine. However, the doctor, seeing my
+surprise, comforted me by telling me that it was the nerves of the
+head which affected the stomach, and thus produced indirectly the same
+disturbance in my digestion as an aldermanic diet. Whether this was
+true or was only meant as a _solatium_ I do not know. But what I do
+know is, that by taking the medicine regularly for about half a year,
+the frequency and violence of my headaches were considerably reduced,
+while after about a year they vanished completely. I was a new being,
+and my working time was doubled.
+
+One lesson may be learnt from this, namely, that the English system of
+doctoring is very imperfect. In England we wait till we are ill, then
+go to a doctor, describe our symptoms as well as we can, pay one
+guinea, or two, get our prescription, take drastic medicine for a
+month and expect to be well. My German doctor, when he saw the
+prescription of my English doctor, told me that he would not give it
+to a horse. If after a month we are not better we go again; he
+possibly changes our medicine, and we take it more or less regularly
+for another month. The doctor cannot watch the effect of his medicine,
+he is not sure even whether his prescriptions have been carefully
+followed; and he knows but too well that anything like a chronic
+complaint requires a chronic treatment. The important thing, however,
+was that my headaches yielded gradually to the continued use of
+medicine; it would hardly have produced the desired effect if I had
+taken it by fits and starts. All this seems to me quite natural; but
+though my English doctor cured me, and my German doctors did not, I
+still hold that the German system is better. Most families have their
+doctor in Germany, who calls from time to time to watch the health of
+the old and young members of the family, particularly when under
+medical treatment, and receives his stipulated annual payment, which
+secures him a safe income that can be raised, of course, by attendance
+on occasional patients. Perhaps the Chinese system is the best; they
+pay their doctor while they are well, and stop payment as long as they
+are ill. 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 England. If my remarks
+refer to the study and practice of medicine I am asked whether more
+men are killed in England than in Germany; if I refer to the study and
+practice of law I am assured that quite as many murderers are hanged
+in England as in Germany; and if I venture to hint that the study of
+theology might on certain points be improved at Oxford, I am told that
+quite as many souls are saved in England as in Germany, nay, a good
+many more. As I cannot ascertain the facts from trustworthy
+statistics, I have nothing to reply; all I feel is that most nations,
+like most individuals, are perfect in their own eyes, but that those
+are most perfect who are willing to admit that there is something to
+be learnt from their neighbours.
+
+But to return to Hahnemann. He was very kind to me, and I looked up to
+him as a giant both in body and in mind. But he could not deliver me
+from my enemy, the ever recurrent migraine. The cures, however, both
+at Dessau and at Coethen, where he had been made a _Hofrath_ by the
+reigning Duke, were very extraordinary. Hahnemann remained in Coethen
+till 1835, and in that year, when he was eighty, he married a young
+French lady, Melanie d'Hervilly, and was carried off by her to Paris,
+where he soon gained a large practice, and died in 1843, that is at
+the age of eighty-eight. Much of his success, I feel sure, was due to
+his presence and to the confidence which he inspired. How do I know
+that Sir Andrew Clarke, seeing that I was in low spirits about my
+health, did not think it right to encourage me, and by encouraging me
+did certainly make me feel confident about myself, and thus raised my
+vitality, my spirits, or whatever we like to call it? "Thy faith hath
+made thee whole" is a lesson which doctors ought not to neglect.
+
+How little we know the effect of the environment in which we grow up.
+My old granny has drawn deeper furrows through my young soul than all
+my teachers and preachers put together. I am not going to add a
+chapter to that most unsatisfactory of all studies, child-psychology.
+It is an impossible subject. The victim--the child--cannot be
+interrogated till it is too late. The influences that work on the
+child's senses and mind cannot be determined; they are too many, and
+too intangible. The observers of babies, mostly young fathers proud of
+their first offspring, remind me always of a very learned friend of
+mine, who presented to the Royal Society most laborious pages
+containing his lifelong observations on certain deviations of the
+magnetic needle, and who had forgotten that in making these
+observations he always had a pair of steel spectacles on his nose.
+However, I have nothing to say against these observations, nor against
+their more or less successful interpretations. 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 condition, whether as a
+hairy or a hairless creature. To imagine that we can learn from the
+way in which children begin to use our old words, how the primitive
+language of mankind was formed, seems to me like imagining that
+children playing with counters would teach us how and for what purpose
+the first money was coined. There is no doubt a grain of truth in this
+infantile psychology, but it requires as many caveats as that which is
+called ethnological psychology, which makes us see in the savages of
+the present day the representation of the first ancestors of our race,
+and would teach us to discover in their superstitions the antecedents
+of the mythology and religion of the Aryan or Semitic races. 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 Brahmans, Greeks, or Romans, 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
+Homer. They look upon the Patagonians as the _tabula rasa_ of
+humanity, and they forget that even if we admitted that the ancestors
+of the Aryan race had once been more savage than the Patagonians, it
+would not follow that their savagery was identical with that of the
+people of Tierra del Fuego. Why should not the distance between
+Patagonian and Vedic Rishis have been at least as great as that
+between Vedic Rishis and Homeric bards? If there are ever so many
+kinds of civilized life, was there only one and the same savagery?
+
+To take, for instance, the feeling of fear; is it likely that we shall
+find out whether it is innate in human nature or acquired and
+intensified in each generation, by shaking our fists in the face of a
+little baby, to see whether it will wink or shrink or shriek? Some
+children may be more fearless than others, but whether that
+fearlessness arises from ignorance or from stolidity is again by no
+means easy to determine. A burnt child fears the fire, an unburnt
+child might boldly grasp a glowing coal, but all this would not help
+us to determine whether fear is an innate or an acquired tendency or
+habit.
+
+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
+grandmothers, and that I had to make a strong effort of will before I
+could bring myself to walk across a churchyard in the dark. This shows
+how much our character is shaped by circumstances, even when we are
+least aware of it. I did not believe in ghosts and I was not a coward,
+but I felt through life a kind of shiver in dark passages and at the
+sound of mysterious noises, 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 there,
+and that caused me, particularly in my younger days, many a moment of
+discomfort.
+
+All such experiences constitute what may be called the background of
+our life. My first ideas of men and women, and of the world at large,
+that is of the unknown world, were formed within the narrow walls of
+Dessau, for Dessau was still surrounded by walls, and the gates of the
+city were closed every night, though the fears of a foreign enemy were
+but small. Of course the views of life prevailing at Dessau were very
+narrow, but they were wide enough for our purposes. Though we heard of
+large towns like Dresden or Berlin, and of large countries like France
+and Italy, my real world was Dessau and its neighbourhood. We had no
+interests outside the walls of our town or the frontiers of our
+duchy. If we heard of things that had happened at Leipzig or Berlin,
+in Paris or London, they had no more reality for us than what we had
+read about Abraham, or Romulus and Remus, or Alexander the Great. To
+us the pulse of the world seemed to beat in the _Haupt- und
+Residenzstadt_ of Dessau, though we knew perfectly well how small it
+was in comparison with other towns.
+
+And this, too, has left its impression on my thoughts all through
+life, if only by making everything that I saw in later life in such
+towns as Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, and London, appear quite
+overwhelmingly grand. Boys brought up in any of these large towns
+start with a different view of the world, and with a different measure
+for what they see in later life. I do not know that they are to be
+envied for that, for there is pleasure in admiration, pleasure even in
+being stunned by the first sight of the life in the streets of Paris
+or London. I certainly have been a great admirer all my life, and I
+ascribe this disposition to the small surroundings of my early years
+at Dessau.
+
+And so it was with everything else. Having admired our
+Cavalier-Strasse, I could admire all the more the Boulevards in Paris,
+and Regent Street in London. Having enjoyed our small theatre, I stood
+aghast at the Grand Opera, and at Drury Lane. This power of admiration
+and enjoyment extended even to dinners and other domestic amusements.
+Having been brought up on very simple fare, I fully enjoyed the
+dinners which the Old East India Company gave, when we sat down about
+400 people, and, as I was told, four pounds was paid for each guest. 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
+entertainments, even if not quite at four pounds a head, 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 years.
+
+I remember the time when I woke with my breath frozen on my bedclothes
+into a thin sheet of ice. 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 morning, and where, when we tried to break the ice in the
+jug, there were only a few drops of water left at the bottom with
+which to wash. No wonder that the ablutions were expeditious. After
+they were performed we had our speedy breakfast, consisting of a cup
+of coffee and a _semmel_ or roll, and then we rushed to school, often
+through the snow that had not yet been swept away from the pavement.
+We sat in school from eight to eleven or twelve, rushed home again,
+had our very simple dinner, and then back to school, from two to four.
+How we lived through it I sometimes wonder, for we were thinly clad
+and often wet with rain or snow; and yet we enjoyed our life as boys
+only can enjoy it, and had no time to be ill. 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 consequence. The
+background of my life at Dessau and at Leipzig may seem dark, but it
+has only served to make the later years of my life all the brighter
+and warmer.
+
+The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I
+feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by
+it. The unspoiled primitiveness of life at Dessau as it was when I was
+at school there till the age of twelve, would be extremely difficult
+to describe in all its details. Everybody seemed to know everybody and
+everything about everybody. Everybody knew that he was watched, and
+gossip, in the best sense of the word, ruled supreme in the little
+town. Gossip was, in fact, public opinion with all its good and all
+its bad features. Still the result was that no one could afford to
+lose caste, and that everybody behaved as well as he could. I really
+believe that the private life of the people of Dessau at the beginning
+of the century was blameless. The great evils of society did not
+exist, and if now and then there was a black sheep, his or her life
+became a burden to them. Everybody knew what had happened, and society
+being on the whole so blameless, was all the more merciless on the
+sinners, whether their sins were great or small. So from the very
+first my idea was that there were only two classes--one class quite
+perfect and pure as angels, the other black sheep, and altogether
+unspeakable. There was no transition, no intermediate links, no
+shading of light and dark. A man was either black or white, and this
+rigid rule applied not only to moral character, but intellectual
+excellence also was measured by the same standard. A work of art was
+either superlatively beautiful, or it was contemptible. A man of
+science was either a giant or a humbug. Some people spoke of Goethe as
+the greatest of all poets and philosophers the world had ever known;
+others called him a wicked man and an overvalued poet.[7]
+
+  [7] That this was not only the case at Dessau, 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 find.
+
+It is dangerous, no doubt, to go through life with so imperfect a
+measure, and I have for a long time suffered from it, particularly in
+cases where I ought to have been able to make allowance for small
+failings. But as I had been brought up to approach people with a
+complete trust in their rectitude, and with an unlimited admiration of
+their genius, it took me many years before I learnt to make allowance
+for human weaknesses or temporary failures. I have lost many a
+charming companion and excellent friend in my journey through life,
+because I weighed them with my rusty Dessau balance. I had to learn by
+long experience that there may be a spot, nay, several spots on the
+soft skin of a peach, and yet the whole fruit may be perfect. I acted
+very much like the merchant who tested a whole field of rice by the
+first handful of grains, and who, if he found one or two bad grains,
+would have nothing to do with the whole field. I had to learn what
+was, perhaps, the most difficult lesson of all, that a trusted friend
+could not always be trusted, and yet need not therefore be altogether
+a reprobate. What was most difficult for me to digest was an untruth:
+finding out that one who professed to be a friend had said and done
+most unfriendly things behind one's back. Still, in a long life one
+finds out that even that may not be a deadly sin, and that if we are
+so loth to forgive it, it is partly because the falsehood affected our
+own interests. 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 honest, straightforward, and trustworthy, by a large number
+of his own friends. We see this over and over again with men occupying
+eminent positions in Church and State. We see how a prime minister or
+an archbishop is represented by men who know him as a liar and a
+hypocrite, while by others he is spoken of as a paragon of honour and
+honesty, and a true Christian. My narrow Dessau views became a little
+widened when I went to school at Leipzig; still more when I spent two
+years and a half at the University of Leipzig, and afterwards at
+Berlin. Still, during all this time I saw but little of what is called
+society, I only knew of people whom I loved and of people whom I
+disliked. There was no room as yet for indifferent people, whom one
+tolerates and is civil to without caring whether one sees them again
+or not. Of the simplest duties of society also I was completely
+ignorant. No one ever told me what to say and what to do, or what not
+to say and what not to do. What I felt I said, what I thought right I
+did. There was, in fact, in my small native town very little that
+could be called society. One lived in one's family and with one's
+intimate friends without any ceremony. It is a pity that children are
+not taught a few rules of life-wisdom by their seniors. I know that
+the Jews do not neglect that duty, 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-houses, but had
+been planted out full grown by their seniors. The only rules of
+worldly wisdom which I remember, came to me through proverbs and
+little verses which we had either to copy or to learn by heart, such
+as:
+
+    "Wer einmal l�gt, dem glaubt man nicht
+     Und wenn er auch die Wahrheit spricht."
+
+    "Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde."
+
+    "Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen,
+     Er kommt doch endlich an die Sonnen."
+
+    "Jeder ist seines Gl�ckes Schmied."
+
+Some lines which hung over my bed I have carried with me all through
+life, and I still think they are very true and very terse:
+
+    "Im Gl�ck nicht jubeln und im Sturm nicht zagen,
+     Das Unvermeidliche mit W�rde tragen,
+     Das Rechte thun, am Sch�nen sich erfreuen,
+     Das Leben lieben und den Tod nicht scheuen,
+     Und fest an Gott und bessere Zukunft glauben,
+     Heisst leben, heisst dem Tod sein Bitteres rauben."
+
+Still, all this formed a very small viaticum for a journey through
+life, 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
+horns. Again and again I had to say to myself, "That would have done
+very well at home, but it was a mistake for all that." My social
+rawness and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as the Dessau
+dialect remained with me for life; at least I was assured by my
+friends that though I had spoken French and English for so many years,
+they could always detect in my German that I came from Dessau or
+Leipzig.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG
+
+
+It was certainly a poor kind of armour in which I set out from Dessau.
+My mother, devoted as she was to me, had judged rightly that it was
+best for me to be with other boys and under the supervision of a man.
+I had been somewhat spoiled by her passionate love, and also by her
+passionate severity in correcting the ordinary naughtinesses of a boy.
+So having risen from form to form in the school at Dessau, I was sent,
+at the age of twelve, to Leipzig, to live in the house of Professor
+Carus and attend the famous Nicolai-Schule with his son, who was of
+the same age as myself and who likewise wanted a companion. It was
+thought that there would be a certain emulation between us, and so, no
+doubt, there was, though we always remained the best of friends. The
+house in which we lived stood in a garden and was really an
+orthopaedic institution for girls. There were about twenty or thirty
+of these young girls living in the house or spending the day there,
+and their joyous company was very pleasant. Of course the names and
+faces of my young friends have, with one or two exceptions, vanished
+from my memory, but I was surprised when a few years ago (1895) I was
+staying with Madame Salis-Schwabe at her delightful place on the Menai
+Straits, and discovered that we had known each other more than fifty
+years before in the house of Professor Carus at Leipzig. Though we had
+met from time to time, we never knew of our early meeting at Leipzig,
+till in comparing notes we discovered how we had spent a whole year in
+the same house and among the same friends. Hers has been a life full
+of work and entirely devoted to others. To the very end of her days
+she was spending her large income in founding schools on the system
+recommended by Froebel, not only in England, but in Italy. She died at
+Naples in 1896, while visiting a large school that had been founded by
+her with the assistance of the Italian Government. Her own house in
+Wales was full of treasures of art, and full of memorials of her many
+friends, such as Bunsen, Renan, Mole, Ary Scheffer, and many more. How
+far her charity went may be judged by her being willing to part with
+some of the most precious of Ary Scheffer's pictures, in order to keep
+her schools well endowed, and able to last after her death, which she
+felt to be imminent.
+
+Public schools are nearly all day schools in Germany. The boys live at
+home, mostly in their own families, but they spend six hours every day
+at school, and it is a mistake to imagine that they are not attached
+to it, that they have no games together, and that they do not grow up
+manly or independent. Most schools have playgrounds, and in summer
+swimming is a favourite amusement for all the boys. There were two
+good public schools at Leipzig, the Nicolai School and the Thomas
+School. There was plenty of _esprit de corps_ in them, and often when
+the boys met it showed itself not only in words but in blows, and the
+discussions over the merits of their schools were often continued in
+later life. I was very fortunate in being sent to the Nicolai School,
+under Dr. Nobbe as head master. He was at the same time Professor at
+the University of Leipzig, and is well known in England also as the
+editor of Cicero. He was very proud that his school counted Leibniz[8]
+among its former pupils. He was a classical scholar of the old school.
+During the last three years of our school life we had to write plenty
+of Latin and Greek verse, and were taught to speak Latin. The speaking
+of Latin came readily enough, but the verses never attained a very
+high level. Besides Nobbe we had Forbiger, well known by his books on
+ancient geography, and Palm, editor of the same Greek Dictionary
+which, in the hands of Dr. Liddell, has reached its highest
+perfection. Then there was Funkh�nel, known beyond Germany by his
+edition of the Orations of Demosthenes, and his studies on Greek
+orators. We were indeed well off for masters, and most of them seemed
+to enjoy their work and to be fond of the boys. Our head master was
+very popular. He was a man of the old German type, powerfully built,
+with a large square head, very much like Luther, and, strange to say,
+when in 1839 a great Luther festival was celebrated all over Germany,
+he published a book in which he proved that he was a direct descendant
+of Luther.
+
+  [8] His own spelling of his name.
+
+The school was carried on very much on the old plan of teaching
+chiefly classics, but teaching them thoroughly. Modern languages,
+mathematics, and physical science had a poor chance, though they
+clamoured for recognition. Latin and Greek verse were considered far
+more important. In the two highest forms we had to speak Latin, and
+such as it was it seemed to us much easier than to speak French.
+Hebrew was also taught as an optional subject during the last four
+years, and the little I know of Hebrew dates chiefly from my
+school-days. Schoolboys soon find out what their masters think of the
+value of the different subjects taught at school, and they are apt to
+treat not only the subjects themselves but the teachers also according
+to that standard. Hence our modern language and our physical science
+masters had a hard time of it. They could not keep their classes in
+order, and it was by no means unusual for many of the boys simply to
+stay away from their lessons. The old mathematical master, before
+beginning his lesson, used to rub his spectacles, and after looking
+round the half empty classroom, mutter in a plaintive voice: "I see
+again many boys who are not here to-day." When the same old master
+began to lecture on physical science, he told the boys to bring a frog
+to be placed under a glass from which the air had been extracted by an
+air-pump. Of course every one of the twenty or thirty boys brought two
+or three frogs, and when the experiment was to be made all these frogs
+were hopping about the lecture-room, and the whole army of boys were
+hopping after them over chairs and tables to catch them. No wonder
+that during this tumult the master did not succeed with his
+experiment, and when at last the glass bowl was lifted up and we were
+asked to see the frog, great was the joy of all the boys when the frog
+hopped out and escaped from the hands of its executioner. 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 kept, and destroyed some of the precious instruments
+supplied by Government. Severe punishments followed, but they did not
+serve to make physical science more popular.
+
+We certainly did very well in Greek and Latin, and read a number of
+classical texts, not only critically at school, but also cursorily at
+home, having to give a weekly account of what we had thus read by
+ourselves. I liked my classics, 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 teachers, nay, that as compared to German
+poets and prose writers they were somewhat overpraised. Still, it
+would have been very conceited not to admire what our masters admired,
+and as in duty bound we went into the usual raptures about Homer and
+Sophocles, about Horace and Cicero. Many things which in later life we
+learn to admire in the classics could hardly appeal to the taste of
+boys. The directness, the simplicity and originality of the ancient,
+as compared with modern writers, cannot be appreciated by them, and I
+well remember being struck with what we disrespectful boys called the
+cheekiness of Horace expecting immortality (_non omnis moriar_) for
+little poems which we were told were chiefly written after Greek
+patterns. We had to admit that there were fewer false quantities in
+his Latin verses than in our own, but in other respects we could not
+see that his odes were so infinitely superior to ours. His hope of
+immortality has certainly been fulfilled beyond what could have been
+his own expectations. With so little of ancient history known to him,
+his idea of the immortality of poetry must have been far more modest
+in his time than in our own. He may have known the past glories of the
+Persian Empire, but as to ancient literature, there was nothing for
+him to know, whether in Persia, in Babylonia, in Assyria, or even in
+Egypt, least of all in India. Literary fame existed for him in Greece
+only, and in the Roman Empire, and his own ambition could therefore
+hardly have extended beyond these limits. The exaggeration in the
+panegyrics passed on everything Greek or Latin dates from the
+classical scholars of the Middle Ages, who knew nothing that could be
+compared to the classics, and who were loud in praising what they
+possessed the monopoly of selling. Successive generations of scholars
+followed suit, so that even in our time it seemed high treason to
+compare Goethe with Horace, or Schiller with Sophocles. Of late,
+however, 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 Plato. The fact is that we have learnt from them and
+imitated them, till in some cases the imitations have equalled or even
+excelled the originals, while now the taste for classical correctness
+has been wellnigh supplanted by an appetite for what is called
+realistic, original, and extravagant.
+
+With all that has been said or written against making classical
+studies the most important element in a liberal education, or rather
+against retaining them in their time-honoured position, nothing has as
+yet been suggested to take their place. For after all, 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 Latin; it is in order to learn
+to understand the old world on which our modern world is founded; it
+is in order to think the old thoughts, which are the feeders of our
+own intellectual life, that we become in our youth the pupils of
+Greeks and Romans. In order to know what we are, we have to learn how
+we have come to be what we are. Our very languages form an unbroken
+chain between us and Cicero and Aristotle, and in order to use many of
+our words intelligently, we must know the soil from which they sprang,
+and the atmosphere in which they grew up and developed.
+
+I enjoyed my work at school very much, and I seem to have passed
+rapidly from class to class. I frequently received prizes both in
+money and in books, but I see a warning attached to some of them that
+I ought not to be conceited, which probably meant no more than that I
+should not show when I was pleased with my successes. At least I do
+not know what I could have been conceited about. What I feel about my
+learning at school is that it was entirely passive. I acquired
+knowledge such as it was presented to me. I did not doubt whatever my
+teachers taught me, I did not, as far as I can recollect, work up any
+subject by myself. I find only one paper of mine of that early time,
+and, curiously enough, it was on mythology; but it contains no inkling
+of comparative mythology, but simply a chronological arrangement of
+the sources from which we draw our knowledge of Greek mythology. I see
+also from some old papers, that I began to write poetry, and that
+twice or thrice I was chosen at great festivities to recite poems
+written by myself. In the year 1839 three hundred years had passed
+since Luther preached at Leipzig in the Church of St. Nicolai, and the
+tercentenary of this event was celebrated all over Germany. My poem
+was selected for recitation at a large meeting of the friends of our
+school and the notables of the town, and I had to recite it, not
+without fear and trembling. I was then but sixteen years of age.
+
+In the next year, 1840, Leipzig celebrated the invention of printing
+in 1440. It was on this occasion that Mendelssohn wrote his famous
+_Hymn of Praise_. I formed part of the chorus, and I well remember the
+magnificent effect which the music produced in the Church of St.
+Thomas. Again a poem of mine was selected, and I had to recite it at a
+large gathering in the Nicolai-Schule on July 18, 1840.
+
+On December 23 another celebration took place at our school, at which
+I had to recite a Latin poem of mine, _In Schillerum_. Lastly, there
+was my valedictory poem when I left the school in 1841, and a Latin
+poem "Ad Nobbium," our head master.
+
+I have found among my mother's treasures the far too often flattering
+testimonial addressed to her by Professor Nobbe on that occasion,
+which ends thus: "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 point, first-rate,
+and of intellectual capacities excellent throughout. May his young
+mind develop more and more, may the fruits of his labours hereafter be
+a comfort to his mother for the sorrows and cares of the past."
+
+It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examination for
+admission to the University (_Abiturienten-Examen_) not at my own
+school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable
+me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government. The schools in
+Anhalt were modelled after the Prussian schools, and laid far more
+stress on mathematics, physical science, and modern languages than the
+schools in Saxony. I had therefore to get up in a very short time
+several quite new subjects, and did not do so well in them as in Greek
+and Latin. However, I passed with a first class, and obtained my
+scholarship, small as it was. 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 examination. He reminds me that among my examiners
+there were such men as Dr. Ritter, the two Sentenis, and Professor
+Werner, and he says that he watched me when I came upstairs and
+entered the locked room to do my paper work. My friend's career in
+life had been that of Director of a Life Insurance Company, probably a
+more lucrative career than what mine has been.
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max M�ller Aged 14._]
+
+During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of Professor Carus, and
+afterwards as a student at the University, my chief enjoyment was
+certainly music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but I pity
+the man who has not known the charm of it. At that time Leipzig was
+really the centre of music in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was there,
+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 Concerts. I find among my letters a few descriptions of
+concerts and other musical entertainments, which even at present may
+be of some interest. I was asked to be present at some concerts where
+quartettes and other pieces were performed by Mendelssohn, Hiller,
+Kaliwoda, David, and Eckart. Liszt also made his triumphant entry into
+Germany at Leipzig, and everybody was full of expectation and
+excitement. His concert had been advertised long before his arrival.
+It was to consist of an Overture of Weber's; a Cavatina from _Robert
+le Diable_, sung by Madame Schlegel; a Concerto of Weber's, to be
+played by Liszt, the same which I had shortly before heard played by
+Madame Pleyel; Beethoven's Overture to _Prometheus_; Fantasia on _La
+Juive_; Schubert's _Ave Maria_ and _Serenade_, as arranged by Liszt. I
+was the more delighted because I had myself played some of these
+pieces. But suddenly there appeared a placard stating that Liszt, on
+hearing that tickets were sold at one thaler (three shillings), had
+declared he would play a few pieces only and without an orchestra. In
+spite of that disappointment, the whole house was full, the staircase
+crowded from top to bottom, and when we had pushed our way through, we
+found that about 300 places had been retained for one and a half
+thalers (four shillings and sixpence), while tickets at the box-office
+were sold for two thalers (six shillings). Nevertheless, I managed to
+get a very good place, by simply not seeing a number of ladies who
+were pushing behind me. When Liszt appeared there was a terrible
+hissing--he looked as if petrified, glanced like a demon at the
+public, but nevertheless began to play the Scherzo and Finale of the
+Pastoral Symphony. Then there burst out a perfect thunder of applause,
+and all seemed pacified, while Madame Schmidt sang a song accompanied
+by a certain Mr. Kermann. As soon as that was over, a new storm of
+hisses arose, which was meant for this Mr. Kermann, who was a pupil,
+but at the same time the man of business of Liszt. He and three other
+men had made all arrangements, and Liszt knew nothing about them, as
+he cared very little for the money, which went chiefly to his
+managers. A Fantasia by Liszt followed, and lastly a _Galop
+Chromatique_--but the public would not go away, and at length Liszt
+was induced to play _Une grande Valse_. It was no doubt a new
+experience; but I could not go into ecstasies like others, for after
+all it was merely mechanical, though no doubt in the highest
+perfection. The day after Liszt advertised that his original Programme
+would be played, but at six o'clock Professor Carus, with whom I
+lived, was called to see Liszt, who was said to be ill; the fact being
+he had only sold fifty tickets at the raised prices. Many strangers
+who had come to Leipzig to hear him went away, anything but pleased
+with the new musical genius. At one concert, where he appeared in
+Magyar costume, the ladies offered him a golden laurel wreath and
+sword. He had just published his arrangement of _Adelaida_, which he
+promised to play in one of the concerts.
+
+Another very musical family at Leipzig was that of Professor Fr�ge. He
+was a rich man, and had married a famous singer, Fr�ulein Schlegel.
+One evening the _Sonnambula_ was performed in their house, which had
+been changed into a theatre. She acted the Sonnambula, and her singing
+as well as her acting was most finished and delightful. Mendelssohn
+was much in their house, and made her sing his songs as soon as they
+were written and before they were published. They were great friends,
+the bond of their friendship being music. He actually died when
+playing while she was singing. People talked as they always will talk
+about what they cannot understand, but they evidently did not know
+either Mendelssohn or Madame Fr�ge.
+
+The house of Professor Carus was always open to musical geniuses, and
+many an evening men like Hiller, Mendelssohn, David, Eckart, &c., came
+there to play, while Madame Carus sang, and sang most charmingly. I
+too was asked sometimes to play at these evening parties. I see that
+Ernst gave a concert at Leipzig, and no doubt his execution was
+admirable. Still, I could not understand what David meant when he
+declared that after hearing Ernst he would throw his own instrument
+into the fire.
+
+Mendelssohn, who was delighted with Liszt--and no one could judge him
+better than he--gave a soir�e in honour of him. About 400 people were
+invited--I among the rest, being one of the tenors who sang in the
+Oratorio that Hiller was then rehearsing for the first performance. I
+think it was the _Destruction of Babylon_. There was a complete
+orchestra at Mendelssohn's party, and we heard a symphony of Schubert
+(posthumous), Mendelssohn's psalm "As the hart pants," and his
+overture _Meeresstille und gl�ckliche Fahrt_. After that there was
+supper for all the guests, and then followed a chorus from his _St.
+Paul_, and a triple concerto of Bach, played on three pianofortes by
+Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Hiller. It was a difficult piece--difficult to
+play and difficult to follow. Lastly, Liszt played his new fantasia on
+_Lucia di Lammermoor_, and his arrangement of the _Erlk�nig_. All was
+really perfect; and hearing so much music, I became more and more
+absorbed in it. I even gave some concerts with Grabau, a great
+violoncellist, at Merseburg, and at a Count Arnim's, a very rich
+nobleman near Merseburg, who had invited Liszt for one evening and
+paid him 100 ducats. This seemed at that time a very large sum,
+almost senseless. As a ducat was about nine shillings, it was after
+all only �45, which would not seem excessive at present for an artist
+such as Liszt.
+
+I also heard Thalberg at Leipzig. They all came to see Mendelssohn,
+and I believe did their best to please him. At that time my idea of
+devoting myself altogether to the study of music became very strong;
+and as Professor Carus married again, I proposed to leave Leipzig, and
+to enter the musical school of Schneider at Dessau. But nothing came
+of that, and I think on the whole it was as well.
+
+While at school at Leipzig I had but little opportunity of travelling,
+for my mother was always anxious to have me home during the holidays,
+and I was equally anxious to be with her and to see my relations at
+Dessau. Generally I went in a wretched carriage from Leipzig to
+Dessau. It was only seven German miles (about thirty-five English
+miles), but it took a whole day to get there; and during part of the
+journey, when we had to cross the deep and desert-like sands, walking
+on foot was much more expeditious than sitting inside the carriage.
+But then we paid only one thaler for the whole journey, and sometimes,
+in order to save that, I walked on foot the whole way. That also took
+me a whole day; but when I tried it the first time, being then quite
+young and rather delicate in health, I had to give in about an hour
+before I came to Dessau, my legs refusing to go further, and my
+muscles being cramped and stiff from exertion, I had to sit down by
+the road. During one vacation I remember exploring the valley of the
+Mulde with some other boys. We travelled for about a fortnight from
+village to village, and lived in the simplest way. A more ambitious
+journey I took in 1841 with a friend of mine, Baron von Hagedorn. He
+was a curious and somewhat mysterious character. He had been brought
+up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he was entrusted as a baby. No one
+knew his parents, but they must have been rich, for he possessed a
+large fortune. He had a country place near Munich, and he spent the
+greater part of the year in travelling about, and amusing himself. He
+had been brought up with my mother and other members of our family,
+and he took a very kind interest in me. I see from my letters that in
+1841 he took me from Dessau to Coethen, Brunswick, and Magdeburg. At
+Brunswick we saw the picture gallery, the churches, and the tomb of
+Schill, one of the German volunteers in the War of Independence
+against France. We also explored Hildesheim, saw the rose-tree
+planted, as we were told, by Charlemagne; then proceeded to G�ttingen,
+and saw its famous library. We passed through Minden, where the Fulda
+and Werra join, and arrived late at Cassel. From Cassel we explored
+Wilhelmsh�he, the beautiful park where thirty years later Napoleon III
+was kept as a prisoner.
+
+Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional exaggeration,
+was certainly a good friend to me. He often gave me good advice, and
+was more of a father to me than a mere friend. He was a man of the
+world; and he forgot that I never meant to be a man of the world, and
+therefore his advice was not always what I wanted. He was also a great
+friend of my cousin who was married to a Prince of Dessau, and they
+had agreed among themselves that I should go to the Oriental Academy
+at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and then enter the diplomatic
+service. As there were no children from the Prince's marriage, I was
+to be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune was not enough
+to tempt me, I was told that even a wife had been chosen for me, and
+that I should have a new name and title, after being adopted by the
+Prince. To other young men this might have seemed irresistible. I at
+once said no. It seemed to interfere with my freedom, with my studies,
+with my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything was
+presented to me by my cousin as on a silver tray, I shook my head and
+remained true to my first love, Sanskrit and all the rest. Hagedorn
+could not understand this; he thought a brilliant life preferable to
+the quiet life of a professor. Not so I. He little knew where true
+happiness was to be found, and he was often in a very melancholy mood.
+He did not live long, but I shall never forget how much I owed him.
+When I went to Paris, he allowed me to live in his rooms. They were,
+it is true, _au cinqui�me_, but they were in the best quarter of
+Paris, in the Rue Royale St. Honor�, opposite the Madeleine, and very
+prettily furnished. This kept me from living in dusty lodgings in the
+Quartier Latin, and the five flights of stairs may have strengthened
+my lungs. 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 again. But in those days one did not know what it meant to be
+tired. Whether my friends grumbled, I cannot tell, but I myself pitied
+some of them who were old and gouty when they arrived at my door out
+of breath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+UNIVERSITY
+
+
+In order to enable me to go to the University, my mother and sister
+moved to Leipzig and kept house for me during all the time I was
+there--that is, for two years and a half. In spite of the _res angusta
+domi_, I enjoyed my student-life thoroughly, while my home was made
+very agreeable by my mother and sister. My mother was full of
+resource, and she was wise enough not to interfere with my freedom. My
+sister, who was about two years older than myself, was most
+kind-hearted and devoted both to me and to our mother. There was
+nothing selfish in her, and we three lived together in perfect love,
+peace, and harmony. My sister enjoyed what little there was of
+society, whereas I kept sternly aloof from it. She was much admired,
+and soon became engaged to a young doctor, Dr. A. Krug, the son of the
+famous professor of philosophy at Leipzig, whose works, particularly
+his _Dictionary of Philosophy_, hold a distinguished place in the
+history of German philosophy. He was a thorough patriot, and so public
+spirited that he thought it right to leave a considerable sum of money
+to the University, without making sufficient provision for his
+children. However, the young married couple lived happily at Chemnitz,
+and my sister was proud in the possession of her children. It was the
+sudden death of several of these children that broke her heart and
+ruined her health; she died very young. Standing by the grave of her
+children, she said to me shortly before her death, "Half of me is dead
+already, and lies buried there; the other half will soon follow."
+
+Of society, in the ordinary sense of the word, I saw hardly anything.
+I am afraid I was rather a bear, and declined even to invest in
+evening dress. I joined a student club which formed part of the
+_Burschenschaft_, but which in order to escape prosecution adopted the
+title of _Gemeinschaft_. I went there in the evening to drink beer and
+smoke, and I made some delightful acquaintances and friendships. What
+fine characters were there, often behind a very rough exterior! My
+dearest friend was Prowe, of Thorn in East Prussia--so honest, so
+true, so straightforward, so over-conscientious in the smallest
+things. He was a classical scholar, and later on entered the Prussian
+educational service. As a master at the principal school at Thorn his
+time was fully occupied, and of course he was cut off there from the
+enlivening influences of literary society. Still he kept up his
+interest in higher questions, and published some extremely valuable
+books on Copernicus, a native of Thorn, for which he received the
+thanks of astronomers and historians, and flattering testimonials
+from learned societies. We met but seldom later in life, and my own
+life in England was so busy and full that even our correspondence was
+not regular. But I met him once more at Ems with a charming wife, and
+decidedly happy in his own sphere of activity. These early friendships
+form the distant landscape of life on which we like to dwell when the
+present ceases to absorb all our thoughts. Our memory dwells on them
+as a golden horizon, and there remains a constant yearning which makes
+us feel the incompleteness of this life. After all, the number of our
+true friends is small; and yet how few even of that small number
+remain with us for life. There are other faces and other names that
+rise from beyond the clouds which more and more divide us from our
+early years.
+
+There were some wild spirits among us who fretted at the narrow-minded
+policy which went by the name of the Metternich system. Repression was
+the panacea which Metternich recommended to all the governments of
+Germany, large and small. No doubt the system of keeping things quiet
+secured to Germany and to Europe at large a thirty years' peace, but
+it could not prevent the accumulation of inflammable material which,
+after several threatenings, burst forth at last in the conflagration
+of 1848. Among my friends I remember several who were ready for the
+wildest schemes in order to have Germany united, respected abroad,
+and under constitutional government at home. Splendid fellows they
+were, but they either ended their days within the walls of a prison,
+or had to throw up everything and migrate to America. What has become
+of them? Some have risen to the surface in America, others have
+yielded to the inevitable and become peaceful citizens at home; nay, I
+am grieved to say, have even accepted service under Government to spy
+on their former friends and fellow-dreamers. But not a few saw the
+whole of their life wrecked either in prison or in poverty, though
+they had done no wrong, and in many cases were the finest characters
+it has been my good fortune to know. They were before their time, the
+fruit was not ripe as it was in 1871, but Germany certainly lost some
+of her best sons in those miserable years; and if my father escaped
+this political persecution, it was probably due to the influence of
+the reigning Duke and the Duchess, a Princess of Prussia, who knew
+that he was not a dangerous man, and not likely to blow up the German
+Diet.
+
+I myself got a taste of prison life for the offence of wearing the
+ribbon of a club which the police regarded with disfavour. I cannot
+say that either the disgrace or the discomfort of my two days' durance
+vile weighed much with me, as my friends were allowed free access to
+me, 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
+scholarship, which alone enabled me to continue my studies at
+Leipzig, and which, as a rule, was forfeited for political offences.
+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 club. I assured him that
+I was innocent of any political propaganda, and that the loss of my
+stipendium would entail my leaving the University. Much to my relief,
+the old gentleman replied: "I have heard nothing about this; and if I
+do, how am I to know that it refers to you, there are many M�llers in
+the University?" Fortunately the distinctive prefix Max had not yet
+been added to my name.
+
+I must confess that I and my boon companions were sometimes guilty of
+practices which in more modern days, and certainly at Oxford or
+Cambridge, 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 in.
+
+Duelling was then, as it is now, a favourite pastime among the
+students; and though not by nature a brawler, I find that in my
+student days at Leipzig I fought three duels, of two of which I carry
+the marks to the present day.
+
+I remember that on one occasion before the introduction of cabs we
+hired all the sedan-chairs in Leipzig, with their yellow-coated
+porters, and went in procession through the streets, much to the
+astonishment of the good citizens, and annoyance also, as they were
+unable to hire any means of conveyance till a peremptory stop was put
+to our fun. Not content with this exploit, when the first cabs were
+introduced into Leipzig, thirty or forty being put on the street at
+first, I and my friends secured the use of all of them for the day,
+and proceeded out into the country. The inhabitants who were eagerly
+looking forward to a drive in one of the new conveyances were
+naturally annoyed at finding themselves forestalled, 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 time.
+
+Very innocent amusements, if perhaps foolish, but very happy days all
+the same; 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 life.
+
+It is in every respect a great jump from a German school to a German
+university. At school a boy even in the highest form, has little
+choice. All his lessons are laid down for him; he has to learn what he
+is told, whether he likes it or not. Few only venture on books outside
+the prescribed curriculum. There is an examination at the end of every
+half-year, and a boy must pass it well in order to get into a higher
+form. Boys at a public school (gymnasium), if they cannot pass their
+examination at the proper time, are advised to go to another school,
+and to prepare for a career in which classical languages are of less
+importance.
+
+I must say at once that when I matriculated at Leipzig, in the summer
+of 1841, I was still very young and very immature. I had determined to
+study philology, chiefly Greek and Latin, but the fare spread out by
+the professors was much too tempting. I read Greek and Latin without
+difficulty; I often read classical authors without ever attempting to
+translate them; I also wrote and spoke Latin easily. Some of the
+professors lectured in Latin, and at our academic societies Latin was
+always spoken. I soon became a member of the classical seminary under
+Gottfried Hermann, and of the Latin Society under Professor Haupt.
+Admission to these seminaries and societies was obtained by submitting
+essays, and it was no doubt a distinction to belong to them. It was
+also useful, for not only had we to write essays and discuss them with
+the other members, generally teachers, and with the professor, but we
+could also get some useful advice from the professor for our private
+studies. In that respect the German universities do very little for
+the students, unless one has the good fortune to belong to one of
+these societies. The young men are let loose, and they can choose
+whatever lectures they want. I still have my _Collegien-Buch_, in
+which every professor has to attest what lectures one has attended.
+The number of lectures on various subjects which I attended is quite
+amazing, and I should have attended still more if the honorarium had
+not frightened me away. Every professor lectured _publice_ and
+_privatim_, and for the more important courses, four lectures a week,
+he charged ten shillings, for more special courses less or nothing.
+This seems little, but it was often too much for me; and if one added
+these honoraria to the salary of a popular professor, his income was
+considerable, and was more than the income of most public servants. I
+have known professors who had four or five hundred auditors. This gave
+them �250 twice a year, and that, added to their salary, was
+considered a good income at that time. All this has been much changed.
+Salaries have been raised, and likewise the honoraria, so that I well
+remember the case of Professor von Savigny, who, when he was chosen
+Minister of Justice at Berlin, declared that he would gladly accept if
+only his salary was raised to what his income had been as Professor of
+Law. Of course, professors of Arabic or Sanskrit were badly off, and
+_Privatdocenten_ (tutors) fared still worse, but the _professores
+ordinarii_, particularly if they lectured on an obligatory subject and
+were likewise examiners, were very well off. In fact, it struck me
+sometimes as very unworthy of them to keep a _famulus_, a student who
+had to tell every one who wished to hear a distinguished professor
+once or twice, that he would not allow him to come a third time.
+
+One great drawback of the professorial system is certainly the small
+measure of personal advice that a student may get from the professors.
+Unless he is known to them personally, or has gained admission to
+their societies or seminaries, the young student or freshman is quite
+bewildered by the rich fare in the shape of lectures that is placed
+before him. Some students, no doubt, particularly in their early
+terms, solve this difficulty by attending none at all, and there is no
+force to make them do so, except the examinations looming in the
+distance. But there are many young men most anxious to learn, only
+they do not know where to begin. I open my old _Collegien-Buch_ and I
+find that in the first term or Semester I attended the following
+lectures, and I may say I attended them regularly, took careful notes,
+and read such books as were recommended by the professors. I find
+
+   1. The first book of Thucydides          Gottfried Hermann.
+   2. On Scenic Antiquities                 The same.
+   3. On Propertius                         P. M. Haupt.
+   4. History of German Literature          The same.
+   5. The Ranae of Aristophanes             Stallbaum.
+   6. Disputatorium (in Latin)              Nobbe.
+   7. Aesthetics                            Weisse.
+   8. Anthropology                          Lotze.
+   9. Systems of Harmonic Composition       Fink.
+  10. Hebrew Grammar                        F�rst.
+  11. Demosthenes                           Westermann.
+  12. Psychology                            Heinroth.
+
+This was enough for the summer half-year. Except Greek and Latin, the
+other subjects were entirely new to me, and what I wanted was to get
+an idea of what I should like to study. It may be interesting to add
+the other Semesters as far as I have them in my _Collegien-Buch_.
+
+  13. Aeschyli Persae                       Hermann.
+  14. On Criticism                          The same.
+  15. German Grammar                        Haupt.
+  16. Walther von der Vogelweide            The same.
+  17. Tacitus, Agricola, and De Oratoribus  The same.
+  18. On Hegel                              Weisse.
+  19. Disputatorium (Latin)                 Nobbe.
+  20. Modern History                        Wachsmuth.
+  21. Sanskrit Grammar                      Brockhaus.
+  22. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+
+Then follows the summer term of 1842.
+
+  23. Pindar                                Hermann.
+  24. Nibelungen                            Haupt.
+  25. Nala                                  Brockhaus.
+  26. History of Oriental Literature        The same.
+  27. Arabic Grammar                        Fleischer.
+  28. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+  29. Plauti Trinumus                       Becker.
+
+Winter term, 1842.
+
+  30. Prabodha Chandrodaya                  Brockhaus.
+  31. History of Indian Literature          The same.
+  32. Aristophanes' Vespae                  Hermann.
+  33. Plauti Rudens                         The same.
+  34. Greek Syntax                          The same.
+  35. Juvenal                               Becker.
+  36. Metaphysics and Logic                 Weisse.
+  37. Philosophy of History                 The same.
+  38. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+  39. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+  40. Philosophical Society                 Weisse.
+  41. Philosophical Society                 Drobisch.
+
+Summer term, 1843.
+
+  42. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+  43. Philosophical Society                 Drobisch.
+  44. Philosophical Society                 Weisse.
+  45. Soma-deva                             Brockhaus.
+  46. Hitopadesa                            The same.
+  47. History of Greeks and Romans          Wachsmuth.
+  48. History of Civilization               The same.
+  49. History after the Fifteenth Century   Flathe.
+  50. History of Ancient Philosophy         Niedner.
+
+Winter term, 1843-4.
+
+  51. Rig-veda                              Brockhaus.
+  52. Elementa Persica                      Fleischer.
+  53. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+
+Here my _Collegien-Buch_ breaks off, the fact being that I was
+preparing to go to Berlin to hear the lectures of Bopp and Schelling.
+
+It will be clear from the above list that I certainly attempted too
+much. I ought either to have devoted all my time to classical studies
+exclusively, or carried on my philosophical studies more
+systematically. I confess that, delighted as I was with Gottfried
+Hermann and Haupt as my guides and teachers in classics, I found
+little that could rouse my enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature,
+and I always required a dose of that to make me work hard. Everything
+seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to
+the plough, no ruins on which to try one's own spade. Hermann and
+Haupt gave me work to do, but it was all in the critical line--the
+genealogical relation of various MSS., or, again, the peculiarities of
+certain poets, long before I had fully grasped their general
+character. What Latin vowels could or could not form elision in
+Horace, Propertius, or Ovid, was a subject that cost me much labour,
+and yet left very small results as far as I was personally concerned.
+One clever conjecture, or one indication to show that one MS. was
+dependent on the other, was rewarded with a Doctissime or
+Excellentissime, but a paper on Aeschylus and his view of a divine
+government of the world received but a nodding approval.
+
+They certainly taught their pupils what accuracy meant; they gave us
+the new idea that MSS. are not everything, unless their real value has
+been discovered first by finding the place which they occupy in the
+pedigree of the MSS. of every author. They also taught us that there
+are mistakes in MSS. which are inevitable, and may safely be left to
+conjectural emendation; that MSS. of modern date may be and often are
+more valuable than more ancient MSS., for the simple reason that they
+were copied from a still more ancient MS., and that often a badly
+written and hardly legible MS. proves more helpful than others
+written by a calligraphist, because it is the work of a scholar who
+copied for himself and not for the market. All these things we learnt
+and learnt by practical experience under Hermann and Haupt, but what
+we failed to acquire was a large knowledge of Greek and Latin
+literature, of the character of each author and of the spirit which
+pervaded their works. I ought to have read in Latin, Cicero, Tacitus,
+and Lucretius; in Greek, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle;
+but as I read only portions of them, my knowledge of the men
+themselves and their objects in life remained very fragmentary. For
+instance, my real acquaintance with Plato and Aristotle was confined
+to a few dialogues of the former and some of the logical works of the
+latter. The rest I learnt from such works as Ritter and Preller's
+_Historia Philosophiae Graecae et Romanae ex fontium locis contexta_,
+and from the very useful lectures of Niedner on the history of ancient
+philosophy. However, I thought I had to do what my professors told me,
+and shaped my reading so that they should approve of my work.
+
+This must not be understood as in any way disparaging my teachers.
+Such an idea never entered my head at the time. People have no idea in
+England what kind of worship is paid by German students to their
+professors. To find fault with them or to doubt their _ipse dixit_
+never entered our minds. What they said of other classical scholars
+from whom they differed, as Hermann did from Otfried M�ller, or Haupt
+from Orelli, was gospel, and remained engraved on our memory for a
+long time. Once when attending Hermann's lectures, another student who
+was sitting at the same table with me made disrespectful remarks about
+old Hermann. I asked him to be quiet, and when he went on with his
+foolish remarks, I could only stop him by calling him out. As soon as
+the challenge was accepted he had of course to be quiet, and a few
+days after we fought our duel without much damage to either of us. I
+only mention this because it shows what respect and admiration we felt
+for our professor, also because it exemplifies the usefulness of
+duelling in a German university, where after a challenge not another
+word can be said or violence be threatened even by the rudest
+undergraduate. A duel for a Greek conjecture may seem very absurd, but
+in duels of this kind all that is wanted is really a certain knowledge
+of fencing, care being taken that nothing serious shall happen. And
+yet, though that is so, the feeling of a possible danger is there, and
+keeps up a certain etiquette and a certain proper behaviour among men
+taken from all strata of society. Nor can I quite deny that when I
+went in the morning to a beautiful wood in the neighbourhood of
+Leipzig, certain misgivings were difficult to suppress. I saw myself
+severely wounded, possibly killed, by my antagonist, and carried to a
+house where my mother and sister were looking for me. This went off
+when I met the large assembly of students, beautifully attired in
+their club uniforms, the beer barrels pushed up on one side, the
+surgeon and his instruments waiting on the other. There were ever so
+many, thirty or forty couples I think, waiting to fight their duels
+that morning. Some fenced extremely well, and it was a pleasure to
+look on; and when one's own turn came, all one thought of was how to
+stand one's ground boldly, and how to fence well. Some of the
+combatants came on horseback or in carriages, and there was a small
+river close by to enable us to escape if the police should have heard
+of our meeting. For popular as these duels are, they are forbidden and
+punished, and the severest punishment seemed always to be the loss of
+our uniforms, our arms, our flags, and our barrels of beer. However,
+we escaped all interference this time, and enjoyed our breakfast in
+the forest thoroughly, nothing happening to disturb the hilarity of
+the morning.
+
+Not being satisfied with what seemed to me a mere chewing of the cud
+in Greek and Latin, I betook myself to systematic philosophy, and even
+during the first terms read more of that than of Plato and Aristotle.
+I belonged to the philosophical societies of Weisse, of Drobisch, and
+of Lotze, a membership in each of which societies entailed a
+considerable amount of reading and writing.
+
+At Leipzig, Professor Drobisch represented the school of Herbart,
+which prided itself on its clearness and logical accuracy, 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 difficulties. I wished to know what it all meant, for
+I was not satisfied with mere words. There is hardly a word that has
+so many meanings as Idea, and I doubt whether any of the raw recruits,
+just escaped from school, and unacquainted with the history of
+philosophy, could have had any idea of what Hegel's Idea was meant
+for. Yet they talked about it very eloquently and very positively over
+their glasses of beer; and anybody who came from Berlin and could
+speak mysteriously or rapturously about the Idea and its evolution by
+the dialectic process, was listened to with silent wonder by the young
+Saxons, who had been brought up on Kant and Krug. The Hegelian fever
+was still very high at that time. It is true Hegel himself was dead
+(1831), and though he was supposed to have declared on his deathbed
+that he left only one true disciple, and that that disciple had
+misunderstood him, to be a Hegelian was considered a _sine qua non_,
+not only among philosophers, but quite as much among theologians, men
+of science, lawyers, artists, in fact, in every branch of human
+knowledge, at least in Prussia. If Christianity in its Protestant form
+was the state-religion of the kingdom, Hegelianism was its
+state-philosophy. Beginning with the Minister of Instruction down to
+the village schoolmaster, everybody claimed to be a Hegelian, and
+this was supposed to be the best road to advancement. Though
+Altenstein, who was then at the head of the Ministry of Instruction,
+began to waver in his allegiance to Hegel, even he could not resist
+the rush of public and of official opinion. It was he who, when a new
+professor of philosophy was recommended to him either by Hegel himself
+or by some of his followers, is reported to have said: "Gentlemen, I
+have read some of the young man's books, and I cannot understand a
+word of them. However, you are the best judges, 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 possible, and dismissed him with the
+words: 'Enfin, si je peux y entrer, je ne les prendrai pas.' This
+seems to me very much what you say of your young philosopher. If I can
+understand his books, I am not to take him." This Hegelian fever was
+very much like what we have passed through ourselves at the time of
+the Darwinian fever; Darwin's natural evolution was looked upon very
+much like Hegel's dialectic process, as the general solvent of all
+difficulties. The most egregious nonsense was passed under that name,
+as it was under the name of evolution. Hegel knew very well what he
+meant, so did Darwin. But the empty enthusiasm of his followers became
+so wild that Darwin himself, the most humble of all men, became quite
+ashamed of it. The master, of course, was not responsible for the
+folly of his so-called disciples, but the result was inevitable.
+After the bow had been stretched to the utmost, a reaction followed,
+and in the case of Hegelianism, a complete collapse. Even at Berlin
+the popularity of Hegelianism came suddenly to an end, and after a
+time no truly scientific man liked to be called a Hegelian. These
+sudden collapses in Germany are very instructive. As long as a German
+professor is at the head of affairs and can do something for his
+pupils, his pupils are very loud in their encomiums, both in public
+and in private. They not only exalt him, but help to belittle all who
+differ from him. So it was with Hegel, so it was at a later time with
+Bopp, and Curtius, and other professors, particularly if they had the
+ear of the Minister of Education. But soon after the death of these
+men, particularly if another influential star was rising, the change
+of tone was most sudden and most surprising; even the sale of their
+books dwindled down, and they were referred to only as landmarks,
+showing the rapid advance made by living celebrities. Perhaps all this
+cannot be helped, as long as human nature is what it is, but it is
+nevertheless painful to observe.
+
+I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with Hegelianism through
+Professor Christian Weisse at Leipzig, who, though he was considered a
+Hegelian, was a very sober Hegelian, a critic quite as much as an
+admirer of Hegel. He had a very small audience, because his manner of
+lecturing was certainly most trying and tantalizing. But by being
+brought into personal contact with him one was able to get help from
+him wherever he could give it. Though Weisse was convinced of the
+truth of Hegel's Dialectic Method, he often differed from him in its
+application. This Dialectic Method consisted in showing how thought is
+constantly and irresistibly driven from an affirmative to a negative
+position, then reconciles the two opposites, and from that point
+starts afresh, repeating once more the same process. Pure being, for
+instance, from which Hegel's ideal evolution starts, was shown to be
+the same as empty being, that is to say, nothing, and both were
+presented as identical, and in their identity giving us the new
+concept of Becoming (_Werden_), which is being and not-being at the
+same time. All this may appear to the lay reader rather obscure, but
+could not well be passed over.
+
+So far Weisse followed the great thinker, and I possess still, in his
+own writing, 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 categories, like
+angels of God, ascend and descend from heaven to earth. We must
+remember that the true Hegelian regarded the Ideas as the thoughts of
+God. Hegel looked upon this evolution of thought as at the same time
+the evolution of Being, the Idea being the only thing that could be
+said to be truly real. In order to understand this, we must remember
+that the historical key to Hegel's Idea was really the Neo-Platonic
+or Alexandrian Logos. But of this Logos we ignorant undergraduates,
+sitting at the feet of Prof. Weisse, knew absolutely nothing, and even
+if the Idea was sometimes placed before us as the Absolute, the
+Infinite, or the Divine, it was to us, at least to most of us, myself
+included, _vox et praeterea nihil_. We watched the wonderful
+evolutions and convolutions of the Idea in its Dialectic development,
+but of the Idea itself or himself we had no idea whatever. It was all
+darkness, a vast abyss, and we sat patiently and wrote down what we
+could catch and comprehend of the Professor's explanations, but the
+Idea itself we never could lay hold of. It would not have been so
+difficult if the Professor had spoken out more boldly. But whenever he
+came to the relation of the Idea to what we mean by God, there was
+always even with him, who was a very honest man, a certain theological
+hesitation. Hegel himself seems to shrink occasionally from the
+consequence that the Idea really stands in the place of God, and that
+it is in the self-conscious spirit of humanity that the ideal God
+becomes first conscious of himself. Still, that is the last word of
+Hegel's philosophy, though others maintain that the Idea with Hegel
+was the thought of God, and that human thought was but a repetition of
+that divine thought. With Hegel there is first the evolution of the
+Idea in the pure ether of logic from the simplest to the highest
+category. Then follows Hegel's Philosophy of Nature, that is, the
+evolution of the Idea in nature, the Idea having by the usual
+dialectic process negatived itself and entered into its opposite
+(_Anderssein_), passing through a new process of space and time, and
+ending in the self-conscious human soul. Thus nature and spirit were
+represented as dominated by the Idea in its logical development.
+Nature was one manifestation of the Idea, History the other, and it
+became the task of the philosopher to discover its traces both in the
+progress of nature and in the historical progress of thought.
+
+And here it was where the strongest protests began to be heard.
+Physical Science revolted, and Historical Research soon joined the
+rebellion. Professor Weisse also, in spite of his great admiration for
+Hegel, protested in his Lectures against this idealization of history,
+and showed how often Hegel, if he could not find the traces he was
+looking for in the historical development of the Idea, was misled by
+his imperfect knowledge of facts, and discovered what was not there,
+but what he felt convinced ought to have been there. Nowhere has this
+become so evident as in Hegel's _Philosophy of Religion_. The
+conception was grand of seeing in the historical development of
+religion a repetition of the Dialectic Progress of the Idea. But facts
+are stubborn things, and do not yield even to the supreme command of
+the Idea. Besides, if the historical facts of religion were really
+such as the Dialectic Process of the Idea required, these facts are
+no longer what they were before 1831, and what would become then of
+the Idea which, as he wrote in his preface to his _Metaphysics_, could
+not possibly be changed to please the new facts? It was this part of
+Weisse's lectures, it was the protest of the historical conscience
+against the demands of the Idea, that interested me most. I see as
+clearly the formal truth as the material untruth of Hegel's
+philosophy. The thorough excellence of its method and the desperate
+baldness of its results, strike me with equal force. Though I did not
+yet know what kind of thing or person the Idea was really meant for, I
+knew myself enough of ancient Greek philosophy and of Oriental
+religions to venture to criticize Hegel's representation and
+disposition of the facts themselves. I could not accept the answer of
+my more determined Hegelian friends, _Tant pis pour les faits_, but
+felt more and more the old antagonism between what ought to be and
+what is, between the reasonableness of the Idea, and the
+unreasonableness of facts. I found a strong supporter in a young
+Privat-Docent who at that time began his brilliant career at Leipzig,
+Dr. Lotze. He had made a special study of mathematics and physical
+science, 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 Religion_. I joined his philosophical society, and
+I lately found among my old papers several essays which I had written
+for our meetings. They amused me very much, but I should be sorry to
+see them published now. It is curious that after many years I, as a
+Delegate of the University Press at Oxford, was instrumental in
+getting the first English translation of Lotze's _Metaphysics_
+published in England; and it is still more curious that Mark Pattison,
+the late Rector of Lincoln, should have opposed it with might and main
+as a useless book which would never pay its expenses. I stood up for
+my old teacher, and I am glad to say to the honour of English
+philosophers, that the translation passed through several editions,
+and helped not a little to establish Lotze's position in England and
+America. He died in 1881.
+
+It is extraordinary how the young minds in German universities survive
+the storms and fogs through which they have to pass in their academic
+career. I confess I myself felt quite bewildered for a time, and began
+to despair altogether of my reasoning powers. Why should I not be able
+to understand, I asked myself, what other people seemed to understand
+without any effort? We speak the same language, why should we not be
+able to think the same thought? I took refuge for a time in
+history--the history of language, of religion, and of philosophy.
+There was a very learned professor at Leipzig, Dr. Niedner, who
+lectured on the History of Greek Philosophy, and whose _Manual for the
+History of Philosophy_ has been of use to me through the whole of my
+life. Socrates said of Heraclitus: "What I have understood of his
+book is excellent, and I suppose therefore that even what I have not
+understood is so too; but one must be a Delian swimmer not to be
+drowned in it." I tried for a long time to follow this advice with
+regard to Hegel and Weisse, and though disheartened did not despair. I
+understood some of it, why should not the rest follow in time? Thus, I
+never gave up the study of philosophy at Leipzig and afterwards at
+Berlin, and my first contributions to philosophical journals date from
+that early time, when I was a student in the University of Leipzig. My
+very earliest, though very unsuccessful, struggles to find an entrance
+into the mysteries of philosophy date even from my school-days.
+
+I remember some years before, when I was quite young, perhaps no more
+than fifteen years of age, listening with bated breath to some
+professors at Leipzig who were talking very excitedly about philosophy
+in my presence. I had no idea what was meant by philosophy, still less
+could I follow when they began to discuss Kant's _Kritik der reinen
+Vernunft_. One of my friends, whom I looked up to as a great
+authority, confessed that he had read the book again and again, but
+could not understand the whole of it. My curiosity was much excited,
+and once, while he was taking a walk with me, I asked him very timidly
+what Kant's book was about, and how a man could write a book that
+other men could not understand. He tried to explain what Kant's book
+was about, but it was all perfect darkness before my eyes; I was
+trying to lay hold of a word here and there, but it all floated before
+my mind like mist, without a single ray of light, without any way out
+of all that maze of words. But when at last he said he would lend me
+the book, I fell on it and pored over it hour after hour. The result
+was the same. My little brain could not take in the simplest ideas of
+the first chapters--that space and time were nothing by themselves;
+that we ourselves gave the form of space and time to what was given us
+by the senses. But though defeated I would not give in; I tried again
+and again, but of course it was all in vain. The words were here and I
+could construe them, but there was nothing in my mind which the words
+could have laid hold on. It was like rain on hard soil, it all ran
+off, or remained standing in puddles and muddles on my poor brain.
+
+At last I gave it up in despair, but I had fully made up my mind that
+as soon as I went to the University I would find out what philosophy
+really was, and what Kant meant by saying that space and time were
+forms of our sensuous intuition. I see that, accordingly, in the
+summer of 1841, I attended lectures on Aesthetics by Professor Weisse,
+on Anthropology by Lotze, and on Psychology by Professor Heinroth, and
+I slowly learnt to distinguish between what was going on within me,
+and what I had been led to imagine existed outside me, or at least
+quite independent of me. But before I had got a firm grasp of Kant,
+of his forms of intuition, and the categories of the understanding, I
+was thrown into Hegelianism. This, too, was at first entire darkness,
+but I was not disheartened. I attended Professor Weisse's lectures on
+Hegel in the winter of 1841-2, and again in the winter of 1842-3 I
+attended his lectures on Logic and Metaphysics, and on the Philosophy
+of History. He took an interest in me, and I felt most strongly
+attracted by him. Soon after I joined his Philosophical Society, and
+likewise that of Professor Drobisch. In these societies every member,
+when his turn came, had to write an essay and defend it against the
+professor and the other members of the society. All this was very
+helpful, but it was not till I had heard a course of lectures on the
+History of Philosophy, by Professor Niedner, that my interest in
+Philosophy became strong and healthy. While Weisse was a leading
+Hegelian philosopher, and Drobisch represented the opposite philosophy
+of Herbart, Niedner was purely historical, and this appealed most to
+my taste. Still, my philosophical studies remained very disjointed. At
+last I was admitted to Lotze's Philosophical Society also, and here we
+chiefly read and discussed Kant's _Kritik_. Lotze was then quite a
+young man, undecided as yet himself between physical science and pure
+philosophy.
+
+Weisse was certainly the most stirring lecturer, but his delivery was
+fearful. He did not read his lectures, as many professors did, but
+would deliver them _extempore_. He had no command of language, and
+there was a pause after almost every sentence. He was really thinking
+out the problem while he was lecturing; he was constantly repeating
+his sentences, and any new thought that crossed his mind would carry
+him miles away from his subject. It happened sometimes in these
+rhapsodies that he contradicted himself, but when I walked home with
+him after his lecture to a village near Leipzig where he lived, he
+would readily explain how it happened, how he meant something quite
+different from what he had said, or what I had understood. In fact he
+would give the whole lecture over again, only much more freely and
+more intelligibly. I was fully convinced at that time that Hegel's
+philosophy was the final solution of all problems; I only hesitated
+about his philosophy of history as applied to the history of religion.
+I could not bring myself to admit that the history of religion, nor
+even the history of philosophy as we know it from Thales to Kant, was
+really running side by side with his Logic, showing how the leading
+concepts of the human mind, as elaborated in the Logic, had found
+successive expression in the history and development of the schools of
+philosophy as known to us. Weisse was strong both in his analysis of
+concepts and in his knowledge of history, and though he taught Hegel
+as a faithful interpreter, he always warned us against trusting too
+much in the parallelism between Logic and History. Study the writings
+of the good philosophers, he would say, and then see whether they will
+or will not fit into the Procrustean bed of Hegel's Logic. And this
+was the best lesson he could have given to young men. How well founded
+and necessary the warning was I found out myself, the more I studied
+the religion and philosophies of the East, and then compared what I
+saw in the original documents with the account given by Hegel in his
+_Philosophy of Religion_. It is quite true that Hegel at the time when
+he wrote, could not have gained a direct or accurate knowledge of the
+principal religions of the East. But what I could not help seeing was
+that what Hegel represented as the necessity in the growth of
+religious thought, was far away from the real growth, as I had watched
+it in some of the sacred books of these religions. This shook my
+belief in the correctness of Hegel's fundamental principles more than
+anything else.
+
+At that time Herbart's philosophy, as taught by Drobisch at Leipzig,
+came to me as a most useful antidote. The chief object of that
+philosophy is, as is well known, the analysing and clearing, so to
+speak, of our concepts. This was exactly what I wanted, only that
+occupied as I was with the problems of language, I at once translated
+the object of his philosophy into a definition of words. Henceforth
+the object of my own philosophical occupations was the accurate
+definition of every word. All words, such as reason, pure reason,
+mind, thought, were carefully taken to pieces and traced back, if
+possible, to their first birth, and then through their further
+developments. My interest in this analytical process soon took an
+historical, that is etymological, character in so far as I tried to
+find out why any words should now mean exactly what, according to our
+definition, they ought to mean. For instance, in examining such words
+as _Vernunft_ or _Verstand_, a little historical retrospect showed
+that their distinction as reason and understanding was quite modern,
+and chiefly due to a scientific definition given and maintained by the
+Kantian school of philosophy. Of course every generation has a right
+to define its philosophical terms, but from an historical point of
+view Kant might have used with equal right _Vernunft_ for _Verstand_,
+and _Verstand_ for _Vernunft_. Etymologically or historically both
+words have much the same meaning. _Vernunft_, from _Vernehmen_, meant
+originally no more than perception, while _Verstand_ meant likewise
+perception, but soon came to imply a kind of understanding, even a
+kind of technical knowledge, though from a purely etymological
+standpoint it had nothing that fitted it more for carrying the
+meaning, which is now assigned to it in German in distinction to
+_Vernunft_, than understanding had as distinguished from reason. It
+requires, of course, a very minute historical research to trace the
+steps by which such words as reason and understanding diverge in
+different directions, in the language of the people and in
+philosophical parlance. This teaches us a very important distinction,
+namely that between the popular development of the meaning of a word,
+and its meaning as defined and asserted by a philosopher or by a poet
+in the plenitude of his power. Etymological definition is very useful
+for the first stages in the history of a word. It is useful to know,
+for instance, that _deus_, God, meant originally bright, bright
+whether applied to sky, sun, moon, stars, dawn, morning, dayspring,
+spring of the year, and many other bright objects in nature, that it
+thus assumed a meaning common to them all, splendid, or heavenly,
+beneficent, powerful, so that when in the Veda already we find a
+number of heavenly bodies, or of terrestrial bodies, or even of
+periods of time called Devas, this word has assumed a more general,
+more comprehensive, and more exalted meaning. It did not yet mean what
+the Greeks called [Greek: theoi] or gods, but it meant something
+common to all these [Greek: theoi], and thus could naturally rise to
+express what the Greeks wanted to express by that word. There was as
+yet no necessity for defining deva or [Greek: theos], when applied to
+what was meant by gods, but of course the most opposite meanings had
+clustered round it. While a philosophical Greek would maintain that
+[Greek: theos] meant what was one and never many, a poetical Greek or
+an ordinary Greek would hold that it meant what was by nature many.
+But while in such a case philosophical analysis and historical
+genealogy would support each other, there are ever so many cases where
+etymological analysis is as hopeless as logical analysis. Who is to
+define _romantic_, in such expressions as romantic literature.
+Etymologically we know that romantic goes back finally to Rome, but
+the mass of incongruous meanings that have been thrown at random into
+the caldron of that word, is so great that no definition could be
+contrived to comprehend them all. And how should we define _Gothic_ or
+_Romanic_ architecture, remembering that as no Goths had anything to
+do with pointed arches, neither were any Romans responsible for the
+flat roofs of the German churches of the Saxon emperors.
+
+Enough to show what I meant when I said that Professor Drobisch, in
+his Lectures on Herbart, gave one great encouragement in the special
+work in which I was already engaged as a mere student, the Science of
+Language and Etymology. If Herbart declared philosophy to consist in a
+thorough examination (_Bearbeitung_) of concepts, or conceptual
+knowledge, my answer was, Only let it be historical, nay, in the
+beginning, etymological; I was not so foolish as to imagine that a
+word as used at present, meant what it meant etymologically. _Deus_ no
+longer meant brilliant, but it should be the object of the true
+historian of language to prove how _Deus_, having meant originally
+brilliant, came to mean what it means now.
+
+For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher, and that sounded so
+grand that the idea of preparing for a mere schoolmaster, teaching
+Greek and Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a sphere. Soon,
+however, while dreaming of a chair of philosophy at a German
+University, I began to feel that I must know something special,
+something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn
+Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. I had only heard what we call in German
+the chiming, not the striking of the bells of Indian philosophy; I had
+read Frederick Schlegel's explanatory book _�ber die Sprache und
+Weisheit der Indier_ (1808), and looked into Windischmann's _Die
+Philosophie im Fortgange der Weltgeschichte_ (1827-1834). These books
+are hardly opened now--they are antiquated, and more than antiquated;
+they are full of mistakes as to facts, and mistakes as to the
+conclusions drawn from them. But they had ushered new ideas into the
+world of thought, and they left on many, as they did on me, that
+feeling which the digger who prospects for minerals is said to have,
+that there must be gold beneath the surface, if people would only dig.
+That feeling was very vague as yet, and might have been entirely
+deceptive, nor did I see my way to go beyond the point reached by
+these two dreamers or explorers. The thought remained in the
+rubbish-chamber of my mind, and though forgotten at the time, broke
+forth again when there was an opportunity. It was a fortunate
+coincidence that at that very time, in the winter of 1841, a new
+professorship was founded at Leipzig and given to Professor Brockhaus.
+Uncertain as I was about the course I had to follow in my studies, I
+determined to see what there was to be learnt in Sanskrit. There was a
+charm in the unknown, and, I must confess, a charm also in studying
+something which my friends and fellow students did not know. I called
+on Professor Brockhaus, and found that there were only two other
+students to attend his lectures, one Spiegel, who already knew the
+elements of Sanskrit, and who is still alive in Erlangen,[9] as a
+famous professor of Sanskrit and Zend, though no longer lecturing, and
+another, Klengel; both several years my seniors, but both extremely
+amiable to their younger fellow student. Klengel was a scholar, a
+philosopher, and a musician, and though after a term or two he had to
+give up his study of Sanskrit, he was very useful to me by his good
+advice. He encouraged me and praised me for my progress in Sanskrit,
+which was no doubt more rapid than his own, and he confirmed me in my
+conviction that something might be made of Sanskrit by the philologist
+and by the philosopher. It should not be forgotten that at that time
+there was a strong prejudice against Sanskrit among classical
+scholars. The number of men who stood up for it, though it included
+names such as W. von Humboldt, F. and A. W. von Schlegel, was still
+very small. Even Herder's and Goethe's prophetic words produced
+little effect. It is said that when the Government had been persuaded,
+chiefly by the two Humboldts, to found a chair of Sanskrit at the
+University of W�rzburg, and had nominated Bopp as its first occupant,
+the philological faculty of the University protested against such a
+desecration, and the appointment fell through. It is true, no doubt,
+that in their first enthusiasm the students of Sanskrit had uttered
+many exaggerated opinions. Sanskrit was represented as the mother of
+all languages, instead of being the elder sister of the Aryan family.
+The beginning of all language, of all thought, of all religion was
+traced back to India, and when Greek scholars were told that Zeus
+existed in the Veda under the name of Dyaus, there was a great flutter
+in the dovecots of classical scholarship. Many of these enthusiastic
+utterances had afterwards to be toned down. How we did enjoy those
+enthusiastic days, which even in their exaggerated hopes were not
+without some use. Problems such as the beginning of language, of
+thought, of mythology and religion, were started with youthful hope
+that the Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis had been
+present at the first outburst of roots, of concepts, nay, that like
+Pelops and other descendants of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed
+daily intercourse with the gods, and had been present at the
+mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of Kronos. We may be
+ashamed to-day of some of the dreams of the early spring of man's
+sojourn on earth, but they were enchanting dreams, 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 it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally the
+bright sky, something actually seen, but something that had to become
+something unseen. All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by
+mankind at large, must have begun with what the senses can perceive,
+before it could rise to signify something unperceived by the senses.
+Only after the blue aether had been perceived and named, was it
+possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active, as an agent, as a
+god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus be called the most sublime, he who
+resides in the aether, [Greek: aitheri nai�n hypsizygos], the heavenly
+one, or [Greek: ouranios hypatos] and [Greek: hypsistos], the highest,
+and at last _Iupiter Optimus Maximus_, a name applied even to the true
+God. When Zeus had once become like the sky, all seeing or omniscient
+([Greek: epopsios]), would he not naturally be supposed to see, not
+only the good, but the evil deeds of men also, nay, their very
+thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if so, would he not be the
+avenger of evil, the watcher of oaths ([Greek: horkios]), the
+protector of the helpless ([Greek: ikesios])? Yet, if conceived, as
+for a long time all the gods were conceived and could only be
+conceived, namely, as human in their shape, should we not necessarily
+get that strange amalgamation of a human being doing superhuman
+work--hurling the thunderbolt, shouting in thunder, hidden by dark
+clouds, and smiling in the serene blue of the sky with its brilliant
+scintillations? All this and much more became perfectly intelligible,
+the step from the visible to the invisible, from the perceived to the
+conceived, from nature to nature's gods, and from nature's god to a
+more sublime unseen and spiritual power. All this seemed to pass
+before our very eyes in the Veda, and then to be reflected in Homer
+and Pindar.
+
+  [9] Herr Geheimrath von Spiegel now lives at Munich.
+
+Some details of this restored picture of the world of gods and men in
+early times, nay, in the very spring of time, may have to be altered,
+but the picture, the eidyllion remained, and nothing could curb the
+adventurous spirit and keep it from pushing forward and trying to do
+what seemed to others almost impossible, namely, to watch the growth
+of the human mind as reflected in the petrifactions of language.
+Language itself spoke to us with a different voice, and a formerly
+unsuspected meaning.
+
+We knew, for instance, that _ewig_ meant eternal, but whence eternal.
+Nothing eternal was ever seen, and it seemed to the philosopher that
+eternal could be expressed by a negation only, by a negation of what
+was temporary. But we now learnt that _ewig_ was derived in word and
+therefore in thought from the Gothic _aiwar_, time. _Ewigkeit_ was
+therefore originally time, and "for all time" came naturally to mean
+"for all eternity." Eternity also came from _aeternus_, that is
+_aeviternus_, for time, i. e. for all time, and thus for eternity,
+while _aevum_ meant life, lifetime, age. But now came the question, if
+_aevum_ shows the growth of this word, and its origin, and how it
+arrives in the end at the very opposite pole, life and time coming to
+mean eternity, could we not by the same process discover the origin
+and growth of such short Greek words as [Greek: aei] and [Greek: aiei]?
+It seems almost impossible, yet remembering that _aevum_ meant
+originally life, we find in Vedic Sanskrit _eva_, course, way, life,
+the same as _aevum_, while the Sanskrit _�yush_, likewise derived from
+_i_, to go, forms its locative _�yushi_. _�yushi_, or originally
+_�yasi_, would mean "in life, in time," and turned into Greek would
+regularly become then [Greek: aiei], lifelong, or ever. It was not
+difficult to find fault with this and other etymologies, and to ask
+for an explanation of [Greek: aien] and [Greek: aies], as derived from
+the same word _�yus_. It is curious that people will not see that
+etymologies, and particularly the gradual development in the form and
+meaning of words, can hardly ever be a matter of mathematical
+certainty.
+
+Historical, nay, even individual, influences come in which prevent the
+science of language from becoming purely mechanical. Pott, and
+Curtius, and others stood up against Bopp and Grimm, maintaining that
+there could be nothing irregular in language, particularly in phonetic
+changes. If this means no more than that under the same circumstances
+the same changes will always take place, it would be of course a mere
+truism. The question is only whether we can ever know all the
+circumstances, and whether there are not some of these circumstances
+which cause what we are apt to call irregularities. When Bopp said
+that Sanskrit _d_ corresponds to a Greek [Greek: d], but often also to
+a Greek [Greek: th], I doubt whether this is often the case. All I say
+is, if _deva_ corresponds to [Greek: theos], we must try to find the
+reason or the circumstances which caused so unusual a correspondence.
+If no more is meant than that there must be a reason for all that
+seems irregular, no one would gainsay that, neither Bopp nor Grimm,
+and no one ever doubted that as a principle. But to establish these
+reasons is the very difficulty with which the Science of Language has
+to deal.
+
+There is no word that has not an etymology, only if we consider the
+distance of time that separates us from the historical facts we are
+trying to account for, we should sometimes be satisfied with
+probabilities and not always stipulate for absolute certainty. Many of
+Bopp's, Grimm's, and Pott's etymologies have had to be surrendered,
+and yet our suzerainty over that distant country which they conquered,
+over the Aryan home, remains. If there is an etymology containing
+something irregular, and for which no reason has as yet been found, we
+must wait till some better etymology can be suggested, or a reason be
+found for that apparent irregularity. If the etymological meaning of
+_duhitar_, daughter, as milkmaid, is doubted, let us have a better
+explanation, not a worse; but the general picture of the early family
+among the Aryans "somewhere in Asia" is not thereby destroyed. The
+father, Sk. _pitar_, remains the protector or nourisher, though the
+_i_ for _a_ in _pater_ and [Greek: pat�r] is irregular. The mother,
+_m�tar_, remains the bearer of children, though _m�_ is no longer used
+in that sense in any of the Aryan languages. _Pati_ is the lord, the
+strong one--therefore the husband; _vadh�_, the yoke-fellow, or the
+wife as brought home, possibly as carried off by force. _Vis_ or
+_vesa_ is the home, [Greek: oikos] or _vicus_, what was entered for
+shelter. _Svasura_, [Greek: hekyros], _Socer_, the father-in-law, is
+the old man of the _svas_, the _famuli_, or the family, or the
+clients, though the first _s_ is irregular, and can be defended only
+on the ground of mistaken analogy. _Bhr�tar_, _frater_, brother, was
+the supporter; _svastar_, _soror_, sister, the comforter, &c.
+
+What do a few objections signify? The whole picture remains, as if we
+could look into the _vesa_, the [Greek: oikos] the _veih_, the home, the
+village of the ancient Aryans, and watch them, the _svas_, the people,
+in their mutual relations. Even compound words, such as _vis-pati_,
+lord of a family or a village, have been preserved to the present day
+in the Lithuanian _Veszpats_, lord, whether King or God. It is enough
+for us to see that the relationship between husband and wife, between
+parents and children, between brothers and sisters, nay, even between
+children-in-law and parents-in-law, had been recognized and sanctified
+by names. That there are, and always will be, doubts and slight
+differences of opinion on these prehistoric thoughts and words, is
+easily understood. We were pleased for a long time to see in _vidua_,
+widow, the Sanskrit _vidua_, i. e. without a man or a husband. We now
+derive _vi-dhav�_, widow, from _vidh_, to be separated, to be without
+(cf. _vido_ in _divido_, and Sk. _vidh_), but the picture of the Aryan
+family remains much the same.
+
+When these and similar antiquities were for the first time brought to
+light by Bopp, Grimm, and Pott, what wonder that we young men should
+have jumped at them, and shouted with delight, more even than the
+diggers who dug up Babylonian palaces or Egyptian temples! No one did
+more for these antiquarian finds and restorations than A. Kuhn, a
+simple schoolmaster, but afterwards a most distinguished member of the
+Berlin Academy. How often did I sit with him in his study as he
+worked, surrounded by his Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit books. In later
+times also, when I had made some discoveries myself as to the
+mythological names or beings identical in Vedic and Greek writings,
+how pleasant was it to see him rub his hands or shake his head. Long
+before I had published my identifications they were submitted to him,
+and he communicated to me his own guesses as I communicated mine to
+him. Kuhn would never appropriate what belonged to anybody else, and
+even in cases where we agreed, he would always make it clear that we
+had both arrived independently at the same result.
+
+It is in the nature of things that every new generation of scholars
+should perfect their tools, and with these discover flaws in the work
+left by their predecessors. Still, what is the refined chiselling of
+later scholars compared with the rough-hewn stones of men like Bopp or
+Grimm? If the Cyclopean stones of the Pelasgians are not like the
+finished works of art by Phidias, what would the Parthenon be without
+the walls ascribed to the Cyclops? It is the same in all sciences, and
+we must try to be just, both to the genius of those who created, and
+to the diligence of those who polished and refined.
+
+For all this, however, I met with but small sympathy and encouragement
+at Leipzig; nay, I had to be very careful in uttering what were
+supposed to be heretical or unscholarlike opinions in the seminary of
+Gottfried Hermann, or in the Latin society of Haupt. The latter
+particularly, though he knew very well how much light had been spread
+on the growth of language by the researches of Bopp, Grimm, and Pott,
+and though Grimm was his intimate friend of whom he always spoke with
+real veneration, could not bear his own pupils dabbling in this
+subject. And of course at that time my knowledge of comparative
+philology was a mere dabbling. If he could discover a false quantity
+in any etymology, great was his delight, and his sarcasm truly
+withering, particularly as it was poured out in very classical Latin.
+Gottfried Hermann was a different character. He saw there was a new
+light and he would not turn his back to it. He knew how lightly his
+antagonist, Otfried M�ller, valued Sanskrit in his mythological
+essays, and he set to work, and in one of his last academical programs
+actually gave the paradigms of Sanskrit verbs as compared with those
+of Greek. He saw that the coincidences between the two could not be
+casual, and if they were so overwhelming in the mere termination of
+verbs, what might we not expect in words and names, even in
+mythological names? He by no means discouraged me, nay, he was sorry
+to lose me, when in my third year I went to Berlin. He showed me great
+kindness on several occasions, and when the time came to take my
+degree of M.A. and Ph.D., he, as Dean of the Faculty, invited me to
+return to Leipzig, offering me an exhibition to cover the expenses of
+the Degree.
+
+  [Illustration: F. MAX M�LLER _Aged Twenty_]
+
+My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire to hear Bopp, but
+yet more from a desire to make the acquaintance of Schelling. My
+inclination towards philosophy had become stronger and stronger; I had
+my own ideas about the mythological as a necessary form of ancient
+philosophy, and when I saw that the old philosopher had advertised his
+lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not resist, and went to
+Berlin in 1844. I must say at once that Professor Bopp, though he was
+extremely kind to me, was at that time, if not old--he was only
+fifty-three--very infirm. In his lectures he simply read his
+_Comparative Grammar_ with a magnifying glass, and added very little
+that was new. He lent me some manuscripts which he had copied in Latin
+in his younger days, but I could not get much help from him when I
+came to really difficult passages. This, I confess, puzzled me at the
+time, for I looked on every professor as omniscient. The time comes,
+however, when we learn that even at fifty-three a man may have
+forgotten certain things, nay, may have let many books and new
+discoveries even in his own subject pass by, because he has plenty to
+do with his own particular studies. We remember the old story of the
+professor who, when charged by a young and rather impertinent student
+with not knowing this or that, replied: "Sir, I have forgotten more
+than you ever knew." And so it is indeed. Human nature and human
+memory are very strong during youth and manhood, but even at fifty
+there is with many people a certain decline of mental vigour that
+tells chiefly on the memory. Things are not exactly forgotten, but
+they do not turn up at the right time. They just leave a certain
+knowledge of where the missing information can be found; they leave
+also a kind of feeling that the ground is not quite safe and that we
+must no longer trust entirely to our memory. In one respect this
+feeling is very useful, for instead of writing down anything, trusting
+to our memory as we used to do, we feel it necessary to verify many
+things which formerly were perfectly clear and certain in our memory
+without such reference to books.
+
+I remember being struck with the same thing in the case of Professor
+Wilson, the well-known Oxford Professor of Sanskrit. He was kind
+enough to read with me, and I certainly was often puzzled, not only by
+what he knew, but also by what he had forgotten. I feel now that I
+misjudged him, and that his open declaration, "I don't know, let us
+look it up," really did him great honour. I still have in my
+possession a portion of P�nini's Vedic grammar translated by him. I
+put by the side of it my own translation, and he openly acknowledged
+that mine, with the passages taken from the Veda, was right. There was
+no humbug about Wilson. He never posed as a scholar; nay, I remember
+his saying to me more than once, "You see, I am not a scholar, I am a
+gentleman who likes Sanskrit, and that is all." He certainly did like
+Sanskrit, and he knew it better than many a professor, but in his own
+way. He had enjoyed the assistance of really learned Pandits, and he
+never forgot to record their services. But he had himself cleared the
+ground--he had really done original work. In fact, he had done nothing
+but original work, and then he was abused for not having always found
+at the first trial what others discovered when standing on his
+shoulders. Again, he was found fault with for not having had a
+classical education. His education was, I believe, medical, but when
+once in the Indian Civil Service, he made himself useful in many ways,
+educational and otherwise. When he left India he was Master of the
+Mint. Such a man might not know Greek and Latin like F. A. von
+Schlegel, or any other professor, but he knew his own subject, 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 Sanskrit. Such a feeling is natural among small
+schoolmasters, but it is dying out at last among real scholars. I have
+known very good Sanskrit scholars who knew no Greek at all, and very
+little Latin. And I have also known Greek scholars who knew no
+Sanskrit and yet attempted comparisons between the two. When Lepsius
+was made a Member of the Berlin Academy, Lachmann, who ought to have
+known better, used to say of him: "He knows many things which nobody
+knows, but he also is ignorant of many things which everybody knows."
+Such remarks never speak well for the man who makes them.
+
+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 age, and is still violently assailed for opinions he may have
+uttered fifty years ago. When quite a young man I wrote, at Baron
+Bunsen's request, a long letter on the Turanian Languages. It was
+published in 1854, but it still continues to be criticized as if it
+had been published last year. Of course, considering the rapid advance
+of linguistic studies, a great part of that letter became antiquated
+long ago; but at the time of its first appearance it contained nearly
+all that could then be known on these allophylian, that is, non-Aryan
+and non-Semitic languages; and I may, perhaps, quote the opinion of
+Professor Pott, no mean authority at that time, who, after severely
+criticizing my letter, declared that it belonged to the most important
+publications that had appeared on linguistic subjects for many years.
+And yet, though I have again and again protested that I could not
+possibly have known in 1854 what has been discovered since as to a
+number of these Turanian languages, everybody who writes on any of
+them seems to be most anxious to show that in 1894 he knows more than
+I did in 1854. No astronomer is blamed for not having known the planet
+Neptune before its discovery in 1846, or for having been wrong in
+accounting for the irregularities of Saturn. But let that pass; I only
+share the fate of others who have lived too long.
+
+After all, all our knowledge, whatever show we may make of it, is very
+imperfect, and the more we know the better we learn how little it is
+that we do know, and how much of unexplored country there is beyond
+the country which we have explored. We must judge a man by what he has
+done--by his own original work. There are many scholars, and very
+useful they are in their own way, but if their books are examined, one
+easily finds the stores from which they borrowed their materials. They
+may add some notes of their own and even some corrections,
+particularly corrections of the authors from whom they have borrowed
+most; but at the end where is the fresh ore that they have raised;
+where is the gold they have extracted and coined? There are cases
+where the original worker is quite forgotten, whereas the retailers
+flourish. Well, facts are facts, whether known or not known, and the
+triumphal chariot of truth has to be dragged along by many hands and
+many shoulders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PARIS
+
+
+My stay in Paris from March, 1845, to June, 1846, was a very useful
+intermezzo. It opened my mind and showed me a new world; showed me, in
+fact, that there was a world besides Germany, though even of Germany
+and German society I had seen as yet very little. I had been working
+away at school and university, but with the exception of my short stay
+in Berlin, I had little experience of men and manners outside the
+small sphere of Dessau and Leipzig.
+
+I had been at Berlin some nine months when, in December, 1844, my old
+friend Baron Hagedorn came to see me, and invited me to spend some
+time with him in Paris. He had his own apartments there, and promised
+to look after me. At the same time my cousin, Baroness Stolzenberg,
+whom I have mentioned before as wishing me to enter the Austrian
+diplomatic service, offered to send me to England at her expense as a
+teacher. I hesitated for some days between these two offers. I knew
+that my own patrimony had been nearly spent at Leipzig and Berlin, and
+the time had come for me to begin to support myself; and how was I to
+do that in Paris? On the other hand, I had long felt that for
+continuing my Sanskrit studies a stay in Paris, and later perhaps in
+London also, was indispensable. I had also to consider the feelings of
+my mother, whose whole heart was absorbed in her only son. However,
+Sanskrit, and my love of an independent life won the day, and I
+decided to accept Hagedorn's proposal. My mind once made up, I wanted
+to be off at once, but Hagedorn could not fix the exact time when he
+would be free to leave, and told me to keep myself in readiness to
+start whenever he found himself free to go. I accordingly went to stay
+with my mother and my married sister at Chemnitz, and indulged in
+idleness and the unwonted dissipations of parties, dances, and long
+skating expeditions. At last, feeling I could not afford to wait any
+longer, I went off to Dessau to see Hagedorn, and found to my great
+disappointment that he was detained by important legal business in
+connection with his property near Munich, and could not yet fix a date
+for his departure. So it was settled that I was to go on to Paris
+without him, and instal myself in his apartment, 25, Rue Royale St.
+Honor�.
+
+I got my passport wherein I was carefully described with all my
+particular marks, and started off on my foreign travels. At first all
+went well. I stopped a few days at Bonn, and again at Brussels, where
+I had my first experience of hearing a foreign language spoken round
+me, and found that my French was sadly deficient. But from Brussels
+on, my experiences were anything but agreeable. The journey to Paris
+took twenty-four hours, and we travelled day and night without any
+stop for meals. Most of the passengers were well provided with food
+and wine, but had it not been for the kindness of some old ladies, my
+fellow-travellers, I should really have starved. When we crossed the
+frontier the luggage of all passengers was carefully examined. But the
+_douanier_, in trying to open my portmanteau, broke the lock, and then
+began a fearful cursing and swearing. I was perfectly helpless. I
+could hardly understand what the French _douaniers_ said, still less
+make them understand what I had to say. They had done the damage, but
+would do nothing to remedy it. The train would not wait, and I should
+certainly have been left behind if the other travellers had not taken
+my part, and I was allowed to go on to Paris. I looked a mere boy,
+very harmless, not at all the clever smuggler the officials took me to
+be. 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 Sanskrit.
+
+But my miseries were not yet over, on the contrary, they became much
+worse. On my arrival in Paris I got a _fiacre_ and told the man to
+drive to 25, Rue St. Honor�; _Royale_ I considered of no importance;
+but, alas! at the right number of the Rue St. Honor�, the _concierge_
+stared at me, telling me that no Baron Hagedorn lived there. Try
+Faubourg St. Honor�, they said, but here the same thing happened. And
+all this was on a rainy afternoon, I being tired out with travelling
+and fasting, and perfectly overwhelmed by the immensity of Paris. I
+knew nobody at Paris, having trusted for all such things to Baron
+Hagedorn, in fact I was _au d�sespoir_. Then as I was driving along
+the Boulevard des Italiens, looking out of window, I saw a familiar
+figure--a little hunchback whom I had known at Dessau, where he
+studied music under Schneider. It was M. Gathy, a man well known by
+his musical writings, particularly his _Dictionary of Music_. I
+shrieked Gathy! Gathy! and he was as much surprised when he recognized
+the little boy from Dessau, as I was when in this vast Paris I
+discovered at last a face which I knew. I jumped out of my carriage,
+told Gathy all that had happened to me, being all the time between
+complete despair and perfect delight. He knew Hagedorn and his rooms
+very well. It was the Rue Royale St. Honor�. The _concierge_ was quite
+prepared for my arrival, and took us both to the rooms which were _au
+cinqui�me_, but large and extremely well furnished. I was so tired
+that I lay down on the sofa, and called out in my best French,
+_Donnez-moi quelque chose � manger et � boire_. This was not so easily
+done as said, but at last, after toiling up and down five flights of
+stairs, he brought me what I wanted; I restored myself in the true
+sense of the word, and then began to discuss the most necessary
+matters with M. Gathy. He was the most charming of men, half German,
+half French, full of _esprit_, and, what was more important to me,
+full of real kindness and love. As soon as I saw him I felt I was
+safe, and so I was, though I had still some battles to fight. First of
+all, I had taken but little money with me, looking upon Hagedorn as my
+banker. Fortunately I remembered the name of one of his friends, about
+whom Hagedorn had often spoken to me and who was in Rothschild's Bank.
+I went there to find that he was away, but another gentleman there
+told me that I could have as much as I liked till Hagedorn or his
+friend came back. So I was lucky, unlucky as I had been before.
+
+The next step I had to consider was what I should do for my breakfast,
+luncheon, and dinner. Breakfast I could have at home, but for the
+other meals I had to go out and get what I wanted wherever I could. It
+was not always what I wanted, for it had to be cheap, and even a
+dinner _� deux francs_ in the Palais Royal seemed to me extravagant. I
+became more knowing by-and-by, and discovered smaller and simpler
+restaurants, where Frenchmen dined and had arranged for a less showy
+but more wholesome diet.
+
+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 memory. My
+principal amusement at first was to go on voyages of discovery through
+the town. The beauty of the city itself, and the rush and crowd in
+the streets delighted me, and I remember specially a few days after my
+arrival, when I went to watch "le tout Paris" going out to the races
+at Longchamps, that I was so struck by the difference between these
+streets full of equipages of all sorts, ladies in resplendent dresses,
+and well-groomed gentlemen, and the quiet streets that I had been
+accustomed to in Dessau and Leipzig, that I could hardly keep myself
+from laughing out loud. However, when the novelty wore off there was
+another contrast that struck me, and made me more inclined to cry this
+time than to laugh, and that was, that while at home I knew almost
+every face I passed, here in these crowds I was a stranger and knew no
+one, and I suffered cruelly from the solitude at first.
+
+I began my work, however, at once, and on the third day after my
+arrival I was at the Biblioth�que Royale armed with a letter of
+introduction from Humboldt, and the very next day was already at work
+collating the MSS. of the _Kathaka Upanishad_. I had also to devote
+some hours daily to the study of French; for, much as I grudged these
+hours, I fully realized that in order to get full advantage from my
+stay in Paris, I must first master French.
+
+Next came the great question, how to make the acquaintance of Burnouf.
+I did not know the world. I did not know whether I should write to him
+first, in what language, and to what address. I knew Burnouf from his
+books, and I felt a desperate respect for him. After a time Gathy
+discovered his address for me, and I summoned up courage to call on
+him. My French was very poor as yet, but I walked in and found a dear
+old gentleman in his _robe de chambre_, 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 day. He received me with great civility, such as I had not
+been accustomed to before. He spoke of some little book which I had
+published, and inquired warmly after my teachers in Germany, such as
+Brockhaus, Bopp, and Lassen. He told me I might attend his lectures in
+the Coll�ge de France, and he would always be most happy to give me
+advice and help.
+
+I at once felt perfect trust in the man, and was really _aux cieux_ to
+have found such an adviser. He was, indeed, a fine specimen of the
+real French savant. He was small, and his face was decidedly German,
+with the _t�te carr�e_ which one sees so often in Germany, only
+lighted up by a constant sparkle, which is distinctively French. I
+must have seemed very stupid to him when I tried to explain to him
+what I really wanted to do in Paris. He told me himself afterwards
+that he could not make me out at first. I wanted to study the Veda,
+but I had told him at the same time that I thought the Vedic hymns
+very stupid, and that I cared chiefly for their philosophy, that is,
+the Upanishads. This was really not true, but it came up first in
+conversation, and I thought it would show Burnouf that my interest in
+the Veda was not simply philological, but philosophical also. No doubt
+at first I chiefly copied the Upanishads and their commentaries, but
+Burnouf was not pleased. "We know what is in the Upanishads," he used
+to say, "but we want the hymns and their native comments." I soon came
+to understand what he meant; I carefully attended his lectures, which
+were on the hymns of the Rig-veda and opened an entirely new world to
+my mind. We had the first book of the Rig-veda as published by Rosen,
+and Burnouf's explanations were certainly delightful. He spoke freely
+and conversationally in his lectures, and one could almost assist at
+the elaboration of his thoughts. His audience was certainly small;
+there was nothing like Renan's eloquence and wit. But Burnouf had ever
+so many new facts to communicate to us. He explained to us his own
+researches, he showed us new MSS. which he had received from India, in
+fact he did all he could to make us fellow workers. Often did he tell
+us to look up some passage in the Veda, to compare and copy the
+commentaries, and to let him have the result of our researches at the
+next lecture. All this was very inspiriting, particularly as Burnouf,
+upon examining our work, was very generous in his approval, and quite
+ready, if we had failed, to point out to us new sources that should
+be examined. He never asserted his own authority, and if ever we had
+found out something which he had not known before, he was delighted to
+let us have the full credit for it. After all, it was a new and
+unknown country, that had to be explored and mapped out, and even a
+novice might sometimes find a grain of gold.
+
+His select class contained some good men. There were Barth�lemy St.
+Hilaire, the famous translator of Aristotle, and for a time Minister
+of Foreign Affairs in France, the Abb� Bardelli, R. Roth, Th.
+Goldst�cker, and a few more.
+
+Barth�lemy St. Hilaire was a personal friend of Burnouf, and came to
+the Coll�ge de France not so much to learn Sanskrit as to hear
+Burnouf's lucid exposition of ancient Indian religion and philosophy.
+Bardelli was a regular Italian Abb�, studying Sanskrit at Paris, but
+chiefly interested in Coptic. He was, like St. Hilaire, much my
+senior, but we became great friends, and he once confided to me what
+had certainly puzzled me--his reasons for becoming an ecclesiastic. He
+had been deeply in love with a young lady; his love was returned, but
+he was too poor to marry, and she was persuaded and almost forced to
+marry a rich man. Dear old Abb�, always taking snuff while he told me
+his agonies, and then finishing up by saying that he became a priest
+so as to put an end for ever to his passion. Who would have suspected
+such a background to his jovial face? I don't know how it was that
+people, much my seniors, so often confided to me their secret
+sufferings. I may have to mention some other cases, and I feel that
+after my friends are gone, and so many years have passed over their
+graves, there is no indiscretion in speaking of their confidences. It
+may possibly teach us to remember how much often lies buried under a
+grave bright with flowers. I saw Bardelli's own grave many years later
+in the famous cemetery at Pisa. R. Roth and Th. Goldst�cker were both
+strenuous Sanskrit scholars. Both owed much to Burnouf, Roth even more
+than Goldst�cker, though the latter has perhaps more frequently spoken
+of what he owed to Burnouf. Roth was my senior by several years, and
+engaged in much the same work as myself. But we never got on well
+together. It is curious from what small things and slight impressions
+our likes and dislikes are often formed. I have heard men give as a
+reason for disliking some one, that he had forgotten to pay half a
+cab-fare. So in Roth's case, I never got over a most ordinary
+experience. He and two other young students and myself, having to
+celebrate some festal occasion, had ordered a good luncheon at a
+restaurant. To me with my limited means this was a great extravagance,
+but I could not refuse to join. Roth, to my great surprise and, I may
+add, being very fond of oysters, annoyance, took a very unfair share
+of that delicacy, and whenever I met him in after life, whether in
+person or in writing, this incident would always crop up in my mind;
+and when later on he offered to join me in editing the Rig-veda, I
+declined, perhaps influenced by that early impression which I could
+not get rid of. I blame myself for so foolish a prejudice, but it
+shows what creatures of circumstance we are.
+
+With Goldst�cker I was far more intimate. He was some years older than
+myself and quite independent as far as money went. He knew how small
+my means were, and would gladly have lent me money. But through the
+whole of my life I never borrowed from my friends, or in fact from
+anybody, though I was forced sometimes when very hard up for ready
+money, and when I knew that money was due to me but had not arrived
+when I expected it, to apply to some friend for a temporary advance. I
+will try and recall the lines in which I once applied to Gathy for
+such a loan.
+
+    Versuch' ich's wohl, mein herzgeliebter Gathy,
+    Mit schmeichelndem Sonnet Sie anzupumpen?
+    Ich bitte nicht um schwere Goldesklumpen,
+    Ich bitte nur um etliche Ducati.
+    Auch zahl' ich wieder ultimo Monati.
+    Auf Wiedersehn bei Morel und Frascati
+    Und Nachsicht f�r den Brief, den allzu plumpen!
+    Zwar reiche Nabobs sind die braven Inder,
+    Doch arme Teufel die Indianisten!
+    Reich sind hienieden schon die Heiden-Kinder,
+    Doch selig werden nur die armen Christen!
+    Reimsucher bin ich, doch kein Reimefinder,
+    Und _sans critique_ sind all die Sanscritisten.
+
+This kind of negotiating a loan I have to confess to, but the idea of
+borrowing money, without knowing when I could repay it, never entered
+my mind. Relations who could have helped me I had none, and nothing
+remained to me but to work for others. Indeed my want of money soon
+began to cause me very serious anxiety in Paris. Little as I spent, my
+funds became lower and lower. I did not, like many other scholars,
+receive help from my Government. I had mapped out my course for
+myself, and instead of taking to teaching on leaving the University,
+had settled to come to Paris and continue my Sanskrit studies, and it
+was in my own hands whether I should swim or sink. It was, indeed, a
+hard struggle, far harder than those who have known me in later life
+would believe. All I could do to earn a little money was to copy and
+collate MSS. for other people. I might indeed have given private
+lessons, but I have always had a strong objection to that form of
+drudgery, and would rather sit up a whole night copying than give an
+hour to my pupils. My plan was as follows: to sit up the whole of one
+night, to take about three hours' rest the next night, but without
+undressing, and then to take a good night's rest the third night, and
+start over again. It was a hard fight, and cannot have been very good
+for me physically, but I do not regret it now.
+
+Often did I go without my dinner, being quite satisfied with boiled
+eggs and bread and butter, which I could have at home without toiling
+down and toiling up five flights of stairs that led to my room.
+Sometimes I went with some of my young friends _hors de la barri�re_,
+that is, outside Paris, outside the barrier where the _octroi_ has to
+be paid on meat, wine, &c. Here the food was certainly better for the
+price I could afford to pay, but the society was sometimes peculiar. I
+remember once seeing a strange lady sitting not very far from me, who
+was the well-known Louve of Eug�ne Sue's _Myst�res de Paris_. One of
+my companions on these expeditions was Karl de Schloezer, who was then
+studying Arabic in Paris. He was always cheerful and amusing, and a
+delightful companion. He knew much more of the world than I did, and
+often surprised me by his diplomatic wisdom. "Let us stand up for each
+other," he said one day; "you say all the good you can of me, I saying
+all the good I can of you." I became very fierce at the time, charging
+him with hypocrisy and I do not know what. He, however, took it all in
+good part, and we remained friends all the time he was at Paris, and
+indeed to the day of his death. He was very fond of music, but I was,
+perhaps, the better performer on the pianoforte. He had invited me, a
+violin, and violoncello, to play some of Mozart's and Beethoven's
+Sonatas. Alas! when we found that he murdered his part, I sat down and
+played the whole evening, leaving him to listen, not, I fear, in the
+best of moods. He took his revenge, however; and the next time he
+asked me and the two other musicians to his room, we found indeed
+everything ready for us to play, but our host was nowhere to be found.
+He maintained that he had been called away; I am certain, however,
+that the little trick was played on purpose.
+
+He afterwards entered the Prussian diplomatic service and was the
+prot�g� of the Princess of Prussia, afterwards the Empress of Germany.
+That was enough to make Bismarck dislike him, and when Schloezer
+served as Secretary of Legation under Bismarck as Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg, he committed the outrage of challenging his chief to a
+duel. Bismarck declined, nor would it, according to diplomatic
+etiquette, have been possible for him not to decline. Later on,
+however, Schloezer was placed _en disponibilit�_, that is to say, he
+was politely dismissed. He had to pay a kind of farewell visit to
+Bismarck, who was then omnipotent. Being asked by Bismarck what he
+intended to do, and whether he could be of any service to him,
+Schloezer said very quietly, "Yes, your Excellency, I shall take to
+writing my Memoirs, and you know that I have seen much in my time
+which many people will be interested to learn." Bismarck was quiet for
+a time, looking at some papers, and then remarked quite unconcernedly,
+"You would not care to go to the United States as Minister?" "I am
+ready to go to-morrow," replied Schloezer, and having carried his
+point, having in fact outwitted Bismarck, he started at once for
+Washington. Bismarck knew that Schloezer could wield a sharp pen, and
+there was a time when he was sensitive to such pen-pricks. They did
+not see much of each other afterwards, but, owing to the protection of
+the Empress, Schloezer was later accredited as Prussian envoy to the
+Pope, and died too soon for his friends in beautiful Italy.
+
+One of my oldest friends at Paris was a Baron d'Eckstein, a kind of
+diplomatic agent who knew everybody in Paris, and wrote for the
+newspapers, French and German. He had, I believe, a pension from the
+French Government, and was, as a Roman Catholic, strongly allied with
+the Clerical Party. This did not concern me. What concerned me was his
+love of Sanskrit and the ancient religion of India. He would sit with
+me for hours, or take me to dine with him at a restaurant, discussing
+all the time the Vedas and the Upanishad and the Vedanta philosophy.
+There are several articles of his written at this time in the _Journal
+Asiatique_, and I was especially grateful to him, for he gave me
+plenty of work to do, particularly in the way of copying Sanskrit MSS.
+for him, and he paid me well and so helped me to keep afloat in Paris.
+Knowing as he did everybody, he was very anxious to introduce me to
+his friends, such as George Sand, Lamennais, the Comtesse d'Agoult
+(Daniel Stern), Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and others; but I much
+preferred half an hour with him or with Burnouf to paying formal
+visits. I heard afterwards many unkind things about Baron
+d'Eckstein's political and clerical opinions, but though in becoming a
+convert to Roman Catholicism he may have shown weakness, and as a
+political writer may have been influenced by his near friends and
+patrons, I never found him otherwise than kind, tolerant, and
+trustworthy. His life was to have been written by Professor
+Windischmann, but he too died; and who knows what may have become of
+the curious memoirs which he left? At the time of the February
+revolution in 1848, he was in the very midst of it. He knew Lamartine,
+who was the hero of the day, though of a few days only. He attended
+meetings with Lamartine, Odilon, Barrot, and others, and he assured me
+that there would be no revolution, because nobody was prepared for it.
+
+Lamartine who had been asked by his friends, all of them royalists and
+friends of order, whether he would, in case of necessity, undertake to
+form a ministry under the Duchesse d'Orl�ans as regent, scouted such
+an idea at first, but at last promised to be ready if he were wanted.
+The time came sooner than he expected, and the Duchesse d'Orl�ans
+counted on him when she went to the Chamber and her Regency was
+proclaimed. Lamartine was then so popular that he might have saved the
+situation. But the mob broke into the Chamber, shots were fired, and
+there was no Lamartine. The Duchesse d'Orl�ans had to fly, and
+fortunately escaped under the protection of the Duc de Nemours, the
+only son of Louis Philippe then in Paris, and the dynasty of the
+Orl�ans was lost--never to return. Baron d'Eckstein lost many of his
+influential friends at that time, possibly his pension also, but he
+had enough to live upon, and he died at last as a very old man in a
+Roman Catholic monastery, a most interesting and charming man, whose
+memoirs would certainly have been very valuable.
+
+But to return to Burnouf, I never can adequately express my debt of
+gratitude to him. He was of the greatest assistance to me in clearing
+my thoughts and directing them into one channel. "Either one thing or
+the other," he said. "Either study Indian philosophy and begin with
+the Upanishads and Sankara's commentary, or study Indian religion and
+keep to the Rig-veda, and copy the hymns and S�yana's commentary, and
+then you will be our great benefactor." A great benefactor! that was
+too much for me, a mere dwarf in the presence of giants. But Burnouf's
+words confirmed me more and more in my desire to give myself up to the
+Veda.
+
+Burnouf told me not only what Vedic MSS. there were at the
+Biblioth�que Royale, he also brought me his own MSS. and lent them to
+me to copy, with the condition, however, that I should not smoke while
+working at them. He himself did not smoke, and could not bear the
+smell of smoke, and he showed me several of his MSS. which had become
+quite useless to him, because they smelt of stale tobacco smoke. I
+did all I could to guard these sacred treasures against such
+profanation.
+
+Another and even more useful warning came to me from Burnouf. "Don't
+publish extracts from the commentary only," he said; "if you do, you
+will publish what is easy to read, and leave out what is difficult." I
+certainly thought that extracts would be sufficient, but I soon found
+out that here also Burnouf was right, though there was always the fear
+that I should never find a publisher for so immense a work. This fear
+I confided to Burnouf, but he always maintained his hopeful view. "The
+commentary must be published, depend upon it, and it will be," he
+said.
+
+So I stuck to it and went on copying and collating my Sanskrit MSS.,
+always trusting that a publisher would turn up at the proper time. I
+had, of course, to do all the drudgery for myself, and I soon found
+out that it was not in human nature, at least not in my nature, to
+copy Sanskrit from a MS. even for three or four hours without
+mistakes. To my great disappointment I found mistakes whenever I
+collated my copy with the original. I found that like the copyists of
+classical MSS. my eye had wandered from one line to another where the
+same word occurred, that I had left out a word when the next word
+ended with the same termination, nay that I had even left out whole
+lines. Hence I had either to collate my own copy, which was very
+tedious, or invent some new process. This new process I discovered by
+using transparent paper, and thus tracing every letter. I had some
+excellent _papier v�g�tal_ made for me, and, instead of copying,
+traced the whole Sanskrit MS. This had the great advantage that
+nothing could be left out, and that when the original was smudged and
+doubtful I could carefully trace whatever was clear and visible
+through the transparent paper. At first I confess my work was slow,
+but soon it went as rapidly as copying, and it was even less fatiguing
+to the eyes than the constant looking from the MS. to the copy, and
+from the copy to the MS. But the most important advantage was, that I
+could thus feel quite certain that nothing was left out, so that even
+now, after more than fifty years, these tracings are as useful to me
+as the MS. itself. There was room left between the lines or on the
+margin to note the various readings of other MSS.; in fact, my
+materials grew both in extent and in value.
+
+Still there remained the question of a publisher. To print the
+Rig-veda in six volumes quarto of about a thousand pages each, and to
+provide the editor with a living wage during the many years he would
+have to devote to his task, required a large capital. I do not know
+exactly how much, but what I do know is that, when a second edition of
+the text of the Veda in four volumes was printed at the expense of the
+Maharajah of Vizianagram, it cost that generous and patriotic prince
+four thousand pounds, though I then gave my work gratuitously.
+
+While I was working at the Biblioth�que Royale, Humboldt had used his
+powerful influence with the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to
+help me in publishing my edition of the Rig-veda in Germany. Nothing,
+however, came of that plan; it proved too costly for any private
+publisher, even with royal assistance.
+
+Then came a vague offer from St. Petersburg. Boehtlingk, the great
+Sanskrit scholar, as a member of the Imperial Russian Academy, invited
+me to come to St. Petersburg and print the Veda there, in
+collaboration with himself, and at the expense of the Academy. Burnouf
+and Goldst�cker both warned me against accepting this offer, but,
+hopeless as I was of getting my Veda published elsewhere, I expressed
+my willingness to go on condition that some provision should be made
+for me before I decided to migrate to Russia, as I possessed
+absolutely nothing but what I was able to earn myself. Boehtlingk, I
+believe, suggested to the Academy that I should be appointed Assistant
+Keeper of the Oriental Museum at St. Petersburg, but his colleagues
+did not apparently consider so young a man, and a mere German scholar,
+a fit candidate for so responsible a post. Boehtlingk wished me to
+send him all my materials, and he would get the MSS. of the Rig-veda
+and of S�yana's commentary from the Library of the East India Company,
+and Paris. No definite proposition, however, came from the Imperial
+Academy, but an announcement of Boehtlingk's appeared in the papers
+in January, 1846, to the effect that he was preparing, in
+collaboration with Monsieur Max M�ller of Paris, a complete edition of
+the Rig-veda.
+
+All this, I confess, began to frighten me. For me, a poor scholar, to
+go to St. Petersburg without any official invitation, without any
+appointment, seemed reckless, and though I have no doubt that
+Boehtlingk would have done his best for me, yet even he could only
+suggest private lessons, and that was no cheerful outlook. The Academy
+would do nothing for me unless I joined Boehtlingk, but at last
+offered to buy my materials, on which I had spent so much labour and
+the small fund at my disposal. If the Academy could have got the
+necessary MSS. from Paris and London, I should have been perfectly
+helpless. Boehtlingk could have done the whole work himself, in some
+respects better than I, because he was my senior, and besides, he knew
+P�nini, the old Indian grammarian who is constantly referred to in
+S�yana's Commentary, better than I did. With all these threatening
+clouds around me, my decision was by no means easy.
+
+It was Burnouf's advice that determined me to remain quietly in Paris.
+He warned me repeatedly against trusting to Boehtlingk, and promised,
+if I would only stay in Paris, to give me his support with Guizot, who
+was then Minister for Foreign Affairs, and very much interested in
+Oriental studies.
+
+Boehtlingk seems never to have forgiven me, and he and several of his
+friends were highly displeased at my ultimate success in securing a
+publisher for the Rig-veda in England. Their language was most
+unbecoming, and they tried, and actually urged other Sanskrit
+scholars, to criticize my edition, though I must say to their credit
+that they afterwards confessed that it was all that could be desired.
+
+Many years later, Boehtlingk published a violent attack on me,
+entitled _F. Max M�ller als Mythendichter_, but I thought it
+unnecessary to take up the dispute, and preferred to leave my friends
+to judge for themselves between me and this propounder of accusations,
+the legitimacy of which he was utterly unable to establish. However,
+as I discovered later that he accused me of having acted
+discourteously towards the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, with
+whom I had never had any direct dealings, and stated that he had
+prevented that illustrious body from ever making me a corresponding
+member, I thought it right to offer an explanation to the Secretary,
+and I have in my possession his reply, in which he wrote that there
+was no foundation whatever for Professor Boehtlingk's statements.
+
+However, the outcome of it was that I did not go to St. Petersburg,
+but went on with my work at the Library in Paris, till one day I found
+it necessary to run over to London, to copy and collate certain MSS.,
+and there I found the long-sought-for benefactors, who were to enable
+me to carry out the work of my life.
+
+Of course, during my stay in Paris there was no idea of my going into
+society, or of buying tickets for theatres or concerts. I went out to
+dinner at some small restaurant, but otherwise I remained at home, and
+viewed Paris life from my high windows, looking out on the Chambre des
+D�put�s on one side, the Madeleine close to me on the left, and the
+Porte St. Martin far away at the end of the Boulevards. Baron
+d'Eckstein, as I have said, was willing to introduce me into society,
+but I refused his kind offers. In fact, I was more or less of a bear,
+and I now regret having missed meeting many interesting characters,
+and having kept aloof from others, because my interests were absorbed
+elsewhere. Burnouf asked me sometimes to his house; so did a Monsieur
+Troyer, who had been in India and published some Sanskrit texts, and
+whose daughter, the Duchesse de Wagram, made much of me, as she was
+very fond of music. There were some German families also, some rich,
+some poor, who showed me great kindness.
+
+I was too much oppressed with cares and anxieties about my life and my
+literary plans to think much of society and enjoyment. Even of the
+students and student life I saw but little, though I was actually
+attending lectures with them. I must say, however, 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 extravagances. A
+Frenchman, if he once begins to work, can work and does work very
+hard. I remember seeing several instances of this, but it is possible
+that I may have seen the pick of the Quartier Latin only. One who was
+then a young man, preparing for the Church, but already with an eye to
+higher flights, was Renan. At first he still looked upon all young
+Germans with suspicion, but this feeling soon disappeared. I remember
+him chiefly at the Biblioth�que Royale, where he had a very small
+place in the Oriental Department. Hase, the Greek scholar, Reinaud,
+the Arabist, and Stanislas Julien, the Sinologue, were librarians
+then. Hase, a German by birth, was most obliging, but he was greatly
+afraid of speaking German, and insisted on our always speaking French
+to him. Often did he call Renan to fetch MSS. for me: "Renan," he
+would call out very loudly, "allez chercher, pour Monsieur Max M�ller,
+le manuscrit sanscrit, num�ro ...," and then followed a pause, till he
+had translated "1637" into French. In later years Renan and I became
+great friends, but we German scholars were often puzzled at his great
+popularity, which certainly was owing to his style more even than to
+his scholarship. Some time later, when I was already established in
+England, we had a little controversy, and I printed a rather fierce
+attack on his _Grammaire S�mitique_. But we were intimate enough for
+me to show him my pamphlet, and when he wrote to me, "Pardonnez-moi,
+je n'ai pas compris ce que vous vouliez dire," I suppressed the
+pamphlet, though it was printed, and we remained friends for life. He
+translated my first article on Comparative Mythology, and I had a
+number of most interesting letters from him. It was his wife who did
+the translation, while he revised it. That French pamphlet is very
+scarce now; my own pamphlet was entirely suppressed; even I myself can
+find no copy of it among the rubbish of my early writings, and what I
+regret most, I threw away his letters, not thinking how interesting
+they would become in time.
+
+With all my work, however, I found time to attend some lectures at the
+Coll�ge de France, and to make the acquaintance of some distinguished
+French _savants_ of the _Institut_. I went there with Burnouf, or
+Stanislas Julien, or Reinaud, little dreaming that I should some day
+belong to the same august body. Many of my young French friends, who
+afterwards became _Membres de l'Institut_, rose to that dignity much
+later. I was made not only a corresponding, but a real member of the
+Acad�mie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1869, before my
+friends, such as G. Perrot 1874, Michel Br�al 1875, Gaston Paris 1876,
+and Jules Oppert 1881, occupied their well-merited academical
+_fauteuils_. The struggle when I was elected in 1869 was a serious
+one; it was between Mommsen and myself, between classical and Oriental
+scholarship, and for once Oriental scholarship carried the day.
+Mommsen, however, was elected in 1895, and there can be little doubt
+that his strong and outspoken political antipathies had something to
+do with the late date of his election.
+
+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 expected.
+Though I was able to express myself _tant bien que mal_, I have always
+felt hampered in a long conversation. Of course, the French themselves
+have always been polite enough to say that they could not have
+detected that I was a German, but I knew better than that, and never
+have I, even in later years, gained a perfect conversational command
+of that difficult language.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND
+
+
+While working in Paris I constantly felt the want of some essential
+MSS. which were at the Library of the East India Company in London,
+and my desire to visit England consequently grew stronger and
+stronger; but I had not the wherewithal to pay for the journey, much
+less for a stay of even a fortnight in London. At last (June, 1846) I
+thought that I had scraped together enough to warrant my starting. At
+that time I had never seen the sea, and I was very desirous of doing
+so. I well remember my unbounded rapture at my first sight of the
+silver stream, and like Xenophon's Greeks I could have shouted,
+[Greek: thalatta, thalatta]. Once on board my rapture soon collapsed
+and was succeeded by that well-known feeling of misery which I have so
+frequently experienced since then, and I huddled myself up in a corner
+of the deck.
+
+There a young fellow-traveller saw the poor bundle of misery, and
+tried to comfort me, and brought me what he thought was good for me,
+not, however, without a certain merry twinkle in his eye and a few
+kindly jokes at my expense. We landed at the docks in London, a real
+drizzly day, rain and mist, and such a crowd rushing on shore that I
+missed my cheerful friend and felt quite lost. In addition to all this
+a porter had run away with my portmanteau, which contained my books
+and MSS., in fact all my worldly goods. At that moment my young friend
+reappeared, and seeing the plight I was in, came to my assistance.
+"You stay here," he said, "and I will arrange everything for you;" and
+so he did. He fetched a four-wheeler, put my luggage on the top,
+bundled me inside, and drove with me through a maze of London streets
+to his rooms in the Temple. Then, still knowing nothing about me, he
+asked me to spend the night in his rooms, gave me a bed and everything
+else I wanted for the night. The next morning he took me out to look
+for lodgings, which we found in Essex Street, a small street leading
+out of the Strand.
+
+The room which I took was almost entirely filled by an immense
+four-post bed. I had never seen such a structure before, and during
+the first night that I slept in it, I was in constant fear that the
+top of the bed would fall and smother me as in the German _M�rchen_.
+When the landlady came in to see me in the morning, after asking how I
+had slept, the first thing she said was, "But, sir, don't you want
+another 'pillar'?" I looked bewildered, and said: "Why, what shall I
+do with another pillar? and where will you put it?" She then touched
+the pillows under my head and said, "Well, sir, you shall have
+another 'pillar' to-morrow." "How shall I ever learn English," I said
+to myself, "if a 'pillar' means really a soft pillow?"
+
+But to return to my unknown friend, he came every day to show me
+things which I ought to see in London, and brought me tickets for
+theatres and concerts, which he said were sent to him. His name was
+William Howard Russell, endeared to so many, high and low, under the
+name of "Billy" Russell, the first and most brilliant war-correspondent
+of _The Times_ during the Crimean War. He remained my warm and true
+friend through life, and even now when we are both cripples, we
+delight in meeting and talking over very distant days.
+
+I had come over to London expecting to stay about a fortnight, but I
+had been there working at the Library in Leadenhall Street for nearly
+a month, and my work was far from done, when I thought that I ought to
+call and pay my respects to the Prussian Minister, Baron Bunsen. I
+little thought at the time when I was ushered into his presence that
+this acquaintance was to become the turning-point of my life. If I
+owed much to Burnouf, how can I tell what I owed to Bunsen? I was
+amazed at the kindness with which from the very first he received me.
+I had no claim whatever on him, and I had as yet done very little as a
+scholar. It is true that he had known my father in Italy, and that
+Humboldt, with his usual kindness, had written him a strong letter of
+recommendation on my behalf, but that was hardly sufficient reason to
+account for the real friendship with which he at once honoured me.
+
+Baroness Bunsen, in the life of her husband, writes: "The kindred
+mind, their sympathy of heart, the unity in highest aspirations, a
+congeniality in principles, a fellowship in the pursuit of favourite
+objects, which attracted and bound Bunsen to his young friend (i. e.
+myself), rendered this connexion one of the happiest of his life." I
+am proud to think it was so.
+
+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
+life, namely, the _editio princeps_ of the Rig-veda. Often has he told
+me how, at the time when he was prosecuting his studies at G�ttingen,
+the very existence of such a book was unknown as yet in Germany. The
+name of Veda had no doubt been known, and there was a halo of mystery
+about it, as the oldest book of the world. But what it was and where
+it was to be found no one could tell. Mr. Astor, a pupil of Bunsen's
+at G�ttingen, had arranged to take Bunsen to India to carry on his
+researches there. But Bunsen waited and waited in Italy, till at last,
+after maintaining himself by giving private lessons, he went to Rome,
+was taken up by Brandes and Niebuhr, the Prussian Ambassador there,
+became the friend of the future Frederick William IV, and thus
+gradually drifted into diplomacy, giving up all hopes of discovering
+or rescuing the Rig-veda.
+
+People have hardly any idea now, how, in spite of the East India
+Company conquering and governing India, India itself remained a _terra
+incognita_, unapproachable by the students of England and of Europe.
+That there were literary treasures to be discovered in India, that the
+Brahmans were the depositaries of ancient wisdom, was known through
+the labours of some of the most eminent servants of the East India
+Company. It had been known even before, through the interesting
+communications of Roman Catholic missionaries in India, that the
+manuscripts themselves, at least those of the Veda, were not
+forthcoming. Even as late as the times of Sir W. Jones, Colebrooke,
+and Professor Wilson, the Brahmans were most unwilling to part with
+MSS. of the Veda, except the Upanishads. Professor Wilson told me that
+once, when examining the library of a native R�jah, he came across
+some MSS. of the Rig-veda, and began turning them over; but "I
+observed," he said, "the ominous and threatening looks of some of the
+Brahmans present, and thought it wiser to beat a retreat." Dr. Mill
+had known of a gentleman who had a very sacred hymn of the Veda, the
+Gayatri, printed at Calcutta. The Brahmans were furious at this
+profanation, and when the gentleman died soon after, they looked upon
+his premature death as the vengeance of the offended gods.
+Colebrooke, however, was allowed to possess himself of several most
+valuable Vedic MSS., and he found Brahmans quite ready to read with
+him, not only the classical texts, but also portions of the Veda.
+"They do not even," he writes, "conceal from us the most sacred texts
+of the Veda." His own essays on the Veda appeared in the _Asiatic
+Researches_ as early as 1801. But people went on dreaming about the
+Veda, instead of reading Colebrooke's essays.
+
+It was curious, however, that at the time when I prepared my edition
+of the Rig-veda, Vedic scholarship was at a very low ebb in Bengal
+itself, and there were few Brahmans there who knew the whole of the
+Rig-veda by heart, as they still did in the South of India.
+Manuscripts were never considered in India as of very high authority;
+they were always over-ruled by the oral traditions of certain schools.
+However, such manuscripts, good and bad, but mostly bad, existed, and
+after a time some of them reached England, France, and even Germany.
+Portions of those in Berlin and Paris I had copied and collated, so
+that I could show Bunsen the very book which he had been in search of
+in his youth. This opened his heart to me as well as the doors of his
+house. "I am glad," he said, "to have lived to see the Veda. Whatever
+you want, let me know; I look upon you as myself grown young again."
+And he did help me, as only a father can help his son.
+
+Perhaps he expected too much from the Veda, as many other people did
+at that time, and before the _verba ipsissima_ were printed. As the
+oldest book that ever was composed, the Veda was supposed to give us a
+picture of what man was in his most primitive state, with his most
+primitive ideas, and his most primitive language. Everybody interested
+in the origin and the first development of language, thought,
+religion, and social institutions, looked forward to the Veda as a new
+revelation. All such dreams, natural enough before the Veda was known,
+were dispersed by my laying sacrilegious hands on the Veda itself, and
+actually publishing it, making it public property, to the dismay of
+the Brahmans in India, and to the delight of all Sanskrit scholars in
+Europe. The learned essays of Colebrooke in India, and the extracts
+published by Rosen, the Oriental librarian of the British Museum,
+might indeed have taught people that the Veda was not a book without
+any antecedents, that it would not tell us the secrets of Adam and
+Eve, or of Deukalion and Pyrrha. I myself had both said and written
+that the Veda, like an old oak tree, shows hundreds and thousands of
+circles within circles; and yet I was afterwards held responsible for
+having excited the wildest hopes among archaeologists, when I had done
+my best, if not to destroy them, at all events to reduce them to their
+proper level. Schelling seemed quite disappointed when I showed him
+some of the translations of the hymns of the Rig-veda; and Bunsen,
+who was still under Schelling's influence, had evidently expected a
+great many more of such philosophical hymns as the famous one
+beginning:
+
+"There was not nought nor was there aught at that time."
+
+To the scholar, no doubt, the Veda remained and always will remain the
+oldest of real books, that has been preserved to us in an almost
+miraculous way. By book, however, as I often explained, I mean a book
+divided into chapters and verses, having a beginning and an end, and
+handed down to us in an alphabetic form of writing. China may have
+possessed older books in a half phonetic, half symbolic writing; Egypt
+certainly possessed older hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri;
+Babylon had its cuneiform monuments; and certain portions of the Old
+Testament may have existed in a written form at the time of Josiah,
+when Hilkiah, the high priest, found the law book in the sanctuary (2
+Kings xxii. 8). But the Veda, with its ten books or _Mandalas_, its
+1017 hymns or _Suktas_, with every consonant and vowel and accent
+plainly written, was a different thing. It may safely be called a
+book. No doubt it existed for a long time, as it does even at present,
+in oral tradition, but as it was in tradition, so it was when reduced
+to writing, and in either form I doubt whether any other real book can
+rival it in antiquity. More important, however, than the purely
+chronological antiquity of the book, is the antiquity or primitiveness
+of the thoughts which it contains. If the people of the Veda did not
+turn out to be quite such savages as was hoped and expected, they
+nevertheless disclosed to us a layer of thought which can be explored
+nowhere else. The Vedic poets were not ashamed of exposing their fear
+that the sun might tumble down from the sky, and there are no other
+poets, as far as I know, who still trembled at the same not quite
+unnatural thought. Nor do I find even savages who still wonder and
+express their surprise that black cows should produce white milk. Is
+not that childish enough for any ancient or modern savage? Mere
+chronology is here of as little avail as with modern savages, whose
+customs and beliefs, though known as but of yesterday, are represented
+to us as older than the Veda, older than Babylonian cylinders, older
+than anything written. When certain modern savages recognize the
+relationship of paternity, maternity, and consanguinity, this is
+called very ancient. If they admit traditional restrictions as to
+marriage, food, the treatment of the dead, nay, even a life to come,
+this too, no doubt, may be very old; but it may be of yesterday also.
+There are even quite new gods, whose genesis has been watched by
+living missionaries. The great difficulty in all such researches is to
+distinguish between what is common to human nature, and what is really
+inherited or traditional. All such questions have only as yet been
+touched upon, and they must wait for their answer till real scholars
+will take up the study of the language of living savages, in the same
+scholarlike spirit in which they have taken up the study of Vedic and
+Babylonian savages. But we must have patience and learn to wait. 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 civilized. It may safely be said of this
+as of other mere ideas, that it may be true, but that there is no
+evidence to show that it is true. At all events it takes much for
+granted, and neglects, as it would seem, the very lessons which the
+theory of evolution has taught us. It is the nature of evolution to be
+continuous, and not to proceed _per saltum_. Therein lies the beauty
+of genealogical evolution that we can recognize the fibres which
+connect the upper strata with the lower, till we strike the lowest, or
+at least that which contains what seem to be the seeds and germs of
+early thoughts, words, and acts. We can trace the most modern forms of
+language back to Sanskrit, or rather to that postulated linguistic
+stratum of which Sanskrit formed the most prominent representative,
+just as we can trace the French _Dieu_ back to Latin _Deus_ and
+Sanskrit _Devas_, the brilliant beings behind the phenomena of nature;
+and again behind them, _Dyaus_, the brilliant sky, the Greek _Zeus_,
+the Roman _Iovis_ and _Iuppiter_, the most natural of all the Aryan
+gods of nature. This is real evolution, a real causal nexus between
+the present and the past. It used to be called history or pragmatic
+history, whether we take history in the sense of the description of
+evolution, or in that of evolution itself. History has generally to
+begin with the present, to go back to the past, and to point out the
+palpable steps by which the past became again and again the present.
+Evolution, on the contrary, prefers to begin with the distant past, to
+postulate formations, even if they have left no traces, and to speak
+of those almost imperceptible changes by which the postulated past
+became the perceptible present, as not only necessary, but as real.
+Perhaps the difference is of no importance, but the historical method
+seems certainly the more accurate, and the more satisfactory from a
+purely scientific point of view.
+
+In all such evolutionary researches language has always been the most
+useful instrument, 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 principles. Here, too, no doubt,
+intermediate links which must have existed, are sometimes lost beyond
+recovery, and when we arrive at the very roots of language, we feel
+that there may have been whole aeons before that radical period. Here
+science must recognize her inevitable horizons, but here again no
+surviving literary monument could carry us so far as the Veda. Hence
+its supreme importance for Aryan philology--for the philology of the
+most important languages of historical mankind. Other languages,
+whether Babylonian or Accadian, whether Hottentot or Maori, may be,
+for all we know, much more ancient or much more primitive; but, as
+scientific explorers, we can only speak of what we know, and we must
+renounce all conjectures that go beyond facts.
+
+In all these researches no one took a livelier interest and encouraged
+me more than Bunsen. When some of my translations of the Vedic hymns
+seemed fairly satisfactory, I used to take them to him, and he was
+always delighted at seeing a little more of that ancient Aryan torso,
+though at the time he was more specially interested in Egyptian
+chronology and archaeology. Often when I was alone with him did we
+discuss the chronological and psychological dates of Egyptian and
+Aryan antiquity. Kind-hearted as he was, Bunsen could get very
+excited, nay, quite violent in arguing, and though these fits soon
+passed off, yet it made discussions between His Excellency the
+Prussian Minister and a young German scholar somewhat difficult. At
+that time much less was known of the earliest Egyptian chronology than
+is now. But I was never much impressed by mere dates. If a king was
+supposed to have lived 5,000 years before our era, "What is that to
+us?" I used to say, "He sits on his throne _in vacuo_, and there is
+nothing to fix him by, nothing contemporary which alone gives interest
+to history. In India we have no dates; but whatever dates and names of
+kings and accounts of battles the Egyptian inscriptions may give us,
+as a book there is nothing so old in Egypt as the Veda in India.
+Besides, we have in the Veda thoughts; and in the chronology of
+thought the Veda seems to me older than even the Book of the Dead."
+
+As to the actual date of the Veda, I readily granted that
+chronologically it was not so old as the pyramids, but supposing it
+had been, would that in any way have increased its value for our
+studies? If we were to place it at 5000 B. C., I doubt whether anybody
+could refute such a date, while if we go back beyond the Veda, and
+come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit and of
+the Proto-Aryan language I doubt very much whether even 5,000 years
+would suffice for that. There is an unfathomable depth in language,
+layer following after layer, long before we arrive at roots, and what
+a time and what an effort must have been required for their
+elaboration, and for the elaboration of the ideas expressed in them.
+
+Our battles waxed sometimes very fierce, but we generally ended by
+arriving at an understanding. As a young man, Bunsen had clearly
+perceived the importance of the Veda for an historical study of
+mankind and the growth of the human mind, but he was not discouraged
+when he saw that it gave us less than had been expected. "It is a
+fortress," he used to say, "that must be besieged and taken, it cannot
+be left in our rear." But he little knew how much time it would take
+to approach it, to surround it, and at last to take it. It has not
+been surrendered even now, and will not be in my time. It is true
+there are several translations of the whole of the Rig-veda, and their
+authors deserve the highest credit for what they have done. People
+have wondered why I have not given one of them in my Sacred Books of
+the East. I thought it was more honest to give, in co-operation with
+Oldenburg, specimens only in vols. xxxii and xlvi of that series, and
+let it be seen in the notes how much uncertainty there still is, and
+how much more of hard work is required, before we can call ourselves
+masters of the old Vedic fortress.
+
+Bunsen's interest in my work, however, took a more practical turn than
+mere encouragement. It was no good encouraging me to copy and collate
+Sanskrit MSS. if they were not to be published. He saw that the East
+India Company were the proper body to undertake that work. Bunsen's
+name was a power in England, and his patronage was the very best
+introduction that I could have had. It was no easy task to persuade
+the Board of Directors--all strictly practical and commercial men--to
+authorize so considerable an expenditure, merely to edit and print an
+old book that none of them could understand, and many of them had
+perhaps never even heard of. Bunsen pointed out what a disgrace it
+would be to them, if some other country than England published this
+edition of the Sacred Books of the Brahmans.
+
+Professor Wilson, Librarian of the Company, also gave my project his
+support, and at last, not quite a year after my arrival in England,
+after a long struggle and many fears of failure, it was settled that
+the East India Company were to bear the cost of printing the Veda, and
+were meanwhile to enable me to stay in London, and prepare my work for
+press.
+
+I had already been working five years copying and collating, and my
+first volume of the Rig-veda was progressing, but it was only when all
+was settled that I realized how much there was still to do, and that I
+should have very hard work indeed before the printing could begin. I
+must enter into some details to show the real difficulties I had to
+face.
+
+I felt convinced that the first thing to do was to publish a correct
+text of the Rig-veda. That was not so difficult, though it brought me
+the greatest kudos. The MSS. were very correct, and the text could
+easily be restored by comparing the Pada and Sanhit� texts, i. e. the
+text in which every word was separated, and the text in which the
+words were united according to the rules of Sandhi. Anybody might have
+done that, yet this, as I said, was the part of my work for which I
+have received the greatest praise.
+
+When my edition of the Rig-veda containing text and commentary was
+nearly finished, another scholar, who had assisted me in my work, and
+who had always had the use of my MSS., my Indices, in fact of the
+whole of my _apparatus criticus_, published a transcript of the text
+in Latin letters, and thus anticipated part of the last volume of my
+edition. His friends, who were perhaps not mine, seemed delighted to
+call him the first editor of the Rig-veda, though they ceased to do so
+when they discovered misprints or mistakes of my own edition repeated
+in his. He himself was far above such tactics. He knew, and they knew
+perfectly well that, whatever the _vulgus profanum_ may think, my real
+work was the critical edition of S�yana's commentary on the Rig-veda.
+I had determined that this also should be edited according to the
+strictest rules of criticism. I knew what an amount of labour that
+would involve, but I refused to yield to the pressure of my colleagues
+to proceed more quickly but less critically.
+
+S�yana quotes a number of Sanskrit works which, at the time when I
+began my edition, had not yet been edited. Such were the Nirukta, the
+glossary of the Rig-veda; the Aitareya-br�hmana, a very old
+explanation of the Vedic sacrifice; the �sval�yana S�tras, on the
+ceremonial; and sundry works of the same character. S�yana generally
+alludes very briefly only to these works and presupposes that they are
+known to us, so that a short reference would suffice for his purposes.
+To find such references and to understand them required, however, not
+only that I should copy these works, which I did, but that I should
+make indices and thus be able to find the place of the passages to
+which he alluded. This I did also, but over and over again was I
+stopped by some short enigmatical reference to P�nini's grammar or
+Yaska's glossary, which I could not identify. All these references are
+now added to my edition, and those who will look them up in the
+originals, will see what kind of work it was which I had to do before
+a single line of my edition could be printed. How often was I in
+perfect despair, because there was some allusion in S�yana which I
+could not make out, and which no other Sanskrit scholar, not even
+Burnouf or Wilson, could help me to clear up. It often took me whole
+days, nay, weeks, before I saw light. A good deal of the commentary
+was easy enough. It was like marching on the high road, when suddenly
+there rises a fortress that has to be taken before any further advance
+is to be thought of. In the purely mechanical part other men could and
+did help me. But whenever any real difficulty arose, I had to face it
+by myself, though after a time I gladly acknowledged that here, too,
+their advice was often valuable to me. In fact I found, and all my
+assistants seemed to have found out the same, that if they were
+useful to me, the work they did for me was useful to them, and I am
+proud to say that nearly all of them have afterwards risen to great
+prominence in Sanskrit scholarship. From time to time I also worked at
+interpreting and translating some of the Vedic hymns, though I had
+always hoped that this part of the work would be taken up by other
+scholars.
+
+Bunsen was also my social sponsor in London, and my first peeps into
+English society were at the Prussian Legation. He often invited me to
+his breakfast and dinner parties, and when I saw for the first time
+the magnificent rooms crowded with ministers, and dukes, and bishops,
+and with ladies in their grandest dresses, I was as in a dream, and
+felt as if I had been lifted into another world. Men were pointed out
+to me such as Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Van der Weyer,
+the Belgian Minister, Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's and author of
+the _History of Greece_, Archdeacon Hare, Frederick Maurice, and many
+more whom I did not know then, though I came to know several of them
+afterwards. Anybody who had anything of his own to produce was welcome
+in Bunsen's house, and among the men whom I remember meeting at his
+breakfast parties, were Rawlinson, Layard, Hodgson, Birch, and many
+more. Those breakfast parties were then quite a new institution to me,
+and it is curious how entirely they have gone out of fashion, though
+Sir Harry Inglis, Member for Oxford, Gladstone, Member for Oxford,
+Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), kept them up to the last,
+while in Oxford they survived perhaps longer than anywhere else. They
+had one great advantage, people came to them quite fresh in the
+morning; but they broke too much into the day, particularly when, as
+at Oxford, they ended with beer, champagne, and cigars, as was
+sometimes the case in undergraduates' rooms.
+
+How I was able to swim in that new stream, I can hardly understand
+even now. I had been quite unaccustomed to this kind of society, and
+was ignorant of its simplest rules. Bunsen, however, was never put out
+by my gaucheries, but gave me friendly hints in feeling my way through
+what seemed to me a perfect labyrinth. He told me that I had offended
+people by not returning their calls, or not leaving a card after
+having dined with them, paying the so-called digestion-visit to them.
+How should I know? Nobody had ever told me, and I thought it obtrusive
+to call. Nor did I know that in England to touch fish with a knife, or
+to help yourself to potatoes with a fork, was as fatal as to drop or
+put in an _h_. 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
+fork, often scattering it over your plate and possibly over the
+table-cloth. I must confess also that fish-knives always seemed to me
+more civilized than forks in dividing fish, but fish-knives did not
+exist when I first came to England. 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 discarded. Let us hope it is
+by the survival of the fittest. When I first went to Oxford everybody
+took wine with his neighbours, now it is only at such conservative
+colleges as my own--All Souls--that the old custom still survives. But
+then we have not even given up wax candles yet, and we look upon gas
+as a most objectionable innovation.
+
+Another great difficulty I had was in writing letters and addressing
+my friends properly as Sir, or Mr. Smith, or Smith. I was told that
+the rule was very simple and that you addressed everybody exactly as
+they addressed you. What was the consequence? When I received an
+invitation to dine with the Bishop of Oxford who addressed me as "My
+dear Sir," I wrote back "My dear Sir," and said that I should be very
+happy. How Samuel Wilberforce must have chuckled when he read my
+epistle. But how is any stranger to know all the intricacies of social
+literature, particularly if he is wrongly informed by the highest
+authorities. I must confess that even later in life I have often been
+puzzled as to the right way of addressing my friends. There is no
+difficulty about intimate friends, but as one grows older one knows
+so many people more or less intimately, and according to their
+different characters and stations in life, one often does not know
+whether one offends by too great or too little familiarity. I was once
+writing to a very eminent man in London who had been exceedingly
+friendly to me at Oxford, and I addressed him as "My dear Professor
+H." At the end of his answer he wrote, "Don't call me Professor." All
+depends on the tone in which such words are said. I imagined that
+living in fashionable society in London, he did not like the somewhat
+scholastic title of Professor which, in London particularly, has
+always a by-taste of diluted omniscience and conceit. I accordingly
+addressed him in my next letter as "My dear Sir," and this, I am sorry
+to say, produced quite a coldness and stiffness, as my friend
+evidently imagined that I declined to be on more intimate terms with
+him, the fact being that through life I have always been one of his
+most devoted admirers. I did my best to conform to all the British
+institutions, as well as I could, though in the beginning I must no
+doubt have made fearful blunders, and possibly given offence to the
+truly insular Briton. Bunsen seemed to delight in asking me whenever
+he had Princes or other grandees to lunch or dine with him.
+
+One day he took me with him to stay at Hurstmonceux with Archdeacon
+Hare, and a delightful time it was. There were books in every room,
+on the staircase, and in every corner of the house, and the Archdeacon
+knew every one of them, and as soon as a book was mentioned, he went
+and fetched it. He generally knew the very place at which the passage
+that was being discussed, occurred, and excelled even the famous dog,
+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 _History_, and at once climbed up the ladder
+and brought down from the shelf the very volume in which the disputed
+passage occurred. He had been taught this one trick of fetching a
+certain volume from the shelves of the library, and the conversation
+was turned and turned till it was brought round to a passage in that
+very volume. The guests were, no doubt, amazed, but as it was before
+the days of Darwin and Lubbock, it led to no more than a good laugh. I
+was surprised and delighted at the honesty with which the Archdeacon
+admitted the weak points of the Anglican system, and the dangers which
+threatened not only the Church, but the religion of England. The real
+danger, he evidently thought, came from the clergy, and their
+hankering after Rome. "They have forgotten their history," he said,
+"and the sufferings which the sway of a Roman priesthood has inflicted
+for centuries on their country." I think it was he who told me the
+story of a young Romanizing curate, who declared that he could never
+see what was the use of the laity.
+
+One day when I called on Bunsen with my books, and I frequently called
+when I had something new to show him, he said: "You must come with me
+to Oxford to the meeting of the British Association." This was in
+1847. Of course I did not know what sort of thing this British
+Association was, but Bunsen said he would explain it all to me, only I
+must at once sit down and write a paper. He, Bunsen, was to read a
+paper on the "Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference
+to Asiatic and African Ethnology and the Classification of Languages,"
+and he wanted Dr. Karl Meyer and myself to support him, the former
+with a paper on Celtic Philology, and myself with a paper on the Aryan
+and Aboriginal Languages of India. I assured him that this was quite
+beyond me. I had hardly been a year in England, and even if I could
+write, I knew but too well that I could not read a paper before a
+large audience. However, Bunsen would take no refusal. "We must show
+them what we have done in Germany for the history and philosophy of
+language," he said, "and I reckon on your help." There was no escape,
+and to Oxford I had to go. I was fearfully nervous, for, as Prince
+Albert was to be present, ever so many distinguished people had
+flocked to the meeting, and likewise some not very friendly
+ethnologists, such as Dr. Latham, and Mr. Crawford, known by the name
+of the Objector General. Our section was presided over by the famous
+Dr. Prichard, the author of that classical work, _Researches into the
+Physical History of Mankind_, in five volumes, and it was he who
+protected me most chivalrously against the somewhat frivolous
+objections of certain members, who were not over friendly towards
+Prince Albert, Chevalier Bunsen, and all that was called German in
+scholarship. All, however, went off well. Bunsen's speech was most
+successful, and it is a pity that it should be buried in the
+_Transactions of the British Association for 1847_. At that time it
+was considered a great honour that his speech should appear there _in
+extenso_. When Bunsen declared that he would not give it, unless Dr.
+Meyer's paper and my own were published in the _Transactions_ at the
+same time, there was renewed opposition. I was so little proud of my
+own essay, that I should much rather have kept it back for further
+improvement, but printed it was in the _Transactions_, and much
+canvassed at the time in different journals.
+
+I have always been doubtful about the advantages of these public
+meetings, so far as any scientific results are concerned. Everybody
+who pays a guinea may become a member and make himself heard, whether
+he knows anything on the subject or not. The most ignorant men often
+occupy the largest amount of time. Some people look upon these
+congresses simply as a means of advertising themselves, and I have
+actually seen quoted among a man's titles to fame the fact that he had
+been a member of certain congresses. Another drawback is that no one,
+not even the best of scholars, is quite himself before a mixed
+audience. Whereas in a private conversation a man is glad to receive
+any new information, no one likes to be told in public that he ought
+to have known this or that, or that every schoolboy knows it. Then
+follows generally a squabble, and the best pleader is sure to have the
+laughter on his side, however ignorant he may be of the subject that
+is being discussed. But Dr. Prichard was an excellent president and
+moderator, and though he had unruly spirits to deal with, he succeeded
+in keeping up a certain decorum among them. Dr. Prichard's authority
+stood very high, and justly so, and his _Researches into the Physical
+History of Mankind_ still remain unparalleled in ethnology. His
+careful weighing of facts and difficulties went out of fashion when
+the theory of evolution became popular, and every change from a flea
+to an elephant was explained by imperceptible degrees. He dealt
+chiefly with what was perceptible, with well-observed facts, and many
+of the facts which he marshalled so well, require even now, in these
+post-Darwinian days I should venture to say, renewed consideration.
+Like all great men, he was wonderfully humble, and allowed me to
+contradict him, who ought to have been proud to listen and to learn
+from him.
+
+But though I cannot say that the result of these meetings and
+wranglings was very great or valuable, I spent a few most delightful
+days at Oxford, and I could not imagine a more perfect state of
+existence than to be an undergraduate, a fellow, or a professor there.
+A kind of silent love sprang up in my heart, though I hardly confessed
+it to myself, much less to the object of my affections. I knew I had
+to go back to be a University tutor or even a master in a public
+school in Germany, and that was a hard life compared with the freedom
+of Oxford. To be independent and free to work as I liked, that was
+everything to me, but how I ever succeeded in realizing my ideal, I
+hardly know. At that time I saw nothing but a life of drudgery and
+severe struggle before me, but I did not allow myself to dwell on it;
+I simply worked on, without looking either right or left, behind or
+before.
+
+While at Oxford on this my first flying visit, I had a room in
+University College, the very college in which my son was hereafter to
+be an undergraduate. My host was Dr. Plumptre, the Master of the
+College, a tall, stiff, and to my mind, very imposing person. He was
+then Vice-Chancellor, and I believe I never saw him except in his cap
+and gown and with two bedels walking before him, the one with a gold,
+the other with a silver poker in his hands. We have no Esquire bedels
+any longer! All the professors, too, and even the undergraduates,
+dressed in their mediaeval academic costume, looked to me very grand,
+and so different from the German students at Leipzig or still more at
+Jena, walking about the streets in pink cotton trousers and
+dressing-gowns. It seemed to me quite a different world, and I made
+new discoveries every day. Being with Bunsen I was invited to all the
+official dinners during the meeting of the British Association, and
+here, too, the Vice-Chancellor acted his part with becoming dignity.
+He never unbent; he never indulged in a joke or joined in the laughter
+of his neighbours. When I remarked on his immovable features, I was
+told that he slept in starched sheets--and I believed it. At one of
+these dinners, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte caused a titter during a
+speech about the freedom which people enjoyed in England. "In France,"
+he said, "with all the declamations about _Libert�_, _�galit�_,
+_Fraternit�_, there is very little freedom, and, with all the trees of
+_libert�_ which are being planted along the boulevards, there is very
+little of real liberty to be found there!" "But you in England," he
+finished, "you have your old tree of liberty, which is always
+flowering and showering _peas_ on the whole world." He wanted to say
+peace. We tried to look solemn but failed, and a suppressed laugh went
+round till it reached the Vice-Chancellor. There it stopped. He was
+far too well bred to allow a single muscle of his face to move. "He
+throws a cold blanket on everything," my neighbour said; and my
+knowledge of English was still so imperfect that I accepted many of
+these metaphorical remarks in their literal sense, and became more and
+more puzzled about my host. It was evidently a pleasure to my friends
+to see how easily I was taken in. On the walls of the houses at Oxford
+I saw the letters F. P. about ten feet from the ground. Of course it
+was meant for Fire Plug, but I was told that it marked the height of
+the Vice-Chancellor, whose name was Frederick Plumptre.
+
+My visit to Oxford was over all too soon, and I returned to London to
+toil away at my Sanskrit MSS. in the little room that had been
+assigned to me in the Old East India House in Leadenhall Street. That
+building, too, in which the reins of the mighty Empire of India were
+held, mostly by the hands of merchants, has vanished, and the place of
+it knoweth it no more. However, I thought little of India, I only
+thought of the library at the East India House, a real Eldorado for an
+eager Sanskrit student, who had never seen such treasures before. I
+saw little else there, I only remember seeing Tippoo Sahib's tiger
+which held an English soldier in his claws, and was regularly wound up
+for the benefit of visitors, and then uttered a loud squeak, enough to
+disturb even the most absorbed of students. I felt quite dazed by all
+the books and manuscripts placed at my disposal, and revelled in them
+every day till it became dark, and I had to walk home through Ludgate
+Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, generally carrying ever so many books
+and papers under my arms. I knew nobody in the city, and no one knew
+me; and what did I care for the world, as long as I had my beloved
+manuscripts?
+
+In March, 1848, I had to go over to Paris to finish up some work
+there, and just came in for the revolution. From my windows I had a
+fine view of all that was going on. I well remember the pandemonium in
+the streets, the aspect of the savage mob, the wanton firing of shots
+at quiet spectators, the hoisting of Louis Philippe's nankeen trousers
+on the flag-staff of the Tuileries. When bullets began to come through
+my windows, I thought it time to be off while it was still possible.
+Then came the question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts,
+&c., belonging to the East India Company, to the train. The only
+railway open was the line to Havre, which had been broken up close to
+the station, but further on was intact, and in order to get there we
+had to climb three barricades. I offered my _concierge_ five francs to
+carry my box, but his wife would not hear of his risking his life in
+the streets; ten francs--the same result; but at the sight of a louis
+d'or she changed her mind, and with an "Allez, mon ami, allez
+toujours," dispatched her husband on his perilous expedition. Arrived
+in London I went straight to the Prussian Legation, and was the first
+to give Bunsen the news of Louis Philippe's flight from Paris. Bunsen
+took me off to see Lord Palmerston, 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 Paris. So even a poor scholar had to
+play his small part in the events that go to make up history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD
+
+
+It had been settled that my edition of the Rig-veda should be printed
+at the Oxford University Press, and I found that I had often to go
+there to superintend the printing. Not that the printers required much
+supervision, as I must say that the printing at the University Press
+was, and is, excellent--far better than anything I had known in
+Germany. In providing copy for a work of six volumes, each of about
+1000 pages, it was but natural that _lapsus calami_ should occur from
+time to time. What surprised me was that several of these were
+corrected in the proof-sheets sent to me. At last I asked whether
+there was any Sanskrit scholar at Oxford who revised my proof-sheets
+before they were returned. I was told there was not, but that the
+queries were made by the printer himself. That printer was an
+extraordinary man. His right arm was slightly paralysed, and he had
+therefore been put on difficult slow work, such as Sanskrit. There are
+more than 300 types which a printer must know in composing Sanskrit.
+Many of the letters in Sanskrit are incompatible, i. e. they cannot
+follow each other, or if they do, they have to be modified. Every
+_d_, for instance, if followed by a _t_, is changed to _t_; every _dh_
+loses its aspiration, becomes likewise _t_, or changes the next _t_
+into _dh_. Thus from _budh_ + _ta_, we have _Buddha_, i. e. awakened.
+In writing I had sometimes neglected these modifications, but in the
+proof-sheets these cases were always either queried or corrected. When
+I asked the printer, who did not of course know a word of Sanskrit,
+how he came to make these corrections, he said: "Well, sir, my arm
+gets into a regular swing from one compartment of types to another,
+and there are certain movements that never occur. So if I suddenly
+have to take up types which entail a new movement, I feel it, and I
+put a query." An English printer might possibly be startled in the
+same way if in English he had to take up an _s_ immediately following
+an _h_. 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 Sanskrit. In spite of the extreme accuracy of my
+printer, however, I saw, that after all it would be better for myself,
+and for the Veda, if I were on the spot, and I decided to migrate from
+London to Oxford.
+
+My first visit had filled me with enthusiasm for the beautiful old
+town, which I regarded as an ideal home for a student. Besides, I
+found that I was getting too gay in London, and in order to be able to
+devote my evenings to society, I had to get up and begin work soon
+after five. May, therefore, saw me established for the first time in
+Oxford, in a small room in Walton Street. The moving of my books and
+papers from London did not take long. At that time my library could
+still be accommodated in my portmanteau, it had not yet risen to
+12,000 volumes, threatening to drive me out of my house. A happy time
+it was when I possessed no books which I had not read, and no one sent
+books to me which I did not want, and yet had to find a place for in
+my rooms, and to thank the author for his kindness.
+
+I at once found that my work went on more rapidly at Oxford than in
+London, though if I had expected to escape from all hospitality I
+certainly was not allowed to do that. Accustomed as I was to the
+Spartan diet of a German _convictorium_, or a dinner at the Palais
+Royal _� deux francs_, the dinners to which I was invited by some of
+the Fellows in Hall, or in Common Room, surprised me not a little. The
+old plate, the old furniture, and the whole style of living, impressed
+me deeply, particularly the after-dinner railway, an ingenious
+invention for lightening the trouble of the guests who took wine in
+Common Room. There was a small railway fixed before the fireplace, and
+on it a wagon containing the bottles went backwards and forwards,
+halting before every guest till he had helped himself. That railway, I
+am afraid, is gone now; and what is more serious, the pleasant, chatty
+evenings spent in Common Room are likewise a thing of the past.
+Married Fellows, if they dine in Hall, return home after dinner, and
+junior Fellows go to their books or pupils. In my early Oxford days, a
+married Fellow would have sounded like a solecism. The story goes that
+married Fellows were not entirely unknown, and that you could hold
+even a fellowship, if you could hold your tongue. Young people,
+however, who did not possess that gift of silence, had often to wait
+till they were fifty, before a college living fell vacant, and the
+quinquagenarian Fellow became a young husband and a young vicar.
+
+What impressed me, however, even more than the great hospitality of
+Oxford, was the real friendliness shown to an unknown German scholar.
+After all, I had done very little as yet, but the kind words which
+Bunsen and Dr. Prichard had spoken about me at the meeting of the
+British Association, had evidently produced an impression in my favour
+far beyond what I deserved. I must have seemed a very strange bird,
+such as had never before built his nest at Oxford. I was very young,
+but I looked even younger than I was, and my knowledge of the manners
+of society, particularly of English society, was really nil. Few
+people knew what I was working at. Some had a kind of vague impression
+that I had discovered a very old religion, older than the Jewish and
+the Christian, which contained the key to many of the mysteries that
+had puzzled the ancient, nay, even the modern world. Frequently, when
+I was walking through the streets of Oxford, I observed how people
+stared at me, and seemed to whisper some information about me.
+Tradespeople did not always trust me, though I never owed a penny to
+anybody; when I wanted money I could always make it by going on faster
+with printing the Rig-veda, for which I received four pounds a sheet.
+This seemed to me then a large sum, though many a sheet took me at
+first more than a week to get ready, copy, collate, understand, and
+finally print. If I was interested in any other subject, my exchequer
+suffered accordingly--but I could always retrieve my losses by sitting
+up late at night. Poor as I was, I never had any cares about money,
+and when I once began to write in English for English journals, I had
+really more than I wanted. My first article in the _Edinburgh Review_
+appeared in October, 1851.
+
+At that time the idea of settling at Oxford, of remaining in this
+academic paradise, never entered my head. I was here to print my
+Rig-veda and work at the Bodleian; that I should in a few years be an
+M.A. of Christ Church, a Fellow of the most exclusive of colleges,
+nay, a married Fellow--a being not even invented then--and a professor
+of the University, never entered into my wildest dreams. I could only
+admire, and admire with all my heart. Everything seemed perfect, the
+gardens, the walks in the neighbourhood, the colleges, and most of all
+the inhabitants of the colleges, both Fellows and undergraduates. 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--could, in fact, govern itself without a Minister of Education
+to appoint professors, without a Royal Commissioner to look after the
+undergraduates and their moral and political sentiments. And here at
+Oxford I was told that the Government did not know Oxford, nor Oxford
+the Government, that the only ruling power consisted in the Statutes
+of the University, that professors and tutors were perfectly free so
+long as they conformed to these statutes, and that certainly no
+minister could ever appoint or dismiss a professor, except the Regius
+professors. "If we want a thing done," my friends used to explain to
+me, "we do it ourselves, as long as it does not run counter to the
+statutes."
+
+But Oxford changes with every generation. It is always growing old,
+but it is always growing young again. There was an old Oxford four
+hundred years ago, and there was an old Oxford fifty years ago. To a
+man who is taking his M.A. degree, Oxford, as it was when he was a
+freshman, seems quite a thing of the past. By the public at large no
+place is supposed to be so conservative, so unchanging, nay, so
+stubborn in resisting new ideas, as Oxford; and yet people who knew it
+forty or fifty years ago, like myself, find it now so changed that,
+when they look back they can hardly believe it is the same place. Even
+architecturally the streets of the University have changed, and here
+not always for the better. Architects unfortunately object to mere
+imitation of the old Oxford style of building; they want to produce
+something entirely their own, which may be very good by itself, but is
+not always in harmony with the general tone of the college buildings.
+I still remember the outcry against the Taylor Institution, the only
+Palladian building at Oxford, and yet everybody has now grown
+reconciled to it, and even Ruskin lectured in it, which he would not
+have done, if he had disapproved of its architecture. He would never
+lecture in the Indian Institute, and wrote me a letter sadly reproving
+me for causing Broad Street to be defaced by such a building, when I
+had had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was very loud in his
+condemnation of other new buildings. He abused even the New Museum,
+though he had a great deal to do with it himself. He had hoped that it
+would be the architecture of the future, but he confessed after a time
+that he was not satisfied with the result.
+
+In his days we still had the old Magdalen Bridge, the Bodleian
+unrestored, and no trams. Ruskin was so offended by the new bridge, by
+the restored Bodleian, and by the tram-cars, that he would go ever so
+far round to avoid these eyesores, when he had to deliver his
+lectures; and that was by no means an easy pilgrimage. There was, of
+course, no use in arguing with him. Most people like the new Magdalen
+Bridge because it agrees better with the width of High Street; they
+consider the Bodleian well restored, particularly now that the new
+stone is gradually toning down to the colour of the old walls, and as
+to tram-cars, objectionable as they are in many respects, they
+certainly offend the eye less than the old dirty and rickety
+omnibuses. The new buildings of Merton, in the style of a London
+police-station, offended him deeply, and with more justice,
+particularly as he had to live next door to them when he had rooms at
+Corpus.
+
+These new buildings could not be helped at Oxford. The stone, with
+which most of the old colleges were built, was taken from a quarry
+close to Oxford, and began to peel off and to crumble in a very
+curious manner. Artists like these chequered walls, and by moonlight
+they are certainly picturesque, but the colleges had to think of what
+was safe. My own college, All Souls, has ever so many pinnacles, and
+we kept an architect on purpose to watch which of them were unsafe and
+had to be restored or replaced by new ones. Every one of these
+pinnacles cost us about fifty pounds, and at every one of our meetings
+we were told that so many pinnacles had been tested, and wanted
+repairing or replacing. Many years ago, when I was spending the whole
+Long Vacation at Oxford, I could watch from my windows a man who was
+supposed to be testing the strength of these pinnacles. He was armed
+with a large crowbar, which he ran with all his might against the
+unfortunate pinnacle. I doubt whether the walls of any Roman castellum
+could have resisted such a ram. I spoke to some of the Fellows, and
+when the builder made his next report to us, we rather objected to the
+large number of invalids. He was not to be silenced, however, so
+easily, but told us with a very grave countenance that he could not
+take the responsibility, as a pinnacle might fall any day on our
+Warden when he went to chapel. This, he thought, would settle the
+matter. But no, it made no impression whatever on the junior Fellows,
+and the number of annual cripples was certainly very much reduced in
+consequence.
+
+It is true that Oxford has always loved what is old better than what
+is new, and has resisted most innovations to the very last. A
+well-known liberal statesman used to say that when any measure of
+reform was before Parliament, he always rejoiced to see an Oxford
+petition against it, for that measure was sure to be carried very
+soon. It should not be forgotten, however, that there always has been
+a liberal minority at Oxford. It is still mentioned as something quite
+antediluvian, that Oxford, that is the Hebdomadal Council, petitioned
+against the Great Western Railway invading its sacred precincts; 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
+world.
+
+Many things, of course, have been changed, and are changing every year
+before our very eyes; but what can never be changed, in spite of some
+recent atrocities in brick and mortar, is the natural beauty of its
+gardens, and the historical character of its architecture. Whether
+Friar Bacon, as far back as the thirteenth century, admired the
+colleges, chapels, and gardens of Oxford, we do not know; and even if
+we did, few of them could have been the same as those which we admire
+to-day. 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 philosopher, who is sometimes claimed as a Fellow of Brasenose
+College, probably long before that College existed; but what is said
+in that play in praise of the University, may at least be taken as a
+recollection of what Greene saw himself, when he took his degree as
+Bachelor of Arts in 1578. In his play of the _History of Friar Bacon_,
+Greene introduces the Emperor of Germany, Henry II, 1212-50, as paying
+a visit to Henry III of England, 1216-73, and he puts into his mouth
+the following lines, which, though they cannot compare with Shelley's
+or Mat Arnold's, are at all events the earliest testimony to the
+natural attractions of Oxford. Anyhow, Shelley's and Mat Arnold's
+lines are well known and are always quoted, so that I venture to quote
+Greene's lines, not for the sake of their beauty, but simply because
+they are probably known to very few of my readers:
+
+    "Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford schools
+     Are richly seated near the river-side:
+     The mountains full of fat and fallow deer,
+     The battling[10] pastures lade with kine and flocks,
+     The town gorgeous with high built colleges,
+     And scholars seemly in their grave attire."
+
+  [10] Will it be believed that the battels (bills) in College
+  are connected with this word?
+
+The mountains round Oxford we must accept as a bold poetical licence,
+whether they were meant for Headington Hill or Wytham Woods. The
+German traveller, Hentzner, who described Oxford in 1598, is more true
+to nature when he speaks of the wooded hills that encompass the plain
+in which Oxford lies.
+
+But while the natural beauty of Oxford has always been admired and
+praised by strangers, the doctors and professors of the old University
+have not always fared so well at the hands of English and foreign
+critics. I shall not quote from Giordano Bruno, who visited England in
+1583-5, and calls Oxford "the widow of true science[11]," but Milton
+surely cannot be suspected of any prejudice against Oxford. Yet he
+writes in 1656 in a letter to Richard Jones: "There is indeed plenty
+of amenity and salubrity in the place when you are there. There are
+books enough for the needs of a University: if only the amenity of the
+spot contributed so much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does
+to pleasant living, nothing would seem wanting to the happiness of the
+place."
+
+  [11] _Opere_, ed. Wagner, i. p. 179.
+
+These ill-natured remarks about the Oxford Dons seem to go on to the
+very beginning of our century. The buildings and gardens are praised,
+but by way of contrast, it would seem, or from some kind of jealousy,
+their inhabitants are always treated with ridicule. Not long ago a
+book was published, _Memoirs of a Highland Lady_. Though published in
+1898, it should be remembered that the memoirs go back as far as 1809.
+Nor should it be forgotten that at that time the authoress was hardly
+more than thirteen years of age, and certainly of a very girlish, not
+to say frivolous, disposition. She stayed some time with the then
+Master of University, Dr. Griffith, and for him, it must be said, she
+always shows a certain respect. But no one else at Oxford is spared.
+She arrived there at the time of Lord Grenville's installation as
+Chancellor of the University. Though so young, she was taken to the
+Theatre, and this is her description of what she saw and heard:--"It
+was a shock to me; I had expected to be charmed with a play, instead
+of being nearly set to sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit.
+There were some purple, and some gold, some robes and some wigs, a
+great crowd, and some stir at times, while a deal of humdrum speaking
+and dumb show was followed by the noisy demonstrations of the
+students, as they applauded or condemned the honours bestowed; but in
+the main I tired of the heat and the mob, and the worry of these
+mornings, and so, depend upon it, did poor Lord Grenville, who sat up
+in the chair of state among the dignitaries, like the Grand Lama in
+his temple guarded by his priests." One thing only she was delighted
+with, that was the singing of Catalani at one of the concerts. Yet
+even here she cannot repress her remark that she sang "Gott safe the
+King." She evidently was a flippant young lady or child, and with her
+sister, who afterwards joined her at Oxford, seems to have found
+herself quite a fish out of water in the grave society of the
+University.
+
+The room in the Master's Lodge which appalled her most and seems to
+have been used as a kind of schoolroom, was the Library, full of
+Divinity books, but without curtains, carpet, or fireplace. Here they
+had lessons in music, drawing, arithmetic, history, geography, and
+French. "And the Master," she adds, "opened to us what had been till
+then a sealed book, the New Testament, so that this visit to Oxford
+proved really one of the fortunate chances of my life."
+
+This speaks well for the young lady, who in later life seems to have
+occupied a most honoured and influential position in Scotch society.
+But Oxford society evidently found no favour in her eyes.
+
+Her uncle and aunt, as she tells us, were frequently out at dinner
+with other Heads of Houses, for there was, of course, no other
+society. These dinners seem to have been very sumptuous, though their
+own domestic life was certainly very simple. For breakfast they had
+tea, and butter on their bread, and at dinner a small glass of ale,
+college home-brewed ale. "How fat we got!" she exclaims. The Master
+seems to have been a man of refined taste, fond of drawing, and what
+was called poker-painting; he was given also to caricaturing, and
+writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently fond of his
+society, but of the other Oxford society she only mentions the
+ultra-Tory politics, and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of
+Houses. "The various Heads," she writes, "with their respective wives,
+were extremely inferior to my uncle and aunt. More than half of the
+Doctors of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small gentry or
+country clergy, or even of a lower grade. Many of these, constant to
+the loves of their youth, brought ladies of inferior manners to grace
+what appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not a good style;
+there was little talent, and less polish, and no sort of knowledge of
+the world. And yet the ignorance of this class was less offensive than
+the assumption of another, when a lady of high degree had fallen in
+love with her brother's tutor, and got him handsomely provided for in
+the Church, that she might excuse herself for marrying him. Of the
+lesser clergy, there were young witty ones--odious; young learned
+ones--bores; and elderly ones--pompous; all, however, of all grades,
+kind and hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble, gentle,
+considerate, and self-sacrificing, had no representative, as far as I
+could see, among these dealers in old wines, rich dinners, fine china,
+and massive plate."
+
+"The religion of Oxford appeared in those days to consist in honouring
+the King and his Ministers, and in perpetually popping in and out of
+chapel. Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer, beaten on
+every staircase half an hour before by a scout. The education was
+suited to Divinity. A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the
+young, riotous community, 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 committed. There were rules that had in a
+general way to be obeyed, and lectures that had to be attended, but as
+for care to give high aims, provide refining amusements, give a worthy
+tone to the character of responsible beings, there was none ever even
+thought of. The very meaning of the word 'education' did not appear to
+be understood. The college was a fit sequel to the school. The young
+men herded together; they lived in their rooms, and they lived out of
+them, in the neighbouring villages, where many had comfortable
+establishments.... All sorts of contrivances were resorted to to
+enable the dissipated to remain out all night, to shield a culprit, to
+deceive the dignitaries." This was in 1809, and even later.
+
+And yet with all this, and while we are told that those who attended
+lectures were laughed at, it seems strange that the best divines, and
+lawyers, and politicians of the first half of our century, some of
+whom we may have known ourselves, must have been formed under that
+system. We can hardly believe that it was as bad as here described,
+and we must remember that much of the _Memoirs_ of this Scotch lady
+can have been written from memory only, and long after the time when
+she and her sister lived at University College. Life there, no doubt,
+may have been very dull, as there were no other young ladies at
+Oxford, and it cannot have been very amusing for these young girls to
+dine with sixteen Heads of Houses, all in wide silk cassocks, scarves
+and bands, one or two in powdered wigs, so that, as we are told, they
+often went home crying. All intercourse with the young men was
+strictly forbidden, though it seems to have been not altogether
+impossible to communicate, from the garden of the Master's Lodge, with
+the young men bending out of the college windows, or climbing down to
+the gardens.
+
+One of these young men, who was at University College at the same
+time, might certainly not have been considered a very desirable
+companion for these two Scotch girls. It was no other than Shelley.
+What they say of him does not tell us much that is new, yet it
+deserves to be repeated. "Mr. Shelley," we read, "afterwards so
+celebrated, was half crazy. He began his career with every kind of
+wild prank at Eton. At University he was very insubordinate, always
+infringing some rule, the breaking of which he knew could not be
+overlooked. He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to about
+these and other irregularities, he was in the habit of making such
+extraordinary gestures, expressive of his humility under reproof, as
+to overset first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing
+tutor. When he proceeded so far as to paste up atheistical squibs on
+the chapel doors, it was considered necessary to expel him privately,
+out of regard to Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who came up at once.
+He and his son left Oxford together."
+
+No one would recognize in this picture the University of Oxford, as it
+is at present. _Nous avons chang� tout cela_ might be said with great
+truth by the Heads of Houses, the Professors, and Fellows of the
+present day. And yet what the Highland lady, or rather the Highland
+girl, describes, refers to times not so long ago but that some of the
+men we have known might have lived through it. How this change came
+about I cannot tell, though I can bear testimony to a few survivals of
+the old state of things.
+
+The Oxford of 1848 was still the Oxford of the Heads of Houses and of
+the Hebdomadal Board. That board consisted almost entirely of Heads of
+Houses, and a most important board it was, considering that the whole
+administration of the University was really in its hands. The
+colleges, on the other hand, were very jealous of their independence;
+and even the authority of the Proctors, who represented the University
+as such, was often contested within the gates of a college. It is
+wonderful that this old system of governing the University through the
+Heads of Houses should have gone on so long and so smoothly. Having
+been trusted by the Fellows of his own society with considerable power
+in the administration of his own college, it was supposed that the
+Head would prove equally useful in the administration of the
+University. A Head of a House became at once a member of the Council.
+And, on the whole, they managed to drive the coach and horses very
+well. But often when I had to take foreigners to hear the University
+Sermon, and they saw a most extraordinary set of old gentlemen walking
+into St. Mary's in procession, with a most startling combination of
+colours, black and red, scarlet and pink, on their heavy gowns and
+sleeves, I found it difficult to explain who they were. "Are they your
+professors?" I was asked. "Oh, no," I said, "the professors don't wear
+red gowns, only Doctors of Divinity and of Civil Law, and as every
+Head of a House must have something to wear in public, he is
+invariably made a Doctor." I remember one exception only, and at a
+much later time, namely, the Master of Balliol, who, like Canning at
+the Congress of Vienna, considered it among his most valued
+distinctions never to have worn the gown of a D.C.L. or D.D. It is
+well known that when Marshal Bl�cher was made a Doctor at Oxford he
+asked, in the innocence of his heart, that General Gneisenau, his
+right-hand man, might at least be made a chemist. He certainly had
+mixed a most effective powder for the French army under Napol�on.
+
+"But," my friend would ask, "have you no _Senatus Academicus_, have
+you no faculties of professors such as there are in all other
+Christian universities?" "Yes and no," I said. "We have professors,
+but they are not divided into faculties, and they certainly do not
+form the _Senatus Academicus_, or the highest authority in the
+University."
+
+It seems very strange, but it is nevertheless a fact, that as soon as
+a good tutor is made a professor, he is considered of no good for the
+real teaching work of the colleges. His lectures are generally
+deserted; and I could quote the names of certain professors who
+afterwards rose to great eminence, but who at Oxford were simply
+ignored and their lecture-rooms deserted. The real teaching or
+coaching or cramming for examination is left to the tutors and Fellows
+of each college, and the examinations also are chiefly in their hands.
+Many undergraduates never see a professor, and, as far as the teaching
+work of the University is concerned, the professorships might safely
+be abolished. And yet, as I could honestly assure my foreign friends,
+the best men who take honour degrees at Oxford are quite the equals of
+the best men at Paris or Berlin. The professors may not be so
+distinguished, but that is due to a certain extent to the small
+salaries attached to some of the chairs. England has produced great
+names both in science and philosophy and scholarship, but these have
+generally drifted to some more attractive or lucrative centres. When I
+first came to Oxford one professor received �40 a year, another
+�1,500, and no one complained about these inequalities. A certain
+amount of land had been left by a king or bishop for endowing a
+certain chair, and every holder of the chair received whatever the
+endowment yielded. The mode of appointing professors was very curious
+at that time. Often the elections resembled parliamentary elections,
+far more regard being paid to political or theological partisanship
+than to scientific qualifications. Every M.A. had a vote, and these
+voters were scattered all over the country. Canvassing was carried on
+quite openly. Travelling expenses were freely paid, and lists were
+kept in each college of the men who could be depended on to vote for
+the liberal or the conservative candidate. Imagine a professor of
+medicine or of Greek being elected because he was a liberal! Some
+appointments rested with the Prime Minister, or, as it was called, the
+Crown; and it was quoted to the honour of the Duke of Wellington, that
+he, when Chancellor of the University, once insisted that the electors
+should elect the best man, and they had to yield, though there were
+electors who would declare their own candidate the best man, whatever
+the opinion of really qualified judges might be. All this election
+machinery is much improved now, though an infallible system of
+electing the best men has not yet been discovered. One single elector,
+who is not troubled by too tender a conscience, may even now vitiate a
+whole election; to say nothing of the painful position in which an
+elector is placed, if he has to vote against a personal friend or a
+member of his own college, 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 University.
+
+It took me some time before I could gain an insight into all this. The
+old system passed away before my very eyes, not without evident
+friction between my different friends, and then came the difficulty of
+learning to understand the working of the new machinery which had been
+devised and sanctioned by Parliament. Reformers arose even among the
+Heads of Houses, as, for instance, Dr. Jeune, the Master of Pembroke
+College, who was credited with having _rajeuni l'ancienne universit�_.
+But he was by no means the only, or even the chief actor in University
+reform. Many of my personal friends, such as Dr. Tait, afterwards
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rev. H. G. Liddell, afterwards Dean of
+Christ Church, Professor Baden-Powell, and the Rev. G. H. S. Johnson,
+afterwards Dean of Wells, with Stanley and Goldwin Smith as
+Secretaries, did honest service in the various Royal and Parliamentary
+Commissions, and spent much of their valuable time in serving the
+University and the country. I could do no more than answer the
+questions addressed to me by the Commissioners and by my friends, and
+this is really all the share I had at that time in the reform of the
+University, or what was called Germanizing the English Universities.
+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 dinner, because the Heads of Houses would no longer
+admit him to their hospitable boards.
+
+Certainly to have been a member of the much abused Hebdomadal Board,
+and a Head of a College in those pre-reform days must have been a
+delightful life. Before the days of agricultural distress the income
+of the colleges was abundant; the authority of the Heads was
+unquestioned in their own colleges; not only undergraduates, but
+Fellows also had to be submissive. No junior Fellow would then have
+dared to oppose his Head at college meetings. If there was by chance
+an obstreperous junior, he was easily silenced or requested to retire.
+The days had not yet come when a Master of Trinity ventured to remark
+that even a junior Fellow might possibly be mistaken. Colleges seemed
+to be the property of the Heads, and in some of them the Fellows were
+really chosen by them, and the rest of the Fellows after some kind of
+examination. The management of University affairs was likewise
+entirely in the hands of the Heads of Colleges, and it was on rare
+occasions only that a theological question stirred the interest of
+non-resident M.A.s, and brought them to Oxford to record their vote
+for or against the constituted authorities. Men like the Dean of
+Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, the Warden of Wadham, Dr. Parsons, and
+the Provost of Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, were in their dominions supreme,
+till the rebellious spirit began to show itself in such men as Dr.
+Jeune, Professor Baden-Powell, A. P. Stanley, Goldwin Smith and
+others.
+
+Nor were there many very flagrant abuses under the old r�gime. It was
+rather the want of life that was complained of. It began to be felt
+that Oxford should take its place as an equal by the side of foreign
+Universities, not only as a high school, but as a home of what then
+was called for the first time "original research." There can be no
+question that as a teaching body, as a high school at the head of all
+the public schools in England, Oxford did its duty nobly. A man who at
+that time could take a Double First was indeed a strong man, well
+fitted for any work in after life. He would not necessarily turn out
+an original thinker, a scholar, or a discoverer in physical science,
+but he would know what it was to know anything thoroughly. To take
+honours at the same time in classics and mathematics required strength
+and grasp, and the effort was certainly considerable, as I found out
+when occasionally I read a Greek or Latin author with a young
+undergraduate friend. What struck me most was the accurate knowledge
+a candidate acquired of special authors and special books, but also
+the want of that familiarity with the language, Greek or Latin, which
+would enable him to read any new author with comparative ease. The
+young men whom I knew at the time they went in for their final
+examination, were certainly well grounded in classics, and what they
+knew they knew thoroughly.
+
+The personal relations existing between undergraduates and their
+tutors were very intimate. A tutor took a pride in his pupils, and
+often became their friend for life. The teaching was almost private
+teaching, and the idea of reading a written lecture to a class in
+college did not exist as yet. It was real teaching with questions and
+answers; while lectures, written and read out, were looked down upon
+as good enough for professors, but entirely useless for the schools.
+The social tone of the University was excellent. Many of the tutors
+and of the undergraduates came of good families, and the struggle for
+life, or for a college living, or college office, was not, as yet, so
+fierce as it became afterwards. College tutors toiled on for life, and
+certainly did their work to the last most conscientiously. There was
+perhaps little ambition, little scheming or pushing, but the work of
+the University, such as the country would have it, was well done. If
+the Honour-Lists were small, the number of utter failures also was not
+very large.
+
+For a young scholar, like myself, who came to live at Oxford in those
+distant days, the peace and serenity of life were most congenial,
+though several of my friends were among the first who began to fret,
+and wished for more work to be done and for better use to be made of
+the wealth and the opportunities of the University. My impression at
+that time was the same as it has been ever since, that a reform of the
+Universities was impossible till the public schools had been
+thoroughly reformed. The Universities must take what the schools send
+them. There is every year a limited number of boys from the best
+schools who would do credit to any University. But a large number of
+the young men who are sent up to matriculate at Oxford are not up to
+an academic standard. Unless the colleges agree to stand empty for a
+year or two, they cannot help themselves, but have to keep the
+standard of the matriculation examination low, and in fact do, to a
+great extent, the work that ought to have been done at school. Think
+of boys being sent up to Oxford, who, after having spent on an average
+six years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line of Greek
+or Latin which they have not seen before. Yet so it was, and so it is,
+unless I am very much misinformed. It is easy for some colleges who
+keep up a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class men;
+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 degree, and few
+people have any idea how little a pass degree may mean. Those tutors
+have indeed hard work to do and get little credit for it, though their
+devotion to their college and their pupils is highly creditable. Fifty
+years ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is now,
+because candidates were not allowed to pass in different subjects at
+different times, but the whole examination had to be done all at once,
+or not at all.
+
+I had naturally made it a rule at Oxford to stand aloof from the
+conflict of parties, whether academical, theological, or political. I
+had my own work to do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude
+my opinions, which naturally were different from those prevalent at
+Oxford. Most people like to wash their dirty linen among themselves;
+and though I gladly talked over such matters with my friends who often
+consulted me, I did not feel called upon to join in the fray. I lived
+through several severe crises at Oxford, and though I had some
+intimate friends on either side, I remained throughout a looker on.
+
+Seldom has a University passed through such a complete change as
+Oxford has since the year 1854. And yet the change was never violent,
+and the University has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated
+and reinvigorated. It has been said that our constitution has now
+become too democratic, and that a University should be ruled by a
+Senatus rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain extent.
+There has been too much unrest, too constant changes, and a lack of
+continuity in the studies and in the government of the University.
+Every three years a new wave of young masters came in, carried a
+reform in the system of teaching and examining, and then left to make
+room for a new wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones had a
+fair trial. Senior members of the University, heads of houses and
+professors, have no more voting power than the young men who have just
+taken their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than these
+young Masters, who always meet together and form a kind of compact
+phalanx when votes are to be taken. There was even a Non-placet club,
+ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the
+reforming party, or threatened to change any established customs,
+whether beneficial or otherwise to the University. The University, as
+such, was far less considered than the colleges, and money drawn from
+the colleges for University purposes was looked upon as robbery,
+though of course the colleges profited by the improvement of the
+University, and the interests of the two ought never to have been
+divided, as little as the interests of an army can be divided from the
+interests of each regiment.
+
+When I came to Oxford there was still practically no society except
+that of the Heads of Houses, and there were no young ladies to grace
+their dinners. Each head took his turn in succession, and had twice or
+three times during term to feed his colleagues. These dinners were
+sumptuous repasts, though they often took place as early as five. To
+be invited to them was considered a great distinction, and, though a
+very young man, I was allowed now and then to be present, and I highly
+appreciated the honour. The company consisted almost entirely of Heads
+of Houses, Canons, and Professors; sometimes there was a sprinkling of
+distinguished persons from London, and even of ladies of various ages
+and degrees. I confess I often sat among them, as we say in German,
+_verrathen und verkauft_. After dinner I saw a number of young men
+streaming in, and thought the evening would now become more lively.
+But far from it. These young men with white ties and in evening dress
+stood in their scanty gowns huddled together on one side of the room.
+They received a cup of tea, but no one noticed them or spoke to them,
+and they hardly dared to speak among themselves. This, as I was told,
+was called "doing the perpendicular," and they must have felt much
+relieved when towards ten o'clock they were allowed to depart, and
+exchange the perpendicular for a more comfortable position, indulging
+in songs and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to join.
+
+At that time I remember only very few houses outside the circle of
+Heads of Houses, where there was a lady and a certain amount of social
+life--the houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor Baden-Powell,
+Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell. In their houses there was less of
+the strict academical etiquette, and as they were fond of music,
+particularly the Donkins, I spent some really delightful evenings with
+them. Nay, as I played on the pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses
+began to patronize music at their evening parties, though no gentleman
+at that time would have played at Oxford. I being a German, and
+Professor Donkin being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play,
+and we certainly had an appreciative, though not always a silent,
+audience.
+
+In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships was still very
+perceptible in the society of the University. No Fellows were allowed
+to marry, and the natural consequence was that most of them waited for
+a college living, a professorship or librarianship, which generally
+came to them when they were no longer young men. Headships of colleges
+also had so long to be waited for that most of them were generally
+filled by very senior and mostly unmarried men. Besides, headships
+were but seldom given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even
+divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity, and for business
+habits. Some of the Fellows gave pleasant and, as I thought, very
+Lucullic dinners in college; and I still remember my surprise when I
+was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at Jesus College. My host
+was Mr. Ffoulkes, who afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an
+Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains, the whole
+furniture and the plate quite confounded me, 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 English.
+
+The City society was completely separated from the University society,
+so that even rich bankers and other gentlemen would never have
+ventured to ask members of the University to dine.
+
+Considering the position then held by the Heads of Houses, I feel I
+ought to devote some pages to describing some of the most prominent of
+them. At my age I may well hold to the maxim _seniores priores_, and
+will therefore begin with Dr. Routh, the centenarian President of
+Magdalen, as, though, the headship of a house seems to be an excellent
+prescription for longevity, there was no one to dispute the venerable
+doctor's claim to precedence in this respect. He was then nearly a
+hundred years old, and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his
+wish to have the _C, anno centesimo_, on his gravestone, for, though
+tired of life, he often declared, so I was told, that he would not be
+outdone in this respect by another very old man, who was a dissenter;
+he never liked to see the Church beaten. I might have made his
+personal acquaintance, some friends of the old President offering to
+present me to him. But I did not avail myself of their offer, because
+I knew the old man did not like to be shown as a curiosity. When I saw
+him sitting at his window he always wore a wig, and few had seen him
+without his wig and without his academic gown. He was certainly an
+exceptional man, and I believe he stood alone in the whole history of
+literature, as having published books at an interval of seventy years.
+His edition of the _Enthymemes_ and _Gorgias of Plato_ was published
+in 1784, his papers on the _Ignatian Epistles_ in 1854. His _Reliquia
+Sacra_ first appeared in 1814, and they are a work which at that time
+would have made the reputation of any scholar and divine. His editions
+of historical works, such as Burnet's _History of his own Time_ and
+the _History of the reign of King James_, show his considerable
+acquaintance with English history. I have already mentioned how he
+used to speak of events long before his time, such as the execution of
+Charles I, as if he had been present; nor did he hesitate to declare
+that even Bishop Burnet was a great liar. He certainly had seen many
+things which connected him with the past. He had seen Samuel Johnson
+mounting the steps of the Clarendon building in Broad Street, and
+though he had not himself seen Charles I when he held his Parliament
+at Oxford, he had known a lady whose mother had seen the king walking
+round the Parks at Oxford.
+
+However, we must not forget that many stories about the old President
+were more or less mythical, as indeed many Oxford stories are. I was
+told that he actually slept in wig, cap and gown, so that once when
+an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle of his College, he put
+his head out of window in an incredibly short time, fully equipped as
+above. Many of these stories or "Common-Roomers" as they were called,
+still lived in the Common Rooms in my time, when the Fellows of each
+College assembled regularly after dinner, to take wine and dessert,
+and to talk on anything but what was called _Shop_, i. e. Greek and
+Latin. No one inquired about the truth of these stories, as long as
+they were well told. In a place like Oxford there exists a regular
+descent, by inheritance, of good stories. I remember stories told of
+Dr. Jenkins, as Master of Balliol, and afterwards transferred to his
+successor, Mr. Jowett. Bodleian stories descended in like manner from
+Dr. Bandinell to Mr. Coxe, and will probably be told of successive
+librarians till they become quite incongruous. I am old enough to have
+watched the descent of stories at Oxford, just as one recognizes the
+same furniture in college rooms occupied by successive generations of
+undergraduates. To me they sometimes seem threadbare like the old
+Turkish carpets in the college rooms, but I never spoil them by
+betraying their age, and, if well told, I can enjoy them as much as if
+I had never heard them before.
+
+Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, was quite a representative of Old
+Oxford, and a well-known character in the University. I had been
+introduced to him by Baron Bunsen, and he showed me much hospitality.
+I was warned that I should find him very stiff and forbidding. His own
+Fellows called him the East-wind. But though he certainly was
+condescending, he treated me with great urbanity. He had a very
+peculiar habit; when he had to shake hands with people whom he
+considered his inferiors, he stretched out two fingers, and if some of
+them who knew this peculiarity of his, tendered him two fingers in
+return, the shaking of hands became rather awkward. One of the Fellows
+of his college told me that, as long as he was only a Fellow, he never
+received more than two fingers; when, however, he became Head Master
+of a school, he was rewarded with three fingers, or even with the
+whole hand, but, as soon as he gave up this place, and returned to
+live in college, he was at once reduced to the statutable two fingers.
+I don't recollect exactly how many fingers I was treated to, and I may
+have shaken them with my whole hand. Anyhow, I am quite conscious now
+of how many times I must have offended against academic etiquette.
+How, for instance, is a man to know that people who live at Oxford
+during term-time never shake hands except once during term? I doubt,
+in fact, whether that etiquette existed when I first came to Oxford,
+but it certainly had existed for some time before I discovered it.
+
+Dr. Jenkins, Master of Balliol, was also the hero of many anecdotes.
+It was of him that it was first told how he once found fault with an
+undergraduate because, whenever he looked out of window, he
+invariably saw the young man loitering about in the quad; to which the
+undergraduate replied: "How very curious, for whenever I cross the
+quad, I always see you, Sir, looking out of window." He had a quiet
+humour of his own, and delighted in saying things which made others
+laugh, but never disturbed a muscle of his own face. One of his
+undergraduates was called Wyndham, and he had to say a few sharp words
+to him at "handshaking," that is, at the end of term. After saying all
+he wanted, he finished in Latin: "Et nunc valeas Wyndhamme,"--the last
+two syllables being pronounced with great emphasis. The Master's
+regard for his own dignity was very great. Once, when returning from a
+solitary walk, he slipped and fell. Two undergraduates seeing the
+accident ran to assist him, and were just laying hands on him to lift
+him up, when he descried a Master of Arts coming. "Stop," he cried,
+"stop, I see a Master of Arts coming down the street." And he
+dismissed the undergraduates with many thanks, and was helped on to
+his legs by the M.A.
+
+Accidents, or slips of the tongue, will happen to everybody, even to a
+Head of a House. One of these old gentlemen, Dr. Symons, of Wadham,
+when presiding at a missionary meeting, had to introduce Sir Peregrine
+Maitland, a most distinguished officer, and a thoroughly good man.
+When dilating on the Christian work which Sir Peregrine had done in
+India, he called him again and again Sir Peregrine Pickle. The effect
+was most ludicrous, for everybody was evidently well acquainted with
+_Roderick Random_, and Sir Peregrine had great difficulty in remaining
+serious when the Chairman called on Sir Peregrine Pickle once more to
+address his somewhat perplexed audience.
+
+But whatever may be said about the old Heads of Houses, most of them
+were certainly gentlemen both by birth and by nature. They are
+forgotten now, but they did good in their time, and much of their good
+work remains. If I consider who were the Dean and Canons and Students
+I met at Christ Church when I first became a member of the House, I
+should have to give a very different account from that given by the
+Highland lady in her _Memoirs_. The Dean of Christ Church, who
+received me, who proposed me for the degree of M.A., and afterwards
+allowed me to become a member of the House, was Dr. Gaisford, a real
+scholar, though it may be of the old school. He was considered very
+rough and rude, but I can only say he showed me more of real courtesy
+in those days than anybody else at Oxford. He was, I believe, a little
+shy, and easily put out when he suspected anybody, particularly the
+young men, of want of consideration. I can quite believe that when an
+undergraduate, in addressing him, stepped on the hearthrug on which he
+was standing, he may have said: "Get down from my hearthrug," meaning,
+"keep at your proper distance." I can only say that I never found him
+anything but kind and courteous. It so happened that he had been made
+a Member of the Bavarian Academy, and I, though very young, had
+received the same distinction as a reward for my Sanskrit work, and
+the Dean was rather pleased when he heard it. When I asked him whether
+he would put my name on the books of the House, he certainly hesitated
+a little, and asked me at last to come again next day and dine with
+him. I went, but I confess I was rather afraid that the Dean would
+raise difficulties. However, he spoke to me very nicely, "I have
+looked through the books," he said, "and I find two precedents of
+Germans being members of the House, one of the name of Wernerus, and
+another of the name of Nitzschius," or some such name. "But," he
+continued, smiling, "even if I had not found these names, I should not
+have minded making a precedent of your case." People were amazed at
+Oxford when they heard of the Dean's courtesy, but I can only repeat
+that I never found him anything but courteous.
+
+Most of the Heads of Houses asked me to dine with them by sending me
+an invitation. The Dean alone first came and called on me. I was then
+living in a small room in Walton Street in which I worked, and dined,
+and smoked. My bedroom was close by, and I generally got up early, and
+shaved and finished my toilet at about 11 o'clock. I had just gone
+into my bedroom to shave, my face was half covered with lather, when
+my landlady rushed in and told me the Dean had called, and my dogs
+were pulling him about. The fact was I had a Scotch terrier with a
+litter of puppies in a basket, and when the Dean entered in full
+academical dress, the dogs flew at him, pulling the sleeves of his
+gown and barking furiously. Covered with lather as I was, I had to
+rush in to quiet the dogs, and in this state I had to receive the Very
+Rev. the Dean, and explain to him the nature of the work that brought
+me to Oxford. It was certainly awkward, but in spite of the disorder
+of my room, in spite also of the tobacco smoke of which the Dean did
+not approve, all went off well, though, I confess, I felt somewhat
+ashamed. In the same interview the Dean asked me about an Icelandic
+Dictionary which had been offered to the press by Cleasby and Dasent.
+"Surely it is a small barbarous island," he said, "and how can they
+have any literature?" I tried, as well as I could, to explain to the
+Dean the extent and the value of Icelandic literature, and soon after
+the press, which was then the Dean, accepted the Dictionary which was
+brought out later by Dr. Vigfusson, in a most careful and scholarlike
+manner. It might indeed safely be called his Dictionary, considering
+how many dictionaries are called, not after the name of the compiler
+or compilers, but after that of their editor.
+
+This Dr. Vigfusson was quite a character. He was perfectly pale and
+bloodless, and had but one wish, that of being left alone. He came to
+Oxford first to assist Dr. Dasent, to whom Cleasby, when he died, had
+handed over his collections; but afterwards he stayed, taking it for
+granted that the University would give him the little he wanted. But
+even that little was difficult to provide, as there were no funds that
+could be used for that purpose, however uselessly other funds might
+seem to be squandered. That led to constant grumbling on his part.
+Ever so many expedients were tried to satisfy him, but none quite
+succeeded. At last he fell ill and died, and when he was a patient at
+the Acland Home, where the nurses did all they could for him, he
+several times said to me when I sat with him, that he had never been
+so happy in his life as in that Home. I sometimes blame myself for not
+having seen more of him at Oxford. But he always seemed to me full of
+suspicions and very easily offended, and that made any free
+intercourse with him difficult and far from pleasant. Perhaps it was
+my fault also. He may have felt that he might have claimed a
+professorship of Icelandic quite as well as I, and he may have grudged
+my settled position in Oxford, my independence and my freedom.
+Whenever we did work together, I always found him pleasant at first,
+but very soon he would become wayward and sensitive, do what I would,
+and I had to let him go his own way, as I went mine.
+
+I remember dining with the famous Dr. Bull, Canon of Christ Church,
+who certainly managed to produce a dinner that would have done credit
+to any French chef. He was one of the last pluralists, and many
+stories were told about him. One story, which however was perfectly
+true, showed at all events his great sagacity. A well-known banker had
+been for years the banker of Christ Church. Dr. Bull who was the
+College Bursar had to transact all the financial business with him. No
+one suspected the banking house which he represented. Dr. Bull,
+however, the last time he invited him to dinner, was struck by his
+very pious and orthodox remarks, and by the change of tone in his
+conversation, such as might suit a Canon of Christ Church, but not a
+luxurious banker from London. Without saying a word, Dr. Bull went to
+London next day, drew out all the money of the college, took all his
+papers from the bank, and the day after, to the dismay of London, the
+bank failed, the depositors lost their money, but Christ Church was
+unhurt.
+
+Another of the Canons of Christ Church at that time had spent half a
+century in the place, and read the lessons there twice every day. Of
+course he knew the prayer-book by heart, and as long as he could see
+to read there was no harm in his reading. But when his eyesight failed
+him and he had to trust entirely to his memory, he would often go from
+some word in the evening prayer to the same word in the marriage
+service, and from there to the burial service, with an occasional slip
+into baptism. 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 away. I frequently stayed at Oxford during vacation, and
+thought of course that the evening service would never end, till at
+last I was asked to name the child, and then I went home.
+
+One Sunday I remember going to chapel, and after prayers had begun the
+following conversation took place, loud enough to be heard all through
+the chapel. Enter old Canon preceded by a beadle. He goes straight to
+his stall, and finding it occupied by a well-known D.D. from London,
+who is deeply engaged in prayer, he stands and looks at the
+interloper, and when that produces no effect, he says to the beadle:
+"Tell that man this is my stall; tell him to get out."
+
+Beadle: "Dr. A.'s compliments, and whether you would kindly occupy
+another stall."
+
+D.D.: "Very sorry; I shall change immediately."
+
+Old Canon settles in his stall, prayers continue, and after about ten
+minutes the Canon shouts: "Beadle, tell that man to dine with me at
+five."
+
+Beadle: "Dr. A.'s compliments, and whether you would give him the
+pleasure of your company at dinner at five."
+
+D.D.: "Very sorry, I am engaged."
+
+Beadle: "D.D. regrets he is engaged."
+
+Old Canon: "Oh, he won't dine!"
+
+The cathedral was very empty, and fortunately this conversation was
+listened to by a small congregation only. I can, however, vouch for
+it, as I was sitting close by and heard it myself.
+
+Bodley's Library, too, was full of good stories, though many of them
+do not bear repeating. When I first began to work there, Dr. Bandinell
+was Bodleian Librarian. Working in the Bodleian was then like working
+in one's private library. One could have as many books and MSS. as one
+desired, and the six hours during which the Library was open were a
+very fair allowance for such tiring work as copying and collating
+Sanskrit MSS. I well remember my delight when I first sat down at my
+table near one of the windows looking into the garden of Exeter. It
+seemed a perfect paradise for a student. I must confess that I
+slightly altered my opinion when I had to sit there every day during a
+severe winter without any fire, shivering and shaking, and almost
+unable to hold my pen, till kind Mr. Coxe, the sub-librarian, took
+compassion on me and brought me a splendid fur that had been sent him
+as a present by a Russian scholar, who had witnessed the misery of the
+Librarian in this Siberian Library. Now all this is changed. The
+Library is so full of students, both male and female, that one has
+difficulty in finding a place, certainly in finding a quiet place; and
+all sorts of regulations have been introduced which have no doubt
+become necessary on account of the large number of readers, but which
+have completely changed, or as some would say, improved the character
+of the place. As to one improvement, however, there can be no two
+opinions. The Library and the reading-room, the so-called Camera, are
+now comfortably warmed, and students may in the latter place read for
+twelve hours uninterruptedly, and not be turned out as we were by a
+warning bell at four o'clock. And woe to you if you failed to obey the
+warning. One day an unfortunate reader was so absorbed in his book
+that he did not hear the bell, and was locked in. He tried in vain to
+attract attention from the windows, for it was no pleasant prospect to
+pass a night among so many ghosts. At last he saw a solitary woman,
+and shouted to her that he was locked in. "No," she said, "you are
+not. The Library is closed at four." Whether he spent the night among
+the books is not known. Let us hope that he met with a less logical
+person to release him from his cold prison.
+
+Dr. Bandinell ruled supreme in his library, and even the Curators
+trembled before him when he told them what had been the invariable
+custom of the Library for years, and could not be altered. And,
+curiously enough, he had always funds at his disposal, which is not
+the case now, and whenever there was a collection of valuable MSS. in
+the market he often prided himself on having secured it long before
+any other library had the money ready. Now and then, it is true, he
+allowed himself to be persuaded by a plausible seller of rare books
+or MSS., but generally he was very wary. He was not always very
+courteous to visitors, and still less so to his under-librarians. The
+Oriental under-librarian Professor Reay, in particular, who was old
+and somewhat infirm, had much to suffer from him, and the language in
+which he was ordered about was such as would not now be addressed to
+any menial. And yet Professor Reay belonged to a very good family,
+though Dr. Bandinell would insist on calling him Ray, and declared
+that he had no right to the e in his name. In revenge some people
+would give him an additional i and call him Dr. Bandinelli, which made
+him very angry, because, as he would say to me, "he had never been one
+of those dirty foreigners." Silence was enjoined in the library, but
+the librarian's voice broke through all rules of silence. I remember
+once, when Professor Reay had been looking for ever so long to find
+his spectacles without which he could not read the Arabic MSS., and
+had asked everybody whether they had seen them, a voice came at last
+thundering through the library: "You left your spectacles on my chair,
+you old ----, and I sat on them!" There was an end of spectacles and
+Arabic MSS. after that. There were two men only of whom Dr. Bandinell
+and H. O. Coxe also were afraid, Dr. Pusey, who was one of the
+Curators, and later on, Jowett, the Master of Balliol.
+
+There was a vacancy in the Oriental sub-librarianship, and a very
+distinguished young Hebrew scholar, William Wright, afterwards
+Professor at Cambridge, was certainly by far the best candidate. But
+as ill-luck--I mean ill-luck for the Library--would have it, he had
+given offence by a lecture at Dublin, in which he declared that the
+people of Canaan were Semitic, and not, as stated in Genesis, the
+children of Ham. No one doubts this now, and every new inscription has
+confirmed it. Still a strong effort was made to represent Dr. Wright
+as a most dangerous young man, and thus to prevent his appointment at
+Oxford. The appointment was really in the hands of Dr. Bandinell; and
+after I had frankly explained to him the motives of this mischievous
+agitation against Dr. Wright, and assured him that he was a scholar
+and by no means given to what was then called "free-handling of the
+Old Testament," he promised me that he would appoint him and no one
+else. However, poor man, he was urged and threatened and frightened,
+and to my great surprise the appointment was given to some one else,
+who at that time had given hardly any proofs of independent work as a
+Semitic scholar, though he afterwards rendered very good and honest
+service. I did not disguise my opinion of what had happened; and for
+more than a year Dr. Bandinell never spoke to me nor I to him, though
+we met almost daily at the library. At last the old man, evidently
+feeling that he had been wrong, came to tell me that he was sorry for
+what had happened, but that it was not his fault: after this, of
+course, all was forgotten. Dr. Wright had a much more brilliant career
+opened to him, first at the British Museum, and then as professor at
+Cambridge, than he could possibly have had as sub-librarian at Oxford.
+He always remained a scholar, and never dabbled in theology.
+
+Some very heated correspondence passed at the time, and I remember
+keeping the letters for a long while. They were curious as showing the
+then state of theological opinion at Oxford; but I have evidently put
+the correspondence away so carefully that nowhere can I find it now.
+Let it be forgotten and forgiven.
+
+Many, if not all, of the stories that I have written down in this
+chapter may be legendary, and they naturally lose or gain as told by
+different people. Who has not heard different versions of the story of
+a well-known Canon of Christ Church in my early days, who, when rowing
+on the river, saw a drowning man laying hold of his boat and nearly
+upsetting it. "Providentially," he explained, "I had brought my
+umbrella, and I had presence of mind enough to hit him over the
+knuckles. He let go, sank, and never rose again." Nobody, I imagine,
+would have vouched for the truth of this story, but it was so often
+repeated that it provided the old gentleman with a nickname, that
+stuck to him always.
+
+I could add more Oxford stories, but it seems almost ill-natured to do
+so, and I could only say in most cases _relata refero_. When I first
+came here Oxford and Oxford society were to me so strange that I
+probably accepted many similar stories as gospel truth. My young
+friends hardly treated me quite fairly in this respect. I had many
+questions to ask, and my friends evidently thought it great fun to
+chaff me and to tell me stories which I naturally believed, for there
+were many things which seemed to me very strange, and yet they were
+true and I had to believe them. The existence of Fellows who received
+from �300 to �800 a year, as a mere sinecure for life, provided they
+did not marry, seemed to me at first perfectly incredible. 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
+employments, particularly if they could gain an exhibition or
+scholarship. But after a man had passed his examinations, the country
+or the government had nothing more to do with him. "Swim or drown" was
+the maxim followed everywhere; and it was but natural that the first
+years of professional life, whether as lawyers, medical men, or
+clergymen, were years of great self-denial. But they were also years
+of intense struggle, 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 employment. To imagine that after the country had done
+its duty by providing schools and universities, it would provide
+crutches for men who ought to learn to walk by themselves, was beyond
+my comprehension, particularly when I was told how large a sum was
+yearly spent by the colleges in paying these fellowships without
+requiring any _quid pro quo_.
+
+Having once come to believe that, and several other to me
+unintelligible things at Oxford, I was ready to believe almost
+anything my friends told me. There are some famous stone images, for
+instance, round the Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum. They are
+hideous, for the sandstone of which they are made has crumbled away
+again and again, but even when they were restored, the same brittle
+stone was used. They are in the form of Hermae, and were planned by no
+less an architect than Sir Christopher Wren. When I asked what they
+were meant for, I was assured quite seriously that they were images of
+former Heads of Houses. I believed it, though I expressed my surprise
+that the stone-mason who made new heads, when the old showed hardly
+more than two eyes and a nose, and a very wide mouth, should carefully
+copy the crumbling faces, because, as I was informed, he had been told
+to copy the former gentlemen.
+
+It was certainly a very common amusement of my young undergraduate
+friends to make fun of the Heads of Houses. They did not seem to feel
+that shiver of unspeakable awe for them of which Bishop Thorold
+speaks; nay, they were anything but respectful in speaking of the
+Doctors of Divinity in their red gowns with black velvet sleeves. If
+it is difficult for old men always to understand young men, it is
+certainly even more difficult for young men to understand old men.
+There is a very old saying, "Young men think that old men are fools,
+but old men know that young men are." Though very young myself, I came
+to know several of the old Heads of Houses, and though they certainly
+had their peculiarities, they did by no means all belong to the age of
+the Dodo. They were enjoying their _otium cum dignitate_, as befits
+gentlemen, scholars, and divines, and they certainly deserved greater
+respect from the undergraduates than they received.
+
+At the annual _Encaenia_, a great deal of licence was allowed to the
+young men; and I know of several strangers, especially foreigners, who
+have been scandalized at the riotous behaviour of the undergraduates
+in the Theatre, the Oxford _Aula_, when the Vice-Chancellor stood up
+to address the assembled audience. My first experience of this was
+with Dr. Plumptre, who, as I have said, was very tall and stately;
+when his first words were not quite distinct, the undergraduates
+shouted, "Speak up, old stick." When the Warden of Wadham, the Rev.
+Dr. Symons, was showing some pretty young ladies to their seats in the
+Theatre, he was threatened by the young men, who yelled at the top of
+their voices, "I'll tell Lydia, you wicked old man." Now Lydia was his
+most excellent spouse. At first the remarks of the undergraduates at
+the _Encaenia_, or rather _Saturnalia_, were mostly good-natured and
+at least witty; but they at last became so rude that distinguished
+men, whom the University wished to honour by conferring on them
+honorary degrees, felt deeply offended. Sir Arthur Helps declared that
+he came to receive an honour, and received an insult. Well do I
+remember the Rev. Dr. Salmon, who was asked where he had left his
+lobster sauce; Dr. Wendell Holmes was shouted at, whether he had come
+across the Atlantic in his "One Hoss Shay"; the Right Hon. W. H.
+Smith, First Lord of the Admiralty, was presented with a Pinafore, and
+Lord Wolseley with a Black Watch. There was a certain amount of wit in
+these allusions, and the best way to take the academic row and riot
+was Tennyson's, who told me on coming out that "he felt all the time
+as if standing on the shingle of the sea shore, the storm howling, and
+the spray covering him right and left." After a time, however, these
+_Saturnalia_ had to be stopped, and they were stopped in a curious
+way, by giving ladies seats among the undergraduates. It speaks well
+for them that their regard for the ladies restrained them, and made
+them behave like gentlemen.
+
+The reign of the Heads of Houses, which was in full force when I first
+settled in Oxford, began to wane when it was least expected. There
+had, however, been grumblings among the Fellows and Tutors at Oxford,
+who felt themselves aggrieved by the self-willed interference of the
+Heads of Colleges in their tutorial work, and, it may be, resented the
+airs assumed by men who, after all, were their equals, and in no sense
+their betters, in the University.
+
+Society distinctly profited when Fellows and Tutors were allowed to
+marry, and when several of the newly-elected of the Heads of Houses,
+having wives and daughters, opened their houses, and had interesting
+people to dine with them from the neighbourhood and from London.
+
+The Deanery of Christ Church was not only made architecturally into a
+new house, but under Dr. Liddell, with his charming wife and
+daughters, became a social centre not easily rivalled anywhere else.
+There one met not only royalty, the young Prince of Wales, but many
+eminent writers, artists, and political men from London, Gladstone,
+Disraeli, Richmond, Ruskin, and many others. Another bright house of
+the new era was that of the Principal of Brasenose, Dr. Cradock, and
+his cheerful and most amusing wife. There one often met such men as
+Lord Russell, Sir George C. Lewis, young Harcourt, and many more. She
+was the true Dresden china marquise, with her amusing sallies, which
+no doubt often gave offence to grave Heads of Houses and sedate
+Professors. No one knew her age, she was so young; and yet she had
+been maid of honour to some Queen, as I told her once, to Queen Anne.
+Having been maid of honour, she never concealed her own peculiar
+feelings about people who had not been presented. When she wanted to
+be left alone, she would look out of window, and tell visitors who
+came to call, "Very sorry, but I am not at home to-day." Queen's
+College also, under Dr. Thomson, the future Archbishop of York, was a
+most hospitable house. Mrs. Thomson presided over it with her peculiar
+grace and genuine kindness, and many a pleasant evening I spent there
+with musical performances. But here, too, the old leaven of Oxford
+burst forth sometimes. Of course, we generally performed the music of
+Handel and other classical authors; Mendelssohn's compositions were
+still considered as mere twaddle by some of the old school. At one of
+these evenings, the old organist of New College, with his wooden leg,
+after sitting through a rehearsal of Mendelssohn's _Hymn of Praise_,
+which I was conducting at the pianoforte, walked up to me, as I
+thought, to thank me; but no, he burst out in a torrent of real and
+somewhat coarse abuse of me, for venturing to introduce such flimsy
+music at Oxford. I did not feel very guilty, and fortunately I
+remained silent, whether from actual bewilderment or from a better
+cause, I can hardly tell.
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max M�ller Aged 30._]
+
+Long before Commissions came down on Oxford a new life seemed to be
+springing up there, and what was formerly the exception became more
+and more the rule among the young Fellows and Tutors. They saw what a
+splendid opportunity was theirs, having the very flower of England
+to educate, having the future of English society to form. They
+certainly made the best of it, helped, I believe, by the so-called
+Oxford Movement, which, whatever came of it afterwards, was certainly
+in the beginning thoroughly genuine and conscientious. The Tutors saw
+a good deal of the young men confided to their care, and the result
+was that even what was called the "fast set" thought it a fine thing
+to take a good class. I could mention a number of young noblemen and
+wealthy undergraduates who, in my early years, read for a first class
+and took it; and my experience has certainly been that those who took
+a first class came out in later life as eminent and useful members of
+society. Not that eminence in political, clerical, literary, and
+scientific life was restricted to first classes, far from it. But
+first-class men rarely failed to appear again on the surface in later
+life. It may be true that a first class did not always mean a
+first-class man, but it always seemed to mean a man who had learned
+how to work honestly, whether he became Prime Minister or Archbishop,
+or spent his days in one of the public offices, or even in a
+counting-house or newspaper office.
+
+I felt it was an excellent mixture if a young man, after taking a good
+degree at Oxford, spent a year or two at a German University. He
+generally came back with fresh ideas, knew what kind of work still had
+to be done in the different branches of study, and did it with a
+perseverance that soon produced most excellent results. Of course
+there was always the difficulty that young men wished to make their
+way in life, that is to make a living. The Church, the bar, and the
+hospital, absorbed many of those who in Germany would have looked
+forward to a University career. In my own subject more particularly,
+my very best pupils did not see their way to gaining even an
+independence, unless they gave their time to first securing a curacy,
+or a mastership at school; and they usually found that, in order to do
+their work conscientiously, they had to give up their favourite
+studies in which they would certainly have done excellent work, if
+there had been no _dira necessitas_. 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 studies. But the feeling
+of the majority was always against what was called derisively Original
+Research, and the fellowship-funds continued to be frittered away,
+payment by results being considered a totally mistaken principle, so
+that often, as in the case of the new septennial fellowships, there
+remained the payment only, but no results.
+
+Still all this became clear to me at a much later time only. My first
+years at Oxford were spent in a perfect bewilderment of joy and
+admiration. No one can see that University for the first time,
+particularly in spring or autumn, without being enchanted with it. To
+me it seemed a perfect paradise, and I could have wished for myself no
+better lot than that which the kindness of my friends later secured
+for me there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD
+
+
+I was still very young when I came to settle at Oxford, only
+twenty-four in fact; and, though occasionally honoured by invitations
+from Heads of Houses and Professors, I naturally lived chiefly with
+undergraduates and junior Fellows, such as Grant, Sellar, Palgrave,
+Morier, and others. Grant, afterwards Sir Alexander Grant and
+Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was a delightful companion.
+He had always something new in his mind, and discussed with many
+flashes of wit and satire. He possessed an aristocratic contempt for
+anything commonplace, or self-evident, so that one had to be careful
+in conversing with him. But he was generous, and his laugh reconciled
+one to some of his sharp sallies. How little one anticipates the
+future greatness of one's friends. They all seem to us no better than
+ourselves, when suddenly they emerge. Grant had shown what he could do
+by his edition of Aristotle's _Ethics_. He became one of the
+Professors at the new University at Bombay and contributed much to the
+first starting of that University, so warmly patronized by Sir Charles
+Trevelyan. On returning to this country he was chosen to fill the
+distinguished place of Principal of the Edinburgh University. More was
+expected of him when he enjoyed this _otium cum dignitate_, but his
+health seemed to have suffered in the enervating climate of India,
+and, though he enjoyed his return to his friends most fully and
+spending his life as a friend among friends, he died comparatively
+young, and perhaps without fulfilling all the hopes that were
+entertained of him. But he was a thoroughly genial man, and his
+handshake and the twinkle of his eye when meeting an old friend will
+not easily be forgotten.
+
+Sellar was another Scotchman whom I knew as an undergraduate at
+Balliol. When I first came to know him he was full of anxieties about
+his health, and greatly occupied with the usual doubts about religion,
+particularly the presence of evil or of anything imperfect in this
+world. He was an honest fellow, warmly attached to his friends; and no
+one could wish to have a better friend to stand up for him on all
+occasions and against all odds. He afterwards became happily married
+and a useful Professor of Latin at Edinburgh. I stayed with him later
+in life in Scotland and found him always the same, really enjoying his
+friends' society and a talk over old days. He had begun to ail when I
+saw him last, but the old boy was always there, even when he was
+miserable about his chiefly imaginary miseries. Soon after I had left
+him I received his last message and farewell from his deathbed. We
+are told that all this is very natural and what we must be prepared
+for--but what cold gaps it leaves. My thoughts often return to him, as
+if he were still among the living, and then one feels one's own
+loneliness and friendlessness again and again.
+
+Palgrave roused great expectations among undergraduates at Oxford, but
+he kept us waiting for some time. He took early to office life in the
+Educational Department, and this seems to have ground him down and
+unfitted him for other work. He had a wonderful gift of admiring, his
+great hero being Tennyson, and he was more than disappointed if others
+did not join in his unqualified panegyrics of the great poet. At last,
+somewhat late in life, he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford,
+and gave some most learned and instructive lectures. His knowledge of
+English Literature, particularly poetry, was quite astounding. I
+certainly never went to him to ask him a question that he did not
+answer at once and with exhaustive fullness. Some of his friends
+complained of his great command of language, and even Tennyson, I am
+told, found it sometimes too much. All I can say is that to me it was
+a pleasure to listen to him. I owe him particular thanks for having,
+in the kindest manner, revised my first English compositions. He was
+always ready and indefatigable, and I certainly owed a good deal to
+his corrections and his unstinted advice. His _Golden Treasury_ has
+become a national possession, and certainly speaks well both for his
+extensive knowledge and for his good taste.
+
+Lastly there was Morier, of whom certainly no one expected when he was
+at Balliol that he would rise to be British Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg. His early education had been somewhat neglected, but when
+he came to Balliol he worked hard to pass a creditable examination. He
+was a giant in size, very good-looking, and his manners, when he
+liked, most charming and attractive. Being the son of a diplomatist
+there was something both English and foreign in his manner, and he
+certainly was a general favourite at Oxford. His great desire was to
+enter the diplomatic service, but when that was impossible, he found
+employment for a time in the Education Office. But society in London
+was too much for him, he was made for society, and society was
+delighted to receive him. But it was difficult for him at the same
+time to fulfil his duties at the Education Office, and the result was
+that he had to give up his place. Things began to look serious, when
+fortunately Lord Aberdeen, a great friend of his father, found him
+some diplomatic employment; and that once found, Morier was in his
+element. He was often almost reckless; but while several of his
+friends came altogether to grief, he managed always to fall on his
+feet and keep afloat while others went down. As an undergraduate he
+came to me to read Greek with me, and I confess that with such mistakes
+in his Greek papers as [Greek: oi pathoi] instead of [Greek: ta path�],
+I trembled for his examinations. However, he did well in the schools,
+knowing how to hide his weak points and how to make the best of his
+strong ones. I travelled with him in Germany, and when the
+Schleswig-Holstein question arose, he wrote a pamphlet which certainly
+might have cost him his diplomatic career. He asked me to allow it to
+be understood that the pamphlet, which did full justice to the claims
+of Holstein and of Germany, had been written by me. I received many
+compliments, which I tried to parry as well as I could. Fortunately
+Lord John Russell stood by Morier, and his prophecies did certainly
+turn out true. "Don't let the Germans awake from their slumbers and
+find a work ready made for them on which they all agree." But the
+signatories of the treaty of London did the very thing against which
+Morier had raised his warning voice, as the friend of Germany as it
+was, though perhaps not of the Germany that was to be. Schleswig-Holstein
+_meer-umschlungen_ became the match, (the Schwefel-h�lzchen), that was
+to light the fire of German unity, a unity which for a time may not
+have been exactly what England could have wished for, but which in the
+future will become, we hope, the safety of Europe and the support of
+England.
+
+Morier's later advance in his diplomatic career was certainly most
+successful. He possessed the very important art of gaining the
+confidence of the crowned heads and ministers he had to deal with.
+Bismarck, it is true, could not bear him, and tried several times to
+trip him up. Even while Morier was at Berlin, as a Secretary of
+Legation, Bismarck asked for his removal, but Lord Granville simply
+declined to remove a young diplomatist who gave him information on all
+parties in Germany, and to do so had to mix with people whom Bismarck
+did not approve of. Besides, Morier was always a _persona grata_ with
+the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess, and that was enough to make
+Bismarck dislike him. Later in life Bismarck accused him of having
+conveyed private information of the military position of the Germans
+to the French Guards, such information being derived from the English
+Court. The charge was ridiculous. Morier was throughout the war a
+sympathizer with Germany as against France. The English Court had no
+military information to convey or to communicate to Morier, and Morier
+was too much of a diplomatist and a gentleman, if by accident he had
+possessed any such information, to betray such a secret to an enemy in
+the field. Bismarck was completely routed, though his son seemed
+inclined to fasten a duel on the English diplomatist. Morier rose
+higher and higher, and at last became Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
+When I laughed and congratulated him he said, "He must be a great fool
+who does not reach the top of the diplomatic tree." That was too much
+modesty, and yet modesty was not exactly his fault; but he agreed
+with me as to _quam parva sapientia regitur mundus_.
+
+Nothing could seem more prosperous than my friend Morier's career; but
+few people knew how utterly miserable he really was. He had one son,
+in many respects the very image of his father, a giant in stature,
+very handsome, and most attractive. In spite of all we said to him he
+would not send his son to a public school in England, but kept him
+with him at the different embassies, where his only companions were
+the young attach�s and secretaries. He had a private tutor, and when
+that tutor declared that young Morier was fit for the University, his
+father managed to get him into Balliol, recommending him to the
+special care of the Master. He actually lived in the Master's house
+for a time, but enjoyed the greatest liberty that an undergraduate at
+Oxford may enjoy. His father was wrapped up in his boy, but at the
+same time tried to frighten him into hard work, or at least into
+getting through the examinations. All was in vain; young Morier was so
+nervous that he could never pass an examination. What might be
+expected followed, and the father had at last to remove him to begin
+work as an honorary attach� at his own embassy. I liked the young man
+very much, but my own impression is that his nervousness quite
+unfitted him for serious work. The end was beyond description sad. He
+went to South Africa in the police force, distinguished himself very
+much, came back to England, and then on his second voyage to the Cape
+died suddenly on board the steamer. I have seldom seen such utter
+misery as his father's. He loved his son and the son loved his father
+passionately, but the father expected more than it was physically and
+mentally possible for the son to do. Hence arose misunderstandings,
+and yet beneath the surface there was this passionate love, like the
+love of lovers. When I saw my old friend last, he cried and sobbed
+like a child: his heart was really broken. He went on for a few years
+more, suffering much from ill health, but really killed at last by his
+utter misery. I knew him in the bright morning of his life, at the
+meridian of his great success, and last in the dark night when light
+and life seems gone, when the moon and all the stars are extinguished,
+and nothing remains but patient suffering and the hope of a brighter
+morn to come.
+
+How little one dreamt of all this when we were young, and when an
+ambassador, nay, even a professor, seemed to us far beyond the reach
+of our ambition. I could go on mentioning many more names of men with
+whom I lived at Oxford in the most delightful intimacy, and who
+afterwards turned up as bishops, archbishops, judges, ministers, and
+all the rest. True, it is quite natural that it should be so with a
+man who, as I did, began his English life almost as an undergraduate
+among undergraduates. Nearly all Englishmen who receive a liberal
+education must pass either through Oxford or through Cambridge, and I
+was no doubt lucky in making thus early the acquaintance of a number
+of men who later in life became deservedly eminent. The only drawback
+was that, knowing my friends very intimately, 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 demand.
+
+Thomson was a dear friend of mine when he was still a fellow of
+Queen's College. We worked together, as may be seen by my
+contributions to his _Laws of Thought_, and the translation of a Vedic
+hymn which he helped me to make. I think he had a kind of anticipation
+of what was in store for him. Though for a time he had to be
+satisfied, even when he was married, with a very small London living,
+he soon rose in the Church, at a time when clergymen of a liberal way
+of thinking had not much chance of Crown preferment. But having gone
+at the head of a deputation to Lord Palmerston, to inform him that
+Gladstone's next election as member for Oxford was becoming doubtful,
+owing to all the bishoprics being given to the Low Church party--the
+party of Lord Shaftesbury--Palmerston remembered his stately and
+courteous bearing, and when the see of Gloucester fell vacant, gave
+him that bishopric to silence Gladstone's supporters. This was a very
+unexpected preferment at Oxford, but Thomson made such good use of his
+opportunity that, when the Archbishopric of York became vacant, and
+Palmerston found it difficult to make his own or Lord Shaftesbury's
+nominee acceptable to the Queen, he suggested that any one of the
+lately elected bishops approved of by the Crown might go to York, and
+some one else fill the see thus vacated. It so happened that Thomson's
+name was the first to be mentioned, and he was made Archbishop,
+probably one of the youngest Archbishops England has ever known. He
+certainly fulfilled all expectations and proved himself the people's
+Archbishop, for he was himself the son of a small tradesman, a fact of
+which he was never ashamed, though his enemies did not fail to cast it
+in his teeth. 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 me, and was now His Grace the
+Lord Archbishop, with a palace to inhabit and an income of about
+�10,000 a year. However, though as a German and as a friend of Bunsen
+I was looked upon as a kind of heretic, I never made the Archbishop
+blush for his old friend, and I always found him the same to the end
+of his life, kind, courteous, and ready to help, though it is but fair
+to remember that an Archbishop of York is one of the first subjects of
+the Queen, and cannot do or say everything that he might like to do or
+to say. When I had to ask him to do something for a friend of mine,
+who as a clergyman had given great offence by his very liberal
+opinions, he did all he could do, though he might have incurred great
+obloquy by so doing.
+
+But when I think of these men, friends and acquaintances of mine, whom
+I remember as young men, very able and hard working no doubt, yet not
+so entirely different from others who through life remained unknown,
+it is as if I had slept through a number of years and dreamt, and had
+then suddenly awoke to a new life. Some of my friends, I am glad to
+say, I always found the same, whether in ermine or in lawn sleeves;
+others, however, I am sorry to say, had _become_ something, the old
+boy in them had vanished, and nothing was to be seen except the
+bishop, the judge, or the minister.
+
+It was not for me to remind them of their former self, and to make
+them doubt their own identity, but I often felt the truth of Matthew
+Arnold's speeches, who, in social position, never rose beyond that of
+inspector of schools, and who often laughed when at great dinners he
+found himself surrounded by their Graces, their Excellencies, and my
+Lords, recognizing faces that sat below him at school and whose names
+in the class lists did not occupy so high a place as his own. Not that
+Matthew Arnold was dissatisfied; he knew his worth, but, as he himself
+asked for nothing, it is strange that his friends should never have
+asked for something for him, which would have shown to the world at
+large that he had not been left behind in the race. It strikes one
+that while he was at Oxford, few people only detected in Arnold the
+poet or the man of remarkable genius. I had many letters from him, but
+I never kept them, and I often blame myself now that in his, as in
+other cases, I should have thrown away letters as of no importance.
+Then suddenly came the time when he returned to Oxford as the poet, as
+the Professor of poetry, nay, afterwards as the philosopher also,
+placed high by public opinion among the living worthies of England.
+What was sometimes against him was his want of seriousness. A laugh
+from his hearers or readers seemed to be more valued by him than their
+serious opposition, or their convinced assent. He trusted, like
+others, to _persiflage_, and the result was that when he tried to be
+serious, people could not forget that he might at any time turn round
+and smile, and decline to be taken _au grand s�rieux_. People do not
+know what a dangerous game this French _persiflage_ is, particularly
+in England, and how difficult it becomes to exchange it afterwards for
+real seriousness.
+
+Those early Oxford days were bright days for me, and now, when those
+young and old faces, whether undergraduates or archbishops, rise up
+again before me, I being almost the only one left of that happy
+company, I ask again, "Did they also belong to a mere dreamland, they
+who gave life to my life, and made England my real home?" When I first
+saw them at Oxford, I was really an undergraduate, though I had taken
+my Doctor's degree at Leipzig. I lived, in fact, my happy university
+life over again, and it would be difficult to say which academical
+years I enjoyed more, those at Leipzig and Berlin, or those at Oxford.
+There were intermediate years in Paris, but during my stay there I saw
+but little of students and student life. I was too much oppressed with
+cares and anxieties about my present and future to think much of
+society and enjoyment. At Oxford, these cares had become far less, and
+I could by hard work earn as much money as I wanted, and cared to
+spend. In Paris, I was already something of a scholar and writer; at
+Oxford I became once more the undergraduate.
+
+This young society into which I was received was certainly most
+attractive, though that it contained the germs of future greatness
+never struck me at the time. What struck me was the general tone of
+the conversation. Of course, as Lord Palmerston said of himself when
+he was no longer very young, "boys will be boys," but there never was
+anything rude or vulgar in their conversation, and I hardly ever heard
+an offensive remark among them. Most of my friends came from Balliol,
+and were serious-minded men, many of them occupied and troubled by
+religious, philosophical, and social problems.
+
+What puzzled me most was the entire absence of duels. Occasionally
+there were squabbles and high words, which among German students could
+have had one result only--a duel. But at Oxford, either a man
+apologized at once or the next morning, and the matter was forgotten,
+or, if a man proved himself a cad or a snob, he was simply dropped. I
+do not mean to condemn the students' duels in Germany altogether.
+Considering how mixed the society of German universities is, and the
+perfect equality that reigns among them--they all called each other
+"thou" in my time--the son of a gentleman required some kind of
+protection against the son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing
+and fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students, so that there
+remained nothing to a young student who wanted to escape from the
+insults of a young ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a
+challenge was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was the power
+of public opinion at the universities that not another word of insult
+would be uttered. In this way much mischief is prevented. Besides,
+every precaution is taken to guard against fatal accident, and I
+believe there are fewer serious accidents on the _mensura_ than in the
+hunting-field in England. When I was at Leipzig, where we had at least
+four hundred duels during the year, only two fatal accidents happened,
+and they were, indeed, accidents, such as will happen even at
+football. Of course duels can never be defended, but for keeping up
+good manners, also for bringing out a man's character, these academic
+duels seem useful. However small the danger is, it frightens the
+coward and restrains the poltroon. For all that, what has taken place
+in England may in time take place in Germany also, and men will cease
+to think that it is impossible to defend their honour without a piece
+of steel or a pistol. The last thing that a German student desires to
+do in a duel is to kill his adversary. Hence pistol duels, which are
+generally preferred by theological students, because they cannot
+easily get a living if their face is scarred all over, are generally
+the most harmless, except perhaps for the seconds.
+
+Before closing this chapter, I should like to say a few words on the
+impressions which the theological atmosphere of Oxford in 1848
+produced on me, and which even now fills me with wonder and amazement.
+
+When I came to Oxford, I was strongly recommended to Stanley on one
+side, and to Manuel Johnson on the other,--a curious mixture. Johnson,
+the Observer, was extremely kind and hospitable to me. He was a genial
+man, full of love, possibly a little weak, but thoroughly honest, nay,
+transparently so. I met at his house nearly all the leaders of the
+High Church movement, though I never met Newman himself, who had then
+already gone to reside at his retreat at Littlemore. On the other
+hand, Stanley received me with open arms as a friend of Bunsen,
+Frederick Maurice, and Julius Hare, and as I came straight from the
+February revolution in 1848, he was full of interest and curiosity to
+know from me what I had seen in Paris.
+
+At first I knew nothing, and understood nothing of the movement, call
+it ecclesiastical or theological, that was going on at Oxford at that
+time. I dined almost every Sunday at Johnson's house, and at his
+dinners and Sunday afternoon garden parties I met men such as Church,
+Mozley, Buckle, Palgrave, Pollen, Rigaud, Burgon, and Chr�tian, who
+inspired me with great respect, both for their learning and for what I
+could catch of their character. Stanley, on the other hand, Froude,
+and Jowett, proved themselves true friends to me in making me feel at
+home, and initiating me into the secrets of the place. There was,
+however, a curious reticence on both sides, and it was by sudden
+glimpses only that I came to understand that these two sets were quite
+divided, nay, opposed, and had very different ideals before them.
+
+I had been at a German university, and the historical study of
+Christianity was to me as familiar as the study of Roman history.
+Professors whom I had looked up to as great authorities, implicitly to
+be trusted, such as Lotze and Weisse at Leipzig, Schelling and
+Michelet at Berlin, had, after causing in me a certain surprise at
+first, left me with the firm conviction that the Old and New Testament
+were historical books, and to be treated according to the same
+critical principles as any other ancient book, particularly the sacred
+books of the East of which so little was then known, and of which I
+too knew very little as yet; enough, however, to see that they
+contained nothing but what under the circumstances they could
+contain, traditions of extreme antiquity collected by men who gathered
+all they thought would be useful for the education of the people.
+Anything like revelation in the old sense of the word, a belief that
+these books had been verbally communicated by the Deity, or that what
+seemed miraculous in them was to be accepted as historically real,
+simply because it was recorded in these sacred books, was to me a
+standpoint long left behind. To me the questions that occupied my
+thoughts were to what date these books, such as we have them, could be
+assigned, what portions of them were of importance to us, what were
+the simple truths they contained, and what had been added to them by
+later collectors. Well do I remember when, before going to Oxford, I
+spoke to Bunsen of the preface to my Rig-veda, and used the
+expression, "the great revelations of the world," he, perfectly
+understanding what I meant, warned me in his loud and warm voice,
+"Don't say that at Oxford." I could see no harm, nor Bunsen either,
+nor his son who was an Oxford man and a clergyman of the Church of
+England; but I was told that I should be misunderstood. I knew far too
+little to imagine that I had a right to speak of what was fermenting
+and growing within me. During my stay at Leipzig and Berlin, and
+afterwards in my intercourse with Renan and Burnouf, the principles of
+the historical school had become quite familiar to me, but the
+application of these principles to the early history of religion was
+a different matter. How far the Old and the New Testament would stand
+the critical tests enunciated by Niebuhr was a frequent subject of
+controversy, during the time I spent at Paris, between young Renan and
+myself. Though I did not go with him in his reconstruction of the
+history of the Jews and the Jewish religion, and of the early
+Christians and the Christian religion, I agreed with him in principle,
+objecting only to his too free and too idyllic reconstruction of these
+great religious movements. Besides, before all things, I was at that
+time given to philosophical studies, chiefly to an inquiry into the
+limits of our knowledge in the Kantian sense of the word, the origin
+of thought and language, the first faltering and half-mythological
+steps of language in the search for causes or divine agents. All this
+occupied me far more than the age of the Fourth Gospel and its
+position by the side of the Synoptic Gospels. I had talked with
+Schelling and Schopenhauer, and little as I appreciated or understood
+all their teachings, there were certain aspirations left in my mind
+which led me far away beyond the historical foundations of
+Christianity. What can we know? was the question which I often opposed
+to Renan at the very beginning of our conversations and controversies.
+That there were great truths in the teaching and preaching of Christ,
+Renan was always ready to admit, 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 race, Renan's eyes were always
+directed to the evidence, and to what we could still know of the early
+history of Christianity and its Founder. I could not deny that,
+historically speaking, we knew very little of the life, the work, and
+the teachings of Christ; 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
+Christ. To this opinion I remained true through life. I claimed for
+each man the liberty of believing in his own Christ, 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 imagination.
+
+Naturally, when I came to Oxford, I thought these things were familiar
+to all, however much they might admit of careful correction. Nor have
+I any doubt that to some of my friends who were great theologians,
+they were better known than to a young Oriental scholar like myself.
+But unless engaged in conversation on these subjects, and this was
+chiefly the case with my friends of the Stanley party, I did not feel
+called upon to preach what, as I thought, every serious student knew
+quite as well and probably much better than myself, though he might
+for some reason or other prefer to keep silence thereon.
+
+What was my surprise when I found that most of these excellent and
+really learned men were much more deeply interested in purely
+ecclesiastical questions, in the validity of Anglican orders, in the
+wearing of either gowns or surplices in the pulpit, in the question of
+candlesticks and genuflections. "What has all this to do with true
+religion?" I once said to dear Johnson. He laughed with his genial
+laugh, and blowing the smoke of his cigar away, said, "Oh, you don't
+understand!" But I did understand, and a great deal more than he
+expected. Truly religious men, I thought, might please themselves with
+incense and candlesticks, provided they gave no offence to their
+neighbours. It seemed to me quite natural also that men like Johnson,
+with a taste for art, should prefer the Roman ritual to the simple and
+sometimes rather bare service of the Anglican Church, but that things
+such as incense and censers, surplice and gown, should be taken as
+they are, as paraphernalia, the work of human beings, the outcome of
+personal and local influences, as church-service, no doubt, but not as
+service of God. God has to be served by very different things, and
+there is the danger of the formal prevailing over the essential, the
+danger of idolatry of symbols as realities, whenever too much
+importance is attributed to the external forms of worship and divine
+service.
+
+The validity of Anglican orders was often discussed at the
+Observatory, 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
+Wolsey. Anyhow I could not bring myself to see the importance of such
+questions, 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 God. That is what
+I called a truly religious and truly Christian life. What struck me
+particularly, both on the Newman side, and among those whom I met at
+Jowett's and Froude's, was a curious want of openness and manliness in
+discussing these simple questions, simple, if not complicated by
+ecclesiastical theories. When Newman at Iffley was spoken of, it was
+in hushed tones, and when rumours of his going over to Rome reached
+his friends at Oxford, their consternation seemed to be like that of
+people watching the deathbed of a friend. I am sorry I saw nothing of
+Newman at that time; when I sat with him afterwards in his study at
+Birmingham, he was evidently tired of controversy, and unwilling to
+reopen questions which to him were settled once for all, or if not
+settled, at all events closed and relinquished. I could never form a
+clear idea of the man, much as I admired his sermons; his brother and
+his own friends gave such different accounts of him. That even at
+Littlemore he was still faithful to his own national Church, anxious
+only to bring it nearer to its ancient possibly Roman type, can hardly
+be doubted. When he wrote from Littlemore to his friend De Lisle, he
+had no reason to economize the truth. De Lisle hoped that Newman would
+soon openly join the Church of Rome, but Newman answered: "You must
+allow me to be honest with you in adding one thing. 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 ... I must assure you then with great sincerity that I have
+not the shadow of an internal movement known to myself towards such a
+step. While God is with me where I am, I will not seek Him elsewhere.
+I might almost say in the words of Scripture, 'We have found the
+Messias!'..."
+
+How true this is, and yet the same Newman went over to the unreformed
+Church, because the Archbishop of Canterbury had sanctioned Bunsen's
+proposal of an Anglo-German bishopric of Jerusalem, quite forgetful of
+the fact that Synesius also had been bishop of Ptolemais. Again I say,
+What have such matters to do with true religion, such as we read of in
+the New Testament, as an ideal to be realized in our life on earth?
+And it so happened that at the same time I knew of families rendered
+miserable through Newman's influence, of young girls, daughters of
+narrow-minded Anglicans, hurried over to Rome, of young men at Oxford
+with their troubled consciences which under Newman's direct or
+indirect guidance could end only in Rome. Newman's influence must have
+been extraordinary; the tone in which people who wished to free
+themselves from him, who had actually left him, spoke of him, seemed
+tremulous with awe. I would give anything to have known him at that
+time, when I knew him through his disciples only. They were caught in
+various ways. I know of one, a brilliant writer, who had been
+entrusted by Newman with writing some of the _Lives of the Saints_. He
+did it with great industry, 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 insipid, and might be the inventions of their friends; such
+legends, he felt, would take no root on English soil, at all events
+not in the present generation. In consequence he informed Newman that
+he could not keep his promise, or that, if he did so, he must speak
+the truth, tell people what they might believe about these Saints, and
+what was purely fanciful in the accounts of their lives. And what was
+Newman's answer? He did not respect the young man's scruples, but
+encouraged him to go on, because, as he said, people would never
+believe more than half of these Lives, and that therefore some of
+these unsupported legends also might prove useful, if only as a kind
+of ballast.
+
+"I rejoice to hear of your success," he writes, August 21, 1843. "As
+to St. Grimball, of course we must expect such deficiencies; where
+matter is found, it is all gain, and there are plenty of Lives to put
+together, as you will see, when you see the whole list.
+
+"I am rather for _inserting_ (of course discreetly and in way of
+selection) the miracles for which you have not good evidence. (1) They
+are beautiful, you say, and will tell in the narrative. (2) Next you
+can say that the evidence is weak, and this will be bringing credit
+for the others where you say the evidence is strong. People will never
+go _so far_ as your narrative. Cut it down to what is true, and they
+will disbelieve a part of _it_; put in these legends and they will
+compound for the true at the sacrifice of what may be true, but is not
+well attested."
+
+I confess I cannot quite follow. If a man like Newman believed in
+these saints and their miracles, his pleading would become
+intelligible, but it seems from this very letter that he did not, and
+yet he tried to persuade his young friend to go on and not to gather
+the tares, "lest haply he might root up the wheat with them. Let both
+grow together until the harvest." I do not like to judge, 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 truth. And yet this was the man who at one time was
+supposed to draw the best spirits of Oxford with him to Rome. This was
+the man to whom some of the best spirits at Oxford confessed all they
+had to confess, and that could have been very little, and of whom
+they spoke with a subdued whisper as the apostle who would restore all
+faith, and bring back the Anglican sheep to the Roman fold.
+
+I saw and heard all that was going on, the hopes deferred, the secret
+visits to Littlemore, the rumours and more than rumours of Newman's
+defection. Such was the devotion of some of these disciples that they
+expected day by day a great catastrophe or a great victory, for after
+the publication of so many letters written at the time by Wiseman,
+Manning, De Lisle, and others, there can be little doubt that a great
+conversion or perversion of England to the Romish Church was fully
+expected. De Lisle writes: "England is now in full career of a great
+Religious Revolution, this time back to Catholicism and to the Roman
+See as its true centre ... the best friends of Rome in the Anglican
+Church are obliged still to be guarded." Such words admit of one
+meaning only, and if Newman had been followed by a large number of his
+Oxford friends, the results for England might really have been most
+terrible. But here, no doubt, the English national feeling came in.
+What England had suffered under Roman ecclesiastical rule had not yet
+been entirely forgotten, and the idea that a foreign potentate and a
+foreign priesthood should interfere with the highest interests of the
+nation, was fortunately as distasteful as ever, not only to a large
+party of the clergy, but to a still larger party of the laity also.
+It seemed to me very curious that so many of Newman's followers did
+not see the unpatriotic character of their agitation. Either
+subjection to Rome or civil war at home was the inevitable outcome of
+what they discussed very innocently at the Observatory, and little as
+I understood their schemes for the future, I often felt surprised at
+what sounded to me like very unpatriotic utterances.
+
+Another thing that struck me as utterly un-English and has often been
+dwelt on by the historians of this movement, was the curiously secret
+character of the agitation. What has an Englishman to fear when he
+openly protests against what he disapproves of in Church or State? But
+Newman's friends at Oxford behaved really, as has been often said,
+like so many naughty schoolboys, or like conspirators, yet they were
+neither. A very similar charge, however, was brought against the
+liberal party. They also seemed to think that they were out of bounds,
+and were doing in secret what they did not dare to do openly. It is
+well known that one friend of Newman's, who afterwards became a Roman
+Catholic, had a small chapel set up in his bedroom in college, with
+pictures and candles and instruments of flagellation. No one was
+allowed to see this room, till one evening when the flagellant had
+retired after dinner and fallen asleep, the servants found him lying
+before the altar. Nothing remained to him then but to exchange his
+comfortable college rooms for the less comfortable cell of a Roman
+monastery, and little was done by his new friends to make the evening
+of his life serene and free from anxiety. These things were known and
+talked about in Oxford, and generally with anything but the
+seriousness that the subject seemed to me to require. Again at the
+Observatory a point was made of having games in the garden such as
+boccia on a Sunday afternoon, thus evading the strict observance of
+the Sabbath, without openly trying to restore to it the character
+which it had in Roman Catholic countries.
+
+German theology was talked about as a kind of forbidden fruit, as if
+it was not right for them to look at it, to taste it, or to examine
+it. Even years later people were afraid to meet Professor Ewald,
+Bishop Colenso, and other so-called heretics at my house. They even
+fell on poor Ewald at an evening party. Ewald was staying with me and
+working hard at some Hebrew MSS. at the Bodleian. He was then already
+an old man, but in his appearance a powerful and venerable champion.
+He is the only man I remember who, after copying Hebrew MSS. for
+twelve hours at the Bodleian with nothing but a sandwich to sustain
+him, complained of the short time allowed there for work. He came home
+for dinner very tired, and when the conversation or rather the
+disputation began between him and some of our young liberal
+theologians, he spoke in short pithy sentences only. He considered
+himself perfectly orthodox, nay, one of the pillars of religion in
+Germany, and laid down the law with unhesitating conviction. As far as
+I can remember, he was answering a number of questions about St. Paul,
+and what he thought of Christ, of the Kingdom of Christ, and the Life
+to come, and being pestered and driven into a corner by his various
+questioners, and asked at last how he knew St. Paul's secret thoughts,
+he not knowing how to express himself in fluent English, exclaimed in
+a loud voice, "I know it by the Holy Ghost." Here the conversation
+naturally stopped, and poor Ewald was allowed to finish his dinner in
+peace. He had been Professor at Bonn, when Pusey came there as a young
+man to study Hebrew after he had been appointed Canon of Christ Church
+and Professor of Hebrew, and he expressed to me a wish to see Dr.
+Pusey. I told him it would not be easy to arrange a meeting,
+considering how strongly opposed Dr. Pusey was to Ewald's opinions.
+Personally I always found Pusey tolerant, and his kindness to me was a
+surprise to all my young friends. But the fact was, we moved on
+different planes, and though he knew my religious opinions well, they
+only excited a smile, and he often said with a sigh, "I know you are a
+German." 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 terror. He had read more heresy, he used to
+say, than anybody, and he wished no one to pass through the trials
+and agonies through which he had passed, chiefly, I should think,
+during his stay at a German university. The historical element was
+wanting in him, nay, like Hegel, he sometimes seemed to lay stress on
+the unhistorical character of Christianity. My idea, on the contrary,
+was that Christianity was a true historical event, prepared by many
+events that had gone before and alone made it possible and real. Even
+the abyss, if there were such an abyss, was, as it seemed to me, meant
+to be there on our passage through life, and was to be faced with a
+brave heart.
+
+But to return to my first experiences of the theological atmosphere of
+Oxford, I confess I felt puzzled to see men, whose learning and
+character I sincerely admired, absorbed in subjects which to my mind
+seemed simply childish. I expected I should hear from them some new
+views on the date of the gospels, the meaning of revelation, the
+historical value of revelation, or the early history of the Church.
+No, of all this not a word. Nothing but discussions on vestments, on
+private confession, on candles on the altar, whether they were wanted
+or not, on the altar being made of stone or of wood, of consecrated
+wine being mixed with water, of the priest turning his back on the
+congregation, &c. I could not understand how these men, so high above
+the ordinary level of men in all other respects, could put aside the
+fundamental questions of Christianity and give their whole mind to
+what seemed to me rightly called in the newspapers "mere millinery."
+I sought information from Stanley, but he shrugged his shoulders and
+advised me to keep aloof and say nothing. This I was most willing to
+do; I cared for none of these things. My mind was occupied with far
+more serious problems, such as I had heard explained by men of
+profound learning and honest purpose in the great universities of
+Germany; these troubles arose from questions which seemed to me to
+have no connexion with true religion at all. Even the differences
+between the reformed and unreformed churches were to me mere questions
+of history, mere questions of human expediency. I did not consider
+Roman Catholics as heretics--I had known too many of them of
+unblemished character in Germany. I might have regretted the abuses
+which called for reform, the excrescences which had disfigured
+Christianity like many other religions, but which might be tolerated
+as long as they did not lead to toleration for intolerance. Luther
+might no longer appear to me in the light of a perfect saint, but that
+he was right in suppressing the time-honoured abuses of the Roman
+Church admitted with me of no doubt whatsoever. Large numbers always
+had that effect on me, and when I saw how many good and excellent men
+were satisfied with the unreformed teaching of the Roman Church, I
+felt convinced that they must attach a different meaning to certain
+doctrines and ecclesiastical practices from what we did. I had
+learned to discover what was good and true in all religions, and I
+could fully agree with Macaulay when he said, "If people had lived in
+a country where very sensible people worshipped the cow, they would
+not fall out with people who worship saints."
+
+I know that many of my friends on both sides looked upon me as a
+latitudinarian, but my conviction has always been that we could not be
+broad enough. They looked upon me as wishing to keep on good terms
+with high and low and broad, and I made no secret of it, that I
+thought I could understand Pusey as well as Stanley, and assign to
+each his proper place. Stanley was of course more after my own heart
+than Pusey, but Pusey too was a man who interested me very much. I saw
+that he might become a great power whether for good or for evil in
+England. He was, in fact, a historical character, and these were
+always the men who interested me. He was fully aware of his importance
+in England, and the great influence which his name exercised. That
+influence was not always exercised in the right way, so at least it
+seemed to me, particularly when it was directed against such friends
+of mine as Kingsley, Froude, or Jowett. Once, I remember, when he had
+come to my house, 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 God. Curious to say, he relented, and
+admitted that he had used too strong language. To me everything that
+was said of God seemed imperfect, and never to apply to God Himself
+but only to the idea which the human mind had formed of Him. To me
+even the Hindu, if he spoke of Brahman or Krishna, seemed to have
+aimed at the true God, in spite of the idolatrous epithets which he
+used; then how could a man like Frederic Maurice be said to have
+worshipped a different God, considering that we all can but feel after
+Him in the dark, not being able to do more than exclude all that seems
+to us unworthy of Deity?
+
+A very important element in the ecclesiastical views of some of my
+friends was, no doubt, the artistic. If Johnson leant towards Rome, it
+was the more ornate and beautiful service that touched and attracted
+him. I sat near to him in St. Giles' Church; he told me what to do and
+what not to do during service. In spite of the Prayer-book, it is by
+no means so easy as people imagine to do exactly the right thing in
+church, and I had of course to learn a number of prayers and responses
+by heart. To me the service, as it was in my parish church, seemed
+already too ornate, accustomed as I had been to the somewhat bare and
+cold service in the Lutheran Church at Dessau. But Johnson constantly
+complained about the monotonous and mechanical performances of the
+clergy. He had a strong feeling for all that was beautiful and
+impressive in art, and he wanted to see the service of God in church
+full both of reverence and beauty.
+
+Johnson's private collection of artistic treasures was very
+considerable, and I learnt much from the Italian engravings and Dutch
+etchings which he possessed and delighted in showing. I often spent
+happy hours with him examining his portfolios, and wondered how he
+could afford to buy such treasures. But he knew when and where to buy,
+and I believe when his collection was sold after his death, it brought
+a good deal more than it had cost him. Another collection of art was
+that of Dr. Wellesley, the Principal of New Inn Hall, who was a friend
+of Johnson's and had collected most valuable antiquities during his
+long stay in Italy. He was the son of the Marquis of Wellesley, a
+handsome man, with all the refinement and courtesy of the old English
+gentleman. Though not perhaps very useful in the work of the
+University, he was most pleasant to live with, and full of information
+in his own line of study, the history of art, chiefly of Italian art.
+
+The beautiful services of the Roman Church abroad, and particularly at
+Rome, certainly exercised a kind of magic attraction on many of the
+friends of Wiseman and Newman, though one wonders that the sunny
+grandeur of St. Peter's at Rome should ever have seemed more
+impressive than the sombre sublimity and serene magnificence of
+Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, the introduction of a more ornate
+service, even of harmless candlesticks and the often very useful
+incense, had always a secret meaning. They were used as symbols of
+something of which the people had no conception, whereas in the early
+Church they had been really natural and useful.
+
+In the midst of all this commotion, and chiefly secret commotion, I
+felt a perfect stranger; I saw the bright and dark sides, but I
+confess I saw little of what I called religion. Though my own
+religious struggles lay behind me, still there were many questions
+which pressed for a solution, but for which my friends at Oxford
+seemed either indifferent or unprepared. My practical religion was
+what I had learnt from my mother; that remained unshaken in all
+storms, and in its extreme simplicity and childishness answered all
+the purposes for which religion is meant. Then followed, in the
+Universities of Leipzig and Berlin, the purely historical and
+scientific treatment of religion, which, while it explained many
+things and destroyed many things, never interfered with my early ideas
+of right and wrong, never disturbed my life with God and in God, and
+seemed to satisfy all my religious wants. I never was frightened or
+shaken by the critical writings of Strauss or Ewald, of Renan or
+Colenso. If what they said had an honest ring, I was delighted, for I
+felt quite certain that they could never deprive me of the little I
+really wanted. That little could never be little enough; it was like a
+stronghold with no fortifications, no trenches, and no walls around
+it. Suppose it was proved to me that, on geological evidence, the
+earth or the world could not have been created in six days, what was
+that to me? Suppose it was proved to me that Christ could never have
+given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into the swine, what was
+that to me? Let Colenso and Bishop Wilberforce, let Huxley and
+Gladstone fight about such matters; their turbulent waves could never
+disturb me, could never even reach me in my safe harbour. I had little
+to carry, no learned impedimenta to safeguard my faith. If a man
+possesses this one pearl of great price, he may save himself and his
+treasure, but neither the tinselled vestments of a Cardinal, nor the
+triple tiara that crowns the Head of the Church, will serve as
+life-belts in the gales of doubt and controversy. My friends at Oxford
+did not know that, though with my one jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I
+was really richer and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor of
+Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer, may be very long, but
+the prayer of the Publican may have been more efficient than that of
+the Pharisee.
+
+After a time I made an even more painful discovery: I found men, who
+were considered quite orthodox, but who really were without any
+belief. They spoke to me very freely, because they imagined that as a
+German I would think as they did, and that I should not be surprised
+if they looked on me as not quite sincere. It was not only honest
+doubt that disturbed them. They had done with honest doubt, and they
+were satisfied with a kind of Voltairian philosophy, which at last
+ended in pure agnosticism. But even that, even professed agnosticism,
+I could understand, because it often meant no more than a confession
+of ignorance with regard to God, which we all confess, and need not
+necessarily amount to the denial of the existence of Deity. But that
+Voltairian levity which scoffs at everything connected with religion
+was certainly something I did not expect to meet with at Oxford, and
+which even now perplexes me. Of course, I should never think of
+mentioning names, but it seemed to me necessary to mention the fact,
+to complete the curious mosaic of theological and religious thought
+that existed at Oxford at the time of my arrival.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CONFESSION
+
+
+One confession I have to make, and one for which I can hardly hope for
+absolution, whether from my friends or from my enemies. I have never
+done anything; I have never been a doer, a canvasser, a wirepuller, a
+manager, in the ordinary sense of these words. I have also shrunk from
+agitation, from clubs and from cliques, even from most respectable
+associations and societies. Many people would call me an idle,
+useless, and indolent man, and though I have not wasted many hours of
+my life, I cannot deny the charge that I have neither fought battles,
+nor helped to conquer new countries, nor joined any syndicate to roll
+up a fortune. I have been a scholar, a _Stubengelehrter_, and _voil�
+tout_!
+
+Much as I admired Ruskin when I saw him with his spade and
+wheelbarrow, encouraging and helping his undergraduate friends to make
+a new road from one village to another, I never myself took to
+digging, and shovelling, and carting. Nor could I quite agree with
+him, happy as I always felt in listening to him, when he said: "What
+we think, or what we know, or what we believe, is in the end of
+little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do." My
+view of life has always been the very opposite! What we do, or what we
+build up, has always seemed to me of little consequence. Even Nineveh
+is now a mere desert of sand, and Ruskin's new road also has long
+since been worn away. The only thing of consequence, to my mind, is
+what we think, what we know, what we believe! To Ruskin's ears such a
+sentiment was downright heresy, and I know quite well that it would be
+condemned as extremely dangerous, if not downright wicked, by most
+people, particularly in England. My friend, Charles Kingsley, preached
+muscular Christianity, that is, he was always up and doing. Another
+old friend of mine, Carlyle, preached all his life that "it was no use
+talking, if one would not do." There is an old proverb in German, too,
+
+    "Die nicht mit thaten,
+     Die nicht mit rathen";
+
+actually denying the right of giving advice to those who had not taken
+a part in the fight.
+
+However, though I have not been a doer, a _faiseur_, as the French
+would say, I do not wish to represent myself as a mere idle drone
+during the long years of my quiet life. Nor did I stand quite alone in
+looking on a scholar's life--even when I was living in a garret _au
+cinqui�me_--as a paradise on earth. Did not Emerson write, "The
+scholar is the man of the age"? Did not even Mazzini, who certainly
+was constantly up and trying to do, did not even he confess that men
+must die, but that the amount of truth they have discovered does not
+die with them? And Carlyle? Did he ever try to get into Parliament?
+Did he ever accept directorates? Did he join either the Chartists or
+the Special Constables in Trafalgar Square? As in a concert you want
+listeners as well as performers, so in public life, those who look on
+are quite as essential as those who shout and deal heavy blows.
+
+Nature has not endowed everybody with the requisite muscle to be a
+muscular Christian. But it may be said, that even if Carlyle and
+Ruskin were absolved from doing muscular work in Trafalgar Square,
+what excuse could they plead for not walking in procession to Hyde
+Park, climbing up one of the platforms and haranguing the men and
+women and children? I suppose they had the feeling which the razor has
+when it is used for cutting stones: they would feel that it was not
+exactly their _m�tier_. Arguing when reason meets reason is most
+delightful, whether we win or lose; but arguing against unreason,
+against anything that is by nature thick, dense, impenetrable,
+irrational, has always seemed to me the most disheartening occupation.
+Majorities, mere numerical majorities, by which the world is governed
+now, strike me as mere brute force, though to argue against them is
+no doubt as foolish as arguing against a railway train that is going
+to crush you. Gladstone could harangue multitudes; so could Disraeli;
+all honour to them for it. But think of Carlyle or Ruskin doing so!
+Stroking the shell of a tortoise, or the cupola of St. Paul's, would
+have been no more attractive to them than addressing the discontented,
+when in their hundreds and their thousands they descended into the
+streets. All I claim is that there must be a division of labour, and
+as little as Wayland Smith was useless in his smithy, when he hardened
+the iron in the fire for making swords or horse-shoes, was Carlyle a
+man that could be spared, while he sat in his study preparing thoughts
+that would not bend or break.
+
+But I cannot even claim to have been a man of action in the sense in
+which Carlyle was in England, or Emerson in America. They were men who
+in their books were constantly teaching and preaching. "Do this!" they
+said; "Do not do that!" The Jewish prophets did much the same, and
+they are not considered to have been useless men, though they did not
+make bricks, or fight battles like Jehu. But the poor _Stubengelehrte_
+has not even that comfort. Only now and then he gets some unexpected
+recognition, as when Lord Derby, then Secretary of State for India,
+declared that the scholars who had discovered and proved the close
+relationship between Sanskrit and English, had rendered more valuable
+service to the Government of India than many a regiment. This may be
+called a mere assertion, and it is true that it cannot be proved
+mathematically, but what could have induced a man like Lord Derby to
+make such a statement, except the sense of its truth produced on his
+mind by long experience?
+
+However, I can only speak for myself, and of my idea of work. I felt
+satisfied when my work led me to a new discovery, whether it was the
+discovery of a new continent of thought, or of the smallest desert
+island in the vast ocean of truth. I would gladly go so far as to try
+to convince my friends by a simple statement of facts. Let them follow
+the same course and see whether I was right or wrong. But to make
+propaganda, to attempt to persuade by bringing pressure to bear, to
+canvass and to organize, to found societies, to start new journals, to
+call meetings and have them reported in the papers, has always been to
+me very much against the grain. If we know some truth, what does it
+matter whether a few millions, more or less, see the truth as we see
+it? Truth is truth, whether it is accepted now or in millions of
+years. Truth is in no hurry, at least it always seemed to me so. When
+face to face with a man, or a body of men, who would not be convinced,
+I never felt inclined to run my head against a stone wall, or to
+become an advocate and use the tricks of a lawyer. I have often been
+blamed for it, I have sometimes even regretted my indolence or my
+quiet happiness, when I felt that truth was on my side and by my side.
+I suppose there is no harm in personal canvassing, but as much as I
+disliked being canvassed, did I feel it degrading to canvass others. I
+know quite well how often it happened at a meeting when either a
+measure or a candidate was to be carried, that the voters had
+evidently been spoken to privately beforehand, had in the conscience
+of their heart promised their votes. The facts and arguments at the
+meeting itself might all be on one side, but the majority was in
+favour of the other. Men whose time was of little value had been round
+from house to house, a majority had been compacted into an inert
+unreasoning mass; and who would feel inclined to use his spade of
+reason against so much unreason? Some people, more honest than the
+rest, after the mischief was done, would say, "Why did you not call?
+why did you not write letters?" I may be quite wrong, but I can only
+say that it seemed to me like taking an unfair advantage, unfair to
+our opponents, and almost insulting to our friends. Still, from a
+worldly point of view, I was no doubt wrong, and it is certainly true
+that I was often left in a minority. My friends have told me again and
+again that if a good measure or a good man is to be carried, good men
+must do some dirty work. If they cannot do that, they are of no use,
+and I doubt not that I have often been considered a very useless man
+by my political and academic friends, because I trusted to reason
+where there was no reason to trust to. I was asked to write letters,
+to address and post letters, to promise travelling expenses or even
+convivial entertainments at Oxford, to get leaders and leaderettes
+inserted in newspapers. I simply loathed it, and at last declined to
+do it. If a measure is carried by promise, not by argument, if an
+election is carried by personal influence, not by reason, what happens
+is very often the same as what happens when fruit is pulled off a tree
+before it is ripe. It is expected to ripen by itself, but it never
+becomes sweet, and often it rots. A premature measure may be carried
+through the House by a minister with a powerful majority, but it does
+not acquire vitality and maturity by being carried; it often remains
+on the Statute-book a dead letter, till in the end it has to be
+abolished with other rubbish.
+
+However, I have learnt to admire the indefatigable assiduity of men
+who have slowly and partially secured their converts and their
+recruits, and thus have carried in the end what they thought right and
+reasonable. I have seen it particularly at Oxford, where
+undergraduates were indoctrinated by their tutors, till they had taken
+their degree and could vote with their betters. I take all the blame
+and shame upon myself as a useless member of Congregation and
+Convocation, and of society at large. I was wrong in supposing that
+the walls of Jericho would fall before the blast of reason, and wrong
+in abstaining from joining in the braying of rams' horns and the
+shouts of the people. I was fortunate, however, in counting among my
+most intimate friends some of the most active and influential
+reformers in University, Church, and State, and it is quite possible
+that I may often have influenced them in the hours of sweet converse;
+nay, that standing in the second rank, I may have helped to load the
+guns which they fired off with much effect afterwards. I felt that my
+open partnership might even injure them more than it could help them;
+for was it not always open to my opponents to say that I was a German,
+and therefore could not possibly understand purely English questions?
+Besides, there is another peculiarity which I have often observed in
+England. People like to do what has to be done by themselves. It
+seemed to me sometimes as if I had offended my friends if I did
+anything by myself, and without consulting them. Besides, my position,
+even after I had been in England for so many years, was always
+peculiar; for though I had spent nearly a whole life in the service of
+my adopted country, though my political allegiance was due and was
+gladly given to England, still I was, and have always remained, a
+German.
+
+And next to Germany, which was young and full of ideals when I was
+young, there came India, and Indian thought which exercised their
+quieting influence on me. From a very early time I became conscious of
+the narrow horizon of this life on earth, and the purely phenomenal
+character of the world in which for a few years we have to live and
+move and have our being. As students of classical and other Oriental
+history we come to admire the great empires with their palaces and
+pyramids and temples and capitols. What could have seemed more real,
+more grand, more likely to impress the young mind than Babylon and
+Nineveh, Thebes and Alexandria, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome? And now
+where are they? The very names of their great rulers and heroes are
+known to few people only and have to be learnt by heart, without
+telling us much of those who wore them. Many things for which
+thousands of human beings were willing to lay down their lives, and
+actually did lay them down, are to us mere words and dreams, myths,
+fables, and legends. If ever there was a doer, it was Hercules, and
+now we are told that he was a mere myth!
+
+If one reads the description of Babylonian and Egyptian campaigns, as
+recorded on cuneiform cylinders and on the walls of ancient Egyptian
+temples, the number of people slaughtered seems immense, the issues
+overwhelming; and yet what has become of it all? The inroads of the
+Huns, the expeditions of Genghis Khan and Timur, so fully described by
+historians, shook the whole world to its foundations, and now the sand
+of the desert disturbed by their armies lies as smooth as ever.
+
+What India teaches us is that in a state advancing towards
+civilization, there must be always two castes or two classes of men, a
+caste of Brahmans or of thinkers, and a caste of Kshatriyas, who are
+to fight; possibly other castes also of those who are to work and of
+those who are to serve. Great wars went on in India, but they were
+left to be fought by the warriors by profession. The peasants in their
+villages remained quiet, accepting the consequences, whatever they
+might be, and the Brahmans lived on, thinking and dreaming in their
+forests, satisfied to rule after the battle was over.
+
+And what applies to military struggles seems to me to apply to all
+struggles--political, religious, social, commercial, and even
+literary. Let those who love to fight, fight; but let others who are
+fond of quiet work go on undisturbed in their own special callings.
+That was, as far as we can see, the old Indian idea, or at all events
+the ideal which the Brahmans wished to see realized. I do not stand up
+for utter idleness or sloth, not even for drones, though nature does
+not seem to condemn even _hoc genus_ altogether. All I plead for, as a
+scholar and a thinker, is freedom from canvassing, from letter-reading
+and letter-writing, from committees, deputations, meetings, public
+dinners, and all the rest. That will sound very selfish to the ears of
+practical men, and I understand why they should look upon men like
+myself as hardly worth their salt. But what would they say to one of
+the greatest fighters in the history of the world? What would they say
+to Julius Caesar, 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 people?
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abiturienten, Examination at Zerbst, 106
+
+Acland, Dr., 245
+
+Admiration, power of, 90
+
+Aitareya-br�hmana, 203
+
+All Souls' Fellowship, 23
+  -- -- pinnacles, 225, 226
+
+Altenstein, Minister of Instruction, 131
+
+Anglican system, 209
+  -- orders, 291
+
+Anhalt-Dessau, Duchy of, 46
+
+Antiquities hid in etymologies, 152-154
+
+Anti-Semitism, 70, 71
+
+Arnim, Count, 110
+
+Arnold, Matthew, 282-283
+
+Artistic element in the Oxford movement, 303, 304
+
+Aryan speakers may differ in blood, 32
+  -- and aboriginal languages of India, M. M.'s paper on, 210, 211
+
+Aryans of India, 197
+
+Aryas, meaning of, 32
+
+Asval�yana S�tras, 203
+
+Atavism, 17, 25, 26, 27, 30
+
+Atavistic influences, 27
+
+Autobiography, object of M. M. in writing his, vi
+
+Autos, the, 35
+
+
+Babies, studying, 86
+
+Bach family, 34
+
+Baden-Powell, Professor, 238, 245
+
+Bandinell, Dr., 259-261
+
+Bardelli, Abb�, 170
+
+Basedow, von, President, 54
+  -- the Pedagogue, 55, 76
+
+Bathing, 77
+
+Bernays, Professor, 69
+
+Biblioth�que Royale, 167
+
+Biographies, too lenient, 2
+  -- best kind of history, 14
+
+Bismarck, 175
+
+Bl�cher, Marshal, 235
+
+Blum, Robert, 15
+
+Boden Professorship of Sanskrit, vii
+
+Bodleian Library, 258, 259
+
+Boehtlingk, 181, 182, 183
+
+Books, scarcity of, 67
+
+Bopp, 125, 132, 148, 151, 156
+  -- his lectures, 156, 157
+
+Brahmo Somaj, service for the, 61
+
+Breakfast parties, 205
+
+British Association at Oxford, 210, 215
+
+Brockhaus, Professor, 147
+
+Buckle, 287
+
+Bull, Dr., 40, 255, 256
+
+Bunsen, Baron, 5, 13, 16
+  -- first visit to, 190, 191
+  -- his kindness, 193, 199, 221
+
+Burgon, 287
+
+Burnouf, 167, 169, 178, 179-182, 288
+
+
+Camerarius, 51
+
+Canon of Christ Church, an old, 256-258
+
+Canvassing, 312, 313
+
+Carlyle, 310, 311
+
+Carus, Professor, 98, 109
+
+Chartist Deputation, 16
+
+Chr�tian, 287
+
+Christianity, historical teaching of, in Germany, 65, 287, 291
+  -- an historical event, 300
+
+Church, Dr., 287
+
+Church, not for young children, 60
+
+Circumstances, influence of, 24
+
+Clarke, Sir Andrew, 82, 86
+
+Classics, exaggerated praise of the, 101, 102
+  -- -- reactions from, 103
+  -- nothing takes their place, 103
+
+Colebrooke, 192
+
+Colenso, 298, 305
+
+Collegien-Buch, 121, 123-125
+
+Comparative Philology, Professorship of, 12
+
+Congregation and Convocation, why M. M. kept away from, 314, 315
+
+Conscience, the voice of, 63
+
+Coxe, Mr., 258
+
+Cradock, Dr. and Mrs., 267
+
+Crawford, Mr., the Objector General, 211
+
+Curtius, 132, 151
+
+
+Darwin, 2, 11, 17, 131
+
+David, 107, 109
+
+Deafness in M. M.'s family, 29
+
+De Lisle, 293, 296
+
+Dessau, Dukes of, 46
+  -- cheapness of life at, 56, 57
+  -- Gottesacker at, 57
+  -- only two classes at, 73
+  -- trade of, 73
+  -- public school at, 76
+  -- its walls, 89
+  -- M. M.'s world, 89
+  -- simplicity of life at, 92
+  -- -- effect on the character, 92, 96
+  -- moral sayings, 96
+
+Devas, [Greek: Theos], 144
+
+Dieu, Deus, Devas, 197
+
+Donkin, Professor, 246
+
+Double First, 240
+
+Drobisch, 129, 140, 142, 145
+
+Duels at University, 119, 128, 129, 284, 286
+
+Dyaus, Zeus, Iovis, 197
+
+
+Early life, roughing it, 91
+
+East India Company, 14
+
+East India House, 16, 215
+
+Eckart, 107, 109
+
+Eckstein, Baron d', 176, 177
+
+"Edinburgh Review," first article in, 222
+
+Egyptian chronology, 199
+
+"Elsie Venner," 31
+
+Emerson, 310
+
+Encaenia, 265, 266
+  -- jokes at, 265
+
+English and German Doctors, 84, 85
+
+Environment, 17, 18, 25
+
+Ernst, 110
+
+Eternal, _ewig_, 150, 151
+
+Etymologies, 152
+
+Evolution, 198
+
+Ewald, 298, 299, 305
+
+
+Fairy tales, influence of, 50-52
+
+Fear, the feeling of, 88
+
+Feast of Tabernacles, 71
+
+Fellowships, old system of, 246, 247, 263
+
+Forbiger, 99
+
+French master at Dessau, 75
+
+French Revolution, 16, 216
+
+Friar Bacon, 227
+
+Fr�ge, Professor, 109
+  -- his wife and Mendelssohn, 109
+
+Froude, J. A., 8, 287
+
+Funkh�nel, 99
+
+
+Gaisford, Dr., 240, 252-254
+
+Gathy, M., 165, 172
+
+German regiments, hymns sung by, 62
+  -- students, 213
+
+Germany and Germans, prejudice against, 20, 21
+  -- religious feeling in, 62
+
+Germ-plasm, 19, 28
+
+Gewandhaus Concerts, 107
+
+Giordano Bruno on Oxford, 228
+
+Goethe, not always admired, 93
+
+Goldst�cker, 170-172
+
+Goldwin Smith, 238
+
+Gottesacker at Dessau, 57
+
+Grabau, M. M.'s concerts with, 110
+
+Grandfather of M. M., 79-81
+
+Grandmother of M. M., 53
+
+Grant, Sir Alexander, 272, 273
+
+Greene's Oxford, 227
+
+Greenhill, Dr., 245
+
+Grenville, Lord, 229
+
+Greswell, Mr., 245
+
+Griffith, Dr., Master of University, 229
+
+Grimm, 151
+
+Gr�nder, ein, 48
+
+Guizot, 182
+
+
+Habits acquired not hereditable, 33
+
+Hagedorn, Baron, 112-114, 162
+  -- journey with him, 112
+  -- his plan of life for M. M., 113
+
+Hahnemann, 82 _et seq._, 86
+
+Hallam's literary dog, 209
+
+Hare, Archdeacon, 205, 286
+  -- visit to, 208
+
+Hase, 185
+
+Haupt, his Latin Society, 121, 125
+  -- his dislike to modern philology, 155, 156
+
+Hawkins, Dr., 240, 249
+
+Headaches, suffering from, 81 _et seq._
+  -- how cured, 83
+
+Heads of Houses, 234, 264
+  -- -- their power, 239
+
+Hebdomadal Board, 239, 255
+
+Hebrew taught at the Nicolai-Schule, 100
+
+Hegel, 2
+  -- his philosophy, 130-138
+
+Hegel's idea, 133-135
+  -- "Philosophy of Nature," 135, 136
+  -- "Philosophy of Religion," 135, 142
+  -- "Metaphysics," 136
+
+Heinroth, 139
+
+Helps, Sir Arthur, 266
+
+Hentzner, his description of Oxford, 228
+
+Herbart, school of, 129, 140, 142
+
+Heredity, 17
+
+Hermann, Gottfried, 121, 125, 128
+  -- welcomed modern philology, 155
+  -- his kindness to M. M., 156
+
+Hermae round the Theatre, 264
+
+Highland lady at Oxford, 229
+
+Hiller, 107, 109
+  -- his oratorio, 110
+
+Historical method, 198
+  -- events, their influence transitory, 315, 316
+
+Hitopadesa, 51
+
+Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 6, 266
+
+H�nicke, Dr., 78
+
+Horace, "cheekiness" of, 102
+
+Human weaknesses, allowance must be made for, 93, 94
+
+Humboldt, 181
+
+
+Imprisonment, M. M.'s, at University, 118, 119
+
+Indian thought, influence of, 315, 317
+
+Indolence, M. M.'s, 312
+
+Inherited and acquired qualities, difference between, 33
+
+Inspiration and infallibility, 65, 66
+
+Institut de France, 186
+  -- M. M. made Member, 186, 187
+
+
+Jenkins, Dr., Master of Balliol, 250
+
+Jerusalem, Bishopric of, 293
+
+Jews at Dessau, 68, 70
+  -- their privileges in Germany, 70
+
+Johnson, Manuel, 286, 303
+  -- his art treasures, 303
+
+Jowett, Professor, 4, 6, 287
+
+
+Kaliwoda, 107
+
+Kant's "Kritik," 138
+
+Kaspar Hauser, 18
+
+Keshub Chunder Sen, 61
+
+Kingsley, Charles, 5
+  -- and muscular Christianity, 309
+
+Klengel, 147
+
+Kuhn, A., 154
+
+
+Lamartine, 177
+
+Language, influence of, 31
+  -- differentiation of, 31, 32, 33
+  -- science of, 198
+
+Lassen, 23
+
+Latham, Dr., 210
+
+Layard, 11, 205
+
+Leipzig, 15
+  -- school at, 97
+  -- University, 115
+
+Lepsius, 159
+
+Liberals at University, 117, 118
+
+Liddell, Dr., 238
+  -- and Mrs., 267
+
+Liddell's Dictionary, 99
+
+Liszt, 107-111
+
+London, 188
+  -- society, peeps into, 205
+  -- M. M.'s social difficulties, 206-208
+
+Longchamps, 167
+
+Lotze, 129, 136, 139, 287
+
+Louis Lucien Bonaparte, 214
+
+Louis Napoleon, 16
+
+Luther, 64
+  -- his love of fairy tales, 50, 51
+  -- tercentenary, 105
+
+
+Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 251
+
+Mammoth, 18
+
+Manning, 296
+
+Masters, influence of, in German and English schools, 77
+
+Maurice, Frederick, 205, 286
+  -- Pusey's attack on, 302
+
+Memory changes, 39
+
+Mendelssohn family, 33, 34
+
+Mendelssohn, Felix, 107, 110
+  -- his death, 110
+  -- his concert for Liszt, 110, 111
+
+Mendelssohn's "Hymn of Praise," 105
+  -- music in Oxford, 268
+
+Metternich, 72
+  -- his system, 117
+
+Mezzofanti, 30
+
+Michelet, 287
+
+Mill, John Stuart, 7, 14
+  -- his Autos, 7
+
+Mill, Dr., mention of a Vedic hymn printed at Calcutta, 192
+
+Milton on Oxford, 228
+
+Modern Literature, Professorship of, 12
+
+Mommsen, 186, 187
+
+Moncalm, "L'origine de la Pens�e," 10 _n._
+
+Monk, M. M.'s wish to be a, 24
+
+Monument-raising, 47
+
+Morier, 275-279
+
+Mother, M. M.'s, 57-59
+  -- her relations, 54, 55
+
+Mozley, 287
+
+MSS., copying, 179
+
+Mulde, excursion on foot along the, 112
+
+M�ller, Wilhelm, 47, 48
+  -- his poems, 48
+  -- his family, 52, 53
+  -- his home and society, 55
+  -- early death, 56
+  -- monument to, 49
+Music, its influence on M. M., 67
+  -- wished to make it his career, 111
+
+"Myst�res de Paris," 174
+
+
+Natural Science and Mathematics little taught at Nicolai-Schule, 100
+
+Neander, 21, 22
+
+Newman, 286, 292-296
+  -- want of openness in his friends, 292, 296
+  -- his influence, 293
+  -- on "Lives of the Saints," 294, 295
+
+Newspapers few in number, 71
+  -- influence of modern, 72
+  -- old, 74
+
+Nicolai-Schule, 99
+  -- chiefly for classics, 99-101
+
+Niebuhr, 191, 289
+
+Niedner, Dr., 127, 137, 140
+
+Nirukta, the, 203
+
+Nobbe, Dr., 99
+  -- his testimonial, 105
+
+
+Old and young men, 36
+
+Oriental languages, 146
+
+Orl�ans, Duchesse d', 177
+
+Oxford, first visit to, 213
+  -- settled at, 220
+  -- social life at, 220, 221
+  -- changes in, 223-226
+  -- new buildings, 224, 225
+  -- conservative, 226
+  -- Greene's, 227
+  -- Hentzner's description of, 228
+  -- Giordano Bruno on, 228
+  -- Milton on, 228
+  -- society in 1810, 229-231
+  -- great changes in, 243, 244
+  -- society at, in the forties and fifties, 244, 245
+  -- city society of, 245, 246
+  -- high tone of talk, 284
+  -- theological atmosphere at, 286
+  -- trivial questions of ceremony in, 291, 292, 300, 301
+
+
+Palgrave, 274, 287
+
+Palm, Dr., 99
+
+Palmerston, Lord, 16, 217
+
+P�nini, 182
+  -- his grammar, 204
+
+Pantschatantra, 51
+
+Paper, scarcity of, 67
+
+Parental influences, 27
+
+Paris, 15, 162
+
+Paris, journey to, 163, 164
+  -- meals there, 166
+  -- hard struggles in, 173, 283
+
+Patagonians as types of humanity, 88
+
+Peel, Sir Robert, 205
+
+Philanthropinum, 54, 76
+
+Philology, love of, 121
+
+Philosophy, studied by M. M., 129, 137, 146
+
+Physical science, revolt of, against Hegel, 135
+
+Pillar and pillow, 189
+
+"Pitar," father, 153
+
+Pitcairn Islands, 18
+
+Plumptre, Dr., 213, 215, 265
+
+Poems, M. M.'s, 104, 105
+
+Pollen, 287
+
+Pott, 151, 160
+
+Pranks at University, 119, 120
+
+"Presence of mind," 262
+
+Prichard, Dr., 211, 212, 221
+
+Professor's lectures and fees, 121, 122
+
+Professors, feeling of German students for their, 127
+
+Proto-Aryan language, 200
+
+Prowe, Professor, 116, 117
+
+Public schools in Germany, 98
+  -- -- in England need reforming, 242
+
+Pusey, Dr., 261, 299, 302
+
+
+Race, differentiation of, 35
+
+Rawlinson, Sir H., 205
+
+Reay, Professor, 260
+
+Reinaud, 186
+
+Religion, practical, 305, 306
+
+Religious feeling in Germany, 68
+  -- -- great tolerance in, 70, 71
+  -- sentiments must be taught at home, 62
+  -- teaching in school, 63
+
+Renan, 185, 186, 288, 289, 290, 305
+
+Research, fellowships for, 270
+
+Revelation, subjective not objective, 66
+  -- in the old sense, 288
+
+Rigaud, John, 287
+
+Rig-veda, how to publish the, 181, 182
+  -- printing of, 222
+
+Roman Catholic Church, English national feeling opposed to, 296, 297
+
+Rose-bush, vision of the, 43, 44
+
+Roth, 170, 171
+
+Routh, Dr., 247-249
+
+Rubens, Levy, 75
+
+Ruskin, 224
+
+Russell, Sir W., 37, 190
+
+
+Sadowa, and Sixty-six, 38
+
+St. Hilaire, Barth�lemy, 170
+
+St. Petersburg, idea of going to, 181, 183
+
+Salis-Schwabe, Madame, 98
+
+Salmon at Dessau, 56, 57
+
+"Salve caput cruentatum," 59
+
+Sanskrit Professorship, vii, 12
+  -- chair of, at Leipzig, 147
+  -- feeling against, 147
+  -- unedited works, 204
+
+Savigny, Professor, 122
+
+S�yana's Commentary, 202-204
+
+Schelling, 156, 195, 287, 289
+
+Schlegel's "Weisheit der Indier," 146
+
+Schleswig-Holstein question, 276
+
+Schloezer, Karl von, 174, 176
+
+School teaching, 67, 68
+  -- success at, 104, 105
+  -- routine of learning, 120
+
+Schopenhauer, 289
+
+Selbst-Kritik, 6
+
+Self, the, 42
+
+Sellar, Professor, 273, 274
+
+Seminaries and societies at University, 123
+
+Senatus Academicus, 236, 237
+
+Shelley, 233
+
+Simolin, Baron, 55
+
+Sister, M. M.'s, 115, 116
+
+Spiegel, Professor, 147
+
+Sport, M. M.'s dislike of, 80
+
+Stanislas Julien, 185
+
+Stanley, Dr., 5, 41, 238, 286, 287, 302
+
+Steel pens, 67
+
+Stories in Oxford, regular descent of, 248
+
+Strauss, 21, 305
+
+Stubengelehrter, 308, 311
+
+Student Clubs, 116
+
+Student life in Paris, 184
+
+Sunday games at the Observatory, 298
+
+Sykes, Colonel, 16
+
+Symons, Dr., 239, 240, 251
+
+Sympathy in the joys and sufferings of others, 41, 42
+
+
+Tait, Dr., 238
+
+Talents in families, 33-35
+
+Taylorian Professorship, 22
+
+Telegraphs, old, 72
+
+Testimonials, 4
+
+Thalberg, 111
+
+Thirlwall, 205
+
+Thomson, Dr. and Mrs., 267, 268, 280, 281
+
+Tippoo Sahib's tiger, 215
+
+Travelling in the thirties, 111
+
+Troyer, M., and the Duchesse de Wagram, 184
+
+Truth, 312
+
+Turanian languages, M. M.'s letter on, 160, 161
+
+Tutors and Fellows, 236
+  -- -- their influence, 241, 268, 269
+
+
+University, M. M.'s life at, 115, 116
+  -- pranks, 119, 120
+  -- duels at, 119, 128-130
+
+University Press, 218, 219
+
+Upanishads, 169
+
+
+Van der Weyer, 205
+
+Veda, 9, 12-14, 148, 168
+
+Veda, a mystery, 191, 194
+  -- MSS. of, in India, 192
+  -- -- brought to Europe, 193
+  -- oldest of real books, 195
+  -- primitive thought in the, 195, 197-199
+  -- date of, 200
+  -- translations of, 201
+  -- East India Company and the, 201
+  -- forming correct text of the Rig-, 202
+  -- enormous work involved, 204
+
+Vedic scholarship, 193
+
+_Veih_, home, 153
+
+_Vernunft_ and _Verstand_, 143
+
+Vigfusson, Dr., 254
+
+Voltairian philosophy at Oxford, 307
+
+
+Weismann, 27-30
+
+Weisse, 129, 132-135, 139-142, 287
+
+Wellesley, Dr., 304
+
+Wellington, Duke of, 16, 40, 205
+
+Westminster Abbey and St. Peter's, 304
+
+Wilberforce, Samuel, 207, 208
+
+Wilson, Professor, 158, 159
+
+Wiseman, 296
+
+Wolf, F. A., 48
+
+Wolseley, Lord, 266
+
+Wren, Sir Christopher, 264
+
+Wright, Dr., 261, 262
+
+
+Youth painted by the old, 35, 36
+
+
+Zerbst, examined at, 106
+  -- M. M.'s examiners at, 106
+
+Zeus, Dyaus, 148, 149
+
+
+
+
+OTHER BOOKS BY MAX M�LLER
+
+
+Auld Lang Syne
+
+_First Series._ Illustrated. 8vo, $2.00
+
+"This book, the fruit of enforced leisure, as its author tells us, is
+a charming mass of gossip about people whom Professor Max M�ller has
+known during his long career--musicians, literary men, princes, and
+beggars. The last class is not, perhaps, the least interesting or
+amusing. To our mind, however, the chapter on musicians, with its
+delightful pictures of the author's early life, and the na�ve
+confessions as to musical tastes, with some of the stories about
+celebrated composers, forms the most interesting portion of a work
+which has not one dull page."--_The Spectator._
+
+"One of the most charming examples of reminiscent literature that has
+recently seen the light."--New York _Sun_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Auld Lang Syne
+
+_Second Series._ =My Indian Friends.= 8vo, $2.00.
+
+"The professor's 'Indian Friends' are not all of the nineteenth
+century. His oldest friends are in the Veda, about which he has always
+loved to write. Indeed, he spent the best years of his life over the
+text of the Rig Veda, and has a clear right to be heard upon the
+classic he has done so much to make familiar.... But the real charm of
+his recollections lies rather in their peaceful kindliness, in their
+wide and tolerant sympathies, and in their earnest aim, which will
+surely be attained in some measure, of bringing what is best in India
+closer home to foreigners."--_Literature._
+
+
+Science of Language
+
+Founded on Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution. _New Edition
+from New Plates. Largely Re-written._ In 2 vols., crown 8vo, $6.00.
+
+_CONTENTS:--Vol. I.--The Science of Language one of the Physical
+Sciences; The Growth of Language in Contradistinction to the History
+of Language; The Empirical Stage in the Science of Language; The
+Classificatory Stage in the Science of Language; The Genealogical
+Classification of Languages; Comparative Grammar; The Constituent
+Elements of Language; The Morphological Classification of Languages;
+The Theoretical Stage in the Science of Language--Origin of Language;
+Genealogical Tables of Languages._
+
+_CONTENTS:--Vol. II.--Introductory Lecture. New Materials for the
+Science of Language and New Theories; Language and Reason; The
+Physiological Alphabet; Phonetic Change; Grimm's Law; On the
+Principles of Etymology; On the Powers of Roots; Metaphor; The
+Mythology of the Greeks; Jupiter, The Supreme Aryan God; Myths of the
+Dawn; Modern Mythology._
+
+"In practical value to the student of the science of language, the
+work stands alone."--Boston _Transcript_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Ramakrishna
+
+=His Life and Sayings.= Crown 8vo, $1.50 _net_.
+
+"As a whole the little book marks one of the summit points of recent
+scientific religious literature. Max M�ller'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 teaching."--_American Historical
+Review._
+
+
+Science of Thought
+
+_Two Volumes._ Crown 8vo, $4.00.
+
+"Of the portion of the work in which the author exemplifies and
+illustrates his theory--his analysis of the Sanskrit roots, his
+chapters on Kant's philosophy, on the formation of words, on
+propositions and syllogisms--it is only necessary to say that while
+they contain, along with much that will reward a careful study, not a
+little that will arouse controversy, they have, like all the author's
+former productions, the prime merit of being free from the two
+greatest of literary faults--obscurity and dulness. A work in which
+two of the driest and hardest of studies, analytic philology and
+mental philosophy, are made at once lucid and attractive, is an
+acquisition for which all students of those mysteries have reason to
+be grateful."--New York _Evening Post_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Autobiography, by F. Max M�ller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My Autobiography
+       A Fragment
+
+Author: F. Max M�ller
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2009 [EBook #30269]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
+
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+
+<h1>MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h1>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="front" id="front"></a><a href="images/illo_frontispiece.jpg"><img src="images/illo_frontispiece_th.jpg"
+alt="F. Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 4" title="F. Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 4" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><i>F. Max M&uuml;ller</i><br />
+ <i>Aged 4.</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>MY<br />
+AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h2>
+
+<h3 style="padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 2em">A FRAGMENT</h3>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: 70%">BY THE</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="font-size: 110%"><span class="smcap">Rt. Hon. Professor</span> F. MAX M&Uuml;LLER, K.M.</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="padding-top: 3em; padding-bottom: 2em"><i>WITH PORTRAITS</i></p>
+
+<p class="publisher">New York<br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER&#8217;S SONS<br />
+1901</p>
+
+<p class="copyright"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1901, by</span><br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER&#8217;S SONS</p>
+
+<p class="copyright">
+TROW DIRECTORY<br />
+PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY<br />
+NEW YORK</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">For</span> some years past my father had, in the intervals
+of more serious work, occupied his leisure
+moments in jotting down reminiscences of his early
+life. In 1898 and 1899 he issued the two volumes
+of <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>, which contained recollections
+of his friends, but very little about his own life and
+career. In the Introductory Chapter to the Autobiography
+he explains fully the reasons which led
+him, at his advanced age, to undertake the task of
+writing his own Life, and he began, but alas! too
+late, to gather together the fragments that he had
+written at different times. But even during the
+last two years of his life, and after the first attack
+of the illness which finally proved fatal, he would
+not devote himself entirely to what he considered
+mere recreation, as can be seen from such a work
+as his <i>Six Systems of Indian Philosophy</i> published
+in May, 1889, and from the numerous articles
+which continued to appear up to the very time of
+his death.</p>
+
+<p>During the last weeks of his life, when we all
+knew that the end could not be far off, the Autobiography<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span>
+was constantly in his thoughts, and his
+great desire was to leave as much as possible ready
+for publication. Even when he was lying in bed
+far too weak to sit up in a chair, he continued to
+work at the manuscript with me. I would read
+portions aloud to him, and he would suggest alterations
+and dictate additions. I see that we were
+actually at work on this up to the 19th of October,
+and on the 28th he was taken to his well-earned
+rest. One of the last letters that I read to him was
+a letter from Messrs. Longmans, his lifelong publishers,
+urging the publication of the fragments of
+the Autobiography that he had then written.</p>
+
+<p>My father&#8217;s object in writing his Autobiography
+was twofold: firstly, to show what he considered to
+have been his mission in life, to lay bare the thread
+that connected all his labours; and secondly, to
+encourage young struggling scholars by letting them
+see how it had been possible for one of themselves,
+without fortune, a stranger in a strange land, to
+arrive at the position to which he attained, without
+ever sacrificing his independence, or abandoning the
+unprofitable and not very popular subjects to which
+he had determined to devote his life.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately the last chapter takes us but little
+beyond the threshold of his career. There is
+enough, however, to enable us to see how from his
+earliest student days his leanings were philosophical
+and religious rather than classical; how the study
+of Herbart&#8217;s philosophy encouraged him in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>
+work in which he was engaged as a mere student,
+the Science of Language and Etymology; how his
+desire to know something special, that no other philosopher
+would know, led him to explore the virgin
+fields of Oriental literature and religions. With
+this motive he began the study of Arabic, Persian,
+and finally Sanskrit, devoting himself more especially
+to the latter under Brockhaus and R&uuml;ckert,
+and subsequently under Burnouf, who persuaded
+him to undertake the colossal work of editing the
+Rig-veda.</p>
+
+<p>The Autobiography breaks off before the end of
+the period during which he devoted himself exclusively
+to Sanskrit. It is idle to speculate what
+course his life&#8217;s work might have taken, had he been
+elected to the Boden Professorship of Sanskrit; but
+he lived long enough to realize that his rejection
+for that chair in 1860, which was so hard to bear at
+the time, was really a blessing in disguise, as it
+enabled him to turn his attention to more general
+subjects, and devote himself to those philological,
+philosophical, religious and mythological studies,
+which found their expression in a series of works
+commencing with his <i>Lectures on the Science of
+Language</i>, 1861, and terminating with his <i>Contributions
+to the Science of Mythology</i>, 1897,&mdash;&#8220;the
+thread that connects the origin of thought
+and language with the origin of mythology and religion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As to his advice to struggling scholars, the self-depreciation,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
+which, as Professor Jowett said, is one
+of the greatest dangers of an autobiography, makes
+my father rather conceal the real causes of his
+success in life. He even goes so far as to say,
+&#8220;everything in my career came about most naturally,
+not by my own effort, but owing to those circumstances
+or to that environment, of which we
+have heard so much of late&#8221;: or again, &#8220;it was
+really my friends who did everything for me and
+helped me over many a stile and many a ditch.&#8221;
+No doubt in one sense this is true, but not in the
+sense in which it would have been true had he, when
+at the University, accepted the offer which he tells
+us a wealthy cousin made him, to adopt him and
+send him into the Austrian diplomatic service, and
+even to procure him a wife and a title into the bargain.
+The friends who helped him, men such as
+Humboldt, Burnouf, Bunsen, Stanley, Kingsley,
+Liddell, to mention only a few, were men whose
+very friendship was the surest proof of my father&#8217;s
+merits. The real secret of his success lay not in his
+friends, but in himself;&mdash;in the knowledge that his
+success or failure in life depended entirely on his
+own efforts; in the fixity of purpose which made
+him refuse all offers that would lead him from the
+pathway that he had laid down for himself; and in
+the unflagging industry with which he strove to
+reach the goal of his ambition. &#8220;My very struggles,&#8221;
+he writes, &#8220;were certainly a help to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When I came to examine the manuscript with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>
+a view to sending it to press, I found that there
+was a good deal of work necessary before it could
+be published in book form. The fragments were
+in many cases incomplete; there was no division
+into chapters, no connexion between the various
+periods and episodes of his life; important incidents
+were omitted; while, owing to the intermittent way
+in which he had been writing, there were frequent
+repetitions. My father was always most critical of
+his own style, and would often, when correcting his
+proof-sheets, alter a whole page, because a word or
+a phrase displeased him, or because some new idea,
+some happier mode of expression, occurred to him;
+but in the case of his Autobiography, the only revision
+that he was able to give, was on his deathbed,
+while I read the manuscript aloud to him.</p>
+
+<p>My father points out how rarely the sons of great
+musicians or great painters become distinguished
+in the same line themselves. &#8220;It seems,&#8221; he says,
+&#8220;almost as if the artistic talent were exhausted by
+one generation or one individual&#8221;; and I fear that,
+in my case at all events, the same remark applies
+to literary talent. I have done my best to string
+the fragments together into one connected whole,
+only making such insertions, elisions and alterations
+as appeared strictly necessary. Any deficiency in
+literary style that may be noticeable in portions of
+the book should be ascribed to the inexperience of
+the editor.</p>
+
+<p>I have thought it right to insert the last chapter,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>
+which I call &#8220;A Confession,&#8221; though I am not sure
+that my father intended it to be included in his
+Autobiography. It will, however, explain the attitude
+which he observed throughout his life, in
+keeping aloof, as far as possible, from the arena of
+academic contention at Oxford. He was never
+chosen a member of the Hebdomadal Council, he
+rarely attended meetings of Convocation or Congregation;
+he felt that other people, with more leisure
+at their disposal, could be of more use there; but
+he never refused to work for his University, when
+he felt that he was able to render good service,
+and he acted for years as a Curator of the Bodleian
+Library and of the Taylorian Institute, and as a
+Delegate of the Clarendon Press.</p>
+
+<p>With reference to the illustrations, it may be of
+interest to readers to know that the portraits of my
+grandfather and grandmother are taken from pencil-drawings
+by Adolf Hensel, the husband of Mendelssohn&#8217;s
+sister Fanny, herself a great musician, who,
+as my father tells us in <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>, really
+composed several of the airs that Mendelssohn published
+as his <i>Songs without Words</i>. The last portrait
+of my father is from a photograph taken soon
+after his arrival in Oxford by his great friend Thomson,
+afterwards Archbishop of York.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing now remains for me but to acknowledge
+the debt that I owe personally to this book.
+&#8220;Work,&#8221; my father used often to say to me, &#8220;is
+the best healer of sorrow. In grief or disappointment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>
+try hard work; it will not fail you.&#8221; And
+certainly during these three sad months, I have
+proved the truth of this saying. He could not have
+left me a surer comfort or more welcome distraction
+than the duty of preparing for press these pages, the
+last fruits of that mind which remained active and
+fertile to the last.</p>
+
+<p class="right">W.&nbsp;G. MAX M&Uuml;LLER.</p>
+
+<p><small><span class="smcap">Oxford</span>, <i>January</i>, 1901.</small></p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="table of contents">
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign" style="font-size: 70%" colspan="2">CHAPTER</td><td style="font-size: 70%; text-align: center">PAGE</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Introductory</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Childhood at Dessau</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">School-days at Leipzig</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">University</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Paris</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Arrival in England</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Early Days at Oxford</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">Early Friends at Oxford</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="rightalign"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">A Confession</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_308">308</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td style="line-height: 50%">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="leftalign" colspan="2"><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_PORTRAITS" id="LIST_OF_PORTRAITS"></a>LIST OF PORTRAITS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="list of portraits">
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">F. Max M&uuml;ller, Aged Four</span></td><td class="rightalign"><i><a href="#front">Frontispiece</a></i></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="rightalign"><span style="font-size: 60%">FACING
+PAGE</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">My Father</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#father">46</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">My Mother</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#mother">58</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span class="smcap">F. Max M&uuml;ller, Aged Fourteen</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Max14">106</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2.5em">"</span>" <span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 1.8em">Aged Twenty</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Max20">156</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="leftalign"><span style="padding-left: 2em; padding-right: 2.5em">"</span>" <span class="smcap" style="padding-left: 1.8em">Aged Thirty</span></td><td class="rightalign"><a href="#Max30">268</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="MY_AUTOBIOGRAPHY" id="MY_AUTOBIOGRAPHY"></a>MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY</h2>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>INTRODUCTORY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">After</span> the publication of the second volume of
+my <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>, 1899, I had a good deal
+of correspondence, of public criticism, and of private
+communings also with myself, whether I
+should continue my biographical records in the form
+hitherto adopted, or give a more personal character
+to my recollections. Some of my friends
+were evidently dissatisfied. &#8220;The recollections of
+your friends and the account of the influence they
+exercised on you,&#8221; they said, &#8220;are interesting, no
+doubt, as far as they go, but we want more. We
+want to know the springs, the aspirations, the
+struggles, the failures, and achievements of your
+life. We want to know how you yourself look at
+yourself and at your past life and its various incidents.&#8221;
+What they really wanted was, in fact, an
+autobiography. &#8220;No one,&#8221; as a friend of mine,
+not an Irishman, said, &#8220;could do that so well as
+yourself, and you will never escape a biographer.&#8221;
+I confess that did not frighten me very much. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
+did not think the danger of a biography very imminent.
+Besides, I had already revised two biographies
+and several biographical notices even during
+my lifetime. No sensible man ought to care
+about posthumous praise or posthumous blame.
+Enough for the day is the evil thereof. Our contemporaries
+are our right judges, our peers have
+to give their votes in the great academies and
+learned societies, and if they on the whole are not
+dissatisfied with the little we have done, often under
+far greater difficulties than the world was aware
+of, why should we care for the distant future?
+Who was a greater giant in philosophy than Hegel?
+Who towered higher than Darwin in natural
+science? Yet in one of the best German reviews<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+the following words of a young German biologist<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>
+are quoted, and not without a certain approval:
+&#8220;Darwinism belongs now to history, like that other
+<i>curiosum</i> of our century, the Hegelian philosophy.
+Both are variations on the theme, How can a generation
+be led by the nose? and they are not calculated
+to raise our departing century in the eyes of
+later generations.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>If I was afraid of anything, it was not so much
+the severity of future judges, as the extreme kindness
+and leniency which distinguish most biographies
+in our days. It is true, it would not be easy
+for those who have hereafter to report on our labours
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>to discover the red thread that runs through all of
+them from our first stammerings to our latest murmurings.
+It might be said that in my own case the
+thread that connects all my labours is very visible,
+namely, the thread that connects the origin of
+thought and languages with the origin of mythology
+and religion. Everything I have done was, no
+doubt, subordinate to these four great problems,
+but to lay bare the connecting links between what
+I have written and what I wanted to write and never
+found time to write, is by no means easy, not even
+for the author himself. Besides, what author has
+ever said the last word he wanted to say, and who
+has not had to close his eyes before he could write
+Finis to his work? There are many things still
+which I should like to say, but I am getting tired,
+and others will say them much better than I could,
+and will no doubt carry on the work where I had to
+leave it unfinished. We owe much to others, and
+we have to leave much to others. For throwing
+light on such points an autobiography is, no doubt,
+better adapted than any biography written by a
+stranger, if only we can at the same time completely
+forget that the man who is described is the same
+as the man who describes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Friends,&#8221; as Professor Jowett said, &#8220;always
+think it necessary (except Boswell, that great
+genius) to tell lies about their deceased friend; they
+leave out all his faults lest the public should exaggerate
+them. But we want to know his faults,&mdash;that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
+is probably the most interesting part of
+him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jowett knew quite well, and he did not hesitate
+to say so, that to do much good in this world, you
+must be a very able and honest man, thinking of
+nothing else day and night; and he adds, &#8220;you
+must also be a considerable piece of a rogue, having
+many reticences and concealments; and I believe a
+good sort of roguery is never to say a word against
+anybody, however much they may deserve it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now Professor Jowett has certainly done some
+good work at Oxford, but if any one were to say
+that he also was a considerable piece of a rogue, what
+an outcry there would be among the sons of Balliol.
+Jowett thought that the only chance of a good biography
+was for a man to write memoirs of himself,
+and what a pity that he did not do so in his
+own case. His friends, however, who had to write
+his Life were wise, and he escaped what of late has
+happened to several eminent men. He escaped the
+testimonials for this, and testimonials for another
+life, such as they are often published in our days.</p>
+
+<p>Testimonials are bad enough in this life, when
+we have to select one out of many candidates as
+best fitted for an office, and it is but natural that
+the electors will hardly ever look at them, but will
+try to get their information through some other
+channel. But what are called <i>post obit</i> testimonials
+really go beyond everything yet known in funeral
+panegyrics. Of course, as no one is asked for such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
+testimonials except those who are known to have
+been friends of the departed, these testimonials
+hardly ever contain one word of blame. One feels
+ashamed to write such testimonials, but if you are
+asked, what can you do without giving offence? We
+are placed altogether in a false position. Let any
+one try to speak the truth and nothing but the truth,
+and he will find that it is almost impossible to put
+down anything that in the slightest way might seem
+to reflect on the departed. The mention of the most
+innocent failings in an obituary notice is sure to
+offend somebody, the widow or the children, or some
+dear friend. I thought that my Recollections had
+hitherto contained nothing that could possibly offend
+anybody, nothing that could not have been
+published during the lifetime of the man to whom
+it referred. But no; I had ever so many complaints,
+and I gladly left out, in later editions, names which
+in many cases were really of no consequence compared
+with what they said and did.</p>
+
+<p>Surely every man has his faults and his little
+and often ridiculous weaknesses, and these weaknesses
+belong quite as much to a man&#8217;s character as
+his strength; nay, with the suppression of the former
+the latter would often become almost unintelligible.</p>
+
+<p>I like the biographies of such friends of mine as
+Dean Stanley, Charles Kingsley, and Baron Bunsen.
+But even these are deficient in those shadows
+which would but help to bring out all the more clearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
+the bright points in their character. We should
+remember the words of Dr. Wendell Holmes: &#8220;We
+all want to draw perfect ideals, and all the coin that
+comes from Nature&#8217;s mint is more or less clipped,
+filed, &#8216;sweated,&#8217; or bruised, and bent and worn,
+even if it was pure metal when stamped, which is
+more than we can claim, I suppose, for anything
+human.&#8221; True, very true; and what would the departed
+himself say to such biographies as are now
+but too common,&mdash;most flattering pictures no doubt,
+but pictures without one spot or wrinkle? In Germany
+it was formerly not an uncommon thing for
+the author of a book to write a self-review (Selbst-Kritik),
+and these were generally far better than
+reviews written by friends or enemies. For who
+knows the strong and weak points of a book so well
+as the author? True; but a whole life is more difficult
+to review and to criticize than a single book.
+Nevertheless it must be admitted that an autobiography
+has many advantages, and it might be well
+if every man of note, nay, every man who has something
+to say for himself that he wishes posterity to
+know, should say it himself. This would in time
+form a wonderful archive for psychological study.
+Something of the kind has been done already at
+Berlin in preserving private correspondences. Of
+course it is difficult to keep such archives within
+reasonable limits, but here again I am not afraid
+of self-laudation so much as of self-depreciation.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Jowett, who did not write his own biography,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
+was quite right in saying that there is
+great danger of an autobiography being rather self-depreciatory;
+there is certainly something so nauseous
+in self-praise that most people would shrink far
+more from self-praise than from self-blame. There
+may be some kind of subtle self-admiration even in
+the fault-finding of an outspoken autobiographer;
+but who can dive into those deepest depths of the
+human soul? To me it seems that if an honest man
+takes himself by the neck, and shakes himself, he
+can do it far better than anybody else, and the
+castigation, if well deserved, comes certainly with
+a far better grace from himself than if administered
+by others.</p>
+
+<p>Few men, I believe, know their real goodness and
+greatness. Some of the most handsome women, so
+we are assured, pass through life without ever knowing
+from their looking-glass that they are handsome.
+And it is certainly true that men, from sad
+experience, know their weak points far better than
+their good points, which they look on as no more
+than natural.</p>
+
+<p>The Autos, for instance, described by John
+Stuart Mill, has no cause to be grateful to the Autos
+that wrote his biography. Mill had been threatened
+by several future biographers, and he therefore
+wrote the short biographical account of himself almost
+in self-defence. But besides the truly miraculous,
+and, if related by anybody else, hardly credible
+achievements of his early boyhood and youth, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
+great achievements in later life, the influence which
+he exercised both by his writings and still more by
+his personal and public character, would have found
+a far more eloquent and truthful interpreter in a
+stranger than in Mill himself. I remember another
+case where a most distinguished author tried to
+escape the oil and the blessings, perhaps the opposite
+also, from the hands of his future biographers.
+Froude destroyed the whole of his correspondence,
+and he wished particularly that all letters written
+to him in the fullest confidence should be burnt,&mdash;and
+they were. I think it was a pity, for I know
+what valuable letters were destroyed in that <i>auto da
+f&eacute;</i>; and yet when he had done all this, he seems to
+have been seized with fear, and just before he returned
+to Oxford as Regius Professor of Modern
+History he began to write a sketch of his own life,
+which was found among his papers. Interesting it
+certainly was, but fortunately his best friends prevented
+its publication. It would have added nothing
+to what we know of him in his writings, and
+would never have put his real merits in their proper
+light. Besides, it came to an end with his youth and
+told us little of his real life.</p>
+
+<p>I flattered myself that I had found the true way
+out of all these difficulties, by writing not exactly
+my own life, but recollections of my friends and acquaintances
+who had influenced me most, and guided
+me in my not always easy passage through life.
+As in describing the course of a river, we cannot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
+do better than to describe the shores which hem in
+and divert the river and are reflected on its waves,
+I thought that by describing my environment, my
+friends, and fellow workers, I could best describe
+the course of my own life. I hoped also that in this
+way I myself could keep as much as possible in the
+background, and yet in describing the wooded or
+rocky shores with their herds, their cottages, and
+churches, describe their reflected image on the passing
+river.</p>
+
+<p>But now I am asked to give a much fuller account
+of myself, not only of what I have seen, but
+also of what I have been, what were the objects or
+ideals of my life, how far I have succeeded in carrying
+them out, and, as I said, how often I have failed
+to accomplish what I had sketched out as my task
+in life. People wished to know how a boy, born and
+educated in a small and almost unknown town in
+the centre of Germany, should have come to England,
+should have been chosen there to edit the
+oldest book of the world, the Veda of the Brahmans,
+never published before, whether in India or in Europe,
+should have passed the best part of his life as
+a professor in the most famous and, as it was thought,
+the most exclusive University in England, and
+should actually have ended his days as a Member
+of Her Majesty&#8217;s most honourable Privy Council.
+I confess myself it seems a very strange career, yet
+everything came about most naturally, not by my
+own effort, but owing again to those circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+or to that environment of which we have heard so
+much of late.</p>
+
+<p>Young, struggling men also have written to me,
+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
+England. They knew, for I had never made any
+secret of it, how poor I was in worldly goods, and
+how, as I said at Glasgow, I had nothing to depend
+on after I left the University, but those fingers with
+which I still hold my pen and write so badly that I
+can hardly read my manuscript myself. When I
+arrived I had no family connections in England,
+nor any influential friends, &#8220;and yet,&#8221; I was told,
+&#8220;in a foreign country, you managed to reach the
+top of your profession. Tell us how you did it;
+and how you preserved at the same time your independence
+and never forsook the not very popular
+subjects, such as language, mythology, religion, and
+philosophy, on which you continued to write to the
+very end of your life.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I generally said that most of these questions could
+best be answered from my books, but they replied
+that few people had time to read all I had written,
+and many would feel grateful for a thread to lead
+them through this labyrinth of books, essays, and
+pamphlets, which have issued from my workshop
+during the last fifty years.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+<p>All I could say was that each man must find his
+own way in life, but if there was any secret about
+my success, it was simply due to the fact that I had
+perfect faith, and went on never doubting even
+when everything looked grey and black about me.
+I felt convinced that what I cared for, and what I
+thought worthy of a whole life of hard work, must
+in the end be recognized by others also as of value,
+and as worthy of a certain support from the public.
+Had not Layard gained a hearing for Assyrian
+bulls? Did not Darwin induce the world to take an
+interest in Worms, and in the Fertilization of Orchids?
+And should the oldest book and the oldest
+thoughts of the Aryan world remain despised and
+neglected?</p>
+
+<p>For many years I never thought of appointments
+or of getting on in the world in a pecuniary sense.
+My friends often laughed at me, and when I think
+of it now, I confess I must have seemed very
+Quixotic to many of those who tried for this and
+that, got lucrative appointments, married rich wives,
+became judges and bishops, ambassadors and ministers,
+and could hardly understand what I was driving
+at with my Sanskrit manuscripts, my proof-sheets
+and revises. Perhaps I did not know myself.
+Still I was not quite so foolish as they imagined.
+True, I declined several offers made to me which
+seemed very advantageous in a worldly sense, but
+would have separated me entirely from my favourite
+work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When at last a professorship of Modern Literature
+was offered me at Oxford, I made up my mind,
+though it was not exactly what I should have liked,
+to give up half of my time to studies required by
+this professorship, keeping half of my time for the
+Veda and for Sanskrit in general. This was not so
+bad after all. People often laughed at me for
+being professor of the most modern languages, and
+giving so much of my time and labour to the most
+ancient language and literature in the world. Perhaps
+it was not quite right my giving up so much of
+my time to modern languages, a subject so remote
+from my work in life, but it was a concession which
+I could make with a good conscience, having always
+held that language was one and indivisible, and
+that there never had been a break between Sanskrit,
+Latin, and French, or Sanskrit, Gothic, and German.
+One of my first lectures at Oxford was &#8220;On
+the antiquity of modern languages,&#8221; so that I gave
+full notice to the University as to how I meant to
+treat my subject, and on the whole the University
+seems to have been satisfied with my professorial
+work, so that when afterwards for very good
+reasons, whether financial, theological, or national,
+I, or rather my friends, failed to secure a majority
+in Convocation for a professorship of Sanskrit, the
+University actually founded for me a Professorship
+of Comparative Philology, an honour of which
+I had never dreamt, and to secure which I certainly
+had never taken any steps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Here is all my secret. At first, as I said, it required
+faith, but it also required for many years a
+perfect indifference as to worldly success. And
+here again in my career as a Sanskrit scholar, mere
+circumstances were of great importance. They
+were circumstances which I was glad to accept, but
+which I could never have created myself. 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 each. It was at the time
+when the fate of the Company hung in the balance,
+and when Bunsen, the Prussian Minister, made
+himself <i>persona grata</i> by delivering a speech at one
+of the public dinners in the City, setting forth in
+eloquent words the undeniable merits of the Old
+Company and the wonderful work they had
+achieved. It was likewise a mere accident that I
+should have become known to Bunsen, and that he
+should have shown me so much kindness in my literary
+work. He had himself tried hard to go to India
+to discover the Rig-veda, nay, to find out whether
+there was still such a thing as the Veda in India.
+The same Bunsen, His Excellency Baron Bunsen,
+the Prussian Minister in London, on his own accord
+went afterwards to see the Chairman and the Directors
+of the East India Company, and explained
+to them what the Rig-veda was, and that it would
+be a real disgrace if such a work were published in
+Germany; and they agreed to vote a sum of money<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+such as they had never voted before for any literary
+undertaking. Though after the mutiny nothing
+could save them, 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 Company,&mdash;much abused
+though splendidly defended also by no less a man
+than John Stuart Mill.</p>
+
+<p>This is what I mean by friends and circumstances,
+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 myself. Small and large things work
+wonderfully together. It was the change threatening
+the government of India, and a mighty change
+it was, that gave me the chance of publishing the
+Veda, a very small matter as it may seem in the
+eyes of most people, and yet intended to bring about
+quite as mighty a change in our views of the ancient
+people of the world, particularly of their languages
+and religions. This, too&mdash;the development of language
+and religion&mdash;seems of importance to some
+people who do not care two straws for the East India
+Company, particularly if it helps us to learn what
+we really are ourselves, and how we came to be what
+we are.</p>
+
+<p>In one sense biographies and autobiographies are
+certainly among the most valuable materials for the
+historian. Biography, as Heinrich Simon, not
+Henri Simon, said, is the best kind of history, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
+the life of one man, if laid open before us with all
+he thought and all he did, gives us a better insight
+into the history of his time than any general account
+of it can possibly do.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is quite true that the life of a quiet scholar
+has little to do with history, except it may be the
+history of his own branch of study, which some people
+consider quite unimportant, while to others it
+seems all-important. This is as it ought to be, till
+the universal historian finds the right perspective,
+and assigns to each branch of study and activity its
+proper place in the panorama of the progress of mankind
+towards its ideals. Even a quiet scholar, if he
+keeps his eyes open, may now and then see something
+that is of importance to the historian. While
+I was living in small rooms at Leipzig, or lodging
+<i>au cinqui&egrave;me</i> in the Rue Royale at Paris, or copying
+manuscripts in a dark room of the old East India
+House in Leadenhall Street, I now and then caught
+glimpses of the mighty stream of history as it was
+rushing by. At Leipzig I saw much of Robert
+Blum who was afterwards <i>fusill&eacute;</i> at Vienna by
+Windischgr&auml;tz in defiance of all international law, for
+he was a member of the German Diet, then sitting
+at Frankfurt. From my windows at Paris I looked
+over the <i>Boulevard de la Madeleine</i>, and down on the
+right to the <i>Chambre des D&eacute;put&eacute;s</i>, and I saw from
+my windows the throne of Louis Philippe carried
+along by its four legs by four women on horseback,
+with Phrygian caps and red scarfs, and I saw the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+next morning from the same windows the stretchers
+carrying the dead and wounded from the Boulevards
+to a hospital at the back of my street. In my small
+study at the East India House I saw several of the
+Directors, Colonel Sykes and others, and heard
+them discussing the fate of the East India Company
+and of the vast empire of India too, and at the
+same time the private interests of those who hoped
+to be Members of the new India Council, and those
+who despaired of that distinction. I was the first
+to bring the news of the French Revolution in February
+to London, and presented a bullet that had
+smashed the windows of my room at Paris, to Bunsen,
+who took it in the evening to Lord Palmerston.
+After I had seen the Revolution in Paris and the
+flight of the King and the Duchesse d&#8217;Orl&eacute;ans, I was
+in time to see in London the Chartist Deputation
+to Parliament, and the assembled police in Trafalgar
+Square, when Louis Napoleon served as a
+Special Constable, and I heard the Duke of Wellington
+explain to Bunsen, that though no soldier
+was seen in the streets there was artillery hidden
+under the bridges, and ready to act if wanted. I
+could add more, but I must not anticipate, and
+after all, to me all these great events seemed but
+small compared with a new manuscript of the Veda
+sent from India, or a better reading of an obscure
+passage. <i>Diversos diversa iuvant</i>, and it is fortunate
+that it should be so.</p>
+
+<p>All these things, I thought, should form part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+my Recollections, and my own little self should
+disappear as much as possible. Even the pronoun
+I should meet the reader but seldom, though in
+Recollections it was as impossible to leave it out
+altogether as it would be to take away the lens from
+a photographic camera. Now I believe I have always
+been most willing to yield to my friends, 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 struggles; but I must
+on the whole adhere to my old plan. I could not,
+if I would, neglect the environment of my life, and
+the many friends that advised and helped me, and
+enabled me to achieve the little that I may have
+achieved in my own line of study.</p>
+
+<p>If my friends had been different from what they
+were, should I not have become a different man
+myself, whether for good or for evil? And the same
+applies to our natural surroundings also. And here
+I must invoke the patience of my readers, if I try
+to explain in as few words as possible what I think
+about <i>environment</i>, and what about <i>heredity</i> or
+<i>atavism</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I was a thorough Darwinian in ascribing the
+shaping of my career to environment, though I was
+always very averse to atavism, of which we have
+heard so much lately in most biographies. Even
+with respect to environment, however, I could not
+go quite so far as certain of our Darwinian friends,
+who maintain that everything is the result of environment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+or translated into biographical language,
+that everybody is a creature of circumstances. No,
+I could not go so far as that. Environment may
+shape our course and may shape us, but there must
+be something that is shaped, and allows itself to be
+shaped. 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 life. That he grew then a thicker
+fur, I knew, but that surely does not explain the
+whole of the Mammoth, with and without a thick
+fur, before and after the fur. It is really a pity to
+see for how many of these downright absurdities
+Darwin is made responsible by the Darwinians. He
+has clearly shown how in many cases the individual
+may be modified almost beyond recognition by
+environment, but the individual must always have
+been there first. Before we had a spaniel and a
+Newfoundland dog there must have been some
+kind of dog, neither so small as the spaniel nor so
+large as the Newfoundland, and no one would now
+doubt that these two belonged to the same species
+and presupposed some kind of a less modified canine
+creature. It is equally true that every individual
+man has been modified by his surroundings or environment,
+if not to the same extent as certain animals,
+yet very considerably, as in the case of Kaspar
+Hauser, the man with the iron mask, or the
+mutineers of the <i>Bounty</i> in the Pitcairn Islands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+But there must have been the man first, before he
+could be so modified. Now it was this very individual,
+my own self in fact, the spiritual self even
+more than the physical, that interested my critics,
+while I thought that the circumstances which
+moulded that self would be of far greater interest
+than the self itself. Of course all the modifications
+that men now undergo are nothing if compared to
+the early modifications which produced what we
+speak of as racial, linguistic, or even national peculiarities.
+That we are English or German, that
+we are white or black, nay, if you like, that we are
+human beings at all, all this has modified our self,
+or our germ-plasm, far more powerfully than anything
+that can happen to us as individuals now.</p>
+
+<p>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 young, struggling man,
+all I could say was that here again it was really my
+friends who did everything for me, and helped me
+over many a stile, and many a ditch, nay, without
+whom I should never have done whatever I did for
+the Sciences of Language, of Mythology, and Religion,
+in fact for Anthropology in the widest sense
+of that word. My very struggles were certainly a
+help to me, even my opponents were most useful to
+me. The subjects on which I wrote had hardly
+been touched on in England, at least from the historical
+point of view which I took, and I had not
+only to overcome the indifference of the public, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+to disarm as much as possible the prejudices often
+felt, and sometimes expressed also, against anything
+made in Germany! Now I confess I could
+never understand such a prejudice among men of
+science. Was I more right or more wrong because
+I was born in Germany? Is scientific truth the exclusive
+property of one nation, of Germany, or of
+England? If I say two and two make four in German,
+is that less true because it is said by a German?
+and if I say, no language without thought,
+no thought without language, has that anything to
+do with my native country? The prejudice against
+strangers and particularly against Germans is, no
+doubt, much stronger now than it was at the time
+when I first came to England. I had spent nearly
+two years in Paris, and there too there existed then
+so little of unfriendly feeling towards Germany,
+that one of the best reviews to which the rising
+scholars and best writers of Paris contributed was
+actually called <i>Revue Germanique</i>. Who would
+now venture to publish in Paris such a review and
+under such a title? If there existed such an anti-German
+feeling anywhere in England when I arrived
+here in the year 1846, one would suppose that
+it existed most strongly at Oxford. And so it did, no
+doubt, particularly among theologians. With them
+German meant much the same as unorthodox, and
+unorthodox was enough at that time to taboo a man
+at Oxford. In one of the sermons preached in these
+early days at St. Mary&#8217;s, German theologians such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+as Strauss and Neander (<i>sic</i>) were spoken of as fit
+only to be drowned in the German Ocean, before
+they reached the shores of England. I do not add
+what followed: the story is too well known. I was
+chiefly amused by the juxtaposition of Strauss and
+Neander, whose most orthodox lectures on the history
+of the Christian Church I had attended at Berlin.
+Neander was certainly to us at Berlin the very
+pattern of orthodoxy, and people wondered at my
+attending his lectures. But they were good and
+honest lectures. He was quite a character, and I
+feel tempted to go a little out of my way in speaking
+of him. By birth a Jew, he became one of the
+most learned Christian divines. Ever so many stories
+were told of him, some true, some no doubt invented.
+I saw him often walking to and from the
+University to give his lectures in a large fur coat,
+with high black polished boots beneath, but showing
+occasionally as he walked along. It was told that
+he once sent for a doctor because he was lame. The
+doctor on examining his feet, saw that one boot was
+covered with mud, while the other was perfectly
+clean. The Professor had walked with one foot on
+the pavement, with the other in the gutter, and was
+far too much absorbed in his ideas to discover the
+true cause of his discomfort. He lived with his
+sister, who took complete care of him and saw to his
+wardrobe also. She knew that he wore one pair of
+trousers, and that on a certain day in the year the
+tailor brought him a new pair. Great was her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+amazement when one day, after her brother had
+gone to the University, she discovered his pair of
+trousers lying on a chair near his bed. She at once
+sent a servant to the Professor&#8217;s lecture-room to inquire
+whether he had his trousers on. The hilarity
+of his class may be imagined. The fact was it was
+the very day on which the tailor was in the habit of
+bringing the new pair of trousers, which the Professor
+had put on, leaving his usual garment behind.</p>
+
+<p>Many more stories of his absent-mindedness were
+<i>en vogue</i> about Dr. Neander, but that this man, a
+pillar of strength to the orthodox in Germany, who
+was looked up to as an infallible Pope, should have
+his name coupled with that of Strauss certainly gave
+one a little shock. Yet it was at Oxford that I
+pitched my tent, chiefly in order to superintend the
+printing of my Rig-veda at the University Press
+there, and never dreaming that a fellowship, still
+less a professorship in that ancient Tory University,
+would ever be offered to me.</p>
+
+<p>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 Pope;
+and yet in time I was chosen a Fellow of All Souls,
+and the first married Fellow of the College, and
+even a professorship was offered to me when I least
+expected it. The fact is, I never thought of either,
+and no one was more surprised than myself when
+I was asked to act as deputy, and then as full Taylorian
+Professor; no one could have mistrusted his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
+eyes more than I did, when one of the Fellows of
+All Soul&#8217;s informed me by letter that it was the intention
+of the College to elect me one of its fellows.
+My ambition had never soared so high. I was thinking
+of returning to Leipzig as a <i>Privat-docent</i>, to
+rise afterwards to an extraordinary and, if all went
+well, to an ordinary professorship.</p>
+
+<p>But after these two appointments at Oxford had
+secured to me what I thought a fair social and financial
+position in England, I did not feel justified in attempting
+to begin life again in Germany. I had not
+asked for a professorship or fellowship. They were
+offered me, and my ambition never went beyond
+securing what was necessary for my independence.
+In Germany I was supposed to have become quite
+wealthy; in England people knew how small my
+income really was, and wondered how I managed
+to live on it. 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 Oxford. I could
+not see anything anomalous in a German holding a
+professorship in England. There were several cases
+of the same kind in Germany. Lassen (1800-1876),
+our great Sanskrit professor at Bonn, was
+a Norwegian by birth, and no one ever thought of
+his nationality. What had that to do with his
+knowledge of Sanskrit? Nor was I ever treated as
+an alien or as intruder at Oxford, at least not at
+that early time. As to myself, I had now obtained
+what seemed to me a small but sufficient income<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+with perfect independence. The quiet life of a
+quiet student had been from my earliest days my
+ideal in life. Even at school at Dessau, when we
+boys talked of what we hoped to be, I remember
+how my ideal was that of a monk, undisturbed in
+his monastery, surrounded by books and by a few
+friends. The idea that I should ever rise to be a
+professor in a university, or that any career like that
+of my father, grandfather, and other members of
+my family would ever be open to me, never entered
+my mind then. It seemed to me almost disloyal
+to think of ever taking their places. Even when I
+saw that there were no longer any Protestant monks,
+no Benedictines, the place of an assistant in a large
+library, sitting in a quiet corner, was my highest
+ambition.</p>
+
+<p>I do not see why it should have been so, for all
+my relations and friends occupied high places in the
+public service, but as I had no father to open my
+eyes, and to stimulate my ambition&mdash;he having died
+before I was four years old&mdash;my ideas of life and
+its possibilities were evidently taken from my young
+widowed mother, whose one desire was to be left
+alone, much as the world tempted her, then not yet
+thirty years old, to give up her mourning and to
+return to society. Thus it soon became my own
+philosophy of life, to be left alone, free to go my
+own way, or like Diogenes, to live in my own tub.
+Here we see what I call the influence of circumstances,
+of surroundings, or as others call it, of environment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+This, however, is very different from
+atavism, as we shall see presently. Atavism also
+has been called a kind of environment, attacking us
+and influencing us from the past, and as it were,
+from behind, from the North in fact instead of the
+South, the East, and the West, and from all the
+points of the compass.</p>
+
+<p>But atavism means really a very different thing,
+if indeed it means anything at all.</p>
+
+<p>I must ease my conscience once for all on this
+point, and say what I feel about atavism and environment.
+Environment in the shape of friends,
+of locality, and other material circumstances, has
+certainly influenced my life very much, and I could
+never see why such a hybrid word as environment
+should be used instead of surroundings or circumstances.
+Creatures of circumstances would be far
+better understood than creatures of environment;
+but environment, I suppose, would sound more
+scientific. Atavism also is a new word, instead of
+family likeness, but unless carefully defined, the
+word is very apt to mislead us.</p>
+
+<p>When it is said<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> that children often resemble
+their grandfathers or grandmothers more than their
+immediate parents, and that this propensity is
+termed atavism, this does not seem quite correct
+even etymologically, for atavus in Latin did not
+mean father or grandfather, but at first great-great-great-grandfather,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>and then only ancestors; and
+what should be made quite clear is that this mysterious
+atavism should not be used by careful speakers,
+to express the supposed influence of parents
+or even grandparents, but that of more distant ancestors
+only, and possibly of a whole family.</p>
+
+<p>Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin
+their works with a long account not only of
+father and mother, but of grandparents and of ever
+so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined
+the outward and inward character of the
+man whose life has to be written. Who would deny
+that there is some truth, or at least some plausibility,
+in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in
+giving an intelligible account of it? It is supposed
+to affect the moral as well as the physical peculiarities
+of the offspring, and that here, too, physical and
+moral qualities often go together cannot be denied.
+A blind person, for instance, is generally cautious,
+but happy and quite at his ease in large societies.
+A deaf person is often suspicious and unhappy in
+society. In inheriting blindness, therefore, a man
+could well be said to have inherited cautiousness;
+in inheriting deafness, suspiciousness would seem to
+have come to him by inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>But is blindness really inherited? Is the son of a
+father who has lost his eyesight blind, and necessarily
+blind? We must distinguish between atavistic
+and parental influences. Parental influences
+would mean the influence of qualities acquired by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+the parents, and directly bequeathed to their offspring;
+atavistic influences would refer to qualities
+inherited and transmitted, it may be, through several
+generations, and engrained in a whole family.
+In keeping these two classes separate, we should
+only be following Weismann&#8217;s example, who denies
+altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable.
+His examples are most interesting and most important,
+and many Darwinians have had to accept
+his amendment. Besides, we should always consider
+whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family
+or inconstant. If a father is a drunkard, surely
+it does not follow that his sons must be drunkards.
+Neither does it follow that all the children must
+be sober if the parents are sober. Of course, in
+ordinary conversation both parental and ancestral
+influences seem clear enough. But if a child is said
+to favour his mother, because like her he has blue
+eyes and fair hair, what becomes of the heritage
+from the father who may have brown eyes and dark
+hair? Whatever may happen to the children, there
+is always an excuse, only an excuse is not an explanation.
+If the daughter of a beautiful woman
+grows up very plain, the Frenchman was no doubt
+right when he remarked, <i>C&#8217;&eacute;tait alors le p&egrave;re qui
+n&#8217;&eacute;tait pas bien</i>, and if the son of a teetotaller
+should later in life become a drunkard, the conclusion
+would be even worse. In fact, this kind of
+atavistic or parental influence is a very pleasant
+subject for gossips, but from a scientific point of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+view, it is perfectly futile. If it is not the father,
+it is the mother; if it is not the grandmother, it is
+the grandfather; in fact, family influences can always
+be traced to some source or other, if the whole
+pedigree may be dug up and ransacked. But for
+that very reason they are of no scientific value whatever.
+They can neither be accounted for, nor can
+they be used to account for anything themselves.
+Even of twins, though very like each other in many
+respects, one may be phlegmatic, the other passionate.
+Some scientists, such as Weismann and others,
+have therefore denied, and I believe rightly, that
+any acquired characters, whether physical or mental,
+can ever be inherited by children from their
+parents. Whatever similarity there is, and there is
+plenty, is traced back by him to what he calls the
+germ-plasm, working on continuously in spite of all
+individual changes. If that germ-plasm is liable to
+certain peculiar modifications in the father or grandfather,
+it is liable to the same or similar modifications
+in the offspring, that is, if the father could become
+a drunkard, so could the son, only we must not
+think that the <i>post hoc</i> is here the same as the
+<i>propter hoc</i>. If we compare the germ-plasm to the
+molecules constituting the stem or branches of a
+vine, its grapes and leaves in their similarity and
+their variety would be comparable to the individuals
+belonging to the same family, and springing
+from the same family tree. But then the grape we
+see would not be what the grape of last year, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+the grape immediately preceding it on the same
+branch, had made it, though there can be no doubt
+that the antecedent possibilities of the new grape
+were the same as those of the last. If one grape is
+blue, the next will be blue too, but no one would say
+that it was blue because the last grape was blue.
+The real cause would be that the molecules of the
+protoplasm have been so affected by long continued
+generation, that some of the peculiar qualities of
+the vine have become constant.</p>
+
+<p>The child of a negro must always be a negro;
+his peculiarities are constant, though it may be quite
+true that the negro and other races are not different
+species, but only varieties rendered constant by immense
+periods of time. What the cause of these
+constant and inconstant peculiarities may be, not
+even Weismann has yet been able to explain satisfactorily.</p>
+
+<p>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 influence, as something
+belonging to the environment of my life; it
+never frightened me as an atavistic evil. It justified
+me in being cautious and in being prepared for
+the worst, and so far it may be said to have helped
+in shaping or narrowing the course of my life. Fortunately,
+however, this tendency to deafness seems
+now to have exhausted itself. In my own generation
+there is one case only, and the next two generations,
+children and grandchildren of mine, show no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+signs of it. If, on the other hand, my son was congratulated
+when entering the diplomatic service, on
+being the son of his father, it is clear that the difference
+between inherited and acquired qualities,
+so strongly insisted on by Weismann, had not been
+fully appreciated by his friends. Besides, my own
+power of speaking foreign languages has always
+been very limited, and I have many times declined
+the compliment of being a second Mezzofanti.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> I
+worked at languages as a musician studies the nature
+and capacities of musical instruments, though
+without attempting to perform on every one of
+them. There was no time left for acquiring a practical
+familiarity with languages, if I wanted to carry
+on my researches into the origin, the nature and
+history of language. My own study of languages
+could therefore have been of very little use to me,
+nor did my son himself perceive such an advantage
+in learning to converse in French, Spanish, Turkish,
+&amp;c. The facts were wrong, and the theory of
+atavism perfectly unreasonable as applied to such
+a case.</p>
+
+<p>If the theory of atavism were stretched so far, it
+would soon do away with free will altogether. That
+heredity has something to do with our moral character,
+no one would deny who knows the influence
+of our national, nay even of racial character. We
+are Aryan by heredity; we might be Negroes or
+Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>also have their instincts. Only while animals, like
+serpents for instance, would never hesitate to follow
+their innate propensity, man, when he feels the
+power of what we may call inherited human instinct,
+feels also that he can fight against it, and preserve
+his freedom, even while wearing the chains of his
+slavery. This may have removed some of Dr. Wendell
+Holmes&#8217; scruples in writing his powerful story,
+<i>Elsie Venner</i>, and may likewise quiet the fears of
+his many critics.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that language also&mdash;our own inherited
+language&mdash;exercises the most powerful influence on
+our reason and our will, far more powerful than we
+are aware of.</p>
+
+<p>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 Cicero, and this simply on account
+of the language which they had to speak, whether
+Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish. We cannot tell
+whether the original differentiation of language,
+symbolized by the story of the Tower of Babel, took
+place before or after the racial differentiation of
+men. Anyhow it must have taken place in quite
+primordial times. Without speaking positively on
+this point, I certainly hold as strongly as ever that
+language makes the man, and that therefore for
+classificatory purposes also language is far more useful
+than colour of skin, hair, cranial or gnathic peculiarities.
+Whether it be true that with every new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+language we speak we become new men, certain it
+is that language prepares for us channels in which
+our thoughts have to run, unless they are so powerful
+as to break all dams and dykes, and to dig for
+themselves new beds.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time people would not see that languages
+can be classified; and as languages always
+presuppose speakers of language, these speakers
+also can be classified accordingly. It is quite true
+that some of these Aryan speakers may in some
+cases have Negro blood and Negro features, as when
+a Negro becomes an English bishop. Conquered
+tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language
+of their conquerors, but this too is exceptional,
+and if we call them Aryas, we do not commit
+ourselves to any opinion as to their blood, their
+bones, or their hair. These will never submit to
+the same classification as their speech, and why
+should they? Nor should it be forgotten that
+wherever a mixture of language takes place, mixed
+marriages also would most likely take place at the
+same time. But whatever confusion may have
+arisen in later times in language and in blood, no
+language could have arisen without speakers, and
+we mean by Aryas no more than speakers of Aryan
+languages, whatever their skulls or their hair may
+have been. An Octoroon, and even a Quadroon,
+may have blonde waving hair, but if he speaks
+English he would be classified as Aryan, if Berber
+as a Negro. But who is injured by such a classification?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
+Let blood and skulls and hair and jaws be
+classified by all means, but let us speak no longer
+of Aryan skulls or Semitic blood. We might as well
+speak of a prognathic language.</p>
+
+<p>While fully admitting, therefore, the influence
+which family, nationality, race, and language exercise
+on us, it should be clearly perceived that habits
+acquired by our parents are not heritable, that the
+sons of drunkards need not be drunkards, as little
+as the sons of sober people must be sober. But
+though biographers may agree to this in general
+they seem inclined, to hold out very strongly for
+what are called <i>special talents in certain families</i>.
+This subject is decidedly amusing, but it admits of
+no scientific treatment, as far as I can see.</p>
+
+<p>The grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
+for instance, though not a composer, was evidently
+a man of genius, a philosopher of considerable
+intellectual capacity and moral strength. The
+father of the composer was a rich banker at Berlin,
+and he used to say: &#8220;When I was young I was the
+son of the great Mendelssohn, now that I am old,
+I am the father of the great Mendelssohn; then what
+am I?&#8221; Even a poor man to become a rich banker
+must be a kind of genius, and so far the son may
+be said to have come of a good stock. But the great
+musical talent that was developed in the third generation
+both in Felix and his sisters, failed entirely
+in his brother, who, to save his life, could never
+have sung &#8220;God save the Queen.&#8221; In the little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+theatrical performances of the whole family for
+which Felix composed the music, and his sister
+Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical
+brother&mdash;was it not Paul?&mdash;had generally to be
+provided with some such part as that of a night
+watchman, and he managed to get through his song
+with as much credit as the <i>Nachtw&auml;chter</i> in the
+little town of Germany, where he sang or repeated,
+as I well remember, in his cracked voice:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;H&ouml;rt, ihr Herren, und lasst euch sagen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Die Glock&#8217; hat zw&ouml;lf geschlagen;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wahret das Feuer und auch das Licht,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dass Keinem kein Schade geschicht.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Listen, gents, and let me tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The clock struck twelve by its last knell;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Watch o&#8217;er the fire and o&#8217;er the light<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That no one suffer any plight.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">I have known in my life many musicians and their
+families, but I remember very few instances indeed,
+where the son of a distinguished musician was a
+great musician himself. If the children take to
+music at all they may become very fair musicians,
+but never anything extraordinary. The Bach family
+may be quoted against me, but music, before
+Sebastian Bach, was almost like a profession, and
+could be learned like any other handicraft.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are the cases of painters being the sons of
+great painters, or of poets being the sons of great
+poets, more numerous. It seems almost as if the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+artistic talent was exhausted by one generation or
+one individual, so that we often see the sons of
+great men by no means great, and if they do anything
+in the same line as their fathers, we must remember
+that there was much to induce them to
+follow in their steps without admitting any atavistic
+influences.</p>
+
+<p>For the present, I can only repeat the conclusion
+I arrived at after weighing all the arguments of
+my friends and critics, namely, to continue my
+Recollections much as I began them, to try to explain
+what made me what I am, to describe, in fact,
+my environment; though as my years advance, and
+my labours and plans grow wider and wider, I shall,
+no doubt, have to say a great deal more about myself
+than in the volumes of <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>. In
+fact, my Recollections will become more and more
+of an autobiography, and the I and the Autos will
+appear more frequently than I could have wished.</p>
+
+<p>In an autobiography the painter is of course supposed
+to be the same as the sitter, but quite apart
+from the metaphysical difficulties of such a supposition,
+there is the physical difficulty when the
+writer is an old man, and the model is a young boy.
+Is the old man likely to be a fair judge of the young
+man, whether it be himself or some one else? As
+a rule, old men are very indulgent, while young
+men are apt to be stern and strict in their judgments.
+The very fact that they often invent excuses
+for themselves shows that they feel that they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+want excuses. The words of the Preacher, vii. 16:
+&#8220;Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself
+over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?
+Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish:
+why shouldest thou die before thy time?&#8221; are evidently
+the words of an old man when judging of
+himself or of others. A young man would have
+spoken differently. He would have made no allowance;
+for anything like compassion for an erring
+friend is as yet unknown to him. In an autobiography
+written by an old man there is therefore
+a double danger, first the indulgence of the old man,
+and secondly the kindly feeling of the writer towards
+the object of his remarks.</p>
+
+<p>All these difficulties stand before me like a mountain
+wall. And it seems better to confess at once
+that an old man writing his own life can never be
+quite just, however honest he tries to be. He may
+be too indulgent, but he may also be too strict and
+stern. To say, for instance, of a man that he has
+not kept his promise, would be a very serious charge
+if brought against anybody else. Yet my oldest
+friend in the world knows how many times he has
+made a promise to himself, and has not only not
+kept it but has actually found excuses why he did
+not keep it. The more sensitive our conscience becomes,
+the more blameworthy many an act of our
+life seems to be, and what to an ordinary conscience
+is no fault at all, becomes almost a sin under a
+fiercer light.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This changes the moral atmosphere of youth
+when painted by an old man, but the physical
+atmosphere also assumes necessarily a different hue.
+Whether we like it or not, distance will always lend
+enchantment to the view. If the azure hue is inseparable
+from distant mountains and from the distant
+sky, we need not wonder that it veils the distant
+paradise of youth. A man who keeps a diary
+from his earliest years, and who as an old man simply
+copies from its yellow pages, may give us a very
+accurate black and white image of what he saw as
+a boy, but as in old faded photographs, the life and
+light are gone out of them, while unassisted memory
+may often preserve tints of their former reality.
+There is life and light in such recollections, but
+I am willing to admit that memory can be very
+treacherous also. Thus in my own case I can vouch
+that whatever I relate is carefully and accurately
+transcribed from the tablets of my memory, as I
+see them now, but though I can claim truthfulness
+to myself and to my memory, I cannot pretend to
+photographic accuracy. 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 narrators.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt whether any historian would accept a
+statement made thirty years after the event without
+independent confirmation. I could not give the
+date of the battle of Sadowa, though I well remember
+reading the full account of it in the <i>Times</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+from day to day. I can of course get at the date
+from historical books, and from that kind of artificial
+memory which arises by itself without any
+<i>memoria technica</i>. There is a favourite German
+game of cards called Sixty-six, and it was reported
+that when the French in 1870 shouted <i>&Agrave; Berlin</i>,
+the then Crown-Prince who had won the battle of
+Sadowa, or K&ouml;niggr&auml;tz, said: &#8220;Ah, they want another
+game of Sixty-six!&#8221; that is they want a battle
+like that of Sadowa. In this way I shall always
+remember the date of that decisive battle. But I
+could not give the date of the Crimean battles nor
+a trustworthy account of the successive stages of
+that war. I doubt whether even my old friend, Sir
+William H. Russell, could do that now without referring
+to his letters in the <i>Times</i>. After thirty
+years no one, I believe, could take an oath to the accuracy
+of any statement of what he saw or heard
+so many years ago.</p>
+
+<p>All then that I can vouch for is that I read my
+memory as I should the leaves of an old MS. from
+which many letters, nay, whole words and lines have
+vanished, and where I am often driven to decipher
+and to guess, as in a palimpsest, what the original
+uncial writing may have been. I am the first to
+confess that there may be flaws in my memory,
+there may be before my eyes that magic azure which
+surrounds the distant past; but I can promise that
+there shall be no invention, no <i>Dichtung</i> instead of
+<i>Wahrheit</i>, but always, as far as in me lies, truth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+I know quite well that even a certain dislocation of
+facts is not always to be avoided in an old memory.
+I know it from sad experience. As the spires of
+a city&mdash;of Oxford for instance&mdash;arrange themselves
+differently as we pass the old place on the railway,
+so that now one and now the other stands in the
+centre and seems to rise above the heads of the rest,
+so it is with our friends and acquaintances. Some
+who seemed giants at one time assume smaller proportions
+as others come into view towering above
+them. The whole scenery changes from year to
+year. Who does not remember the trees in our
+garden that seemed like giants in our childhood, but
+when we see them again in our old age, they have
+shrunk, and not from old age only?</p>
+
+<p>And must I make one more confession? 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 present, in fact that he
+had won that battle. I also remember Dr. Routh,
+the venerable president of Magdalen College, who
+died in his hundredth year, and who had so often
+repeated all the circumstances of the execution of
+Charles I, that when Macaulay expressed a wish to
+see him, he declined &#8220;because that young man has
+given quite a wrong account of the last moments of
+the king,&#8221; which he then proceeded to relate, as if
+he had been an eye-witness throughout.</p>
+
+<p>Are we not liable to the same hallucination,
+though, let us hope, in a more mitigated form?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+Have we never told a story as if it were our own,
+not from any wish to deceive, but simply because it
+seemed shorter and easier to do so than to explain
+step by step how it reached us? And after doing
+that once or twice, is there not great danger of our
+being surprised at somebody else claiming the story
+as his own, or actually maintaining that it was he
+who told it to us?</p>
+
+<p>Not very long ago I remember reading in a journal
+a story of the Duke of Wellington. His servant
+had been sent before to order dinner for him at an
+out-of-the-way hotel, and in order to impress the
+landlord with the dignity of his coming guest, he
+had recited a number of the Duke&#8217;s titles, which
+were very numerous. The landlord, thinking that
+the Duke of Vittoria, the Prince of Waterloo, the
+Marquis of Torres Vedras, and all the rest, were
+friends invited to dine with the Duke of Wellington,
+ordered accordingly a very sumptuous banquet
+to the great dismay of the real Duke. This may
+or may not be a very old and a very true story;
+all I know is that much the same thing was told at
+Oxford of Dr. Bull, who was Canon of Christ
+Church, Canon of Exeter, Prebendary of York,
+Vicar of Staverton, and lastly, the Rev. Dr. Bull
+himself. Dinner was provided for each of these
+persons, and we are told that the reverend pluralist
+had to eat all the dishes on the table and pay for
+them. This also may have been no more than one
+of the many &#8220;Common-roomers&#8221; which abounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+in Oxford when Common Rooms were more frequented
+than they are now. But what I happen to
+know as a fact is that Dean Stanley received no less
+than four invitations to a hall at Blenheim, addressed
+A.&nbsp;P. Stanley, Esq., the Rev. A.&nbsp;P. Stanley,
+Canon Stanley, Professor Stanley, all evidently
+copied from some books of reference.</p>
+
+<p>I may perhaps claim one advantage in trying to
+describe what happened to myself in my passage
+through life. From the earliest days that I can
+recollect, I felt myself as a twofold being&mdash;as a
+subject and an object, as a spectator and as an actor.
+I suppose we all talk to ourselves, and say to our
+better and worse selves, O thou fool! or, Well done,
+my boy! Well this inward conversation began with
+me at a very early time, and left the impression
+that I was the coachman, but at the same time the
+horse too which he drove and sometimes whipped
+very cruelly. And this phase of thought, or rather
+this state of feeling, seems soon to have led me on
+to another view which likewise dates from a very
+early time, though it afterwards vanished. As a
+little boy, when I could not have the same toys
+which other boys possessed, I could fully enjoy what
+they enjoyed, as if they had been my own. There
+is a German phrase, &#8220;Ich freue mich in deiner
+Seele,&#8221; which exactly expressed what I often felt.
+It was not the result of teaching, still less of reasoning&mdash;it
+was a sentiment given me and which certainty
+did not leave me till much later in life, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+competition, rivalry, jealousy, and envy seemed to
+accentuate my own I as against all other I&#8217;s or
+Thou&#8217;s. I suppose we all remember how the sight
+of a wound of a fellow creature, nay even of a dog,
+gives us a sharp twitch in the same part of our own
+body. That bodily sympathy has never left me, I
+suffer from it even now as I did seventy years ago.
+And is there anybody who has not felt his eyes moisten
+at the sudden happiness of his friends? All this
+seems to me to account, to a certain extent at least,
+for that feeling of identity with so-called strangers,
+which came to me from my earliest days, and has
+returned again with renewed strength in my old age.
+The &#8220;know thyself,&#8221; ascribed to Chilon and other
+sages of ancient Greece, gains a deeper meaning
+with every year, till at last the I which we looked
+upon as the most certain and undoubted fact, vanishes
+from our grasp to become the Self, free from
+the various accidents and limitations which make
+up the I, and therefore one with the Self that underlies
+all individual and therefore vanishing I&#8217;s.
+What that common Self may be is a question to be
+reserved for later times, though I may say at once
+that the only true answer given to it seems to me
+that of the Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy.
+Only we must take care not to mistake the moral
+Self, that finds fault with the active Self, for the
+Highest Self that knows no longer of good or evil
+deeds.</p>
+
+<p>Long before I had worked and thought out this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+problem as the fundamental truth of all philosophy,
+it presented itself to me as if by intuition, long before
+I could have fathomed it in its metaphysical
+meaning. I had just heard of the death of a dear
+little child, and was standing in our garden, looking
+at a rose-bush, covered in summer with hundreds
+of rose-buds and rose-flowers. While I was looking
+I broke off one small withered bud from the midst
+of a large cluster of roses, and after I had done so
+a question came to me, and I said to myself, What
+has happened? Is it only that one small bud is dead
+and gone, or have not all the other roses been
+touched by the breath of death that fell on it?
+Have they not all suffered from the death of their
+sister, for they all spring from the same stem, they
+all have their life from the same source? And if
+one rose suffers, must not all the others suffer with
+it? Then all the buds and flowers of the cluster
+seemed to me to become one, as it were a family
+of roses, and each single bud seemed but the repetition
+of the same thing, the manifestation of the
+same thought, namely the thought of the rose. But
+my eyes were carried still further, and the stem
+from which the bunch of roses sprang was lost with
+other stems in a branch, and it was that branch on
+which all the roses of the branchlets and stems depended,
+and without which they could not flower
+or exist. The single roses thus became identified
+with the branch from which they had sprung, and
+by which they lived. I wondered more and more,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+and after another look all the branches with all their
+branchlets became absorbed in the stem, and the
+stem was the tree, and the tree sprang from a seed,
+or as it is now called, the protoplasm; but beyond
+that seed there was nothing else that the eye could
+see or the mind could grasp. And while this vision
+floated before my eyes I thought of my little friend,
+and the home from which she had been broken off,
+and the same vision which had changed the rose-bush
+with all its flowers, and buds, and branchlets,
+and branches, into a stem and a tree, and at last into
+one invisible germ and seed, seemed now to change
+my little friend and her brothers and sisters, her
+parents too and all her family, into one being which,
+like an old oak tree, started from an invisible stem,
+or an invisible seed, or from an invisible thought,
+and that divine thought was man, as the other divine
+thought had been rose.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I did not see it so fully then as I see it
+now, and I certainly did not reason about it. I
+simply felt that in the death of my little friend,
+something of myself had gone, though she was
+no relation, but only a stray human friend. We see
+many things as children which we cannot see as
+grown-up men and women, for, as Longfellow said,
+&#8220;the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts.&#8221;
+Nay, I feel convinced that He who spoke the parable
+of the vine had seen the same vision when He
+said: &#8220;I am the vine, ye are the branches. Abide
+in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more
+can ye, except ye abide in Me.&#8221; And it is on this
+vision, or this parable of the vine, that immediately
+afterwards follows the lesson, &#8220;Love one another,
+as I have loved you.&#8221; In loving one another we
+are in truth loving the others as ourselves, as one
+with ourselves; and while we are loving Him who
+is the vine, we are loving the branches, ourselves&mdash;aye,
+even our own little selves.</p>
+
+<p>Such vague visions or intuitions often remain
+with us for life, but while they seem to be the same,
+they vary as we vary ourselves. We imagine we
+saw their deepest meaning from the first, but, like
+a parable, they gain in meaning every time they
+come back to us.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Deutsche Rundschau</i>, Feb., 1900, p. 249.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Driesch, <i>Biologisches Centralblatt</i>, 1896, p. 335.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> As giving a clear and complete abstract of my writings I
+may now recommend M. Montcalm&#8217;s <i>L&#8217;origine de la Pens&eacute;e et
+de la Parole</i>, Paris, 1900.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> <i>Oxford Dictionary</i>, s.&nbsp;v.; J. Rennie, <i>Science of Gardening</i>,
+p. 113.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> <i>Science of Language</i>, vol. i. p. 24 (1861).</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> a small town such as Dessau was when I lived
+there as a child and as a boy, one lived as in an
+enchanted island. The horizon was very narrow,
+and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the
+little oasis. The Duchy was indeed a little oasis
+in the large desert of Central Germany. The landscape
+was beautiful: there were rivers small and
+large&mdash;the Mulde and the Elbe; there were magnificent
+oak forests; there were regiments of firs standing
+in regular columns like so many grenadiers;
+there were parks such as one sees in England only.
+The town, the capital of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau,
+had been cared for by successive rulers&mdash;men
+mostly far in advance of their time&mdash;who had read
+and travelled, and brought home the best they could
+find abroad. Their old castle, centuries old, over-awed
+the town; it was by far the largest building,
+though there were several other smaller places in
+the town for members of the ducal family. All the
+public buildings, theatres, libraries, schools, and barracks,
+had been erected by the Dukes, as well as several
+private residences intended for some of the higher
+officials. The whole town was, in fact, the creation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+of the Dukes; the whole ground on which it stood
+had been originally their property, but it was mostly
+held as freehold by those who had built their
+own private houses on it. No one would have built
+a house on leasehold land, 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
+years. The same family often remained in their
+house for generations, and the different stories
+were occupied by three generations at the same
+time&mdash;by grandparents, parents, and children. In
+this small town I was born on December 6, 1823.
+My father, Wilhelm M&uuml;ller, was Librarian of the
+Ducal Library, and one of the most popular poets in
+Germany. A national monument was erected to
+his memory at Dessau in the year 1891, nearly a
+hundred years after his birth.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="father" id="father"></a><a href="images/illo046.jpg"><img src="images/illo046_th.jpg"
+alt="My father" title="My father" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><small>MY FATHER</small></p>
+
+<p>What a blessing it would be if such a rule were
+followed with all great men, who seem so great at
+the time of their death, and who, a hundred years
+later, are almost forgotten, or at all events appreciated
+by a small number of admirers only. This
+Monument- and Society-mania is indeed becoming
+very objectionable, for if for some time there has
+been no room for tombs and statues in Westminster
+Abbey, there will soon be no room for them in the
+streets of London. The result is that many of the
+people who walk along the Thames Embankment,
+particularly foreigners, often ask, &#8220;Cur?&#8221; when
+looking at the human idols in bronze and marble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+put up there; while historians, remembering the
+really great men of England, would ask quite as
+often, &#8220;Cur non?&#8221; There is a curious race of people,
+who, as soon as a man of any note dies, are
+ready to found anything for him&mdash;a monument, a
+picture, a school, a prize, a society&mdash;to keep alive
+his memory. Of course these societies want presidents,
+members of council, committees, secretaries,
+&amp;c., and at last, subscriptions also. Thus it has
+happened that the name of founder (<i>Gr&uuml;nder</i>) has
+assumed, particularly in Germany, a perfume by no
+means sweet. Those who are asked to subscribe to
+such testimonials know how disagreeable it is to
+decline to give at least their name, deeply as they
+feel that in giving it they are offending against all
+the rules of historical perspective. I should not
+say that my father was one of the great poets of
+Germany, though Heine, no mean critic, declared
+that he placed his lyric poetry next to that of
+Goethe. Besides, he was barely thirty-three when
+he died. He had been a favourite pupil of F.&nbsp;A.
+Wolf, and had proved his classical scholarship by
+his <i>Homerische Vorschule</i>, and other publications.
+His poems became popular in the true sense of the
+word, and there are some which the people in the
+street sing even now without being aware of the
+name of their author. Schubert&#8217;s compositions also
+have contributed much to the wide popularity of his
+<i>Sch&ouml;ne M&uuml;llerin</i> and his <i>Winterreise</i>, so that
+though it might truly be said of him that he wanted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+no monument in bronze or stone, it seemed but
+natural that a small town like Dessau should wish
+to honour itself by honouring the memory of one
+of its sons. In the company of Mendelssohn, the
+philosopher, and of F. Schneider, the composer, a
+monument of my father in the principal street of
+his native town, and before the school in which he
+had been a pupil and a teacher, could hardly seem
+out of place. That the Greek Parliament voted the
+Pentelican marble for the poet of the <i>Griechenlieder</i>,
+as it had done for Lord Byron, was another
+inducement for his fellow citizens to do honour to
+their honoured poet. He died when I was hardly
+four years old, so that my recollection of him is
+very faint and vague, made up, I believe, to a great
+extent, of pictures, and things that my mother told
+me. I seem to remember him as a bright, sunny,
+and thoroughly joyful man, delighted with our little
+naughtinesses. One book I still possess which
+he bought for me and which was to be the first book
+of my library. It was a small volume of Horace,
+printed by Pickering in 1820. It has now almost
+vanished among the 12,000 big volumes that form
+my library, but I am delighted that I am still able,
+at seventy-six, to read it without spectacles. I
+think I remember my father taking my sister and
+me on his knees, and telling us the most delightful
+stories, that set us wondering and laughing and
+crying till we could laugh and cry no longer. He
+had been a fellow worker with the brothers Grimm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+and the stories he told were mostly from their collection,
+though he knew how to embellish them
+with anything that could make a child cry and
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>People have little idea how great and how lasting
+an influence such popular stories about kings and
+queens, and princesses and knights, about ogres and
+witches, about men that have been changed into
+animals, and about animals that talk and behave
+like human beings, exercise on the imagination of
+young children. While we listened, a new world
+seemed to open before us, and anything like doubt
+as to the reality of these beings never existed.
+What was reality or unreality to young children
+of four and five? How few people know what real
+reality is, even after they have reached the age of
+fifty or sixty. For children, such names as reality
+and unreality do not exist, nor the ideas which they
+express. They listen to what their father tells them,
+and they cannot see any difference between what
+he tells them of Frederick Barbarossa, of Romulus
+and Remus suckled by a wolf, or of the dwarfs that
+guarded the coffin of Schneewittchen.</p>
+
+<p>Some people, however, have thought that from
+an educational point of view, a belief in this imaginary
+world must be mischievous. I doubt it,
+and it would be easy to show that originally these
+stories and fables were really meant to inculcate
+right and good principles. Luther declared that he
+would not lose these wonderful stories of his tender<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+childhood for any sum of money, and Camerarius
+(<i>Fabulae Aesopeae</i>, p. 406, Lipsiae, 1570) speaks of
+these German fables as filling the minds of the people,
+and particularly of children, with terror, hope,
+and religion. The oldest collections in which some
+of these Aesopean fables occur, the Pantschatantra
+and Hitopadesa in Sanskrit, were distinctly intended
+for the education of princes, and though they may
+make the young listeners inclined to be superstitious,
+such superstitiousness is not likely to last long.
+Children delight in <i>M&auml;rchen</i> as in a kind of pantomime,
+and when the curtain has fallen on that fairy
+world they often think of it as of a beautiful dream
+that has passed away. The stories are certainly
+more impressive than the proverbs and wise saws
+which many of them were meant to illustrate, without
+always saying, <i>haec fabula docet</i>. Even if some
+of these stories touch sometimes on what may not
+seem to us quite correct, it is done to make children
+laugh rather at the silliness than cry at the downright
+wickedness of some of the heroes. It is by no means
+uncommon, for instance, that a good-for-nothing
+fellow succeeds, while his virtuous companions fail.
+But there is either a reason for it, or the injustice
+provokes the indignation of children, long before
+they have learnt that in real life also virtue does not
+always receive its reward, while falsehood often
+prospers, at least for a time. There is no harm, I
+think, in a certain dreaminess in children. I remember
+that I have often laughed with all my heart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
+at Rumpelstilzchen, and shed bitter tears at Br&uuml;derchen
+and Schwesterchen. I seemed to see brother
+and sister driven into the wood, the brother being
+changed into a deer, and the sister sleeping with her
+head on his warm fur, till at last the deer was killed
+by a huntsman, and the little sister had to travel on
+quite alone in the forest. Of course in the end she
+became a princess, and the brother a prince who
+married a queen, and all ended in great joy and
+jubilation in which we all joined. How good for
+children that they should for a time at least have
+lived in such a dreamland, in which truthfulness
+was as a rule rewarded, and falsehood punished in
+the end.</p>
+
+<p>It was like a recollection of a Paradise, and such
+a recollection, even if it brought out the contrast between
+the dream-world and the real world, would
+often set children musing on what ought and what
+ought not to be. They did not long believe in
+Dornr&ouml;schen and Schneewittchen, they learnt but
+too soon that Dornr&ouml;schen and Schneewittchen
+belonged to another world. They may even have
+come to learn that Dornr&ouml;schen (thorn-rose) and
+Schneewittchen (snow-white) were meant originally
+for the sleep or death of nature in her snow-white
+shroud, and the return of the sun; but woe to the
+boy who on first learning these stories should have
+declared that they were mere bosh, or, as Sir Walter
+Scott says, the detritus of nature-myths.</p>
+
+<p>My father&#8217;s father, whom I never knew, seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+not to have been distinguished in any way. He
+was, however, a useful tradesman and a respected
+citizen of Dessau, and, as I see, the founder of the
+first lending library in that small town. He married
+a second time, a rich widow, chiefly, as I was told,
+to enable him to give his son, my father, a liberal
+education. She grew to be very old, and I well remember
+her, to me, forbidding and terrifying appearance.
+She quite belonged to a past generation,
+and when I saw her again after having been in
+England, she asked me whether I had seen Napoleon
+who had been taken prisoner and sent to England,
+but had lately escaped and resumed his throne
+in Paris. She evidently mixed up the two Napoleons,
+and I did not contradict her. To me her conversation
+was interesting as showing how little the
+traditions of the people can be relied on, and how
+easily, by the side of real history, a popular history
+could grow up. After all, the poems of Charlemagne
+besieging Jerusalem owed their origin very
+likely to some similar confusion in the minds of old
+women. My sister and I were always terrified when
+we were sent to visit her, for with her dishevelled
+grey hair, her thin white face, and her piercing
+eyes, she was to us the old grandmother, or the
+witch of Grimm&#8217;s stories; and the language she
+used was such that, if we repeated it at home, we
+were severely reprimanded. She knew very little
+about my father, but her memory about her first
+husband and about her own youth and childhood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+was very clear, though not always edifying. Her
+stories about ghosts, witches, ogres, nickers, and the
+whole of that race were certainly enough to frighten
+a child, and some of them clung to me for a very
+long time. On my mother&#8217;s side my relations were
+more civilized, and they had but little social intercourse
+with my grandmother and her relatives. My
+mother&#8217;s father was von Basedow, the President,
+that is Prime Minister of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau,
+a position in which he was succeeded by his
+eldest son, my uncle. He was the first man in the
+town; the Duke and he really ruled the Duchy exactly
+as they pleased. There was no check on them
+of any kind, and yet no one, as far as I know, ever
+complained of any tyranny. My grandfather&#8217;s
+father again was the famous reformer of public education
+in Germany. He (1723-1790) had to brave
+the conservative and clerical parties throughout the
+country. His home at Hamburg was burnt in a
+riot, and it was then that he migrated to Dessau, to
+become the founder of the <i>Philanthropinum</i>, and
+at the same time the path-breaker for men such as
+Pestalozzi (1746-1827) and Froebel (1782-1852).
+Considering his lifelong struggles, he deserved a
+better monument at Dessau than he has found there.
+No doubt he was a passionate and violent man, and
+his outbreaks are still remembered at Dessau, while
+his beneficial activity has almost been forgotten. I
+was often told that I took after my mother&#8217;s family,
+whatever that may mean, and this was certainly the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+case in outward appearance, though I hope not in
+temper. My great grandfather, the Pedagogue as
+he was called, was a friend of Goethe&#8217;s, and is mentioned
+in his poems.</p>
+
+<p>My childhood at home was often very sad. My
+mother, who was left a widow at twenty-eight with
+two children, my sister and myself, was heart-broken.
+The few years of her married life had been
+most bright and brilliant. My father was a rising
+poet, and such was his popularity that he was able
+to indulge his tastes as he liked, whether in travelling
+or in making his house a pleasant centre of social
+life. Contemporaries and friends of my father, particularly
+Baron Simolin, a very intimate friend,
+who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house, have
+written of the bright gaiety, the whole-hearted enjoyment
+of life that reigned there, and have told
+how, though his income was to say the least of it
+small, Wilhelm M&uuml;ller&#8217;s home was the rallying-point
+for all the cultivated, scientific, and artistic
+society of Dessau, who felt attracted by the simple
+and unaffected yet truly genial disposition of the
+master of the house.</p>
+
+<p>It would be interesting to know how much an
+author could make at that time by his pen. Publishers
+seem to have been far more liberal then than
+they are now. The circumstances were different.
+The number of writers was of course much smaller,
+and the sale of really popular books probably much
+larger. Anyhow, my father, whose salary was minute,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+seems to have been able to enjoy the few years
+of his married life in great comfort. The thought
+of saving money, however, seems never to have entered
+his poetical mind, and after his unexpected
+death, due to paralysis of the heart, it was found
+that hardly any provision had been made for his
+family. Even the life insurance, which is obligatory
+on every civil servant, and the pension granted
+by the Duke, gave my mother but a very small income,
+fabulously small, when one considers that she
+had to bring up two children on it. It has been a
+riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.</p>
+
+<p>However, it was done, and could only have been
+done in a small town like Dessau, where education
+was as good as it was cheap, and where very little
+was expected by society. We must also take into
+account the very low prices which then ruled at
+Dessau with regard to almost all the necessaries of
+life. I see from the old newspapers that beef sold
+at about threepence a pound (two groschen), mutton
+at about twopence. Wine was sold at seven to eight
+groschen a bottle, a better sort for twelve to fourteen
+groschen&mdash;a groschen being about a penny. People
+drank mostly beer, and this was sold under Government
+inspection at two to three groschen per quart.
+Fish was equally cheap, and such, at the beginning
+of the century, was the abundance of salmon caught
+in the Elbe, and even in the Mulde at Dessau, that
+it was stipulated as in Scotland, that servants should
+not have salmon more than twice or thrice in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+week. The lowest price for salmon was then twopence
+halfpenny a pound. As a boy I can remember
+seeing the salmon in large numbers leap over
+a weir in the very town of Dessau, and though they
+had travelled for so many miles inland, the fish was
+very good, though not so good as Severn salmon.
+Game also was very cheap, and sold for not much
+more than mutton, nay, at certain times it was given
+away; it could not be exported. Corn was sold at
+three shillings per <i>Scheffel</i>, and by corn was chiefly
+meant rye. No one took wheaten bread, and the
+bread was therefore called brown bread and black
+bread. White bread was only taken with coffee,
+and peasants in the villages would not have touched
+it, because it was not supposed to make such strong
+bones as rye-bread. With such prices we can understand
+that a salary of &pound;300 was considered sufficient
+for the highest officers of state.</p>
+
+<p>My mother&#8217;s relations, who were all high in the
+public service, my grandfather, as I said, being the
+Duke&#8217;s chief minister, made life more easy and
+pleasant for us; but for many years my mother
+never went into society, and our society consisted
+of members of our own family only. All I remember
+of my mother at that time was that she took her
+two children day after day to the beautiful <i>Gottesacker</i>
+(God&#8217;s Acre), where she stood for hours at
+our father&#8217;s grave, and sobbed and cried. It was a
+beautiful and restful place, covered with old acacia
+trees. The inscription over the gateway was one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
+my earliest puzzles. <i>Tod ist nicht Tod, ist nur
+Veredlung menschlicher Natur</i> (Death is not
+death, &#8217;tis but the ennobling of man&#8217;s nature). On
+each side there stood a figure, representing the
+genius of sleep and the genius of death. All this
+was the work of the old Duke, Leopold Friedrich
+Franz, who tried to educate his people as he had educated
+himself, partly by travel, partly by intercourse
+with the best men he could attract to Dessau.</p>
+
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="mother" id="mother"></a><a href="images/illo058.jpg"><img src="images/illo058_th.jpg"
+alt="My mother" title="My mother" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><small>MY MOTHER</small></p>
+
+<p>At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing
+to a boy. I heard and thought more about death
+than about life, though I knew little of course of
+what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures,
+and my chief happiness was to be with my mother.
+I shared her grief without understanding much
+about it. She was passionately devoted to her
+children, and I was passionately fond of her. What
+there was left of life to her, she gave to us, she lived
+for us only, and tried very hard not to deprive our
+childhood of all brightness. She was certainly most
+beautiful, and quite different from all other ladies
+at Dessau, not only in the eyes of her son, but as
+it seemed to me, of everybody. Then she had a
+most perfect voice, and when I first began music
+she helped and encouraged me in every possible way.
+We played <i>&agrave; quatre mains</i>, and soon she made me
+accompany her when she sang. As far as I can
+recollect, I was never so happy as when I could
+be with her. She read so much to us that I was
+quite satisfied, and saw perhaps less of my young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+friends than I ought. When my mother said she
+wished to die, and to be with our father, I feel
+sure that my sister and I were only anxious that she
+should take us with her, for there were few golden
+chains that bound us as yet to this life. I see her
+now, sitting on a winter&#8217;s evening near the warm
+stove, a candle on the table, and a book from which
+she read to us in her hands, while the spinning-wheel
+worked by the servant-maid in the corner went on
+humming all the time. She read Paul Gerhard&#8217;s
+translation of St. Bernard&#8217;s:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Salve caput cruentatum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Totum spinis coronatum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Conquassatum, vulneratum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Arundine verberatum,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Facies sputis illita.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O Haupt zu Spott gebunden<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mit einer Dornenkron,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O Haupt sonst sch&ouml;n gezieret<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mit h&ouml;chster Ehr und Zier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Jetzt aber hoch schimpfiret:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gegr&uuml;sset seist du mir!&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Though the German translation does not come
+near the powerful majesty of the original, yet such
+was the effect produced on me that I saw the bleeding
+head before my eyes, and cried and cried until
+my mother had to comfort me by assuring me that
+the sufferer was now in Heaven and that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+was only a song to be sung in church. How
+deeply such scenes seem engraved on the memory;
+how vividly they return when the rubbish of many
+years is swept away and all is again as it was then,
+and the <i>caput cruentatum</i> looks down on us once
+more, as it did then, with the human eyes full of
+divine love, so truly human that one could say with
+St. Bernard, &#8220;Tuum caput huc inclina, in meis
+pausa brachiis.&#8221; But willingly as I listened to these
+readings at home, and full as my heart was of love to
+Christ, I suffered intensely when I was taken to
+church as a young boy. It was a very large church,
+and in winter bitterly cold. Even though I liked
+the singing, the long sermon was real torture to me.
+I could not understand a word of it, and being thinly
+clad my teeth would have chattered if I had not
+been told that it was wrong &#8220;to make a noise in
+church.&#8221; Oh! what misery is inflicted on childhood
+by this enforced attendance at church. When
+a church can be warmed the suffering is less intense,
+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 church. These early impressions
+often remain for life, and the worst of it is
+that the idea remains in the minds of children, and
+of grown-up people too, that by going to church
+and repeating the same prayers over and over again,
+and listening to long and often dreary sermons, they
+are actually doing a service to God (<i>Gottesdienst</i>).<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+Why does no new prophet arise and say in the name
+of God, as David did in the name of Jehovah,
+&#8220;Sermons and long prayers &#8216;thou didst not desire&#8217;&#8221;?</p>
+
+<p>Many years later I had to discuss the same question
+with Keshub Chunder Sen, the Indian Reformer.
+He wanted to know what kind of service
+should be adopted by his new church, the Brahmo
+Somaj; his friends thought of sermons, singing, and
+processions with flags and flowers through the streets.
+&#8220;No,&#8221; I said to him, &#8220;service of God should be
+service of men; if you want divine service, let it
+be a real service, such as God would approve of.
+Let other people go to church, to their mosques or
+their temples, but take you your own friends on
+certain days of the week to whatever you like to
+call your meeting-place, and after a short prayer
+or a few words of advice send some of them to the
+poorest streets in the city, others to the prisons,
+others to the hospitals. Let them pray with all who
+wish to pray, but let them speak words of true love
+and comfort also, and when they can, let them help
+them with their alms. That would be a real Divine
+Service and a divine Sunday for you, and you
+would all come home, it may be sadder, but certainly
+wiser and better men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I am afraid he did not agree with me. He did
+not think that true religion was to visit the poor and
+the afflicted. That might do for a practical people
+like the English, but the Hindu wanted something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+else, he wanted some outward show and ceremony
+for the people, and at the same time some silent
+communion with God. Who can tell what different
+people understand by religion? and who can
+prescribe the spiritual food that is best for them?
+&#8220;Only,&#8221; I said, &#8220;do not call it practical to encourage
+millions of people to waste hours and hours in
+mere repetition, and to spend millions and millions
+in supplying this cold comfort, when next door to
+the magnificent cathedral there are squalid streets,
+and squalid houses, and squalid beds to lie and
+die on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The religious and devotional element is very
+strong in Germany, but the churches are mostly
+empty. A German keeps his religion for weekdays
+rather than for Sunday. When the German
+regiments marched, and when they made ready for
+battle, they did not sing ribald songs, they sang the
+songs of Luther and Paul Gerhard, which they
+knew by heart and which strengthened them to
+face death as it ought to be faced.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, while enforced attendance at church
+was apt to produce the strongest aversion in the
+young heart against anything that was called religion,
+religious instruction both at home and at
+school too was excellent, and undid much of the mischief
+that had been done during cold winter days.
+True religious sentiments can be planted in the soul
+at home only, by a mother better even than by a
+father. The sense of a divine presence everywhere,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+&#960;&#7937;&#957;&#964;&#945; &#960;&#955;&#7969;&#961;&#951; &#952;&#949;&#8033;&#957;, once planted in the heart
+of a child remains for life. Of course the child
+soon begins to argue, and says to his mother that
+God cannot be at the same time in two rooms. But
+only let a mother show to the child the rays of the
+sun in the sky, in the streets, and in every corner of
+the house, and it will begin to understand that nothing
+can be hid from the eyes of Him who is greater
+than the sun. And when a child doubts whether
+the voice of conscience can be the voice of God, and
+asks how he could hear that voice without seeing
+the speaker, ask him only whose voice it can be that
+tells him not to do what he himself wishes to do,
+and not to say what he could say without any fear
+of men; and his idea of God will be raised from that
+of a visible being like the sun, to the concept of a
+presence that never vanishes, that is not only without,
+in the sky, in the mountains, and in the storm,
+but nearer also within, in the sense of fear, in the
+sense of shame, and in the hope of pardon and love.</p>
+
+<p>At school our religious teaching was chiefly historical
+and moral. There was no difficulty in finding
+proper teachers for that, and there were no
+attempts on the part of parents to interfere with
+religious instruction or to demand separate teaching
+for each sect. It is true that religious sects are not
+so numerous in Germany as they are in England.
+Some, though by no means all, children of Roman
+Catholic and Jewish parents were allowed to be absent
+from religious lessons. But most parents knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+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 children. Respect
+for historical truth, and an implanted sense of the
+reverence due to children, would keep any teacher
+from making the history of the Christian Church,
+whether before or after the Reformation, an excuse
+for offending one of the little ones committed
+to his care. If Jews or Roman Catholics wished
+for any special religious instruction it was given
+by their own priests or Rabbis, and was given without
+any interference on the part of the Government.
+But such was at my time the state of public
+feeling that I hardly knew at school who among my
+young friends were Roman Catholics, or Lutherans,
+or Reformed. I must admit, however, that the
+very name of Luther might have offended Roman
+Catholics. He was represented to us as a perfect
+saint, almost as inspired and infallible. His hymns
+sung in church seemed to us little different from the
+Psalms of David, and I well remember what a shock
+it gave me when at Oxford, much later in life, I
+heard Luther spoken of like any other mortal, nay,
+as a heretic, and a most dangerous heretic too.
+When I was a boy I remember that in some places
+the same building had to be used for Protestant
+and Roman Catholic services. All that, I am
+afraid, is now changed, and the old liberal and tolerant
+feeling then prevailing on all sides is now often
+stigmatized as indifference, and by other ugly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
+names. It should really be called the golden age
+of Christianity, and this so-called indifference
+should be classed among the highest Christian virtues,
+and as the fullest realization of the spirit of
+Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we grew up from our earliest youth, being
+taught to look upon Christianity as an historical
+fact, on Christ and His disciples as historical characters,
+on the Old and New Testaments as real historical
+books. Though we did not understand as
+yet the deeper meaning of Christ and of His words,
+we had at least nothing to unlearn in later times, or
+to feel that our parents had ever told us what they
+themselves could not have held to be true. Our
+simple faith was not shaken by mere questions of
+criticism, or by the problem how any human being
+could take upon himself to declare any book to be
+revealed, unless he claimed for himself a more than
+human insight. The simplest rules of logic should
+make such a declaration impossible, whatever the
+sacred book may be to which it is applied. Granted
+that the Pope was infallible, how could the Cardinals
+know that he was, unless they claimed for themselves
+the same or even greater infallibility? It is
+far more easy to be inspired than to know some one
+else is or was inspired; the true inspiration is, and
+always has been, the spirit of truth within, and this
+is but another name for the spirit of God. It is truth
+that makes inspiration, not inspiration that makes
+truth. Whoever knows what truth is, knows also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+what inspiration is: not only <i>theopneustos</i>, blown
+into the soul by God, but the very voice of God,
+the real presence of God, the only presence in which
+we, as human beings, can ever perceive Him.</p>
+
+<p>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 objective, but must always be subjective. I may
+return to this question at a later period of my life,
+when I had to discuss with Renan, at Paris, with
+Froude, Kingsley, and Liddon, in England, and
+tried to show how entirely self-made some of their
+difficulties were. 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 own;
+as Samson, when he awoke, found himself bound
+with seven green withs and had to break them with
+all his might before he could hope to escape from
+the Philistines. The Philistines never bound me.
+During my early school-days these difficulties did
+not exist, but I have often been grateful in after life
+that the seven locks of my head have never been
+woven with the web.</p>
+
+<p>I remember a number of small events in my
+school-life at Dessau, but though they were full of
+interest to me, nay, full of meaning, and not without
+an influence on my later life, they would have no
+meaning and no interest for others, and may remain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+as if they had never been. The influence which
+music exercised on my mind, and, I believe, on my
+heart also, I have related in my <i>Musical Recollections</i>.
+The image of those passing years, though its
+general tone was melancholy, chiefly owing to my
+mother&#8217;s melancholy, seemed to me at the time
+free from all unhappiness. My work at school and
+at home was not too heavy; I was fond of it, and
+very fond of books. Books were scarce then, and
+whoever possessed a new and valuable book was expected
+to lend it to his friends in the little town.
+If a man was known to possess, say, Goethe&#8217;s works
+or Jean Paul&#8217;s works, the consequence was that one
+went to him or to her to ask for the loan of them.
+And not only books, but paper and pens also were
+scarce. The first steel pens came in when I was
+still in the lower school, and bad as they were they
+were looked upon as real treasures by the schoolboys
+who possessed them. Paper was so dear that
+one had to be very sparing in its use. Every margin
+and cover was scribbled over before it was
+thrown away, 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
+Christmas. I am sorry to say I have had to suffer
+all my life from the inefficiency of our writing
+master, or maybe from the fact that my thoughts
+were too quick for my pen. In other subjects I did
+well, but though I was among the first in each class,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+I was by no means cleverer than other boys. In
+the lower school work was more like conversation
+or like hearing news from our teachers. The idea
+of effort did not yet exist. The drudgery began,
+however, when I entered the upper school, the
+gymnasium, and learnt the elements of Latin and
+Greek. Though our teachers were very conscientious,
+they tried to make our work no burden to us,
+and the constant change of places in each class kept
+up a lively rivalry among the boys, though I am
+not sure that it did not make me rather ambitious
+and at times conceited. Still, I had few enemies,
+and it seemed of much more consequence who could
+knock down another boy than who could gain a
+place above him. I feel sure I could have done a
+great deal more at school than I did, but it was
+partly my music and partly my incessant headaches
+that interfered with my school work.</p>
+
+<p>I remember as a boy that certain streets were inhabited
+exclusively by Jewish families. A large
+number of Jews had been received at Dessau by
+a former Duke; but though he granted them leave
+to settle at Dessau when they were persecuted in
+other parts of Germany, he stipulated that they
+should only settle in certain streets. These streets
+were by no means the worst streets of the town;
+on the contrary they showed greater comfort and
+hardly any of the squalor which disgraced the Jewish
+quarters in other towns in Germany. As children
+we were brought up without any prejudice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+against the Jews, though we had, no doubt, a certain
+feeling that they were tolerated only, and were
+not quite on the same level with ourselves. We also
+felt the religious difficulty sometimes very strongly.
+Were not the Jews the murderers of Christ? and
+had they not said: &#8220;the blood be on us and on our
+children&#8221;? But as we were told that it was wrong
+to harbour feelings of revenge, we boys soon forgot
+and forgave, and played together as the best friends.
+I remember picking up a number of Jewish words
+which would not have been understood anywhere
+else. I was hardly aware that they were Jewish and
+used them like any other words. But I once gave
+great offence to my friend Professor Bernays, who
+was a Jew. He had uttered some quite incredible
+statement, and I exclaimed, &#8220;Sind Sie denn ganz
+maschukke?&#8221;&mdash;Hebrew for &#8220;mad.&#8221; I meant no
+harm, but he was very much hurt.</p>
+
+<p>I knew several Jewish families, and received
+much kindness from them as a boy. Many of these
+families were wealthy, but they never displayed
+their wealth, and in consequence excited no envy.
+All that is changed now. The children of the Jews
+who formerly lived in a very quiet style at Dessau,
+now occupy the best houses, indulge in most expensive
+tastes, and try in every way to outshine their
+non-Jewish neighbours. They buy themselves
+titles, and, when they can, stipulate for stars and
+orders as rewards for successful financial operations,
+carried out with the money of princely personages.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+Hence the revulsion of feeling all over Germany,
+or what is called Anti-Semitism, which has assumed
+not only a social but a political significance. I doubt
+whether there is anything religious in it, as there
+was when we were boys. The Anti-Semitic hatred
+is the hatred of money-making, more particularly
+of that kind of money-making which requires no
+hard work, but only a large capital to begin with,
+and boldness and astuteness in speculating, that is
+in buying and selling at the right moment. The
+sinews of war for that kind of financial warfare were
+mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of
+the present generation. Sometimes, no doubt, the
+capital was lost, and in those cases it must be said
+that the Jewish speculator disappears from the stage
+without a sigh or a cry. He begins again, and if
+he should have to do what his grandfather did, walk
+from house to house with a bag on his back, he does
+not whine.</p>
+
+<p>One cannot blame the Jews or any other speculators
+for using their opportunities, but they must
+not complain either if they excite envy, and if that
+envy assumes in the end a dangerous character.
+The Jews, so far from suffering from disabilities,
+enjoy really certain privileges over their Christian
+competitors in Germany. They belong to a <i>regnum</i>,
+but also to a <i>regnum in regno</i>. They have, so to
+say, our Sunday and likewise their Sabbath. Jew
+will always help Jew against a Christian; and again
+who can blame them for that? All one can say is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
+that they should not complain of their unpopularity,
+but take into account the risk they are running.
+No one hated the Jews such as they were in Dessau
+fifty years ago. They had their own schools and
+synagogues, and no one interfered with them when
+they built their bowers in the streets at the time
+of their Feast of Tabernacles, and lived, feasted,
+and slept in them to keep up the memory of their
+sojourning in the desert. They indulged in even
+more offensive practices, such as, for instance, putting
+three stones in the coffins to be thrown by the
+dead at the Virgin Mary, her husband, and their
+Son. No one suspected or accused them of kidnapping
+Christian children, or offering sacrifices with
+their blood. They were known too well for that.
+Conversions of Jews were not infrequent, and converted
+Jews were not persecuted by their former
+co-religionists as they are now. Even marriages
+between Christians and Jews were by no means
+uncommon, particularly when the young Jewesses
+were beautiful or rich, still better if they were both.
+Disgraceful as the Anti-Semitic riots have been in
+Germany and Russia, there can be no doubt that
+in this as in most cases both sides were to blame,
+and there is little prospect of peace being re-established
+till many more heads have been broken.</p>
+
+<p>What helped very much to keep the peace in the
+small town of Dessau, as it did all over Germany,
+nay, all over the world, till about the year 1848,
+was the small number of newspapers. In my childhood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+and youth their number was very small. In
+Dessau I only knew of one, which was then called
+the <i>Wochenblatt</i>, afterwards the <i>Staatsanzeiger</i>.
+At that time newspapers were really read for the
+news which they contained, not for leading or misleading
+articles and all the rest. What a happy
+time it was when a newspaper consisted of a sheet,
+or half a sheet in quarto, with short paragraphs
+about actual events, which had often taken place
+weeks and months before. A battle might have
+been fought in Spain or Turkey, in India or
+China, and no one knew of it till some official
+information was vouchsafed by the respective
+Governments or by Jewish bankers. War-correspondents
+or regular reporters did not exist, and
+the old telegraphic dispatches were sent by wooden
+telegraphs fixed on high towers, which from a distance
+looked like gallows on which a criminal was
+hanging and gesticulating with arms and feet.
+Anybody who watched these signals could decipher
+them far more easily than a hieroglyphic inscription.</p>
+
+<p>The peace of Europe, nay, of the whole world,
+was then in the keeping of sovereigns and their
+ministers, and Prince Metternich might certainly
+take some credit for having kept what he called the
+Thirty Years&#8217; Peace. Shall we ever, as long as
+there are newspapers, have peace again&mdash;peace between
+the great nations of the world, and peace at
+home between contending parties, and peace in our
+mornings at home which are now so ruthlessly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
+broken in upon, nay, swallowed up by those paper-giants,
+most unwelcome yet irresistible callers, just
+when we want to settle down to a quiet day&#8217;s work?
+It is no use protesting against the inevitable, 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 politics.
+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 Augustus.
+When unsuccessful <i>litt&eacute;rateurs</i> or bankrupt bankers&#8217;
+clerks were the chief contributors to the newspapers,
+their influence might have been small; but
+when Bismarcks turned journalists, and Gortchakoffs
+prompted, newspapers could hardly be called
+<i>quantit&eacute;s n&eacute;gligeables</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The horizon of Dessau was very narrow, but
+within its bounds there was a busy and happy life.
+Everybody did his work honestly and conscientiously.
+There were, of course, two classes, the educated
+and the uneducated. The educated consisted of the
+members of the Government service, the clergy, the
+schoolmasters, doctors, artists, and officers; the uneducated
+were the tradesmen, mechanics, and
+labourers. The trade was mostly in the hands of
+Jews, it had become almost a Jewish monopoly.
+When one of these tradesmen went bankrupt, there
+was a commotion over the whole town, and I remember
+being taken to see one of these bankrupt
+shops, expecting to find the whole house broken up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+and demolished, and being surprised to see the
+tradesman standing whole, and sound, and smiling,
+in his accustomed place. My etymological tastes
+must have developed very early, for I had asked
+why this poor Jew was called a bankrupt, and had
+been duly informed that it was because his bank
+had been broken, <i>banca rotta</i>, which of course I
+took in a literal sense, and expected to see all the
+furniture broken to pieces. The commercial relations
+of our Dessau tradesmen did not extend much
+beyond Leipzig, Berlin, possibly Hamburg and
+Cologne. If a burgher of Dessau travelled to these
+or to more distant parts the whole town knew of it
+and talked about it, whereas a journey to Paris or
+London was an event worthy to be mentioned and
+discussed in the newspapers. These old newspapers
+are full of curious information. We find that
+if a person wished to travel to Cologne or further,
+he advertised for a companion, and it was for the
+Burgomaster to make the necessary arrangements
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>French was studied and spoken, particularly at
+Court, but English was a rare acquirement, still
+more Italian or Spanish. There was, however, a
+small inner circle where these languages were studied,
+chiefly in order to read the master-works of
+modern literature. And this was all the more creditable
+because there were no good teachers to be found
+at Dessau, and people had to learn what they wished
+to learn by themselves, with the help of a grammar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
+and dictionary. We learnt French at school,
+but the result was deplorable. As in all public
+schools, the French master who had to teach the language
+at the Ducal Gymnasium could not keep
+order among the boys. He of course spoke French,
+but that was all. He did not know how to teach,
+and could not excite any interest in the boys, who
+insisted on pronouncing French as if it were German.
+The poor man&#8217;s life was made a burden to
+him. His name was Noel, and he had all the pleasing
+manners of a Frenchman, but that served only
+to rouse the antagonism of the young barbarians.
+The result was that we learnt very little, and I was
+sent to an old Jew to learn French and a little English.
+That old Jew, called Levy Rubens, was a
+perfect gentleman. He probably had been a commercial
+traveller in his early days, though no one
+knew exactly where he came from or how he had
+learnt languages. He had taught my father and
+grandfather and he was delighted to teach the third
+generation. He certainly spoke French and English
+fluently, but with the strongest Jewish accent,
+and this was inherited by all his pupils at Dessau.
+I feel ashamed when I think of the tricks we played
+the old man&mdash;putting mice into his pockets, upsetting
+inkstands over his table, and placing crackers
+under his chairs. But he never lost his temper; he
+never would have dared to punish us as we deserved;
+but he went on with his lesson as if nothing had happened.
+He took his small pay, and was satisfied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+when his lessons were over and he could settle down
+to his long pipe and his books. He lived quite alone
+and died quite alone, a hardworking, honest, poor
+Jew, not exactly despised or persecuted, but not
+treated with the respect which he certainly deserved,
+and which he would have received if he had not
+been a Jew.</p>
+
+<p>Our public school was as good as any in Germany.
+These small duchies generally followed the example
+of Prussia, and they carried out the instructions
+issued by the Ministry of Education at Berlin according
+to the very letter. Besides, several of the
+reigning dukes had taken a very warm and personal
+interest in popular education, and at the beginning
+of the century the eyes of the whole of Germany,
+nay, of Europe, were turned towards the educational
+experiments carried on by my great-grandfather,
+Basedow,<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> at the so-called Philanthropinum at Dessau
+under the patronage of the Duke and of several
+of the more enlightened sovereigns of Europe, such
+as the Empress Catherine of Russia, the King of
+Denmark, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, Prince
+Adam Czartoryski, &amp;c. Even after Basedow&#8217;s
+death the interest in education was kept alive in
+Dessau, and all was done that could be done in so
+small a town to keep the different schools&mdash;elementary,
+middle-class, and high schools&mdash;on the highest
+possible level of efficiency.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+<p>Bathing was a very healthful recreation, though
+I very nearly came to grief from trusting to my
+seniors. They could swim and I could not yet. But
+while bathing with two of my friends in a part of
+the river which was safe, they swam along and asked
+me to follow them. Having complete confidence
+in them I jumped in from the shore, but very soon
+began to sink. My shouts brought my friends back,
+and they rescued me, not without some difficulty,
+from drowning.</p>
+
+<p>In an English school the influence of the master
+is, of course, more constant, because one of the masters
+is always within call, while in Germany he is
+visible during school-hours only. If a master is
+fond of his pupils, and takes an interest in them
+individually, he can do them more good than parents
+at home, or the teacher at a day school. The boys
+at a German school are, no doubt, a very mixed
+crew, but that cannot be helped. This mixture of
+classes may be a drawback in some respects, but
+from an educational point of view the sons of very
+rich parents are by no means more valuable than the
+poor boys. Far from it. Many of the evils of
+schoolboy life come from the sons of the rich, while
+the sons of poor parents are generally well behaved.
+But for all that, there was a rough and rude tone
+among some of the boys at school, arising from defects
+in the education at home, and this sometimes
+embittered what ought to be the happiest time of
+life, particularly in the case of delicate boys. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+son of a Minister has often to sit by the side of the
+son of a wealthy butcher, and the very fact that he
+is the son of a gentleman often exposes the more
+refined boy to the bullying of his muscular neighbour.
+I was fortunate at school. I could hold my
+own with the boys, and as to the masters, several of
+them had known my father or had been his pupils,
+and they took a personal interest in me.</p>
+
+<p>I remember more particularly one young master
+who was very kind to me, and took me home for
+private lessons and for giving me some good advice.
+There was something sad and very attractive about
+him, and I found out afterwards that he knew that
+he was dying of consumption, and that besides that
+he was liable to be prosecuted for political liberalism,
+which at that time was almost like high treason.
+I believe he was actually condemned and sent
+to prison like many others, and he died soon after
+I had left Dessau. His name was Dr. H&ouml;nicke, and
+he was the first to try to impress on me that I ought
+to show myself worthy of my father, an idea which
+had never entered my mind before, nay, which at
+first I could hardly understand, but which, nevertheless,
+slumbered on in my mind till years afterwards
+it was called out and became a strong influence
+for the whole of my life. I still have some
+lines which he wrote for my album. They were
+the well-known lines from Horace, which, at the
+time, I had great difficulty in construing, but which
+have remained graven in my memory ever since:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Est in iuvencis est in equis patrum<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Virtus nec imbellem feroces<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Progenerant aquilae columbam.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rectique cultus pectora roborant;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Utcunque defecere mores,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dedecorant bene nata culpae.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In my childhood I had to pass through the ordinary
+illnesses, but it was the faith in our doctor that
+always saved me. The doctor was to my mind the
+man who was called in to make me well again, and
+while my mother was agitated about her only son,
+I never dreamt of any danger. The very idea of
+death never came near me till my grandfather died
+(1835), but even then I was only about twelve years
+old, and though I had seen much of him, particularly
+during the years that my mother lived again in
+his house, yet he was too old to take much share in
+his grandchildren&#8217;s amusements. He left a gap, no
+doubt, in our life, but that gap was filled again with
+new figures in the life of a boy of twelve. He was
+only sixty-one years old when he died, and yet my
+idea of him was always that of a very old man.
+Everything was done for him, his servant dressed
+him every morning, he was lifted into his carriage
+and out of it, and he certainly lived the life of an
+invalid, such as I should not consent to own to at
+seventy-six. He made no secret that he cared more
+for the son of his son who was the heir, and was to
+perpetuate the name of von Basedow, than for the son<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+of his daughter. He was very fond of driving and
+of shooting, and he frequently took my cousin out
+shooting with him. When my cousin came home
+with a hare he had shot, I confess I was sometimes
+jealous, but I was soon cured of my wish to go with
+my grandfather into the forest. Once when I was
+with him in his little carriage, my grandfather, not
+being able to see well, had the misfortune to kill a
+doe which had come out with her two little ones.
+The misery of the mother and afterwards of her
+two young ones, was heart-rending, and from that
+day on I made up my mind never to go out shooting,
+and never to kill an animal. And I have kept
+my word, though I was much laughed at. It may
+be that later in life and after my grandfather&#8217;s death
+I had little opportunity of shooting, 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 life.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, though he aged early, remained
+in harness as Prime Minister to the end of his life,
+and it was his great desire to benefit his country by
+new institutions. It was he who, at the time when
+people hardly knew yet what railroads meant, succeeded
+in getting the line from Berlin to Halle
+and Leipzig to pass by Dessau. He offered to build
+the bridge across the Elbe and to give the land and
+the wood for the sleepers gratis, and what seemed at
+the time a far too generous offer has proved a blessing
+to the duchy, making it as it were the centre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+of the great railway connecting Berlin, Leipzig,
+Magdeburg, the Elbe, Hanover, Bremen, nay,
+Cologne also, the Rhine, and Western Europe. He
+was in his way a good statesman, though we are too
+apt to measure a man&#8217;s real greatness by the circumstances
+in which he moves.</p>
+
+<p>As far back as I can remember I was a martyr
+to headaches. No doctor could help me, no one
+seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and
+though I watched it carefully I could not trace it
+to any fault of mine. The idea that it came from
+overwork was certainly untrue. It came and went,
+and if it was one day on the right side it was always
+the next time on the left, even though I was free
+from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or
+even longer. It was strange also that it seldom
+lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly
+strong and well the day after I had been
+prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite
+unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try
+to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when
+the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes
+the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In
+this way I often lost two or three days in a week,
+and as my work had to be done somehow, it was
+often done anyhow, and I was scolded and punished,
+really without any fault of my own. After all remedies
+had failed which the doctor and nurses prescribed
+(and I well remember my grandmother using
+massage on my neck, which must have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+about 1833 to 1835) I was handed over to Hahnemann,
+the founder of homeopathy. Hahnemann
+(born 1755) had been practising as doctor at Dessau
+as early as 1780&mdash;that is somewhat before my
+time&mdash;but had left it, and when in 1820 he had
+been prohibited by the Government from practising
+and lecturing at Leipzig, he took refuge once more
+in the neighbouring town of Coethen. From there
+he paid visits to Dessau as consulting physician, and
+after I had explained to him as well as I could all
+the symptoms of my chronic headache, he assured
+my mother that he would cure it at once. He was
+an imposing personality&mdash;a powerful man with a
+gigantic head and strong eyes and a most persuasive
+voice. I can quite understand that his personal influence
+would have gone far to effect a cure of many
+diseases. People forget too much how strong a curative
+power resides in the patient&#8217;s faith in his doctor,
+in fact how much the mind can do in depressing and
+in reinvigorating the body. I shall never forget
+in later years consulting Sir Andrew Clarke, and
+telling him of ever so many, to my mind, most serious
+symptoms. I had lost sleep and appetite, and
+imagined myself in a very bad state indeed. He
+examined me and knocked me about for full three
+quarters of an hour, and instead of pronouncing my
+doom as I fully expected, he told me with a bright
+look and most convincing voice that he had examined
+many men who had worked their brains too
+much, but had never seen a man at my time of life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+so perfectly sound in every organ. I felt young and
+strong at once, and meeting my old friend Morier
+on my way home, we ate some dozens of oysters together
+and drank some pints of porter without the
+slightest bad effect. In fact I was cured without a
+pill or a drop of medicine.</p>
+
+<p>And who does not know how, if one makes up
+one&#8217;s mind at last to have a tooth pulled out, the
+pain seems to cease as soon as we pull the bell at
+the dentist&#8217;s?</p>
+
+<p>However, Hahnemann did not succeed with me.
+I swallowed a number of his silver and gold globules,
+but the migraine kept its regular course, right
+to left and left to right, and this went on till about
+the year 1860. Then my doctor, the late Mr. Symonds
+of Oxford, told me exactly what Hahnemann
+had told me&mdash;that he would cure me, if I would
+go on taking some medicine regularly for six months
+or a year. He told me that he and his brother had
+made a special study of headaches, and that there
+were ever so many kinds of headache, each requiring
+its own peculiar treatment. When I asked him to
+what category of headaches mine belonged, I was
+not a little abashed on being told that my headache
+was what they called the Alderman&#8217;s headache.
+&#8220;Surely,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t overeat, or overdrink.&#8221;
+I had thought that mine was a mysterious nervous
+headache, arising from the brain. But no, it seemed
+to be due to turtle soup and port wine. However,
+the doctor, seeing my surprise, comforted me by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
+telling me that it was the nerves of the head which
+affected the stomach, and thus produced indirectly
+the same disturbance in my digestion as an aldermanic
+diet. Whether this was true or was only
+meant as a <i>solatium</i> I do not know. But what I do
+know is, that by taking the medicine regularly for
+about half a year, the frequency and violence of my
+headaches were considerably reduced, while after
+about a year they vanished completely. I was a new
+being, and my working time was doubled.</p>
+
+<p>One lesson may be learnt from this, namely, that
+the English system of doctoring is very imperfect.
+In England we wait till we are ill, then go to a doctor,
+describe our symptoms as well as we can, pay
+one guinea, or two, get our prescription, take drastic
+medicine for a month and expect to be well. My
+German doctor, when he saw the prescription of my
+English doctor, told me that he would not give it to
+a horse. If after a month we are not better we go
+again; he possibly changes our medicine, and we
+take it more or less regularly for another month.
+The doctor cannot watch the effect of his medicine,
+he is not sure even whether his prescriptions have
+been carefully followed; and he knows but too well
+that anything like a chronic complaint requires a
+chronic treatment. The important thing, however,
+was that my headaches yielded gradually to the
+continued use of medicine; it would hardly have
+produced the desired effect if I had taken it by fits
+and starts. All this seems to me quite natural; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+though my English doctor cured me, and my German
+doctors did not, I still hold that the German
+system is better. Most families have their doctor
+in Germany, who calls from time to time to watch
+the health of the old and young members of the
+family, particularly when under medical treatment,
+and receives his stipulated annual payment, which
+secures him a safe income that can be raised, of
+course, by attendance on occasional patients. Perhaps
+the Chinese system is the best; they pay their
+doctor while they are well, and stop payment as
+long as they are ill. 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 England. If my remarks refer to the study and
+practice of medicine I am asked whether more men
+are killed in England than in Germany; if I refer
+to the study and practice of law I am assured that
+quite as many murderers are hanged in England
+as in Germany; and if I venture to hint that the
+study of theology might on certain points be improved
+at Oxford, I am told that quite as many
+souls are saved in England as in Germany, nay,
+a good many more. As I cannot ascertain the facts
+from trustworthy statistics, I have nothing to reply;
+all I feel is that most nations, like most individuals,
+are perfect in their own eyes, but that those are
+most perfect who are willing to admit that there is
+something to be learnt from their neighbours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But to return to Hahnemann. He was very kind
+to me, and I looked up to him as a giant both in
+body and in mind. But he could not deliver me
+from my enemy, the ever recurrent migraine. The
+cures, however, both at Dessau and at Coethen,
+where he had been made a <i>Hofrath</i> by the reigning
+Duke, were very extraordinary. Hahnemann remained
+in Coethen till 1835, and in that year, when
+he was eighty, he married a young French lady,
+Melanie d&#8217;Hervilly, and was carried off by her to
+Paris, where he soon gained a large practice, and
+died in 1843, that is at the age of eighty-eight.
+Much of his success, I feel sure, was due to his
+presence and to the confidence which he inspired.
+How do I know that Sir Andrew Clarke, seeing
+that I was in low spirits about my health, did not
+think it right to encourage me, and by encouraging
+me did certainly make me feel confident about myself,
+and thus raised my vitality, my spirits, or
+whatever we like to call it? &#8220;Thy faith hath made
+thee whole&#8221; is a lesson which doctors ought not
+to neglect.</p>
+
+<p>How little we know the effect of the environment
+in which we grow up. My old granny has drawn
+deeper furrows through my young soul than all my
+teachers and preachers put together. I am not
+going to add a chapter to that most unsatisfactory
+of all studies, child-psychology. It is an impossible
+subject. The victim&mdash;the child&mdash;cannot be interrogated
+till it is too late. The influences that work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+on the child&#8217;s senses and mind cannot be determined;
+they are too many, and too intangible. The observers
+of babies, mostly young fathers proud of
+their first offspring, remind me always of a very
+learned friend of mine, who presented to the Royal
+Society most laborious pages containing his lifelong
+observations on certain deviations of the magnetic
+needle, and who had forgotten that in making these
+observations he always had a pair of steel spectacles
+on his nose. However, I have nothing to say against
+these observations, nor against their more or less
+successful interpretations. 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 condition, whether as a hairy or a hairless
+creature. To imagine that we can learn from
+the way in which children begin to use our old
+words, how the primitive language of mankind was
+formed, seems to me like imagining that children
+playing with counters would teach us how and for
+what purpose the first money was coined. There
+is no doubt a grain of truth in this infantile psychology,
+but it requires as many caveats as that which
+is called ethnological psychology, which makes us
+see in the savages of the present day the representation
+of the first ancestors of our race, and would
+teach us to discover in their superstitions the antecedents
+of the mythology and religion of the Aryan
+or Semitic races. The same philosophers who constantly
+fall back on heredity and atavism in order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+to explain what seems inexplicable in the beliefs
+and customs of the Brahmans, Greeks, or Romans,
+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 Homer. They look upon
+the Patagonians as the <i>tabula rasa</i> of humanity,
+and they forget that even if we admitted that the
+ancestors of the Aryan race had once been more
+savage than the Patagonians, it would not follow
+that their savagery was identical with that of the
+people of Tierra del Fuego. Why should not the
+distance between Patagonian and Vedic Rishis have
+been at least as great as that between Vedic Rishis
+and Homeric bards? If there are ever so many
+kinds of civilized life, was there only one and the
+same savagery?</p>
+
+<p>To take, for instance, the feeling of fear; is it
+likely that we shall find out whether it is innate in
+human nature or acquired and intensified in each
+generation, by shaking our fists in the face of a
+little baby, to see whether it will wink or shrink or
+shriek? Some children may be more fearless than
+others, but whether that fearlessness arises from
+ignorance or from stolidity is again by no means
+easy to determine. A burnt child fears the fire,
+an unburnt child might boldly grasp a glowing
+coal, but all this would not help us to determine
+whether fear is an innate or an acquired tendency
+or habit.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 grandmothers,
+and that I had to make a strong effort of
+will before I could bring myself to walk across a
+churchyard in the dark. This shows how much our
+character is shaped by circumstances, even when
+we are least aware of it. I did not believe in ghosts
+and I was not a coward, but I felt through life a
+kind of shiver in dark passages and at the sound of
+mysterious noises, 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 there,
+and that caused me, particularly in my younger
+days, many a moment of discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>All such experiences constitute what may be
+called the background of our life. My first ideas
+of men and women, and of the world at large, that
+is of the unknown world, were formed within the
+narrow walls of Dessau, for Dessau was still surrounded
+by walls, and the gates of the city were
+closed every night, though the fears of a foreign
+enemy were but small. Of course the views of life
+prevailing at Dessau were very narrow, but they
+were wide enough for our purposes. Though we
+heard of large towns like Dresden or Berlin, and
+of large countries like France and Italy, my real
+world was Dessau and its neighbourhood. We had
+no interests outside the walls of our town or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+frontiers of our duchy. If we heard of things that
+had happened at Leipzig or Berlin, in Paris or London,
+they had no more reality for us than what we
+had read about Abraham, or Romulus and Remus,
+or Alexander the Great. To us the pulse of the
+world seemed to beat in the <i>Haupt- und Residenzstadt</i>
+of Dessau, though we knew perfectly well
+how small it was in comparison with other towns.</p>
+
+<p>And this, too, has left its impression on my
+thoughts all through life, if only by making everything
+that I saw in later life in such towns as Leipzig,
+Berlin, Paris, and London, appear quite overwhelmingly
+grand. Boys brought up in any of
+these large towns start with a different view of the
+world, and with a different measure for what they
+see in later life. I do not know that they are to be
+envied for that, for there is pleasure in admiration,
+pleasure even in being stunned by the first sight of
+the life in the streets of Paris or London. I certainly
+have been a great admirer all my life, and
+I ascribe this disposition to the small surroundings
+of my early years at Dessau.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was with everything else. Having admired
+our Cavalier-Strasse, I could admire all the
+more the Boulevards in Paris, and Regent Street
+in London. Having enjoyed our small theatre, I
+stood aghast at the Grand Opera, and at Drury
+Lane. This power of admiration and enjoyment
+extended even to dinners and other domestic amusements.
+Having been brought up on very simple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
+fare, I fully enjoyed the dinners which the Old East
+India Company gave, when we sat down about
+400 people, and, as I was told, four pounds was paid
+for each guest. 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 entertainments,
+even if not quite at four pounds a
+head, 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 years.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the time when I woke with my
+breath frozen on my bedclothes into a thin sheet of
+ice. 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 morning, and
+where, when we tried to break the ice in the jug,
+there were only a few drops of water left at the bottom
+with which to wash. No wonder that the ablutions
+were expeditious. After they were performed
+we had our speedy breakfast, consisting of
+a cup of coffee and a <i>semmel</i> or roll, and then we
+rushed to school, often through the snow that had
+not yet been swept away from the pavement. We
+sat in school from eight to eleven or twelve, rushed
+home again, had our very simple dinner, and then
+back to school, from two to four. How we lived
+through it I sometimes wonder, for we were thinly
+clad and often wet with rain or snow; and yet we
+enjoyed our life as boys only can enjoy it, and had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+no time to be ill. One blessing this early roughing
+has left me for life&mdash;a power of enjoying many
+things which to most of my friends are matters of
+course or of no consequence. The background of
+my life at Dessau and at Leipzig may seem dark,
+but it has only served to make the later years of my
+life all the brighter and warmer.</p>
+
+<p>The more I think about that distant, now very
+distant past, the more I feel how, without being
+aware of it, my whole character was formed by it.
+The unspoiled primitiveness of life at Dessau as it
+was when I was at school there till the age of twelve,
+would be extremely difficult to describe in all its
+details. Everybody seemed to know everybody and
+everything about everybody. Everybody knew
+that he was watched, and gossip, in the best sense of
+the word, ruled supreme in the little town. Gossip
+was, in fact, public opinion with all its good and all
+its bad features. Still the result was that no one
+could afford to lose caste, and that everybody behaved
+as well as he could. I really believe that the
+private life of the people of Dessau at the beginning
+of the century was blameless. The great evils
+of society did not exist, and if now and then there
+was a black sheep, his or her life became a burden
+to them. Everybody knew what had happened, and
+society being on the whole so blameless, was all the
+more merciless on the sinners, whether their sins
+were great or small. So from the very first my idea
+was that there were only two classes&mdash;one class quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+perfect and pure as angels, the other black sheep,
+and altogether unspeakable. There was no transition,
+no intermediate links, no shading of light and
+dark. A man was either black or white, and this
+rigid rule applied not only to moral character, but
+intellectual excellence also was measured by the
+same standard. A work of art was either superlatively
+beautiful, or it was contemptible. A man of
+science was either a giant or a humbug. Some
+people spoke of Goethe as the greatest of all poets
+and philosophers the world had ever known; others
+called him a wicked man and an overvalued
+poet.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is dangerous, no doubt, to go through life with
+so imperfect a measure, and I have for a long time
+suffered from it, particularly in cases where I ought
+to have been able to make allowance for small failings.
+But as I had been brought up to approach
+people with a complete trust in their rectitude, and
+with an unlimited admiration of their genius, it
+took me many years before I learnt to make allowance
+for human weaknesses or temporary failures.
+I have lost many a charming companion and excellent
+friend in my journey through life, because I
+weighed them with my rusty Dessau balance. I
+had to learn by long experience that there may be
+a spot, nay, several spots on the soft skin of a peach,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>and yet the whole fruit may be perfect. I acted
+very much like the merchant who tested a whole
+field of rice by the first handful of grains, and who,
+if he found one or two bad grains, would have nothing
+to do with the whole field. I had to learn what
+was, perhaps, the most difficult lesson of all, that a
+trusted friend could not always be trusted, and yet
+need not therefore be altogether a reprobate. What
+was most difficult for me to digest was an untruth:
+finding out that one who professed to be a friend
+had said and done most unfriendly things behind
+one&#8217;s back. Still, in a long life one finds out that
+even that may not be a deadly sin, and that if we
+are so loth to forgive it, it is partly because the falsehood
+affected our own interests. 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 honest, straightforward, and trustworthy,
+by a large number of his own friends. We
+see this over and over again with men occupying
+eminent positions in Church and State. We see
+how a prime minister or an archbishop is represented
+by men who know him as a liar and a hypocrite,
+while by others he is spoken of as a paragon of honour
+and honesty, and a true Christian. My narrow
+Dessau views became a little widened when I went
+to school at Leipzig; still more when I spent two
+years and a half at the University of Leipzig, and
+afterwards at Berlin. Still, during all this time I
+saw but little of what is called society, I only knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+of people whom I loved and of people whom I disliked.
+There was no room as yet for indifferent
+people, whom one tolerates and is civil to without
+caring whether one sees them again or not. Of the
+simplest duties of society also I was completely ignorant.
+No one ever told me what to say and what to
+do, or what not to say and what not to do. What I
+felt I said, what I thought right I did. There was, in
+fact, in my small native town very little that could be
+called society. One lived in one&#8217;s family and with
+one&#8217;s intimate friends without any ceremony. It
+is a pity that children are not taught a few rules
+of life-wisdom by their seniors. I know that the
+Jews do not neglect that duty, 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-houses,
+but had been planted out full grown by their seniors.
+The only rules of worldly wisdom which I remember,
+came to me through proverbs and little verses
+which we had either to copy or to learn by heart,
+such as:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Wer einmal l&uuml;gt, dem glaubt man nicht<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und wenn er auch die Wahrheit spricht.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Er kommt doch endlich an die Sonnen.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Jeder ist seines Gl&uuml;ckes Schmied.&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">Some lines which hung over my bed I have carried
+with me all through life, and I still think they are
+very true and very terse:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Im Gl&uuml;ck nicht jubeln und im Sturm nicht zagen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Das Unvermeidliche mit W&uuml;rde tragen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Das Rechte thun, am Sch&ouml;nen sich erfreuen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Das Leben lieben und den Tod nicht scheuen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und fest an Gott und bessere Zukunft glauben,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heisst leben, heisst dem Tod sein Bitteres rauben.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">Still, all this formed a very small viaticum for a
+journey through life, and I often thought that a few
+more hints might have preserved me from the painful
+process of what was called rubbing off one&#8217;s
+horns. Again and again I had to say to myself,
+&#8220;That would have done very well at home, but
+it was a mistake for all that.&#8221; My social rawness
+and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as
+the Dessau dialect remained with me for life; at
+least I was assured by my friends that though I
+had spoken French and English for so many years,
+they could always detect in my German that I came
+from Dessau or Leipzig.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Johann Bernhard Basedow, von seinem Urenkel, F.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;M.
+(Essays, Band IV).</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> That this was not only the case at Dessau, may be seen by
+a number of contemporary reviews of Goethe&#8217;s works republished
+some years ago and the exact title of which I cannot find.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was certainly a poor kind of armour in which
+I set out from Dessau. My mother, devoted as she
+was to me, had judged rightly that it was best
+for me to be with other boys and under the supervision
+of a man. I had been somewhat spoiled by
+her passionate love, and also by her passionate severity
+in correcting the ordinary naughtinesses of
+a boy. So having risen from form to form in the
+school at Dessau, I was sent, at the age of twelve,
+to Leipzig, to live in the house of Professor Carus
+and attend the famous Nicolai-Schule with his
+son, who was of the same age as myself and who
+likewise wanted a companion. It was thought
+that there would be a certain emulation between
+us, and so, no doubt, there was, though we
+always remained the best of friends. The house
+in which we lived stood in a garden and was really
+an orthopaedic institution for girls. There were
+about twenty or thirty of these young girls living
+in the house or spending the day there, and their
+joyous company was very pleasant. Of course the
+names and faces of my young friends have, with
+one or two exceptions, vanished from my memory,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+but I was surprised when a few years ago (1895) I
+was staying with Madame Salis-Schwabe at her delightful
+place on the Menai Straits, and discovered
+that we had known each other more than fifty years
+before in the house of Professor Carus at Leipzig.
+Though we had met from time to time, we never
+knew of our early meeting at Leipzig, till in comparing
+notes we discovered how we had spent a
+whole year in the same house and among the same
+friends. Hers has been a life full of work and
+entirely devoted to others. To the very end of her
+days she was spending her large income in founding
+schools on the system recommended by Froebel,
+not only in England, but in Italy. She died at
+Naples in 1896, while visiting a large school that
+had been founded by her with the assistance of the
+Italian Government. Her own house in Wales was
+full of treasures of art, and full of memorials of
+her many friends, such as Bunsen, Renan, Mole,
+Ary Scheffer, and many more. How far her charity
+went may be judged by her being willing to
+part with some of the most precious of Ary Scheffer&#8217;s
+pictures, in order to keep her schools well endowed,
+and able to last after her death, which she
+felt to be imminent.</p>
+
+<p>Public schools are nearly all day schools in Germany.
+The boys live at home, mostly in their own
+families, but they spend six hours every day at
+school, and it is a mistake to imagine that they are
+not attached to it, that they have no games together,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+and that they do not grow up manly or independent.
+Most schools have playgrounds, and in
+summer swimming is a favourite amusement for
+all the boys. There were two good public schools
+at Leipzig, the Nicolai School and the Thomas
+School. There was plenty of <i>esprit de corps</i> in
+them, and often when the boys met it showed itself
+not only in words but in blows, and the discussions
+over the merits of their schools were often
+continued in later life. I was very fortunate in
+being sent to the Nicolai School, under Dr. Nobbe
+as head master. He was at the same time Professor
+at the University of Leipzig, and is well known in
+England also as the editor of Cicero. He was very
+proud that his school counted Leibniz<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> among its
+former pupils. He was a classical scholar of the
+old school. During the last three years of our
+school life we had to write plenty of Latin and
+Greek verse, and were taught to speak Latin. The
+speaking of Latin came readily enough, but the
+verses never attained a very high level. Besides
+Nobbe we had Forbiger, well known by his books
+on ancient geography, and Palm, editor of the same
+Greek Dictionary which, in the hands of Dr. Liddell,
+has reached its highest perfection. Then there
+was Funkh&auml;nel, known beyond Germany by his
+edition of the Orations of Demosthenes, and his
+studies on Greek orators. We were indeed well off
+for masters, and most of them seemed to enjoy their
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>work and to be fond of the boys. Our head master
+was very popular. He was a man of the old German
+type, powerfully built, with a large square
+head, very much like Luther, and, strange to say,
+when in 1839 a great Luther festival was celebrated
+all over Germany, he published a book in which
+he proved that he was a direct descendant of Luther.</p>
+
+<p>The school was carried on very much on the old
+plan of teaching chiefly classics, but teaching them
+thoroughly. Modern languages, mathematics, and
+physical science had a poor chance, though they
+clamoured for recognition. Latin and Greek verse
+were considered far more important. In the two
+highest forms we had to speak Latin, and such as
+it was it seemed to us much easier than to speak
+French. Hebrew was also taught as an optional
+subject during the last four years, and the little I
+know of Hebrew dates chiefly from my school-days.
+Schoolboys soon find out what their masters think
+of the value of the different subjects taught at
+school, and they are apt to treat not only the subjects
+themselves but the teachers also according
+to that standard. Hence our modern language and
+our physical science masters had a hard time of it.
+They could not keep their classes in order, and it
+was by no means unusual for many of the boys
+simply to stay away from their lessons. The old
+mathematical master, before beginning his lesson,
+used to rub his spectacles, and after looking round
+the half empty classroom, mutter in a plaintive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+voice: &#8220;I see again many boys who are not here
+to-day.&#8221; When the same old master began to lecture
+on physical science, he told the boys to bring
+a frog to be placed under a glass from which the
+air had been extracted by an air-pump. Of course
+every one of the twenty or thirty boys brought
+two or three frogs, and when the experiment was
+to be made all these frogs were hopping about the
+lecture-room, and the whole army of boys were hopping
+after them over chairs and tables to catch
+them. No wonder that during this tumult the master
+did not succeed with his experiment, and when
+at last the glass bowl was lifted up and we were
+asked to see the frog, great was the joy of all the
+boys when the frog hopped out and escaped from
+the hands of its executioner. 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 kept, and destroyed some of the precious
+instruments supplied by Government. Severe punishments
+followed, but they did not serve to make
+physical science more popular.</p>
+
+<p>We certainly did very well in Greek and Latin,
+and read a number of classical texts, not only critically
+at school, but also cursorily at home, having to
+give a weekly account of what we had thus read
+by ourselves. I liked my classics, and yet I could
+not help feeling that there was a certain exaggeration<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+in the way in which every one of them was
+spoken of by our teachers, nay, that as compared to
+German poets and prose writers they were somewhat
+overpraised. Still, it would have been very conceited
+not to admire what our masters admired, and
+as in duty bound we went into the usual raptures
+about Homer and Sophocles, about Horace and
+Cicero. Many things which in later life we learn
+to admire in the classics could hardly appeal to the
+taste of boys. The directness, the simplicity and
+originality of the ancient, as compared with modern
+writers, cannot be appreciated by them, and I well
+remember being struck with what we disrespectful
+boys called the cheekiness of Horace expecting
+immortality (<i>non omnis moriar</i>) for little poems
+which we were told were chiefly written after Greek
+patterns. We had to admit that there were fewer
+false quantities in his Latin verses than in our own,
+but in other respects we could not see that his odes
+were so infinitely superior to ours. His hope of
+immortality has certainly been fulfilled beyond
+what could have been his own expectations. With
+so little of ancient history known to him, his idea
+of the immortality of poetry must have been far
+more modest in his time than in our own. He may
+have known the past glories of the Persian Empire,
+but as to ancient literature, there was nothing for
+him to know, whether in Persia, in Babylonia, in
+Assyria, or even in Egypt, least of all in India.
+Literary fame existed for him in Greece only, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+in the Roman Empire, and his own ambition could
+therefore hardly have extended beyond these limits.
+The exaggeration in the panegyrics passed on everything
+Greek or Latin dates from the classical
+scholars of the Middle Ages, who knew nothing
+that could be compared to the classics, and who
+were loud in praising what they possessed the
+monopoly of selling. Successive generations of
+scholars followed suit, so that even in our time it
+seemed high treason to compare Goethe with
+Horace, or Schiller with Sophocles. Of late, however,
+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 Plato. The
+fact is that we have learnt from them and imitated
+them, till in some cases the imitations have equalled
+or even excelled the originals, while now the taste
+for classical correctness has been wellnigh supplanted
+by an appetite for what is called realistic,
+original, and extravagant.</p>
+
+<p>With all that has been said or written against
+making classical studies the most important element
+in a liberal education, or rather against retaining
+them in their time-honoured position, nothing
+has as yet been suggested to take their place.
+For after all, 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 Latin; it is in order
+to learn to understand the old world on which our
+modern world is founded; it is in order to think<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+the old thoughts, which are the feeders of our own
+intellectual life, that we become in our youth the
+pupils of Greeks and Romans. In order to know
+what we are, we have to learn how we have come
+to be what we are. Our very languages form an
+unbroken chain between us and Cicero and Aristotle,
+and in order to use many of our words intelligently,
+we must know the soil from which they
+sprang, and the atmosphere in which they grew up
+and developed.</p>
+
+<p>I enjoyed my work at school very much, and
+I seem to have passed rapidly from class to class.
+I frequently received prizes both in money and in
+books, but I see a warning attached to some of them
+that I ought not to be conceited, which probably
+meant no more than that I should not show when I
+was pleased with my successes. At least I do not
+know what I could have been conceited about.
+What I feel about my learning at school is that it
+was entirely passive. I acquired knowledge such
+as it was presented to me. I did not doubt whatever
+my teachers taught me, I did not, as far as I
+can recollect, work up any subject by myself. I
+find only one paper of mine of that early time, and,
+curiously enough, it was on mythology; but it contains
+no inkling of comparative mythology, but
+simply a chronological arrangement of the sources
+from which we draw our knowledge of Greek mythology.
+I see also from some old papers, that I
+began to write poetry, and that twice or thrice I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
+was chosen at great festivities to recite poems written
+by myself. In the year 1839 three hundred
+years had passed since Luther preached at Leipzig
+in the Church of St. Nicolai, and the tercentenary
+of this event was celebrated all over Germany. My
+poem was selected for recitation at a large meeting
+of the friends of our school and the notables of the
+town, and I had to recite it, not without fear and
+trembling. I was then but sixteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>In the next year, 1840, Leipzig celebrated the
+invention of printing in 1440. It was on this occasion
+that Mendelssohn wrote his famous <i>Hymn
+of Praise</i>. I formed part of the chorus, and I well
+remember the magnificent effect which the music
+produced in the Church of St. Thomas. Again a
+poem of mine was selected, and I had to recite it
+at a large gathering in the Nicolai-Schule on July
+18, 1840.</p>
+
+<p>On December 23 another celebration took place
+at our school, at which I had to recite a Latin poem
+of mine, <i>In Schillerum</i>. Lastly, there was my
+valedictory poem when I left the school in 1841,
+and a Latin poem &#8220;Ad Nobbium,&#8221; our head master.</p>
+
+<p>I have found among my mother&#8217;s treasures the
+far too often flattering testimonial addressed to her
+by Professor Nobbe on that occasion, which ends
+thus: &#8220;I rejoice at seeing him leave this school
+with testimonials of moral excellence not often
+found in one of his years&mdash;and possessed of knowledge
+in more than one point, first-rate, and of intellectual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+capacities excellent throughout. May his
+young mind develop more and more, may the fruits
+of his labours hereafter be a comfort to his mother
+for the sorrows and cares of the past.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my
+examination for admission to the University (<i>Abiturienten-Examen</i>)
+not at my own school, but at
+Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to
+enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt
+Government. The schools in Anhalt were modelled
+after the Prussian schools, and laid far more stress
+on mathematics, physical science, and modern languages
+than the schools in Saxony. I had therefore
+to get up in a very short time several quite new
+subjects, and did not do so well in them as in Greek
+and Latin. However, I passed with a first class, and
+obtained my scholarship, small as it was. 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 examination. He reminds me that
+among my examiners there were such men as Dr.
+Ritter, the two Sentenis, and Professor Werner, and
+he says that he watched me when I came upstairs
+and entered the locked room to do my paper work.
+My friend&#8217;s career in life had been that of Director
+of a Life Insurance Company, probably a more
+lucrative career than what mine has been.</p>
+
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="Max14" id="Max14"></a><a href="images/illo106.jpg"><img src="images/illo106_th.jpg"
+alt="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 14" title="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 14" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption">
+<i>F. Max M&uuml;ller</i><br />
+<i>Aged 14.</i></p>
+
+<p>During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of
+Professor Carus, and afterwards as a student at the
+University, my chief enjoyment was certainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but
+I pity the man who has not known the charm of it.
+At that time Leipzig was really the centre of music
+in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was there, 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 Concerts.
+I find among my letters a few descriptions of concerts
+and other musical entertainments, which even
+at present may be of some interest. I was asked
+to be present at some concerts where quartettes and
+other pieces were performed by Mendelssohn,
+Hiller, Kaliwoda, David, and Eckart. Liszt also
+made his triumphant entry into Germany at Leipzig,
+and everybody was full of expectation and excitement.
+His concert had been advertised long
+before his arrival. It was to consist of an Overture
+of Weber&#8217;s; a Cavatina from <i>Robert le Diable</i>,
+sung by Madame Schlegel; a Concerto of Weber&#8217;s,
+to be played by Liszt, the same which I had shortly
+before heard played by Madame Pleyel; Beethoven&#8217;s
+Overture to <i>Prometheus</i>; Fantasia on <i>La
+Juive</i>; Schubert&#8217;s <i>Ave Maria</i> and <i>Serenade</i>, as
+arranged by Liszt. I was the more delighted because
+I had myself played some of these pieces.
+But suddenly there appeared a placard stating that
+Liszt, on hearing that tickets were sold at one
+thaler (three shillings), had declared he would play
+a few pieces only and without an orchestra. In spite
+of that disappointment, the whole house was full,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+the staircase crowded from top to bottom, and when
+we had pushed our way through, we found that
+about 300 places had been retained for one and a
+half thalers (four shillings and sixpence), while
+tickets at the box-office were sold for two thalers
+(six shillings). Nevertheless, I managed to get a
+very good place, by simply not seeing a number of
+ladies who were pushing behind me. When Liszt
+appeared there was a terrible hissing&mdash;he looked
+as if petrified, glanced like a demon at the public,
+but nevertheless began to play the Scherzo and
+Finale of the Pastoral Symphony. Then there
+burst out a perfect thunder of applause, and all
+seemed pacified, while Madame Schmidt sang a
+song accompanied by a certain Mr. Kermann. As
+soon as that was over, a new storm of hisses arose,
+which was meant for this Mr. Kermann, who was a
+pupil, but at the same time the man of business of
+Liszt. He and three other men had made all arrangements,
+and Liszt knew nothing about them,
+as he cared very little for the money, which went
+chiefly to his managers. A Fantasia by Liszt followed,
+and lastly a <i>Galop Chromatique</i>&mdash;but the
+public would not go away, and at length Liszt was
+induced to play <i>Une grande Valse</i>. It was no
+doubt a new experience; but I could not go into
+ecstasies like others, for after all it was merely mechanical,
+though no doubt in the highest perfection.
+The day after Liszt advertised that his original Programme
+would be played, but at six o&#8217;clock Professor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+Carus, with whom I lived, was called to see Liszt,
+who was said to be ill; the fact being he had only
+sold fifty tickets at the raised prices. Many
+strangers who had come to Leipzig to hear him went
+away, anything but pleased with the new musical
+genius. At one concert, where he appeared in Magyar
+costume, the ladies offered him a golden laurel
+wreath and sword. He had just published his arrangement
+of <i>Adelaida</i>, which he promised to play
+in one of the concerts.</p>
+
+<p>Another very musical family at Leipzig was that
+of Professor Fr&ouml;ge. He was a rich man, and had
+married a famous singer, Fr&auml;ulein Schlegel. One
+evening the <i>Sonnambula</i> was performed in their
+house, which had been changed into a theatre. She
+acted the Sonnambula, and her singing as well as
+her acting was most finished and delightful. Mendelssohn
+was much in their house, and made her
+sing his songs as soon as they were written and before
+they were published. They were great friends,
+the bond of their friendship being music. He
+actually died when playing while she was singing.
+People talked as they always will talk about what
+they cannot understand, but they evidently did not
+know either Mendelssohn or Madame Fr&ouml;ge.</p>
+
+<p>The house of Professor Carus was always open
+to musical geniuses, and many an evening men like
+Hiller, Mendelssohn, David, Eckart, &amp;c., came
+there to play, while Madame Carus sang, and sang
+most charmingly. I too was asked sometimes to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+play at these evening parties. I see that Ernst gave
+a concert at Leipzig, and no doubt his execution was
+admirable. Still, I could not understand what
+David meant when he declared that after hearing
+Ernst he would throw his own instrument into the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>Mendelssohn, who was delighted with Liszt&mdash;and
+no one could judge him better than he&mdash;gave a
+soir&eacute;e in honour of him. About 400 people were
+invited&mdash;I among the rest, being one of the tenors
+who sang in the Oratorio that Hiller was then rehearsing
+for the first performance. I think it was
+the <i>Destruction of Babylon</i>. There was a complete
+orchestra at Mendelssohn&#8217;s party, and we heard a
+symphony of Schubert (posthumous), Mendelssohn&#8217;s
+psalm &#8220;As the hart pants,&#8221; and his overture
+<i>Meeresstille und gl&uuml;ckliche Fahrt</i>. After that
+there was supper for all the guests, and then followed
+a chorus from his <i>St. Paul</i>, and a triple concerto
+of Bach, played on three pianofortes by Mendelssohn,
+Liszt, and Hiller. It was a difficult piece&mdash;difficult
+to play and difficult to follow. Lastly,
+Liszt played his new fantasia on <i>Lucia di Lammermoor</i>,
+and his arrangement of the <i>Erlk&ouml;nig</i>. All
+was really perfect; and hearing so much music, I
+became more and more absorbed in it. I even gave
+some concerts with Grabau, a great violoncellist, at
+Merseburg, and at a Count Arnim&#8217;s, a very rich
+nobleman near Merseburg, who had invited Liszt
+for one evening and paid him 100 ducats. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+seemed at that time a very large sum, almost senseless.
+As a ducat was about nine shillings, it was
+after all only &pound;45, which would not seem excessive
+at present for an artist such as Liszt.</p>
+
+<p>I also heard Thalberg at Leipzig. They all came
+to see Mendelssohn, and I believe did their best to
+please him. At that time my idea of devoting myself
+altogether to the study of music became very
+strong; and as Professor Carus married again, I proposed
+to leave Leipzig, and to enter the musical
+school of Schneider at Dessau. But nothing came
+of that, and I think on the whole it was as well.</p>
+
+<p>While at school at Leipzig I had but little opportunity
+of travelling, for my mother was always
+anxious to have me home during the holidays, and
+I was equally anxious to be with her and to see my
+relations at Dessau. Generally I went in a wretched
+carriage from Leipzig to Dessau. It was only seven
+German miles (about thirty-five English miles), but
+it took a whole day to get there; and during part
+of the journey, when we had to cross the deep and
+desert-like sands, walking on foot was much more
+expeditious than sitting inside the carriage. But
+then we paid only one thaler for the whole journey,
+and sometimes, in order to save that, I walked on
+foot the whole way. That also took me a whole day;
+but when I tried it the first time, being then quite
+young and rather delicate in health, I had to give
+in about an hour before I came to Dessau, my legs
+refusing to go further, and my muscles being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+cramped and stiff from exertion, I had to sit down
+by the road. During one vacation I remember exploring
+the valley of the Mulde with some other
+boys. We travelled for about a fortnight from village
+to village, and lived in the simplest way. A
+more ambitious journey I took in 1841 with a friend
+of mine, Baron von Hagedorn. He was a curious
+and somewhat mysterious character. He had been
+brought up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he
+was entrusted as a baby. No one knew his parents,
+but they must have been rich, for he possessed a
+large fortune. He had a country place near Munich,
+and he spent the greater part of the year in
+travelling about, and amusing himself. He had
+been brought up with my mother and other members
+of our family, and he took a very kind interest
+in me. I see from my letters that in 1841 he
+took me from Dessau to Coethen, Brunswick, and
+Magdeburg. At Brunswick we saw the picture gallery,
+the churches, and the tomb of Schill, one of
+the German volunteers in the War of Independence
+against France. We also explored Hildesheim, saw
+the rose-tree planted, as we were told, by Charlemagne;
+then proceeded to G&ouml;ttingen, and saw its
+famous library. We passed through Minden, where
+the Fulda and Werra join, and arrived late at Cassel.
+From Cassel we explored Wilhelmsh&ouml;he, the
+beautiful park where thirty years later Napoleon
+III was kept as a prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
+exaggeration, was certainly a good friend
+to me. He often gave me good advice, and was
+more of a father to me than a mere friend. He
+was a man of the world; and he forgot that I never
+meant to be a man of the world, and therefore his
+advice was not always what I wanted. He was
+also a great friend of my cousin who was married
+to a Prince of Dessau, and they had agreed among
+themselves that I should go to the Oriental
+Academy at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and
+then enter the diplomatic service. As there were
+no children from the Prince&#8217;s marriage, I was to
+be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune
+was not enough to tempt me, I was told that even a
+wife had been chosen for me, and that I should
+have a new name and title, after being adopted by
+the Prince. To other young men this might have
+seemed irresistible. I at once said no. It seemed
+to interfere with my freedom, with my studies, with
+my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything
+was presented to me by my cousin as on a
+silver tray, I shook my head and remained true to
+my first love, Sanskrit and all the rest. Hagedorn
+could not understand this; he thought a brilliant
+life preferable to the quiet life of a professor. Not
+so I. He little knew where true happiness was to
+be found, and he was often in a very melancholy
+mood. He did not live long, but I shall never forget
+how much I owed him. When I went to Paris,
+he allowed me to live in his rooms. They were,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+it is true, <i>au cinqui&egrave;me</i>, but they were in the best
+quarter of Paris, in the Rue Royale St. Honor&eacute;,
+opposite the Madeleine, and very prettily furnished.
+This kept me from living in dusty lodgings in the
+Quartier Latin, and the five flights of stairs may
+have strengthened my lungs. 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 again. But in those days one did not know
+what it meant to be tired. Whether my friends
+grumbled, I cannot tell, but I myself pitied some
+of them who were old and gouty when they arrived
+at my door out of breath.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> His own spelling of his name.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>UNIVERSITY</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> order to enable me to go to the University, my
+mother and sister moved to Leipzig and kept house
+for me during all the time I was there&mdash;that is,
+for two years and a half. In spite of the <i>res angusta
+domi</i>, I enjoyed my student-life thoroughly, while
+my home was made very agreeable by my mother
+and sister. My mother was full of resource, and
+she was wise enough not to interfere with my freedom.
+My sister, who was about two years older
+than myself, was most kind-hearted and devoted
+both to me and to our mother. There was nothing
+selfish in her, and we three lived together in perfect
+love, peace, and harmony. My sister enjoyed what
+little there was of society, whereas I kept sternly
+aloof from it. She was much admired, and soon
+became engaged to a young doctor, Dr. A. Krug,
+the son of the famous professor of philosophy at
+Leipzig, whose works, particularly his <i>Dictionary of
+Philosophy</i>, hold a distinguished place in the history
+of German philosophy. He was a thorough patriot,
+and so public spirited that he thought it right to
+leave a considerable sum of money to the University,
+without making sufficient provision for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+children. However, the young married couple
+lived happily at Chemnitz, and my sister was proud
+in the possession of her children. It was the sudden
+death of several of these children that broke her
+heart and ruined her health; she died very young.
+Standing by the grave of her children, she said to
+me shortly before her death, &#8220;Half of me is dead
+already, and lies buried there; the other half will
+soon follow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Of society, in the ordinary sense of the word, I
+saw hardly anything. I am afraid I was rather a
+bear, and declined even to invest in evening dress.
+I joined a student club which formed part of the
+<i>Burschenschaft</i>, but which in order to escape prosecution
+adopted the title of <i>Gemeinschaft</i>. I went
+there in the evening to drink beer and smoke, and
+I made some delightful acquaintances and friendships.
+What fine characters were there, often behind
+a very rough exterior! My dearest friend was
+Prowe, of Thorn in East Prussia&mdash;so honest, so
+true, so straightforward, so over-conscientious in the
+smallest things. He was a classical scholar, and
+later on entered the Prussian educational service.
+As a master at the principal school at Thorn his
+time was fully occupied, and of course he was cut
+off there from the enlivening influences of literary
+society. Still he kept up his interest in higher questions,
+and published some extremely valuable books
+on Copernicus, a native of Thorn, for which he
+received the thanks of astronomers and historians,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+and flattering testimonials from learned societies.
+We met but seldom later in life, and my own life
+in England was so busy and full that even our correspondence
+was not regular. But I met him once
+more at Ems with a charming wife, and decidedly
+happy in his own sphere of activity. These early
+friendships form the distant landscape of life on
+which we like to dwell when the present ceases to
+absorb all our thoughts. Our memory dwells on
+them as a golden horizon, and there remains a constant
+yearning which makes us feel the incompleteness
+of this life. After all, the number of our true
+friends is small; and yet how few even of that small
+number remain with us for life. There are other
+faces and other names that rise from beyond the
+clouds which more and more divide us from our
+early years.</p>
+
+<p>There were some wild spirits among us who fretted
+at the narrow-minded policy which went by the
+name of the Metternich system. Repression was
+the panacea which Metternich recommended to all
+the governments of Germany, large and small.
+No doubt the system of keeping things quiet secured
+to Germany and to Europe at large a thirty
+years&#8217; peace, but it could not prevent the accumulation
+of inflammable material which, after several
+threatenings, burst forth at last in the conflagration
+of 1848. Among my friends I remember
+several who were ready for the wildest schemes in
+order to have Germany united, respected abroad,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+and under constitutional government at home.
+Splendid fellows they were, but they either ended
+their days within the walls of a prison, or had to
+throw up everything and migrate to America.
+What has become of them? Some have risen to the
+surface in America, others have yielded to the inevitable
+and become peaceful citizens at home; nay,
+I am grieved to say, have even accepted service
+under Government to spy on their former friends
+and fellow-dreamers. But not a few saw the whole
+of their life wrecked either in prison or in poverty,
+though they had done no wrong, and in many cases
+were the finest characters it has been my good fortune
+to know. They were before their time, the
+fruit was not ripe as it was in 1871, but Germany
+certainly lost some of her best sons in those miserable
+years; and if my father escaped this political
+persecution, it was probably due to the influence of
+the reigning Duke and the Duchess, a Princess of
+Prussia, who knew that he was not a dangerous man,
+and not likely to blow up the German Diet.</p>
+
+<p>I myself got a taste of prison life for the offence
+of wearing the ribbon of a club which the police
+regarded with disfavour. I cannot say that either
+the disgrace or the discomfort of my two days&#8217;
+durance vile weighed much with me, as my friends
+were allowed free access to me, and came and drank
+beer and smoked cigars in my cell&mdash;of course at my
+expense&mdash;but what I dreaded was the loss of my
+stipendium or scholarship, which alone enabled me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
+to continue my studies at Leipzig, and which, as
+a rule, was forfeited for political offences. On my
+release from prison I went to the Rector of the
+University and explained to him the circumstances
+of the case&mdash;how I had been arrested simply for
+membership of a suspected club. I assured him
+that I was innocent of any political propaganda, and
+that the loss of my stipendium would entail my
+leaving the University. Much to my relief, the old
+gentleman replied: &#8220;I have heard nothing about
+this; and if I do, how am I to know that it refers to
+you, there are many M&uuml;llers in the University?&#8221;
+Fortunately the distinctive prefix Max had not yet
+been added to my name.</p>
+
+<p>I must confess that I and my boon companions
+were sometimes guilty of practices which in more
+modern days, and certainly at Oxford or Cambridge,
+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 in.</p>
+
+<p>Duelling was then, as it is now, a favourite pastime
+among the students; and though not by nature
+a brawler, I find that in my student days at Leipzig
+I fought three duels, of two of which I carry the
+marks to the present day.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that on one occasion before the introduction
+of cabs we hired all the sedan-chairs in Leipzig,
+with their yellow-coated porters, and went in
+procession through the streets, much to the astonishment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+of the good citizens, and annoyance also, as
+they were unable to hire any means of conveyance
+till a peremptory stop was put to our fun. Not content
+with this exploit, when the first cabs were introduced
+into Leipzig, thirty or forty being put on
+the street at first, I and my friends secured the use
+of all of them for the day, and proceeded out into
+the country. The inhabitants who were eagerly
+looking forward to a drive in one of the new conveyances
+were naturally annoyed at finding themselves
+forestalled, 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 time.</p>
+
+<p>Very innocent amusements, if perhaps foolish,
+but very happy days all the same; 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 life.</p>
+
+<p>It is in every respect a great jump from a German
+school to a German university. At school a
+boy even in the highest form, has little choice. All
+his lessons are laid down for him; he has to learn
+what he is told, whether he likes it or not. Few
+only venture on books outside the prescribed curriculum.
+There is an examination at the end of every
+half-year, and a boy must pass it well in order to
+get into a higher form. Boys at a public school
+(gymnasium), if they cannot pass their examination
+at the proper time, are advised to go to another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+school, and to prepare for a career in which classical
+languages are of less importance.</p>
+
+<p>I must say at once that when I matriculated at
+Leipzig, in the summer of 1841, I was still very
+young and very immature. I had determined to
+study philology, chiefly Greek and Latin, but the
+fare spread out by the professors was much too
+tempting. I read Greek and Latin without difficulty;
+I often read classical authors without ever
+attempting to translate them; I also wrote and
+spoke Latin easily. Some of the professors lectured
+in Latin, and at our academic societies Latin was
+always spoken. I soon became a member of the
+classical seminary under Gottfried Hermann, and
+of the Latin Society under Professor Haupt. Admission
+to these seminaries and societies was obtained
+by submitting essays, and it was no doubt a
+distinction to belong to them. It was also useful,
+for not only had we to write essays and discuss them
+with the other members, generally teachers, and
+with the professor, but we could also get some useful
+advice from the professor for our private studies.
+In that respect the German universities do very
+little for the students, unless one has the good fortune
+to belong to one of these societies. The young
+men are let loose, and they can choose whatever
+lectures they want. I still have my <i>Collegien-Buch</i>,
+in which every professor has to attest what lectures
+one has attended. The number of lectures on various
+subjects which I attended is quite amazing, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+I should have attended still more if the honorarium
+had not frightened me away. Every professor
+lectured <i>publice</i> and <i>privatim</i>, and for the more
+important courses, four lectures a week, he charged
+ten shillings, for more special courses less or nothing.
+This seems little, but it was often too much for me;
+and if one added these honoraria to the salary of a
+popular professor, his income was considerable, and
+was more than the income of most public servants.
+I have known professors who had four or five hundred
+auditors. This gave them &pound;250 twice a year,
+and that, added to their salary, was considered a
+good income at that time. All this has been much
+changed. Salaries have been raised, and likewise
+the honoraria, so that I well remember the case of
+Professor von Savigny, who, when he was chosen
+Minister of Justice at Berlin, declared that he would
+gladly accept if only his salary was raised to what
+his income had been as Professor of Law. Of
+course, professors of Arabic or Sanskrit were badly
+off, and <i>Privatdocenten</i> (tutors) fared still worse,
+but the <i>professores ordinarii</i>, particularly if they
+lectured on an obligatory subject and were likewise
+examiners, were very well off. In fact, it struck me
+sometimes as very unworthy of them to keep a
+<i>famulus</i>, a student who had to tell every one who
+wished to hear a distinguished professor once or
+twice, that he would not allow him to come a third
+time.</p>
+
+<p>One great drawback of the professorial system is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+certainly the small measure of personal advice that
+a student may get from the professors. Unless he
+is known to them personally, or has gained admission
+to their societies or seminaries, the young student
+or freshman is quite bewildered by the rich
+fare in the shape of lectures that is placed before
+him. Some students, no doubt, particularly in their
+early terms, solve this difficulty by attending none
+at all, and there is no force to make them do so, except
+the examinations looming in the distance. But
+there are many young men most anxious to learn,
+only they do not know where to begin. I open my
+old <i>Collegien-Buch</i> and I find that in the first term
+or Semester I attended the following lectures, and
+I may say I attended them regularly, took careful
+notes, and read such books as were recommended
+by the professors. I find</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">1.</td><td class="subnam">The first book of Thucydides</td><td class="leftalign">Gottfried Hermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">2.</td><td class="subnam">On Scenic Antiquities</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">3.</td><td class="subnam">On Propertius</td><td class="leftalign">P.&nbsp;M. Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">4.</td><td class="subnam">History of German Literature</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">5.</td><td class="subnam">The Ranae of Aristophanes</td><td class="leftalign">Stallbaum.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">6.</td><td class="subnam">Disputatorium (in Latin)</td><td class="leftalign">Nobbe.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">7.</td><td class="subnam">Aesthetics</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">8.</td><td class="subnam">Anthropology</td><td class="leftalign">Lotze.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">9.</td><td class="subnam">Systems of Harmonic Composition</td><td class="leftalign">Fink.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">10.</td><td class="subnam">Hebrew Grammar</td><td class="leftalign">F&uuml;rst.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">11.</td><td class="subnam">Demosthenes</td><td class="leftalign">Westermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">12.</td><td class="subnam">Psychology</td><td class="leftalign">Heinroth.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This was enough for the summer half-year. Except
+Greek and Latin, the other subjects were entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+new to me, and what I wanted was to get an
+idea of what I should like to study. It may be
+interesting to add the other Semesters as far as I
+have them in my <i>Collegien-Buch</i>.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">13.</td><td class="subnam">Aeschyli Persae</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">14.</td><td class="subnam">On Criticism</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">15.</td><td class="subnam">German Grammar</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">16.</td><td class="subnam">Walther von der Vogelweide</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">17.</td><td class="subnam">Tacitus, Agricola, and De Oratoribus</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">18.</td><td class="subnam">On Hegel</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">19.</td><td class="subnam">Disputatorium (Latin)</td><td class="leftalign">Nobbe.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">20.</td><td class="subnam">Modern History</td><td class="leftalign">Wachsmuth.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">21.</td><td class="subnam">Sanskrit Grammar</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">22.</td><td class="subnam">Latin Society</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Then follows the summer term of 1842.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">23.</td><td class="subnam">Pindar</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">24.</td><td class="subnam">Nibelungen</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">25.</td><td class="subnam">Nala</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">26.</td><td class="subnam">History of Oriental Literature</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">27.</td><td class="subnam">Arabic Grammar</td><td class="leftalign">Fleischer.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">28.</td><td class="subnam">Latin Society</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">29.</td><td class="subnam">Plauti Trinumus</td><td class="leftalign">Becker.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Winter term, 1842.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">30.</td><td class="subnam">Prabodha Chandrodaya</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">31.</td><td class="subnam">History of Indian Literature</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">32.</td><td class="subnam">Aristophanes&#8217; Vespae</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">33.</td><td class="subnam">Plauti Rudens</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">34.</td><td class="subnam">Greek Syntax</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">35.</td><td class="subnam">Juvenal</td><td class="leftalign">Becker.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">36.</td><td class="subnam">Metaphysics and Logic</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">37.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophy of History</td><td class="leftalign">The same.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">38.</td><td class="subnam">Greek and Latin Seminary</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann &amp; Klotze.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">39.</td><td class="subnam">Latin Society</td><td class="leftalign">Haupt.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">40.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophical Society</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">41.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophical Society</td><td class="leftalign">Drobisch.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Summer term, 1843.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">42.</td><td class="subnam">Greek and Latin Seminary</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann &amp; Klotze.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">43.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophical Society</td><td class="leftalign">Drobisch.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">44.</td><td class="subnam">Philosophical Society</td><td class="leftalign">Weisse.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">45.</td><td class="subnam">Soma-deva</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">46.</td><td class="subnam">Hitopadesa</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">47.</td><td class="subnam">History of Greeks and Romans</td><td class="leftalign">Wachsmuth.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">48.</td><td class="subnam">History of Civilization</td><td class="leftalign">The same.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">49.</td><td class="subnam">History after the Fifteenth Century</td><td class="leftalign">Flathe.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">50.</td><td class="subnam">History of Ancient Philosophy</td><td class="leftalign">Niedner.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Winter term, 1843-4.</p>
+
+<table class="subjects" summary="list of subjects">
+<tr><td class="rightalign">51.</td><td class="subnam">Rig-veda</td><td class="leftalign">Brockhaus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">52.</td><td class="subnam">Elementa Persica</td><td class="leftalign">Fleischer.</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="rightalign">53.</td><td class="subnam">Greek and Latin Seminary</td><td class="leftalign">Hermann &amp; Klotze.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Here my <i>Collegien-Buch</i> breaks off, the fact being
+that I was preparing to go to Berlin to hear
+the lectures of Bopp and Schelling.</p>
+
+<p>It will be clear from the above list that I certainly
+attempted too much. I ought either to have devoted
+all my time to classical studies exclusively, or
+carried on my philosophical studies more systematically.
+I confess that, delighted as I was with Gottfried
+Hermann and Haupt as my guides and teachers
+in classics, I found little that could rouse my
+enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature, and I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+always required a dose of that to make me work
+hard. Everything seemed to me to have been done,
+and there was no virgin soil left to the plough, no
+ruins on which to try one&#8217;s own spade. Hermann
+and Haupt gave me work to do, but it was all in
+the critical line&mdash;the genealogical relation of various
+MSS., or, again, the peculiarities of certain
+poets, long before I had fully grasped their general
+character. What Latin vowels could or could not
+form elision in Horace, Propertius, or Ovid, was a
+subject that cost me much labour, and yet left very
+small results as far as I was personally concerned.
+One clever conjecture, or one indication to show
+that one MS. was dependent on the other, was rewarded
+with a Doctissime or Excellentissime, but
+a paper on Aeschylus and his view of a divine
+government of the world received but a nodding
+approval.</p>
+
+<p>They certainly taught their pupils what accuracy
+meant; they gave us the new idea that MSS. are
+not everything, unless their real value has been discovered
+first by finding the place which they occupy
+in the pedigree of the MSS. of every author. They
+also taught us that there are mistakes in MSS. which
+are inevitable, and may safely be left to conjectural
+emendation; that MSS. of modern date may be and
+often are more valuable than more ancient MSS.,
+for the simple reason that they were copied from
+a still more ancient MS., and that often a badly
+written and hardly legible MS. proves more helpful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+than others written by a calligraphist, because it is
+the work of a scholar who copied for himself and
+not for the market. All these things we learnt and
+learnt by practical experience under Hermann and
+Haupt, but what we failed to acquire was a large
+knowledge of Greek and Latin literature, of the
+character of each author and of the spirit which
+pervaded their works. I ought to have read in
+Latin, Cicero, Tacitus, and Lucretius; in Greek,
+Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle; but
+as I read only portions of them, my knowledge of
+the men themselves and their objects in life remained
+very fragmentary. For instance, my real
+acquaintance with Plato and Aristotle was confined
+to a few dialogues of the former and some of the
+logical works of the latter. The rest I learnt from
+such works as Ritter and Preller&#8217;s <i>Historia Philosophiae
+Graecae et Romanae ex fontium locis contexta</i>,
+and from the very useful lectures of Niedner
+on the history of ancient philosophy. However, I
+thought I had to do what my professors told me,
+and shaped my reading so that they should approve
+of my work.</p>
+
+<p>This must not be understood as in any way disparaging
+my teachers. Such an idea never entered
+my head at the time. People have no idea in England
+what kind of worship is paid by German students
+to their professors. To find fault with
+them or to doubt their <i>ipse dixit</i> never entered our
+minds. What they said of other classical scholars<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
+from whom they differed, as Hermann did from
+Otfried M&uuml;ller, or Haupt from Orelli, was gospel,
+and remained engraved on our memory for a long
+time. Once when attending Hermann&#8217;s lectures,
+another student who was sitting at the same table
+with me made disrespectful remarks about old Hermann.
+I asked him to be quiet, and when he went
+on with his foolish remarks, I could only stop him
+by calling him out. As soon as the challenge was
+accepted he had of course to be quiet, and a few
+days after we fought our duel without much damage
+to either of us. I only mention this because it
+shows what respect and admiration we felt for our
+professor, also because it exemplifies the usefulness
+of duelling in a German university, where after a
+challenge not another word can be said or violence
+be threatened even by the rudest undergraduate. A
+duel for a Greek conjecture may seem very absurd,
+but in duels of this kind all that is wanted is really
+a certain knowledge of fencing, care being taken
+that nothing serious shall happen. And yet, though
+that is so, the feeling of a possible danger is there,
+and keeps up a certain etiquette and a certain proper
+behaviour among men taken from all strata of society.
+Nor can I quite deny that when I went in
+the morning to a beautiful wood in the neighbourhood
+of Leipzig, certain misgivings were difficult
+to suppress. I saw myself severely wounded, possibly
+killed, by my antagonist, and carried to a house
+where my mother and sister were looking for me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+This went off when I met the large assembly of
+students, beautifully attired in their club uniforms,
+the beer barrels pushed up on one side, the surgeon
+and his instruments waiting on the other. There
+were ever so many, thirty or forty couples I think,
+waiting to fight their duels that morning. Some
+fenced extremely well, and it was a pleasure to look
+on; and when one&#8217;s own turn came, all one thought
+of was how to stand one&#8217;s ground boldly, and how
+to fence well. Some of the combatants came on
+horseback or in carriages, and there was a small
+river close by to enable us to escape if the police
+should have heard of our meeting. For popular as
+these duels are, they are forbidden and punished,
+and the severest punishment seemed always to be
+the loss of our uniforms, our arms, our flags, and
+our barrels of beer. However, we escaped all interference
+this time, and enjoyed our breakfast in the
+forest thoroughly, nothing happening to disturb the
+hilarity of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Not being satisfied with what seemed to me a
+mere chewing of the cud in Greek and Latin, I
+betook myself to systematic philosophy, and even
+during the first terms read more of that than of
+Plato and Aristotle. I belonged to the philosophical
+societies of Weisse, of Drobisch, and of Lotze,
+a membership in each of which societies entailed a
+considerable amount of reading and writing.</p>
+
+<p>At Leipzig, Professor Drobisch represented the
+school of Herbart, which prided itself on its clearness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+and logical accuracy, but was naturally less attractive
+to the young spirits at the University who
+had heard of Hegel&#8217;s Idea and looked to the dialectic
+process as the solution of all difficulties. I
+wished to know what it all meant, for I was not
+satisfied with mere words. There is hardly a word
+that has so many meanings as Idea, and I doubt
+whether any of the raw recruits, just escaped from
+school, and unacquainted with the history of philosophy,
+could have had any idea of what Hegel&#8217;s
+Idea was meant for. Yet they talked about it very
+eloquently and very positively over their glasses of
+beer; and anybody who came from Berlin and could
+speak mysteriously or rapturously about the Idea
+and its evolution by the dialectic process, was listened
+to with silent wonder by the young Saxons,
+who had been brought up on Kant and Krug. The
+Hegelian fever was still very high at that time. It
+is true Hegel himself was dead (1831), and though
+he was supposed to have declared on his deathbed
+that he left only one true disciple, and that that
+disciple had misunderstood him, to be a Hegelian
+was considered a <i>sine qua non</i>, not only among
+philosophers, but quite as much among theologians,
+men of science, lawyers, artists, in fact, in every
+branch of human knowledge, at least in Prussia.
+If Christianity in its Protestant form was the
+state-religion of the kingdom, Hegelianism was its
+state-philosophy. Beginning with the Minister of
+Instruction down to the village schoolmaster, everybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+claimed to be a Hegelian, and this was supposed
+to be the best road to advancement. Though
+Altenstein, who was then at the head of the Ministry
+of Instruction, began to waver in his allegiance
+to Hegel, even he could not resist the rush of public
+and of official opinion. It was he who, when a
+new professor of philosophy was recommended to
+him either by Hegel himself or by some of his followers,
+is reported to have said: &#8220;Gentlemen, I
+have read some of the young man&#8217;s books, and I
+cannot understand a word of them. However, you
+are the best judges, 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 possible,
+and dismissed him with the words: &#8216;Enfin, si je peux
+y entrer, je ne les prendrai pas.&#8217; This seems to me
+very much what you say of your young philosopher.
+If I can understand his books, I am not to take
+him.&#8221; This Hegelian fever was very much like what
+we have passed through ourselves at the time of the
+Darwinian fever; Darwin&#8217;s natural evolution was
+looked upon very much like Hegel&#8217;s dialectic process,
+as the general solvent of all difficulties. The
+most egregious nonsense was passed under that
+name, as it was under the name of evolution. Hegel
+knew very well what he meant, so did Darwin. But
+the empty enthusiasm of his followers became so
+wild that Darwin himself, the most humble of all
+men, became quite ashamed of it. The master, of
+course, was not responsible for the folly of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+so-called disciples, but the result was inevitable.
+After the bow had been stretched to the utmost, a
+reaction followed, and in the case of Hegelianism,
+a complete collapse. Even at Berlin the popularity
+of Hegelianism came suddenly to an end, and after
+a time no truly scientific man liked to be called a
+Hegelian. These sudden collapses in Germany are
+very instructive. As long as a German professor
+is at the head of affairs and can do something for
+his pupils, his pupils are very loud in their encomiums,
+both in public and in private. They not only
+exalt him, but help to belittle all who differ from
+him. So it was with Hegel, so it was at a later time
+with Bopp, and Curtius, and other professors, particularly
+if they had the ear of the Minister of Education.
+But soon after the death of these men, particularly
+if another influential star was rising, the
+change of tone was most sudden and most surprising;
+even the sale of their books dwindled down,
+and they were referred to only as landmarks, showing
+the rapid advance made by living celebrities.
+Perhaps all this cannot be helped, as long as human
+nature is what it is, but it is nevertheless painful
+to observe.</p>
+
+<p>I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted
+with Hegelianism through Professor Christian
+Weisse at Leipzig, who, though he was considered
+a Hegelian, was a very sober Hegelian, a critic quite
+as much as an admirer of Hegel. He had a very
+small audience, because his manner of lecturing was
+certainly most trying and tantalizing. But by being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+brought into personal contact with him one was
+able to get help from him wherever he could give
+it. Though Weisse was convinced of the truth of
+Hegel&#8217;s Dialectic Method, he often differed from
+him in its application. This Dialectic Method consisted
+in showing how thought is constantly and irresistibly
+driven from an affirmative to a negative
+position, then reconciles the two opposites, and from
+that point starts afresh, repeating once more the
+same process. Pure being, for instance, from which
+Hegel&#8217;s ideal evolution starts, was shown to be the
+same as empty being, that is to say, nothing, and
+both were presented as identical, and in their identity
+giving us the new concept of Becoming (<i>Werden</i>),
+which is being and not-being at the same
+time. All this may appear to the lay reader rather
+obscure, but could not well be passed over.</p>
+
+<p>So far Weisse followed the great thinker, and
+I possess still, in his own writing, the picture of a
+ladder on which the intellect is represented as climbing
+higher and higher from the lowest concept to
+the highest&mdash;a kind of Jacob&#8217;s ladder on which the
+categories, like angels of God, ascend and descend
+from heaven to earth. We must remember that the
+true Hegelian regarded the Ideas as the thoughts
+of God. Hegel looked upon this evolution of
+thought as at the same time the evolution of Being,
+the Idea being the only thing that could be said to
+be truly real. In order to understand this, we must
+remember that the historical key to Hegel&#8217;s Idea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+was really the Neo-Platonic or Alexandrian Logos.
+But of this Logos we ignorant undergraduates, sitting
+at the feet of Prof. Weisse, knew absolutely
+nothing, and even if the Idea was sometimes placed
+before us as the Absolute, the Infinite, or the Divine,
+it was to us, at least to most of us, myself included,
+<i>vox et praeterea nihil</i>. We watched the wonderful
+evolutions and convolutions of the Idea in its Dialectic
+development, but of the Idea itself or himself
+we had no idea whatever. It was all darkness, a vast
+abyss, and we sat patiently and wrote down what
+we could catch and comprehend of the Professor&#8217;s
+explanations, but the Idea itself we never could lay
+hold of. It would not have been so difficult if the
+Professor had spoken out more boldly. But whenever
+he came to the relation of the Idea to what we
+mean by God, there was always even with him, who
+was a very honest man, a certain theological hesitation.
+Hegel himself seems to shrink occasionally
+from the consequence that the Idea really stands in
+the place of God, and that it is in the self-conscious
+spirit of humanity that the ideal God becomes first
+conscious of himself. Still, that is the last word of
+Hegel&#8217;s philosophy, though others maintain that
+the Idea with Hegel was the thought of God, and
+that human thought was but a repetition of that
+divine thought. With Hegel there is first the evolution
+of the Idea in the pure ether of logic from
+the simplest to the highest category. Then follows
+Hegel&#8217;s Philosophy of Nature, that is, the evolution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+of the Idea in nature, the Idea having by the
+usual dialectic process negatived itself and entered
+into its opposite (<i>Anderssein</i>), passing through a
+new process of space and time, and ending in the
+self-conscious human soul. Thus nature and spirit
+were represented as dominated by the Idea in its
+logical development. Nature was one manifestation
+of the Idea, History the other, and it became the
+task of the philosopher to discover its traces both in
+the progress of nature and in the historical progress
+of thought.</p>
+
+<p>And here it was where the strongest protests began
+to be heard. Physical Science revolted, and Historical
+Research soon joined the rebellion. Professor
+Weisse also, in spite of his great admiration for
+Hegel, protested in his Lectures against this idealization
+of history, and showed how often Hegel, if he
+could not find the traces he was looking for in the
+historical development of the Idea, was misled by
+his imperfect knowledge of facts, and discovered
+what was not there, but what he felt convinced
+ought to have been there. Nowhere has this become
+so evident as in Hegel&#8217;s <i>Philosophy of Religion</i>.
+The conception was grand of seeing in the
+historical development of religion a repetition of
+the Dialectic Progress of the Idea. But facts are
+stubborn things, and do not yield even to the supreme
+command of the Idea. Besides, if the historical
+facts of religion were really such as the Dialectic
+Process of the Idea required, these facts are no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
+longer what they were before 1831, and what would
+become then of the Idea which, as he wrote in his
+preface to his <i>Metaphysics</i>, could not possibly be
+changed to please the new facts? It was this part
+of Weisse&#8217;s lectures, it was the protest of the historical
+conscience against the demands of the Idea, that
+interested me most. I see as clearly the formal
+truth as the material untruth of Hegel&#8217;s philosophy.
+The thorough excellence of its method and the desperate
+baldness of its results, strike me with equal
+force. Though I did not yet know what kind of
+thing or person the Idea was really meant for, I
+knew myself enough of ancient Greek philosophy
+and of Oriental religions to venture to criticize
+Hegel&#8217;s representation and disposition of the facts
+themselves. I could not accept the answer of my
+more determined Hegelian friends, <i>Tant pis pour
+les faits</i>, but felt more and more the old antagonism
+between what ought to be and what is, between
+the reasonableness of the Idea, and the unreasonableness
+of facts. I found a strong supporter in
+a young Privat-Docent who at that time began his
+brilliant career at Leipzig, Dr. Lotze. He had made
+a special study of mathematics and physical science,
+and felt the same disagreement between facts and
+theories in Hegel&#8217;s <i>Philosophy of Nature</i> which
+had struck me so much in reading his <i>Philosophy of
+Religion</i>. I joined his philosophical society, and I
+lately found among my old papers several essays
+which I had written for our meetings. They amused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+me very much, but I should be sorry to see them
+published now. It is curious that after many
+years I, as a Delegate of the University Press
+at Oxford, was instrumental in getting the first
+English translation of Lotze&#8217;s <i>Metaphysics</i> published
+in England; and it is still more curious that
+Mark Pattison, the late Rector of Lincoln, should
+have opposed it with might and main as a useless
+book which would never pay its expenses. I stood
+up for my old teacher, and I am glad to say to the
+honour of English philosophers, that the translation
+passed through several editions, and helped not
+a little to establish Lotze&#8217;s position in England and
+America. He died in 1881.</p>
+
+<p>It is extraordinary how the young minds in German
+universities survive the storms and fogs
+through which they have to pass in their academic
+career. I confess I myself felt quite bewildered for
+a time, and began to despair altogether of my reasoning
+powers. Why should I not be able to understand,
+I asked myself, what other people seemed
+to understand without any effort? We speak the
+same language, why should we not be able to think
+the same thought? I took refuge for a time in history&mdash;the
+history of language, of religion, and of
+philosophy. There was a very learned professor at
+Leipzig, Dr. Niedner, who lectured on the History
+of Greek Philosophy, and whose <i>Manual for the
+History of Philosophy</i> has been of use to me
+through the whole of my life. Socrates said of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+Heraclitus: &#8220;What I have understood of his book
+is excellent, and I suppose therefore that even what
+I have not understood is so too; but one must be a
+Delian swimmer not to be drowned in it.&#8221; I tried
+for a long time to follow this advice with regard
+to Hegel and Weisse, and though disheartened did
+not despair. I understood some of it, why should
+not the rest follow in time? Thus, I never gave up
+the study of philosophy at Leipzig and afterwards
+at Berlin, and my first contributions to philosophical
+journals date from that early time, when I was a
+student in the University of Leipzig. My very earliest,
+though very unsuccessful, struggles to find an
+entrance into the mysteries of philosophy date even
+from my school-days.</p>
+
+<p>I remember some years before, when I was quite
+young, perhaps no more than fifteen years of age,
+listening with bated breath to some professors at
+Leipzig who were talking very excitedly about philosophy
+in my presence. I had no idea what was
+meant by philosophy, still less could I follow when
+they began to discuss Kant&#8217;s <i>Kritik der reinen Vernunft</i>.
+One of my friends, whom I looked up to as
+a great authority, confessed that he had read the
+book again and again, but could not understand the
+whole of it. My curiosity was much excited, and
+once, while he was taking a walk with me, I asked
+him very timidly what Kant&#8217;s book was about, and
+how a man could write a book that other men could
+not understand. He tried to explain what Kant&#8217;s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+book was about, but it was all perfect darkness before
+my eyes; I was trying to lay hold of a word
+here and there, but it all floated before my mind like
+mist, without a single ray of light, without any
+way out of all that maze of words. But when at last
+he said he would lend me the book, I fell on it and
+pored over it hour after hour. The result was the
+same. My little brain could not take in the simplest
+ideas of the first chapters&mdash;that space and time were
+nothing by themselves; that we ourselves gave the
+form of space and time to what was given us by the
+senses. But though defeated I would not give in;
+I tried again and again, but of course it was all in
+vain. The words were here and I could construe
+them, but there was nothing in my mind which the
+words could have laid hold on. It was like rain
+on hard soil, it all ran off, or remained standing in
+puddles and muddles on my poor brain.</p>
+
+<p>At last I gave it up in despair, but I had fully
+made up my mind that as soon as I went to the
+University I would find out what philosophy really
+was, and what Kant meant by saying that space and
+time were forms of our sensuous intuition. I see
+that, accordingly, in the summer of 1841, I attended
+lectures on Aesthetics by Professor Weisse, on
+Anthropology by Lotze, and on Psychology by Professor
+Heinroth, and I slowly learnt to distinguish
+between what was going on within me, and what I
+had been led to imagine existed outside me, or at
+least quite independent of me. But before I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+got a firm grasp of Kant, of his forms of intuition,
+and the categories of the understanding, I was
+thrown into Hegelianism. This, too, was at first
+entire darkness, but I was not disheartened. I attended
+Professor Weisse&#8217;s lectures on Hegel in the
+winter of 1841-2, and again in the winter of
+1842-3 I attended his lectures on Logic and Metaphysics,
+and on the Philosophy of History. He took
+an interest in me, and I felt most strongly attracted
+by him. Soon after I joined his Philosophical Society,
+and likewise that of Professor Drobisch. In
+these societies every member, when his turn came,
+had to write an essay and defend it against the professor
+and the other members of the society. All this
+was very helpful, but it was not till I had heard a
+course of lectures on the History of Philosophy, by
+Professor Niedner, that my interest in Philosophy
+became strong and healthy. While Weisse was a
+leading Hegelian philosopher, and Drobisch represented
+the opposite philosophy of Herbart, Niedner
+was purely historical, and this appealed most to my
+taste. Still, my philosophical studies remained very
+disjointed. At last I was admitted to Lotze&#8217;s Philosophical
+Society also, and here we chiefly read and
+discussed Kant&#8217;s <i>Kritik</i>. Lotze was then quite a
+young man, undecided as yet himself between
+physical science and pure philosophy.</p>
+
+<p>Weisse was certainly the most stirring lecturer,
+but his delivery was fearful. He did not read his
+lectures, as many professors did, but would deliver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+them <i>extempore</i>. He had no command of language,
+and there was a pause after almost every sentence.
+He was really thinking out the problem while he
+was lecturing; he was constantly repeating his sentences,
+and any new thought that crossed his mind
+would carry him miles away from his subject. It
+happened sometimes in these rhapsodies that he contradicted
+himself, but when I walked home with
+him after his lecture to a village near Leipzig
+where he lived, he would readily explain how it
+happened, how he meant something quite different
+from what he had said, or what I had understood.
+In fact he would give the whole lecture over again,
+only much more freely and more intelligibly. I
+was fully convinced at that time that Hegel&#8217;s philosophy
+was the final solution of all problems; I
+only hesitated about his philosophy of history as applied
+to the history of religion. I could not bring
+myself to admit that the history of religion, nor
+even the history of philosophy as we know it from
+Thales to Kant, was really running side by side
+with his Logic, showing how the leading concepts
+of the human mind, as elaborated in the Logic, had
+found successive expression in the history and development
+of the schools of philosophy as known
+to us. Weisse was strong both in his analysis of
+concepts and in his knowledge of history, and
+though he taught Hegel as a faithful interpreter,
+he always warned us against trusting too much in
+the parallelism between Logic and History. Study<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+the writings of the good philosophers, he would
+say, and then see whether they will or will not fit
+into the Procrustean bed of Hegel&#8217;s Logic. And
+this was the best lesson he could have given to
+young men. How well founded and necessary the
+warning was I found out myself, the more I studied
+the religion and philosophies of the East, and then
+compared what I saw in the original documents with
+the account given by Hegel in his <i>Philosophy of
+Religion</i>. It is quite true that Hegel at the time
+when he wrote, could not have gained a direct or
+accurate knowledge of the principal religions of the
+East. But what I could not help seeing was that
+what Hegel represented as the necessity in the
+growth of religious thought, was far away from the
+real growth, as I had watched it in some of the
+sacred books of these religions. This shook my
+belief in the correctness of Hegel&#8217;s fundamental
+principles more than anything else.</p>
+
+<p>At that time Herbart&#8217;s philosophy, as taught by
+Drobisch at Leipzig, came to me as a most useful
+antidote. The chief object of that philosophy is,
+as is well known, the analysing and clearing, so to
+speak, of our concepts. This was exactly what I
+wanted, only that occupied as I was with the problems
+of language, I at once translated the object of
+his philosophy into a definition of words. Henceforth
+the object of my own philosophical occupations
+was the accurate definition of every word.
+All words, such as reason, pure reason, mind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+thought, were carefully taken to pieces and traced
+back, if possible, to their first birth, and then
+through their further developments. My interest
+in this analytical process soon took an historical,
+that is etymological, character in so far as I tried
+to find out why any words should now mean exactly
+what, according to our definition, they ought
+to mean. For instance, in examining such words
+as <i>Vernunft</i> or <i>Verstand</i>, a little historical retrospect
+showed that their distinction as reason and
+understanding was quite modern, and chiefly due to
+a scientific definition given and maintained by the
+Kantian school of philosophy. Of course every
+generation has a right to define its philosophical
+terms, but from an historical point of view Kant
+might have used with equal right <i>Vernunft</i> for
+<i>Verstand</i>, and <i>Verstand</i> for <i>Vernunft</i>. Etymologically
+or historically both words have much the
+same meaning. <i>Vernunft</i>, from <i>Vernehmen</i>, meant
+originally no more than perception, while <i>Verstand</i>
+meant likewise perception, but soon came to imply
+a kind of understanding, even a kind of technical
+knowledge, though from a purely etymological
+standpoint it had nothing that fitted it more for
+carrying the meaning, which is now assigned to it
+in German in distinction to <i>Vernunft</i>, than understanding
+had as distinguished from reason. It
+requires, of course, a very minute historical research
+to trace the steps by which such words as
+reason and understanding diverge in different directions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+in the language of the people and in philosophical
+parlance. This teaches us a very important
+distinction, namely that between the popular
+development of the meaning of a word, and its
+meaning as defined and asserted by a philosopher
+or by a poet in the plenitude of his power. Etymological
+definition is very useful for the first stages
+in the history of a word. It is useful to know, for
+instance, that <i>deus</i>, God, meant originally bright,
+bright whether applied to sky, sun, moon, stars,
+dawn, morning, dayspring, spring of the year, and
+many other bright objects in nature, that it thus
+assumed a meaning common to them all, splendid,
+or heavenly, beneficent, powerful, so that when in
+the Veda already we find a number of heavenly
+bodies, or of terrestrial bodies, or even of periods of
+time called Devas, this word has assumed a more
+general, more comprehensive, and more exalted
+meaning. It did not yet mean what the Greeks
+called &#952;&#949;&#959;&#7985; or gods, but it meant something common
+to all these &#952;&#949;&#959;&#7985;, and thus could naturally rise
+to express what the Greeks wanted to express by
+that word. There was as yet no necessity for defining
+deva or &#952;&#949;&#8001;&#962;, when applied to what was
+meant by gods, but of course the most opposite
+meanings had clustered round it. While a philosophical
+Greek would maintain that &#952;&#949;&#8001;&#962; meant
+what was one and never many, a poetical Greek or
+an ordinary Greek would hold that it meant what
+was by nature many. But while in such a case<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
+philosophical analysis and historical genealogy
+would support each other, there are ever so many
+cases where etymological analysis is as hopeless as
+logical analysis. Who is to define <i>romantic</i>, in
+such expressions as romantic literature. Etymologically
+we know that romantic goes back finally
+to Rome, but the mass of incongruous meanings
+that have been thrown at random into the caldron
+of that word, is so great that no definition could
+be contrived to comprehend them all. And how
+should we define <i>Gothic</i> or <i>Romanic</i> architecture,
+remembering that as no Goths had anything to do
+with pointed arches, neither were any Romans responsible
+for the flat roofs of the German churches
+of the Saxon emperors.</p>
+
+<p>Enough to show what I meant when I said that
+Professor Drobisch, in his Lectures on Herbart,
+gave one great encouragement in the special work
+in which I was already engaged as a mere student,
+the Science of Language and Etymology. If Herbart
+declared philosophy to consist in a thorough
+examination (<i>Bearbeitung</i>) of concepts, or conceptual
+knowledge, my answer was, Only let it be
+historical, nay, in the beginning, etymological; I
+was not so foolish as to imagine that a word as used
+at present, meant what it meant etymologically.
+<i>Deus</i> no longer meant brilliant, but it should be
+the object of the true historian of language to prove
+how <i>Deus</i>, having meant originally brilliant, came
+to mean what it means now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher,
+and that sounded so grand that the idea of preparing
+for a mere schoolmaster, teaching Greek and
+Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a
+sphere. Soon, however, while dreaming of a chair
+of philosophy at a German University, I began to
+feel that I must know something special, something
+that no other philosopher knew, and that induced
+me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. I had
+only heard what we call in German the chiming,
+not the striking of the bells of Indian philosophy;
+I had read Frederick Schlegel&#8217;s explanatory book
+<i>&Uuml;ber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier</i> (1808),
+and looked into Windischmann&#8217;s <i>Die Philosophie
+im Fortgange der Weltgeschichte</i> (1827-1834).
+These books are hardly opened now&mdash;they are antiquated,
+and more than antiquated; they are full of
+mistakes as to facts, and mistakes as to the conclusions
+drawn from them. But they had ushered new
+ideas into the world of thought, and they left on
+many, as they did on me, that feeling which the digger
+who prospects for minerals is said to have, that
+there must be gold beneath the surface, if people
+would only dig. That feeling was very vague as
+yet, and might have been entirely deceptive, nor did
+I see my way to go beyond the point reached by
+these two dreamers or explorers. The thought remained
+in the rubbish-chamber of my mind, and
+though forgotten at the time, broke forth again
+when there was an opportunity. It was a fortunate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+coincidence that at that very time, in the winter of
+1841, a new professorship was founded at Leipzig
+and given to Professor Brockhaus. Uncertain as
+I was about the course I had to follow in my studies,
+I determined to see what there was to be learnt in
+Sanskrit. There was a charm in the unknown, and,
+I must confess, a charm also in studying something
+which my friends and fellow students did not know.
+I called on Professor Brockhaus, and found that
+there were only two other students to attend his
+lectures, one Spiegel, who already knew the elements
+of Sanskrit, and who is still alive in Erlangen,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>
+as a famous professor of Sanskrit and Zend,
+though no longer lecturing, and another, Klengel;
+both several years my seniors, but both extremely
+amiable to their younger fellow student. Klengel
+was a scholar, a philosopher, and a musician, and
+though after a term or two he had to give up his study
+of Sanskrit, he was very useful to me by his good advice.
+He encouraged me and praised me for my
+progress in Sanskrit, which was no doubt more rapid
+than his own, and he confirmed me in my conviction
+that something might be made of Sanskrit by the
+philologist and by the philosopher. It should not
+be forgotten that at that time there was a strong
+prejudice against Sanskrit among classical scholars.
+The number of men who stood up for it, though it
+included names such as W. von Humboldt, F. and
+A.&nbsp;W. von Schlegel, was still very small. Even
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>Herder&#8217;s and Goethe&#8217;s prophetic words produced
+little effect. It is said that when the Government
+had been persuaded, chiefly by the two Humboldts,
+to found a chair of Sanskrit at the University of
+W&uuml;rzburg, and had nominated Bopp as its first
+occupant, the philological faculty of the University
+protested against such a desecration, and the appointment
+fell through. It is true, no doubt, that
+in their first enthusiasm the students of Sanskrit had
+uttered many exaggerated opinions. Sanskrit was
+represented as the mother of all languages, instead
+of being the elder sister of the Aryan family. The
+beginning of all language, of all thought, of all religion
+was traced back to India, and when Greek
+scholars were told that Zeus existed in the Veda
+under the name of Dyaus, there was a great flutter
+in the dovecots of classical scholarship. Many of
+these enthusiastic utterances had afterwards to be
+toned down. How we did enjoy those enthusiastic
+days, which even in their exaggerated hopes were
+not without some use. Problems such as the beginning
+of language, of thought, of mythology and
+religion, were started with youthful hope that the
+Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis
+had been present at the first outburst of roots, of
+concepts, nay, that like Pelops and other descendants
+of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed daily
+intercourse with the gods, and had been present at
+the mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of
+Kronos. We may be ashamed to-day of some of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+the dreams of the early spring of man&#8217;s sojourn on
+earth, but they were enchanting dreams, and all
+our thoughts of man&#8217;s nature and destiny on earth
+were tinged with the colours of a morning that
+threw light over the grey darkness which preceded
+it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally
+the bright sky, something actually seen, but
+something that had to become something unseen.
+All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by
+mankind at large, must have begun with what the
+senses can perceive, before it could rise to signify
+something unperceived by the senses. Only after
+the blue aether had been perceived and named, was
+it possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active,
+as an agent, as a god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus
+be called the most sublime, he who resides in the
+aether, &#945;&#7984;&#952;&#7953;&#961;&#953; &#957;&#945;&#7985;&#969;&#957; &#8017;&#968;&#7985;&#950;&#965;&#947;&#959;&#962;, the heavenly one, or
+&#959;&#8016;&#961;&#7937;&#957;&#953;&#959;&#962; &#8021;&#960;&#945;&#964;&#959;&#962; and &#8021;&#968;&#953;&#963;&#964;&#959;&#962;, the highest, and at
+last <i>Iupiter Optimus Maximus</i>, a name applied
+even to the true God. When Zeus had once become
+like the sky, all seeing or omniscient (&#7952;&#960;&#8001;&#968;&#953;&#959;&#962;),
+would he not naturally be supposed to see, not only
+the good, but the evil deeds of men also, nay, their
+very thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if
+so, would he not be the avenger of evil, the watcher
+of oaths (&#8005;&#961;&#954;&#953;&#959;&#962;), the protector of the helpless
+(&#7985;&#954;&#7953;&#963;&#953;&#959;&#962;)? Yet, if conceived, as for a long time all
+the gods were conceived and could only be conceived,
+namely, as human in their shape, should we
+not necessarily get that strange amalgamation of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+human being doing superhuman work&mdash;hurling the
+thunderbolt, shouting in thunder, hidden by dark
+clouds, and smiling in the serene blue of the sky
+with its brilliant scintillations? All this and much
+more became perfectly intelligible, the step from
+the visible to the invisible, from the perceived to
+the conceived, from nature to nature&#8217;s gods, and
+from nature&#8217;s god to a more sublime unseen and
+spiritual power. All this seemed to pass before our
+very eyes in the Veda, and then to be reflected in
+Homer and Pindar.</p>
+
+<p>Some details of this restored picture of the world
+of gods and men in early times, nay, in the very
+spring of time, may have to be altered, but the picture,
+the eidyllion remained, and nothing could curb
+the adventurous spirit and keep it from pushing forward
+and trying to do what seemed to others almost
+impossible, namely, to watch the growth of the human
+mind as reflected in the petrifactions of language.
+Language itself spoke to us with a different
+voice, and a formerly unsuspected meaning.</p>
+
+<p>We knew, for instance, that <i>ewig</i> meant eternal,
+but whence eternal. Nothing eternal was ever seen,
+and it seemed to the philosopher that eternal could
+be expressed by a negation only, by a negation of
+what was temporary. But we now learnt that <i>ewig</i>
+was derived in word and therefore in thought from
+the Gothic <i>aiwar</i>, time. <i>Ewigkeit</i> was therefore
+originally time, and &#8220;for all time&#8221; came naturally
+to mean &#8220;for all eternity.&#8221; Eternity also came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+from <i>aeternus</i>, that is <i>aeviternus</i>, for time, i.&nbsp;e. for
+all time, and thus for eternity, while <i>aevum</i> meant
+life, lifetime, age. But now came the question, if
+<i>aevum</i> shows the growth of this word, and its origin,
+and how it arrives in the end at the very opposite
+pole, life and time coming to mean eternity, could
+we not by the same process discover the origin and
+growth of such short Greek words as &#7936;&#949;&#7985; and a&#7984;e&#7985;?
+It seems almost impossible, yet remembering that
+<i>aevum</i> meant originally life, we find in Vedic Sanskrit
+<i>eva</i>, course, way, life, the same as <i>aevum</i>,
+while the Sanskrit <i>&acirc;yush</i>, likewise derived from <i>i</i>,
+to go, forms its locative <i>&acirc;yushi</i>. <i>&Acirc;yushi</i>, or originally
+<i>&acirc;yasi</i>, would mean &#8220;in life, in time,&#8221; and
+turned into Greek would regularly become then
+a&#7984;e&#7985;, lifelong, or ever. It was not difficult to find
+fault with this and other etymologies, and to ask for
+an explanation of &#945;&#7984;&#7953;&#957; and &#945;&#7984;&#7953;&#962;, as derived from
+the same word <i>&acirc;yus</i>. It is curious that people will
+not see that etymologies, and particularly the
+gradual development in the form and meaning of
+words, can hardly ever be a matter of mathematical
+certainty.</p>
+
+<p>Historical, nay, even individual, influences come
+in which prevent the science of language from becoming
+purely mechanical. Pott, and Curtius, and
+others stood up against Bopp and Grimm, maintaining
+that there could be nothing irregular in language,
+particularly in phonetic changes. If this
+means no more than that under the same circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+the same changes will always take place, it
+would be of course a mere truism. The question
+is only whether we can ever know all the circumstances,
+and whether there are not some of these
+circumstances which cause what we are apt to call
+irregularities. When Bopp said that Sanskrit <i>d</i> corresponds
+to a Greek &#948;, but often also to a Greek &#952;,
+I doubt whether this is often the case. All I say is,
+if <i>deva</i> corresponds to &#952;&#949;&#8001;&#962;, we must try to find the
+reason or the circumstances which caused so unusual
+a correspondence. If no more is meant than
+that there must be a reason for all that seems irregular,
+no one would gainsay that, neither Bopp
+nor Grimm, and no one ever doubted that as a principle.
+But to establish these reasons is the very
+difficulty with which the Science of Language has
+to deal.</p>
+
+<p>There is no word that has not an etymology, only
+if we consider the distance of time that separates us
+from the historical facts we are trying to account
+for, we should sometimes be satisfied with probabilities
+and not always stipulate for absolute certainty.
+Many of Bopp&#8217;s, Grimm&#8217;s, and Pott&#8217;s etymologies
+have had to be surrendered, and yet our
+suzerainty over that distant country which they
+conquered, over the Aryan home, remains. If
+there is an etymology containing something irregular,
+and for which no reason has as yet been found,
+we must wait till some better etymology can be suggested,
+or a reason be found for that apparent irregularity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+If the etymological meaning of <i>duhitar</i>,
+daughter, as milkmaid, is doubted, let us have a
+better explanation, not a worse; but the general
+picture of the early family among the Aryans
+&#8220;somewhere in Asia&#8221; is not thereby destroyed.
+The father, Sk. <i>pitar</i>, remains the protector or
+nourisher, though the <i>i</i> for <i>a</i> in <i>pater</i> and &#960;&#945;&#964;&#7969;&#961;
+is irregular. The mother, <i>m&acirc;tar</i>, remains the
+bearer of children, though <i>m&acirc;</i> is no longer used in
+that sense in any of the Aryan languages. <i>Pati</i>
+is the lord, the strong one&mdash;therefore the husband;
+<i>vadh&ucirc;</i>, the yoke-fellow, or the wife as brought
+home, possibly as carried off by force. <i>Vis</i> or <i>vesa</i>
+is the home, &#959;&#7984;&#954;&#959;&#962; or <i>vicus</i>, what was entered for
+shelter. <i>Svasura</i>, &#7953;&#954;&#965;&#961;&#8001;&#962;, <i>Socer</i>, the father-in-law,
+is the old man of the <i>svas</i>, the <i>famuli</i>, or the family,
+or the clients, though the first <i>s</i> is irregular, and
+can be defended only on the ground of mistaken
+analogy. <i>Bhr&acirc;tar</i>, <i>frater</i>, brother, was the supporter;
+<i>svastar</i>, <i>soror</i>, sister, the comforter, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>What do a few objections signify? The whole
+picture remains, as if we could look into the <i>vesa</i>,
+the &#959;&#7984;&#954;&#959;&#962; the <i>veih</i>, the home, the village of the
+ancient Aryans, and watch them, the <i>svas</i>, the
+people, in their mutual relations. Even compound
+words, such as <i>vis-pati</i>, lord of a family or a village,
+have been preserved to the present day in the Lithuanian
+<i>Veszpats</i>, lord, whether King or God. It
+is enough for us to see that the relationship between
+husband and wife, between parents and children,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+between brothers and sisters, nay, even between
+children-in-law and parents-in-law, had been
+recognized and sanctified by names. That there
+are, and always will be, doubts and slight differences
+of opinion on these prehistoric thoughts and words,
+is easily understood. We were pleased for a long
+time to see in <i>vidua</i>, widow, the Sanskrit <i>vidua</i>,
+i.&nbsp;e. without a man or a husband. We now derive
+<i>vi-dhav&acirc;</i>, widow, from <i>vidh</i>, to be separated, to
+be without (cf. <i>vido</i> in <i>divido</i>, and Sk. <i>vidh</i>), but
+the picture of the Aryan family remains much the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>When these and similar antiquities were for the
+first time brought to light by Bopp, Grimm, and
+Pott, what wonder that we young men should have
+jumped at them, and shouted with delight, more
+even than the diggers who dug up Babylonian
+palaces or Egyptian temples! No one did more for
+these antiquarian finds and restorations than A.
+Kuhn, a simple schoolmaster, but afterwards a most
+distinguished member of the Berlin Academy.
+How often did I sit with him in his study as he
+worked, surrounded by his Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit
+books. In later times also, when I had made
+some discoveries myself as to the mythological
+names or beings identical in Vedic and Greek writings,
+how pleasant was it to see him rub his hands
+or shake his head. Long before I had published my
+identifications they were submitted to him, and he
+communicated to me his own guesses as I communicated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
+mine to him. Kuhn would never appropriate
+what belonged to anybody else, and even in cases
+where we agreed, he would always make it clear
+that we had both arrived independently at the same
+result.</p>
+
+<p>It is in the nature of things that every new generation
+of scholars should perfect their tools, and
+with these discover flaws in the work left by their
+predecessors. Still, what is the refined chiselling of
+later scholars compared with the rough-hewn stones
+of men like Bopp or Grimm? If the Cyclopean
+stones of the Pelasgians are not like the finished
+works of art by Phidias, what would the Parthenon
+be without the walls ascribed to the Cyclops? It
+is the same in all sciences, and we must try to be
+just, both to the genius of those who created, and
+to the diligence of those who polished and refined.</p>
+
+<p>For all this, however, I met with but small
+sympathy and encouragement at Leipzig; nay, I
+had to be very careful in uttering what were supposed
+to be heretical or unscholarlike opinions in
+the seminary of Gottfried Hermann, or in the Latin
+society of Haupt. The latter particularly, though
+he knew very well how much light had been spread
+on the growth of language by the researches of
+Bopp, Grimm, and Pott, and though Grimm was
+his intimate friend of whom he always spoke with
+real veneration, could not bear his own pupils dabbling
+in this subject. And of course at that time
+my knowledge of comparative philology was a mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+dabbling. If he could discover a false quantity in
+any etymology, great was his delight, and his sarcasm
+truly withering, particularly as it was poured
+out in very classical Latin. Gottfried Hermann
+was a different character. He saw there was a new
+light and he would not turn his back to it. He
+knew how lightly his antagonist, Otfried M&uuml;ller,
+valued Sanskrit in his mythological essays, and he
+set to work, and in one of his last academical programs
+actually gave the paradigms of Sanskrit verbs
+as compared with those of Greek. He saw that the
+coincidences between the two could not be casual,
+and if they were so overwhelming in the mere termination
+of verbs, what might we not expect in words
+and names, even in mythological names? He by no
+means discouraged me, nay, he was sorry to lose
+me, when in my third year I went to Berlin. He
+showed me great kindness on several occasions, and
+when the time came to take my degree of M.A. and
+Ph.D., he, as Dean of the Faculty, invited me to
+return to Leipzig, offering me an exhibition to cover
+the expenses of the Degree.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="Max20" id="Max20"></a><a href="images/illo156.jpg"><img src="images/illo156_th.jpg"
+alt="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 20" title="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 20" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><small>F. MAX M&Uuml;LLER</small><br />
+<i>Aged Twenty</i></p>
+
+<p>My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire
+to hear Bopp, but yet more from a desire to
+make the acquaintance of Schelling. My inclination
+towards philosophy had become stronger and
+stronger; I had my own ideas about the mythological
+as a necessary form of ancient philosophy, and
+when I saw that the old philosopher had advertised
+his lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+resist, and went to Berlin in 1844. I must say at
+once that Professor Bopp, though he was extremely
+kind to me, was at that time, if not old&mdash;he was only
+fifty-three&mdash;very infirm. In his lectures he simply
+read his <i>Comparative Grammar</i> with a magnifying
+glass, and added very little that was new. He lent
+me some manuscripts which he had copied in Latin
+in his younger days, but I could not get much help
+from him when I came to really difficult passages.
+This, I confess, puzzled me at the time, for I looked
+on every professor as omniscient. The time comes,
+however, when we learn that even at fifty-three a
+man may have forgotten certain things, nay, may
+have let many books and new discoveries even in
+his own subject pass by, because he has plenty to do
+with his own particular studies. We remember the
+old story of the professor who, when charged by a
+young and rather impertinent student with not
+knowing this or that, replied: &#8220;Sir, I have forgotten
+more than you ever knew.&#8221; And so it is
+indeed. Human nature and human memory are
+very strong during youth and manhood, but even at
+fifty there is with many people a certain decline of
+mental vigour that tells chiefly on the memory.
+Things are not exactly forgotten, but they do not
+turn up at the right time. They just leave a certain
+knowledge of where the missing information can
+be found; they leave also a kind of feeling that the
+ground is not quite safe and that we must no longer
+trust entirely to our memory. In one respect this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+feeling is very useful, for instead of writing down
+anything, trusting to our memory as we used to do,
+we feel it necessary to verify many things which
+formerly were perfectly clear and certain in our
+memory without such reference to books.</p>
+
+<p>I remember being struck with the same thing in
+the case of Professor Wilson, the well-known Oxford
+Professor of Sanskrit. He was kind enough to
+read with me, and I certainly was often puzzled,
+not only by what he knew, but also by what he had
+forgotten. I feel now that I misjudged him, and
+that his open declaration, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know, let us
+look it up,&#8221; really did him great honour. I still
+have in my possession a portion of P&acirc;nini&#8217;s Vedic
+grammar translated by him. I put by the side of it
+my own translation, and he openly acknowledged
+that mine, with the passages taken from the Veda,
+was right. There was no humbug about Wilson.
+He never posed as a scholar; nay, I remember his
+saying to me more than once, &#8220;You see, I am not a
+scholar, I am a gentleman who likes Sanskrit, and
+that is all.&#8221; He certainly did like Sanskrit, and he
+knew it better than many a professor, but in his own
+way. He had enjoyed the assistance of really
+learned Pandits, and he never forgot to record their
+services. But he had himself cleared the ground&mdash;he
+had really done original work. In fact, he had
+done nothing but original work, and then he was
+abused for not having always found at the first trial
+what others discovered when standing on his shoulders.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+Again, he was found fault with for not having
+had a classical education. His education was,
+I believe, medical, but when once in the Indian
+Civil Service, he made himself useful in many ways,
+educational and otherwise. When he left India he
+was Master of the Mint. Such a man might not
+know Greek and Latin like F.&nbsp;A. von Schlegel, or
+any other professor, but he knew his own subject,
+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
+Sanskrit. Such a feeling is natural among small
+schoolmasters, but it is dying out at last among real
+scholars. I have known very good Sanskrit scholars
+who knew no Greek at all, and very little Latin.
+And I have also known Greek scholars who knew
+no Sanskrit and yet attempted comparisons between
+the two. When Lepsius was made a Member of
+the Berlin Academy, Lachmann, who ought to have
+known better, used to say of him: &#8220;He knows
+many things which nobody knows, but he also is
+ignorant of many things which everybody knows.&#8221;
+Such remarks never speak well for the man who
+makes them.</p>
+
+<p>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 age, and is still violently assailed for opinions
+he may have uttered fifty years ago. When quite
+a young man I wrote, at Baron Bunsen&#8217;s request, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+long letter on the Turanian Languages. It was published
+in 1854, but it still continues to be criticized
+as if it had been published last year. Of course,
+considering the rapid advance of linguistic studies,
+a great part of that letter became antiquated long
+ago; but at the time of its first appearance it contained
+nearly all that could then be known on these
+allophylian, that is, non-Aryan and non-Semitic
+languages; and I may, perhaps, quote the opinion
+of Professor Pott, no mean authority at that time,
+who, after severely criticizing my letter, declared
+that it belonged to the most important publications
+that had appeared on linguistic subjects for many
+years. And yet, though I have again and again
+protested that I could not possibly have known in
+1854 what has been discovered since as to a number
+of these Turanian languages, everybody who writes
+on any of them seems to be most anxious to show
+that in 1894 he knows more than I did in 1854. No
+astronomer is blamed for not having known the
+planet Neptune before its discovery in 1846, or for
+having been wrong in accounting for the irregularities
+of Saturn. But let that pass; I only share the
+fate of others who have lived too long.</p>
+
+<p>After all, all our knowledge, whatever show we
+may make of it, is very imperfect, and the more
+we know the better we learn how little it is that we
+do know, and how much of unexplored country
+there is beyond the country which we have explored.
+We must judge a man by what he has done&mdash;by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+his own original work. There are many scholars,
+and very useful they are in their own way, but if
+their books are examined, one easily finds the stores
+from which they borrowed their materials. They
+may add some notes of their own and even some corrections,
+particularly corrections of the authors from
+whom they have borrowed most; but at the end
+where is the fresh ore that they have raised; where
+is the gold they have extracted and coined? There
+are cases where the original worker is quite forgotten,
+whereas the retailers flourish. Well, facts are
+facts, whether known or not known, and the triumphal
+chariot of truth has to be dragged along
+by many hands and many shoulders.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Herr Geheimrath von Spiegel now lives at Munich.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>PARIS</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My</span> stay in Paris from March, 1845, to June,
+1846, was a very useful intermezzo. It opened my
+mind and showed me a new world; showed me, in
+fact, that there was a world besides Germany,
+though even of Germany and German society I had
+seen as yet very little. I had been working away
+at school and university, but with the exception of
+my short stay in Berlin, I had little experience of
+men and manners outside the small sphere of Dessau
+and Leipzig.</p>
+
+<p>I had been at Berlin some nine months when,
+in December, 1844, my old friend Baron Hagedorn
+came to see me, and invited me to spend some time
+with him in Paris. He had his own apartments
+there, and promised to look after me. At the same
+time my cousin, Baroness Stolzenberg, whom I have
+mentioned before as wishing me to enter the Austrian
+diplomatic service, offered to send me to England
+at her expense as a teacher. I hesitated for
+some days between these two offers. I knew that
+my own patrimony had been nearly spent at Leipzig
+and Berlin, and the time had come for me to
+begin to support myself; and how was I to do that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
+in Paris? On the other hand, I had long felt that
+for continuing my Sanskrit studies a stay in Paris,
+and later perhaps in London also, was indispensable.
+I had also to consider the feelings of my mother,
+whose whole heart was absorbed in her only son.
+However, Sanskrit, and my love of an independent
+life won the day, and I decided to accept Hagedorn&#8217;s
+proposal. My mind once made up, I wanted to be
+off at once, but Hagedorn could not fix the exact
+time when he would be free to leave, and told me to
+keep myself in readiness to start whenever he found
+himself free to go. I accordingly went to stay with
+my mother and my married sister at Chemnitz, and
+indulged in idleness and the unwonted dissipations
+of parties, dances, and long skating expeditions.
+At last, feeling I could not afford to wait any longer,
+I went off to Dessau to see Hagedorn, and found
+to my great disappointment that he was detained
+by important legal business in connection with his
+property near Munich, and could not yet fix a date
+for his departure. So it was settled that I was to
+go on to Paris without him, and instal myself in his
+apartment, 25, Rue Royale St. Honor&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>I got my passport wherein I was carefully described
+with all my particular marks, and started
+off on my foreign travels. At first all went well.
+I stopped a few days at Bonn, and again at Brussels,
+where I had my first experience of hearing a
+foreign language spoken round me, and found that
+my French was sadly deficient. But from Brussels<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
+on, my experiences were anything but agreeable.
+The journey to Paris took twenty-four hours,
+and we travelled day and night without any stop
+for meals. Most of the passengers were well provided
+with food and wine, but had it not been for
+the kindness of some old ladies, my fellow-travellers,
+I should really have starved. When we crossed the
+frontier the luggage of all passengers was carefully
+examined. But the <i>douanier</i>, in trying to open my
+portmanteau, broke the lock, and then began a fearful
+cursing and swearing. I was perfectly helpless.
+I could hardly understand what the French
+<i>douaniers</i> said, still less make them understand
+what I had to say. They had done the damage, but
+would do nothing to remedy it. The train would
+not wait, and I should certainly have been left behind
+if the other travellers had not taken my part,
+and I was allowed to go on to Paris. I looked a
+mere boy, very harmless, not at all the clever smuggler
+the officials took me to be. 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 Sanskrit.</p>
+
+<p>But my miseries were not yet over, on the contrary,
+they became much worse. On my arrival in
+Paris I got a <i>fiacre</i> and told the man to drive to
+25, Rue St. Honor&eacute;; <i>Royale</i> I considered of no importance;
+but, alas! at the right number of the
+Rue St. Honor&eacute;, the <i>concierge</i> stared at me, telling
+me that no Baron Hagedorn lived there. Try<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, they said, but here the same
+thing happened. And all this was on a rainy afternoon,
+I being tired out with travelling and fasting,
+and perfectly overwhelmed by the immensity of
+Paris. I knew nobody at Paris, having trusted for
+all such things to Baron Hagedorn, in fact I was
+<i>au d&eacute;sespoir</i>. Then as I was driving along the
+Boulevard des Italiens, looking out of window, I
+saw a familiar figure&mdash;a little hunchback whom I
+had known at Dessau, where he studied music under
+Schneider. It was M. Gathy, a man well known by
+his musical writings, particularly his <i>Dictionary of
+Music</i>. I shrieked Gathy! Gathy! and he was as
+much surprised when he recognized the little boy
+from Dessau, as I was when in this vast Paris I
+discovered at last a face which I knew. I jumped
+out of my carriage, told Gathy all that had happened
+to me, being all the time between complete
+despair and perfect delight. He knew Hagedorn
+and his rooms very well. It was the Rue Royale
+St. Honor&eacute;. The <i>concierge</i> was quite prepared for
+my arrival, and took us both to the rooms which
+were <i>au cinqui&egrave;me</i>, but large and extremely well
+furnished. I was so tired that I lay down on the
+sofa, and called out in my best French, <i>Donnez-moi
+quelque chose &agrave; manger et &agrave; boire</i>. This was
+not so easily done as said, but at last, after toiling
+up and down five flights of stairs, he brought me
+what I wanted; I restored myself in the true sense
+of the word, and then began to discuss the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
+necessary matters with M. Gathy. He was the most
+charming of men, half German, half French, full
+of <i>esprit</i>, and, what was more important to me, full
+of real kindness and love. As soon as I saw him I
+felt I was safe, and so I was, though I had still some
+battles to fight. First of all, I had taken but little
+money with me, looking upon Hagedorn as my
+banker. Fortunately I remembered the name of
+one of his friends, about whom Hagedorn had often
+spoken to me and who was in Rothschild&#8217;s Bank.
+I went there to find that he was away, but another
+gentleman there told me that I could have as much
+as I liked till Hagedorn or his friend came back.
+So I was lucky, unlucky as I had been before.</p>
+
+<p>The next step I had to consider was what I should
+do for my breakfast, luncheon, and dinner. Breakfast
+I could have at home, but for the other meals I
+had to go out and get what I wanted wherever I
+could. It was not always what I wanted, for it had
+to be cheap, and even a dinner <i>&agrave; deux francs</i> in the
+Palais Royal seemed to me extravagant. I became
+more knowing by-and-by, and discovered smaller
+and simpler restaurants, where Frenchmen dined
+and had arranged for a less showy but more wholesome
+diet.</p>
+
+<p>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 memory. My principal
+amusement at first was to go on voyages of discovery
+through the town. The beauty of the city<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+itself, and the rush and crowd in the streets delighted
+me, and I remember specially a few days
+after my arrival, when I went to watch &#8220;le tout
+Paris&#8221; going out to the races at Longchamps, that I
+was so struck by the difference between these streets
+full of equipages of all sorts, ladies in resplendent
+dresses, and well-groomed gentlemen, and the quiet
+streets that I had been accustomed to in Dessau
+and Leipzig, that I could hardly keep myself from
+laughing out loud. However, when the novelty
+wore off there was another contrast that struck me,
+and made me more inclined to cry this time than to
+laugh, and that was, that while at home I knew
+almost every face I passed, here in these crowds I
+was a stranger and knew no one, and I suffered
+cruelly from the solitude at first.</p>
+
+<p>I began my work, however, at once, and on the
+third day after my arrival I was at the Biblioth&egrave;que
+Royale armed with a letter of introduction from
+Humboldt, and the very next day was already at
+work collating the MSS. of the <i>Kathaka Upanishad</i>.
+I had also to devote some hours daily to the
+study of French; for, much as I grudged these
+hours, I fully realized that in order to get full advantage
+from my stay in Paris, I must first master
+French.</p>
+
+<p>Next came the great question, how to make the
+acquaintance of Burnouf. I did not know the
+world. I did not know whether I should write to
+him first, in what language, and to what address. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
+knew Burnouf from his books, and I felt a desperate
+respect for him. After a time Gathy discovered
+his address for me, and I summoned up courage to
+call on him. My French was very poor as yet, but
+I walked in and found a dear old gentleman in his
+<i>robe de chambre</i>, surrounded by his books and his
+children&mdash;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 day. He received me with great civility,
+such as I had not been accustomed to before. He
+spoke of some little book which I had published,
+and inquired warmly after my teachers in Germany,
+such as Brockhaus, Bopp, and Lassen. He told
+me I might attend his lectures in the Coll&egrave;ge de
+France, and he would always be most happy to give
+me advice and help.</p>
+
+<p>I at once felt perfect trust in the man, and was
+really <i>aux cieux</i> to have found such an adviser. He
+was, indeed, a fine specimen of the real French
+savant. He was small, and his face was decidedly
+German, with the <i>t&ecirc;te carr&eacute;e</i> which one sees so
+often in Germany, only lighted up by a constant
+sparkle, which is distinctively French. I must
+have seemed very stupid to him when I tried to
+explain to him what I really wanted to do in Paris.
+He told me himself afterwards that he could not
+make me out at first. I wanted to study the Veda,
+but I had told him at the same time that I thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+the Vedic hymns very stupid, and that I cared
+chiefly for their philosophy, that is, the Upanishads.
+This was really not true, but it came up first in conversation,
+and I thought it would show Burnouf
+that my interest in the Veda was not simply philological,
+but philosophical also. No doubt at first I
+chiefly copied the Upanishads and their commentaries,
+but Burnouf was not pleased. &#8220;We know
+what is in the Upanishads,&#8221; he used to say, &#8220;but we
+want the hymns and their native comments.&#8221; I
+soon came to understand what he meant; I carefully
+attended his lectures, which were on the hymns of
+the Rig-veda and opened an entirely new world to
+my mind. We had the first book of the Rig-veda
+as published by Rosen, and Burnouf&#8217;s explanations
+were certainly delightful. He spoke freely and conversationally
+in his lectures, and one could almost assist
+at the elaboration of his thoughts. His audience
+was certainly small; there was nothing like Renan&#8217;s
+eloquence and wit. But Burnouf had ever so many
+new facts to communicate to us. He explained to
+us his own researches, he showed us new MSS.
+which he had received from India, in fact he did
+all he could to make us fellow workers. Often did
+he tell us to look up some passage in the Veda, to
+compare and copy the commentaries, and to let him
+have the result of our researches at the next lecture.
+All this was very inspiriting, particularly as Burnouf,
+upon examining our work, was very generous
+in his approval, and quite ready, if we had failed, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+point out to us new sources that should be examined.
+He never asserted his own authority, and if ever
+we had found out something which he had not
+known before, he was delighted to let us have the
+full credit for it. After all, it was a new and unknown
+country, that had to be explored and mapped
+out, and even a novice might sometimes find a grain
+of gold.</p>
+
+<p>His select class contained some good men. There
+were Barth&eacute;lemy St. Hilaire, the famous translator
+of Aristotle, and for a time Minister of Foreign
+Affairs in France, the Abb&eacute; Bardelli, R. Roth, Th.
+Goldst&uuml;cker, and a few more.</p>
+
+<p>Barth&eacute;lemy St. Hilaire was a personal friend of
+Burnouf, and came to the Coll&egrave;ge de France not so
+much to learn Sanskrit as to hear Burnouf&#8217;s lucid
+exposition of ancient Indian religion and philosophy.
+Bardelli was a regular Italian Abb&eacute;, studying
+Sanskrit at Paris, but chiefly interested in Coptic.
+He was, like St. Hilaire, much my senior, but we
+became great friends, and he once confided to me
+what had certainly puzzled me&mdash;his reasons for becoming
+an ecclesiastic. He had been deeply in love
+with a young lady; his love was returned, but he
+was too poor to marry, and she was persuaded and
+almost forced to marry a rich man. Dear old Abb&eacute;,
+always taking snuff while he told me his agonies,
+and then finishing up by saying that he became a
+priest so as to put an end for ever to his passion.
+Who would have suspected such a background to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
+his jovial face? I don&#8217;t know how it was that people,
+much my seniors, so often confided to me their
+secret sufferings. I may have to mention some
+other cases, and I feel that after my friends are
+gone, and so many years have passed over their
+graves, there is no indiscretion in speaking of their
+confidences. It may possibly teach us to remember
+how much often lies buried under a grave bright
+with flowers. I saw Bardelli&#8217;s own grave many
+years later in the famous cemetery at Pisa. R. Roth
+and Th. Goldst&uuml;cker were both strenuous Sanskrit
+scholars. Both owed much to Burnouf, Roth even
+more than Goldst&uuml;cker, though the latter has perhaps
+more frequently spoken of what he owed to
+Burnouf. Roth was my senior by several years,
+and engaged in much the same work as myself. But
+we never got on well together. It is curious from
+what small things and slight impressions our likes
+and dislikes are often formed. I have heard men
+give as a reason for disliking some one, that he had
+forgotten to pay half a cab-fare. So in Roth&#8217;s case,
+I never got over a most ordinary experience. He
+and two other young students and myself, having
+to celebrate some festal occasion, had ordered a good
+luncheon at a restaurant. To me with my limited
+means this was a great extravagance, but I could
+not refuse to join. Roth, to my great surprise and,
+I may add, being very fond of oysters, annoyance,
+took a very unfair share of that delicacy, and whenever
+I met him in after life, whether in person or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+in writing, this incident would always crop up in
+my mind; and when later on he offered to join me
+in editing the Rig-veda, I declined, perhaps influenced
+by that early impression which I could not
+get rid of. I blame myself for so foolish a prejudice,
+but it shows what creatures of circumstance
+we are.</p>
+
+<p>With Goldst&uuml;cker I was far more intimate. He
+was some years older than myself and quite independent
+as far as money went. He knew how small
+my means were, and would gladly have lent me
+money. But through the whole of my life I never
+borrowed from my friends, or in fact from anybody,
+though I was forced sometimes when very hard up
+for ready money, and when I knew that money was
+due to me but had not arrived when I expected it,
+to apply to some friend for a temporary advance. I
+will try and recall the lines in which I once applied
+to Gathy for such a loan.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Versuch&#8217; ich&#8217;s wohl, mein herzgeliebter Gathy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mit schmeichelndem Sonnet Sie anzupumpen?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ich bitte nicht um schwere Goldesklumpen,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ich bitte nur um etliche Ducati.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Auch zahl&#8217; ich wieder ultimo Monati.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Auf Wiedersehn bei Morel und Frascati<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und Nachsicht f&uuml;r den Brief, den allzu plumpen!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Zwar reiche Nabobs sind die braven Inder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doch arme Teufel die Indianisten!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reich sind hienieden schon die Heiden-Kinder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Doch selig werden nur die armen Christen!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Reimsucher bin ich, doch kein Reimefinder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Und <i>sans critique</i> sind all die Sanscritisten.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>This kind of negotiating a loan I have to confess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+to, but the idea of borrowing money, without knowing
+when I could repay it, never entered my mind.
+Relations who could have helped me I had none,
+and nothing remained to me but to work for others.
+Indeed my want of money soon began to cause me
+very serious anxiety in Paris. Little as I spent, my
+funds became lower and lower. I did not, like many
+other scholars, receive help from my Government.
+I had mapped out my course for myself, and instead
+of taking to teaching on leaving the University, had
+settled to come to Paris and continue my Sanskrit
+studies, and it was in my own hands whether I
+should swim or sink. It was, indeed, a hard struggle,
+far harder than those who have known me in
+later life would believe. All I could do to earn a
+little money was to copy and collate MSS. for other
+people. I might indeed have given private lessons,
+but I have always had a strong objection to that
+form of drudgery, and would rather sit up a whole
+night copying than give an hour to my pupils. My
+plan was as follows: to sit up the whole of one night,
+to take about three hours&#8217; rest the next night, but
+without undressing, and then to take a good night&#8217;s
+rest the third night, and start over again. It was a
+hard fight, and cannot have been very good for me
+physically, but I do not regret it now.</p>
+
+<p>Often did I go without my dinner, being quite
+satisfied with boiled eggs and bread and butter,
+which I could have at home without toiling down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+and toiling up five flights of stairs that led to my
+room. Sometimes I went with some of my young
+friends <i>hors de la barri&egrave;re</i>, that is, outside Paris,
+outside the barrier where the <i>octroi</i> has to be paid
+on meat, wine, &amp;c. Here the food was certainly
+better for the price I could afford to pay, but the society
+was sometimes peculiar. I remember once seeing
+a strange lady sitting not very far from me,
+who was the well-known Louve of Eug&egrave;ne Sue&#8217;s
+<i>Myst&egrave;res de Paris</i>. One of my companions on
+these expeditions was Karl de Schloezer, who was
+then studying Arabic in Paris. He was always
+cheerful and amusing, and a delightful companion.
+He knew much more of the world than I did, and
+often surprised me by his diplomatic wisdom. &#8220;Let
+us stand up for each other,&#8221; he said one day; &#8220;you
+say all the good you can of me, I saying all the good
+I can of you.&#8221; I became very fierce at the time,
+charging him with hypocrisy and I do not know
+what. He, however, took it all in good part, and
+we remained friends all the time he was at Paris,
+and indeed to the day of his death. He was very
+fond of music, but I was, perhaps, the better performer
+on the pianoforte. He had invited me, a
+violin, and violoncello, to play some of Mozart&#8217;s and
+Beethoven&#8217;s Sonatas. Alas! when we found that
+he murdered his part, I sat down and played the
+whole evening, leaving him to listen, not, I fear, in
+the best of moods. He took his revenge, however;
+and the next time he asked me and the two other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+musicians to his room, we found indeed everything
+ready for us to play, but our host was nowhere to
+be found. He maintained that he had been called
+away; I am certain, however, that the little trick
+was played on purpose.</p>
+
+<p>He afterwards entered the Prussian diplomatic
+service and was the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of the Princess of Prussia,
+afterwards the Empress of Germany. That was
+enough to make Bismarck dislike him, and when
+Schloezer served as Secretary of Legation under
+Bismarck as Ambassador at St. Petersburg, he committed
+the outrage of challenging his chief to a duel.
+Bismarck declined, nor would it, according to diplomatic
+etiquette, have been possible for him not to
+decline. Later on, however, Schloezer was placed
+<i>en disponibilit&eacute;</i>, that is to say, he was politely dismissed.
+He had to pay a kind of farewell visit to
+Bismarck, who was then omnipotent. Being asked
+by Bismarck what he intended to do, and whether
+he could be of any service to him, Schloezer said
+very quietly, &#8220;Yes, your Excellency, I shall take
+to writing my Memoirs, and you know that I have
+seen much in my time which many people will be
+interested to learn.&#8221; Bismarck was quiet for a time,
+looking at some papers, and then remarked quite
+unconcernedly, &#8220;You would not care to go to the
+United States as Minister?&#8221; &#8220;I am ready to go
+to-morrow,&#8221; replied Schloezer, and having carried
+his point, having in fact outwitted Bismarck, he
+started at once for Washington. Bismarck knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
+that Schloezer could wield a sharp pen, and there
+was a time when he was sensitive to such pen-pricks.
+They did not see much of each other afterwards,
+but, owing to the protection of the Empress, Schloezer
+was later accredited as Prussian envoy to the
+Pope, and died too soon for his friends in beautiful
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p>One of my oldest friends at Paris was a Baron
+d&#8217;Eckstein, a kind of diplomatic agent who knew
+everybody in Paris, and wrote for the newspapers,
+French and German. He had, I believe, a pension
+from the French Government, and was, as a Roman
+Catholic, strongly allied with the Clerical Party.
+This did not concern me. What concerned me was
+his love of Sanskrit and the ancient religion of
+India. He would sit with me for hours, or take me
+to dine with him at a restaurant, discussing all the
+time the Vedas and the Upanishad and the Vedanta
+philosophy. There are several articles of his written
+at this time in the <i>Journal Asiatique</i>, and I was
+especially grateful to him, for he gave me plenty
+of work to do, particularly in the way of copying
+Sanskrit MSS. for him, and he paid me well and so
+helped me to keep afloat in Paris. Knowing as he
+did everybody, he was very anxious to introduce
+me to his friends, such as George Sand, Lamennais,
+the Comtesse d&#8217;Agoult (Daniel Stern), Lamartine,
+Victor Hugo, and others; but I much preferred
+half an hour with him or with Burnouf to paying
+formal visits. I heard afterwards many unkind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
+things about Baron d&#8217;Eckstein&#8217;s political and clerical
+opinions, but though in becoming a convert to
+Roman Catholicism he may have shown weakness,
+and as a political writer may have been influenced
+by his near friends and patrons, I never found him
+otherwise than kind, tolerant, and trustworthy. His
+life was to have been written by Professor Windischmann,
+but he too died; and who knows what
+may have become of the curious memoirs which he
+left? At the time of the February revolution in
+1848, he was in the very midst of it. He knew
+Lamartine, who was the hero of the day, though of
+a few days only. He attended meetings with Lamartine,
+Odilon, Barrot, and others, and he assured
+me that there would be no revolution, because nobody
+was prepared for it.</p>
+
+<p>Lamartine who had been asked by his friends,
+all of them royalists and friends of order, whether
+he would, in case of necessity, undertake to form
+a ministry under the Duchesse d&#8217;Orl&eacute;ans as regent,
+scouted such an idea at first, but at last promised
+to be ready if he were wanted. The time came sooner
+than he expected, and the Duchesse d&#8217;Orl&eacute;ans
+counted on him when she went to the Chamber and
+her Regency was proclaimed. Lamartine was then
+so popular that he might have saved the situation.
+But the mob broke into the Chamber, shots were
+fired, and there was no Lamartine. The Duchesse
+d&#8217;Orl&eacute;ans had to fly, and fortunately escaped under
+the protection of the Duc de Nemours, the only son<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+of Louis Philippe then in Paris, and the dynasty
+of the Orl&eacute;ans was lost&mdash;never to return. Baron
+d&#8217;Eckstein lost many of his influential friends at
+that time, possibly his pension also, but he had
+enough to live upon, and he died at last as a very
+old man in a Roman Catholic monastery, a most
+interesting and charming man, whose memoirs
+would certainly have been very valuable.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to Burnouf, I never can adequately
+express my debt of gratitude to him. He was of
+the greatest assistance to me in clearing my thoughts
+and directing them into one channel. &#8220;Either one
+thing or the other,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Either study Indian
+philosophy and begin with the Upanishads and Sankara&#8217;s
+commentary, or study Indian religion and
+keep to the Rig-veda, and copy the hymns and
+S&acirc;yana&#8217;s commentary, and then you will be our
+great benefactor.&#8221; A great benefactor! that was
+too much for me, a mere dwarf in the presence of
+giants. But Burnouf&#8217;s words confirmed me more
+and more in my desire to give myself up to the
+Veda.</p>
+
+<p>Burnouf told me not only what Vedic MSS. there
+were at the Biblioth&egrave;que Royale, he also brought
+me his own MSS. and lent them to me to copy, with
+the condition, however, that I should not smoke
+while working at them. He himself did not smoke,
+and could not bear the smell of smoke, and he
+showed me several of his MSS. which had become
+quite useless to him, because they smelt of stale<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+tobacco smoke. I did all I could to guard these
+sacred treasures against such profanation.</p>
+
+<p>Another and even more useful warning came to
+me from Burnouf. &#8220;Don&#8217;t publish extracts from
+the commentary only,&#8221; he said; &#8220;if you do, you
+will publish what is easy to read, and leave out what
+is difficult.&#8221; I certainly thought that extracts
+would be sufficient, but I soon found out that here
+also Burnouf was right, though there was always
+the fear that I should never find a publisher for so
+immense a work. This fear I confided to Burnouf,
+but he always maintained his hopeful view. &#8220;The
+commentary must be published, depend upon it,
+and it will be,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>So I stuck to it and went on copying and collating
+my Sanskrit MSS., always trusting that a publisher
+would turn up at the proper time. I had, of
+course, to do all the drudgery for myself, and I soon
+found out that it was not in human nature, at least
+not in my nature, to copy Sanskrit from a MS. even
+for three or four hours without mistakes. To my
+great disappointment I found mistakes whenever
+I collated my copy with the original. I found that
+like the copyists of classical MSS. my eye had
+wandered from one line to another where the same
+word occurred, that I had left out a word when the
+next word ended with the same termination, nay
+that I had even left out whole lines. Hence I had
+either to collate my own copy, which was very tedious,
+or invent some new process. This new process<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+I discovered by using transparent paper, and thus
+tracing every letter. I had some excellent <i>papier
+v&eacute;g&eacute;tal</i> made for me, and, instead of copying, traced
+the whole Sanskrit MS. This had the great advantage
+that nothing could be left out, and that
+when the original was smudged and doubtful I
+could carefully trace whatever was clear and visible
+through the transparent paper. At first I confess
+my work was slow, but soon it went as rapidly as
+copying, and it was even less fatiguing to the eyes
+than the constant looking from the MS. to the copy,
+and from the copy to the MS. But the most important
+advantage was, that I could thus feel quite
+certain that nothing was left out, so that even now,
+after more than fifty years, these tracings are as useful
+to me as the MS. itself. There was room left
+between the lines or on the margin to note the various
+readings of other MSS.; in fact, my materials
+grew both in extent and in value.</p>
+
+<p>Still there remained the question of a publisher.
+To print the Rig-veda in six volumes quarto of about
+a thousand pages each, and to provide the editor
+with a living wage during the many years he would
+have to devote to his task, required a large capital.
+I do not know exactly how much, but what I do
+know is that, when a second edition of the text of
+the Veda in four volumes was printed at the expense
+of the Maharajah of Vizianagram, it cost that
+generous and patriotic prince four thousand pounds,
+though I then gave my work gratuitously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>While I was working at the Biblioth&egrave;que Royale,
+Humboldt had used his powerful influence with the
+king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to help me
+in publishing my edition of the Rig-veda in Germany.
+Nothing, however, came of that plan; it
+proved too costly for any private publisher, even
+with royal assistance.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a vague offer from St. Petersburg.
+Boehtlingk, the great Sanskrit scholar, as a member
+of the Imperial Russian Academy, invited me
+to come to St. Petersburg and print the Veda there,
+in collaboration with himself, and at the expense of
+the Academy. Burnouf and Goldst&uuml;cker both
+warned me against accepting this offer, but, hopeless
+as I was of getting my Veda published elsewhere,
+I expressed my willingness to go on condition that
+some provision should be made for me before I
+decided to migrate to Russia, as I possessed absolutely
+nothing but what I was able to earn myself.
+Boehtlingk, I believe, suggested to the Academy
+that I should be appointed Assistant Keeper of the
+Oriental Museum at St. Petersburg, but his colleagues
+did not apparently consider so young a man,
+and a mere German scholar, a fit candidate for so responsible
+a post. Boehtlingk wished me to send him
+all my materials, and he would get the MSS. of the
+Rig-veda and of S&acirc;yana&#8217;s commentary from the Library
+of the East India Company, and Paris. No
+definite proposition, however, came from the Imperial
+Academy, but an announcement of Boehtlingk&#8217;s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+appeared in the papers in January, 1846, to
+the effect that he was preparing, in collaboration
+with Monsieur Max M&uuml;ller of Paris, a complete
+edition of the Rig-veda.</p>
+
+<p>All this, I confess, began to frighten me. For
+me, a poor scholar, to go to St. Petersburg without
+any official invitation, without any appointment,
+seemed reckless, and though I have no doubt that
+Boehtlingk would have done his best for me, yet
+even he could only suggest private lessons, and that
+was no cheerful outlook. The Academy would do
+nothing for me unless I joined Boehtlingk, but at
+last offered to buy my materials, on which I had
+spent so much labour and the small fund at my disposal.
+If the Academy could have got the necessary
+MSS. from Paris and London, I should have been
+perfectly helpless. Boehtlingk could have done
+the whole work himself, in some respects better
+than I, because he was my senior, and besides, he
+knew P&acirc;nini, the old Indian grammarian who is
+constantly referred to in S&acirc;yana&#8217;s Commentary,
+better than I did. With all these threatening clouds
+around me, my decision was by no means easy.</p>
+
+<p>It was Burnouf&#8217;s advice that determined me to
+remain quietly in Paris. He warned me repeatedly
+against trusting to Boehtlingk, and promised, if I
+would only stay in Paris, to give me his support
+with Guizot, who was then Minister for Foreign
+Affairs, and very much interested in Oriental
+studies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Boehtlingk seems never to have forgiven me,
+and he and several of his friends were highly displeased
+at my ultimate success in securing a publisher
+for the Rig-veda in England. Their language
+was most unbecoming, and they tried, and
+actually urged other Sanskrit scholars, to criticize
+my edition, though I must say to their credit that
+they afterwards confessed that it was all that could
+be desired.</p>
+
+<p>Many years later, Boehtlingk published a violent
+attack on me, entitled <i>F. Max M&uuml;ller als Mythendichter</i>,
+but I thought it unnecessary to take up the
+dispute, and preferred to leave my friends to judge
+for themselves between me and this propounder of
+accusations, the legitimacy of which he was utterly
+unable to establish. However, as I discovered later
+that he accused me of having acted discourteously
+towards the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg,
+with whom I had never had any direct dealings,
+and stated that he had prevented that illustrious
+body from ever making me a corresponding member,
+I thought it right to offer an explanation to the
+Secretary, and I have in my possession his reply,
+in which he wrote that there was no foundation
+whatever for Professor Boehtlingk&#8217;s statements.</p>
+
+<p>However, the outcome of it was that I did not go
+to St. Petersburg, but went on with my work at the
+Library in Paris, till one day I found it necessary to
+run over to London, to copy and collate certain
+MSS., and there I found the long-sought-for benefactors,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
+who were to enable me to carry out the work
+of my life.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, during my stay in Paris there was no
+idea of my going into society, or of buying tickets
+for theatres or concerts. I went out to dinner at
+some small restaurant, but otherwise I remained at
+home, and viewed Paris life from my high windows,
+looking out on the Chambre des D&eacute;put&eacute;s on one
+side, the Madeleine close to me on the left, and the
+Porte St. Martin far away at the end of the Boulevards.
+Baron d&#8217;Eckstein, as I have said, was willing
+to introduce me into society, but I refused his
+kind offers. In fact, I was more or less of a bear,
+and I now regret having missed meeting many interesting
+characters, and having kept aloof from
+others, because my interests were absorbed elsewhere.
+Burnouf asked me sometimes to his house;
+so did a Monsieur Troyer, who had been in India
+and published some Sanskrit texts, and whose
+daughter, the Duchesse de Wagram, made much of
+me, as she was very fond of music. There were
+some German families also, some rich, some poor,
+who showed me great kindness.</p>
+
+<p>I was too much oppressed with cares and anxieties
+about my life and my literary plans to think
+much of society and enjoyment. Even of the
+students and student life I saw but little, though I
+was actually attending lectures with them. I must
+say, however, that the little I did see of student
+life in Paris gave me a very different idea from what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+is generally thought of their vagaries and extravagances.
+A Frenchman, if he once begins to work,
+can work and does work very hard. I remember
+seeing several instances of this, but it is possible
+that I may have seen the pick of the Quartier Latin
+only. One who was then a young man, preparing
+for the Church, but already with an eye to higher
+flights, was Renan. At first he still looked upon
+all young Germans with suspicion, but this feeling
+soon disappeared. I remember him chiefly at the
+Biblioth&egrave;que Royale, where he had a very small
+place in the Oriental Department. Hase, the Greek
+scholar, Reinaud, the Arabist, and Stanislas Julien,
+the Sinologue, were librarians then. Hase, a German
+by birth, was most obliging, but he was greatly
+afraid of speaking German, and insisted on our
+always speaking French to him. Often did he call
+Renan to fetch MSS. for me: &#8220;Renan,&#8221; he would
+call out very loudly, &#8220;allez chercher, pour Monsieur
+Max M&uuml;ller, le manuscrit sanscrit, num&eacute;ro
+...,&#8221; and then followed a pause, till he had translated
+&#8220;1637&#8221; into French. In later years Renan
+and I became great friends, but we German scholars
+were often puzzled at his great popularity, which
+certainly was owing to his style more even than to
+his scholarship. Some time later, when I was already
+established in England, we had a little controversy,
+and I printed a rather fierce attack on his
+<i>Grammaire S&eacute;mitique</i>. But we were intimate
+enough for me to show him my pamphlet, and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+he wrote to me, &#8220;Pardonnez-moi, je n&#8217;ai pas compris
+ce que vous vouliez dire,&#8221; I suppressed the
+pamphlet, though it was printed, and we remained
+friends for life. He translated my first article on
+Comparative Mythology, and I had a number of
+most interesting letters from him. It was his wife
+who did the translation, while he revised it. That
+French pamphlet is very scarce now; my own
+pamphlet was entirely suppressed; even I myself
+can find no copy of it among the rubbish of my early
+writings, and what I regret most, I threw away his
+letters, not thinking how interesting they would
+become in time.</p>
+
+<p>With all my work, however, I found time to attend
+some lectures at the Coll&egrave;ge de France, and
+to make the acquaintance of some distinguished
+French <i>savants</i> of the <i>Institut</i>. I went there with
+Burnouf, or Stanislas Julien, or Reinaud, little
+dreaming that I should some day belong to the same
+august body. Many of my young French friends,
+who afterwards became <i>Membres de l&#8217;Institut</i>, rose
+to that dignity much later. I was made not only a
+corresponding, but a real member of the Acad&eacute;mie
+des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1869, before
+my friends, such as G. Perrot 1874, Michel Br&eacute;al
+1875, Gaston Paris 1876, and Jules Oppert 1881,
+occupied their well-merited academical <i>fauteuils</i>.
+The struggle when I was elected in 1869 was a
+serious one; it was between Mommsen and myself,
+between classical and Oriental scholarship, and for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
+once Oriental scholarship carried the day. Mommsen,
+however, was elected in 1895, and there can be
+little doubt that his strong and outspoken political
+antipathies had something to do with the late date
+of his election.</p>
+
+<p>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 expected. Though I was
+able to express myself <i>tant bien que mal</i>, I have
+always felt hampered in a long conversation. Of
+course, the French themselves have always been
+polite enough to say that they could not have detected
+that I was a German, but I knew better than
+that, and never have I, even in later years, gained
+a perfect conversational command of that difficult
+language.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">While</span> working in Paris I constantly felt the
+want of some essential MSS. which were at the Library
+of the East India Company in London, and
+my desire to visit England consequently grew
+stronger and stronger; but I had not the wherewithal
+to pay for the journey, much less for a stay
+of even a fortnight in London. At last (June,
+1846) I thought that I had scraped together enough
+to warrant my starting. At that time I had never
+seen the sea, and I was very desirous of doing so.
+I well remember my unbounded rapture at my first
+sight of the silver stream, and like Xenophon&#8217;s
+Greeks I could have shouted, &#952;&#7937;&#955;&#945;&#964;&#964;&#945;, &#952;&#7937;&#955;&#945;&#964;&#964;&#945;.
+Once on board my rapture soon collapsed and was
+succeeded by that well-known feeling of misery
+which I have so frequently experienced since then,
+and I huddled myself up in a corner of the deck.</p>
+
+<p>There a young fellow-traveller saw the poor
+bundle of misery, and tried to comfort me, and
+brought me what he thought was good for me, not,
+however, without a certain merry twinkle in his eye
+and a few kindly jokes at my expense. We landed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+at the docks in London, a real drizzly day, rain and
+mist, and such a crowd rushing on shore that I
+missed my cheerful friend and felt quite lost. In
+addition to all this a porter had run away with my
+portmanteau, which contained my books and MSS.,
+in fact all my worldly goods. At that moment my
+young friend reappeared, and seeing the plight I
+was in, came to my assistance. &#8220;You stay here,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;and I will arrange everything for you;&#8221;
+and so he did. He fetched a four-wheeler, put my
+luggage on the top, bundled me inside, and drove
+with me through a maze of London streets to his
+rooms in the Temple. Then, still knowing nothing
+about me, he asked me to spend the night in his
+rooms, gave me a bed and everything else I wanted
+for the night. The next morning he took me out to
+look for lodgings, which we found in Essex Street,
+a small street leading out of the Strand.</p>
+
+<p>The room which I took was almost entirely filled
+by an immense four-post bed. I had never seen
+such a structure before, and during the first night
+that I slept in it, I was in constant fear that the top
+of the bed would fall and smother me as in the
+German <i>M&auml;rchen</i>. When the landlady came in to
+see me in the morning, after asking how I had slept,
+the first thing she said was, &#8220;But, sir, don&#8217;t you
+want another &#8216;pillar&#8217;?&#8221; I looked bewildered, and
+said: &#8220;Why, what shall I do with another pillar?
+and where will you put it?&#8221; She then touched the
+pillows under my head and said, &#8220;Well, sir, you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
+shall have another &#8216;pillar&#8217; to-morrow.&#8221; &#8220;How
+shall I ever learn English,&#8221; I said to myself, &#8220;if
+a &#8216;pillar&#8217; means really a soft pillow?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But to return to my unknown friend, he came
+every day to show me things which I ought to see
+in London, and brought me tickets for theatres and
+concerts, which he said were sent to him. His name
+was William Howard Russell, endeared to so many,
+high and low, under the name of &#8220;Billy&#8221; Russell,
+the first and most brilliant war-correspondent of
+<i>The Times</i> during the Crimean War. He remained
+my warm and true friend through life, and even
+now when we are both cripples, we delight in meeting
+and talking over very distant days.</p>
+
+<p>I had come over to London expecting to stay
+about a fortnight, but I had been there working
+at the Library in Leadenhall Street for nearly a
+month, and my work was far from done, when I
+thought that I ought to call and pay my respects to
+the Prussian Minister, Baron Bunsen. I little
+thought at the time when I was ushered into his
+presence that this acquaintance was to become the
+turning-point of my life. If I owed much to Burnouf,
+how can I tell what I owed to Bunsen? I
+was amazed at the kindness with which from the
+very first he received me. I had no claim whatever
+on him, and I had as yet done very little as a scholar.
+It is true that he had known my father in Italy, and
+that Humboldt, with his usual kindness, had written
+him a strong letter of recommendation on my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+behalf, but that was hardly sufficient reason to account
+for the real friendship with which he at once
+honoured me.</p>
+
+<p>Baroness Bunsen, in the life of her husband,
+writes: &#8220;The kindred mind, their sympathy of
+heart, the unity in highest aspirations, a congeniality
+in principles, a fellowship in the pursuit of
+favourite objects, which attracted and bound Bunsen
+to his young friend (i.&nbsp;e. myself), rendered this
+connexion one of the happiest of his life.&#8221; I am
+proud to think it was so.</p>
+
+<p>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 life,
+namely, the <i>editio princeps</i> of the Rig-veda. Often
+has he told me how, at the time when he was prosecuting
+his studies at G&ouml;ttingen, the very existence
+of such a book was unknown as yet in Germany.
+The name of Veda had no doubt been known, and
+there was a halo of mystery about it, as the oldest
+book of the world. But what it was and where it
+was to be found no one could tell. Mr. Astor, a
+pupil of Bunsen&#8217;s at G&ouml;ttingen, had arranged to
+take Bunsen to India to carry on his researches
+there. But Bunsen waited and waited in Italy, till
+at last, after maintaining himself by giving private
+lessons, he went to Rome, was taken up by Brandes
+and Niebuhr, the Prussian Ambassador there, became
+the friend of the future Frederick William
+IV, and thus gradually drifted into diplomacy, giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
+up all hopes of discovering or rescuing the
+Rig-veda.</p>
+
+<p>People have hardly any idea now, how, in spite
+of the East India Company conquering and governing
+India, India itself remained a <i>terra incognita</i>,
+unapproachable by the students of England and of
+Europe. That there were literary treasures to be
+discovered in India, that the Brahmans were the
+depositaries of ancient wisdom, was known through
+the labours of some of the most eminent servants
+of the East India Company. It had been known
+even before, through the interesting communications
+of Roman Catholic missionaries in India, that
+the manuscripts themselves, at least those of the
+Veda, were not forthcoming. Even as late as the
+times of Sir W. Jones, Colebrooke, and Professor
+Wilson, the Brahmans were most unwilling to part
+with MSS. of the Veda, except the Upanishads.
+Professor Wilson told me that once, when examining
+the library of a native R&acirc;jah, he came across
+some MSS. of the Rig-veda, and began turning
+them over; but &#8220;I observed,&#8221; he said, &#8220;the ominous
+and threatening looks of some of the Brahmans
+present, and thought it wiser to beat a retreat.&#8221;
+Dr. Mill had known of a gentleman who
+had a very sacred hymn of the Veda, the Gayatri,
+printed at Calcutta. The Brahmans were furious
+at this profanation, and when the gentleman died
+soon after, they looked upon his premature death
+as the vengeance of the offended gods. Colebrooke,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+however, was allowed to possess himself of several
+most valuable Vedic MSS., and he found Brahmans
+quite ready to read with him, not only the
+classical texts, but also portions of the Veda.
+&#8220;They do not even,&#8221; he writes, &#8220;conceal from us
+the most sacred texts of the Veda.&#8221; His own
+essays on the Veda appeared in the <i>Asiatic Researches</i>
+as early as 1801. But people went on
+dreaming about the Veda, instead of reading Colebrooke&#8217;s
+essays.</p>
+
+<p>It was curious, however, that at the time when
+I prepared my edition of the Rig-veda, Vedic
+scholarship was at a very low ebb in Bengal itself,
+and there were few Brahmans there who knew
+the whole of the Rig-veda by heart, as they still
+did in the South of India. Manuscripts were never
+considered in India as of very high authority; they
+were always over-ruled by the oral traditions of
+certain schools. However, such manuscripts, good
+and bad, but mostly bad, existed, and after a time
+some of them reached England, France, and even
+Germany. Portions of those in Berlin and Paris
+I had copied and collated, so that I could show
+Bunsen the very book which he had been in search
+of in his youth. This opened his heart to me as
+well as the doors of his house. &#8220;I am glad,&#8221; he
+said, &#8220;to have lived to see the Veda. Whatever
+you want, let me know; I look upon you as myself
+grown young again.&#8221; And he did help me,
+as only a father can help his son.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he expected too much from the Veda,
+as many other people did at that time, and before
+the <i>verba ipsissima</i> were printed. As the oldest
+book that ever was composed, the Veda was supposed
+to give us a picture of what man was in his
+most primitive state, with his most primitive ideas,
+and his most primitive language. Everybody interested
+in the origin and the first development of
+language, thought, religion, and social institutions,
+looked forward to the Veda as a new revelation.
+All such dreams, natural enough before the Veda
+was known, were dispersed by my laying sacrilegious
+hands on the Veda itself, and actually publishing
+it, making it public property, to the dismay
+of the Brahmans in India, and to the delight of all
+Sanskrit scholars in Europe. The learned essays
+of Colebrooke in India, and the extracts published
+by Rosen, the Oriental librarian of the British
+Museum, might indeed have taught people that
+the Veda was not a book without any antecedents,
+that it would not tell us the secrets of Adam and
+Eve, or of Deukalion and Pyrrha. I myself had
+both said and written that the Veda, like an old
+oak tree, shows hundreds and thousands of circles
+within circles; and yet I was afterwards held
+responsible for having excited the wildest hopes
+among archaeologists, when I had done my best,
+if not to destroy them, at all events to reduce them
+to their proper level. Schelling seemed quite disappointed
+when I showed him some of the translations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+of the hymns of the Rig-veda; and Bunsen,
+who was still under Schelling&#8217;s influence, had evidently
+expected a great many more of such philosophical
+hymns as the famous one beginning:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There was not nought nor was there aught at
+that time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To the scholar, no doubt, the Veda remained
+and always will remain the oldest of real books,
+that has been preserved to us in an almost miraculous
+way. By book, however, as I often explained,
+I mean a book divided into chapters and verses,
+having a beginning and an end, and handed down
+to us in an alphabetic form of writing. China
+may have possessed older books in a half phonetic,
+half symbolic writing; Egypt certainly possessed
+older hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri; Babylon
+had its cuneiform monuments; and certain
+portions of the Old Testament may have existed
+in a written form at the time of Josiah, when Hilkiah,
+the high priest, found the law book in the
+sanctuary (2 Kings xxii. 8). But the Veda, with
+its ten books or <i>Mandalas</i>, its 1017 hymns or
+<i>Suktas</i>, with every consonant and vowel and accent
+plainly written, was a different thing. It may
+safely be called a book. No doubt it existed for a
+long time, as it does even at present, in oral tradition,
+but as it was in tradition, so it was when
+reduced to writing, and in either form I doubt
+whether any other real book can rival it in antiquity.
+More important, however, than the purely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+chronological antiquity of the book, is the antiquity
+or primitiveness of the thoughts which it contains.
+If the people of the Veda did not turn out to be
+quite such savages as was hoped and expected,
+they nevertheless disclosed to us a layer of thought
+which can be explored nowhere else. The Vedic
+poets were not ashamed of exposing their fear that
+the sun might tumble down from the sky, and
+there are no other poets, as far as I know, who still
+trembled at the same not quite unnatural thought.
+Nor do I find even savages who still wonder and
+express their surprise that black cows should produce
+white milk. Is not that childish enough for
+any ancient or modern savage? Mere chronology
+is here of as little avail as with modern savages,
+whose customs and beliefs, though known as but
+of yesterday, are represented to us as older than
+the Veda, older than Babylonian cylinders, older
+than anything written. When certain modern
+savages recognize the relationship of paternity,
+maternity, and consanguinity, this is called very
+ancient. If they admit traditional restrictions as
+to marriage, food, the treatment of the dead, nay,
+even a life to come, this too, no doubt, may be
+very old; but it may be of yesterday also. There
+are even quite new gods, whose genesis has been
+watched by living missionaries. The great difficulty
+in all such researches is to distinguish between
+what is common to human nature, and what
+is really inherited or traditional. All such questions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+have only as yet been touched upon, and they
+must wait for their answer till real scholars will
+take up the study of the language of living savages,
+in the same scholarlike spirit in which they have
+taken up the study of Vedic and Babylonian savages.
+But we must have patience and learn to
+wait. 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 civilized. It may
+safely be said of this as of other mere ideas, that it
+may be true, but that there is no evidence to show
+that it is true. At all events it takes much for
+granted, and neglects, as it would seem, the very
+lessons which the theory of evolution has taught
+us. It is the nature of evolution to be continuous,
+and not to proceed <i>per saltum</i>. Therein lies the
+beauty of genealogical evolution that we can recognize
+the fibres which connect the upper strata with
+the lower, till we strike the lowest, or at least that
+which contains what seem to be the seeds and
+germs of early thoughts, words, and acts. We can
+trace the most modern forms of language back to
+Sanskrit, or rather to that postulated linguistic
+stratum of which Sanskrit formed the most prominent
+representative, just as we can trace the French
+<i>Dieu</i> back to Latin <i>Deus</i> and Sanskrit <i>Devas</i>, the
+brilliant beings behind the phenomena of nature;
+and again behind them, <i>Dyaus</i>, the brilliant sky,
+the Greek <i>Zeus</i>, the Roman <i>Iovis</i> and <i>Iuppiter</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+the most natural of all the Aryan gods of nature.
+This is real evolution, a real causal nexus between
+the present and the past. It used to be called
+history or pragmatic history, whether we take history
+in the sense of the description of evolution,
+or in that of evolution itself. History has generally
+to begin with the present, to go back to the
+past, and to point out the palpable steps by which
+the past became again and again the present. Evolution,
+on the contrary, prefers to begin with the
+distant past, to postulate formations, even if they
+have left no traces, and to speak of those almost
+imperceptible changes by which the postulated past
+became the perceptible present, as not only necessary,
+but as real. Perhaps the difference is of no
+importance, but the historical method seems certainly
+the more accurate, and the more satisfactory
+from a purely scientific point of view.</p>
+
+<p>In all such evolutionary researches language has
+always been the most useful instrument, 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 principles.
+Here, too, no doubt, intermediate links which must
+have existed, are sometimes lost beyond recovery,
+and when we arrive at the very roots of language,
+we feel that there may have been whole aeons
+before that radical period. Here science must
+recognize her inevitable horizons, but here again
+no surviving literary monument could carry us so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+far as the Veda. Hence its supreme importance
+for Aryan philology&mdash;for the philology of the
+most important languages of historical mankind.
+Other languages, whether Babylonian or Accadian,
+whether Hottentot or Maori, may be, for all we
+know, much more ancient or much more primitive;
+but, as scientific explorers, we can only speak of
+what we know, and we must renounce all conjectures
+that go beyond facts.</p>
+
+<p>In all these researches no one took a livelier
+interest and encouraged me more than Bunsen.
+When some of my translations of the Vedic hymns
+seemed fairly satisfactory, I used to take them to
+him, and he was always delighted at seeing a little
+more of that ancient Aryan torso, though at the
+time he was more specially interested in Egyptian
+chronology and archaeology. Often when I was
+alone with him did we discuss the chronological
+and psychological dates of Egyptian and Aryan
+antiquity. Kind-hearted as he was, Bunsen could
+get very excited, nay, quite violent in arguing,
+and though these fits soon passed off, yet it made
+discussions between His Excellency the Prussian
+Minister and a young German scholar somewhat
+difficult. At that time much less was known of
+the earliest Egyptian chronology than is now.
+But I was never much impressed by mere dates.
+If a king was supposed to have lived 5,000 years
+before our era, &#8220;What is that to us?&#8221; I used to
+say, &#8220;He sits on his throne <i>in vacuo</i>, and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+is nothing to fix him by, nothing contemporary
+which alone gives interest to history. In India we
+have no dates; but whatever dates and names of
+kings and accounts of battles the Egyptian inscriptions
+may give us, as a book there is nothing so
+old in Egypt as the Veda in India. Besides, we
+have in the Veda thoughts; and in the chronology
+of thought the Veda seems to me older than even
+the Book of the Dead.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As to the actual date of the Veda, I readily
+granted that chronologically it was not so old as
+the pyramids, but supposing it had been, would
+that in any way have increased its value for our
+studies? If we were to place it at 5000 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, I
+doubt whether anybody could refute such a date,
+while if we go back beyond the Veda, and come
+to measure the time required for the formation of
+Sanskrit and of the Proto-Aryan language I doubt
+very much whether even 5,000 years would suffice
+for that. There is an unfathomable depth in
+language, layer following after layer, long before
+we arrive at roots, and what a time and what an
+effort must have been required for their elaboration,
+and for the elaboration of the ideas expressed
+in them.</p>
+
+<p>Our battles waxed sometimes very fierce, but we
+generally ended by arriving at an understanding.
+As a young man, Bunsen had clearly perceived the
+importance of the Veda for an historical study of
+mankind and the growth of the human mind, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+he was not discouraged when he saw that it gave
+us less than had been expected. &#8220;It is a fortress,&#8221;
+he used to say, &#8220;that must be besieged and taken,
+it cannot be left in our rear.&#8221; But he little knew
+how much time it would take to approach it, to
+surround it, and at last to take it. It has not been
+surrendered even now, and will not be in my time.
+It is true there are several translations of the whole
+of the Rig-veda, and their authors deserve the highest
+credit for what they have done. People have
+wondered why I have not given one of them in
+my Sacred Books of the East. I thought it was
+more honest to give, in co-operation with Oldenburg,
+specimens only in vols. xxxii and xlvi of that
+series, and let it be seen in the notes how much
+uncertainty there still is, and how much more of
+hard work is required, before we can call ourselves
+masters of the old Vedic fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Bunsen&#8217;s interest in my work, however, took a
+more practical turn than mere encouragement. It
+was no good encouraging me to copy and collate
+Sanskrit MSS. if they were not to be published.
+He saw that the East India Company were the
+proper body to undertake that work. Bunsen&#8217;s
+name was a power in England, and his patronage
+was the very best introduction that I could have
+had. It was no easy task to persuade the Board
+of Directors&mdash;all strictly practical and commercial
+men&mdash;to authorize so considerable an expenditure,
+merely to edit and print an old book that none<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
+of them could understand, and many of them had
+perhaps never even heard of. Bunsen pointed out
+what a disgrace it would be to them, if some other
+country than England published this edition of the
+Sacred Books of the Brahmans.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Wilson, Librarian of the Company,
+also gave my project his support, and at last, not
+quite a year after my arrival in England, after a
+long struggle and many fears of failure, it was
+settled that the East India Company were to bear
+the cost of printing the Veda, and were meanwhile
+to enable me to stay in London, and prepare
+my work for press.</p>
+
+<p>I had already been working five years copying
+and collating, and my first volume of the Rig-veda
+was progressing, but it was only when all was
+settled that I realized how much there was still
+to do, and that I should have very hard work indeed
+before the printing could begin. I must enter
+into some details to show the real difficulties I
+had to face.</p>
+
+<p>I felt convinced that the first thing to do was to
+publish a correct text of the Rig-veda. That was
+not so difficult, though it brought me the greatest
+kudos. The MSS. were very correct, and the text
+could easily be restored by comparing the Pada
+and Sanhit&acirc; texts, i.&nbsp;e. the text in which every word
+was separated, and the text in which the words
+were united according to the rules of Sandhi. Anybody
+might have done that, yet this, as I said, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
+the part of my work for which I have received the
+greatest praise.</p>
+
+<p>When my edition of the Rig-veda containing
+text and commentary was nearly finished, another
+scholar, who had assisted me in my work, and who
+had always had the use of my MSS., my Indices,
+in fact of the whole of my <i>apparatus criticus</i>,
+published a transcript of the text in Latin letters,
+and thus anticipated part of the last volume of my
+edition. His friends, who were perhaps not mine,
+seemed delighted to call him the first editor of the
+Rig-veda, though they ceased to do so when they
+discovered misprints or mistakes of my own edition
+repeated in his. He himself was far above
+such tactics. He knew, and they knew perfectly
+well that, whatever the <i>vulgus profanum</i> may
+think, my real work was the critical edition of
+S&acirc;yana&#8217;s commentary on the Rig-veda. I had determined
+that this also should be edited according
+to the strictest rules of criticism. I knew what an
+amount of labour that would involve, but I refused
+to yield to the pressure of my colleagues to proceed
+more quickly but less critically.</p>
+
+<p>S&acirc;yana quotes a number of Sanskrit works
+which, at the time when I began my edition, had
+not yet been edited. Such were the Nirukta, the
+glossary of the Rig-veda; the Aitareya-br&acirc;hmana,
+a very old explanation of the Vedic sacrifice; the
+&Acirc;sval&acirc;yana S&ucirc;tras, on the ceremonial; and sundry
+works of the same character. S&acirc;yana generally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+alludes very briefly only to these works and presupposes
+that they are known to us, so that a short
+reference would suffice for his purposes. To find
+such references and to understand them required,
+however, not only that I should copy these works,
+which I did, but that I should make indices and
+thus be able to find the place of the passages to
+which he alluded. This I did also, but over and
+over again was I stopped by some short enigmatical
+reference to P&acirc;nini&#8217;s grammar or Yaska&#8217;s glossary,
+which I could not identify. All these references
+are now added to my edition, and those who will
+look them up in the originals, will see what kind
+of work it was which I had to do before a single
+line of my edition could be printed. How often
+was I in perfect despair, because there was some
+allusion in S&acirc;yana which I could not make out,
+and which no other Sanskrit scholar, not even
+Burnouf or Wilson, could help me to clear up. It
+often took me whole days, nay, weeks, before I
+saw light. A good deal of the commentary was
+easy enough. It was like marching on the high
+road, when suddenly there rises a fortress that has
+to be taken before any further advance is to be
+thought of. In the purely mechanical part other
+men could and did help me. But whenever any
+real difficulty arose, I had to face it by myself,
+though after a time I gladly acknowledged that
+here, too, their advice was often valuable to me.
+In fact I found, and all my assistants seemed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+have found out the same, that if they were useful
+to me, the work they did for me was useful to
+them, and I am proud to say that nearly all of
+them have afterwards risen to great prominence in
+Sanskrit scholarship. From time to time I also
+worked at interpreting and translating some of the
+Vedic hymns, though I had always hoped that
+this part of the work would be taken up by other
+scholars.</p>
+
+<p>Bunsen was also my social sponsor in London,
+and my first peeps into English society were at the
+Prussian Legation. He often invited me to his
+breakfast and dinner parties, and when I saw for
+the first time the magnificent rooms crowded with
+ministers, and dukes, and bishops, and with ladies
+in their grandest dresses, I was as in a dream, and
+felt as if I had been lifted into another world.
+Men were pointed out to me such as Sir Robert
+Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Van der Weyer,
+the Belgian Minister, Thirlwall, Bishop of St.
+David&#8217;s and author of the <i>History of Greece</i>,
+Archdeacon Hare, Frederick Maurice, and many
+more whom I did not know then, though I came
+to know several of them afterwards. Anybody
+who had anything of his own to produce was welcome
+in Bunsen&#8217;s house, and among the men whom
+I remember meeting at his breakfast parties, were
+Rawlinson, Layard, Hodgson, Birch, and many
+more. Those breakfast parties were then quite a
+new institution to me, and it is curious how entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
+they have gone out of fashion, though Sir
+Harry Inglis, Member for Oxford, Gladstone,
+Member for Oxford, Monckton Milnes (afterwards
+Lord Houghton), kept them up to the last, while
+in Oxford they survived perhaps longer than anywhere
+else. They had one great advantage, people
+came to them quite fresh in the morning; but they
+broke too much into the day, particularly when,
+as at Oxford, they ended with beer, champagne,
+and cigars, as was sometimes the case in undergraduates&#8217;
+rooms.</p>
+
+<p>How I was able to swim in that new stream, I
+can hardly understand even now. I had been
+quite unaccustomed to this kind of society, and
+was ignorant of its simplest rules. Bunsen, however,
+was never put out by my gaucheries, but
+gave me friendly hints in feeling my way through
+what seemed to me a perfect labyrinth. He told
+me that I had offended people by not returning
+their calls, or not leaving a card after having dined
+with them, paying the so-called digestion-visit to
+them. How should I know? Nobody had ever
+told me, and I thought it obtrusive to call. Nor
+did I know that in England to touch fish with a
+knife, or to help yourself to potatoes with a fork,
+was as fatal as to drop or put in an <i>h</i>. 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 fork, often scattering it over your
+plate and possibly over the table-cloth. I must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+confess also that fish-knives always seemed to me
+more civilized than forks in dividing fish, but fish-knives
+did not exist when I first came to England.
+The really interesting side of all this is to watch
+how customs change&mdash;come in and go out&mdash;and by
+what a slow and imperceptible process they are discarded.
+Let us hope it is by the survival of the
+fittest. When I first went to Oxford everybody
+took wine with his neighbours, now it is only at
+such conservative colleges as my own&mdash;All Souls&mdash;that
+the old custom still survives. But then we
+have not even given up wax candles yet, and we
+look upon gas as a most objectionable innovation.</p>
+
+<p>Another great difficulty I had was in writing
+letters and addressing my friends properly as Sir,
+or Mr. Smith, or Smith. I was told that the rule
+was very simple and that you addressed everybody
+exactly as they addressed you. What was the consequence?
+When I received an invitation to dine
+with the Bishop of Oxford who addressed me as
+&#8220;My dear Sir,&#8221; I wrote back &#8220;My dear Sir,&#8221; and
+said that I should be very happy. How Samuel
+Wilberforce must have chuckled when he read my
+epistle. But how is any stranger to know all the
+intricacies of social literature, particularly if he is
+wrongly informed by the highest authorities. I
+must confess that even later in life I have often
+been puzzled as to the right way of addressing my
+friends. There is no difficulty about intimate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+friends, but as one grows older one knows so many
+people more or less intimately, and according to
+their different characters and stations in life, one
+often does not know whether one offends by too
+great or too little familiarity. I was once writing
+to a very eminent man in London who had been
+exceedingly friendly to me at Oxford, and I addressed
+him as &#8220;My dear Professor H.&#8221; At the
+end of his answer he wrote, &#8220;Don&#8217;t call me Professor.&#8221;
+All depends on the tone in which such
+words are said. I imagined that living in fashionable
+society in London, he did not like the somewhat
+scholastic title of Professor which, in London
+particularly, has always a by-taste of diluted omniscience
+and conceit. I accordingly addressed
+him in my next letter as &#8220;My dear Sir,&#8221; and this,
+I am sorry to say, produced quite a coldness and
+stiffness, as my friend evidently imagined that I
+declined to be on more intimate terms with him,
+the fact being that through life I have always been
+one of his most devoted admirers. I did my best
+to conform to all the British institutions, as well
+as I could, though in the beginning I must no
+doubt have made fearful blunders, and possibly
+given offence to the truly insular Briton. Bunsen
+seemed to delight in asking me whenever he had
+Princes or other grandees to lunch or dine with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>One day he took me with him to stay at Hurstmonceux
+with Archdeacon Hare, and a delightful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+time it was. There were books in every room, on
+the staircase, and in every corner of the house, and
+the Archdeacon knew every one of them, and as
+soon as a book was mentioned, he went and fetched
+it. He generally knew the very place at which the
+passage that was being discussed, occurred, and excelled
+even the famous dog, which at one of these
+literary breakfast parties&mdash;I believe in Hallam&#8217;s
+house&mdash;was ordered on the spur of the moment to
+fetch the fifth volume of Gibbon&#8217;s <i>History</i>, and
+at once climbed up the ladder and brought down
+from the shelf the very volume in which the disputed
+passage occurred. He had been taught this
+one trick of fetching a certain volume from the
+shelves of the library, and the conversation was
+turned and turned till it was brought round to a
+passage in that very volume. The guests were, no
+doubt, amazed, but as it was before the days of
+Darwin and Lubbock, it led to no more than a
+good laugh. I was surprised and delighted at the
+honesty with which the Archdeacon admitted the
+weak points of the Anglican system, and the dangers
+which threatened not only the Church, but the
+religion of England. The real danger, he evidently
+thought, came from the clergy, and their hankering
+after Rome. &#8220;They have forgotten their history,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;and the sufferings which the sway
+of a Roman priesthood has inflicted for centuries
+on their country.&#8221; I think it was he who told me
+the story of a young Romanizing curate, who declared<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+that he could never see what was the use of
+the laity.</p>
+
+<p>One day when I called on Bunsen with my
+books, and I frequently called when I had something
+new to show him, he said: &#8220;You must come
+with me to Oxford to the meeting of the British
+Association.&#8221; This was in 1847. Of course I did
+not know what sort of thing this British Association
+was, but Bunsen said he would explain it all
+to me, only I must at once sit down and write a
+paper. He, Bunsen, was to read a paper on the
+&#8220;Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in
+reference to Asiatic and African Ethnology and
+the Classification of Languages,&#8221; and he wanted
+Dr. Karl Meyer and myself to support him, the
+former with a paper on Celtic Philology, and myself
+with a paper on the Aryan and Aboriginal
+Languages of India. I assured him that this was
+quite beyond me. I had hardly been a year in
+England, and even if I could write, I knew but
+too well that I could not read a paper before a
+large audience. However, Bunsen would take no
+refusal. &#8220;We must show them what we have done
+in Germany for the history and philosophy of language,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;and I reckon on your help.&#8221;
+There was no escape, and to Oxford I had to go.
+I was fearfully nervous, for, as Prince Albert was
+to be present, ever so many distinguished people
+had flocked to the meeting, and likewise some not
+very friendly ethnologists, such as Dr. Latham,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+and Mr. Crawford, known by the name of the Objector
+General. Our section was presided over by
+the famous Dr. Prichard, the author of that classical
+work, <i>Researches into the Physical History of
+Mankind</i>, in five volumes, and it was he who protected
+me most chivalrously against the somewhat
+frivolous objections of certain members, who were
+not over friendly towards Prince Albert, Chevalier
+Bunsen, and all that was called German in
+scholarship. All, however, went off well. Bunsen&#8217;s
+speech was most successful, and it is a pity
+that it should be buried in the <i>Transactions of the
+British Association for 1847</i>. At that time it was
+considered a great honour that his speech should
+appear there <i>in extenso</i>. When Bunsen declared
+that he would not give it, unless Dr. Meyer&#8217;s paper
+and my own were published in the <i>Transactions</i>
+at the same time, there was renewed opposition.
+I was so little proud of my own essay, that I should
+much rather have kept it back for further improvement,
+but printed it was in the <i>Transactions</i>, and
+much canvassed at the time in different journals.</p>
+
+<p>I have always been doubtful about the advantages
+of these public meetings, so far as any scientific
+results are concerned. Everybody who pays a
+guinea may become a member and make himself
+heard, whether he knows anything on the subject
+or not. The most ignorant men often occupy the
+largest amount of time. Some people look upon
+these congresses simply as a means of advertising<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+themselves, and I have actually seen quoted among
+a man&#8217;s titles to fame the fact that he had been a
+member of certain congresses. Another drawback
+is that no one, not even the best of scholars, is
+quite himself before a mixed audience. Whereas
+in a private conversation a man is glad to receive
+any new information, no one likes to be told in
+public that he ought to have known this or that, or
+that every schoolboy knows it. Then follows generally
+a squabble, and the best pleader is sure to
+have the laughter on his side, however ignorant he
+may be of the subject that is being discussed. But
+Dr. Prichard was an excellent president and moderator,
+and though he had unruly spirits to deal
+with, he succeeded in keeping up a certain decorum
+among them. Dr. Prichard&#8217;s authority stood very
+high, and justly so, and his <i>Researches into the
+Physical History of Mankind</i> still remain unparalleled
+in ethnology. His careful weighing of
+facts and difficulties went out of fashion when the
+theory of evolution became popular, and every
+change from a flea to an elephant was explained by
+imperceptible degrees. He dealt chiefly with what
+was perceptible, with well-observed facts, and
+many of the facts which he marshalled so well,
+require even now, in these post-Darwinian days I
+should venture to say, renewed consideration. Like
+all great men, he was wonderfully humble, and
+allowed me to contradict him, who ought to have
+been proud to listen and to learn from him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But though I cannot say that the result of these
+meetings and wranglings was very great or valuable,
+I spent a few most delightful days at Oxford,
+and I could not imagine a more perfect state of
+existence than to be an undergraduate, a fellow,
+or a professor there. A kind of silent love sprang
+up in my heart, though I hardly confessed it to
+myself, much less to the object of my affections.
+I knew I had to go back to be a University tutor
+or even a master in a public school in Germany,
+and that was a hard life compared with the freedom
+of Oxford. To be independent and free to
+work as I liked, that was everything to me, but
+how I ever succeeded in realizing my ideal, I
+hardly know. At that time I saw nothing but a
+life of drudgery and severe struggle before me, but
+I did not allow myself to dwell on it; I simply
+worked on, without looking either right or left,
+behind or before.</p>
+
+<p>While at Oxford on this my first flying visit, I
+had a room in University College, the very college
+in which my son was hereafter to be an undergraduate.
+My host was Dr. Plumptre, the Master
+of the College, a tall, stiff, and to my mind, very
+imposing person. He was then Vice-Chancellor,
+and I believe I never saw him except in his cap
+and gown and with two bedels walking before him,
+the one with a gold, the other with a silver poker
+in his hands. We have no Esquire bedels any
+longer! All the professors, too, and even the undergraduates,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+dressed in their mediaeval academic
+costume, looked to me very grand, and so different
+from the German students at Leipzig or still more
+at Jena, walking about the streets in pink cotton
+trousers and dressing-gowns. It seemed to me
+quite a different world, and I made new discoveries
+every day. Being with Bunsen I was invited to
+all the official dinners during the meeting of the
+British Association, and here, too, the Vice-Chancellor
+acted his part with becoming dignity. He
+never unbent; he never indulged in a joke or
+joined in the laughter of his neighbours. When
+I remarked on his immovable features, I was told
+that he slept in starched sheets&mdash;and I believed it.
+At one of these dinners, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte
+caused a titter during a speech about the
+freedom which people enjoyed in England. &#8220;In
+France,&#8221; he said, &#8220;with all the declamations about
+<i>Libert&eacute;</i>, <i>&Eacute;galit&eacute;</i>, <i>Fraternit&eacute;</i>, there is very little
+freedom, and, with all the trees of <i>libert&eacute;</i> which
+are being planted along the boulevards, there is
+very little of real liberty to be found there!&#8221;
+&#8220;But you in England,&#8221; he finished, &#8220;you have your
+old tree of liberty, which is always flowering and
+showering <i>peas</i> on the whole world.&#8221; He wanted
+to say peace. We tried to look solemn but failed,
+and a suppressed laugh went round till it reached
+the Vice-Chancellor. There it stopped. He was
+far too well bred to allow a single muscle of his
+face to move. &#8220;He throws a cold blanket on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+everything,&#8221; my neighbour said; and my knowledge
+of English was still so imperfect that I accepted
+many of these metaphorical remarks in their
+literal sense, and became more and more puzzled
+about my host. It was evidently a pleasure to my
+friends to see how easily I was taken in. On the
+walls of the houses at Oxford I saw the letters F.&nbsp;P.
+about ten feet from the ground. Of course it was
+meant for Fire Plug, but I was told that it marked
+the height of the Vice-Chancellor, whose name
+was Frederick Plumptre.</p>
+
+<p>My visit to Oxford was over all too soon, and
+I returned to London to toil away at my Sanskrit
+MSS. in the little room that had been assigned to
+me in the Old East India House in Leadenhall
+Street. That building, too, in which the reins of
+the mighty Empire of India were held, mostly by
+the hands of merchants, has vanished, and the
+place of it knoweth it no more. However, I
+thought little of India, I only thought of the library
+at the East India House, a real Eldorado for
+an eager Sanskrit student, who had never seen such
+treasures before. I saw little else there, I only
+remember seeing Tippoo Sahib&#8217;s tiger which held
+an English soldier in his claws, and was regularly
+wound up for the benefit of visitors, and then uttered
+a loud squeak, enough to disturb even the
+most absorbed of students. I felt quite dazed by
+all the books and manuscripts placed at my disposal,
+and revelled in them every day till it became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+dark, and I had to walk home through Ludgate
+Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, generally carrying
+ever so many books and papers under my arms.
+I knew nobody in the city, and no one knew me;
+and what did I care for the world, as long as I had
+my beloved manuscripts?</p>
+
+<p>In March, 1848, I had to go over to Paris to
+finish up some work there, and just came in for the
+revolution. From my windows I had a fine view of
+all that was going on. I well remember the pandemonium
+in the streets, the aspect of the savage
+mob, the wanton firing of shots at quiet spectators,
+the hoisting of Louis Philippe&#8217;s nankeen trousers on
+the flag-staff of the Tuileries. When bullets began
+to come through my windows, I thought it time to
+be off while it was still possible. Then came the
+question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts,
+&amp;c., belonging to the East India Company,
+to the train. The only railway open was the line to
+Havre, which had been broken up close to the station,
+but further on was intact, and in order to get
+there we had to climb three barricades. I offered
+my <i>concierge</i> five francs to carry my box, but his
+wife would not hear of his risking his life in the
+streets; ten francs&mdash;the same result; but at the sight
+of a louis d&#8217;or she changed her mind, and with an
+&#8220;Allez, mon ami, allez toujours,&#8221; dispatched her
+husband on his perilous expedition. Arrived in
+London I went straight to the Prussian Legation,
+and was the first to give Bunsen the news of Louis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+Philippe&#8217;s flight from Paris. Bunsen took me off
+to see Lord Palmerston, 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 Paris. So even a poor scholar had to play his
+small part in the events that go to make up history.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> had been settled that my edition of the Rig-veda
+should be printed at the Oxford University
+Press, and I found that I had often to go there
+to superintend the printing. Not that the printers
+required much supervision, as I must say that the
+printing at the University Press was, and is, excellent&mdash;far
+better than anything I had known in
+Germany. In providing copy for a work of six volumes,
+each of about 1000 pages, it was but natural
+that <i>lapsus calami</i> should occur from time to
+time. What surprised me was that several of these
+were corrected in the proof-sheets sent to me. At
+last I asked whether there was any Sanskrit scholar
+at Oxford who revised my proof-sheets before they
+were returned. I was told there was not, but
+that the queries were made by the printer himself.
+That printer was an extraordinary man. His right
+arm was slightly paralysed, and he had therefore
+been put on difficult slow work, such as Sanskrit.
+There are more than 300 types which a printer must
+know in composing Sanskrit. Many of the letters
+in Sanskrit are incompatible, i.&nbsp;e. they cannot follow
+each other, or if they do, they have to be modified.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+Every <i>d</i>, for instance, if followed by a <i>t</i>, is changed
+to <i>t</i>; every <i>dh</i> loses its aspiration, becomes likewise
+<i>t</i>, or changes the next <i>t</i> into <i>dh</i>. Thus from <i>budh</i> +
+<i>ta</i>, we have <i>Buddha</i>, i.&nbsp;e. awakened. In writing
+I had sometimes neglected these modifications, but
+in the proof-sheets these cases were always either
+queried or corrected. When I asked the printer,
+who did not of course know a word of Sanskrit,
+how he came to make these corrections, he said:
+&#8220;Well, sir, my arm gets into a regular swing from
+one compartment of types to another, and there
+are certain movements that never occur. So if
+I suddenly have to take up types which entail a
+new movement, I feel it, and I put a query.&#8221; An
+English printer might possibly be startled in the
+same way if in English he had to take up an <i>s</i>
+immediately following an <i>h</i>. 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 Sanskrit. In
+spite of the extreme accuracy of my printer, however,
+I saw, that after all it would be better for
+myself, and for the Veda, if I were on the spot, and
+I decided to migrate from London to Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>My first visit had filled me with enthusiasm for
+the beautiful old town, which I regarded as an ideal
+home for a student. Besides, I found that I was
+getting too gay in London, and in order to be able
+to devote my evenings to society, I had to get up
+and begin work soon after five. May, therefore,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+saw me established for the first time in Oxford, in
+a small room in Walton Street. The moving of my
+books and papers from London did not take long.
+At that time my library could still be accommodated
+in my portmanteau, it had not yet risen to 12,000
+volumes, threatening to drive me out of my house.
+A happy time it was when I possessed no books
+which I had not read, and no one sent books to
+me which I did not want, and yet had to find a
+place for in my rooms, and to thank the author for
+his kindness.</p>
+
+<p>I at once found that my work went on more
+rapidly at Oxford than in London, though if I
+had expected to escape from all hospitality I certainly
+was not allowed to do that. Accustomed as
+I was to the Spartan diet of a German <i>convictorium</i>,
+or a dinner at the Palais Royal <i>&agrave; deux francs</i>, the
+dinners to which I was invited by some of the Fellows
+in Hall, or in Common Room, surprised me not
+a little. The old plate, the old furniture, and the
+whole style of living, impressed me deeply, particularly
+the after-dinner railway, an ingenious invention
+for lightening the trouble of the guests who
+took wine in Common Room. There was a small
+railway fixed before the fireplace, and on it a wagon
+containing the bottles went backwards and forwards,
+halting before every guest till he had helped himself.
+That railway, I am afraid, is gone now; and
+what is more serious, the pleasant, chatty evenings
+spent in Common Room are likewise a thing of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+past. Married Fellows, if they dine in Hall, return
+home after dinner, and junior Fellows go to their
+books or pupils. In my early Oxford days, a married
+Fellow would have sounded like a solecism.
+The story goes that married Fellows were not entirely
+unknown, and that you could hold even a fellowship,
+if you could hold your tongue. Young
+people, however, who did not possess that gift of
+silence, had often to wait till they were fifty, before
+a college living fell vacant, and the quinquagenarian
+Fellow became a young husband and a young vicar.</p>
+
+<p>What impressed me, however, even more than
+the great hospitality of Oxford, was the real friendliness
+shown to an unknown German scholar. After
+all, I had done very little as yet, but the kind words
+which Bunsen and Dr. Prichard had spoken about
+me at the meeting of the British Association, had
+evidently produced an impression in my favour far
+beyond what I deserved. I must have seemed a
+very strange bird, such as had never before built
+his nest at Oxford. I was very young, but I looked
+even younger than I was, and my knowledge of
+the manners of society, particularly of English
+society, was really nil. Few people knew what I
+was working at. Some had a kind of vague impression
+that I had discovered a very old religion,
+older than the Jewish and the Christian, which contained
+the key to many of the mysteries that had
+puzzled the ancient, nay, even the modern world.
+Frequently, when I was walking through the streets<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
+of Oxford, I observed how people stared at me, and
+seemed to whisper some information about me.
+Tradespeople did not always trust me, though I
+never owed a penny to anybody; when I wanted
+money I could always make it by going on faster
+with printing the Rig-veda, for which I received
+four pounds a sheet. This seemed to me then a
+large sum, though many a sheet took me at first
+more than a week to get ready, copy, collate, understand,
+and finally print. If I was interested in any
+other subject, my exchequer suffered accordingly&mdash;but
+I could always retrieve my losses by sitting up
+late at night. Poor as I was, I never had any cares
+about money, and when I once began to write in
+English for English journals, I had really more than
+I wanted. My first article in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>
+appeared in October, 1851.</p>
+
+<p>At that time the idea of settling at Oxford, of
+remaining in this academic paradise, never entered
+my head. I was here to print my Rig-veda and
+work at the Bodleian; that I should in a few years
+be an M.A. of Christ Church, a Fellow of the most
+exclusive of colleges, nay, a married Fellow&mdash;a being
+not even invented then&mdash;and a professor of the
+University, never entered into my wildest dreams.
+I could only admire, and admire with all my heart.
+Everything seemed perfect, the gardens, the walks
+in the neighbourhood, the colleges, and most of all
+the inhabitants of the colleges, both Fellows and
+undergraduates. My ideas were still so purely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
+continental that I could not understand how the
+University could do such a thing as incorporate a
+foreign scholar&mdash;could, in fact, govern itself without
+a Minister of Education to appoint professors,
+without a Royal Commissioner to look after the
+undergraduates and their moral and political sentiments.
+And here at Oxford I was told that the
+Government did not know Oxford, nor Oxford the
+Government, that the only ruling power consisted
+in the Statutes of the University, that professors and
+tutors were perfectly free so long as they conformed
+to these statutes, and that certainly no minister
+could ever appoint or dismiss a professor, except the
+Regius professors. &#8220;If we want a thing done,&#8221; my
+friends used to explain to me, &#8220;we do it ourselves,
+as long as it does not run counter to the statutes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Oxford changes with every generation. It is
+always growing old, but it is always growing young
+again. There was an old Oxford four hundred years
+ago, and there was an old Oxford fifty years ago.
+To a man who is taking his M.A. degree, Oxford, as
+it was when he was a freshman, seems quite a thing
+of the past. By the public at large no place is supposed
+to be so conservative, so unchanging, nay, so
+stubborn in resisting new ideas, as Oxford; and yet
+people who knew it forty or fifty years ago, like
+myself, find it now so changed that, when they look
+back they can hardly believe it is the same place.
+Even architecturally the streets of the University
+have changed, and here not always for the better.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+Architects unfortunately object to mere imitation of
+the old Oxford style of building; they want to produce
+something entirely their own, which may be
+very good by itself, but is not always in harmony
+with the general tone of the college buildings. I
+still remember the outcry against the Taylor Institution,
+the only Palladian building at Oxford, and yet
+everybody has now grown reconciled to it, and even
+Ruskin lectured in it, which he would not have done,
+if he had disapproved of its architecture. He would
+never lecture in the Indian Institute, and wrote me a
+letter sadly reproving me for causing Broad Street to
+be defaced by such a building, when I had had absolutely
+nothing to do with it. He was very loud in his
+condemnation of other new buildings. He abused
+even the New Museum, though he had a great deal
+to do with it himself. He had hoped that it would
+be the architecture of the future, but he confessed
+after a time that he was not satisfied with the
+result.</p>
+
+<p>In his days we still had the old Magdalen Bridge,
+the Bodleian unrestored, and no trams. Ruskin was
+so offended by the new bridge, by the restored
+Bodleian, and by the tram-cars, that he would go
+ever so far round to avoid these eyesores, when he
+had to deliver his lectures; and that was by no
+means an easy pilgrimage. There was, of course,
+no use in arguing with him. Most people like the
+new Magdalen Bridge because it agrees better with
+the width of High Street; they consider the Bodleian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+well restored, particularly now that the new
+stone is gradually toning down to the colour of the
+old walls, and as to tram-cars, objectionable as they
+are in many respects, they certainly offend the eye
+less than the old dirty and rickety omnibuses. The
+new buildings of Merton, in the style of a London
+police-station, offended him deeply, and with more
+justice, particularly as he had to live next door to
+them when he had rooms at Corpus.</p>
+
+<p>These new buildings could not be helped at Oxford.
+The stone, with which most of the old colleges
+were built, was taken from a quarry close to Oxford,
+and began to peel off and to crumble in a very curious
+manner. Artists like these chequered walls, and
+by moonlight they are certainly picturesque, but
+the colleges had to think of what was safe. My own
+college, All Souls, has ever so many pinnacles, and
+we kept an architect on purpose to watch which of
+them were unsafe and had to be restored or replaced
+by new ones. Every one of these pinnacles cost us
+about fifty pounds, and at every one of our meetings
+we were told that so many pinnacles had been tested,
+and wanted repairing or replacing. Many years
+ago, when I was spending the whole Long Vacation
+at Oxford, I could watch from my windows a man
+who was supposed to be testing the strength of
+these pinnacles. He was armed with a large crowbar,
+which he ran with all his might against the
+unfortunate pinnacle. I doubt whether the walls
+of any Roman castellum could have resisted such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
+a ram. I spoke to some of the Fellows, and when
+the builder made his next report to us, we rather
+objected to the large number of invalids. He was
+not to be silenced, however, so easily, but told us
+with a very grave countenance that he could not
+take the responsibility, as a pinnacle might fall any
+day on our Warden when he went to chapel. This,
+he thought, would settle the matter. But no, it
+made no impression whatever on the junior Fellows,
+and the number of annual cripples was certainly
+very much reduced in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that Oxford has always loved what is
+old better than what is new, and has resisted most
+innovations to the very last. A well-known liberal
+statesman used to say that when any measure of
+reform was before Parliament, he always rejoiced to
+see an Oxford petition against it, for that measure
+was sure to be carried very soon. It should not
+be forgotten, however, that there always has been
+a liberal minority at Oxford. It is still mentioned
+as something quite antediluvian, that Oxford, that
+is the Hebdomadal Council, petitioned against the
+Great Western Railway invading its sacred precincts;
+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 world.</p>
+
+<p>Many things, of course, have been changed, and
+are changing every year before our very eyes; but
+what can never be changed, in spite of some recent
+atrocities in brick and mortar, is the natural beauty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
+of its gardens, and the historical character of its
+architecture. Whether Friar Bacon, as far back
+as the thirteenth century, admired the colleges,
+chapels, and gardens of Oxford, we do not know;
+and even if we did, few of them could have been
+the same as those which we admire to-day. We
+must not forget that Greene&#8217;s <i>Honourable History
+of Friar Bacon</i> does not give us a picture of what
+Oxford was when seen by that famous philosopher,
+who is sometimes claimed as a Fellow of Brasenose
+College, probably long before that College existed;
+but what is said in that play in praise of the University,
+may at least be taken as a recollection of what
+Greene saw himself, when he took his degree as
+Bachelor of Arts in 1578. In his play of the <i>History
+of Friar Bacon</i>, Greene introduces the Emperor
+of Germany, Henry II, 1212-50, as paying
+a visit to Henry III of England, 1216-73, and he
+puts into his mouth the following lines, which,
+though they cannot compare with Shelley&#8217;s or Mat
+Arnold&#8217;s, are at all events the earliest testimony to
+the natural attractions of Oxford. Anyhow, Shelley&#8217;s
+and Mat Arnold&#8217;s lines are well known and are
+always quoted, so that I venture to quote Greene&#8217;s
+lines, not for the sake of their beauty, but simply
+because they are probably known to very few of my
+readers:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford schools<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are richly seated near the river-side:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mountains full of fat and fallow deer,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The battling<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> pastures lade with kine and flocks,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The town gorgeous with high built colleges,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And scholars seemly in their grave attire.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The mountains round Oxford we must accept as
+a bold poetical licence, whether they were meant for
+Headington Hill or Wytham Woods. The German
+traveller, Hentzner, who described Oxford in 1598,
+is more true to nature when he speaks of the wooded
+hills that encompass the plain in which Oxford lies.</p>
+
+<p>But while the natural beauty of Oxford has always
+been admired and praised by strangers, the
+doctors and professors of the old University have
+not always fared so well at the hands of English
+and foreign critics. I shall not quote from Giordano
+Bruno, who visited England in 1583-5, and calls Oxford
+&#8220;the widow of true science<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>,&#8221; but Milton
+surely cannot be suspected of any prejudice against
+Oxford. Yet he writes in 1656 in a letter to Richard
+Jones: &#8220;There is indeed plenty of amenity
+and salubrity in the place when you are there.
+There are books enough for the needs of a University:
+if only the amenity of the spot contributed so
+much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does to
+pleasant living, nothing would seem wanting to the
+happiness of the place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These ill-natured remarks about the Oxford Dons
+seem to go on to the very beginning of our century.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>The buildings and gardens are praised, but by way
+of contrast, it would seem, or from some kind of
+jealousy, their inhabitants are always treated with
+ridicule. Not long ago a book was published,
+<i>Memoirs of a Highland Lady</i>. Though published
+in 1898, it should be remembered that the memoirs
+go back as far as 1809. Nor should it be forgotten
+that at that time the authoress was hardly more
+than thirteen years of age, and certainly of a very
+girlish, not to say frivolous, disposition. She stayed
+some time with the then Master of University,
+Dr. Griffith, and for him, it must be said, she always
+shows a certain respect. But no one else at Oxford
+is spared. She arrived there at the time of Lord
+Grenville&#8217;s installation as Chancellor of the University.
+Though so young, she was taken to the Theatre,
+and this is her description of what she saw and
+heard:&mdash;&#8220;It was a shock to me; I had expected to
+be charmed with a play, instead of being nearly set
+to sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit. There
+were some purple, and some gold, some robes and
+some wigs, a great crowd, and some stir at times,
+while a deal of humdrum speaking and dumb show
+was followed by the noisy demonstrations of the students,
+as they applauded or condemned the honours
+bestowed; but in the main I tired of the heat and
+the mob, and the worry of these mornings, and so,
+depend upon it, did poor Lord Grenville, who sat
+up in the chair of state among the dignitaries, like
+the Grand Lama in his temple guarded by his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
+priests.&#8221; One thing only she was delighted with,
+that was the singing of Catalani at one of the concerts.
+Yet even here she cannot repress her remark
+that she sang &#8220;Gott safe the King.&#8221; She evidently
+was a flippant young lady or child, and with her
+sister, who afterwards joined her at Oxford, seems
+to have found herself quite a fish out of water in
+the grave society of the University.</p>
+
+<p>The room in the Master&#8217;s Lodge which appalled
+her most and seems to have been used as a kind
+of schoolroom, was the Library, full of Divinity
+books, but without curtains, carpet, or fireplace.
+Here they had lessons in music, drawing, arithmetic,
+history, geography, and French. &#8220;And the Master,&#8221;
+she adds, &#8220;opened to us what had been till
+then a sealed book, the New Testament, so that this
+visit to Oxford proved really one of the fortunate
+chances of my life.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This speaks well for the young lady, who in later
+life seems to have occupied a most honoured and
+influential position in Scotch society. But Oxford
+society evidently found no favour in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Her uncle and aunt, as she tells us, were frequently
+out at dinner with other Heads of Houses,
+for there was, of course, no other society. These
+dinners seem to have been very sumptuous, though
+their own domestic life was certainly very simple.
+For breakfast they had tea, and butter on their
+bread, and at dinner a small glass of ale, college
+home-brewed ale. &#8220;How fat we got!&#8221; she exclaims.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+The Master seems to have been a man of refined
+taste, fond of drawing, and what was called poker-painting;
+he was given also to caricaturing, and
+writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently
+fond of his society, but of the other Oxford
+society she only mentions the ultra-Tory politics,
+and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of
+Houses. &#8220;The various Heads,&#8221; she writes, &#8220;with
+their respective wives, were extremely inferior to
+my uncle and aunt. More than half of the Doctors
+of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small
+gentry or country clergy, or even of a lower grade.
+Many of these, constant to the loves of their youth,
+brought ladies of inferior manners to grace what
+appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not
+a good style; there was little talent, and less polish,
+and no sort of knowledge of the world. And yet
+the ignorance of this class was less offensive than
+the assumption of another, when a lady of high
+degree had fallen in love with her brother&#8217;s tutor,
+and got him handsomely provided for in the Church,
+that she might excuse herself for marrying him. Of
+the lesser clergy, there were young witty ones&mdash;odious;
+young learned ones&mdash;bores; and elderly
+ones&mdash;pompous; all, however, of all grades, kind
+and hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble,
+gentle, considerate, and self-sacrificing, had no representative,
+as far as I could see, among these dealers
+in old wines, rich dinners, fine china, and massive
+plate.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The religion of Oxford appeared in those days
+to consist in honouring the King and his Ministers,
+and in perpetually popping in and out of chapel.
+Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer,
+beaten on every staircase half an hour before
+by a scout. The education was suited to Divinity.
+A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the
+young, riotous community, 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 committed. There were rules that had in a
+general way to be obeyed, and lectures that had to
+be attended, but as for care to give high aims, provide
+refining amusements, give a worthy tone to
+the character of responsible beings, there was none
+ever even thought of. The very meaning of the
+word &#8216;education&#8217; did not appear to be understood.
+The college was a fit sequel to the school. The
+young men herded together; they lived in their
+rooms, and they lived out of them, in the neighbouring
+villages, where many had comfortable establishments....
+All sorts of contrivances were resorted
+to to enable the dissipated to remain out all
+night, to shield a culprit, to deceive the dignitaries.&#8221;
+This was in 1809, and even later.</p>
+
+<p>And yet with all this, and while we are told that
+those who attended lectures were laughed at, it
+seems strange that the best divines, and lawyers,
+and politicians of the first half of our century, some
+of whom we may have known ourselves, must have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+been formed under that system. We can hardly
+believe that it was as bad as here described, and we
+must remember that much of the <i>Memoirs</i> of this
+Scotch lady can have been written from memory
+only, and long after the time when she and her
+sister lived at University College. Life there, no
+doubt, may have been very dull, as there were no
+other young ladies at Oxford, and it cannot have
+been very amusing for these young girls to dine
+with sixteen Heads of Houses, all in wide silk
+cassocks, scarves and bands, one or two in powdered
+wigs, so that, as we are told, they often went home
+crying. All intercourse with the young men was
+strictly forbidden, though it seems to have been
+not altogether impossible to communicate, from the
+garden of the Master&#8217;s Lodge, with the young men
+bending out of the college windows, or climbing
+down to the gardens.</p>
+
+<p>One of these young men, who was at University
+College at the same time, might certainly not have
+been considered a very desirable companion for
+these two Scotch girls. It was no other than
+Shelley. What they say of him does not tell us
+much that is new, yet it deserves to be repeated.
+&#8220;Mr. Shelley,&#8221; we read, &#8220;afterwards so celebrated,
+was half crazy. He began his career with every
+kind of wild prank at Eton. At University he was
+very insubordinate, always infringing some rule, the
+breaking of which he knew could not be overlooked.
+He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+about these and other irregularities, he was in the
+habit of making such extraordinary gestures, expressive
+of his humility under reproof, as to overset
+first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing
+tutor. When he proceeded so far as to paste up
+atheistical squibs on the chapel doors, it was considered
+necessary to expel him privately, out of
+regard to Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who
+came up at once. He and his son left Oxford together.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>No one would recognize in this picture the University
+of Oxford, as it is at present. <i>Nous avons
+chang&eacute; tout cela</i> might be said with great truth by
+the Heads of Houses, the Professors, and Fellows
+of the present day. And yet what the Highland
+lady, or rather the Highland girl, describes, refers
+to times not so long ago but that some of the men
+we have known might have lived through it. How
+this change came about I cannot tell, though I can
+bear testimony to a few survivals of the old state of
+things.</p>
+
+<p>The Oxford of 1848 was still the Oxford of the
+Heads of Houses and of the Hebdomadal Board.
+That board consisted almost entirely of Heads of
+Houses, and a most important board it was, considering
+that the whole administration of the University
+was really in its hands. The colleges, on
+the other hand, were very jealous of their independence;
+and even the authority of the Proctors,
+who represented the University as such, was often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+contested within the gates of a college. It is
+wonderful that this old system of governing the
+University through the Heads of Houses should
+have gone on so long and so smoothly. Having
+been trusted by the Fellows of his own society with
+considerable power in the administration of his own
+college, it was supposed that the Head would prove
+equally useful in the administration of the University.
+A Head of a House became at once a
+member of the Council. And, on the whole, they
+managed to drive the coach and horses very well.
+But often when I had to take foreigners to hear
+the University Sermon, and they saw a most extraordinary
+set of old gentlemen walking into St.
+Mary&#8217;s in procession, with a most startling combination
+of colours, black and red, scarlet and pink, on
+their heavy gowns and sleeves, I found it difficult
+to explain who they were. &#8220;Are they your professors?&#8221;
+I was asked. &#8220;Oh, no,&#8221; I said, &#8220;the
+professors don&#8217;t wear red gowns, only Doctors of
+Divinity and of Civil Law, and as every Head of
+a House must have something to wear in public,
+he is invariably made a Doctor.&#8221; I remember one
+exception only, and at a much later time, namely,
+the Master of Balliol, who, like Canning at the
+Congress of Vienna, considered it among his most
+valued distinctions never to have worn the gown
+of a D.C.L. or D.D. It is well known that when
+Marshal Bl&uuml;cher was made a Doctor at Oxford he
+asked, in the innocence of his heart, that General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+Gneisenau, his right-hand man, might at least be
+made a chemist. He certainly had mixed a most
+effective powder for the French army under Napol&eacute;on.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; my friend would ask, &#8220;have you no
+<i>Senatus Academicus</i>, have you no faculties of professors
+such as there are in all other Christian universities?&#8221;
+&#8220;Yes and no,&#8221; I said. &#8220;We have
+professors, but they are not divided into faculties,
+and they certainly do not form the <i>Senatus Academicus</i>,
+or the highest authority in the University.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It seems very strange, but it is nevertheless a
+fact, that as soon as a good tutor is made a professor,
+he is considered of no good for the real teaching
+work of the colleges. His lectures are generally deserted;
+and I could quote the names of certain professors
+who afterwards rose to great eminence, but
+who at Oxford were simply ignored and their lecture-rooms
+deserted. The real teaching or coaching
+or cramming for examination is left to the tutors
+and Fellows of each college, and the examinations
+also are chiefly in their hands. Many undergraduates
+never see a professor, and, as far as the teaching
+work of the University is concerned, the professorships
+might safely be abolished. And yet, as
+I could honestly assure my foreign friends, the best
+men who take honour degrees at Oxford are quite
+the equals of the best men at Paris or Berlin. The
+professors may not be so distinguished, but that is
+due to a certain extent to the small salaries attached<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+to some of the chairs. England has produced great
+names both in science and philosophy and scholarship,
+but these have generally drifted to some more
+attractive or lucrative centres. When I first came to
+Oxford one professor received &pound;40 a year, another
+&pound;1,500, and no one complained about these inequalities.
+A certain amount of land had been left by a
+king or bishop for endowing a certain chair, and
+every holder of the chair received whatever the endowment
+yielded. The mode of appointing professors
+was very curious at that time. Often the elections
+resembled parliamentary elections, far more
+regard being paid to political or theological partisanship
+than to scientific qualifications. Every M.A.
+had a vote, and these voters were scattered all over
+the country. Canvassing was carried on quite
+openly. Travelling expenses were freely paid, and
+lists were kept in each college of the men who could
+be depended on to vote for the liberal or the conservative
+candidate. Imagine a professor of medicine
+or of Greek being elected because he was a liberal!
+Some appointments rested with the Prime
+Minister, or, as it was called, the Crown; and it was
+quoted to the honour of the Duke of Wellington,
+that he, when Chancellor of the University, once
+insisted that the electors should elect the best man,
+and they had to yield, though there were electors
+who would declare their own candidate the best
+man, whatever the opinion of really qualified judges
+might be. All this election machinery is much improved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+now, though an infallible system of electing
+the best men has not yet been discovered. One single
+elector, who is not troubled by too tender a conscience,
+may even now vitiate a whole election; to
+say nothing of the painful position in which an
+elector is placed, if he has to vote against a personal
+friend or a member of his own college, 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 University.</p>
+
+<p>It took me some time before I could gain an insight
+into all this. The old system passed away
+before my very eyes, not without evident friction
+between my different friends, and then came the
+difficulty of learning to understand the working of
+the new machinery which had been devised and
+sanctioned by Parliament. Reformers arose even
+among the Heads of Houses, as, for instance, Dr.
+Jeune, the Master of Pembroke College, who was
+credited with having <i>rajeuni l&#8217;ancienne universit&eacute;</i>.
+But he was by no means the only, or even the
+chief actor in University reform. Many of my
+personal friends, such as Dr. Tait, afterwards Archbishop
+of Canterbury, the Rev. H.&nbsp;G. Liddell, afterwards
+Dean of Christ Church, Professor Baden-Powell,
+and the Rev. G.&nbsp;H.&nbsp;S. Johnson, afterwards
+Dean of Wells, with Stanley and Goldwin Smith
+as Secretaries, did honest service in the various
+Royal and Parliamentary Commissions, and spent
+much of their valuable time in serving the University<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+and the country. I could do no more than answer
+the questions addressed to me by the Commissioners
+and by my friends, and this is really all the
+share I had at that time in the reform of the University,
+or what was called Germanizing the English
+Universities. 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 dinner, because the Heads of Houses
+would no longer admit him to their hospitable
+boards.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly to have been a member of the much
+abused Hebdomadal Board, and a Head of a College
+in those pre-reform days must have been a delightful
+life. Before the days of agricultural distress the income
+of the colleges was abundant; the authority of
+the Heads was unquestioned in their own colleges;
+not only undergraduates, but Fellows also had to
+be submissive. No junior Fellow would then have
+dared to oppose his Head at college meetings.
+If there was by chance an obstreperous junior, he
+was easily silenced or requested to retire. The
+days had not yet come when a Master of Trinity
+ventured to remark that even a junior Fellow
+might possibly be mistaken. Colleges seemed to
+be the property of the Heads, and in some of them
+the Fellows were really chosen by them, and the
+rest of the Fellows after some kind of examination.
+The management of University affairs was likewise
+entirely in the hands of the Heads of Colleges, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+it was on rare occasions only that a theological question
+stirred the interest of non-resident M.A.s, and
+brought them to Oxford to record their vote for or
+against the constituted authorities. Men like the
+Dean of Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, the Warden
+of Wadham, Dr. Parsons, and the Provost of Oriel,
+Dr. Hawkins, were in their dominions supreme, till
+the rebellious spirit began to show itself in such men
+as Dr. Jeune, Professor Baden-Powell, A.&nbsp;P. Stanley,
+Goldwin Smith and others.</p>
+
+<p>Nor were there many very flagrant abuses under
+the old r&eacute;gime. It was rather the want of life that
+was complained of. It began to be felt that Oxford
+should take its place as an equal by the side of
+foreign Universities, not only as a high school, but
+as a home of what then was called for the first
+time &#8220;original research.&#8221; There can be no question
+that as a teaching body, as a high school at the
+head of all the public schools in England, Oxford
+did its duty nobly. A man who at that time could
+take a Double First was indeed a strong man, well
+fitted for any work in after life. He would not
+necessarily turn out an original thinker, a scholar,
+or a discoverer in physical science, but he would
+know what it was to know anything thoroughly.
+To take honours at the same time in classics and
+mathematics required strength and grasp, and the
+effort was certainly considerable, as I found out
+when occasionally I read a Greek or Latin author
+with a young undergraduate friend. What struck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+me most was the accurate knowledge a candidate
+acquired of special authors and special books, but
+also the want of that familiarity with the language,
+Greek or Latin, which would enable him to read
+any new author with comparative ease. The young
+men whom I knew at the time they went in for
+their final examination, were certainly well grounded
+in classics, and what they knew they knew thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>The personal relations existing between undergraduates
+and their tutors were very intimate.
+A tutor took a pride in his pupils, and often became
+their friend for life. The teaching was almost
+private teaching, and the idea of reading a written
+lecture to a class in college did not exist as yet.
+It was real teaching with questions and answers;
+while lectures, written and read out, were looked
+down upon as good enough for professors, but entirely
+useless for the schools. The social tone of the
+University was excellent. Many of the tutors and
+of the undergraduates came of good families, and
+the struggle for life, or for a college living, or college
+office, was not, as yet, so fierce as it became
+afterwards. College tutors toiled on for life, and
+certainly did their work to the last most conscientiously.
+There was perhaps little ambition, little
+scheming or pushing, but the work of the University,
+such as the country would have it, was well done.
+If the Honour-Lists were small, the number of utter
+failures also was not very large.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>For a young scholar, like myself, who came to
+live at Oxford in those distant days, the peace and
+serenity of life were most congenial, though several
+of my friends were among the first who began to
+fret, and wished for more work to be done and for
+better use to be made of the wealth and the opportunities
+of the University. My impression at that
+time was the same as it has been ever since, that
+a reform of the Universities was impossible till the
+public schools had been thoroughly reformed. The
+Universities must take what the schools send them.
+There is every year a limited number of boys from
+the best schools who would do credit to any University.
+But a large number of the young men
+who are sent up to matriculate at Oxford are not
+up to an academic standard. Unless the colleges
+agree to stand empty for a year or two, they cannot
+help themselves, but have to keep the standard of
+the matriculation examination low, and in fact do,
+to a great extent, the work that ought to have been
+done at school. Think of boys being sent up to
+Oxford, who, after having spent on an average six
+years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line
+of Greek or Latin which they have not seen before.
+Yet so it was, and so it is, unless I am very much misinformed.
+It is easy for some colleges who keep up
+a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class
+men; 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 degree, and few people have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+any idea how little a pass degree may mean. Those
+tutors have indeed hard work to do and get little
+credit for it, though their devotion to their college
+and their pupils is highly creditable. Fifty years
+ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is
+now, because candidates were not allowed to pass in
+different subjects at different times, but the whole
+examination had to be done all at once, or not
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>I had naturally made it a rule at Oxford to stand
+aloof from the conflict of parties, whether academical,
+theological, or political. I had my own work to
+do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude
+my opinions, which naturally were different from
+those prevalent at Oxford. Most people like to wash
+their dirty linen among themselves; and though I
+gladly talked over such matters with my friends who
+often consulted me, I did not feel called upon to join
+in the fray. I lived through several severe crises at
+Oxford, and though I had some intimate friends on
+either side, I remained throughout a looker on.</p>
+
+<p>Seldom has a University passed through such a
+complete change as Oxford has since the year 1854.
+And yet the change was never violent, and the
+University has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated
+and reinvigorated. It has been said that
+our constitution has now become too democratic,
+and that a University should be ruled by a Senatus
+rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain
+extent. There has been too much unrest, too constant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+changes, and a lack of continuity in the studies
+and in the government of the University. Every
+three years a new wave of young masters came in,
+carried a reform in the system of teaching and
+examining, and then left to make room for a new
+wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones
+had a fair trial. Senior members of the University,
+heads of houses and professors, have no more voting
+power than the young men who have just taken
+their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than
+these young Masters, who always meet together and
+form a kind of compact phalanx when votes are to
+be taken. There was even a Non-placet club, ready
+to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate
+from the reforming party, or threatened to change
+any established customs, whether beneficial or otherwise
+to the University. The University, as such,
+was far less considered than the colleges, and money
+drawn from the colleges for University purposes
+was looked upon as robbery, though of course the
+colleges profited by the improvement of the University,
+and the interests of the two ought never to
+have been divided, as little as the interests of an
+army can be divided from the interests of each
+regiment.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to Oxford there was still practically
+no society except that of the Heads of Houses, and
+there were no young ladies to grace their dinners.
+Each head took his turn in succession, and had twice
+or three times during term to feed his colleagues.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+These dinners were sumptuous repasts, though they
+often took place as early as five. To be invited to
+them was considered a great distinction, and, though
+a very young man, I was allowed now and then to
+be present, and I highly appreciated the honour.
+The company consisted almost entirely of Heads of
+Houses, Canons, and Professors; sometimes there
+was a sprinkling of distinguished persons from London,
+and even of ladies of various ages and degrees.
+I confess I often sat among them, as we say in German,
+<i>verrathen und verkauft</i>. After dinner I saw
+a number of young men streaming in, and thought
+the evening would now become more lively. But
+far from it. These young men with white ties and
+in evening dress stood in their scanty gowns huddled
+together on one side of the room. They received
+a cup of tea, but no one noticed them or
+spoke to them, and they hardly dared to speak
+among themselves. This, as I was told, was called
+&#8220;doing the perpendicular,&#8221; and they must have felt
+much relieved when towards ten o&#8217;clock they were
+allowed to depart, and exchange the perpendicular
+for a more comfortable position, indulging in songs
+and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to
+join.</p>
+
+<p>At that time I remember only very few houses
+outside the circle of Heads of Houses, where there
+was a lady and a certain amount of social life&mdash;the
+houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor
+Baden-Powell, Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+In their houses there was less of the strict academical
+etiquette, and as they were fond of music, particularly
+the Donkins, I spent some really delightful
+evenings with them. Nay, as I played on the
+pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses began to
+patronize music at their evening parties, though no
+gentleman at that time would have played at Oxford.
+I being a German, and Professor Donkin
+being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play,
+and we certainly had an appreciative, though not
+always a silent, audience.</p>
+
+<p>In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships
+was still very perceptible in the society of the
+University. No Fellows were allowed to marry,
+and the natural consequence was that most of them
+waited for a college living, a professorship or librarianship,
+which generally came to them when they
+were no longer young men. Headships of colleges
+also had so long to be waited for that most of them
+were generally filled by very senior and mostly unmarried
+men. Besides, headships were but seldom
+given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even
+divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity,
+and for business habits. Some of the Fellows gave
+pleasant and, as I thought, very Lucullic dinners
+in college; and I still remember my surprise when
+I was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at
+Jesus College. My host was Mr. Ffoulkes, who
+afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an
+Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+the whole furniture and the plate quite confounded
+me, 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 English.</p>
+
+<p>The City society was completely separated from
+the University society, so that even rich bankers
+and other gentlemen would never have ventured to
+ask members of the University to dine.</p>
+
+<p>Considering the position then held by the Heads
+of Houses, I feel I ought to devote some pages to
+describing some of the most prominent of them.
+At my age I may well hold to the maxim <i>seniores
+priores</i>, and will therefore begin with Dr. Routh,
+the centenarian President of Magdalen, as, though,
+the headship of a house seems to be an excellent prescription
+for longevity, there was no one to dispute
+the venerable doctor&#8217;s claim to precedence in this
+respect. He was then nearly a hundred years old,
+and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his
+wish to have the <i>C, anno centesimo</i>, on his gravestone,
+for, though tired of life, he often declared, so
+I was told, that he would not be outdone in this respect
+by another very old man, who was a dissenter;
+he never liked to see the Church beaten. I might
+have made his personal acquaintance, some friends
+of the old President offering to present me to him.
+But I did not avail myself of their offer, because
+I knew the old man did not like to be shown as
+a curiosity. When I saw him sitting at his window<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
+he always wore a wig, and few had seen him without
+his wig and without his academic gown. He was
+certainly an exceptional man, and I believe he stood
+alone in the whole history of literature, as having
+published books at an interval of seventy years.
+His edition of the <i>Enthymemes</i> and <i>Gorgias of
+Plato</i> was published in 1784, his papers on the
+<i>Ignatian Epistles</i> in 1854. His <i>Reliquia Sacra</i>
+first appeared in 1814, and they are a work which
+at that time would have made the reputation of any
+scholar and divine. His editions of historical works,
+such as Burnet&#8217;s <i>History of his own Time</i> and the
+<i>History of the reign of King James</i>, show his considerable
+acquaintance with English history. I have
+already mentioned how he used to speak of events
+long before his time, such as the execution of
+Charles I, as if he had been present; nor did he
+hesitate to declare that even Bishop Burnet was a
+great liar. He certainly had seen many things
+which connected him with the past. He had seen
+Samuel Johnson mounting the steps of the Clarendon
+building in Broad Street, and though he had
+not himself seen Charles I when he held his Parliament
+at Oxford, he had known a lady whose mother
+had seen the king walking round the Parks at Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>However, we must not forget that many stories
+about the old President were more or less mythical,
+as indeed many Oxford stories are. I was told
+that he actually slept in wig, cap and gown, so that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+once when an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle
+of his College, he put his head out of window
+in an incredibly short time, fully equipped as above.
+Many of these stories or &#8220;Common-Roomers&#8221; as
+they were called, still lived in the Common Rooms
+in my time, when the Fellows of each College assembled
+regularly after dinner, to take wine and
+dessert, and to talk on anything but what was called
+<i>Shop</i>, i.&nbsp;e. Greek and Latin. No one inquired about
+the truth of these stories, as long as they were well
+told. In a place like Oxford there exists a regular
+descent, by inheritance, of good stories. I remember
+stories told of Dr. Jenkins, as Master of Balliol,
+and afterwards transferred to his successor, Mr.
+Jowett. Bodleian stories descended in like manner
+from Dr. Bandinell to Mr. Coxe, and will probably
+be told of successive librarians till they become
+quite incongruous. I am old enough to have
+watched the descent of stories at Oxford, just as
+one recognizes the same furniture in college rooms
+occupied by successive generations of undergraduates.
+To me they sometimes seem threadbare like
+the old Turkish carpets in the college rooms, but I
+never spoil them by betraying their age, and, if
+well told, I can enjoy them as much as if I had
+never heard them before.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, was quite a representative
+of Old Oxford, and a well-known character
+in the University. I had been introduced to
+him by Baron Bunsen, and he showed me much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+hospitality. I was warned that I should find him
+very stiff and forbidding. His own Fellows called
+him the East-wind. But though he certainly was
+condescending, he treated me with great urbanity.
+He had a very peculiar habit; when he had to
+shake hands with people whom he considered his
+inferiors, he stretched out two fingers, and if some
+of them who knew this peculiarity of his, tendered
+him two fingers in return, the shaking of hands
+became rather awkward. One of the Fellows of his
+college told me that, as long as he was only a Fellow,
+he never received more than two fingers; when,
+however, he became Head Master of a school, he
+was rewarded with three fingers, or even with the
+whole hand, but, as soon as he gave up this place,
+and returned to live in college, he was at once reduced
+to the statutable two fingers. I don&#8217;t recollect
+exactly how many fingers I was treated to, and
+I may have shaken them with my whole hand.
+Anyhow, I am quite conscious now of how many
+times I must have offended against academic etiquette.
+How, for instance, is a man to know that
+people who live at Oxford during term-time never
+shake hands except once during term? I doubt, in
+fact, whether that etiquette existed when I first
+came to Oxford, but it certainly had existed for
+some time before I discovered it.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jenkins, Master of Balliol, was also the hero
+of many anecdotes. It was of him that it was first
+told how he once found fault with an undergraduate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+because, whenever he looked out of window, he
+invariably saw the young man loitering about in
+the quad; to which the undergraduate replied:
+&#8220;How very curious, for whenever I cross the quad,
+I always see you, Sir, looking out of window.&#8221; He
+had a quiet humour of his own, and delighted in
+saying things which made others laugh, but never
+disturbed a muscle of his own face. One of his
+undergraduates was called Wyndham, and he had
+to say a few sharp words to him at &#8220;handshaking,&#8221;
+that is, at the end of term. After saying all he
+wanted, he finished in Latin: &#8220;Et nunc valeas
+Wyndhamme,&#8221;&mdash;the last two syllables being pronounced
+with great emphasis. The Master&#8217;s regard
+for his own dignity was very great. Once, when
+returning from a solitary walk, he slipped and fell.
+Two undergraduates seeing the accident ran to assist
+him, and were just laying hands on him to lift
+him up, when he descried a Master of Arts coming.
+&#8220;Stop,&#8221; he cried, &#8220;stop, I see a Master of Arts
+coming down the street.&#8221; And he dismissed the
+undergraduates with many thanks, and was helped
+on to his legs by the M.A.</p>
+
+<p>Accidents, or slips of the tongue, will happen to
+everybody, even to a Head of a House. One of
+these old gentlemen, Dr. Symons, of Wadham,
+when presiding at a missionary meeting, had to
+introduce Sir Peregrine Maitland, a most distinguished
+officer, and a thoroughly good man. When
+dilating on the Christian work which Sir Peregrine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+had done in India, he called him again and again
+Sir Peregrine Pickle. The effect was most ludicrous,
+for everybody was evidently well acquainted
+with <i>Roderick Random</i>, and Sir Peregrine had great
+difficulty in remaining serious when the Chairman
+called on Sir Peregrine Pickle once more to address
+his somewhat perplexed audience.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever may be said about the old Heads
+of Houses, most of them were certainly gentlemen
+both by birth and by nature. They are forgotten
+now, but they did good in their time, and much of
+their good work remains. If I consider who were
+the Dean and Canons and Students I met at Christ
+Church when I first became a member of the House,
+I should have to give a very different account from
+that given by the Highland lady in her <i>Memoirs</i>.
+The Dean of Christ Church, who received me, who
+proposed me for the degree of M.A., and afterwards
+allowed me to become a member of the House, was
+Dr. Gaisford, a real scholar, though it may be of
+the old school. He was considered very rough and
+rude, but I can only say he showed me more of real
+courtesy in those days than anybody else at Oxford.
+He was, I believe, a little shy, and easily put out
+when he suspected anybody, particularly the young
+men, of want of consideration. I can quite believe
+that when an undergraduate, in addressing him,
+stepped on the hearthrug on which he was standing,
+he may have said: &#8220;Get down from my hearthrug,&#8221;
+meaning, &#8220;keep at your proper distance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>&#8221;
+I can only say that I never found him anything but
+kind and courteous. It so happened that he had
+been made a Member of the Bavarian Academy,
+and I, though very young, had received the same
+distinction as a reward for my Sanskrit work, and
+the Dean was rather pleased when he heard it.
+When I asked him whether he would put my name
+on the books of the House, he certainly hesitated
+a little, and asked me at last to come again next
+day and dine with him. I went, but I confess
+I was rather afraid that the Dean would raise difficulties.
+However, he spoke to me very nicely,
+&#8220;I have looked through the books,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and
+I find two precedents of Germans being members
+of the House, one of the name of Wernerus, and
+another of the name of Nitzschius,&#8221; or some such
+name. &#8220;But,&#8221; he continued, smiling, &#8220;even if
+I had not found these names, I should not have
+minded making a precedent of your case.&#8221; People
+were amazed at Oxford when they heard of the
+Dean&#8217;s courtesy, but I can only repeat that I never
+found him anything but courteous.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the Heads of Houses asked me to dine
+with them by sending me an invitation. The Dean
+alone first came and called on me. I was then
+living in a small room in Walton Street in which
+I worked, and dined, and smoked. My bedroom
+was close by, and I generally got up early, and
+shaved and finished my toilet at about 11 o&#8217;clock.
+I had just gone into my bedroom to shave, my face<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+was half covered with lather, when my landlady
+rushed in and told me the Dean had called, and
+my dogs were pulling him about. The fact was
+I had a Scotch terrier with a litter of puppies in
+a basket, and when the Dean entered in full academical
+dress, the dogs flew at him, pulling the
+sleeves of his gown and barking furiously. Covered
+with lather as I was, I had to rush in to quiet the
+dogs, and in this state I had to receive the Very Rev.
+the Dean, and explain to him the nature of the work
+that brought me to Oxford. It was certainly awkward,
+but in spite of the disorder of my room, in
+spite also of the tobacco smoke of which the Dean
+did not approve, all went off well, though, I confess,
+I felt somewhat ashamed. In the same interview
+the Dean asked me about an Icelandic Dictionary
+which had been offered to the press by Cleasby and
+Dasent. &#8220;Surely it is a small barbarous island,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;and how can they have any literature?&#8221;
+I tried, as well as I could, to explain to the Dean the
+extent and the value of Icelandic literature, and
+soon after the press, which was then the Dean, accepted
+the Dictionary which was brought out later
+by Dr. Vigfusson, in a most careful and scholarlike
+manner. It might indeed safely be called his Dictionary,
+considering how many dictionaries are
+called, not after the name of the compiler or compilers,
+but after that of their editor.</p>
+
+<p>This Dr. Vigfusson was quite a character. He
+was perfectly pale and bloodless, and had but one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+wish, that of being left alone. He came to Oxford
+first to assist Dr. Dasent, to whom Cleasby, when
+he died, had handed over his collections; but afterwards
+he stayed, taking it for granted that the
+University would give him the little he wanted.
+But even that little was difficult to provide, as there
+were no funds that could be used for that purpose,
+however uselessly other funds might seem to be
+squandered. That led to constant grumbling on
+his part. Ever so many expedients were tried to
+satisfy him, but none quite succeeded. At last
+he fell ill and died, and when he was a patient at
+the Acland Home, where the nurses did all they
+could for him, he several times said to me when
+I sat with him, that he had never been so happy in
+his life as in that Home. I sometimes blame myself
+for not having seen more of him at Oxford. But
+he always seemed to me full of suspicions and very
+easily offended, and that made any free intercourse
+with him difficult and far from pleasant. Perhaps
+it was my fault also. He may have felt that he
+might have claimed a professorship of Icelandic
+quite as well as I, and he may have grudged my
+settled position in Oxford, my independence and my
+freedom. Whenever we did work together, I always
+found him pleasant at first, but very soon
+he would become wayward and sensitive, do what
+I would, and I had to let him go his own way, as
+I went mine.</p>
+
+<p>I remember dining with the famous Dr. Bull,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+Canon of Christ Church, who certainly managed to
+produce a dinner that would have done credit to
+any French chef. He was one of the last pluralists,
+and many stories were told about him. One story,
+which however was perfectly true, showed at all
+events his great sagacity. A well-known banker
+had been for years the banker of Christ Church.
+Dr. Bull who was the College Bursar had to transact
+all the financial business with him. No one
+suspected the banking house which he represented.
+Dr. Bull, however, the last time he invited him to
+dinner, was struck by his very pious and orthodox
+remarks, and by the change of tone in his conversation,
+such as might suit a Canon of Christ Church,
+but not a luxurious banker from London. Without
+saying a word, Dr. Bull went to London next day,
+drew out all the money of the college, took all his
+papers from the bank, and the day after, to the dismay
+of London, the bank failed, the depositors lost
+their money, but Christ Church was unhurt.</p>
+
+<p>Another of the Canons of Christ Church at that
+time had spent half a century in the place, and read
+the lessons there twice every day. Of course he
+knew the prayer-book by heart, and as long as he
+could see to read there was no harm in his reading.
+But when his eyesight failed him and he had to
+trust entirely to his memory, he would often go
+from some word in the evening prayer to the same
+word in the marriage service, and from there to
+the burial service, with an occasional slip into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+baptism. 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
+away. I frequently stayed at Oxford during vacation,
+and thought of course that the evening service
+would never end, till at last I was asked to name
+the child, and then I went home.</p>
+
+<p>One Sunday I remember going to chapel, and
+after prayers had begun the following conversation
+took place, loud enough to be heard all through
+the chapel. Enter old Canon preceded by a beadle.
+He goes straight to his stall, and finding it occupied
+by a well-known D.D. from London, who is deeply
+engaged in prayer, he stands and looks at the interloper,
+and when that produces no effect, he says
+to the beadle: &#8220;Tell that man this is my stall; tell
+him to get out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beadle: &#8220;Dr. A.&#8217;s compliments, and whether you
+would kindly occupy another stall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>D.D.: &#8220;Very sorry; I shall change immediately.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Old Canon settles in his stall, prayers continue,
+and after about ten minutes the Canon shouts:
+&#8220;Beadle, tell that man to dine with me at five.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beadle: &#8220;Dr. A.&#8217;s compliments, and whether you
+would give him the pleasure of your company at
+dinner at five.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>D.D.: &#8220;Very sorry, I am engaged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beadle: &#8220;D.D. regrets he is engaged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Old Canon: &#8220;Oh, he won&#8217;t dine!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The cathedral was very empty, and fortunately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+this conversation was listened to by a small congregation
+only. I can, however, vouch for it, as
+I was sitting close by and heard it myself.</p>
+
+<p>Bodley&#8217;s Library, too, was full of good stories,
+though many of them do not bear repeating. When
+I first began to work there, Dr. Bandinell was
+Bodleian Librarian. Working in the Bodleian was
+then like working in one&#8217;s private library. One
+could have as many books and MSS. as one desired,
+and the six hours during which the Library was
+open were a very fair allowance for such tiring
+work as copying and collating Sanskrit MSS. I
+well remember my delight when I first sat down
+at my table near one of the windows looking into
+the garden of Exeter. It seemed a perfect paradise
+for a student. I must confess that I slightly altered
+my opinion when I had to sit there every day
+during a severe winter without any fire, shivering
+and shaking, and almost unable to hold my pen, till
+kind Mr. Coxe, the sub-librarian, took compassion
+on me and brought me a splendid fur that had been
+sent him as a present by a Russian scholar, who had
+witnessed the misery of the Librarian in this Siberian
+Library. Now all this is changed. The Library
+is so full of students, both male and female, that
+one has difficulty in finding a place, certainly in
+finding a quiet place; and all sorts of regulations
+have been introduced which have no doubt become
+necessary on account of the large number of readers,
+but which have completely changed, or as some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
+would say, improved the character of the place. As
+to one improvement, however, there can be no two
+opinions. The Library and the reading-room, the
+so-called Camera, are now comfortably warmed,
+and students may in the latter place read for twelve
+hours uninterruptedly, and not be turned out as
+we were by a warning bell at four o&#8217;clock. And
+woe to you if you failed to obey the warning. One
+day an unfortunate reader was so absorbed in his
+book that he did not hear the bell, and was locked
+in. He tried in vain to attract attention from the
+windows, for it was no pleasant prospect to pass
+a night among so many ghosts. At last he saw
+a solitary woman, and shouted to her that he was
+locked in. &#8220;No,&#8221; she said, &#8220;you are not. The
+Library is closed at four.&#8221; Whether he spent the
+night among the books is not known. Let us hope
+that he met with a less logical person to release him
+from his cold prison.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bandinell ruled supreme in his library, and
+even the Curators trembled before him when he told
+them what had been the invariable custom of the
+Library for years, and could not be altered. And,
+curiously enough, he had always funds at his disposal,
+which is not the case now, and whenever
+there was a collection of valuable MSS. in the
+market he often prided himself on having secured
+it long before any other library had the money
+ready. Now and then, it is true, he allowed himself
+to be persuaded by a plausible seller of rare books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
+or MSS., but generally he was very wary. He was
+not always very courteous to visitors, and still less so
+to his under-librarians. The Oriental under-librarian
+Professor Reay, in particular, who was old and
+somewhat infirm, had much to suffer from him, and
+the language in which he was ordered about was
+such as would not now be addressed to any menial.
+And yet Professor Reay belonged to a very good
+family, though Dr. Bandinell would insist on calling
+him Ray, and declared that he had no right to
+the e in his name. In revenge some people would
+give him an additional i and call him Dr. Bandinelli,
+which made him very angry, because, as he would
+say to me, &#8220;he had never been one of those dirty
+foreigners.&#8221; Silence was enjoined in the library,
+but the librarian&#8217;s voice broke through all rules of
+silence. I remember once, when Professor Reay
+had been looking for ever so long to find his spectacles
+without which he could not read the Arabic
+MSS., and had asked everybody whether they had
+seen them, a voice came at last thundering through
+the library: &#8220;You left your spectacles on my chair,
+you old &mdash;&mdash;, and I sat on them!&#8221; There was
+an end of spectacles and Arabic MSS. after that.
+There were two men only of whom Dr. Bandinell
+and H.&nbsp;O. Coxe also were afraid, Dr. Pusey, who
+was one of the Curators, and later on, Jowett, the
+Master of Balliol.</p>
+
+<p>There was a vacancy in the Oriental sub-librarianship,
+and a very distinguished young Hebrew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+scholar, William Wright, afterwards Professor at
+Cambridge, was certainly by far the best candidate.
+But as ill-luck&mdash;I mean ill-luck for the Library&mdash;would
+have it, he had given offence by a lecture at
+Dublin, in which he declared that the people of
+Canaan were Semitic, and not, as stated in Genesis,
+the children of Ham. No one doubts this now, and
+every new inscription has confirmed it. Still a
+strong effort was made to represent Dr. Wright as
+a most dangerous young man, and thus to prevent
+his appointment at Oxford. The appointment was
+really in the hands of Dr. Bandinell; and after I
+had frankly explained to him the motives of this
+mischievous agitation against Dr. Wright, and assured
+him that he was a scholar and by no means
+given to what was then called &#8220;free-handling of the
+Old Testament,&#8221; he promised me that he would
+appoint him and no one else. However, poor man,
+he was urged and threatened and frightened, and
+to my great surprise the appointment was given to
+some one else, who at that time had given hardly
+any proofs of independent work as a Semitic scholar,
+though he afterwards rendered very good and honest
+service. I did not disguise my opinion of what
+had happened; and for more than a year Dr. Bandinell
+never spoke to me nor I to him, though we
+met almost daily at the library. At last the old
+man, evidently feeling that he had been wrong,
+came to tell me that he was sorry for what had happened,
+but that it was not his fault: after this, of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
+course, all was forgotten. Dr. Wright had a much
+more brilliant career opened to him, first at the
+British Museum, and then as professor at Cambridge,
+than he could possibly have had as sub-librarian
+at Oxford. He always remained a scholar, and
+never dabbled in theology.</p>
+
+<p>Some very heated correspondence passed at the
+time, and I remember keeping the letters for a long
+while. They were curious as showing the then state
+of theological opinion at Oxford; but I have evidently
+put the correspondence away so carefully
+that nowhere can I find it now. Let it be forgotten
+and forgiven.</p>
+
+<p>Many, if not all, of the stories that I have written
+down in this chapter may be legendary, and
+they naturally lose or gain as told by different people.
+Who has not heard different versions of the
+story of a well-known Canon of Christ Church in
+my early days, who, when rowing on the river, saw
+a drowning man laying hold of his boat and nearly
+upsetting it. &#8220;Providentially,&#8221; he explained, &#8220;I
+had brought my umbrella, and I had presence of
+mind enough to hit him over the knuckles. He let
+go, sank, and never rose again.&#8221; Nobody, I imagine,
+would have vouched for the truth of this
+story, but it was so often repeated that it provided
+the old gentleman with a nickname, that stuck to
+him always.</p>
+
+<p>I could add more Oxford stories, but it seems almost
+ill-natured to do so, and I could only say in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
+most cases <i>relata refero</i>. When I first came here
+Oxford and Oxford society were to me so strange
+that I probably accepted many similar stories as
+gospel truth. My young friends hardly treated me
+quite fairly in this respect. I had many questions
+to ask, and my friends evidently thought it great
+fun to chaff me and to tell me stories which I naturally
+believed, for there were many things which
+seemed to me very strange, and yet they were true
+and I had to believe them. The existence of Fellows
+who received from &pound;300 to &pound;800 a year, as a
+mere sinecure for life, provided they did not marry,
+seemed to me at first perfectly incredible. 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 employments,
+particularly if they could gain an exhibition
+or scholarship. But after a man had passed his examinations,
+the country or the government had
+nothing more to do with him. &#8220;Swim or drown&#8221;
+was the maxim followed everywhere; and it was
+but natural that the first years of professional life,
+whether as lawyers, medical men, or clergymen,
+were years of great self-denial. But they were also
+years of intense struggle, 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 employment.
+To imagine that after the country had
+done its duty by providing schools and universities,
+it would provide crutches for men who ought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
+learn to walk by themselves, was beyond my comprehension,
+particularly when I was told how large
+a sum was yearly spent by the colleges in paying
+these fellowships without requiring any <i>quid pro
+quo</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Having once come to believe that, and several
+other to me unintelligible things at Oxford, I was
+ready to believe almost anything my friends told
+me. There are some famous stone images, for instance,
+round the Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum.
+They are hideous, for the sandstone of which
+they are made has crumbled away again and again,
+but even when they were restored, the same brittle
+stone was used. They are in the form of Hermae,
+and were planned by no less an architect than Sir
+Christopher Wren. When I asked what they were
+meant for, I was assured quite seriously that they
+were images of former Heads of Houses. I believed
+it, though I expressed my surprise that the stone-mason
+who made new heads, when the old showed
+hardly more than two eyes and a nose, and a very
+wide mouth, should carefully copy the crumbling
+faces, because, as I was informed, he had been told
+to copy the former gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly a very common amusement of
+my young undergraduate friends to make fun of
+the Heads of Houses. They did not seem to feel
+that shiver of unspeakable awe for them of which
+Bishop Thorold speaks; nay, they were anything
+but respectful in speaking of the Doctors of Divinity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
+in their red gowns with black velvet sleeves. If
+it is difficult for old men always to understand
+young men, it is certainly even more difficult for
+young men to understand old men. There is a very
+old saying, &#8220;Young men think that old men are
+fools, but old men know that young men are.&#8221;
+Though very young myself, I came to know several
+of the old Heads of Houses, and though they certainly
+had their peculiarities, they did by no means
+all belong to the age of the Dodo. They were enjoying
+their <i>otium cum dignitate</i>, as befits gentlemen,
+scholars, and divines, and they certainly deserved
+greater respect from the undergraduates than
+they received.</p>
+
+<p>At the annual <i>Encaenia</i>, a great deal of licence
+was allowed to the young men; and I know of several
+strangers, especially foreigners, who have been
+scandalized at the riotous behaviour of the undergraduates
+in the Theatre, the Oxford <i>Aula</i>, when
+the Vice-Chancellor stood up to address the assembled
+audience. My first experience of this was with
+Dr. Plumptre, who, as I have said, was very tall
+and stately; when his first words were not quite distinct,
+the undergraduates shouted, &#8220;Speak up, old
+stick.&#8221; When the Warden of Wadham, the Rev.
+Dr. Symons, was showing some pretty young ladies
+to their seats in the Theatre, he was threatened by
+the young men, who yelled at the top of their voices,
+&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell Lydia, you wicked old man.&#8221; Now Lydia
+was his most excellent spouse. At first the remarks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
+of the undergraduates at the <i>Encaenia</i>, or rather
+<i>Saturnalia</i>, were mostly good-natured and at least
+witty; but they at last became so rude that distinguished
+men, whom the University wished to
+honour by conferring on them honorary degrees,
+felt deeply offended. Sir Arthur Helps declared
+that he came to receive an honour, and received an
+insult. Well do I remember the Rev. Dr. Salmon,
+who was asked where he had left his lobster sauce;
+Dr. Wendell Holmes was shouted at, whether he
+had come across the Atlantic in his &#8220;One Hoss
+Shay&#8221;; the Right Hon. W.&nbsp;H. Smith, First Lord
+of the Admiralty, was presented with a Pinafore,
+and Lord Wolseley with a Black Watch. There
+was a certain amount of wit in these allusions, and
+the best way to take the academic row and riot was
+Tennyson&#8217;s, who told me on coming out that &#8220;he
+felt all the time as if standing on the shingle of the
+sea shore, the storm howling, and the spray covering
+him right and left.&#8221; After a time, however, these
+<i>Saturnalia</i> had to be stopped, and they were stopped
+in a curious way, by giving ladies seats among the
+undergraduates. It speaks well for them that their
+regard for the ladies restrained them, and made
+them behave like gentlemen.</p>
+
+<p>The reign of the Heads of Houses, which was in
+full force when I first settled in Oxford, began to
+wane when it was least expected. There had, however,
+been grumblings among the Fellows and Tutors
+at Oxford, who felt themselves aggrieved by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
+the self-willed interference of the Heads of Colleges
+in their tutorial work, and, it may be, resented the
+airs assumed by men who, after all, were their
+equals, and in no sense their betters, in the University.</p>
+
+<p>Society distinctly profited when Fellows and Tutors
+were allowed to marry, and when several of
+the newly-elected of the Heads of Houses, having
+wives and daughters, opened their houses, and had
+interesting people to dine with them from the
+neighbourhood and from London.</p>
+
+<p>The Deanery of Christ Church was not only
+made architecturally into a new house, but under
+Dr. Liddell, with his charming wife and daughters,
+became a social centre not easily rivalled anywhere
+else. There one met not only royalty, the young
+Prince of Wales, but many eminent writers, artists,
+and political men from London, Gladstone, Disraeli,
+Richmond, Ruskin, and many others. Another
+bright house of the new era was that of the Principal
+of Brasenose, Dr. Cradock, and his cheerful
+and most amusing wife. There one often met such
+men as Lord Russell, Sir George C. Lewis, young
+Harcourt, and many more. She was the true Dresden
+china marquise, with her amusing sallies, which
+no doubt often gave offence to grave Heads of
+Houses and sedate Professors. No one knew her
+age, she was so young; and yet she had been maid
+of honour to some Queen, as I told her once, to
+Queen Anne. Having been maid of honour, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+never concealed her own peculiar feelings about
+people who had not been presented. When she
+wanted to be left alone, she would look out of window,
+and tell visitors who came to call, &#8220;Very sorry,
+but I am not at home to-day.&#8221; Queen&#8217;s College
+also, under Dr. Thomson, the future Archbishop
+of York, was a most hospitable house. Mrs. Thomson
+presided over it with her peculiar grace and genuine
+kindness, and many a pleasant evening I spent
+there with musical performances. But here, too,
+the old leaven of Oxford burst forth sometimes. Of
+course, we generally performed the music of Handel
+and other classical authors; Mendelssohn&#8217;s compositions
+were still considered as mere twaddle by
+some of the old school. At one of these evenings,
+the old organist of New College, with his wooden
+leg, after sitting through a rehearsal of Mendelssohn&#8217;s
+<i>Hymn of Praise</i>, which I was conducting at
+the pianoforte, walked up to me, as I thought, to
+thank me; but no, he burst out in a torrent of real
+and somewhat coarse abuse of me, for venturing to
+introduce such flimsy music at Oxford. I did not
+feel very guilty, and fortunately I remained silent,
+whether from actual bewilderment or from a better
+cause, I can hardly tell.</p>
+
+<p class="figcenter"><a name="Max30" id="Max30"></a><a href="images/illo268.jpg"><img src="images/illo268_th.jpg"
+alt="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 30" title="Max M&uuml;ller, Aged 30" /></a></p>
+
+<p class="caption"><i>F. Max M&uuml;ller</i><br />
+
+<i>Aged 30.</i></p>
+
+<p>Long before Commissions came down on Oxford
+a new life seemed to be springing up there, and
+what was formerly the exception became more and
+more the rule among the young Fellows and Tutors.
+They saw what a splendid opportunity was theirs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
+having the very flower of England to educate, having
+the future of English society to form. They
+certainly made the best of it, helped, I believe, by
+the so-called Oxford Movement, which, whatever
+came of it afterwards, was certainly in the beginning
+thoroughly genuine and conscientious. The
+Tutors saw a good deal of the young men confided
+to their care, and the result was that even what was
+called the &#8220;fast set&#8221; thought it a fine thing to
+take a good class. I could mention a number of
+young noblemen and wealthy undergraduates who,
+in my early years, read for a first class and took it;
+and my experience has certainly been that those who
+took a first class came out in later life as eminent
+and useful members of society. Not that eminence
+in political, clerical, literary, and scientific life was
+restricted to first classes, far from it. But first-class
+men rarely failed to appear again on the surface in
+later life. It may be true that a first class did not
+always mean a first-class man, but it always seemed
+to mean a man who had learned how to work
+honestly, whether he became Prime Minister or
+Archbishop, or spent his days in one of the public
+offices, or even in a counting-house or newspaper
+office.</p>
+
+<p>I felt it was an excellent mixture if a young man,
+after taking a good degree at Oxford, spent a year
+or two at a German University. He generally came
+back with fresh ideas, knew what kind of work still
+had to be done in the different branches of study,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
+and did it with a perseverance that soon produced
+most excellent results. Of course there was always
+the difficulty that young men wished to make their
+way in life, that is to make a living. The Church,
+the bar, and the hospital, absorbed many of those
+who in Germany would have looked forward to a
+University career. In my own subject more particularly,
+my very best pupils did not see their way
+to gaining even an independence, unless they gave
+their time to first securing a curacy, or a mastership
+at school; and they usually found that, in order to
+do their work conscientiously, they had to give up
+their favourite studies in which they would certainly
+have done excellent work, if there had been
+no <i>dira necessitas</i>. 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 studies. But the feeling of the
+majority was always against what was called derisively
+Original Research, and the fellowship-funds
+continued to be frittered away, payment by results
+being considered a totally mistaken principle, so
+that often, as in the case of the new septennial fellowships,
+there remained the payment only, but no
+results.</p>
+
+<p>Still all this became clear to me at a much later
+time only. My first years at Oxford were spent
+in a perfect bewilderment of joy and admiration.
+No one can see that University for the first time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
+particularly in spring or autumn, without being
+enchanted with it. To me it seemed a perfect paradise,
+and I could have wished for myself no better
+lot than that which the kindness of my friends later
+secured for me there.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Will it be believed that the battels (bills) in College are connected
+with this word?</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> <i>Opere</i>, ed. Wagner, i. p. 179.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">I was</span> still very young when I came to settle at
+Oxford, only twenty-four in fact; and, though occasionally
+honoured by invitations from Heads of
+Houses and Professors, I naturally lived chiefly
+with undergraduates and junior Fellows, such as
+Grant, Sellar, Palgrave, Morier, and others. Grant,
+afterwards Sir Alexander Grant and Principal of
+the University of Edinburgh, was a delightful companion.
+He had always something new in his mind,
+and discussed with many flashes of wit and satire.
+He possessed an aristocratic contempt for anything
+commonplace, or self-evident, so that one had to be
+careful in conversing with him. But he was generous,
+and his laugh reconciled one to some of his
+sharp sallies. How little one anticipates the future
+greatness of one&#8217;s friends. They all seem to us no
+better than ourselves, when suddenly they emerge.
+Grant had shown what he could do by his edition
+of Aristotle&#8217;s <i>Ethics</i>. He became one of the Professors
+at the new University at Bombay and contributed
+much to the first starting of that University,
+so warmly patronized by Sir Charles Trevelyan.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
+On returning to this country he was chosen
+to fill the distinguished place of Principal of the
+Edinburgh University. More was expected of him
+when he enjoyed this <i>otium cum dignitate</i>, but his
+health seemed to have suffered in the enervating climate
+of India, and, though he enjoyed his return
+to his friends most fully and spending his life as a
+friend among friends, he died comparatively young,
+and perhaps without fulfilling all the hopes that
+were entertained of him. But he was a thoroughly
+genial man, and his handshake and the twinkle of
+his eye when meeting an old friend will not easily be
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Sellar was another Scotchman whom I knew as
+an undergraduate at Balliol. When I first came
+to know him he was full of anxieties about his
+health, and greatly occupied with the usual doubts
+about religion, particularly the presence of evil or
+of anything imperfect in this world. He was an
+honest fellow, warmly attached to his friends; and
+no one could wish to have a better friend to stand
+up for him on all occasions and against all odds.
+He afterwards became happily married and a useful
+Professor of Latin at Edinburgh. I stayed with
+him later in life in Scotland and found him always
+the same, really enjoying his friends&#8217; society and
+a talk over old days. He had begun to ail when
+I saw him last, but the old boy was always there,
+even when he was miserable about his chiefly imaginary
+miseries. Soon after I had left him I received<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>
+his last message and farewell from his deathbed.
+We are told that all this is very natural and
+what we must be prepared for&mdash;but what cold gaps
+it leaves. My thoughts often return to him, as if
+he were still among the living, and then one feels
+one&#8217;s own loneliness and friendlessness again and
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Palgrave roused great expectations among undergraduates
+at Oxford, but he kept us waiting for
+some time. He took early to office life in the Educational
+Department, and this seems to have ground
+him down and unfitted him for other work. He had
+a wonderful gift of admiring, his great hero being
+Tennyson, and he was more than disappointed if
+others did not join in his unqualified panegyrics of
+the great poet. At last, somewhat late in life, he
+was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and gave
+some most learned and instructive lectures. His
+knowledge of English Literature, particularly poetry,
+was quite astounding. I certainly never went
+to him to ask him a question that he did not answer
+at once and with exhaustive fullness. Some of his
+friends complained of his great command of language,
+and even Tennyson, I am told, found it
+sometimes too much. All I can say is that to me
+it was a pleasure to listen to him. I owe him particular
+thanks for having, in the kindest manner,
+revised my first English compositions. He was always
+ready and indefatigable, and I certainly owed
+a good deal to his corrections and his unstinted advice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>
+His <i>Golden Treasury</i> has become a national
+possession, and certainly speaks well both for his
+extensive knowledge and for his good taste.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly there was Morier, of whom certainly no
+one expected when he was at Balliol that he would
+rise to be British Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
+His early education had been somewhat neglected,
+but when he came to Balliol he worked hard to
+pass a creditable examination. He was a giant in
+size, very good-looking, and his manners, when he
+liked, most charming and attractive. Being the
+son of a diplomatist there was something both English
+and foreign in his manner, and he certainly was
+a general favourite at Oxford. His great desire
+was to enter the diplomatic service, but when that
+was impossible, he found employment for a time
+in the Education Office. But society in London
+was too much for him, he was made for society,
+and society was delighted to receive him. But it
+was difficult for him at the same time to fulfil his
+duties at the Education Office, and the result was
+that he had to give up his place. Things began
+to look serious, when fortunately Lord Aberdeen,
+a great friend of his father, found him some diplomatic
+employment; and that once found, Morier
+was in his element. He was often almost reckless;
+but while several of his friends came altogether to
+grief, he managed always to fall on his feet and
+keep afloat while others went down. As an undergraduate
+he came to me to read Greek with me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
+and I confess that with such mistakes in his Greek
+papers as &#959;&#7985; &#960;&#7937;&#952;&#959;&#953; instead of &#964;&#7936; &#960;&#7937;&#952;&#951;, I trembled
+for his examinations. However, he did well in the
+schools, knowing how to hide his weak points and
+how to make the best of his strong ones. I travelled
+with him in Germany, and when the Schleswig-Holstein
+question arose, he wrote a pamphlet which
+certainly might have cost him his diplomatic career.
+He asked me to allow it to be understood that the
+pamphlet, which did full justice to the claims of
+Holstein and of Germany, had been written by me.
+I received many compliments, which I tried to parry
+as well as I could. Fortunately Lord John Russell
+stood by Morier, and his prophecies did certainly
+turn out true. &#8220;Don&#8217;t let the Germans awake from
+their slumbers and find a work ready made for them
+on which they all agree.&#8221; But the signatories of
+the treaty of London did the very thing against
+which Morier had raised his warning voice, as the
+friend of Germany as it was, though perhaps not
+of the Germany that was to be. Schleswig-Holstein
+<i>meer-umschlungen</i> became the match, (the Schwefel-h&ouml;lzchen),
+that was to light the fire of German
+unity, a unity which for a time may not have been
+exactly what England could have wished for, but
+which in the future will become, we hope, the safety
+of Europe and the support of England.</p>
+
+<p>Morier&#8217;s later advance in his diplomatic career
+was certainly most successful. He possessed the
+very important art of gaining the confidence of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
+crowned heads and ministers he had to deal with.
+Bismarck, it is true, could not bear him, and tried
+several times to trip him up. Even while Morier
+was at Berlin, as a Secretary of Legation, Bismarck
+asked for his removal, but Lord Granville simply
+declined to remove a young diplomatist who gave
+him information on all parties in Germany, and to
+do so had to mix with people whom Bismarck did
+not approve of. Besides, Morier was always a
+<i>persona grata</i> with the Crown Prince and the
+Crown Princess, and that was enough to make Bismarck
+dislike him. Later in life Bismarck accused
+him of having conveyed private information of the
+military position of the Germans to the French
+Guards, such information being derived from the
+English Court. The charge was ridiculous. Morier
+was throughout the war a sympathizer with Germany
+as against France. The English Court had
+no military information to convey or to communicate
+to Morier, and Morier was too much of a diplomatist
+and a gentleman, if by accident he had
+possessed any such information, to betray such a
+secret to an enemy in the field. Bismarck was completely
+routed, though his son seemed inclined to
+fasten a duel on the English diplomatist. Morier
+rose higher and higher, and at last became Ambassador
+at St. Petersburg. When I laughed and congratulated
+him he said, &#8220;He must be a great fool
+who does not reach the top of the diplomatic tree.&#8221;
+That was too much modesty, and yet modesty was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
+not exactly his fault; but he agreed with me as to
+<i>quam parva sapientia regitur mundus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could seem more prosperous than my
+friend Morier&#8217;s career; but few people knew how
+utterly miserable he really was. He had one son,
+in many respects the very image of his father, a
+giant in stature, very handsome, and most attractive.
+In spite of all we said to him he would not
+send his son to a public school in England, but kept
+him with him at the different embassies, where his
+only companions were the young attach&eacute;s and secretaries.
+He had a private tutor, and when that
+tutor declared that young Morier was fit for the
+University, his father managed to get him into Balliol,
+recommending him to the special care of the
+Master. He actually lived in the Master&#8217;s house for
+a time, but enjoyed the greatest liberty that an
+undergraduate at Oxford may enjoy. His father
+was wrapped up in his boy, but at the same time
+tried to frighten him into hard work, or at least
+into getting through the examinations. All was in
+vain; young Morier was so nervous that he could
+never pass an examination. What might be expected
+followed, and the father had at last to remove
+him to begin work as an honorary attach&eacute; at his own
+embassy. I liked the young man very much, but
+my own impression is that his nervousness quite unfitted
+him for serious work. The end was beyond
+description sad. He went to South Africa in the
+police force, distinguished himself very much, came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
+back to England, and then on his second voyage
+to the Cape died suddenly on board the steamer. I
+have seldom seen such utter misery as his father&#8217;s.
+He loved his son and the son loved his father passionately,
+but the father expected more than it
+was physically and mentally possible for the son to
+do. Hence arose misunderstandings, and yet beneath
+the surface there was this passionate love, like
+the love of lovers. When I saw my old friend last,
+he cried and sobbed like a child: his heart was really
+broken. He went on for a few years more, suffering
+much from ill health, but really killed at last
+by his utter misery. I knew him in the bright
+morning of his life, at the meridian of his great success,
+and last in the dark night when light and life
+seems gone, when the moon and all the stars are
+extinguished, and nothing remains but patient suffering
+and the hope of a brighter morn to come.</p>
+
+<p>How little one dreamt of all this when we were
+young, and when an ambassador, nay, even a professor,
+seemed to us far beyond the reach of our
+ambition. I could go on mentioning many more
+names of men with whom I lived at Oxford in the
+most delightful intimacy, and who afterwards
+turned up as bishops, archbishops, judges, ministers,
+and all the rest. True, it is quite natural that it
+should be so with a man who, as I did, began his
+English life almost as an undergraduate among undergraduates.
+Nearly all Englishmen who receive
+a liberal education must pass either through Oxford<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
+or through Cambridge, and I was no doubt lucky
+in making thus early the acquaintance of a number
+of men who later in life became deservedly eminent.
+The only drawback was that, knowing my friends
+very intimately, 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 demand.</p>
+
+<p>Thomson was a dear friend of mine when he was
+still a fellow of Queen&#8217;s College. We worked together,
+as may be seen by my contributions to his
+<i>Laws of Thought</i>, and the translation of a Vedic
+hymn which he helped me to make. I think he
+had a kind of anticipation of what was in store for
+him. Though for a time he had to be satisfied, even
+when he was married, with a very small London
+living, he soon rose in the Church, at a time when
+clergymen of a liberal way of thinking had not
+much chance of Crown preferment. But having
+gone at the head of a deputation to Lord Palmerston,
+to inform him that Gladstone&#8217;s next election
+as member for Oxford was becoming doubtful, owing
+to all the bishoprics being given to the Low
+Church party&mdash;the party of Lord Shaftesbury&mdash;Palmerston
+remembered his stately and courteous
+bearing, and when the see of Gloucester fell vacant,
+gave him that bishopric to silence Gladstone&#8217;s supporters.
+This was a very unexpected preferment
+at Oxford, but Thomson made such good use of his
+opportunity that, when the Archbishopric of York<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
+became vacant, and Palmerston found it difficult
+to make his own or Lord Shaftesbury&#8217;s nominee
+acceptable to the Queen, he suggested that any one
+of the lately elected bishops approved of by the
+Crown might go to York, and some one else fill the
+see thus vacated. It so happened that Thomson&#8217;s
+name was the first to be mentioned, and he was
+made Archbishop, probably one of the youngest
+Archbishops England has ever known. He certainly
+fulfilled all expectations and proved himself
+the people&#8217;s Archbishop, for he was himself the son
+of a small tradesman, a fact of which he was never
+ashamed, though his enemies did not fail to cast
+it in his teeth. 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 me, and was now His
+Grace the Lord Archbishop, with a palace to inhabit
+and an income of about &pound;10,000 a year.
+However, though as a German and as a friend of
+Bunsen I was looked upon as a kind of heretic, I
+never made the Archbishop blush for his old friend,
+and I always found him the same to the end of his
+life, kind, courteous, and ready to help, though it
+is but fair to remember that an Archbishop of York
+is one of the first subjects of the Queen, and cannot
+do or say everything that he might like to do or to
+say. When I had to ask him to do something for
+a friend of mine, who as a clergyman had given
+great offence by his very liberal opinions, he did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>
+all he could do, though he might have incurred
+great obloquy by so doing.</p>
+
+<p>But when I think of these men, friends and acquaintances
+of mine, whom I remember as young
+men, very able and hard working no doubt, yet not
+so entirely different from others who through life
+remained unknown, it is as if I had slept through
+a number of years and dreamt, and had then suddenly
+awoke to a new life. Some of my friends,
+I am glad to say, I always found the same, whether
+in ermine or in lawn sleeves; others, however, I am
+sorry to say, had <i>become</i> something, the old boy in
+them had vanished, and nothing was to be seen except
+the bishop, the judge, or the minister.</p>
+
+<p>It was not for me to remind them of their former
+self, and to make them doubt their own identity,
+but I often felt the truth of Matthew Arnold&#8217;s
+speeches, who, in social position, never rose beyond
+that of inspector of schools, and who often laughed
+when at great dinners he found himself surrounded
+by their Graces, their Excellencies, and my Lords,
+recognizing faces that sat below him at school and
+whose names in the class lists did not occupy so high
+a place as his own. Not that Matthew Arnold was
+dissatisfied; he knew his worth, but, as he himself
+asked for nothing, it is strange that his friends
+should never have asked for something for him,
+which would have shown to the world at large that
+he had not been left behind in the race. It strikes
+one that while he was at Oxford, few people only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>
+detected in Arnold the poet or the man of remarkable
+genius. I had many letters from him, but I
+never kept them, and I often blame myself now that
+in his, as in other cases, I should have thrown away
+letters as of no importance. Then suddenly came
+the time when he returned to Oxford as the poet,
+as the Professor of poetry, nay, afterwards as the
+philosopher also, placed high by public opinion
+among the living worthies of England. What was
+sometimes against him was his want of seriousness.
+A laugh from his hearers or readers seemed to be
+more valued by him than their serious opposition,
+or their convinced assent. He trusted, like others,
+to <i>persiflage</i>, and the result was that when he tried
+to be serious, people could not forget that he might
+at any time turn round and smile, and decline to
+be taken <i>au grand s&eacute;rieux</i>. People do not know
+what a dangerous game this French <i>persiflage</i> is,
+particularly in England, and how difficult it becomes
+to exchange it afterwards for real seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>Those early Oxford days were bright days for
+me, and now, when those young and old faces,
+whether undergraduates or archbishops, rise up
+again before me, I being almost the only one left
+of that happy company, I ask again, &#8220;Did they
+also belong to a mere dreamland, they who gave
+life to my life, and made England my real home?&#8221;
+When I first saw them at Oxford, I was really an
+undergraduate, though I had taken my Doctor&#8217;s
+degree at Leipzig. I lived, in fact, my happy university<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>
+life over again, and it would be difficult to
+say which academical years I enjoyed more, those
+at Leipzig and Berlin, or those at Oxford. There
+were intermediate years in Paris, but during my
+stay there I saw but little of students and student
+life. I was too much oppressed with cares and
+anxieties about my present and future to think
+much of society and enjoyment. At Oxford, these
+cares had become far less, and I could by hard work
+earn as much money as I wanted, and cared to
+spend. In Paris, I was already something of a
+scholar and writer; at Oxford I became once more
+the undergraduate.</p>
+
+<p>This young society into which I was received was
+certainly most attractive, though that it contained
+the germs of future greatness never struck me at
+the time. What struck me was the general tone of
+the conversation. Of course, as Lord Palmerston
+said of himself when he was no longer very young,
+&#8220;boys will be boys,&#8221; but there never was anything
+rude or vulgar in their conversation, and I hardly
+ever heard an offensive remark among them. Most
+of my friends came from Balliol, and were serious-minded
+men, many of them occupied and troubled
+by religious, philosophical, and social problems.</p>
+
+<p>What puzzled me most was the entire absence of
+duels. Occasionally there were squabbles and high
+words, which among German students could have
+had one result only&mdash;a duel. But at Oxford, either
+a man apologized at once or the next morning, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>
+the matter was forgotten, or, if a man proved himself
+a cad or a snob, he was simply dropped. I do
+not mean to condemn the students&#8217; duels in Germany
+altogether. Considering how mixed the society
+of German universities is, and the perfect
+equality that reigns among them&mdash;they all called
+each other &#8220;thou&#8221; in my time&mdash;the son of a gentleman
+required some kind of protection against the
+son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing and
+fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students,
+so that there remained nothing to a young student
+who wanted to escape from the insults of a young
+ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a challenge
+was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was
+the power of public opinion at the universities that
+not another word of insult would be uttered. In
+this way much mischief is prevented. Besides,
+every precaution is taken to guard against fatal
+accident, and I believe there are fewer serious accidents
+on the <i>mensura</i> than in the hunting-field in
+England. When I was at Leipzig, where we had
+at least four hundred duels during the year, only
+two fatal accidents happened, and they were, indeed,
+accidents, such as will happen even at football.
+Of course duels can never be defended, but for keeping
+up good manners, also for bringing out a man&#8217;s
+character, these academic duels seem useful. However
+small the danger is, it frightens the coward
+and restrains the poltroon. For all that, what has
+taken place in England may in time take place in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+Germany also, and men will cease to think that it
+is impossible to defend their honour without a piece
+of steel or a pistol. The last thing that a German
+student desires to do in a duel is to kill his adversary.
+Hence pistol duels, which are generally
+preferred by theological students, because they cannot
+easily get a living if their face is scarred all over,
+are generally the most harmless, except perhaps for
+the seconds.</p>
+
+<p>Before closing this chapter, I should like to say
+a few words on the impressions which the theological
+atmosphere of Oxford in 1848 produced on
+me, and which even now fills me with wonder and
+amazement.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to Oxford, I was strongly recommended
+to Stanley on one side, and to Manuel
+Johnson on the other,&mdash;a curious mixture. Johnson,
+the Observer, was extremely kind and hospitable
+to me. He was a genial man, full of love, possibly
+a little weak, but thoroughly honest, nay,
+transparently so. I met at his house nearly all the
+leaders of the High Church movement, though I
+never met Newman himself, who had then already
+gone to reside at his retreat at Littlemore. On the
+other hand, Stanley received me with open arms as
+a friend of Bunsen, Frederick Maurice, and Julius
+Hare, and as I came straight from the February
+revolution in 1848, he was full of interest and curiosity
+to know from me what I had seen in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>At first I knew nothing, and understood nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>
+of the movement, call it ecclesiastical or theological,
+that was going on at Oxford at that time. I dined
+almost every Sunday at Johnson&#8217;s house, and at his
+dinners and Sunday afternoon garden parties I met
+men such as Church, Mozley, Buckle, Palgrave,
+Pollen, Rigaud, Burgon, and Chr&eacute;tian, who inspired
+me with great respect, both for their learning
+and for what I could catch of their character. Stanley,
+on the other hand, Froude, and Jowett, proved
+themselves true friends to me in making me feel
+at home, and initiating me into the secrets of the
+place. There was, however, a curious reticence on
+both sides, and it was by sudden glimpses only that
+I came to understand that these two sets were quite
+divided, nay, opposed, and had very different ideals
+before them.</p>
+
+<p>I had been at a German university, and the historical
+study of Christianity was to me as familiar
+as the study of Roman history. Professors whom
+I had looked up to as great authorities, implicitly
+to be trusted, such as Lotze and Weisse at Leipzig,
+Schelling and Michelet at Berlin, had, after causing
+in me a certain surprise at first, left me with the
+firm conviction that the Old and New Testament
+were historical books, and to be treated according
+to the same critical principles as any other ancient
+book, particularly the sacred books of the East of
+which so little was then known, and of which I too
+knew very little as yet; enough, however, to see
+that they contained nothing but what under the circumstances<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
+they could contain, traditions of extreme
+antiquity collected by men who gathered all
+they thought would be useful for the education of
+the people. Anything like revelation in the old
+sense of the word, a belief that these books had
+been verbally communicated by the Deity, or that
+what seemed miraculous in them was to be accepted
+as historically real, simply because it was recorded
+in these sacred books, was to me a standpoint long
+left behind. To me the questions that occupied my
+thoughts were to what date these books, such as
+we have them, could be assigned, what portions of
+them were of importance to us, what were the simple
+truths they contained, and what had been added
+to them by later collectors. Well do I remember
+when, before going to Oxford, I spoke to Bunsen
+of the preface to my Rig-veda, and used the expression,
+&#8220;the great revelations of the world,&#8221; he,
+perfectly understanding what I meant, warned me
+in his loud and warm voice, &#8220;Don&#8217;t say that at Oxford.&#8221;
+I could see no harm, nor Bunsen either, nor
+his son who was an Oxford man and a clergyman
+of the Church of England; but I was told that I
+should be misunderstood. I knew far too little to
+imagine that I had a right to speak of what was
+fermenting and growing within me. During my
+stay at Leipzig and Berlin, and afterwards in my
+intercourse with Renan and Burnouf, the principles
+of the historical school had become quite familiar
+to me, but the application of these principles to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>
+early history of religion was a different matter.
+How far the Old and the New Testament would
+stand the critical tests enunciated by Niebuhr was a
+frequent subject of controversy, during the time I
+spent at Paris, between young Renan and myself.
+Though I did not go with him in his reconstruction
+of the history of the Jews and the Jewish religion,
+and of the early Christians and the Christian religion,
+I agreed with him in principle, objecting only
+to his too free and too idyllic reconstruction of these
+great religious movements. Besides, before all
+things, I was at that time given to philosophical
+studies, chiefly to an inquiry into the limits of our
+knowledge in the Kantian sense of the word, the
+origin of thought and language, the first faltering
+and half-mythological steps of language in the
+search for causes or divine agents. All this occupied
+me far more than the age of the Fourth Gospel
+and its position by the side of the Synoptic Gospels.
+I had talked with Schelling and Schopenhauer, and
+little as I appreciated or understood all their teachings,
+there were certain aspirations left in my mind
+which led me far away beyond the historical foundations
+of Christianity. What can we know? was
+the question which I often opposed to Renan at the
+very beginning of our conversations and controversies.
+That there were great truths in the teaching
+and preaching of Christ, Renan was always ready to
+admit, but while it interested me how the truths proclaimed
+by Christ could have sprung up in His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
+mind and at that time in the history of the human
+race, Renan&#8217;s eyes were always directed to the evidence,
+and to what we could still know of the early
+history of Christianity and its Founder. I could
+not deny that, historically speaking, we knew very
+little of the life, the work, and the teachings of
+Christ; 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 Christ. To this
+opinion I remained true through life. I claimed
+for each man the liberty of believing in his own
+Christ, but I objected to Renan&#8217;s idyllic Christ as
+I objected to Niebuhr&#8217;s filling the canvas of ancient
+Roman history with the figures of his own imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, when I came to Oxford, I thought
+these things were familiar to all, however much
+they might admit of careful correction. Nor have
+I any doubt that to some of my friends who were
+great theologians, they were better known than to
+a young Oriental scholar like myself. But unless
+engaged in conversation on these subjects, and this
+was chiefly the case with my friends of the Stanley
+party, I did not feel called upon to preach what, as
+I thought, every serious student knew quite as well
+and probably much better than myself, though he
+might for some reason or other prefer to keep silence
+thereon.</p>
+
+<p>What was my surprise when I found that most of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
+these excellent and really learned men were much
+more deeply interested in purely ecclesiastical questions,
+in the validity of Anglican orders, in the
+wearing of either gowns or surplices in the pulpit,
+in the question of candlesticks and genuflections.
+&#8220;What has all this to do with true religion?&#8221; I
+once said to dear Johnson. He laughed with his
+genial laugh, and blowing the smoke of his cigar
+away, said, &#8220;Oh, you don&#8217;t understand!&#8221; But I
+did understand, and a great deal more than he expected.
+Truly religious men, I thought, might
+please themselves with incense and candlesticks,
+provided they gave no offence to their neighbours.
+It seemed to me quite natural also that men like
+Johnson, with a taste for art, should prefer the Roman
+ritual to the simple and sometimes rather bare
+service of the Anglican Church, but that things
+such as incense and censers, surplice and gown,
+should be taken as they are, as paraphernalia, the
+work of human beings, the outcome of personal and
+local influences, as church-service, no doubt, but
+not as service of God. God has to be served by
+very different things, and there is the danger of the
+formal prevailing over the essential, the danger of
+idolatry of symbols as realities, whenever too much
+importance is attributed to the external forms of
+worship and divine service.</p>
+
+<p>The validity of Anglican orders was often discussed
+at the Observatory, and I no doubt gave
+great offence by openly declaring in my imperfect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
+English that I considered Luther a better channel
+for the transmission of the Holy Ghost than a Caesar
+Borgia or even a Wolsey. Anyhow I could not
+bring myself to see the importance of such questions,
+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 God. That is what I called a truly
+religious and truly Christian life. What struck me
+particularly, both on the Newman side, and among
+those whom I met at Jowett&#8217;s and Froude&#8217;s, was a
+curious want of openness and manliness in discussing
+these simple questions, simple, if not complicated
+by ecclesiastical theories. When Newman at
+Iffley was spoken of, it was in hushed tones, and
+when rumours of his going over to Rome reached his
+friends at Oxford, their consternation seemed to
+be like that of people watching the deathbed of a
+friend. I am sorry I saw nothing of Newman at
+that time; when I sat with him afterwards in his
+study at Birmingham, he was evidently tired of
+controversy, and unwilling to reopen questions
+which to him were settled once for all, or if not
+settled, at all events closed and relinquished. I
+could never form a clear idea of the man, much as
+I admired his sermons; his brother and his own
+friends gave such different accounts of him. That
+even at Littlemore he was still faithful to his own
+national Church, anxious only to bring it nearer to
+its ancient possibly Roman type, can hardly be
+doubted. When he wrote from Littlemore to his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
+friend De Lisle, he had no reason to economize the
+truth. De Lisle hoped that Newman would soon
+openly join the Church of Rome, but Newman answered:
+&#8220;You must allow me to be honest with you
+in adding one thing. 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 ... I must assure
+you then with great sincerity that I have not
+the shadow of an internal movement known to myself
+towards such a step. While God is with me
+where I am, I will not seek Him elsewhere. I
+might almost say in the words of Scripture, &#8216;We
+have found the Messias!&#8217;...&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>How true this is, and yet the same Newman went
+over to the unreformed Church, because the Archbishop
+of Canterbury had sanctioned Bunsen&#8217;s proposal
+of an Anglo-German bishopric of Jerusalem,
+quite forgetful of the fact that Synesius also had
+been bishop of Ptolemais. Again I say, What have
+such matters to do with true religion, such as we
+read of in the New Testament, as an ideal to be
+realized in our life on earth? And it so happened
+that at the same time I knew of families rendered
+miserable through Newman&#8217;s influence, of young
+girls, daughters of narrow-minded Anglicans, hurried
+over to Rome, of young men at Oxford with
+their troubled consciences which under Newman&#8217;s
+direct or indirect guidance could end only in Rome.
+Newman&#8217;s influence must have been extraordinary;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
+the tone in which people who wished to free themselves
+from him, who had actually left him, spoke
+of him, seemed tremulous with awe. I would give
+anything to have known him at that time, when
+I knew him through his disciples only. They were
+caught in various ways. I know of one, a brilliant
+writer, who had been entrusted by Newman with
+writing some of the <i>Lives of the Saints</i>. He did
+it with great industry, 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
+insipid, and might be the inventions of their friends;
+such legends, he felt, would take no root on English
+soil, at all events not in the present generation. In
+consequence he informed Newman that he could
+not keep his promise, or that, if he did so, he must
+speak the truth, tell people what they might believe
+about these Saints, and what was purely fanciful
+in the accounts of their lives. And what was Newman&#8217;s
+answer? He did not respect the young man&#8217;s
+scruples, but encouraged him to go on, because, as
+he said, people would never believe more than half
+of these Lives, and that therefore some of these unsupported
+legends also might prove useful, if only
+as a kind of ballast.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I rejoice to hear of your success,&#8221; he writes,
+August 21, 1843. &#8220;As to St. Grimball, of course
+we must expect such deficiencies; where matter is
+found, it is all gain, and there are plenty of Lives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
+to put together, as you will see, when you see the
+whole list.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am rather for <i>inserting</i> (of course discreetly
+and in way of selection) the miracles for which you
+have not good evidence. (1) They are beautiful,
+you say, and will tell in the narrative. (2) Next
+you can say that the evidence is weak, and this
+will be bringing credit for the others where you
+say the evidence is strong. People will never go
+<i>so far</i> as your narrative. Cut it down to what is
+true, and they will disbelieve a part of <i>it</i>; put in
+these legends and they will compound for the true
+at the sacrifice of what may be true, but is not
+well attested.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I confess I cannot quite follow. If a man like
+Newman believed in these saints and their miracles,
+his pleading would become intelligible, but
+it seems from this very letter that he did not, and
+yet he tried to persuade his young friend to go on
+and not to gather the tares, &#8220;lest haply he might
+root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together
+until the harvest.&#8221; I do not like to judge,
+but I doubt whether this kind of teaching could
+have strengthened the healthy moral fibre of a
+man&#8217;s conscience and have led him to depend entirely
+on his sense of truth. And yet this was the
+man who at one time was supposed to draw the best
+spirits of Oxford with him to Rome. This was the
+man to whom some of the best spirits at Oxford
+confessed all they had to confess, and that could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
+have been very little, and of whom they spoke with
+a subdued whisper as the apostle who would restore
+all faith, and bring back the Anglican sheep to the
+Roman fold.</p>
+
+<p>I saw and heard all that was going on, the hopes
+deferred, the secret visits to Littlemore, the rumours
+and more than rumours of Newman&#8217;s defection.
+Such was the devotion of some of these disciples
+that they expected day by day a great catastrophe
+or a great victory, for after the publication of so
+many letters written at the time by Wiseman, Manning,
+De Lisle, and others, there can be little doubt
+that a great conversion or perversion of England
+to the Romish Church was fully expected. De
+Lisle writes: &#8220;England is now in full career of a
+great Religious Revolution, this time back to Catholicism
+and to the Roman See as its true centre
+... the best friends of Rome in the Anglican
+Church are obliged still to be guarded.&#8221; Such
+words admit of one meaning only, and if Newman
+had been followed by a large number of his Oxford
+friends, the results for England might really have
+been most terrible. But here, no doubt, the English
+national feeling came in. What England had
+suffered under Roman ecclesiastical rule had not
+yet been entirely forgotten, and the idea that a
+foreign potentate and a foreign priesthood should
+interfere with the highest interests of the nation,
+was fortunately as distasteful as ever, not only to a
+large party of the clergy, but to a still larger party<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
+of the laity also. It seemed to me very curious that
+so many of Newman&#8217;s followers did not see the
+unpatriotic character of their agitation. Either
+subjection to Rome or civil war at home was the
+inevitable outcome of what they discussed very
+innocently at the Observatory, and little as I
+understood their schemes for the future, I often
+felt surprised at what sounded to me like very
+unpatriotic utterances.</p>
+
+<p>Another thing that struck me as utterly un-English
+and has often been dwelt on by the historians
+of this movement, was the curiously secret character
+of the agitation. What has an Englishman
+to fear when he openly protests against what he
+disapproves of in Church or State? But Newman&#8217;s
+friends at Oxford behaved really, as has been often
+said, like so many naughty schoolboys, or like conspirators,
+yet they were neither. A very similar
+charge, however, was brought against the liberal
+party. They also seemed to think that they were
+out of bounds, and were doing in secret what they
+did not dare to do openly. It is well known that
+one friend of Newman&#8217;s, who afterwards became a
+Roman Catholic, had a small chapel set up in his
+bedroom in college, with pictures and candles and
+instruments of flagellation. No one was allowed
+to see this room, till one evening when the flagellant
+had retired after dinner and fallen asleep, the servants
+found him lying before the altar. Nothing
+remained to him then but to exchange his comfortable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>
+college rooms for the less comfortable cell of a
+Roman monastery, and little was done by his new
+friends to make the evening of his life serene and
+free from anxiety. These things were known and
+talked about in Oxford, and generally with anything
+but the seriousness that the subject seemed
+to me to require. Again at the Observatory a point
+was made of having games in the garden such as
+boccia on a Sunday afternoon, thus evading the
+strict observance of the Sabbath, without openly
+trying to restore to it the character which it had
+in Roman Catholic countries.</p>
+
+<p>German theology was talked about as a kind of
+forbidden fruit, as if it was not right for them to
+look at it, to taste it, or to examine it. Even years
+later people were afraid to meet Professor Ewald,
+Bishop Colenso, and other so-called heretics at my
+house. They even fell on poor Ewald at an evening
+party. Ewald was staying with me and working
+hard at some Hebrew MSS. at the Bodleian. He
+was then already an old man, but in his appearance
+a powerful and venerable champion. He is the only
+man I remember who, after copying Hebrew MSS.
+for twelve hours at the Bodleian with nothing but
+a sandwich to sustain him, complained of the short
+time allowed there for work. He came home for
+dinner very tired, and when the conversation or
+rather the disputation began between him and some
+of our young liberal theologians, he spoke in short
+pithy sentences only. He considered himself perfectly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
+orthodox, nay, one of the pillars of religion in
+Germany, and laid down the law with unhesitating
+conviction. As far as I can remember, he was
+answering a number of questions about St. Paul,
+and what he thought of Christ, of the Kingdom of
+Christ, and the Life to come, and being pestered
+and driven into a corner by his various questioners,
+and asked at last how he knew St. Paul&#8217;s secret
+thoughts, he not knowing how to express himself
+in fluent English, exclaimed in a loud voice, &#8220;I
+know it by the Holy Ghost.&#8221; Here the conversation
+naturally stopped, and poor Ewald was allowed
+to finish his dinner in peace. He had been
+Professor at Bonn, when Pusey came there as a
+young man to study Hebrew after he had been appointed
+Canon of Christ Church and Professor of
+Hebrew, and he expressed to me a wish to see Dr.
+Pusey. I told him it would not be easy to arrange
+a meeting, considering how strongly opposed Dr.
+Pusey was to Ewald&#8217;s opinions. Personally I always
+found Pusey tolerant, and his kindness to me
+was a surprise to all my young friends. But the
+fact was, we moved on different planes, and though
+he knew my religious opinions well, they only excited
+a smile, and he often said with a sigh, &#8220;I know
+you are a German.&#8221; 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 terror. He had read more
+heresy, he used to say, than anybody, and he wished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
+no one to pass through the trials and agonies
+through which he had passed, chiefly, I should think,
+during his stay at a German university. The historical
+element was wanting in him, nay, like Hegel,
+he sometimes seemed to lay stress on the unhistorical
+character of Christianity. My idea, on the contrary,
+was that Christianity was a true historical
+event, prepared by many events that had gone before
+and alone made it possible and real. Even the
+abyss, if there were such an abyss, was, as it seemed
+to me, meant to be there on our passage through life,
+and was to be faced with a brave heart.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to my first experiences of the
+theological atmosphere of Oxford, I confess I felt
+puzzled to see men, whose learning and character
+I sincerely admired, absorbed in subjects which to
+my mind seemed simply childish. I expected I
+should hear from them some new views on the date
+of the gospels, the meaning of revelation, the historical
+value of revelation, or the early history of
+the Church. No, of all this not a word. Nothing
+but discussions on vestments, on private confession,
+on candles on the altar, whether they were wanted
+or not, on the altar being made of stone or of wood,
+of consecrated wine being mixed with water, of the
+priest turning his back on the congregation, &amp;c.
+I could not understand how these men, so high
+above the ordinary level of men in all other respects,
+could put aside the fundamental questions of Christianity
+and give their whole mind to what seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
+to me rightly called in the newspapers &#8220;mere millinery.&#8221;
+I sought information from Stanley, but
+he shrugged his shoulders and advised me to keep
+aloof and say nothing. This I was most willing to
+do; I cared for none of these things. My mind
+was occupied with far more serious problems, such
+as I had heard explained by men of profound learning
+and honest purpose in the great universities of
+Germany; these troubles arose from questions
+which seemed to me to have no connexion with true
+religion at all. Even the differences between the
+reformed and unreformed churches were to me
+mere questions of history, mere questions of human
+expediency. I did not consider Roman Catholics
+as heretics&mdash;I had known too many of them of unblemished
+character in Germany. I might have
+regretted the abuses which called for reform, the
+excrescences which had disfigured Christianity like
+many other religions, but which might be tolerated
+as long as they did not lead to toleration for intolerance.
+Luther might no longer appear to me in the
+light of a perfect saint, but that he was right in
+suppressing the time-honoured abuses of the Roman
+Church admitted with me of no doubt whatsoever.
+Large numbers always had that effect on me, and
+when I saw how many good and excellent men were
+satisfied with the unreformed teaching of the Roman
+Church, I felt convinced that they must attach
+a different meaning to certain doctrines and ecclesiastical
+practices from what we did. I had learned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
+to discover what was good and true in all religions,
+and I could fully agree with Macaulay when he
+said, &#8220;If people had lived in a country where very
+sensible people worshipped the cow, they would
+not fall out with people who worship saints.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I know that many of my friends on both sides
+looked upon me as a latitudinarian, but my conviction
+has always been that we could not be broad
+enough. They looked upon me as wishing to keep
+on good terms with high and low and broad, and
+I made no secret of it, that I thought I could understand
+Pusey as well as Stanley, and assign to each
+his proper place. Stanley was of course more after
+my own heart than Pusey, but Pusey too was a man
+who interested me very much. I saw that he might
+become a great power whether for good or for evil
+in England. He was, in fact, a historical character,
+and these were always the men who interested me.
+He was fully aware of his importance in England,
+and the great influence which his name exercised.
+That influence was not always exercised in the right
+way, so at least it seemed to me, particularly when
+it was directed against such friends of mine as
+Kingsley, Froude, or Jowett. Once, I remember,
+when he had come to my house, 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 God. Curious to
+say, he relented, and admitted that he had used too
+strong language. To me everything that was said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>
+of God seemed imperfect, and never to apply to God
+Himself but only to the idea which the human mind
+had formed of Him. To me even the Hindu, if he
+spoke of Brahman or Krishna, seemed to have
+aimed at the true God, in spite of the idolatrous
+epithets which he used; then how could a man like
+Frederic Maurice be said to have worshipped a different
+God, considering that we all can but feel
+after Him in the dark, not being able to do more
+than exclude all that seems to us unworthy of Deity?</p>
+
+<p>A very important element in the ecclesiastical
+views of some of my friends was, no doubt, the artistic.
+If Johnson leant towards Rome, it was the
+more ornate and beautiful service that touched and
+attracted him. I sat near to him in St. Giles&#8217;
+Church; he told me what to do and what not to
+do during service. In spite of the Prayer-book, it
+is by no means so easy as people imagine to do exactly
+the right thing in church, and I had of course
+to learn a number of prayers and responses by heart.
+To me the service, as it was in my parish church,
+seemed already too ornate, accustomed as I had been
+to the somewhat bare and cold service in the Lutheran
+Church at Dessau. But Johnson constantly
+complained about the monotonous and mechanical
+performances of the clergy. He had a strong feeling
+for all that was beautiful and impressive in art,
+and he wanted to see the service of God in church
+full both of reverence and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson&#8217;s private collection of artistic treasures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
+was very considerable, and I learnt much from the
+Italian engravings and Dutch etchings which he
+possessed and delighted in showing. I often spent
+happy hours with him examining his portfolios, and
+wondered how he could afford to buy such treasures.
+But he knew when and where to buy, and I believe
+when his collection was sold after his death, it
+brought a good deal more than it had cost him.
+Another collection of art was that of Dr. Wellesley,
+the Principal of New Inn Hall, who was a friend of
+Johnson&#8217;s and had collected most valuable antiquities
+during his long stay in Italy. He was the
+son of the Marquis of Wellesley, a handsome man,
+with all the refinement and courtesy of the old
+English gentleman. Though not perhaps very
+useful in the work of the University, he was most
+pleasant to live with, and full of information in his
+own line of study, the history of art, chiefly of
+Italian art.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful services of the Roman Church
+abroad, and particularly at Rome, certainly exercised
+a kind of magic attraction on many of the
+friends of Wiseman and Newman, though one wonders
+that the sunny grandeur of St. Peter&#8217;s at Rome
+should ever have seemed more impressive than the
+sombre sublimity and serene magnificence of Westminster
+Abbey. Unfortunately, the introduction of
+a more ornate service, even of harmless candlesticks
+and the often very useful incense, had always a
+secret meaning. They were used as symbols of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
+something of which the people had no conception,
+whereas in the early Church they had been really
+natural and useful.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of all this commotion, and chiefly
+secret commotion, I felt a perfect stranger; I saw
+the bright and dark sides, but I confess I saw little
+of what I called religion. Though my own religious
+struggles lay behind me, still there were many questions
+which pressed for a solution, but for which my
+friends at Oxford seemed either indifferent or unprepared.
+My practical religion was what I had
+learnt from my mother; that remained unshaken in
+all storms, and in its extreme simplicity and childishness
+answered all the purposes for which religion
+is meant. Then followed, in the Universities of
+Leipzig and Berlin, the purely historical and scientific
+treatment of religion, which, while it explained
+many things and destroyed many things, never interfered
+with my early ideas of right and wrong,
+never disturbed my life with God and in God, and
+seemed to satisfy all my religious wants. I never
+was frightened or shaken by the critical writings of
+Strauss or Ewald, of Renan or Colenso. If what
+they said had an honest ring, I was delighted, for
+I felt quite certain that they could never deprive
+me of the little I really wanted. That little could
+never be little enough; it was like a stronghold with
+no fortifications, no trenches, and no walls around it.
+Suppose it was proved to me that, on geological
+evidence, the earth or the world could not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
+been created in six days, what was that to me?
+Suppose it was proved to me that Christ could never
+have given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into
+the swine, what was that to me? Let Colenso and
+Bishop Wilberforce, let Huxley and Gladstone fight
+about such matters; their turbulent waves could
+never disturb me, could never even reach me in my
+safe harbour. I had little to carry, no learned
+impedimenta to safeguard my faith. If a man possesses
+this one pearl of great price, he may save himself
+and his treasure, but neither the tinselled vestments
+of a Cardinal, nor the triple tiara that crowns
+the Head of the Church, will serve as life-belts in
+the gales of doubt and controversy. My friends at
+Oxford did not know that, though with my one
+jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I was really richer
+and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor
+of Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer,
+may be very long, but the prayer of the Publican
+may have been more efficient than that of the
+Pharisee.</p>
+
+<p>After a time I made an even more painful discovery:
+I found men, who were considered quite
+orthodox, but who really were without any belief.
+They spoke to me very freely, because they imagined
+that as a German I would think as they did,
+and that I should not be surprised if they looked on
+me as not quite sincere. It was not only honest
+doubt that disturbed them. They had done with
+honest doubt, and they were satisfied with a kind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>
+of Voltairian philosophy, which at last ended in pure
+agnosticism. But even that, even professed agnosticism,
+I could understand, because it often meant no
+more than a confession of ignorance with regard to
+God, which we all confess, and need not necessarily
+amount to the denial of the existence of Deity.
+But that Voltairian levity which scoffs at everything
+connected with religion was certainly something
+I did not expect to meet with at Oxford, and
+which even now perplexes me. Of course, I should
+never think of mentioning names, but it seemed to
+me necessary to mention the fact, to complete the
+curious mosaic of theological and religious thought
+that existed at Oxford at the time of my arrival.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></h2>
+
+<h3>A CONFESSION</h3>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">One</span> confession I have to make, and one for
+which I can hardly hope for absolution, whether
+from my friends or from my enemies. I have never
+done anything; I have never been a doer, a canvasser,
+a wirepuller, a manager, in the ordinary
+sense of these words. I have also shrunk from
+agitation, from clubs and from cliques, even from
+most respectable associations and societies. Many
+people would call me an idle, useless, and indolent
+man, and though I have not wasted many hours of
+my life, I cannot deny the charge that I have
+neither fought battles, nor helped to conquer new
+countries, nor joined any syndicate to roll up a fortune.
+I have been a scholar, a <i>Stubengelehrter</i>, and
+<i>voil&agrave; tout</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Much as I admired Ruskin when I saw him with
+his spade and wheelbarrow, encouraging and helping
+his undergraduate friends to make a new road
+from one village to another, I never myself took to
+digging, and shovelling, and carting. Nor could
+I quite agree with him, happy as I always felt in
+listening to him, when he said: &#8220;What we think, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
+what we know, or what we believe, is in the end of
+little consequence. The only thing of consequence
+is what we do.&#8221; My view of life has always been
+the very opposite! What we do, or what we build
+up, has always seemed to me of little consequence.
+Even Nineveh is now a mere desert of sand, and
+Ruskin&#8217;s new road also has long since been worn
+away. The only thing of consequence, to my mind,
+is what we think, what we know, what we believe!
+To Ruskin&#8217;s ears such a sentiment was downright
+heresy, and I know quite well that it would be condemned
+as extremely dangerous, if not downright
+wicked, by most people, particularly in England.
+My friend, Charles Kingsley, preached muscular
+Christianity, that is, he was always up and doing.
+Another old friend of mine, Carlyle, preached all
+his life that &#8220;it was no use talking, if one would not
+do.&#8221; There is an old proverb in German, too,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Die nicht mit thaten,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Die nicht mit rathen&#8221;;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">actually denying the right of giving advice to those
+who had not taken a part in the fight.</p>
+
+<p>However, though I have not been a doer, a
+<i>faiseur</i>, as the French would say, I do not wish
+to represent myself as a mere idle drone during the
+long years of my quiet life. Nor did I stand quite
+alone in looking on a scholar&#8217;s life&mdash;even when I
+was living in a garret <i>au cinqui&egrave;me</i>&mdash;as a paradise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
+on earth. Did not Emerson write, &#8220;The scholar
+is the man of the age&#8221;? Did not even Mazzini,
+who certainly was constantly up and trying to do,
+did not even he confess that men must die, but
+that the amount of truth they have discovered does
+not die with them? And Carlyle? Did he ever
+try to get into Parliament? Did he ever accept
+directorates? Did he join either the Chartists or
+the Special Constables in Trafalgar Square? As
+in a concert you want listeners as well as performers,
+so in public life, those who look on are quite
+as essential as those who shout and deal heavy
+blows.</p>
+
+<p>Nature has not endowed everybody with the
+requisite muscle to be a muscular Christian. But
+it may be said, that even if Carlyle and Ruskin
+were absolved from doing muscular work in Trafalgar
+Square, what excuse could they plead for not
+walking in procession to Hyde Park, climbing up
+one of the platforms and haranguing the men and
+women and children? I suppose they had the feeling
+which the razor has when it is used for cutting
+stones: they would feel that it was not exactly
+their <i>m&eacute;tier</i>. Arguing when reason meets reason
+is most delightful, whether we win or lose; but
+arguing against unreason, against anything that is
+by nature thick, dense, impenetrable, irrational, has
+always seemed to me the most disheartening occupation.
+Majorities, mere numerical majorities,
+by which the world is governed now, strike me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>
+as mere brute force, though to argue against them
+is no doubt as foolish as arguing against a railway
+train that is going to crush you. Gladstone could
+harangue multitudes; so could Disraeli; all honour
+to them for it. But think of Carlyle or Ruskin
+doing so! Stroking the shell of a tortoise, or the
+cupola of St. Paul&#8217;s, would have been no more
+attractive to them than addressing the discontented,
+when in their hundreds and their thousands they
+descended into the streets. All I claim is that
+there must be a division of labour, and as little
+as Wayland Smith was useless in his smithy, when
+he hardened the iron in the fire for making swords
+or horse-shoes, was Carlyle a man that could be
+spared, while he sat in his study preparing thoughts
+that would not bend or break.</p>
+
+<p>But I cannot even claim to have been a man of
+action in the sense in which Carlyle was in England,
+or Emerson in America. They were men who in
+their books were constantly teaching and preaching.
+&#8220;Do this!&#8221; they said; &#8220;Do not do that!&#8221; The
+Jewish prophets did much the same, and they are
+not considered to have been useless men, though
+they did not make bricks, or fight battles like Jehu.
+But the poor <i>Stubengelehrte</i> has not even that comfort.
+Only now and then he gets some unexpected
+recognition, as when Lord Derby, then Secretary
+of State for India, declared that the scholars who
+had discovered and proved the close relationship between
+Sanskrit and English, had rendered more valuable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
+service to the Government of India than many
+a regiment. This may be called a mere assertion,
+and it is true that it cannot be proved mathematically,
+but what could have induced a man like Lord
+Derby to make such a statement, except the sense
+of its truth produced on his mind by long experience?</p>
+
+<p>However, I can only speak for myself, and of my
+idea of work. I felt satisfied when my work led me
+to a new discovery, whether it was the discovery of
+a new continent of thought, or of the smallest desert
+island in the vast ocean of truth. I would gladly go
+so far as to try to convince my friends by a simple
+statement of facts. Let them follow the same course
+and see whether I was right or wrong. But to make
+propaganda, to attempt to persuade by bringing
+pressure to bear, to canvass and to organize, to
+found societies, to start new journals, to call meetings
+and have them reported in the papers, has always
+been to me very much against the grain. If we
+know some truth, what does it matter whether a few
+millions, more or less, see the truth as we see it?
+Truth is truth, whether it is accepted now or in
+millions of years. Truth is in no hurry, at least it
+always seemed to me so. When face to face with
+a man, or a body of men, who would not be convinced,
+I never felt inclined to run my head against
+a stone wall, or to become an advocate and use the
+tricks of a lawyer. I have often been blamed for it,
+I have sometimes even regretted my indolence or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
+my quiet happiness, when I felt that truth was on
+my side and by my side. I suppose there is no
+harm in personal canvassing, but as much as I disliked
+being canvassed, did I feel it degrading to
+canvass others. I know quite well how often it
+happened at a meeting when either a measure or
+a candidate was to be carried, that the voters had
+evidently been spoken to privately beforehand, had
+in the conscience of their heart promised their votes.
+The facts and arguments at the meeting itself might
+all be on one side, but the majority was in favour of
+the other. Men whose time was of little value had
+been round from house to house, a majority had
+been compacted into an inert unreasoning mass;
+and who would feel inclined to use his spade of
+reason against so much unreason? Some people,
+more honest than the rest, after the mischief was
+done, would say, &#8220;Why did you not call? why did
+you not write letters?&#8221; I may be quite wrong, but
+I can only say that it seemed to me like taking an
+unfair advantage, unfair to our opponents, and almost
+insulting to our friends. Still, from a worldly
+point of view, I was no doubt wrong, and it is certainly
+true that I was often left in a minority. My
+friends have told me again and again that if a good
+measure or a good man is to be carried, good men
+must do some dirty work. If they cannot do that,
+they are of no use, and I doubt not that I have often
+been considered a very useless man by my political
+and academic friends, because I trusted to reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
+where there was no reason to trust to. I was asked
+to write letters, to address and post letters, to promise
+travelling expenses or even convivial entertainments
+at Oxford, to get leaders and leaderettes inserted
+in newspapers. I simply loathed it, and at
+last declined to do it. If a measure is carried by
+promise, not by argument, if an election is carried
+by personal influence, not by reason, what happens
+is very often the same as what happens when fruit
+is pulled off a tree before it is ripe. It is expected
+to ripen by itself, but it never becomes sweet, and
+often it rots. A premature measure may be carried
+through the House by a minister with a powerful
+majority, but it does not acquire vitality and maturity
+by being carried; it often remains on the Statute-book
+a dead letter, till in the end it has to be
+abolished with other rubbish.</p>
+
+<p>However, I have learnt to admire the indefatigable
+assiduity of men who have slowly and partially
+secured their converts and their recruits, and thus
+have carried in the end what they thought right and
+reasonable. I have seen it particularly at Oxford,
+where undergraduates were indoctrinated by their
+tutors, till they had taken their degree and could
+vote with their betters. I take all the blame and
+shame upon myself as a useless member of Congregation
+and Convocation, and of society at large.
+I was wrong in supposing that the walls of Jericho
+would fall before the blast of reason, and wrong in
+abstaining from joining in the braying of rams<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>&#8217;
+horns and the shouts of the people. I was fortunate,
+however, in counting among my most intimate
+friends some of the most active and influential reformers
+in University, Church, and State, and it is
+quite possible that I may often have influenced
+them in the hours of sweet converse; nay, that
+standing in the second rank, I may have helped to
+load the guns which they fired off with much effect
+afterwards. I felt that my open partnership might
+even injure them more than it could help them; for
+was it not always open to my opponents to say that
+I was a German, and therefore could not possibly
+understand purely English questions? Besides,
+there is another peculiarity which I have often observed
+in England. People like to do what has to
+be done by themselves. It seemed to me sometimes
+as if I had offended my friends if I did anything by
+myself, and without consulting them. Besides, my
+position, even after I had been in England for so
+many years, was always peculiar; for though I had
+spent nearly a whole life in the service of my
+adopted country, though my political allegiance was
+due and was gladly given to England, still I was,
+and have always remained, a German.</p>
+
+<p>And next to Germany, which was young and
+full of ideals when I was young, there came India,
+and Indian thought which exercised their quieting
+influence on me. From a very early time I became
+conscious of the narrow horizon of this life on earth,
+and the purely phenomenal character of the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
+in which for a few years we have to live and move
+and have our being. As students of classical and
+other Oriental history we come to admire the great
+empires with their palaces and pyramids and temples
+and capitols. What could have seemed more real,
+more grand, more likely to impress the young mind
+than Babylon and Nineveh, Thebes and Alexandria,
+Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome? And now where
+are they? The very names of their great rulers and
+heroes are known to few people only and have to be
+learnt by heart, without telling us much of those
+who wore them. Many things for which thousands
+of human beings were willing to lay down their
+lives, and actually did lay them down, are to us mere
+words and dreams, myths, fables, and legends. If
+ever there was a doer, it was Hercules, and now we
+are told that he was a mere myth!</p>
+
+<p>If one reads the description of Babylonian and
+Egyptian campaigns, as recorded on cuneiform cylinders
+and on the walls of ancient Egyptian temples,
+the number of people slaughtered seems immense,
+the issues overwhelming; and yet what has become
+of it all? The inroads of the Huns, the expeditions
+of Genghis Khan and Timur, so fully described by
+historians, shook the whole world to its foundations,
+and now the sand of the desert disturbed by their
+armies lies as smooth as ever.</p>
+
+<p>What India teaches us is that in a state advancing
+towards civilization, there must be always two castes
+or two classes of men, a caste of Brahmans or of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
+thinkers, and a caste of Kshatriyas, who are to
+fight; possibly other castes also of those who are
+to work and of those who are to serve. Great wars
+went on in India, but they were left to be fought
+by the warriors by profession. The peasants in their
+villages remained quiet, accepting the consequences,
+whatever they might be, and the Brahmans lived
+on, thinking and dreaming in their forests, satisfied
+to rule after the battle was over.</p>
+
+<p>And what applies to military struggles seems to
+me to apply to all struggles&mdash;political, religious,
+social, commercial, and even literary. Let those
+who love to fight, fight; but let others who are fond
+of quiet work go on undisturbed in their own special
+callings. That was, as far as we can see, the
+old Indian idea, or at all events the ideal which
+the Brahmans wished to see realized. I do not stand
+up for utter idleness or sloth, not even for drones,
+though nature does not seem to condemn even <i>hoc
+genus</i> altogether. All I plead for, as a scholar and
+a thinker, is freedom from canvassing, from letter-reading
+and letter-writing, from committees, deputations,
+meetings, public dinners, and all the rest.
+That will sound very selfish to the ears of practical
+men, and I understand why they should look upon
+men like myself as hardly worth their salt. But
+what would they say to one of the greatest fighters
+in the history of the world? What would they
+say to Julius Caesar, when he declares that the
+triumphs and the laurel wreaths of Cicero are as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
+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
+people?</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">Abiturienten</span>, Examination at Zerbst, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li>Acland, Dr., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li>Admiration, power of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
+
+<li>Aitareya-br&acirc;hmana, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li>All Souls&#8217; Fellowship, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; pinnacles, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+
+<li>Altenstein, Minister of Instruction, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li>Anglican system, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; orders, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li>
+
+<li>Anhalt-Dessau, Duchy of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li>Antiquities hid in etymologies, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>-<a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+
+<li>Anti-Semitism, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+
+<li>Arnim, Count, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>-<a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
+
+<li>Artistic element in the Oxford movement, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
+
+<li>Aryan speakers may differ in blood, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li>&mdash; and aboriginal languages of India, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s paper on, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
+
+<li>Aryans of India, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li>Aryas, meaning of, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li>Asval&acirc;yana S&ucirc;tras, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li>Atavism, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>Atavistic influences, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+
+<li>Autobiography, object of M.&nbsp;M. in writing his, <a href="#Page_vi">vi</a></li>
+
+<li>Autos, the, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Babies</span>, studying, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>Bach family, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>Baden-Powell, Professor, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li>Bandinell, Dr., <a href="#Page_259">259</a>-<a href="#Page_261">261</a></li>
+
+<li>Bardelli, Abb&eacute;, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li>Basedow, von, President, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; the Pedagogue, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>
+
+<li>Bathing, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li>Bernays, Professor, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li>
+
+<li>Biblioth&egrave;que Royale, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li>Biographies, too lenient, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; best kind of history, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+
+<li>Bismarck, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li>
+
+<li>Bl&uuml;cher, Marshal, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li>
+
+<li>Blum, Robert, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li>Boden Professorship of Sanskrit, <a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></li>
+
+<li>Bodleian Library, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li>
+
+<li>Boehtlingk, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
+
+<li>Books, scarcity of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+
+<li>Bopp, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span>&mdash; his lectures, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li>
+
+<li>Brahmo Somaj, service for the, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
+
+<li>Breakfast parties, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>British Association at Oxford, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li>Brockhaus, Professor, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li>Buckle, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Bull, Dr., <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a></li>
+
+<li>Bunsen, Baron, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; first visit to, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his kindness, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li>Burgon, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Burnouf, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>-<a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Camerarius</span>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+
+<li>Canon of Christ Church, an old, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>-<a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
+
+<li>Canvassing, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a></li>
+
+<li>Carlyle, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li>
+
+<li>Carus, Professor, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Chartist Deputation, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+
+<li>Chr&eacute;tian, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Christianity, historical teaching of, in Germany, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; an historical event, <a href="#Page_300">300</a></li>
+
+<li>Church, Dr., <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Church, not for young children, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li>
+
+<li>Circumstances, influence of, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li>Clarke, Sir Andrew, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>Classics, exaggerated praise of the, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; reactions from, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; nothing takes their place, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li>Colebrooke, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li>Colenso, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
+
+<li>Collegien-Buch, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+
+<li>Comparative Philology, Professorship of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li>Congregation and Convocation, why M.&nbsp;M. kept away from, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a></li>
+
+<li>Conscience, the voice of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li>
+
+<li>Coxe, Mr., <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li>
+
+<li>Cradock, Dr. and Mrs., <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
+
+<li>Crawford, Mr., the Objector General, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li>
+
+<li>Curtius, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+<li><span class="smcap">Darwin</span>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li>
+
+<li>David, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Deafness in M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s family, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li>De Lisle, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li>Dessau, Dukes of, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; cheapness of life at, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Gottesacker at, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; only two classes at, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; trade of, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; public school at, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; its walls, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s world, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; simplicity of life at, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; effect on the character, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; moral sayings, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
+
+<li>Devas, &#920;&#949;&#8001;&#962;, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li>
+
+<li>Dieu, Deus, Devas, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li>Donkin, Professor, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
+
+<li>Double First, <a href="#Page_240">240</a></li>
+
+<li>Drobisch, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li>
+
+<li>Duels at University, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>Dyaus, Zeus, Iovis, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Early life</span>, roughing it, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li>
+
+<li>East India Company, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+
+<li>East India House, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li>Eckart, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Eckstein, Baron d&#8217;, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Edinburgh Review,&#8221; first article in, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li>Egyptian chronology, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Elsie Venner,&#8221; <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+
+<li>Emerson, <a href="#Page_310">310</a></li>
+
+<li>Encaenia, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; jokes at, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
+
+<li>English and German Doctors, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li>
+
+<li>Environment, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li>
+
+<li>Ernst, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Eternal, <i>ewig</i>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>Etymologies, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li>
+
+<li>Evolution, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li>Ewald, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Fairy tales</span>, influence of, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>-<a href="#Page_52">52</a></li>
+
+<li>Fear, the feeling of, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>
+
+<li>Feast of Tabernacles, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+
+<li>Fellowships, old system of, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li>
+
+<li>Forbiger, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>French master at Dessau, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
+
+<li>French Revolution, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li>
+
+<li>Friar Bacon, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+
+<li>Fr&ouml;ge, Professor, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his wife and Mendelssohn, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li>Froude, J.&nbsp;A., <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Funkh&auml;nel, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li>Gaisford, Dr., <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>-<a href="#Page_254">254</a></li>
+
+<li>Gathy, M., <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li>German regiments, hymns sung by, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; students, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li>Germany and Germans, prejudice against, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; religious feeling in, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+
+<li>Germ-plasm, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li>Gewandhaus Concerts, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+
+<li>Giordano Bruno on Oxford, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+
+<li>Goethe, not always admired, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li>
+
+<li>Goldst&uuml;cker, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>-<a href="#Page_172">172</a></li>
+
+<li>Goldwin Smith, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+
+<li>Gottesacker at Dessau, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li>Grabau, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s concerts with, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Grandfather of M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_79">79</a>-<a href="#Page_81">81</a></li>
+
+<li>Grandmother of M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li>Grant, Sir Alexander, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li>
+
+<li>Greene&#8217;s Oxford, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+
+<li>Greenhill, Dr., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li>Grenville, Lord, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li>Greswell, Mr., <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li>Griffith, Dr., Master of University, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li>Grimm, <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li>Gr&uuml;nder, ein, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Guizot, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Habits</span> acquired not hereditable, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>Hagedorn, Baron, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; journey with him, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his plan of life for M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>Hahnemann, <a href="#Page_82">82</a> <i>et seq.</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li>
+
+<li>Hallam&#8217;s literary dog, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li>
+
+<li>Hare, Archdeacon, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; visit to, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li>Hase, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li>Haupt, his Latin Society, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his dislike to modern philology, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li>Hawkins, Dr., <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li>Headaches, suffering from, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+<li>&mdash; how cured, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li>Heads of Houses, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; their power, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li>
+
+<li>Hebdomadal Board, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li>
+
+<li>Hebrew taught at the Nicolai-Schule, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>Hegel, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his philosophy, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>-<a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+
+<li>Hegel&#8217;s idea, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>-<a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &#8220;Philosophy of Nature,&#8221; <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &#8220;Philosophy of Religion,&#8221; <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &#8220;Metaphysics,&#8221; <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li>Heinroth, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li>
+
+<li>Helps, Sir Arthur, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>Hentzner, his description of Oxford, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+
+<li>Herbart, school of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li>
+
+<li>Heredity, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li>
+
+<li>Hermann, Gottfried, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; welcomed modern philology, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his kindness to M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li>
+
+<li>Hermae round the Theatre, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
+
+<li>Highland lady at Oxford, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li>
+
+<li>Hiller, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his oratorio, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li>Historical method, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; events, their influence transitory, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a></li>
+
+<li>Hitopadesa, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+
+<li>Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>H&ouml;nicke, Dr., <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li>
+
+<li>Horace, &#8220;cheekiness&#8221; of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li>
+
+<li>Human weaknesses, allowance must be made for, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+
+<li>Humboldt, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Imprisonment</span>, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, at University, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li>
+
+<li>Indian thought, influence of, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a></li>
+
+<li>Indolence, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
+
+<li>Inherited and acquired qualities, difference between, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+
+<li>Inspiration and infallibility, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
+
+<li>Institut de France, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; M.&nbsp;M. made Member, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Jenkins</span>, Dr., Master of Balliol, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>
+
+<li>Jerusalem, Bishopric of, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
+
+<li>Jews at Dessau, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>&mdash; their privileges in Germany, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li>
+
+<li>Johnson, Manuel, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his art treasures, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li>
+
+<li>Jowett, Professor, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Kaliwoda</span>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li>
+
+<li>Kant&#8217;s &#8220;Kritik,&#8221; <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li>
+
+<li>Kaspar Hauser, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>Keshub Chunder Sen, <a href="#Page_61">61</a></li>
+
+<li>Kingsley, Charles, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; and muscular Christianity, <a href="#Page_309">309</a></li>
+
+<li>Klengel, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li>Kuhn, A., <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Lamartine</span>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li>Language, influence of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; differentiation of, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; science of, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li>
+
+<li>Lassen, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+
+<li>Latham, Dr., <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li>
+
+<li>Layard, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Leipzig, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; school at, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; University, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li>
+
+<li>Lepsius, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li>
+
+<li>Liberals at University, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li>
+
+<li>Liddell, Dr., <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; and Mrs., <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li>
+
+<li>Liddell&#8217;s Dictionary, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>Liszt, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>London, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; society, peeps into, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s social difficulties, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>-<a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li>Longchamps, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li>
+
+<li>Lotze, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Louis Lucien Bonaparte, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li>Louis Napoleon, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+
+<li>Luther, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his love of fairy tales, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; tercentenary, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Maitland, Sir Peregrine</span>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
+
+<li>Mammoth, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>Manning, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li>Masters, influence of, in German and English schools, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li>
+
+<li>Maurice, Frederick, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Pusey&#8217;s attack on, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
+
+<li>Memory changes, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li>
+
+<li>Mendelssohn family, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li>
+
+<li>Mendelssohn, Felix, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his death, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his concert for Liszt, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>Mendelssohn&#8217;s &#8220;Hymn of Praise,&#8221; <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; music in Oxford, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li>
+
+<li>Metternich, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his system, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li>Mezzofanti, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>Michelet, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Mill, John Stuart, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his Autos, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li>
+
+<li>Mill, Dr., mention of a Vedic hymn printed at Calcutta, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+
+<li>Milton on Oxford, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+
+<li>Modern Literature, Professorship of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li>Mommsen, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>Moncalm, &#8220;L&#8217;origine de la Pens&eacute;e,&#8221; <a href="#Page_10">10</a> <i>n.</i></li>
+
+<li>Monk, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s wish to be a, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li>Monument-raising, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li>
+
+<li>Morier, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>-<a href="#Page_279">279</a></li>
+
+<li>Mother, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; her relations, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
+
+<li>Mozley, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>MSS., copying, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li>
+
+<li>Mulde, excursion on foot along the, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li>M&uuml;ller, Wilhelm, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his poems, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his family, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his home and society, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; early death, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; monument to, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li>
+
+<li>Music, its influence on M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; wished to make it his career, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Myst&egrave;res de Paris,&#8221; <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Natural Science</span> and Mathematics little taught at Nicolai-Schule, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li>Neander, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li>Newman, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>-<a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; want of openness in his friends, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his influence, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; on &#8220;Lives of the Saints,&#8221; <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li>
+
+<li>Newspapers few in number, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; influence of modern, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; old, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li>
+
+<li>Nicolai-Schule, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; chiefly for classics, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a></li>
+
+<li>Niebuhr, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+
+<li>Niedner, Dr., <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li>
+
+<li>Nirukta, the, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li>
+
+<li>Nobbe, Dr., <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his testimonial, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Old</span> and young men, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+
+<li>Oriental languages, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li>Orl&eacute;ans, Duchesse d&#8217;, <a href="#Page_177">177</a></li>
+
+<li>Oxford, first visit to, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; settled at, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; social life at, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; changes in, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>-<a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; new buildings, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; conservative, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Greene&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Hentzner&#8217;s description of, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Giordano Bruno on, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; Milton on, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; society in 1810, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>-<a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; great changes in, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; society at, in the forties and fifties, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; city society of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; high tone of talk, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; theological atmosphere at, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; trivial questions of ceremony in, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Palgrave</span>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Palm, Dr., <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li>
+
+<li>Palmerston, Lord, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li>
+
+<li>P&acirc;nini, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; his grammar, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li>Pantschatantra, <a href="#Page_51">51</a></li>
+
+<li>Paper, scarcity of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+
+<li>Parental influences, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>Paris, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li>
+
+<li>Paris, journey to, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; meals there, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; hard struggles in, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li>
+
+<li>Patagonians as types of humanity, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li>
+
+<li>Peel, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Philanthropinum, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li>
+
+<li>Philology, love of, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li>
+
+<li>Philosophy, studied by M.&nbsp;M., <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li>Physical science, revolt of, against Hegel, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+
+<li>Pillar and pillow, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Pitar,&#8221; father, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li>Pitcairn Islands, <a href="#Page_18">18</a></li>
+
+<li>Plumptre, Dr., <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li>
+
+<li>Poems, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li>Pollen, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Pott, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li>
+
+<li>Pranks at University, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li>
+
+<li>&#8220;Presence of mind,&#8221; <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
+
+<li>Prichard, Dr., <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li>
+
+<li>Professor&#8217;s lectures and fees, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li>Professors, feeling of German students for their, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li>
+
+<li>Proto-Aryan language, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li>Prowe, Professor, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li>Public schools in Germany, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; in England need reforming, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li>
+
+<li>Pusey, Dr., <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Race</span>, differentiation of, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li>Rawlinson, Sir H., <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Reay, Professor, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li>
+
+<li>Reinaud, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li>
+
+<li>Religion, practical, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a></li>
+
+<li>Religious feeling in Germany, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; great tolerance in, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; sentiments must be taught at home, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; teaching in school, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li>
+
+<li>Renan, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
+
+<li>Research, fellowships for, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li>
+
+<li>Revelation, subjective not objective, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; in the old sense, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li>
+
+<li>Rigaud, John, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Rig-veda, how to publish the, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; printing of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li>
+
+<li>Roman Catholic Church, English national feeling opposed to, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li>
+
+<li>Rose-bush, vision of the, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li>Roth, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li>
+
+<li>Routh, Dr., <a href="#Page_247">247</a>-<a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li>Rubens, Levy, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li>
+
+<li>Ruskin, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
+
+<li>Russell, Sir W., <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Sadowa</span>, and Sixty-six, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li>
+
+<li>St. Hilaire, Barth&eacute;lemy, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li>
+
+<li>St. Petersburg, idea of going to, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li>
+
+<li>Salis-Schwabe, Madame, <a href="#Page_98">98</a></li>
+
+<li>Salmon at Dessau, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>&#8220;Salve caput cruentatum,&#8221; <a href="#Page_59">59</a></li>
+
+<li>Sanskrit Professorship, vii, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; chair of, at Leipzig, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; feeling against, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; unedited works, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li>Savigny, Professor, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li>
+
+<li>S&acirc;yana&#8217;s Commentary, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>-<a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li>Schelling, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+
+<li>Schlegel&#8217;s &#8220;Weisheit der Indier,&#8221; <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li>
+
+<li>Schleswig-Holstein question, <a href="#Page_276">276</a></li>
+
+<li>Schloezer, Karl von, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li>
+
+<li>School teaching, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; success at, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; routine of learning, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li>
+
+<li>Schopenhauer, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li>
+
+<li>Selbst-Kritik, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li>
+
+<li>Self, the, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li>Sellar, Professor, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li>
+
+<li>Seminaries and societies at University, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li>
+
+<li>Senatus Academicus, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li>
+
+<li>Shelley, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li>
+
+<li>Simolin, Baron, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li>
+
+<li>Sister, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li>Spiegel, Professor, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li>
+
+<li>Sport, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s dislike of, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li>
+
+<li>Stanislas Julien, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li>
+
+<li>Stanley, Dr., <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a></li>
+
+<li>Steel pens, <a href="#Page_67">67</a></li>
+
+<li>Stories in Oxford, regular descent of, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li>
+
+<li>Strauss, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a></li>
+
+<li>Stubengelehrter, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a></li>
+
+<li>Student Clubs, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+
+<li>Student life in Paris, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li>Sunday games at the Observatory, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li>
+
+<li>Sykes, Colonel, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li>
+
+<li>Symons, Dr., <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li>
+
+<li>Sympathy in the joys and sufferings of others, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Tait, Dr.</span>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li>
+
+<li>Talents in families, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a></li>
+
+<li>Taylorian Professorship, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li>
+
+<li>Telegraphs, old, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li>
+
+<li>Testimonials, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li>
+
+<li>Thalberg, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>Thirlwall, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Thomson, Dr. and Mrs., <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li>
+
+<li>Tippoo Sahib&#8217;s tiger, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li>
+
+<li>Travelling in the thirties, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li>
+
+<li>Troyer, M., and the Duchesse de Wagram, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li>Truth, <a href="#Page_312">312</a></li>
+
+<li>Turanian languages, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s letter on, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li>
+
+<li>Tutors and Fellows, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; their influence, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">University</span>, M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s life at, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; pranks, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; duels at, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>-<a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li>University Press, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li>
+
+<li>Upanishads, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Van der Weyer</span>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>Veda, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>-<a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>
+
+<li>Veda, a mystery, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; MSS. of, in India, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; &mdash; brought to Europe, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; oldest of real books, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; primitive thought in the, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>-<a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; date of, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; translations of, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; East India Company and the, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; forming correct text of the Rig-, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; enormous work involved, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li>
+
+<li>Vedic scholarship, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Veih</i>, home, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li><i>Vernunft</i> and <i>Verstand</i>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li>
+
+<li>Vigfusson, Dr., <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li>
+
+<li>Voltairian philosophy at Oxford, <a href="#Page_307">307</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Weismann</span>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>-<a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li>Weisse, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>-<a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li>
+
+<li>Wellesley, Dr., <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
+
+<li>Wellington, Duke of, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li>
+
+<li>Westminster Abbey and St. Peter&#8217;s, <a href="#Page_304">304</a></li>
+
+<li>Wilberforce, Samuel, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li>Wilson, Professor, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li>
+
+<li>Wiseman, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li>
+
+<li>Wolf, F.&nbsp;A., <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li>
+
+<li>Wolseley, Lord, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li>
+
+<li>Wren, Sir Christopher, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li>
+
+<li>Wright, Dr., <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Youth</span> painted by the old, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li>
+
+<li>&nbsp;</li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">Zerbst</span>, examined at, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+<li>&mdash; M.&nbsp;M.&#8217;s examiners at, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li>Zeus, Dyaus, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<div class="advertisements">
+<h2 style="border-bottom: solid black 1px; padding-bottom: 1em"><a name="OTHER_BOOKS_BY_MAX_MUeLLER" id="OTHER_BOOKS_BY_MAX_MUeLLER"></a>OTHER BOOKS BY MAX M&Uuml;LLER</h2>
+
+
+<h3>Auld Lang Syne</h3>
+
+<h4><i>First Series.</i> Illustrated. 8vo, $2.00</h4>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;This book, the fruit of enforced leisure, as its
+author tells us, is a charming mass of gossip about
+people whom Professor Max M&uuml;ller has known
+during his long career&mdash;musicians, literary men,
+princes, and beggars. The last class is not, perhaps,
+the least interesting or amusing. To our
+mind, however, the chapter on musicians, with its
+delightful pictures of the author&#8217;s early life, and
+the na&iuml;ve confessions as to musical tastes, with
+some of the stories about celebrated composers,
+forms the most interesting portion of a work which
+has not one dull page.&#8221;&mdash;<i>The Spectator.</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One of the most charming examples of reminiscent
+literature that has recently seen the light.&#8221;&mdash;New
+York <i>Sun</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h3>Auld Lang Syne</h3>
+
+<h4><i>Second Series.</i> <b>My Indian Friends.</b> 8vo, $2.00.</h4>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;The professor&#8217;s &#8216;Indian Friends&#8217; are not all
+of the nineteenth century. His oldest friends are
+in the Veda, about which he has always loved to
+write. Indeed, he spent the best years of his life
+over the text of the Rig Veda, and has a clear
+right to be heard upon the classic he has done so
+much to make familiar.... But the real charm
+of his recollections lies rather in their peaceful
+kindliness, in their wide and tolerant sympathies,
+and in their earnest aim, which will surely be
+attained in some measure, of bringing what is best
+in India closer home to foreigners.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Literature.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Science of Language</h3>
+
+<h4>Founded on Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution.
+<i>New Edition from New Plates. Largely
+Re-written.</i> In 2 vols., crown 8vo, $6.00.</h4>
+
+<p><i>CONTENTS:&mdash;Vol. I.&mdash;The Science of Language one of
+the Physical Sciences; The Growth of Language in Contradistinction
+to the History of Language; The Empirical Stage
+in the Science of Language; The Classificatory Stage in the
+Science of Language; The Genealogical Classification of
+Languages; Comparative Grammar; The Constituent Elements
+of Language; The Morphological Classification of
+Languages; The Theoretical Stage in the Science of Language&mdash;Origin
+of Language; Genealogical Tables of Languages.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>CONTENTS:&mdash;Vol. II.&mdash;Introductory Lecture. New
+Materials for the Science of Language and New Theories;
+Language and Reason; The Physiological Alphabet; Phonetic
+Change; Grimm&#8217;s Law; On the Principles of Etymology;
+On the Powers of Roots; Metaphor; The Mythology of the
+Greeks; Jupiter, The Supreme Aryan God; Myths of the
+Dawn; Modern Mythology.</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In practical value to the student of the science
+of language, the work stands alone.&#8221;&mdash;Boston
+<i>Transcript</i>.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h3>Ramakrishna</h3>
+
+<h4><b>His Life and Sayings.</b> Crown 8vo, $1.50 <i>net</i>.</h4>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;As a whole the little book marks one of the
+summit points of recent scientific religious literature.
+Max M&uuml;ller&#8217;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&#8217;s personality and
+teaching.&#8221;&mdash;<i>American Historical Review.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Science of Thought</h3>
+
+<h4><i>Two Volumes.</i> Crown 8vo, $4.00.</h4>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of the portion of the work in which the
+author exemplifies and illustrates his theory&mdash;his
+analysis of the Sanskrit roots, his chapters on Kant&#8217;s
+philosophy, on the formation of words, on propositions
+and syllogisms&mdash;it is only necessary to say
+that while they contain, along with much that will
+reward a careful study, not a little that will arouse
+controversy, they have, like all the author&#8217;s former
+productions, the prime merit of being free
+from the two greatest of literary faults&mdash;obscurity
+and dulness. A work in which two of the driest
+and hardest of studies, analytic philology and
+mental philosophy, are made at once lucid and
+attractive, is an acquisition for which all students
+of those mysteries have reason to be grateful.&#8221;&mdash;New
+York <i>Evening Post</i>.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h3>Science of Religion</h3>
+
+<h4>Lectures on the Science of Religion; with
+Papers on Buddhism, and a Translation of the
+Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue. Crown 8vo,
+$2.00.</h4>
+
+<p><i>CONTENTS:&mdash;LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF
+RELIGION; BUDDHIST NIHILISM; BUDDHA&#8217;S
+DHAMMAPADA, OR &#8220;PATH OF VIRTUE&#8221;; Introduction;
+The Twin-Verses; On Reflection; Thought;
+Flowers; The Fool; The Wise Man; The Venerable; The
+Thousands; Evil; Punishment; Old Age; Self; The World;
+The Awakened (Buddha); Happiness; Pleasure; Anger;
+Impurity; The Just; The Way; Miscellaneous; The Downward
+Course; The Elephant; Thirst; The Bhikshu (Mendicant);
+The Brahmana.</i></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Chips from a German
+Workshop</h3>
+
+<h4><i>Five Volumes.</i> Crown 8vo, $2.00 per vol.; the set, $10.00.</h4>
+
+<p style="text-indent: 0em">
+Vol. I. Essays on the Science of Religion.<br />
+<br />
+Vol. II. Essays on Mythology, Traditions and Customs.<br />
+<br />
+Vol. III. Essays on Literature, Biography and Antiquities.<br />
+<br />
+Vol. IV. Comparative Philology, Mythology, etc.<br />
+<br />
+Vol. V. Miscellaneous. Later Essays.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="ads"><b>Lectures on the Origin and Growth of
+Religion</b>, as Illustrated by the Religions of
+India. [<i>Hibbert Lectures for 1878.</i>] Crown
+8vo, $1.50 <i>net</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="ads"><b>Biographical Essays</b>: R&acirc;mmohun Roy&mdash;Keshub
+Chunder Sen&mdash;Day&acirc;nanda Sarasvat&icirc;&mdash;Bunyiu
+Nanjio&mdash;Kenjiu Kasawara&mdash;Mohl&mdash;Kingsley.
+Crown 8vo, $2.00.</p>
+
+<p class="ads"><b>The German Classics.</b> From the Fourth to
+the Nineteenth Century. With biographical
+notices, translations into modern German and
+notes. <i>A New Edition, Revised, Enlarged
+and Adapted to</i> <span class="smcap">Sherer&#8217;s</span> &#8220;History of German
+Literature.&#8221;  2 vols, $6.00 <i>net</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center" style="padding-top: 1em">
+<span class="smcap">Charles Scribner&#8217;s Sons</span>, <i>Publishers</i><br />
+
+153-157 <span class="smcap">Fifth Avenue, New York</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Autobiography, by F. Max M�ller
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Autobiography, by F. Max Mueller
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: My Autobiography
+       A Fragment
+
+Author: F. Max Mueller
+
+Release Date: October 16, 2009 [EBook #30269]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Irma Spehar and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Mueller Aged 4._]
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+A FRAGMENT
+
+
+BY THE
+
+
+RT. HON. PROFESSOR F. MAX MUeLLER, K.M.
+
+
+_WITH PORTRAITS_
+
+
+New York
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+1901
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+TROW DIRECTORY
+PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
+NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+For some years past my father had, in the intervals of more serious
+work, occupied his leisure moments in jotting down reminiscences of
+his early life. In 1898 and 1899 he issued the two volumes of _Auld
+Lang Syne_, which contained recollections of his friends, but very
+little about his own life and career. In the Introductory Chapter to
+the Autobiography he explains fully the reasons which led him, at his
+advanced age, to undertake the task of writing his own Life, and he
+began, but alas! too late, to gather together the fragments that he
+had written at different times. But even during the last two years of
+his life, and after the first attack of the illness which finally
+proved fatal, he would not devote himself entirely to what he
+considered mere recreation, as can be seen from such a work as his
+_Six Systems of Indian Philosophy_ published in May, 1889, and from
+the numerous articles which continued to appear up to the very time of
+his death.
+
+During the last weeks of his life, when we all knew that the end could
+not be far off, the Autobiography was constantly in his thoughts, and
+his great desire was to leave as much as possible ready for
+publication. Even when he was lying in bed far too weak to sit up in a
+chair, he continued to work at the manuscript with me. I would read
+portions aloud to him, and he would suggest alterations and dictate
+additions. I see that we were actually at work on this up to the 19th
+of October, and on the 28th he was taken to his well-earned rest. One
+of the last letters that I read to him was a letter from Messrs.
+Longmans, his lifelong publishers, urging the publication of the
+fragments of the Autobiography that he had then written.
+
+My father's object in writing his Autobiography was twofold: firstly,
+to show what he considered to have been his mission in life, to lay
+bare the thread that connected all his labours; and secondly, to
+encourage young struggling scholars by letting them see how it had
+been possible for one of themselves, without fortune, a stranger in a
+strange land, to arrive at the position to which he attained, without
+ever sacrificing his independence, or abandoning the unprofitable and
+not very popular subjects to which he had determined to devote his
+life.
+
+Unfortunately the last chapter takes us but little beyond the
+threshold of his career. There is enough, however, to enable us to see
+how from his earliest student days his leanings were philosophical and
+religious rather than classical; how the study of Herbart's philosophy
+encouraged him in the work in which he was engaged as a mere student,
+the Science of Language and Etymology; how his desire to know
+something special, that no other philosopher would know, led him to
+explore the virgin fields of Oriental literature and religions. With
+this motive he began the study of Arabic, Persian, and finally
+Sanskrit, devoting himself more especially to the latter under
+Brockhaus and Rueckert, and subsequently under Burnouf, who persuaded
+him to undertake the colossal work of editing the Rig-veda.
+
+The Autobiography breaks off before the end of the period during which
+he devoted himself exclusively to Sanskrit. It is idle to speculate
+what course his life's work might have taken, had he been elected to
+the Boden Professorship of Sanskrit; but he lived long enough to
+realize that his rejection for that chair in 1860, which was so hard
+to bear at the time, was really a blessing in disguise, as it enabled
+him to turn his attention to more general subjects, and devote himself
+to those philological, philosophical, religious and mythological
+studies, which found their expression in a series of works commencing
+with his _Lectures on the Science of Language_, 1861, and terminating
+with his _Contributions to the Science of Mythology_, 1897,--"the
+thread that connects the origin of thought and language with the
+origin of mythology and religion."
+
+As to his advice to struggling scholars, the self-depreciation,
+which, as Professor Jowett said, is one of the greatest dangers of an
+autobiography, makes my father rather conceal the real causes of his
+success in life. He even goes so far as to say, "everything in my
+career came about most naturally, not by my own effort, but owing to
+those circumstances or to that environment, of which we have heard so
+much of late": or again, "it was really my friends who did everything
+for me and helped me over many a stile and many a ditch." No doubt in
+one sense this is true, but not in the sense in which it would have
+been true had he, when at the University, accepted the offer which he
+tells us a wealthy cousin made him, to adopt him and send him into the
+Austrian diplomatic service, and even to procure him a wife and a
+title into the bargain. The friends who helped him, men such as
+Humboldt, Burnouf, Bunsen, Stanley, Kingsley, Liddell, to mention only
+a few, were men whose very friendship was the surest proof of my
+father's merits. The real secret of his success lay not in his
+friends, but in himself;--in the knowledge that his success or failure
+in life depended entirely on his own efforts; in the fixity of purpose
+which made him refuse all offers that would lead him from the pathway
+that he had laid down for himself; and in the unflagging industry with
+which he strove to reach the goal of his ambition. "My very
+struggles," he writes, "were certainly a help to me."
+
+When I came to examine the manuscript with a view to sending it to
+press, I found that there was a good deal of work necessary before it
+could be published in book form. The fragments were in many cases
+incomplete; there was no division into chapters, no connexion between
+the various periods and episodes of his life; important incidents were
+omitted; while, owing to the intermittent way in which he had been
+writing, there were frequent repetitions. My father was always most
+critical of his own style, and would often, when correcting his
+proof-sheets, alter a whole page, because a word or a phrase
+displeased him, or because some new idea, some happier mode of
+expression, occurred to him; but in the case of his Autobiography, the
+only revision that he was able to give, was on his deathbed, while I
+read the manuscript aloud to him.
+
+My father points out how rarely the sons of great musicians or great
+painters become distinguished in the same line themselves. "It seems,"
+he says, "almost as if the artistic talent were exhausted by one
+generation or one individual"; and I fear that, in my case at all
+events, the same remark applies to literary talent. I have done my
+best to string the fragments together into one connected whole, only
+making such insertions, elisions and alterations as appeared strictly
+necessary. Any deficiency in literary style that may be noticeable in
+portions of the book should be ascribed to the inexperience of the
+editor.
+
+I have thought it right to insert the last chapter, which I call "A
+Confession," though I am not sure that my father intended it to be
+included in his Autobiography. It will, however, explain the attitude
+which he observed throughout his life, in keeping aloof, as far as
+possible, from the arena of academic contention at Oxford. He was
+never chosen a member of the Hebdomadal Council, he rarely attended
+meetings of Convocation or Congregation; he felt that other people,
+with more leisure at their disposal, could be of more use there; but
+he never refused to work for his University, when he felt that he was
+able to render good service, and he acted for years as a Curator of
+the Bodleian Library and of the Taylorian Institute, and as a Delegate
+of the Clarendon Press.
+
+With reference to the illustrations, it may be of interest to readers
+to know that the portraits of my grandfather and grandmother are taken
+from pencil-drawings by Adolf Hensel, the husband of Mendelssohn's
+sister Fanny, herself a great musician, who, as my father tells us in
+_Auld Lang Syne_, really composed several of the airs that Mendelssohn
+published as his _Songs without Words_. The last portrait of my father
+is from a photograph taken soon after his arrival in Oxford by his
+great friend Thomson, afterwards Archbishop of York.
+
+Nothing now remains for me but to acknowledge the debt that I owe
+personally to this book. "Work," my father used often to say to me,
+"is the best healer of sorrow. In grief or disappointment, try hard
+work; it will not fail you." And certainly during these three sad
+months, I have proved the truth of this saying. He could not have left
+me a surer comfort or more welcome distraction than the duty of
+preparing for press these pages, the last fruits of that mind which
+remained active and fertile to the last.
+
+                                          W. G. MAX MUeLLER.
+
+  OXFORD, _January_, 1901.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                               PAGE
+
+   I. INTRODUCTORY                     1
+
+  II. CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU             46
+
+ III. SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG          97
+
+  IV. UNIVERSITY                     115
+
+   V. PARIS                          162
+
+  VI. ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND             188
+
+ VII. EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD           218
+
+VIII. EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD        272
+
+  IX. A CONFESSION                   308
+
+      INDEX                          319
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF PORTRAITS
+
+
+F. MAX MUeLLER, AGED FOUR        _Frontispiece_
+
+                                 FACING PAGE
+
+MY FATHER                            46
+
+MY MOTHER                            58
+
+F. MAX MUeLLER, AGED FOURTEEN        106
+
+    "    "     AGED TWENTY          156
+
+    "    "     AGED THIRTY          268
+
+
+
+
+MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+
+After the publication of the second volume of my _Auld Lang Syne_,
+1899, I had a good deal of correspondence, of public criticism, and of
+private communings also with myself, whether I should continue my
+biographical records in the form hitherto adopted, or give a more
+personal character to my recollections. Some of my friends were
+evidently dissatisfied. "The recollections of your friends and the
+account of the influence they exercised on you," they said, "are
+interesting, no doubt, as far as they go, but we want more. We want to
+know the springs, the aspirations, the struggles, the failures, and
+achievements of your life. We want to know how you yourself look at
+yourself and at your past life and its various incidents." What they
+really wanted was, in fact, an autobiography. "No one," as a friend of
+mine, not an Irishman, said, "could do that so well as yourself, and
+you will never escape a biographer." I confess that did not frighten
+me very much. I did not think the danger of a biography very
+imminent. Besides, I had already revised two biographies and several
+biographical notices even during my lifetime. No sensible man ought to
+care about posthumous praise or posthumous blame. Enough for the day
+is the evil thereof. Our contemporaries are our right judges, our
+peers have to give their votes in the great academies and learned
+societies, and if they on the whole are not dissatisfied with the
+little we have done, often under far greater difficulties than the
+world was aware of, why should we care for the distant future? Who was
+a greater giant in philosophy than Hegel? Who towered higher than
+Darwin in natural science? Yet in one of the best German reviews[1]
+the following words of a young German biologist[2] are quoted, and not
+without a certain approval: "Darwinism belongs now to history, like
+that other _curiosum_ of our century, the Hegelian philosophy. Both
+are variations on the theme, How can a generation be led by the nose?
+and they are not calculated to raise our departing century in the eyes
+of later generations."
+
+  [1] _Deutsche Rundschau_, Feb., 1900, p. 249.
+
+  [2] Driesch, _Biologisches Centralblatt_, 1896, p. 335.
+
+If I was afraid of anything, it was not so much the severity of future
+judges, as the extreme kindness and leniency which distinguish most
+biographies in our days. It is true, 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 murmurings. It might be said that in my own case the thread
+that connects all my labours is very visible, namely, the thread that
+connects the origin of thought and languages with the origin of
+mythology and religion. Everything I have done was, no doubt,
+subordinate to these four great problems, but to lay bare the
+connecting links between what I have written and what I wanted to
+write and never found time to write, is by no means easy, not even for
+the author himself. Besides, what author has ever said the last word
+he wanted to say, and who has not had to close his eyes before he
+could write Finis to his work? There are many things still which I
+should like to say, but I am getting tired, and others will say them
+much better than I could, and will no doubt carry on the work where I
+had to leave it unfinished. We owe much to others, and we have to
+leave much to others. For throwing light on such points an
+autobiography is, no doubt, better adapted than any biography written
+by a stranger, if only we can at the same time completely forget that
+the man who is described is the same as the man who describes.
+
+"Friends," as Professor Jowett said, "always think it necessary
+(except Boswell, that great genius) to tell lies about their deceased
+friend; they leave out all his faults lest the public should
+exaggerate them. But we want to know his faults,--hat is probably
+the most interesting part of him."
+
+Jowett knew quite well, and he did not hesitate to say so, that to do
+much good in this world, you must be a very able and honest man,
+thinking of nothing else day and night; and he adds, "you must also be
+a considerable piece of a rogue, having many reticences and
+concealments; and I believe a good sort of roguery is never to say a
+word against anybody, however much they may deserve it."
+
+Now Professor Jowett has certainly done some good work at Oxford, but
+if any one were to say that he also was a considerable piece of a
+rogue, what an outcry there would be among the sons of Balliol. Jowett
+thought that the only chance of a good biography was for a man to
+write memoirs of himself, and what a pity that he did not do so in his
+own case. His friends, however, who had to write his Life were wise,
+and he escaped what of late has happened to several eminent men. He
+escaped the testimonials for this, and testimonials for another life,
+such as they are often published in our days.
+
+Testimonials are bad enough in this life, when we have to select one
+out of many candidates as best fitted for an office, and it is but
+natural that the electors will hardly ever look at them, but will try
+to get their information through some other channel. But what are
+called _post obit_ testimonials really go beyond everything yet known
+in funeral panegyrics. Of course, as no one is asked for such
+testimonials except those who are known to have been friends of the
+departed, these testimonials hardly ever contain one word of blame.
+One feels ashamed to write such testimonials, but if you are asked,
+what can you do without giving offence? We are placed altogether in a
+false position. Let any one try to speak the truth and nothing but the
+truth, and he will find that it is almost impossible to put down
+anything that in the slightest way might seem to reflect on the
+departed. The mention of the most innocent failings in an obituary
+notice is sure to offend somebody, the widow or the children, or some
+dear friend. I thought that my Recollections had hitherto contained
+nothing that could possibly offend anybody, nothing that could not
+have been published during the lifetime of the man to whom it
+referred. But no; I had ever so many complaints, and I gladly left
+out, in later editions, names which in many cases were really of no
+consequence compared with what they said and did.
+
+Surely every man has his faults and his little and often ridiculous
+weaknesses, and these weaknesses belong quite as much to a man's
+character as his strength; nay, with the suppression of the former the
+latter would often become almost unintelligible.
+
+I like the biographies of such friends of mine as Dean Stanley,
+Charles Kingsley, and Baron Bunsen. But even these are deficient in
+those shadows which would but help to bring out all the more clearly
+the bright points in their character. We should remember the words of
+Dr. Wendell Holmes: "We all want to draw perfect ideals, and all the
+coin that comes from Nature's mint is more or less clipped, filed,
+'sweated,' or bruised, and bent and worn, even if it was pure metal
+when stamped, which is more than we can claim, I suppose, for anything
+human." True, very true; and what would the departed himself say to
+such biographies as are now but too common,--most flattering pictures
+no doubt, but pictures without one spot or wrinkle? In Germany it was
+formerly not an uncommon thing for the author of a book to write a
+self-review (Selbst-Kritik), and these were generally far better than
+reviews written by friends or enemies. For who knows the strong and
+weak points of a book so well as the author? True; but a whole life is
+more difficult to review and to criticize than a single book.
+Nevertheless it must be admitted that an autobiography has many
+advantages, and it might be well if every man of note, nay, every man
+who has something to say for himself that he wishes posterity to know,
+should say it himself. This would in time form a wonderful archive for
+psychological study. Something of the kind has been done already at
+Berlin in preserving private correspondences. Of course it is
+difficult to keep such archives within reasonable limits, but here
+again I am not afraid of self-laudation so much as of self-depreciation.
+
+Professor Jowett, who did not write his own biography, was quite
+right in saying that there is great danger of an autobiography being
+rather self-depreciatory; there is certainly something so nauseous in
+self-praise that most people would shrink far more from self-praise
+than from self-blame. There may be some kind of subtle self-admiration
+even in the fault-finding of an outspoken autobiographer; but who can
+dive into those deepest depths of the human soul? To me it seems that
+if an honest man takes himself by the neck, and shakes himself, he can
+do it far better than anybody else, and the castigation, if well
+deserved, comes certainly with a far better grace from himself than if
+administered by others.
+
+Few men, I believe, know their real goodness and greatness. Some of
+the most handsome women, so we are assured, pass through life without
+ever knowing from their looking-glass that they are handsome. And it
+is certainly true that men, from sad experience, know their weak
+points far better than their good points, which they look on as no
+more than natural.
+
+The Autos, for instance, described by John Stuart Mill, has no cause
+to be grateful to the Autos that wrote his biography. Mill had been
+threatened by several future biographers, and he therefore wrote the
+short biographical account of himself almost in self-defence. But
+besides the truly miraculous, and, if related by anybody else, hardly
+credible achievements of his early boyhood and youth, his great
+achievements in later life, the influence which he exercised both by
+his writings and still more by his personal and public character,
+would have found a far more eloquent and truthful interpreter in a
+stranger than in Mill himself. I remember another case where a most
+distinguished author tried to escape the oil and the blessings,
+perhaps the opposite also, from the hands of his future biographers.
+Froude destroyed the whole of his correspondence, and he wished
+particularly that all letters written to him in the fullest confidence
+should be burnt,--and they were. I think it was a pity, for I know
+what valuable letters were destroyed in that _auto da fe_; and yet
+when he had done all this, he seems to have been seized with fear, and
+just before he returned to Oxford as Regius Professor of Modern
+History he began to write a sketch of his own life, which was found
+among his papers. Interesting it certainly was, but fortunately his
+best friends prevented its publication. It would have added nothing to
+what we know of him in his writings, and would never have put his real
+merits in their proper light. Besides, it came to an end with his
+youth and told us little of his real life.
+
+I flattered myself that I had found the true way out of all these
+difficulties, by writing not exactly my own life, but recollections of
+my friends and acquaintances who had influenced me most, and guided me
+in my not always easy passage through life. As in describing the
+course of a river, we cannot do better than to describe the shores
+which hem in and divert the river and are reflected on its waves, I
+thought that by describing my environment, my friends, and fellow
+workers, I could best describe the course of my own life. I hoped also
+that in this way I myself could keep as much as possible in the
+background, and yet in describing the wooded or rocky shores with
+their herds, their cottages, and churches, describe their reflected
+image on the passing river.
+
+But now I am asked to give a much fuller account of myself, not only
+of what I have seen, but also of what I have been, what were the
+objects or ideals of my life, how far I have succeeded in carrying
+them out, and, as I said, how often I have failed to accomplish what I
+had sketched out as my task in life. People wished to know how a boy,
+born and educated in a small and almost unknown town in the centre of
+Germany, should have come to England, should have been chosen there to
+edit the oldest book of the world, the Veda of the Brahmans, never
+published before, whether in India or in Europe, should have passed
+the best part of his life as a professor in the most famous and, as it
+was thought, the most exclusive University in England, and should
+actually have ended his days as a Member of Her Majesty's most
+honourable Privy Council. I confess myself it seems a very strange
+career, yet everything came about most naturally, not by my own
+effort, but owing again to those circumstances or to that environment
+of which we have heard so much of late.
+
+Young, struggling men also have written to me, 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
+England. They knew, for I had never made any secret of it, how poor I
+was in worldly goods, and how, as I said at Glasgow, I had nothing to
+depend on after I left the University, but those fingers with which I
+still hold my pen and write so badly that I can hardly read my
+manuscript myself. When I arrived I had no family connections in
+England, nor any influential friends, "and yet," I was told, "in a
+foreign country, you managed to reach the top of your profession. Tell
+us how you did it; and how you preserved at the same time your
+independence and never forsook the not very popular subjects, such as
+language, mythology, religion, and philosophy, on which you continued
+to write to the very end of your life."
+
+I generally said that most of these questions could best be answered
+from my books, but they replied that few people had time to read all I
+had written, and many would feel grateful for a thread to lead them
+through this labyrinth of books, essays, and pamphlets, which have
+issued from my workshop during the last fifty years.[3]
+
+  [3] As giving a clear and complete abstract of my writings I
+  may now recommend M. Montcalm's _L'origine de la Pensee et de
+  la Parole_, Paris, 1900.
+
+All I could say was that each man must find his own way in life, but
+if there was any secret about my success, it was simply due to the
+fact that I had perfect faith, and went on never doubting even when
+everything looked grey and black about me. I felt convinced that what
+I cared for, and what I thought worthy of a whole life of hard work,
+must in the end be recognized by others also as of value, and as
+worthy of a certain support from the public. Had not Layard gained a
+hearing for Assyrian bulls? Did not Darwin induce the world to take an
+interest in Worms, and in the Fertilization of Orchids? And should the
+oldest book and the oldest thoughts of the Aryan world remain despised
+and neglected?
+
+For many years I never thought of appointments or of getting on in the
+world in a pecuniary sense. My friends often laughed at me, and when I
+think of it now, I confess I must have seemed very Quixotic to many of
+those who tried for this and that, got lucrative appointments, married
+rich wives, became judges and bishops, ambassadors and ministers, and
+could hardly understand what I was driving at with my Sanskrit
+manuscripts, my proof-sheets and revises. Perhaps I did not know
+myself. Still I was not quite so foolish as they imagined. True, I
+declined several offers made to me which seemed very advantageous in a
+worldly sense, but would have separated me entirely from my favourite
+work.
+
+When at last a professorship of Modern Literature was offered me at
+Oxford, I made up my mind, though it was not exactly what I should
+have liked, to give up half of my time to studies required by this
+professorship, keeping half of my time for the Veda and for Sanskrit
+in general. This was not so bad after all. People often laughed at me
+for being professor of the most modern languages, and giving so much
+of my time and labour to the most ancient language and literature in
+the world. Perhaps it was not quite right my giving up so much of my
+time to modern languages, a subject so remote from my work in life,
+but it was a concession which I could make with a good conscience,
+having always held that language was one and indivisible, and that
+there never had been a break between Sanskrit, Latin, and French, or
+Sanskrit, Gothic, and German. One of my first lectures at Oxford was
+"On the antiquity of modern languages," so that I gave full notice to
+the University as to how I meant to treat my subject, and on the whole
+the University seems to have been satisfied with my professorial work,
+so that when afterwards for very good reasons, whether financial,
+theological, or national, I, or rather my friends, failed to secure a
+majority in Convocation for a professorship of Sanskrit, the
+University actually founded for me a Professorship of Comparative
+Philology, an honour of which I had never dreamt, and to secure which
+I certainly had never taken any steps.
+
+Here is all my secret. At first, as I said, it required faith, but it
+also required for many years a perfect indifference as to worldly
+success. And here again in my career as a Sanskrit scholar, mere
+circumstances were of great importance. They were circumstances which
+I was glad to accept, but which I could never have created myself. 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 each. It was at the time
+when the fate of the Company hung in the balance, and when Bunsen, the
+Prussian Minister, made himself _persona grata_ by delivering a speech
+at one of the public dinners in the City, setting forth in eloquent
+words the undeniable merits of the Old Company and the wonderful work
+they had achieved. It was likewise a mere accident that I should have
+become known to Bunsen, and that he should have shown me so much
+kindness in my literary work. He had himself tried hard to go to India
+to discover the Rig-veda, nay, to find out whether there was still
+such a thing as the Veda in India. The same Bunsen, His Excellency
+Baron Bunsen, the Prussian Minister in London, on his own accord went
+afterwards to see the Chairman and the Directors of the East India
+Company, and explained to them what the Rig-veda was, and that it
+would be a real disgrace if such a work were published in Germany; and
+they agreed to vote a sum of money such as they had never voted
+before for any literary undertaking. Though after the mutiny nothing
+could save them, 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 Company,--much abused though
+splendidly defended also by no less a man than John Stuart Mill.
+
+This is what I mean by friends and circumstances, 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 myself.
+Small and large things work wonderfully together. It was the change
+threatening the government of India, and a mighty change it was, that
+gave me the chance of publishing the Veda, a very small matter as it
+may seem in the eyes of most people, and yet intended to bring about
+quite as mighty a change in our views of the ancient people of the
+world, particularly of their languages and religions. This, too--the
+development of language and religion--seems of importance to some
+people who do not care two straws for the East India Company,
+particularly if it helps us to learn what we really are ourselves, and
+how we came to be what we are.
+
+In one sense biographies and autobiographies are certainly among the
+most valuable materials for the historian. Biography, as Heinrich
+Simon, not Henri Simon, said, is the best kind of history, and the
+life of one man, if laid open before us with all he thought and all he
+did, gives us a better insight into the history of his time than any
+general account of it can possibly do.
+
+Now it is quite true that the life of a quiet scholar has little to do
+with history, except it may be the history of his own branch of study,
+which some people consider quite unimportant, while to others it seems
+all-important. This is as it ought to be, till the universal historian
+finds the right perspective, and assigns to each branch of study and
+activity its proper place in the panorama of the progress of mankind
+towards its ideals. Even a quiet scholar, if he keeps his eyes open,
+may now and then see something that is of importance to the historian.
+While I was living in small rooms at Leipzig, or lodging _au
+cinquieme_ in the Rue Royale at Paris, or copying manuscripts in a
+dark room of the old East India House in Leadenhall Street, I now and
+then caught glimpses of the mighty stream of history as it was rushing
+by. At Leipzig I saw much of Robert Blum who was afterwards _fusille_
+at Vienna by Windischgraetz in defiance of all international law, for
+he was a member of the German Diet, then sitting at Frankfurt. From my
+windows at Paris I looked over the _Boulevard de la Madeleine_, and
+down on the right to the _Chambre des Deputes_, and I saw from my
+windows the throne of Louis Philippe carried along by its four legs by
+four women on horseback, with Phrygian caps and red scarfs, 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
+street. In my small study at the East India House I saw several of the
+Directors, Colonel Sykes and others, and heard them discussing the
+fate of the East India Company and of the vast empire of India too,
+and at the same time the private interests of those who hoped to be
+Members of the new India Council, and those who despaired of that
+distinction. I was the first to bring the news of the French
+Revolution in February to London, and presented a bullet that had
+smashed the windows of my room at Paris, to Bunsen, who took it in the
+evening to Lord Palmerston. After I had seen the Revolution in Paris
+and the flight of the King and the Duchesse d'Orleans, I was in time
+to see in London the Chartist Deputation to Parliament, and the
+assembled police in Trafalgar Square, when Louis Napoleon served as a
+Special Constable, and I heard the Duke of Wellington explain to
+Bunsen, that though no soldier was seen in the streets there was
+artillery hidden under the bridges, and ready to act if wanted. I
+could add more, but I must not anticipate, and after all, to me all
+these great events seemed but small compared with a new manuscript of
+the Veda sent from India, or a better reading of an obscure passage.
+_Diversos diversa iuvant_, and it is fortunate that it should be so.
+
+All these things, I thought, should form part of my Recollections,
+and my own little self should disappear as much as possible. Even the
+pronoun I should meet the reader but seldom, though in Recollections
+it was as impossible to leave it out altogether as it would be to take
+away the lens from a photographic camera. Now I believe I have always
+been most willing to yield to my friends, 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 struggles; but I must on the
+whole adhere to my old plan. I could not, if I would, neglect the
+environment of my life, and the many friends that advised and helped
+me, and enabled me to achieve the little that I may have achieved in
+my own line of study.
+
+If my friends had been different from what they were, should I not
+have become a different man myself, whether for good or for evil? And
+the same applies to our natural surroundings also. And here I must
+invoke the patience of my readers, if I try to explain in as few words
+as possible what I think about _environment_, and what about
+_heredity_ or _atavism_.
+
+I was a thorough Darwinian in ascribing the shaping of my career to
+environment, though I was always very averse to atavism, of which we
+have heard so much lately in most biographies. Even with respect to
+environment, however, I could not go quite so far as certain of our
+Darwinian friends, who maintain that everything is the result of
+environment, or translated into biographical language, that everybody
+is a creature of circumstances. No, I could not go so far as that.
+Environment may shape our course and may shape us, but there must be
+something that is shaped, and allows itself to be shaped. 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 life. That he
+grew then a thicker fur, I knew, but that surely does not explain the
+whole of the Mammoth, with and without a thick fur, before and after
+the fur. It is really a pity to see for how many of these downright
+absurdities Darwin is made responsible by the Darwinians. He has
+clearly shown how in many cases the individual may be modified almost
+beyond recognition by environment, but the individual must always have
+been there first. Before we had a spaniel and a Newfoundland dog there
+must have been some kind of dog, neither so small as the spaniel nor
+so large as the Newfoundland, and no one would now doubt that these
+two belonged to the same species and presupposed some kind of a less
+modified canine creature. It is equally true that every individual man
+has been modified by his surroundings or environment, if not to the
+same extent as certain animals, yet very considerably, as in the case
+of Kaspar Hauser, the man with the iron mask, or the mutineers of the
+_Bounty_ in the Pitcairn Islands. But there must have been the man
+first, before he could be so modified. Now it was this very
+individual, my own self in fact, the spiritual self even more than the
+physical, that interested my critics, while I thought that the
+circumstances which moulded that self would be of far greater interest
+than the self itself. Of course all the modifications that men now
+undergo are nothing if compared to the early modifications which
+produced what we speak of as racial, linguistic, or even national
+peculiarities. That we are English or German, that we are white or
+black, nay, if you like, that we are human beings at all, all this has
+modified our self, or our germ-plasm, far more powerfully than
+anything that can happen to us as individuals now.
+
+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 young,
+struggling man, all I could say was that here again it was really my
+friends who did everything for me, and helped me over many a stile,
+and many a ditch, nay, without whom I should never have done whatever
+I did for the Sciences of Language, of Mythology, and Religion, in
+fact for Anthropology in the widest sense of that word. My very
+struggles were certainly a help to me, even my opponents were most
+useful to me. The subjects on which I wrote had hardly been touched on
+in England, at least from the historical point of view which I took,
+and I had not only to overcome the indifference of the public, but to
+disarm as much as possible the prejudices often felt, and sometimes
+expressed also, against anything made in Germany! Now I confess I
+could never understand such a prejudice among men of science. Was I
+more right or more wrong because I was born in Germany? Is scientific
+truth the exclusive property of one nation, of Germany, or of England?
+If I say two and two make four in German, is that less true because it
+is said by a German? and if I say, no language without thought, no
+thought without language, has that anything to do with my native
+country? The prejudice against strangers and particularly against
+Germans is, no doubt, much stronger now than it was at the time when I
+first came to England. I had spent nearly two years in Paris, and
+there too there existed then so little of unfriendly feeling towards
+Germany, that one of the best reviews to which the rising scholars and
+best writers of Paris contributed was actually called _Revue
+Germanique_. Who would now venture to publish in Paris such a review
+and under such a title? If there existed such an anti-German feeling
+anywhere in England when I arrived here in the year 1846, one would
+suppose that it existed most strongly at Oxford. And so it did, no
+doubt, particularly among theologians. With them German meant much the
+same as unorthodox, and unorthodox was enough at that time to taboo a
+man at Oxford. In one of the sermons preached in these early days at
+St. Mary's, German theologians such as Strauss and Neander (_sic_)
+were spoken of as fit only to be drowned in the German Ocean, before
+they reached the shores of England. I do not add what followed: the
+story is too well known. I was chiefly amused by the juxtaposition of
+Strauss and Neander, whose most orthodox lectures on the history of
+the Christian Church I had attended at Berlin. Neander was certainly
+to us at Berlin the very pattern of orthodoxy, and people wondered at
+my attending his lectures. But they were good and honest lectures. He
+was quite a character, and I feel tempted to go a little out of my way
+in speaking of him. By birth a Jew, he became one of the most learned
+Christian divines. Ever so many stories were told of him, some true,
+some no doubt invented. I saw him often walking to and from the
+University to give his lectures in a large fur coat, with high black
+polished boots beneath, but showing occasionally as he walked along.
+It was told that he once sent for a doctor because he was lame. The
+doctor on examining his feet, saw that one boot was covered with mud,
+while the other was perfectly clean. The Professor had walked with one
+foot on the pavement, with the other in the gutter, and was far too
+much absorbed in his ideas to discover the true cause of his
+discomfort. He lived with his sister, who took complete care of him
+and saw to his wardrobe also. She knew that he wore one pair of
+trousers, and that on a certain day in the year the tailor brought him
+a new pair. Great was her amazement when one day, after her brother
+had gone to the University, she discovered his pair of trousers lying
+on a chair near his bed. She at once sent a servant to the Professor's
+lecture-room to inquire whether he had his trousers on. The hilarity
+of his class may be imagined. The fact was it was the very day on
+which the tailor was in the habit of bringing the new pair of
+trousers, which the Professor had put on, leaving his usual garment
+behind.
+
+Many more stories of his absent-mindedness were _en vogue_ about Dr.
+Neander, but that this man, a pillar of strength to the orthodox in
+Germany, who was looked up to as an infallible Pope, should have his
+name coupled with that of Strauss certainly gave one a little shock.
+Yet it was at Oxford that I pitched my tent, chiefly in order to
+superintend the printing of my Rig-veda at the University Press there,
+and never dreaming that a fellowship, still less a professorship in
+that ancient Tory University, would ever be offered to me.
+
+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
+Pope; and yet in time I was chosen a Fellow of All Souls, and the
+first married Fellow of the College, and even a professorship was
+offered to me when I least expected it. The fact is, I never thought
+of either, and no one was more surprised than myself when I was asked
+to act as deputy, and then as full Taylorian Professor; no one could
+have mistrusted his eyes more than I did, 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 fellows. My ambition had never soared
+so high. I was thinking of returning to Leipzig as a _Privat-docent_,
+to rise afterwards to an extraordinary and, if all went well, to an
+ordinary professorship.
+
+But after these two appointments at Oxford had secured to me what I
+thought a fair social and financial position in England, I did not
+feel justified in attempting to begin life again in Germany. I had not
+asked for a professorship or fellowship. They were offered me, and my
+ambition never went beyond securing what was necessary for my
+independence. In Germany I was supposed to have become quite wealthy;
+in England people knew how small my income really was, and wondered
+how I managed to live on it. 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 Oxford. I could not see anything anomalous in a German holding
+a professorship in England. There were several cases of the same kind
+in Germany. Lassen (1800-1876), our great Sanskrit professor at Bonn,
+was a Norwegian by birth, and no one ever thought of his nationality.
+What had that to do with his knowledge of Sanskrit? Nor was I ever
+treated as an alien or as intruder at Oxford, at least not at that
+early time. As to myself, I had now obtained what seemed to me a small
+but sufficient income with perfect independence. The quiet life of a
+quiet student had been from my earliest days my ideal in life. Even at
+school at Dessau, when we boys talked of what we hoped to be, I
+remember how my ideal was that of a monk, undisturbed in his
+monastery, surrounded by books and by a few friends. The idea that I
+should ever rise to be a professor in a university, or that any career
+like that of my father, grandfather, and other members of my family
+would ever be open to me, never entered my mind then. It seemed to me
+almost disloyal to think of ever taking their places. Even when I saw
+that there were no longer any Protestant monks, no Benedictines, the
+place of an assistant in a large library, sitting in a quiet corner,
+was my highest ambition.
+
+I do not see why it should have been so, for all my relations and
+friends occupied high places in the public service, but as I had no
+father to open my eyes, 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 mother, whose one desire
+was to be left alone, much as the world tempted her, then not yet
+thirty years old, to give up her mourning and to return to society.
+Thus it soon became my own philosophy of life, to be left alone, free
+to go my own way, or like Diogenes, to live in my own tub. Here we see
+what I call the influence of circumstances, of surroundings, or as
+others call it, of environment. This, however, is very different from
+atavism, as we shall see presently. Atavism also has been called a
+kind of environment, attacking us and influencing us from the past,
+and as it were, from behind, from the North in fact instead of the
+South, the East, and the West, and from all the points of the compass.
+
+But atavism means really a very different thing, if indeed it means
+anything at all.
+
+I must ease my conscience once for all on this point, and say what I
+feel about atavism and environment. Environment in the shape of
+friends, of locality, and other material circumstances, has certainly
+influenced my life very much, and I could never see why such a hybrid
+word as environment should be used instead of surroundings or
+circumstances. Creatures of circumstances would be far better
+understood than creatures of environment; but environment, I suppose,
+would sound more scientific. Atavism also is a new word, instead of
+family likeness, but unless carefully defined, the word is very apt to
+mislead us.
+
+When it is said[4] that children often resemble their grandfathers or
+grandmothers more than their immediate parents, and that this
+propensity is termed atavism, this does not seem quite correct even
+etymologically, for atavus in Latin did not mean father or
+grandfather, but at first great-great-great-grandfather, and then
+only ancestors; and what should be made quite clear is that this
+mysterious atavism should not be used by careful speakers, to express
+the supposed influence of parents or even grandparents, but that of
+more distant ancestors only, and possibly of a whole family.
+
+  [4] _Oxford Dictionary_, s. v.; J. Rennie, _Science of
+  Gardening_, p. 113.
+
+Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin their works with a
+long account not only of father and mother, but of grandparents and of
+ever so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined the
+outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written.
+Who would deny that there is some truth, or at least some
+plausibility, in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in giving
+an intelligible account of it? It is supposed to affect the moral as
+well as the physical peculiarities of the offspring, and that here,
+too, physical and moral qualities often go together cannot be denied.
+A blind person, for instance, is generally cautious, but happy and
+quite at his ease in large societies. A deaf person is often
+suspicious and unhappy in society. In inheriting blindness, therefore,
+a man could well be said to have inherited cautiousness; in inheriting
+deafness, suspiciousness would seem to have come to him by
+inheritance.
+
+But is blindness really inherited? Is the son of a father who has lost
+his eyesight blind, and necessarily blind? We must distinguish between
+atavistic and parental influences. Parental influences would mean the
+influence of qualities acquired by the parents, and directly
+bequeathed to their offspring; atavistic influences would refer to
+qualities inherited and transmitted, it may be, through several
+generations, and engrained in a whole family. In keeping these two
+classes separate, we should only be following Weismann's example, who
+denies altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable. His
+examples are most interesting and most important, and many Darwinians
+have had to accept his amendment. Besides, we should always consider
+whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family or inconstant.
+If a father is a drunkard, surely it does not follow that his sons
+must be drunkards. Neither does it follow that all the children must
+be sober if the parents are sober. Of course, in ordinary conversation
+both parental and ancestral influences seem clear enough. But if a
+child is said to favour his mother, because like her he has blue eyes
+and fair hair, what becomes of the heritage from the father who may
+have brown eyes and dark hair? Whatever may happen to the children,
+there is always an excuse, only an excuse is not an explanation. If
+the daughter of a beautiful woman grows up very plain, the Frenchman
+was no doubt right when he remarked, _C'etait alors le pere qui
+n'etait pas bien_, and if the son of a teetotaller should later in
+life become a drunkard, the conclusion would be even worse. In fact,
+this kind of atavistic or parental influence is a very pleasant
+subject for gossips, but from a scientific point of view, it is
+perfectly futile. If it is not the father, it is the mother; if it is
+not the grandmother, it is the grandfather; in fact, family influences
+can always be traced to some source or other, if the whole pedigree
+may be dug up and ransacked. But for that very reason they are of no
+scientific value whatever. They can neither be accounted for, nor can
+they be used to account for anything themselves. Even of twins, though
+very like each other in many respects, one may be phlegmatic, the
+other passionate. Some scientists, such as Weismann and others, have
+therefore denied, and I believe rightly, that any acquired characters,
+whether physical or mental, can ever be inherited by children from
+their parents. Whatever similarity there is, and there is plenty, is
+traced back by him to what he calls the germ-plasm, working on
+continuously in spite of all individual changes. If that germ-plasm is
+liable to certain peculiar modifications in the father or grandfather,
+it is liable to the same or similar modifications in the offspring,
+that is, if the father could become a drunkard, so could the son, only
+we must not think that the _post hoc_ is here the same as the _propter
+hoc_. If we compare the germ-plasm to the molecules constituting the
+stem or branches of a vine, its grapes and leaves in their similarity
+and their variety would be comparable to the individuals belonging to
+the same family, and springing from the same family tree. But then the
+grape we see would not be what the grape of last year, or the grape
+immediately preceding it on the same branch, had made it, though there
+can be no doubt that the antecedent possibilities of the new grape
+were the same as those of the last. If one grape is blue, the next
+will be blue too, but no one would say that it was blue because the
+last grape was blue. The real cause would be that the molecules of the
+protoplasm have been so affected by long continued generation, that
+some of the peculiar qualities of the vine have become constant.
+
+The child of a negro must always be a negro; his peculiarities are
+constant, though it may be quite true that the negro and other races
+are not different species, but only varieties rendered constant by
+immense periods of time. What the cause of these constant and
+inconstant peculiarities may be, not even Weismann has yet been able
+to explain satisfactorily.
+
+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
+influence, as something belonging to the environment of my life; it
+never frightened me as an atavistic evil. It justified me in being
+cautious and in being prepared for the worst, and so far it may be
+said to have helped in shaping or narrowing the course of my life.
+Fortunately, however, this tendency to deafness seems now to have
+exhausted itself. In my own generation there is one case only, and the
+next two generations, children and grandchildren of mine, show no
+signs of it. If, on the other hand, my son was congratulated when
+entering the diplomatic service, on being the son of his father, it is
+clear that the difference between inherited and acquired qualities, so
+strongly insisted on by Weismann, had not been fully appreciated by
+his friends. Besides, my own power of speaking foreign languages has
+always been very limited, and I have many times declined the
+compliment of being a second Mezzofanti.[5] I worked at languages as a
+musician studies the nature and capacities of musical instruments,
+though without attempting to perform on every one of them. There was
+no time left for acquiring a practical familiarity with languages, if
+I wanted to carry on my researches into the origin, the nature and
+history of language. My own study of languages could therefore have
+been of very little use to me, nor did my son himself perceive such an
+advantage in learning to converse in French, Spanish, Turkish, &c. The
+facts were wrong, and the theory of atavism perfectly unreasonable as
+applied to such a case.
+
+  [5] _Science of Language_, vol. i. p. 24 (1861).
+
+If the theory of atavism were stretched so far, it would soon do away
+with free will altogether. That heredity has something to do with our
+moral character, no one would deny who knows the influence of our
+national, nay even of racial character. We are Aryan by heredity; we
+might be Negroes or Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals
+also have their instincts. Only while animals, like serpents for
+instance, would never hesitate to follow their innate propensity, man,
+when he feels the power of what we may call inherited human instinct,
+feels also that he can fight against it, and preserve his freedom,
+even while wearing the chains of his slavery. This may have removed
+some of Dr. Wendell Holmes' scruples in writing his powerful story,
+_Elsie Venner_, and may likewise quiet the fears of his many critics.
+
+I believe that language also--our own inherited language--exercises
+the most powerful influence on our reason and our will, far more
+powerful than we are aware of.
+
+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 Cicero, and this simply on account of the language which
+they had to speak, whether Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish. We cannot
+tell whether the original differentiation of language, symbolized by
+the story of the Tower of Babel, took place before or after the racial
+differentiation of men. Anyhow it must have taken place in quite
+primordial times. Without speaking positively on this point, I
+certainly hold as strongly as ever that language makes the man, and
+that therefore for classificatory purposes also language is far more
+useful than colour of skin, hair, cranial or gnathic peculiarities.
+Whether it be true that with every new language we speak we become
+new men, certain it is that language prepares for us channels in which
+our thoughts have to run, unless they are so powerful as to break all
+dams and dykes, and to dig for themselves new beds.
+
+For a long time people would not see that languages can be classified;
+and as languages always presuppose speakers of language, these
+speakers also can be classified accordingly. It is quite true that
+some of these Aryan speakers may in some cases have Negro blood and
+Negro features, as when a Negro becomes an English bishop. Conquered
+tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language of their
+conquerors, but this too is exceptional, and if we call them Aryas, we
+do not commit ourselves to any opinion as to their blood, their bones,
+or their hair. These will never submit to the same classification as
+their speech, and why should they? Nor should it be forgotten that
+wherever a mixture of language takes place, mixed marriages also would
+most likely take place at the same time. But whatever confusion may
+have arisen in later times in language and in blood, no language could
+have arisen without speakers, and we mean by Aryas no more than
+speakers of Aryan languages, whatever their skulls or their hair may
+have been. An Octoroon, and even a Quadroon, may have blonde waving
+hair, but if he speaks English he would be classified as Aryan, if
+Berber as a Negro. But who is injured by such a classification? Let
+blood and skulls and hair and jaws be classified by all means, but let
+us speak no longer of Aryan skulls or Semitic blood. We might as well
+speak of a prognathic language.
+
+While fully admitting, therefore, the influence which family,
+nationality, race, and language exercise on us, it should be clearly
+perceived that habits acquired by our parents are not heritable, that
+the sons of drunkards need not be drunkards, as little as the sons of
+sober people must be sober. But though biographers may agree to this
+in general they seem inclined, to hold out very strongly for what are
+called _special talents in certain families_. This subject is
+decidedly amusing, but it admits of no scientific treatment, as far as
+I can see.
+
+The grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for instance, though
+not a composer, was evidently a man of genius, a philosopher of
+considerable intellectual capacity and moral strength. The father of
+the composer was a rich banker at Berlin, and he used to say: "When I
+was young I was the son of the great Mendelssohn, now that I am old, I
+am the father of the great Mendelssohn; then what am I?" Even a poor
+man to become a rich banker must be a kind of genius, and so far the
+son may be said to have come of a good stock. But the great musical
+talent that was developed in the third generation both in Felix and
+his sisters, failed entirely in his brother, who, to save his life,
+could never have sung "God save the Queen." In the little theatrical
+performances of the whole family for which Felix composed the music,
+and his sister Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical
+brother--was it not Paul?--had generally to be provided with some such
+part as that of a night watchman, and he managed to get through his
+song with as much credit as the _Nachtwaechter_ in the little town of
+Germany, where he sang or repeated, as I well remember, in his cracked
+voice:
+
+    "Hoert, ihr Herren, und lasst euch sagen,
+     Die Glock' hat zwoelf geschlagen;
+     Wahret das Feuer und auch das Licht,
+     Dass Keinem kein Schade geschicht."
+
+    "Listen, gents, and let me tell,
+     The clock struck twelve by its last knell;
+     Watch o'er the fire and o'er the light
+     That no one suffer any plight."
+
+I have known in my life many musicians and their families, but I
+remember very few instances indeed, where the son of a distinguished
+musician was a great musician himself. If the children take to music
+at all they may become very fair musicians, but never anything
+extraordinary. The Bach family may be quoted against me, but music,
+before Sebastian Bach, was almost like a profession, and could be
+learned like any other handicraft.
+
+Nor are the cases of painters being the sons of great painters, or of
+poets being the sons of great poets, more numerous. It seems almost as
+if the artistic talent was exhausted by one generation or one
+individual, so that we often see the sons of great men by no means
+great, and if they do anything in the same line as their fathers, we
+must remember that there was much to induce them to follow in their
+steps without admitting any atavistic influences.
+
+For the present, I can only repeat the conclusion I arrived at after
+weighing all the arguments of my friends and critics, namely, to
+continue my Recollections much as I began them, to try to explain what
+made me what I am, to describe, in fact, my environment; though as my
+years advance, and my labours and plans grow wider and wider, I shall,
+no doubt, have to say a great deal more about myself than in the
+volumes of _Auld Lang Syne_. In fact, my Recollections will become
+more and more of an autobiography, and the I and the Autos will appear
+more frequently than I could have wished.
+
+In an autobiography the painter is of course supposed to be the same
+as the sitter, but quite apart from the metaphysical difficulties of
+such a supposition, there is the physical difficulty when the writer
+is an old man, and the model is a young boy. Is the old man likely to
+be a fair judge of the young man, whether it be himself or some one
+else? As a rule, old men are very indulgent, while young men are apt
+to be stern and strict in their judgments. The very fact that they
+often invent excuses for themselves shows that they feel that they
+want excuses. The words of the Preacher, vii. 16: "Be not righteous
+over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy
+thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why
+shouldest thou die before thy time?" are evidently the words of an old
+man when judging of himself or of others. A young man would have
+spoken differently. He would have made no allowance; for anything like
+compassion for an erring friend is as yet unknown to him. In an
+autobiography written by an old man there is therefore a double
+danger, first the indulgence of the old man, and secondly the kindly
+feeling of the writer towards the object of his remarks.
+
+All these difficulties stand before me like a mountain wall. And it
+seems better to confess at once that an old man writing his own life
+can never be quite just, however honest he tries to be. He may be too
+indulgent, but he may also be too strict and stern. To say, for
+instance, of a man that he has not kept his promise, would be a very
+serious charge if brought against anybody else. Yet my oldest friend
+in the world knows how many times he has made a promise to himself,
+and has not only not kept it but has actually found excuses why he did
+not keep it. The more sensitive our conscience becomes, the more
+blameworthy many an act of our life seems to be, and what to an
+ordinary conscience is no fault at all, becomes almost a sin under a
+fiercer light.
+
+This changes the moral atmosphere of youth when painted by an old man,
+but the physical atmosphere also assumes necessarily a different hue.
+Whether we like it or not, distance will always lend enchantment to
+the view. If the azure hue is inseparable from distant mountains and
+from the distant sky, we need not wonder that it veils the distant
+paradise of youth. A man who keeps a diary from his earliest years,
+and who as an old man simply copies from its yellow pages, may give us
+a very accurate black and white image of what he saw as a boy, but as
+in old faded photographs, the life and light are gone out of them,
+while unassisted memory may often preserve tints of their former
+reality. There is life and light in such recollections, but I am
+willing to admit that memory can be very treacherous also. Thus in my
+own case I can vouch that whatever I relate is carefully and
+accurately transcribed from the tablets of my memory, as I see them
+now, but though I can claim truthfulness to myself and to my memory, I
+cannot pretend to photographic accuracy. 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 narrators.
+
+I doubt whether any historian would accept a statement made thirty
+years after the event without independent confirmation. I could not
+give the date of the battle of Sadowa, though I well remember reading
+the full account of it in the _Times_ from day to day. I can of
+course get at the date from historical books, and from that kind of
+artificial memory which arises by itself without any _memoria
+technica_. There is a favourite German game of cards called Sixty-six,
+and it was reported that when the French in 1870 shouted _A Berlin_,
+the then Crown-Prince who had won the battle of Sadowa, or Koeniggraetz,
+said: "Ah, they want another game of Sixty-six!" that is they want a
+battle like that of Sadowa. In this way I shall always remember the
+date of that decisive battle. But I could not give the date of the
+Crimean battles nor a trustworthy account of the successive stages of
+that war. I doubt whether even my old friend, Sir William H. Russell,
+could do that now without referring to his letters in the _Times_.
+After thirty years no one, I believe, could take an oath to the
+accuracy of any statement of what he saw or heard so many years ago.
+
+All then that I can vouch for is that I read my memory as I should the
+leaves of an old MS. from which many letters, nay, whole words and
+lines have vanished, and where I am often driven to decipher and to
+guess, as in a palimpsest, what the original uncial writing may have
+been. I am the first to confess that there may be flaws in my memory,
+there may be before my eyes that magic azure which surrounds the
+distant past; but I can promise that there shall be no invention, no
+_Dichtung_ instead of _Wahrheit_, but always, as far as in me lies,
+truth. I know quite well that even a certain dislocation of facts is
+not always to be avoided in an old memory. I know it from sad
+experience. As the spires of a city--of Oxford for instance--arrange
+themselves differently as we pass the old place on the railway, so
+that now one and now the other stands in the centre and seems to rise
+above the heads of the rest, so it is with our friends and
+acquaintances. Some who seemed giants at one time assume smaller
+proportions as others come into view towering above them. The whole
+scenery changes from year to year. Who does not remember the trees in
+our garden that seemed like giants in our childhood, but when we see
+them again in our old age, they have shrunk, and not from old age
+only?
+
+And must I make one more confession? 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 present, in fact that he had won
+that battle. I also remember Dr. Routh, the venerable president of
+Magdalen College, who died in his hundredth year, and who had so often
+repeated all the circumstances of the execution of Charles I, that
+when Macaulay expressed a wish to see him, he declined "because that
+young man has given quite a wrong account of the last moments of the
+king," which he then proceeded to relate, as if he had been an
+eye-witness throughout.
+
+Are we not liable to the same hallucination, though, let us hope, in a
+more mitigated form? Have we never told a story as if it were our
+own, not from any wish to deceive, but simply because it seemed
+shorter and easier to do so than to explain step by step how it
+reached us? And after doing that once or twice, is there not great
+danger of our being surprised at somebody else claiming the story as
+his own, or actually maintaining that it was he who told it to us?
+
+Not very long ago I remember reading in a journal a story of the Duke
+of Wellington. His servant had been sent before to order dinner for
+him at an out-of-the-way hotel, and in order to impress the landlord
+with the dignity of his coming guest, he had recited a number of the
+Duke's titles, which were very numerous. The landlord, thinking that
+the Duke of Vittoria, the Prince of Waterloo, the Marquis of Torres
+Vedras, and all the rest, were friends invited to dine with the Duke
+of Wellington, ordered accordingly a very sumptuous banquet to the
+great dismay of the real Duke. This may or may not be a very old and a
+very true story; all I know is that much the same thing was told at
+Oxford of Dr. Bull, who was Canon of Christ Church, Canon of Exeter,
+Prebendary of York, Vicar of Staverton, and lastly, the Rev. Dr. Bull
+himself. Dinner was provided for each of these persons, and we are
+told that the reverend pluralist had to eat all the dishes on the
+table and pay for them. This also may have been no more than one of
+the many "Common-roomers" which abounded in Oxford when Common Rooms
+were more frequented than they are now. But what I happen to know as a
+fact is that Dean Stanley received no less than four invitations to a
+hall at Blenheim, addressed A. P. Stanley, Esq., the Rev. A. P.
+Stanley, Canon Stanley, Professor Stanley, all evidently copied from
+some books of reference.
+
+I may perhaps claim one advantage in trying to describe what happened
+to myself in my passage through life. From the earliest days that I
+can recollect, I felt myself as a twofold being--as a subject and an
+object, as a spectator and as an actor. I suppose we all talk to
+ourselves, and say to our better and worse selves, O thou fool! or,
+Well done, my boy! Well this inward conversation began with me at a
+very early time, and left the impression that I was the coachman, but
+at the same time the horse too which he drove and sometimes whipped
+very cruelly. And this phase of thought, or rather this state of
+feeling, seems soon to have led me on to another view which likewise
+dates from a very early time, though it afterwards vanished. As a
+little boy, when I could not have the same toys which other boys
+possessed, I could fully enjoy what they enjoyed, as if they had been
+my own. There is a German phrase, "Ich freue mich in deiner Seele,"
+which exactly expressed what I often felt. It was not the result of
+teaching, still less of reasoning--it was a sentiment given me and
+which certainty did not leave me till much later in life, when
+competition, rivalry, jealousy, and envy seemed to accentuate my own I
+as against all other I's or Thou's. I suppose we all remember how the
+sight of a wound of a fellow creature, nay even of a dog, gives us a
+sharp twitch in the same part of our own body. That bodily sympathy
+has never left me, I suffer from it even now as I did seventy years
+ago. And is there anybody who has not felt his eyes moisten at the
+sudden happiness of his friends? All this seems to me to account, to a
+certain extent at least, for that feeling of identity with so-called
+strangers, which came to me from my earliest days, and has returned
+again with renewed strength in my old age. The "know thyself,"
+ascribed to Chilon and other sages of ancient Greece, gains a deeper
+meaning with every year, till at last the I which we looked upon as
+the most certain and undoubted fact, vanishes from our grasp to become
+the Self, free from the various accidents and limitations which make
+up the I, and therefore one with the Self that underlies all
+individual and therefore vanishing I's. What that common Self may be
+is a question to be reserved for later times, though I may say at once
+that the only true answer given to it seems to me that of the
+Upanishads and the Vedanta philosophy. Only we must take care not to
+mistake the moral Self, that finds fault with the active Self, for the
+Highest Self that knows no longer of good or evil deeds.
+
+Long before I had worked and thought out this problem as the
+fundamental truth of all philosophy, it presented itself to me as if
+by intuition, long before I could have fathomed it in its metaphysical
+meaning. I had just heard of the death of a dear little child, and was
+standing in our garden, looking at a rose-bush, covered in summer with
+hundreds of rose-buds and rose-flowers. While I was looking I broke
+off one small withered bud from the midst of a large cluster of roses,
+and after I had done so a question came to me, and I said to myself,
+What has happened? Is it only that one small bud is dead and gone, or
+have not all the other roses been touched by the breath of death that
+fell on it? Have they not all suffered from the death of their sister,
+for they all spring from the same stem, they all have their life from
+the same source? And if one rose suffers, must not all the others
+suffer with it? Then all the buds and flowers of the cluster seemed to
+me to become one, as it were a family of roses, and each single bud
+seemed but the repetition of the same thing, the manifestation of the
+same thought, namely the thought of the rose. But my eyes were carried
+still further, and the stem from which the bunch of roses sprang was
+lost with other stems in a branch, and it was that branch on which all
+the roses of the branchlets and stems depended, and without which they
+could not flower or exist. The single roses thus became identified
+with the branch from which they had sprung, and by which they lived. I
+wondered more and more, and after another look all the branches with
+all their branchlets became absorbed in the stem, and the stem was the
+tree, and the tree sprang from a seed, or as it is now called, the
+protoplasm; but beyond that seed there was nothing else that the eye
+could see or the mind could grasp. And while this vision floated
+before my eyes I thought of my little friend, and the home from which
+she had been broken off, and the same vision which had changed the
+rose-bush with all its flowers, and buds, and branchlets, and
+branches, into a stem and a tree, and at last into one invisible germ
+and seed, seemed now to change my little friend and her brothers and
+sisters, her parents too and all her family, into one being which,
+like an old oak tree, started from an invisible stem, or an invisible
+seed, or from an invisible thought, and that divine thought was man,
+as the other divine thought had been rose.
+
+Perhaps I did not see it so fully then as I see it now, and I
+certainly did not reason about it. I simply felt that in the death of
+my little friend, something of myself had gone, though she was no
+relation, but only a stray human friend. We see many things as
+children which we cannot see as grown-up men and women, for, as
+Longfellow said, "the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts." Nay,
+I feel convinced that He who spoke the parable of the vine had seen
+the same vision when He said: "I am the vine, ye are the branches.
+Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself
+except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me."
+And it is on this vision, or this parable of the vine, that
+immediately afterwards follows the lesson, "Love one another, as I
+have loved you." In loving one another we are in truth loving the
+others as ourselves, as one with ourselves; and while we are loving
+Him who is the vine, we are loving the branches, ourselves--aye, even
+our own little selves.
+
+Such vague visions or intuitions often remain with us for life, but
+while they seem to be the same, they vary as we vary ourselves. We
+imagine we saw their deepest meaning from the first, but, like a
+parable, they gain in meaning every time they come back to us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CHILDHOOD AT DESSAU
+
+
+In a small town such as Dessau was when I lived there as a child and
+as a boy, one lived as in an enchanted island. The horizon was very
+narrow, and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the little oasis.
+The Duchy was indeed a little oasis in the large desert of Central
+Germany. The landscape was beautiful: there were rivers small and
+large--the Mulde and the Elbe; there were magnificent oak forests;
+there were regiments of firs standing in regular columns like so many
+grenadiers; there were parks such as one sees in England only. The
+town, the capital of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, had been cared for by
+successive rulers--men mostly far in advance of their time--who had
+read and travelled, and brought home the best they could find abroad.
+Their old castle, centuries old, over-awed the town; it was by far the
+largest building, though there were several other smaller places in
+the town for members of the ducal family. All the public buildings,
+theatres, libraries, schools, and barracks, had been erected by the
+Dukes, as well as several private residences intended for some of the
+higher officials. The whole town was, in fact, the creation of the
+Dukes; the whole ground on which it stood had been originally their
+property, but it was mostly held as freehold by those who had built
+their own private houses on it. No one would have built a house on
+leasehold land, 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 years. The same family often remained in their house for
+generations, and the different stories were occupied by three
+generations at the same time--by grandparents, parents, and children.
+In this small town I was born on December 6, 1823. My father, Wilhelm
+Mueller, was Librarian of the Ducal Library, and one of the most
+popular poets in Germany. A national monument was erected to his
+memory at Dessau in the year 1891, nearly a hundred years after his
+birth.
+
+  [Illustration: MY FATHER]
+
+What a blessing it would be if such a rule were followed with all
+great men, who seem so great at the time of their death, and who, a
+hundred years later, are almost forgotten, or at all events
+appreciated by a small number of admirers only. This Monument- and
+Society-mania is indeed becoming very objectionable, for if for some
+time there has been no room for tombs and statues in Westminster
+Abbey, there will soon be no room for them in the streets of London.
+The result is that many of the people who walk along the Thames
+Embankment, particularly foreigners, often ask, "Cur?" when looking at
+the human idols in bronze and marble put up there; while historians,
+remembering the really great men of England, would ask quite as often,
+"Cur non?" There is a curious race of people, who, as soon as a man of
+any note dies, are ready to found anything for him--a monument, a
+picture, a school, a prize, a society--to keep alive his memory. Of
+course these societies want presidents, members of council,
+committees, secretaries, &c., and at last, subscriptions also. Thus it
+has happened that the name of founder (_Gruender_) has assumed,
+particularly in Germany, a perfume by no means sweet. Those who are
+asked to subscribe to such testimonials know how disagreeable it is to
+decline to give at least their name, deeply as they feel that in
+giving it they are offending against all the rules of historical
+perspective. I should not say that my father was one of the great
+poets of Germany, though Heine, no mean critic, declared that he
+placed his lyric poetry next to that of Goethe. Besides, he was barely
+thirty-three when he died. He had been a favourite pupil of F. A.
+Wolf, and had proved his classical scholarship by his _Homerische
+Vorschule_, and other publications. His poems became popular in the
+true sense of the word, and there are some which the people in the
+street sing even now without being aware of the name of their author.
+Schubert's compositions also have contributed much to the wide
+popularity of his _Schoene Muellerin_ and his _Winterreise_, so that
+though it might truly be said of him that he wanted no monument in
+bronze or stone, it seemed but natural that a small town like Dessau
+should wish to honour itself by honouring the memory of one of its
+sons. In the company of Mendelssohn, the philosopher, and of F.
+Schneider, the composer, a monument of my father in the principal
+street of his native town, and before the school in which he had been
+a pupil and a teacher, could hardly seem out of place. That the Greek
+Parliament voted the Pentelican marble for the poet of the
+_Griechenlieder_, as it had done for Lord Byron, was another
+inducement for his fellow citizens to do honour to their honoured
+poet. He died when I was hardly four years old, so that my
+recollection of him is very faint and vague, made up, I believe, to a
+great extent, of pictures, and things that my mother told me. I seem
+to remember him as a bright, sunny, and thoroughly joyful man,
+delighted with our little naughtinesses. One book I still possess
+which he bought for me and which was to be the first book of my
+library. It was a small volume of Horace, printed by Pickering in
+1820. It has now almost vanished among the 12,000 big volumes that
+form my library, but I am delighted that I am still able, at
+seventy-six, to read it without spectacles. I think I remember my
+father taking my sister and me on his knees, and telling us the most
+delightful stories, that set us wondering and laughing and crying till
+we could laugh and cry no longer. He had been a fellow worker with the
+brothers Grimm, and the stories he told were mostly from their
+collection, though he knew how to embellish them with anything that
+could make a child cry and laugh.
+
+People have little idea how great and how lasting an influence such
+popular stories about kings and queens, and princesses and knights,
+about ogres and witches, about men that have been changed into
+animals, and about animals that talk and behave like human beings,
+exercise on the imagination of young children. While we listened, a
+new world seemed to open before us, and anything like doubt as to the
+reality of these beings never existed. What was reality or unreality
+to young children of four and five? How few people know what real
+reality is, even after they have reached the age of fifty or sixty.
+For children, such names as reality and unreality do not exist, nor
+the ideas which they express. They listen to what their father tells
+them, and they cannot see any difference between what he tells them of
+Frederick Barbarossa, of Romulus and Remus suckled by a wolf, or of
+the dwarfs that guarded the coffin of Schneewittchen.
+
+Some people, however, have thought that from an educational point of
+view, a belief in this imaginary world must be mischievous. I doubt
+it, and it would be easy to show that originally these stories and
+fables were really meant to inculcate right and good principles.
+Luther declared that he would not lose these wonderful stories of his
+tender childhood for any sum of money, and Camerarius (_Fabulae
+Aesopeae_, p. 406, Lipsiae, 1570) speaks of these German fables as
+filling the minds of the people, and particularly of children, with
+terror, hope, and religion. The oldest collections in which some of
+these Aesopean fables occur, the Pantschatantra and Hitopadesa in
+Sanskrit, were distinctly intended for the education of princes, and
+though they may make the young listeners inclined to be superstitious,
+such superstitiousness is not likely to last long. Children delight in
+_Maerchen_ as in a kind of pantomime, and when the curtain has fallen
+on that fairy world they often think of it as of a beautiful dream
+that has passed away. The stories are certainly more impressive than
+the proverbs and wise saws which many of them were meant to
+illustrate, without always saying, _haec fabula docet_. Even if some
+of these stories touch sometimes on what may not seem to us quite
+correct, it is done to make children laugh rather at the silliness
+than cry at the downright wickedness of some of the heroes. It is by
+no means uncommon, for instance, that a good-for-nothing fellow
+succeeds, while his virtuous companions fail. But there is either a
+reason for it, or the injustice provokes the indignation of children,
+long before they have learnt that in real life also virtue does not
+always receive its reward, while falsehood often prospers, at least
+for a time. There is no harm, I think, in a certain dreaminess in
+children. I remember that I have often laughed with all my heart at
+Rumpelstilzchen, and shed bitter tears at Bruederchen and
+Schwesterchen. I seemed to see brother and sister driven into the
+wood, the brother being changed into a deer, and the sister sleeping
+with her head on his warm fur, till at last the deer was killed by a
+huntsman, and the little sister had to travel on quite alone in the
+forest. Of course in the end she became a princess, and the brother a
+prince who married a queen, and all ended in great joy and jubilation
+in which we all joined. How good for children that they should for a
+time at least have lived in such a dreamland, in which truthfulness
+was as a rule rewarded, and falsehood punished in the end.
+
+It was like a recollection of a Paradise, and such a recollection,
+even if it brought out the contrast between the dream-world and the
+real world, would often set children musing on what ought and what
+ought not to be. They did not long believe in Dornroeschen and
+Schneewittchen, they learnt but too soon that Dornroeschen and
+Schneewittchen belonged to another world. They may even have come to
+learn that Dornroeschen (thorn-rose) and Schneewittchen (snow-white)
+were meant originally for the sleep or death of nature in her
+snow-white shroud, and the return of the sun; but woe to the boy who
+on first learning these stories should have declared that they were
+mere bosh, or, as Sir Walter Scott says, the detritus of nature-myths.
+
+My father's father, whom I never knew, seems not to have been
+distinguished in any way. He was, however, a useful tradesman and a
+respected citizen of Dessau, and, as I see, the founder of the first
+lending library in that small town. He married a second time, a rich
+widow, chiefly, as I was told, to enable him to give his son, my
+father, a liberal education. She grew to be very old, and I well
+remember her, to me, forbidding and terrifying appearance. She quite
+belonged to a past generation, and when I saw her again after having
+been in England, she asked me whether I had seen Napoleon who had been
+taken prisoner and sent to England, but had lately escaped and resumed
+his throne in Paris. She evidently mixed up the two Napoleons, and I
+did not contradict her. To me her conversation was interesting as
+showing how little the traditions of the people can be relied on, and
+how easily, by the side of real history, a popular history could grow
+up. After all, the poems of Charlemagne besieging Jerusalem owed their
+origin very likely to some similar confusion in the minds of old
+women. My sister and I were always terrified when we were sent to
+visit her, for with her dishevelled grey hair, her thin white face,
+and her piercing eyes, she was to us the old grandmother, or the witch
+of Grimm's stories; and the language she used was such that, if we
+repeated it at home, we were severely reprimanded. She knew very
+little about my father, but her memory about her first husband and
+about her own youth and childhood was very clear, though not always
+edifying. Her stories about ghosts, witches, ogres, nickers, and the
+whole of that race were certainly enough to frighten a child, and some
+of them clung to me for a very long time. On my mother's side my
+relations were more civilized, and they had but little social
+intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives. My mother's father
+was von Basedow, the President, that is Prime Minister of the Duchy of
+Anhalt-Dessau, a position in which he was succeeded by his eldest son,
+my uncle. He was the first man in the town; the Duke and he really
+ruled the Duchy exactly as they pleased. There was no check on them of
+any kind, and yet no one, as far as I know, ever complained of any
+tyranny. My grandfather's father again was the famous reformer of
+public education in Germany. He (1723-1790) had to brave the
+conservative and clerical parties throughout the country. His home at
+Hamburg was burnt in a riot, and it was then that he migrated to
+Dessau, to become the founder of the _Philanthropinum_, and at the
+same time the path-breaker for men such as Pestalozzi (1746-1827) and
+Froebel (1782-1852). Considering his lifelong struggles, he deserved a
+better monument at Dessau than he has found there. No doubt he was a
+passionate and violent man, and his outbreaks are still remembered at
+Dessau, while his beneficial activity has almost been forgotten. I was
+often told that I took after my mother's family, whatever that may
+mean, and this was certainly the case in outward appearance, though I
+hope not in temper. My great grandfather, the Pedagogue as he was
+called, was a friend of Goethe's, and is mentioned in his poems.
+
+My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a
+widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was
+heart-broken. The few years of her married life had been most bright
+and brilliant. My father was a rising poet, and such was his
+popularity that he was able to indulge his tastes as he liked, whether
+in travelling or in making his house a pleasant centre of social life.
+Contemporaries and friends of my father, particularly Baron Simolin, a
+very intimate friend, who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house,
+have written of the bright gaiety, the whole-hearted enjoyment of life
+that reigned there, and have told how, though his income was to say
+the least of it small, Wilhelm Mueller's home was the rallying-point
+for all the cultivated, scientific, and artistic society of Dessau,
+who felt attracted by the simple and unaffected yet truly genial
+disposition of the master of the house.
+
+It would be interesting to know how much an author could make at that
+time by his pen. Publishers seem to have been far more liberal then
+than they are now. The circumstances were different. The number of
+writers was of course much smaller, and the sale of really popular
+books probably much larger. Anyhow, my father, whose salary was
+minute, seems to have been able to enjoy the few years of his married
+life in great comfort. The thought of saving money, however, seems
+never to have entered his poetical mind, and after his unexpected
+death, due to paralysis of the heart, it was found that hardly any
+provision had been made for his family. Even the life insurance, which
+is obligatory on every civil servant, and the pension granted by the
+Duke, gave my mother but a very small income, fabulously small, when
+one considers that she had to bring up two children on it. It has been
+a riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.
+
+However, it was done, and could only have been done in a small town
+like Dessau, where education was as good as it was cheap, and where
+very little was expected by society. We must also take into account
+the very low prices which then ruled at Dessau with regard to almost
+all the necessaries of life. I see from the old newspapers that beef
+sold at about threepence a pound (two groschen), mutton at about
+twopence. Wine was sold at seven to eight groschen a bottle, a better
+sort for twelve to fourteen groschen--a groschen being about a penny.
+People drank mostly beer, and this was sold under Government
+inspection at two to three groschen per quart. Fish was equally cheap,
+and such, at the beginning of the century, was the abundance of salmon
+caught in the Elbe, and even in the Mulde at Dessau, that it was
+stipulated as in Scotland, that servants should not have salmon more
+than twice or thrice in the week. The lowest price for salmon was
+then twopence halfpenny a pound. As a boy I can remember seeing the
+salmon in large numbers leap over a weir in the very town of Dessau,
+and though they had travelled for so many miles inland, the fish was
+very good, though not so good as Severn salmon. Game also was very
+cheap, and sold for not much more than mutton, nay, at certain times
+it was given away; it could not be exported. Corn was sold at three
+shillings per _Scheffel_, and by corn was chiefly meant rye. No one
+took wheaten bread, and the bread was therefore called brown bread and
+black bread. White bread was only taken with coffee, and peasants in
+the villages would not have touched it, because it was not supposed to
+make such strong bones as rye-bread. With such prices we can
+understand that a salary of L300 was considered sufficient for the
+highest officers of state.
+
+My mother's relations, who were all high in the public service, my
+grandfather, as I said, being the Duke's chief minister, made life
+more easy and pleasant for us; but for many years my mother never went
+into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family
+only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her
+two children day after day to the beautiful _Gottesacker_ (God's
+Acre), where she stood for hours at our father's grave, and sobbed and
+cried. It was a beautiful and restful place, covered with old acacia
+trees. The inscription over the gateway was one of my earliest
+puzzles. _Tod ist nicht Tod, ist nur Veredlung menschlicher Natur_
+(Death is not death, 'tis but the ennobling of man's nature). On each
+side there stood a figure, representing the genius of sleep and the
+genius of death. All this was the work of the old Duke, Leopold
+Friedrich Franz, who tried to educate his people as he had educated
+himself, partly by travel, partly by intercourse with the best men he
+could attract to Dessau.
+
+  [Illustration: MY MOTHER]
+
+At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and
+thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of
+course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my
+chief happiness was to be with my mother. I shared her grief without
+understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her
+children, and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of
+life to her, she gave to us, she lived for us only, and tried very
+hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness. She was certainly
+most beautiful, and quite different from all other ladies at Dessau,
+not only in the eyes of her son, but as it seemed to me, of everybody.
+Then she had a most perfect voice, and when I first began music she
+helped and encouraged me in every possible way. We played _a quatre
+mains_, and soon she made me accompany her when she sang. As far as I
+can recollect, I was never so happy as when I could be with her. She
+read so much to us that I was quite satisfied, and saw perhaps less of
+my young friends than I ought. When my mother said she wished to
+die, and to be with our father, I feel sure that my sister and I were
+only anxious that she should take us with her, for there were few
+golden chains that bound us as yet to this life. I see her now,
+sitting on a winter's evening near the warm stove, a candle on the
+table, and a book from which she read to us in her hands, while the
+spinning-wheel worked by the servant-maid in the corner went on
+humming all the time. She read Paul Gerhard's translation of St.
+Bernard's:
+
+    "Salve caput cruentatum,
+     Totum spinis coronatum,
+     Conquassatum, vulneratum,
+     Arundine verberatum,
+     Facies sputis illita."
+
+    "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden,
+     Voll Schmerz und voller Hohn!
+     O Haupt zu Spott gebunden
+     Mit einer Dornenkron,
+     O Haupt sonst schoen gezieret
+     Mit hoechster Ehr und Zier,
+     Jetzt aber hoch schimpfiret:
+     Gegruesset seist du mir!"
+
+Though the German translation does not come near the powerful majesty
+of the original, yet such was the effect produced on me that I saw the
+bleeding head before my eyes, 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 church. How deeply such scenes
+seem engraved on the memory; how vividly they return when the rubbish
+of many years is swept away and all is again as it was then, and the
+_caput cruentatum_ looks down on us once more, as it did then, with
+the human eyes full of divine love, so truly human that one could say
+with St. Bernard, "Tuum caput huc inclina, in meis pausa brachiis."
+But willingly as I listened to these readings at home, and full as my
+heart was of love to Christ, I suffered intensely when I was taken to
+church as a young boy. It was a very large church, and in winter
+bitterly cold. Even though I liked the singing, the long sermon was
+real torture to me. I could not understand a word of it, and being
+thinly clad my teeth would have chattered if I had not been told that
+it was wrong "to make a noise in church." Oh! what misery is inflicted
+on childhood by this enforced attendance at church. When a church can
+be warmed the suffering is less intense, 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
+church. These early impressions often remain for life, and the worst
+of it is that the idea remains in the minds of children, and of
+grown-up people too, that by going to church and repeating the same
+prayers over and over again, and listening to long and often dreary
+sermons, they are actually doing a service to God (_Gottesdienst_).
+Why does no new prophet arise and say in the name of God, as David did
+in the name of Jehovah, "Sermons and long prayers 'thou didst not
+desire'"?
+
+Many years later I had to discuss the same question with Keshub
+Chunder Sen, the Indian Reformer. He wanted to know what kind of
+service should be adopted by his new church, the Brahmo Somaj; his
+friends thought of sermons, singing, and processions with flags and
+flowers through the streets. "No," I said to him, "service of God
+should be service of men; if you want divine service, let it be a real
+service, such as God would approve of. Let other people go to church,
+to their mosques or their temples, but take you your own friends on
+certain days of the week to whatever you like to call your
+meeting-place, and after a short prayer or a few words of advice send
+some of them to the poorest streets in the city, others to the
+prisons, others to the hospitals. Let them pray with all who wish to
+pray, but let them speak words of true love and comfort also, and when
+they can, let them help them with their alms. That would be a real
+Divine Service and a divine Sunday for you, and you would all come
+home, it may be sadder, but certainly wiser and better men."
+
+I am afraid he did not agree with me. He did not think that true
+religion was to visit the poor and the afflicted. That might do for a
+practical people like the English, but the Hindu wanted something
+else, he wanted some outward show and ceremony for the people, and at
+the same time some silent communion with God. Who can tell what
+different people understand by religion? and who can prescribe the
+spiritual food that is best for them? "Only," I said, "do not call it
+practical to encourage millions of people to waste hours and hours in
+mere repetition, and to spend millions and millions in supplying this
+cold comfort, when next door to the magnificent cathedral there are
+squalid streets, and squalid houses, and squalid beds to lie and die
+on."
+
+The religious and devotional element is very strong in Germany, but
+the churches are mostly empty. A German keeps his religion for
+weekdays rather than for Sunday. When the German regiments marched,
+and when they made ready for battle, they did not sing ribald songs,
+they sang the songs of Luther and Paul Gerhard, which they knew by
+heart and which strengthened them to face death as it ought to be
+faced.
+
+Fortunately, while enforced attendance at church was apt to produce
+the strongest aversion in the young heart against anything that was
+called religion, religious instruction both at home and at school too
+was excellent, and undid much of the mischief that had been done
+during cold winter days. True religious sentiments can be planted in
+the soul at home only, by a mother better even than by a father. The
+sense of a divine presence everywhere, [Greek: panta plere theon],
+once planted in the heart of a child remains for life. Of course the
+child soon begins to argue, and says to his mother that God cannot be
+at the same time in two rooms. But only let a mother show to the child
+the rays of the sun in the sky, in the streets, and in every corner of
+the house, and it will begin to understand that nothing can be hid
+from the eyes of Him who is greater than the sun. And when a child
+doubts whether the voice of conscience can be the voice of God, and
+asks how he could hear that voice without seeing the speaker, ask him
+only whose voice it can be that tells him not to do what he himself
+wishes to do, and not to say what he could say without any fear of
+men; and his idea of God will be raised from that of a visible being
+like the sun, to the concept of a presence that never vanishes, that
+is not only without, in the sky, in the mountains, and in the storm,
+but nearer also within, in the sense of fear, in the sense of shame,
+and in the hope of pardon and love.
+
+At school our religious teaching was chiefly historical and moral.
+There was no difficulty in finding proper teachers for that, and there
+were no attempts on the part of parents to interfere with religious
+instruction or to demand separate teaching for each sect. It is true
+that religious sects are not so numerous in Germany as they are in
+England. Some, though by no means all, children of Roman Catholic and
+Jewish parents were allowed to be absent from religious lessons. 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 children. Respect for historical truth, and an
+implanted sense of the reverence due to children, would keep any
+teacher from making the history of the Christian Church, whether
+before or after the Reformation, an excuse for offending one of the
+little ones committed to his care. If Jews or Roman Catholics wished
+for any special religious instruction it was given by their own
+priests or Rabbis, and was given without any interference on the part
+of the Government. But such was at my time the state of public feeling
+that I hardly knew at school who among my young friends were Roman
+Catholics, or Lutherans, or Reformed. I must admit, however, that the
+very name of Luther might have offended Roman Catholics. He was
+represented to us as a perfect saint, almost as inspired and
+infallible. His hymns sung in church seemed to us little different
+from the Psalms of David, and I well remember what a shock it gave me
+when at Oxford, much later in life, I heard Luther spoken of like any
+other mortal, nay, as a heretic, and a most dangerous heretic too.
+When I was a boy I remember that in some places the same building had
+to be used for Protestant and Roman Catholic services. All that, I am
+afraid, is now changed, and the old liberal and tolerant feeling then
+prevailing on all sides is now often stigmatized as indifference, and
+by other ugly names. It should really be called the golden age of
+Christianity, and this so-called indifference should be classed among
+the highest Christian virtues, and as the fullest realization of the
+spirit of Christ.
+
+Thus we grew up from our earliest youth, being taught to look upon
+Christianity as an historical fact, on Christ and His disciples as
+historical characters, on the Old and New Testaments as real
+historical books. Though we did not understand as yet the deeper
+meaning of Christ and of His words, we had at least nothing to unlearn
+in later times, or to feel that our parents had ever told us what they
+themselves could not have held to be true. Our simple faith was not
+shaken by mere questions of criticism, or by the problem how any human
+being could take upon himself to declare any book to be revealed,
+unless he claimed for himself a more than human insight. The simplest
+rules of logic should make such a declaration impossible, whatever the
+sacred book may be to which it is applied. Granted that the Pope was
+infallible, how could the Cardinals know that he was, unless they
+claimed for themselves the same or even greater infallibility? It is
+far more easy to be inspired than to know some one else is or was
+inspired; the true inspiration is, and always has been, the spirit of
+truth within, and this is but another name for the spirit of God. It
+is truth that makes inspiration, not inspiration that makes truth.
+Whoever knows what truth is, knows also what inspiration is: not only
+_theopneustos_, blown into the soul by God, but the very voice of God,
+the real presence of God, the only presence in which we, as human
+beings, can ever perceive Him.
+
+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
+objective, but must always be subjective. I may return to this
+question at a later period of my life, when I had to discuss with
+Renan, at Paris, with Froude, Kingsley, and Liddon, in England, and
+tried to show how entirely self-made some of their difficulties were.
+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 own; as Samson, when
+he awoke, found himself bound with seven green withs and had to break
+them with all his might before he could hope to escape from the
+Philistines. The Philistines never bound me. During my early
+school-days these difficulties did not exist, but I have often been
+grateful in after life that the seven locks of my head have never been
+woven with the web.
+
+I remember a number of small events in my school-life at Dessau, but
+though they were full of interest to me, nay, full of meaning, and not
+without an influence on my later life, they would have no meaning and
+no interest for others, and may remain as if they had never been. The
+influence which music exercised on my mind, and, I believe, on my
+heart also, I have related in my _Musical Recollections_. The image of
+those passing years, though its general tone was melancholy, chiefly
+owing to my mother's melancholy, seemed to me at the time free from
+all unhappiness. My work at school and at home was not too heavy; I
+was fond of it, and very fond of books. Books were scarce then, and
+whoever possessed a new and valuable book was expected to lend it to
+his friends in the little town. If a man was known to possess, say,
+Goethe's works or Jean Paul's works, the consequence was that one went
+to him or to her to ask for the loan of them. And not only books, but
+paper and pens also were scarce. The first steel pens came in when I
+was still in the lower school, and bad as they were they were looked
+upon as real treasures by the schoolboys who possessed them. Paper was
+so dear that one had to be very sparing in its use. Every margin and
+cover was scribbled over before it was thrown away, 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 Christmas. I am sorry to say I have had to suffer
+all my life from the inefficiency of our writing master, or maybe from
+the fact that my thoughts were too quick for my pen. In other subjects
+I did well, but though I was among the first in each class, I was by
+no means cleverer than other boys. In the lower school work was more
+like conversation or like hearing news from our teachers. The idea of
+effort did not yet exist. The drudgery began, however, when I entered
+the upper school, the gymnasium, and learnt the elements of Latin and
+Greek. Though our teachers were very conscientious, they tried to make
+our work no burden to us, and the constant change of places in each
+class kept up a lively rivalry among the boys, though I am not sure
+that it did not make me rather ambitious and at times conceited.
+Still, I had few enemies, and it seemed of much more consequence who
+could knock down another boy than who could gain a place above him. I
+feel sure I could have done a great deal more at school than I did,
+but it was partly my music and partly my incessant headaches that
+interfered with my school work.
+
+I remember as a boy that certain streets were inhabited exclusively by
+Jewish families. A large number of Jews had been received at Dessau by
+a former Duke; but though he granted them leave to settle at Dessau
+when they were persecuted in other parts of Germany, he stipulated
+that they should only settle in certain streets. These streets were by
+no means the worst streets of the town; on the contrary they showed
+greater comfort and hardly any of the squalor which disgraced the
+Jewish quarters in other towns in Germany. As children we were brought
+up without any prejudice against the Jews, though we had, no doubt, a
+certain feeling that they were tolerated only, and were not quite on
+the same level with ourselves. We also felt the religious difficulty
+sometimes very strongly. Were not the Jews the murderers of Christ?
+and had they not said: "the blood be on us and on our children"? But
+as we were told that it was wrong to harbour feelings of revenge, we
+boys soon forgot and forgave, and played together as the best friends.
+I remember picking up a number of Jewish words which would not have
+been understood anywhere else. I was hardly aware that they were
+Jewish and used them like any other words. But I once gave great
+offence to my friend Professor Bernays, who was a Jew. He had uttered
+some quite incredible statement, and I exclaimed, "Sind Sie denn ganz
+maschukke?"--Hebrew for "mad." I meant no harm, but he was very much
+hurt.
+
+I knew several Jewish families, and received much kindness from them
+as a boy. Many of these families were wealthy, but they never
+displayed their wealth, and in consequence excited no envy. All that
+is changed now. The children of the Jews who formerly lived in a very
+quiet style at Dessau, now occupy the best houses, indulge in most
+expensive tastes, and try in every way to outshine their non-Jewish
+neighbours. They buy themselves titles, and, when they can, stipulate
+for stars and orders as rewards for successful financial operations,
+carried out with the money of princely personages. Hence the
+revulsion of feeling all over Germany, or what is called
+Anti-Semitism, which has assumed not only a social but a political
+significance. I doubt whether there is anything religious in it, as
+there was when we were boys. The Anti-Semitic hatred is the hatred of
+money-making, more particularly of that kind of money-making which
+requires no hard work, but only a large capital to begin with, and
+boldness and astuteness in speculating, that is in buying and selling
+at the right moment. The sinews of war for that kind of financial
+warfare were mostly supplied by the fathers and grandfathers of the
+present generation. Sometimes, no doubt, the capital was lost, and in
+those cases it must be said that the Jewish speculator disappears from
+the stage without a sigh or a cry. He begins again, and if he should
+have to do what his grandfather did, walk from house to house with a
+bag on his back, he does not whine.
+
+One cannot blame the Jews or any other speculators for using their
+opportunities, but they must not complain either if they excite envy,
+and if that envy assumes in the end a dangerous character. The Jews,
+so far from suffering from disabilities, enjoy really certain
+privileges over their Christian competitors in Germany. They belong to
+a _regnum_, but also to a _regnum in regno_. They have, so to say, our
+Sunday and likewise their Sabbath. Jew will always help Jew against a
+Christian; and again who can blame them for that? All one can say is
+that they should not complain of their unpopularity, but take into
+account the risk they are running. No one hated the Jews such as they
+were in Dessau fifty years ago. They had their own schools and
+synagogues, and no one interfered with them when they built their
+bowers in the streets at the time of their Feast of Tabernacles, and
+lived, feasted, and slept in them to keep up the memory of their
+sojourning in the desert. They indulged in even more offensive
+practices, such as, for instance, putting three stones in the coffins
+to be thrown by the dead at the Virgin Mary, her husband, and their
+Son. No one suspected or accused them of kidnapping Christian
+children, or offering sacrifices with their blood. They were known too
+well for that. Conversions of Jews were not infrequent, and converted
+Jews were not persecuted by their former co-religionists as they are
+now. Even marriages between Christians and Jews were by no means
+uncommon, particularly when the young Jewesses were beautiful or rich,
+still better if they were both. Disgraceful as the Anti-Semitic riots
+have been in Germany and Russia, there can be no doubt that in this as
+in most cases both sides were to blame, and there is little prospect
+of peace being re-established till many more heads have been broken.
+
+What helped very much to keep the peace in the small town of Dessau,
+as it did all over Germany, nay, all over the world, till about the
+year 1848, was the small number of newspapers. In my childhood and
+youth their number was very small. In Dessau I only knew of one, which
+was then called the _Wochenblatt_, afterwards the _Staatsanzeiger_. At
+that time newspapers were really read for the news which they
+contained, not for leading or misleading articles and all the rest.
+What a happy time it was when a newspaper consisted of a sheet, or
+half a sheet in quarto, with short paragraphs about actual events,
+which had often taken place weeks and months before. A battle might
+have been fought in Spain or Turkey, in India or China, and no one
+knew of it till some official information was vouchsafed by the
+respective Governments or by Jewish bankers. War-correspondents or
+regular reporters did not exist, and the old telegraphic dispatches
+were sent by wooden telegraphs fixed on high towers, which from a
+distance looked like gallows on which a criminal was hanging and
+gesticulating with arms and feet. Anybody who watched these signals
+could decipher them far more easily than a hieroglyphic inscription.
+
+The peace of Europe, nay, of the whole world, was then in the keeping
+of sovereigns and their ministers, and Prince Metternich might
+certainly take some credit for having kept what he called the Thirty
+Years' Peace. Shall we ever, as long as there are newspapers, have
+peace again--peace between the great nations of the world, and peace
+at home between contending parties, and peace in our mornings at home
+which are now so ruthlessly broken in upon, nay, swallowed up by
+those paper-giants, most unwelcome yet irresistible callers, just when
+we want to settle down to a quiet day's work? It is no use protesting
+against the inevitable, 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 politics. 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 Augustus. When
+unsuccessful _litterateurs_ or bankrupt bankers' clerks were the chief
+contributors to the newspapers, their influence might have been small;
+but when Bismarcks turned journalists, and Gortchakoffs prompted,
+newspapers could hardly be called _quantites negligeables_.
+
+The horizon of Dessau was very narrow, but within its bounds there was
+a busy and happy life. Everybody did his work honestly and
+conscientiously. There were, of course, two classes, the educated and
+the uneducated. The educated consisted of the members of the
+Government service, the clergy, the schoolmasters, doctors, artists,
+and officers; the uneducated were the tradesmen, mechanics, and
+labourers. The trade was mostly in the hands of Jews, it had become
+almost a Jewish monopoly. When one of these tradesmen went bankrupt,
+there was a commotion over the whole town, and I remember being taken
+to see one of these bankrupt shops, expecting to find the whole house
+broken up and demolished, and being surprised to see the tradesman
+standing whole, and sound, and smiling, in his accustomed place. My
+etymological tastes must have developed very early, for I had asked
+why this poor Jew was called a bankrupt, and had been duly informed
+that it was because his bank had been broken, _banca rotta_, which of
+course I took in a literal sense, and expected to see all the
+furniture broken to pieces. The commercial relations of our Dessau
+tradesmen did not extend much beyond Leipzig, Berlin, possibly Hamburg
+and Cologne. If a burgher of Dessau travelled to these or to more
+distant parts the whole town knew of it and talked about it, whereas a
+journey to Paris or London was an event worthy to be mentioned and
+discussed in the newspapers. These old newspapers are full of curious
+information. We find that if a person wished to travel to Cologne or
+further, he advertised for a companion, and it was for the Burgomaster
+to make the necessary arrangements for him.
+
+French was studied and spoken, particularly at Court, but English was
+a rare acquirement, still more Italian or Spanish. There was, however,
+a small inner circle where these languages were studied, chiefly in
+order to read the master-works of modern literature. And this was all
+the more creditable because there were no good teachers to be found at
+Dessau, and people had to learn what they wished to learn by
+themselves, with the help of a grammar and dictionary. We learnt
+French at school, but the result was deplorable. As in all public
+schools, the French master who had to teach the language at the Ducal
+Gymnasium could not keep order among the boys. He of course spoke
+French, but that was all. He did not know how to teach, and could not
+excite any interest in the boys, who insisted on pronouncing French as
+if it were German. The poor man's life was made a burden to him. His
+name was Noel, and he had all the pleasing manners of a Frenchman, but
+that served only to rouse the antagonism of the young barbarians. The
+result was that we learnt very little, and I was sent to an old Jew to
+learn French and a little English. That old Jew, called Levy Rubens,
+was a perfect gentleman. He probably had been a commercial traveller
+in his early days, though no one knew exactly where he came from or
+how he had learnt languages. He had taught my father and grandfather
+and he was delighted to teach the third generation. He certainly spoke
+French and English fluently, but with the strongest Jewish accent, and
+this was inherited by all his pupils at Dessau. I feel ashamed when I
+think of the tricks we played the old man--putting mice into his
+pockets, upsetting inkstands over his table, and placing crackers
+under his chairs. But he never lost his temper; he never would have
+dared to punish us as we deserved; but he went on with his lesson as
+if nothing had happened. He took his small pay, and was satisfied
+when his lessons were over and he could settle down to his long pipe
+and his books. He lived quite alone and died quite alone, a
+hardworking, honest, poor Jew, not exactly despised or persecuted, but
+not treated with the respect which he certainly deserved, and which he
+would have received if he had not been a Jew.
+
+Our public school was as good as any in Germany. These small duchies
+generally followed the example of Prussia, and they carried out the
+instructions issued by the Ministry of Education at Berlin according
+to the very letter. Besides, several of the reigning dukes had taken a
+very warm and personal interest in popular education, and at the
+beginning of the century the eyes of the whole of Germany, nay, of
+Europe, were turned towards the educational experiments carried on by
+my great-grandfather, Basedow,[6] at the so-called Philanthropinum at
+Dessau under the patronage of the Duke and of several of the more
+enlightened sovereigns of Europe, such as the Empress Catherine of
+Russia, the King of Denmark, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, Prince
+Adam Czartoryski, &c. Even after Basedow's death the interest in
+education was kept alive in Dessau, and all was done that could be
+done in so small a town to keep the different schools--elementary,
+middle-class, and high schools--on the highest possible level of
+efficiency.
+
+  [6] Johann Bernhard Basedow, von seinem Urenkel, F. M. M.
+  (Essays, Band IV).
+
+Bathing was a very healthful recreation, though I very nearly came to
+grief from trusting to my seniors. They could swim and I could not
+yet. But while bathing with two of my friends in a part of the river
+which was safe, they swam along and asked me to follow them. Having
+complete confidence in them I jumped in from the shore, but very soon
+began to sink. My shouts brought my friends back, and they rescued me,
+not without some difficulty, from drowning.
+
+In an English school the influence of the master is, of course, more
+constant, because one of the masters is always within call, while in
+Germany he is visible during school-hours only. If a master is fond of
+his pupils, and takes an interest in them individually, he can do them
+more good than parents at home, or the teacher at a day school. The
+boys at a German school are, no doubt, a very mixed crew, but that
+cannot be helped. This mixture of classes may be a drawback in some
+respects, but from an educational point of view the sons of very rich
+parents are by no means more valuable than the poor boys. Far from it.
+Many of the evils of schoolboy life come from the sons of the rich,
+while the sons of poor parents are generally well behaved. But for all
+that, there was a rough and rude tone among some of the boys at
+school, arising from defects in the education at home, and this
+sometimes embittered what ought to be the happiest time of life,
+particularly in the case of delicate boys. The son of a Minister has
+often to sit by the side of the son of a wealthy butcher, and the very
+fact that he is the son of a gentleman often exposes the more refined
+boy to the bullying of his muscular neighbour. I was fortunate at
+school. I could hold my own with the boys, and as to the masters,
+several of them had known my father or had been his pupils, and they
+took a personal interest in me.
+
+I remember more particularly one young master who was very kind to me,
+and took me home for private lessons and for giving me some good
+advice. There was something sad and very attractive about him, and I
+found out afterwards that he knew that he was dying of consumption,
+and that besides that he was liable to be prosecuted for political
+liberalism, which at that time was almost like high treason. I believe
+he was actually condemned and sent to prison like many others, and he
+died soon after I had left Dessau. His name was Dr. Hoenicke, and he
+was the first to try to impress on me that I ought to show myself
+worthy of my father, an idea which had never entered my mind before,
+nay, which at first I could hardly understand, but which,
+nevertheless, slumbered on in my mind till years afterwards it was
+called out and became a strong influence for the whole of my life. I
+still have some lines which he wrote for my album. They were the
+well-known lines from Horace, which, at the time, I had great
+difficulty in construing, but which have remained graven in my memory
+ever since:
+
+    "Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,
+     Est in iuvencis est in equis patrum
+       Virtus nec imbellem feroces
+         Progenerant aquilae columbam.
+     Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
+     Rectique cultus pectora roborant;
+       Utcunque defecere mores,
+         Dedecorant bene nata culpae."
+
+In my childhood I had to pass through the ordinary illnesses, but it
+was the faith in our doctor that always saved me. The doctor was to my
+mind the man who was called in to make me well again, and while my
+mother was agitated about her only son, I never dreamt of any danger.
+The very idea of death never came near me till my grandfather died
+(1835), but even then I was only about twelve years old, and though I
+had seen much of him, particularly during the years that my mother
+lived again in his house, yet he was too old to take much share in his
+grandchildren's amusements. He left a gap, no doubt, in our life, but
+that gap was filled again with new figures in the life of a boy of
+twelve. He was only sixty-one years old when he died, and yet my idea
+of him was always that of a very old man. Everything was done for him,
+his servant dressed him every morning, he was lifted into his carriage
+and out of it, and he certainly lived the life of an invalid, such as
+I should not consent to own to at seventy-six. He made no secret that
+he cared more for the son of his son who was the heir, and was to
+perpetuate the name of von Basedow, than for the son of his daughter.
+He was very fond of driving and of shooting, and he frequently took my
+cousin out shooting with him. When my cousin came home with a hare he
+had shot, I confess I was sometimes jealous, but I was soon cured of
+my wish to go with my grandfather into the forest. Once when I was
+with him in his little carriage, my grandfather, not being able to see
+well, had the misfortune to kill a doe which had come out with her two
+little ones. The misery of the mother and afterwards of her two young
+ones, was heart-rending, and from that day on I made up my mind never
+to go out shooting, and never to kill an animal. And I have kept my
+word, though I was much laughed at. It may be that later in life and
+after my grandfather's death I had little opportunity of shooting, 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 life.
+
+My grandfather, though he aged early, remained in harness as Prime
+Minister to the end of his life, and it was his great desire to
+benefit his country by new institutions. It was he who, at the time
+when people hardly knew yet what railroads meant, succeeded in getting
+the line from Berlin to Halle and Leipzig to pass by Dessau. He
+offered to build the bridge across the Elbe and to give the land and
+the wood for the sleepers gratis, and what seemed at the time a far
+too generous offer has proved a blessing to the duchy, making it as it
+were the centre of the great railway connecting Berlin, Leipzig,
+Magdeburg, the Elbe, Hanover, Bremen, nay, Cologne also, the Rhine,
+and Western Europe. He was in his way a good statesman, though we are
+too apt to measure a man's real greatness by the circumstances in
+which he moves.
+
+As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor
+could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and
+though I watched it carefully I could not trace it to any fault of
+mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It
+came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always
+the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes
+for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it
+seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly
+strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I
+was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and
+try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had
+been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had
+peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week, and
+as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was
+scolded and punished, really without any fault of my own. After all
+remedies had failed which the doctor and nurses prescribed (and I well
+remember my grandmother using massage on my neck, which must have
+been about 1833 to 1835) I was handed over to Hahnemann, the founder
+of homeopathy. Hahnemann (born 1755) had been practising as doctor at
+Dessau as early as 1780--that is somewhat before my time--but had left
+it, and when in 1820 he had been prohibited by the Government from
+practising and lecturing at Leipzig, he took refuge once more in the
+neighbouring town of Coethen. From there he paid visits to Dessau as
+consulting physician, and after I had explained to him as well as I
+could all the symptoms of my chronic headache, he assured my mother
+that he would cure it at once. He was an imposing personality--a
+powerful man with a gigantic head and strong eyes and a most
+persuasive voice. I can quite understand that his personal influence
+would have gone far to effect a cure of many diseases. People forget
+too much how strong a curative power resides in the patient's faith in
+his doctor, in fact how much the mind can do in depressing and in
+reinvigorating the body. I shall never forget in later years
+consulting Sir Andrew Clarke, and telling him of ever so many, to my
+mind, most serious symptoms. I had lost sleep and appetite, and
+imagined myself in a very bad state indeed. He examined me and knocked
+me about for full three quarters of an hour, and instead of
+pronouncing my doom as I fully expected, he told me with a bright look
+and most convincing voice that he had examined many men who had worked
+their brains too much, but had never seen a man at my time of life so
+perfectly sound in every organ. I felt young and strong at once, and
+meeting my old friend Morier on my way home, we ate some dozens of
+oysters together and drank some pints of porter without the slightest
+bad effect. In fact I was cured without a pill or a drop of medicine.
+
+And who does not know how, if one makes up one's mind at last to have
+a tooth pulled out, the pain seems to cease as soon as we pull the
+bell at the dentist's?
+
+However, Hahnemann did not succeed with me. I swallowed a number of
+his silver and gold globules, but the migraine kept its regular
+course, right to left and left to right, and this went on till about
+the year 1860. Then my doctor, the late Mr. Symonds of Oxford, told me
+exactly what Hahnemann had told me--that he would cure me, if I would
+go on taking some medicine regularly for six months or a year. He told
+me that he and his brother had made a special study of headaches, and
+that there were ever so many kinds of headache, each requiring its own
+peculiar treatment. When I asked him to what category of headaches
+mine belonged, I was not a little abashed on being told that my
+headache was what they called the Alderman's headache. "Surely," I
+said, "I don't overeat, or overdrink." I had thought that mine was a
+mysterious nervous headache, arising from the brain. But no, it seemed
+to be due to turtle soup and port wine. However, the doctor, seeing my
+surprise, comforted me by telling me that it was the nerves of the
+head which affected the stomach, and thus produced indirectly the same
+disturbance in my digestion as an aldermanic diet. Whether this was
+true or was only meant as a _solatium_ I do not know. But what I do
+know is, that by taking the medicine regularly for about half a year,
+the frequency and violence of my headaches were considerably reduced,
+while after about a year they vanished completely. I was a new being,
+and my working time was doubled.
+
+One lesson may be learnt from this, namely, that the English system of
+doctoring is very imperfect. In England we wait till we are ill, then
+go to a doctor, describe our symptoms as well as we can, pay one
+guinea, or two, get our prescription, take drastic medicine for a
+month and expect to be well. My German doctor, when he saw the
+prescription of my English doctor, told me that he would not give it
+to a horse. If after a month we are not better we go again; he
+possibly changes our medicine, and we take it more or less regularly
+for another month. The doctor cannot watch the effect of his medicine,
+he is not sure even whether his prescriptions have been carefully
+followed; and he knows but too well that anything like a chronic
+complaint requires a chronic treatment. The important thing, however,
+was that my headaches yielded gradually to the continued use of
+medicine; it would hardly have produced the desired effect if I had
+taken it by fits and starts. All this seems to me quite natural; but
+though my English doctor cured me, and my German doctors did not, I
+still hold that the German system is better. Most families have their
+doctor in Germany, who calls from time to time to watch the health of
+the old and young members of the family, particularly when under
+medical treatment, and receives his stipulated annual payment, which
+secures him a safe income that can be raised, of course, by attendance
+on occasional patients. Perhaps the Chinese system is the best; they
+pay their doctor while they are well, and stop payment as long as they
+are ill. 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 England. If my remarks
+refer to the study and practice of medicine I am asked whether more
+men are killed in England than in Germany; if I refer to the study and
+practice of law I am assured that quite as many murderers are hanged
+in England as in Germany; and if I venture to hint that the study of
+theology might on certain points be improved at Oxford, I am told that
+quite as many souls are saved in England as in Germany, nay, a good
+many more. As I cannot ascertain the facts from trustworthy
+statistics, I have nothing to reply; all I feel is that most nations,
+like most individuals, are perfect in their own eyes, but that those
+are most perfect who are willing to admit that there is something to
+be learnt from their neighbours.
+
+But to return to Hahnemann. He was very kind to me, and I looked up to
+him as a giant both in body and in mind. But he could not deliver me
+from my enemy, the ever recurrent migraine. The cures, however, both
+at Dessau and at Coethen, where he had been made a _Hofrath_ by the
+reigning Duke, were very extraordinary. Hahnemann remained in Coethen
+till 1835, and in that year, when he was eighty, he married a young
+French lady, Melanie d'Hervilly, and was carried off by her to Paris,
+where he soon gained a large practice, and died in 1843, that is at
+the age of eighty-eight. Much of his success, I feel sure, was due to
+his presence and to the confidence which he inspired. How do I know
+that Sir Andrew Clarke, seeing that I was in low spirits about my
+health, did not think it right to encourage me, and by encouraging me
+did certainly make me feel confident about myself, and thus raised my
+vitality, my spirits, or whatever we like to call it? "Thy faith hath
+made thee whole" is a lesson which doctors ought not to neglect.
+
+How little we know the effect of the environment in which we grow up.
+My old granny has drawn deeper furrows through my young soul than all
+my teachers and preachers put together. I am not going to add a
+chapter to that most unsatisfactory of all studies, child-psychology.
+It is an impossible subject. The victim--the child--cannot be
+interrogated till it is too late. The influences that work on the
+child's senses and mind cannot be determined; they are too many, and
+too intangible. The observers of babies, mostly young fathers proud of
+their first offspring, remind me always of a very learned friend of
+mine, who presented to the Royal Society most laborious pages
+containing his lifelong observations on certain deviations of the
+magnetic needle, and who had forgotten that in making these
+observations he always had a pair of steel spectacles on his nose.
+However, I have nothing to say against these observations, nor against
+their more or less successful interpretations. 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 condition, whether as a
+hairy or a hairless creature. To imagine that we can learn from the
+way in which children begin to use our old words, how the primitive
+language of mankind was formed, seems to me like imagining that
+children playing with counters would teach us how and for what purpose
+the first money was coined. There is no doubt a grain of truth in this
+infantile psychology, but it requires as many caveats as that which is
+called ethnological psychology, which makes us see in the savages of
+the present day the representation of the first ancestors of our race,
+and would teach us to discover in their superstitions the antecedents
+of the mythology and religion of the Aryan or Semitic races. 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 Brahmans, Greeks, or Romans, 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
+Homer. They look upon the Patagonians as the _tabula rasa_ of
+humanity, and they forget that even if we admitted that the ancestors
+of the Aryan race had once been more savage than the Patagonians, it
+would not follow that their savagery was identical with that of the
+people of Tierra del Fuego. Why should not the distance between
+Patagonian and Vedic Rishis have been at least as great as that
+between Vedic Rishis and Homeric bards? If there are ever so many
+kinds of civilized life, was there only one and the same savagery?
+
+To take, for instance, the feeling of fear; is it likely that we shall
+find out whether it is innate in human nature or acquired and
+intensified in each generation, by shaking our fists in the face of a
+little baby, to see whether it will wink or shrink or shriek? Some
+children may be more fearless than others, but whether that
+fearlessness arises from ignorance or from stolidity is again by no
+means easy to determine. A burnt child fears the fire, an unburnt
+child might boldly grasp a glowing coal, but all this would not help
+us to determine whether fear is an innate or an acquired tendency or
+habit.
+
+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
+grandmothers, and that I had to make a strong effort of will before I
+could bring myself to walk across a churchyard in the dark. This shows
+how much our character is shaped by circumstances, even when we are
+least aware of it. I did not believe in ghosts and I was not a coward,
+but I felt through life a kind of shiver in dark passages and at the
+sound of mysterious noises, 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 there,
+and that caused me, particularly in my younger days, many a moment of
+discomfort.
+
+All such experiences constitute what may be called the background of
+our life. My first ideas of men and women, and of the world at large,
+that is of the unknown world, were formed within the narrow walls of
+Dessau, for Dessau was still surrounded by walls, and the gates of the
+city were closed every night, though the fears of a foreign enemy were
+but small. Of course the views of life prevailing at Dessau were very
+narrow, but they were wide enough for our purposes. Though we heard of
+large towns like Dresden or Berlin, and of large countries like France
+and Italy, my real world was Dessau and its neighbourhood. We had no
+interests outside the walls of our town or the frontiers of our
+duchy. If we heard of things that had happened at Leipzig or Berlin,
+in Paris or London, they had no more reality for us than what we had
+read about Abraham, or Romulus and Remus, or Alexander the Great. To
+us the pulse of the world seemed to beat in the _Haupt- und
+Residenzstadt_ of Dessau, though we knew perfectly well how small it
+was in comparison with other towns.
+
+And this, too, has left its impression on my thoughts all through
+life, if only by making everything that I saw in later life in such
+towns as Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, and London, appear quite
+overwhelmingly grand. Boys brought up in any of these large towns
+start with a different view of the world, and with a different measure
+for what they see in later life. I do not know that they are to be
+envied for that, for there is pleasure in admiration, pleasure even in
+being stunned by the first sight of the life in the streets of Paris
+or London. I certainly have been a great admirer all my life, and I
+ascribe this disposition to the small surroundings of my early years
+at Dessau.
+
+And so it was with everything else. Having admired our
+Cavalier-Strasse, I could admire all the more the Boulevards in Paris,
+and Regent Street in London. Having enjoyed our small theatre, I stood
+aghast at the Grand Opera, and at Drury Lane. This power of admiration
+and enjoyment extended even to dinners and other domestic amusements.
+Having been brought up on very simple fare, I fully enjoyed the
+dinners which the Old East India Company gave, when we sat down about
+400 people, and, as I was told, four pounds was paid for each guest. 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
+entertainments, even if not quite at four pounds a head, 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 years.
+
+I remember the time when I woke with my breath frozen on my bedclothes
+into a thin sheet of ice. 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 morning, and where, when we tried to break the ice in the
+jug, there were only a few drops of water left at the bottom with
+which to wash. No wonder that the ablutions were expeditious. After
+they were performed we had our speedy breakfast, consisting of a cup
+of coffee and a _semmel_ or roll, and then we rushed to school, often
+through the snow that had not yet been swept away from the pavement.
+We sat in school from eight to eleven or twelve, rushed home again,
+had our very simple dinner, and then back to school, from two to four.
+How we lived through it I sometimes wonder, for we were thinly clad
+and often wet with rain or snow; and yet we enjoyed our life as boys
+only can enjoy it, and had no time to be ill. 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 consequence. The
+background of my life at Dessau and at Leipzig may seem dark, but it
+has only served to make the later years of my life all the brighter
+and warmer.
+
+The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I
+feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by
+it. The unspoiled primitiveness of life at Dessau as it was when I was
+at school there till the age of twelve, would be extremely difficult
+to describe in all its details. Everybody seemed to know everybody and
+everything about everybody. Everybody knew that he was watched, and
+gossip, in the best sense of the word, ruled supreme in the little
+town. Gossip was, in fact, public opinion with all its good and all
+its bad features. Still the result was that no one could afford to
+lose caste, and that everybody behaved as well as he could. I really
+believe that the private life of the people of Dessau at the beginning
+of the century was blameless. The great evils of society did not
+exist, and if now and then there was a black sheep, his or her life
+became a burden to them. Everybody knew what had happened, and society
+being on the whole so blameless, was all the more merciless on the
+sinners, whether their sins were great or small. So from the very
+first my idea was that there were only two classes--one class quite
+perfect and pure as angels, the other black sheep, and altogether
+unspeakable. There was no transition, no intermediate links, no
+shading of light and dark. A man was either black or white, and this
+rigid rule applied not only to moral character, but intellectual
+excellence also was measured by the same standard. A work of art was
+either superlatively beautiful, or it was contemptible. A man of
+science was either a giant or a humbug. Some people spoke of Goethe as
+the greatest of all poets and philosophers the world had ever known;
+others called him a wicked man and an overvalued poet.[7]
+
+  [7] That this was not only the case at Dessau, 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 find.
+
+It is dangerous, no doubt, to go through life with so imperfect a
+measure, and I have for a long time suffered from it, particularly in
+cases where I ought to have been able to make allowance for small
+failings. But as I had been brought up to approach people with a
+complete trust in their rectitude, and with an unlimited admiration of
+their genius, it took me many years before I learnt to make allowance
+for human weaknesses or temporary failures. I have lost many a
+charming companion and excellent friend in my journey through life,
+because I weighed them with my rusty Dessau balance. I had to learn by
+long experience that there may be a spot, nay, several spots on the
+soft skin of a peach, and yet the whole fruit may be perfect. I acted
+very much like the merchant who tested a whole field of rice by the
+first handful of grains, and who, if he found one or two bad grains,
+would have nothing to do with the whole field. I had to learn what
+was, perhaps, the most difficult lesson of all, that a trusted friend
+could not always be trusted, and yet need not therefore be altogether
+a reprobate. What was most difficult for me to digest was an untruth:
+finding out that one who professed to be a friend had said and done
+most unfriendly things behind one's back. Still, in a long life one
+finds out that even that may not be a deadly sin, and that if we are
+so loth to forgive it, it is partly because the falsehood affected our
+own interests. 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 honest, straightforward, and trustworthy, by a large number
+of his own friends. We see this over and over again with men occupying
+eminent positions in Church and State. We see how a prime minister or
+an archbishop is represented by men who know him as a liar and a
+hypocrite, while by others he is spoken of as a paragon of honour and
+honesty, and a true Christian. My narrow Dessau views became a little
+widened when I went to school at Leipzig; still more when I spent two
+years and a half at the University of Leipzig, and afterwards at
+Berlin. Still, during all this time I saw but little of what is called
+society, I only knew of people whom I loved and of people whom I
+disliked. There was no room as yet for indifferent people, whom one
+tolerates and is civil to without caring whether one sees them again
+or not. Of the simplest duties of society also I was completely
+ignorant. No one ever told me what to say and what to do, or what not
+to say and what not to do. What I felt I said, what I thought right I
+did. There was, in fact, in my small native town very little that
+could be called society. One lived in one's family and with one's
+intimate friends without any ceremony. It is a pity that children are
+not taught a few rules of life-wisdom by their seniors. I know that
+the Jews do not neglect that duty, 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-houses, but had
+been planted out full grown by their seniors. The only rules of
+worldly wisdom which I remember, came to me through proverbs and
+little verses which we had either to copy or to learn by heart, such
+as:
+
+    "Wer einmal luegt, dem glaubt man nicht
+     Und wenn er auch die Wahrheit spricht."
+
+    "Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde."
+
+    "Kein Faden ist so fein gesponnen,
+     Er kommt doch endlich an die Sonnen."
+
+    "Jeder ist seines Glueckes Schmied."
+
+Some lines which hung over my bed I have carried with me all through
+life, and I still think they are very true and very terse:
+
+    "Im Glueck nicht jubeln und im Sturm nicht zagen,
+     Das Unvermeidliche mit Wuerde tragen,
+     Das Rechte thun, am Schoenen sich erfreuen,
+     Das Leben lieben und den Tod nicht scheuen,
+     Und fest an Gott und bessere Zukunft glauben,
+     Heisst leben, heisst dem Tod sein Bitteres rauben."
+
+Still, all this formed a very small viaticum for a journey through
+life, 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
+horns. Again and again I had to say to myself, "That would have done
+very well at home, but it was a mistake for all that." My social
+rawness and simplicity stuck to me for many years, just as the Dessau
+dialect remained with me for life; at least I was assured by my
+friends that though I had spoken French and English for so many years,
+they could always detect in my German that I came from Dessau or
+Leipzig.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SCHOOL-DAYS AT LEIPZIG
+
+
+It was certainly a poor kind of armour in which I set out from Dessau.
+My mother, devoted as she was to me, had judged rightly that it was
+best for me to be with other boys and under the supervision of a man.
+I had been somewhat spoiled by her passionate love, and also by her
+passionate severity in correcting the ordinary naughtinesses of a boy.
+So having risen from form to form in the school at Dessau, I was sent,
+at the age of twelve, to Leipzig, to live in the house of Professor
+Carus and attend the famous Nicolai-Schule with his son, who was of
+the same age as myself and who likewise wanted a companion. It was
+thought that there would be a certain emulation between us, and so, no
+doubt, there was, though we always remained the best of friends. The
+house in which we lived stood in a garden and was really an
+orthopaedic institution for girls. There were about twenty or thirty
+of these young girls living in the house or spending the day there,
+and their joyous company was very pleasant. Of course the names and
+faces of my young friends have, with one or two exceptions, vanished
+from my memory, but I was surprised when a few years ago (1895) I was
+staying with Madame Salis-Schwabe at her delightful place on the Menai
+Straits, and discovered that we had known each other more than fifty
+years before in the house of Professor Carus at Leipzig. Though we had
+met from time to time, we never knew of our early meeting at Leipzig,
+till in comparing notes we discovered how we had spent a whole year in
+the same house and among the same friends. Hers has been a life full
+of work and entirely devoted to others. To the very end of her days
+she was spending her large income in founding schools on the system
+recommended by Froebel, not only in England, but in Italy. She died at
+Naples in 1896, while visiting a large school that had been founded by
+her with the assistance of the Italian Government. Her own house in
+Wales was full of treasures of art, and full of memorials of her many
+friends, such as Bunsen, Renan, Mole, Ary Scheffer, and many more. How
+far her charity went may be judged by her being willing to part with
+some of the most precious of Ary Scheffer's pictures, in order to keep
+her schools well endowed, and able to last after her death, which she
+felt to be imminent.
+
+Public schools are nearly all day schools in Germany. The boys live at
+home, mostly in their own families, but they spend six hours every day
+at school, and it is a mistake to imagine that they are not attached
+to it, that they have no games together, and that they do not grow up
+manly or independent. Most schools have playgrounds, and in summer
+swimming is a favourite amusement for all the boys. There were two
+good public schools at Leipzig, the Nicolai School and the Thomas
+School. There was plenty of _esprit de corps_ in them, and often when
+the boys met it showed itself not only in words but in blows, and the
+discussions over the merits of their schools were often continued in
+later life. I was very fortunate in being sent to the Nicolai School,
+under Dr. Nobbe as head master. He was at the same time Professor at
+the University of Leipzig, and is well known in England also as the
+editor of Cicero. He was very proud that his school counted Leibniz[8]
+among its former pupils. He was a classical scholar of the old school.
+During the last three years of our school life we had to write plenty
+of Latin and Greek verse, and were taught to speak Latin. The speaking
+of Latin came readily enough, but the verses never attained a very
+high level. Besides Nobbe we had Forbiger, well known by his books on
+ancient geography, and Palm, editor of the same Greek Dictionary
+which, in the hands of Dr. Liddell, has reached its highest
+perfection. Then there was Funkhaenel, known beyond Germany by his
+edition of the Orations of Demosthenes, and his studies on Greek
+orators. We were indeed well off for masters, and most of them seemed
+to enjoy their work and to be fond of the boys. Our head master was
+very popular. He was a man of the old German type, powerfully built,
+with a large square head, very much like Luther, and, strange to say,
+when in 1839 a great Luther festival was celebrated all over Germany,
+he published a book in which he proved that he was a direct descendant
+of Luther.
+
+  [8] His own spelling of his name.
+
+The school was carried on very much on the old plan of teaching
+chiefly classics, but teaching them thoroughly. Modern languages,
+mathematics, and physical science had a poor chance, though they
+clamoured for recognition. Latin and Greek verse were considered far
+more important. In the two highest forms we had to speak Latin, and
+such as it was it seemed to us much easier than to speak French.
+Hebrew was also taught as an optional subject during the last four
+years, and the little I know of Hebrew dates chiefly from my
+school-days. Schoolboys soon find out what their masters think of the
+value of the different subjects taught at school, and they are apt to
+treat not only the subjects themselves but the teachers also according
+to that standard. Hence our modern language and our physical science
+masters had a hard time of it. They could not keep their classes in
+order, and it was by no means unusual for many of the boys simply to
+stay away from their lessons. The old mathematical master, before
+beginning his lesson, used to rub his spectacles, and after looking
+round the half empty classroom, mutter in a plaintive voice: "I see
+again many boys who are not here to-day." When the same old master
+began to lecture on physical science, he told the boys to bring a frog
+to be placed under a glass from which the air had been extracted by an
+air-pump. Of course every one of the twenty or thirty boys brought two
+or three frogs, and when the experiment was to be made all these frogs
+were hopping about the lecture-room, and the whole army of boys were
+hopping after them over chairs and tables to catch them. No wonder
+that during this tumult the master did not succeed with his
+experiment, and when at last the glass bowl was lifted up and we were
+asked to see the frog, great was the joy of all the boys when the frog
+hopped out and escaped from the hands of its executioner. 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 kept, and destroyed some of the precious instruments
+supplied by Government. Severe punishments followed, but they did not
+serve to make physical science more popular.
+
+We certainly did very well in Greek and Latin, and read a number of
+classical texts, not only critically at school, but also cursorily at
+home, having to give a weekly account of what we had thus read by
+ourselves. I liked my classics, 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 teachers, nay, that as compared to German
+poets and prose writers they were somewhat overpraised. Still, it
+would have been very conceited not to admire what our masters admired,
+and as in duty bound we went into the usual raptures about Homer and
+Sophocles, about Horace and Cicero. Many things which in later life we
+learn to admire in the classics could hardly appeal to the taste of
+boys. The directness, the simplicity and originality of the ancient,
+as compared with modern writers, cannot be appreciated by them, and I
+well remember being struck with what we disrespectful boys called the
+cheekiness of Horace expecting immortality (_non omnis moriar_) for
+little poems which we were told were chiefly written after Greek
+patterns. We had to admit that there were fewer false quantities in
+his Latin verses than in our own, but in other respects we could not
+see that his odes were so infinitely superior to ours. His hope of
+immortality has certainly been fulfilled beyond what could have been
+his own expectations. With so little of ancient history known to him,
+his idea of the immortality of poetry must have been far more modest
+in his time than in our own. He may have known the past glories of the
+Persian Empire, but as to ancient literature, there was nothing for
+him to know, whether in Persia, in Babylonia, in Assyria, or even in
+Egypt, least of all in India. Literary fame existed for him in Greece
+only, and in the Roman Empire, and his own ambition could therefore
+hardly have extended beyond these limits. The exaggeration in the
+panegyrics passed on everything Greek or Latin dates from the
+classical scholars of the Middle Ages, who knew nothing that could be
+compared to the classics, and who were loud in praising what they
+possessed the monopoly of selling. Successive generations of scholars
+followed suit, so that even in our time it seemed high treason to
+compare Goethe with Horace, or Schiller with Sophocles. Of late,
+however, 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 Plato. The fact is that we have learnt from them and
+imitated them, till in some cases the imitations have equalled or even
+excelled the originals, while now the taste for classical correctness
+has been wellnigh supplanted by an appetite for what is called
+realistic, original, and extravagant.
+
+With all that has been said or written against making classical
+studies the most important element in a liberal education, or rather
+against retaining them in their time-honoured position, nothing has as
+yet been suggested to take their place. For after all, 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 Latin; it is in order to learn
+to understand the old world on which our modern world is founded; it
+is in order to think the old thoughts, which are the feeders of our
+own intellectual life, that we become in our youth the pupils of
+Greeks and Romans. In order to know what we are, we have to learn how
+we have come to be what we are. Our very languages form an unbroken
+chain between us and Cicero and Aristotle, and in order to use many of
+our words intelligently, we must know the soil from which they sprang,
+and the atmosphere in which they grew up and developed.
+
+I enjoyed my work at school very much, and I seem to have passed
+rapidly from class to class. I frequently received prizes both in
+money and in books, but I see a warning attached to some of them that
+I ought not to be conceited, which probably meant no more than that I
+should not show when I was pleased with my successes. At least I do
+not know what I could have been conceited about. What I feel about my
+learning at school is that it was entirely passive. I acquired
+knowledge such as it was presented to me. I did not doubt whatever my
+teachers taught me, I did not, as far as I can recollect, work up any
+subject by myself. I find only one paper of mine of that early time,
+and, curiously enough, it was on mythology; but it contains no inkling
+of comparative mythology, but simply a chronological arrangement of
+the sources from which we draw our knowledge of Greek mythology. I see
+also from some old papers, that I began to write poetry, and that
+twice or thrice I was chosen at great festivities to recite poems
+written by myself. In the year 1839 three hundred years had passed
+since Luther preached at Leipzig in the Church of St. Nicolai, and the
+tercentenary of this event was celebrated all over Germany. My poem
+was selected for recitation at a large meeting of the friends of our
+school and the notables of the town, and I had to recite it, not
+without fear and trembling. I was then but sixteen years of age.
+
+In the next year, 1840, Leipzig celebrated the invention of printing
+in 1440. It was on this occasion that Mendelssohn wrote his famous
+_Hymn of Praise_. I formed part of the chorus, and I well remember the
+magnificent effect which the music produced in the Church of St.
+Thomas. Again a poem of mine was selected, and I had to recite it at a
+large gathering in the Nicolai-Schule on July 18, 1840.
+
+On December 23 another celebration took place at our school, at which
+I had to recite a Latin poem of mine, _In Schillerum_. Lastly, there
+was my valedictory poem when I left the school in 1841, and a Latin
+poem "Ad Nobbium," our head master.
+
+I have found among my mother's treasures the far too often flattering
+testimonial addressed to her by Professor Nobbe on that occasion,
+which ends thus: "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 point, first-rate,
+and of intellectual capacities excellent throughout. May his young
+mind develop more and more, may the fruits of his labours hereafter be
+a comfort to his mother for the sorrows and cares of the past."
+
+It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examination for
+admission to the University (_Abiturienten-Examen_) not at my own
+school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable
+me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government. The schools in
+Anhalt were modelled after the Prussian schools, and laid far more
+stress on mathematics, physical science, and modern languages than the
+schools in Saxony. I had therefore to get up in a very short time
+several quite new subjects, and did not do so well in them as in Greek
+and Latin. However, I passed with a first class, and obtained my
+scholarship, small as it was. 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 examination. He reminds me that among my examiners
+there were such men as Dr. Ritter, the two Sentenis, and Professor
+Werner, and he says that he watched me when I came upstairs and
+entered the locked room to do my paper work. My friend's career in
+life had been that of Director of a Life Insurance Company, probably a
+more lucrative career than what mine has been.
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Mueller Aged 14._]
+
+During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of Professor Carus, and
+afterwards as a student at the University, my chief enjoyment was
+certainly music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but I pity
+the man who has not known the charm of it. At that time Leipzig was
+really the centre of music in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was there,
+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 Concerts. I find among my letters a few descriptions of
+concerts and other musical entertainments, which even at present may
+be of some interest. I was asked to be present at some concerts where
+quartettes and other pieces were performed by Mendelssohn, Hiller,
+Kaliwoda, David, and Eckart. Liszt also made his triumphant entry into
+Germany at Leipzig, and everybody was full of expectation and
+excitement. His concert had been advertised long before his arrival.
+It was to consist of an Overture of Weber's; a Cavatina from _Robert
+le Diable_, sung by Madame Schlegel; a Concerto of Weber's, to be
+played by Liszt, the same which I had shortly before heard played by
+Madame Pleyel; Beethoven's Overture to _Prometheus_; Fantasia on _La
+Juive_; Schubert's _Ave Maria_ and _Serenade_, as arranged by Liszt. I
+was the more delighted because I had myself played some of these
+pieces. But suddenly there appeared a placard stating that Liszt, on
+hearing that tickets were sold at one thaler (three shillings), had
+declared he would play a few pieces only and without an orchestra. In
+spite of that disappointment, the whole house was full, the staircase
+crowded from top to bottom, and when we had pushed our way through, we
+found that about 300 places had been retained for one and a half
+thalers (four shillings and sixpence), while tickets at the box-office
+were sold for two thalers (six shillings). Nevertheless, I managed to
+get a very good place, by simply not seeing a number of ladies who
+were pushing behind me. When Liszt appeared there was a terrible
+hissing--he looked as if petrified, glanced like a demon at the
+public, but nevertheless began to play the Scherzo and Finale of the
+Pastoral Symphony. Then there burst out a perfect thunder of applause,
+and all seemed pacified, while Madame Schmidt sang a song accompanied
+by a certain Mr. Kermann. As soon as that was over, a new storm of
+hisses arose, which was meant for this Mr. Kermann, who was a pupil,
+but at the same time the man of business of Liszt. He and three other
+men had made all arrangements, and Liszt knew nothing about them, as
+he cared very little for the money, which went chiefly to his
+managers. A Fantasia by Liszt followed, and lastly a _Galop
+Chromatique_--but the public would not go away, and at length Liszt
+was induced to play _Une grande Valse_. It was no doubt a new
+experience; but I could not go into ecstasies like others, for after
+all it was merely mechanical, though no doubt in the highest
+perfection. The day after Liszt advertised that his original Programme
+would be played, but at six o'clock Professor Carus, with whom I
+lived, was called to see Liszt, who was said to be ill; the fact being
+he had only sold fifty tickets at the raised prices. Many strangers
+who had come to Leipzig to hear him went away, anything but pleased
+with the new musical genius. At one concert, where he appeared in
+Magyar costume, the ladies offered him a golden laurel wreath and
+sword. He had just published his arrangement of _Adelaida_, which he
+promised to play in one of the concerts.
+
+Another very musical family at Leipzig was that of Professor Froege. He
+was a rich man, and had married a famous singer, Fraeulein Schlegel.
+One evening the _Sonnambula_ was performed in their house, which had
+been changed into a theatre. She acted the Sonnambula, and her singing
+as well as her acting was most finished and delightful. Mendelssohn
+was much in their house, and made her sing his songs as soon as they
+were written and before they were published. They were great friends,
+the bond of their friendship being music. He actually died when
+playing while she was singing. People talked as they always will talk
+about what they cannot understand, but they evidently did not know
+either Mendelssohn or Madame Froege.
+
+The house of Professor Carus was always open to musical geniuses, and
+many an evening men like Hiller, Mendelssohn, David, Eckart, &c., came
+there to play, while Madame Carus sang, and sang most charmingly. I
+too was asked sometimes to play at these evening parties. I see that
+Ernst gave a concert at Leipzig, and no doubt his execution was
+admirable. Still, I could not understand what David meant when he
+declared that after hearing Ernst he would throw his own instrument
+into the fire.
+
+Mendelssohn, who was delighted with Liszt--and no one could judge him
+better than he--gave a soiree in honour of him. About 400 people were
+invited--I among the rest, being one of the tenors who sang in the
+Oratorio that Hiller was then rehearsing for the first performance. I
+think it was the _Destruction of Babylon_. There was a complete
+orchestra at Mendelssohn's party, and we heard a symphony of Schubert
+(posthumous), Mendelssohn's psalm "As the hart pants," and his
+overture _Meeresstille und glueckliche Fahrt_. After that there was
+supper for all the guests, and then followed a chorus from his _St.
+Paul_, and a triple concerto of Bach, played on three pianofortes by
+Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Hiller. It was a difficult piece--difficult to
+play and difficult to follow. Lastly, Liszt played his new fantasia on
+_Lucia di Lammermoor_, and his arrangement of the _Erlkoenig_. All was
+really perfect; and hearing so much music, I became more and more
+absorbed in it. I even gave some concerts with Grabau, a great
+violoncellist, at Merseburg, and at a Count Arnim's, a very rich
+nobleman near Merseburg, who had invited Liszt for one evening and
+paid him 100 ducats. This seemed at that time a very large sum,
+almost senseless. As a ducat was about nine shillings, it was after
+all only L45, which would not seem excessive at present for an artist
+such as Liszt.
+
+I also heard Thalberg at Leipzig. They all came to see Mendelssohn,
+and I believe did their best to please him. At that time my idea of
+devoting myself altogether to the study of music became very strong;
+and as Professor Carus married again, I proposed to leave Leipzig, and
+to enter the musical school of Schneider at Dessau. But nothing came
+of that, and I think on the whole it was as well.
+
+While at school at Leipzig I had but little opportunity of travelling,
+for my mother was always anxious to have me home during the holidays,
+and I was equally anxious to be with her and to see my relations at
+Dessau. Generally I went in a wretched carriage from Leipzig to
+Dessau. It was only seven German miles (about thirty-five English
+miles), but it took a whole day to get there; and during part of the
+journey, when we had to cross the deep and desert-like sands, walking
+on foot was much more expeditious than sitting inside the carriage.
+But then we paid only one thaler for the whole journey, and sometimes,
+in order to save that, I walked on foot the whole way. That also took
+me a whole day; but when I tried it the first time, being then quite
+young and rather delicate in health, I had to give in about an hour
+before I came to Dessau, my legs refusing to go further, and my
+muscles being cramped and stiff from exertion, I had to sit down by
+the road. During one vacation I remember exploring the valley of the
+Mulde with some other boys. We travelled for about a fortnight from
+village to village, and lived in the simplest way. A more ambitious
+journey I took in 1841 with a friend of mine, Baron von Hagedorn. He
+was a curious and somewhat mysterious character. He had been brought
+up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he was entrusted as a baby. No one
+knew his parents, but they must have been rich, for he possessed a
+large fortune. He had a country place near Munich, and he spent the
+greater part of the year in travelling about, and amusing himself. He
+had been brought up with my mother and other members of our family,
+and he took a very kind interest in me. I see from my letters that in
+1841 he took me from Dessau to Coethen, Brunswick, and Magdeburg. At
+Brunswick we saw the picture gallery, the churches, and the tomb of
+Schill, one of the German volunteers in the War of Independence
+against France. We also explored Hildesheim, saw the rose-tree
+planted, as we were told, by Charlemagne; then proceeded to Goettingen,
+and saw its famous library. We passed through Minden, where the Fulda
+and Werra join, and arrived late at Cassel. From Cassel we explored
+Wilhelmshoehe, the beautiful park where thirty years later Napoleon III
+was kept as a prisoner.
+
+Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional exaggeration,
+was certainly a good friend to me. He often gave me good advice, and
+was more of a father to me than a mere friend. He was a man of the
+world; and he forgot that I never meant to be a man of the world, and
+therefore his advice was not always what I wanted. He was also a great
+friend of my cousin who was married to a Prince of Dessau, and they
+had agreed among themselves that I should go to the Oriental Academy
+at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and then enter the diplomatic
+service. As there were no children from the Prince's marriage, I was
+to be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune was not enough
+to tempt me, I was told that even a wife had been chosen for me, and
+that I should have a new name and title, after being adopted by the
+Prince. To other young men this might have seemed irresistible. I at
+once said no. It seemed to interfere with my freedom, with my studies,
+with my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything was
+presented to me by my cousin as on a silver tray, I shook my head and
+remained true to my first love, Sanskrit and all the rest. Hagedorn
+could not understand this; he thought a brilliant life preferable to
+the quiet life of a professor. Not so I. He little knew where true
+happiness was to be found, and he was often in a very melancholy mood.
+He did not live long, but I shall never forget how much I owed him.
+When I went to Paris, he allowed me to live in his rooms. They were,
+it is true, _au cinquieme_, but they were in the best quarter of
+Paris, in the Rue Royale St. Honore, opposite the Madeleine, and very
+prettily furnished. This kept me from living in dusty lodgings in the
+Quartier Latin, and the five flights of stairs may have strengthened
+my lungs. 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 again. But in those days one did not know what it meant to be
+tired. Whether my friends grumbled, I cannot tell, but I myself pitied
+some of them who were old and gouty when they arrived at my door out
+of breath.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+UNIVERSITY
+
+
+In order to enable me to go to the University, my mother and sister
+moved to Leipzig and kept house for me during all the time I was
+there--that is, for two years and a half. In spite of the _res angusta
+domi_, I enjoyed my student-life thoroughly, while my home was made
+very agreeable by my mother and sister. My mother was full of
+resource, and she was wise enough not to interfere with my freedom. My
+sister, who was about two years older than myself, was most
+kind-hearted and devoted both to me and to our mother. There was
+nothing selfish in her, and we three lived together in perfect love,
+peace, and harmony. My sister enjoyed what little there was of
+society, whereas I kept sternly aloof from it. She was much admired,
+and soon became engaged to a young doctor, Dr. A. Krug, the son of the
+famous professor of philosophy at Leipzig, whose works, particularly
+his _Dictionary of Philosophy_, hold a distinguished place in the
+history of German philosophy. He was a thorough patriot, and so public
+spirited that he thought it right to leave a considerable sum of money
+to the University, without making sufficient provision for his
+children. However, the young married couple lived happily at Chemnitz,
+and my sister was proud in the possession of her children. It was the
+sudden death of several of these children that broke her heart and
+ruined her health; she died very young. Standing by the grave of her
+children, she said to me shortly before her death, "Half of me is dead
+already, and lies buried there; the other half will soon follow."
+
+Of society, in the ordinary sense of the word, I saw hardly anything.
+I am afraid I was rather a bear, and declined even to invest in
+evening dress. I joined a student club which formed part of the
+_Burschenschaft_, but which in order to escape prosecution adopted the
+title of _Gemeinschaft_. I went there in the evening to drink beer and
+smoke, and I made some delightful acquaintances and friendships. What
+fine characters were there, often behind a very rough exterior! My
+dearest friend was Prowe, of Thorn in East Prussia--so honest, so
+true, so straightforward, so over-conscientious in the smallest
+things. He was a classical scholar, and later on entered the Prussian
+educational service. As a master at the principal school at Thorn his
+time was fully occupied, and of course he was cut off there from the
+enlivening influences of literary society. Still he kept up his
+interest in higher questions, and published some extremely valuable
+books on Copernicus, a native of Thorn, for which he received the
+thanks of astronomers and historians, and flattering testimonials
+from learned societies. We met but seldom later in life, and my own
+life in England was so busy and full that even our correspondence was
+not regular. But I met him once more at Ems with a charming wife, and
+decidedly happy in his own sphere of activity. These early friendships
+form the distant landscape of life on which we like to dwell when the
+present ceases to absorb all our thoughts. Our memory dwells on them
+as a golden horizon, and there remains a constant yearning which makes
+us feel the incompleteness of this life. After all, the number of our
+true friends is small; and yet how few even of that small number
+remain with us for life. There are other faces and other names that
+rise from beyond the clouds which more and more divide us from our
+early years.
+
+There were some wild spirits among us who fretted at the narrow-minded
+policy which went by the name of the Metternich system. Repression was
+the panacea which Metternich recommended to all the governments of
+Germany, large and small. No doubt the system of keeping things quiet
+secured to Germany and to Europe at large a thirty years' peace, but
+it could not prevent the accumulation of inflammable material which,
+after several threatenings, burst forth at last in the conflagration
+of 1848. Among my friends I remember several who were ready for the
+wildest schemes in order to have Germany united, respected abroad,
+and under constitutional government at home. Splendid fellows they
+were, but they either ended their days within the walls of a prison,
+or had to throw up everything and migrate to America. What has become
+of them? Some have risen to the surface in America, others have
+yielded to the inevitable and become peaceful citizens at home; nay, I
+am grieved to say, have even accepted service under Government to spy
+on their former friends and fellow-dreamers. But not a few saw the
+whole of their life wrecked either in prison or in poverty, though
+they had done no wrong, and in many cases were the finest characters
+it has been my good fortune to know. They were before their time, the
+fruit was not ripe as it was in 1871, but Germany certainly lost some
+of her best sons in those miserable years; and if my father escaped
+this political persecution, it was probably due to the influence of
+the reigning Duke and the Duchess, a Princess of Prussia, who knew
+that he was not a dangerous man, and not likely to blow up the German
+Diet.
+
+I myself got a taste of prison life for the offence of wearing the
+ribbon of a club which the police regarded with disfavour. I cannot
+say that either the disgrace or the discomfort of my two days' durance
+vile weighed much with me, as my friends were allowed free access to
+me, 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
+scholarship, which alone enabled me to continue my studies at
+Leipzig, and which, as a rule, was forfeited for political offences.
+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 club. I assured him that
+I was innocent of any political propaganda, and that the loss of my
+stipendium would entail my leaving the University. Much to my relief,
+the old gentleman replied: "I have heard nothing about this; and if I
+do, how am I to know that it refers to you, there are many Muellers in
+the University?" Fortunately the distinctive prefix Max had not yet
+been added to my name.
+
+I must confess that I and my boon companions were sometimes guilty of
+practices which in more modern days, and certainly at Oxford or
+Cambridge, 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 in.
+
+Duelling was then, as it is now, a favourite pastime among the
+students; and though not by nature a brawler, I find that in my
+student days at Leipzig I fought three duels, of two of which I carry
+the marks to the present day.
+
+I remember that on one occasion before the introduction of cabs we
+hired all the sedan-chairs in Leipzig, with their yellow-coated
+porters, and went in procession through the streets, much to the
+astonishment of the good citizens, and annoyance also, as they were
+unable to hire any means of conveyance till a peremptory stop was put
+to our fun. Not content with this exploit, when the first cabs were
+introduced into Leipzig, thirty or forty being put on the street at
+first, I and my friends secured the use of all of them for the day,
+and proceeded out into the country. The inhabitants who were eagerly
+looking forward to a drive in one of the new conveyances were
+naturally annoyed at finding themselves forestalled, 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 time.
+
+Very innocent amusements, if perhaps foolish, but very happy days all
+the same; 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 life.
+
+It is in every respect a great jump from a German school to a German
+university. At school a boy even in the highest form, has little
+choice. All his lessons are laid down for him; he has to learn what he
+is told, whether he likes it or not. Few only venture on books outside
+the prescribed curriculum. There is an examination at the end of every
+half-year, and a boy must pass it well in order to get into a higher
+form. Boys at a public school (gymnasium), if they cannot pass their
+examination at the proper time, are advised to go to another school,
+and to prepare for a career in which classical languages are of less
+importance.
+
+I must say at once that when I matriculated at Leipzig, in the summer
+of 1841, I was still very young and very immature. I had determined to
+study philology, chiefly Greek and Latin, but the fare spread out by
+the professors was much too tempting. I read Greek and Latin without
+difficulty; I often read classical authors without ever attempting to
+translate them; I also wrote and spoke Latin easily. Some of the
+professors lectured in Latin, and at our academic societies Latin was
+always spoken. I soon became a member of the classical seminary under
+Gottfried Hermann, and of the Latin Society under Professor Haupt.
+Admission to these seminaries and societies was obtained by submitting
+essays, and it was no doubt a distinction to belong to them. It was
+also useful, for not only had we to write essays and discuss them with
+the other members, generally teachers, and with the professor, but we
+could also get some useful advice from the professor for our private
+studies. In that respect the German universities do very little for
+the students, unless one has the good fortune to belong to one of
+these societies. The young men are let loose, and they can choose
+whatever lectures they want. I still have my _Collegien-Buch_, in
+which every professor has to attest what lectures one has attended.
+The number of lectures on various subjects which I attended is quite
+amazing, and I should have attended still more if the honorarium had
+not frightened me away. Every professor lectured _publice_ and
+_privatim_, and for the more important courses, four lectures a week,
+he charged ten shillings, for more special courses less or nothing.
+This seems little, but it was often too much for me; and if one added
+these honoraria to the salary of a popular professor, his income was
+considerable, and was more than the income of most public servants. I
+have known professors who had four or five hundred auditors. This gave
+them L250 twice a year, and that, added to their salary, was
+considered a good income at that time. All this has been much changed.
+Salaries have been raised, and likewise the honoraria, so that I well
+remember the case of Professor von Savigny, who, when he was chosen
+Minister of Justice at Berlin, declared that he would gladly accept if
+only his salary was raised to what his income had been as Professor of
+Law. Of course, professors of Arabic or Sanskrit were badly off, and
+_Privatdocenten_ (tutors) fared still worse, but the _professores
+ordinarii_, particularly if they lectured on an obligatory subject and
+were likewise examiners, were very well off. In fact, it struck me
+sometimes as very unworthy of them to keep a _famulus_, a student who
+had to tell every one who wished to hear a distinguished professor
+once or twice, that he would not allow him to come a third time.
+
+One great drawback of the professorial system is certainly the small
+measure of personal advice that a student may get from the professors.
+Unless he is known to them personally, or has gained admission to
+their societies or seminaries, the young student or freshman is quite
+bewildered by the rich fare in the shape of lectures that is placed
+before him. Some students, no doubt, particularly in their early
+terms, solve this difficulty by attending none at all, and there is no
+force to make them do so, except the examinations looming in the
+distance. But there are many young men most anxious to learn, only
+they do not know where to begin. I open my old _Collegien-Buch_ and I
+find that in the first term or Semester I attended the following
+lectures, and I may say I attended them regularly, took careful notes,
+and read such books as were recommended by the professors. I find
+
+   1. The first book of Thucydides          Gottfried Hermann.
+   2. On Scenic Antiquities                 The same.
+   3. On Propertius                         P. M. Haupt.
+   4. History of German Literature          The same.
+   5. The Ranae of Aristophanes             Stallbaum.
+   6. Disputatorium (in Latin)              Nobbe.
+   7. Aesthetics                            Weisse.
+   8. Anthropology                          Lotze.
+   9. Systems of Harmonic Composition       Fink.
+  10. Hebrew Grammar                        Fuerst.
+  11. Demosthenes                           Westermann.
+  12. Psychology                            Heinroth.
+
+This was enough for the summer half-year. Except Greek and Latin, the
+other subjects were entirely new to me, and what I wanted was to get
+an idea of what I should like to study. It may be interesting to add
+the other Semesters as far as I have them in my _Collegien-Buch_.
+
+  13. Aeschyli Persae                       Hermann.
+  14. On Criticism                          The same.
+  15. German Grammar                        Haupt.
+  16. Walther von der Vogelweide            The same.
+  17. Tacitus, Agricola, and De Oratoribus  The same.
+  18. On Hegel                              Weisse.
+  19. Disputatorium (Latin)                 Nobbe.
+  20. Modern History                        Wachsmuth.
+  21. Sanskrit Grammar                      Brockhaus.
+  22. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+
+Then follows the summer term of 1842.
+
+  23. Pindar                                Hermann.
+  24. Nibelungen                            Haupt.
+  25. Nala                                  Brockhaus.
+  26. History of Oriental Literature        The same.
+  27. Arabic Grammar                        Fleischer.
+  28. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+  29. Plauti Trinumus                       Becker.
+
+Winter term, 1842.
+
+  30. Prabodha Chandrodaya                  Brockhaus.
+  31. History of Indian Literature          The same.
+  32. Aristophanes' Vespae                  Hermann.
+  33. Plauti Rudens                         The same.
+  34. Greek Syntax                          The same.
+  35. Juvenal                               Becker.
+  36. Metaphysics and Logic                 Weisse.
+  37. Philosophy of History                 The same.
+  38. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+  39. Latin Society                         Haupt.
+  40. Philosophical Society                 Weisse.
+  41. Philosophical Society                 Drobisch.
+
+Summer term, 1843.
+
+  42. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+  43. Philosophical Society                 Drobisch.
+  44. Philosophical Society                 Weisse.
+  45. Soma-deva                             Brockhaus.
+  46. Hitopadesa                            The same.
+  47. History of Greeks and Romans          Wachsmuth.
+  48. History of Civilization               The same.
+  49. History after the Fifteenth Century   Flathe.
+  50. History of Ancient Philosophy         Niedner.
+
+Winter term, 1843-4.
+
+  51. Rig-veda                              Brockhaus.
+  52. Elementa Persica                      Fleischer.
+  53. Greek and Latin Seminary              Hermann & Klotze.
+
+Here my _Collegien-Buch_ breaks off, the fact being that I was
+preparing to go to Berlin to hear the lectures of Bopp and Schelling.
+
+It will be clear from the above list that I certainly attempted too
+much. I ought either to have devoted all my time to classical studies
+exclusively, or carried on my philosophical studies more
+systematically. I confess that, delighted as I was with Gottfried
+Hermann and Haupt as my guides and teachers in classics, I found
+little that could rouse my enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature,
+and I always required a dose of that to make me work hard. Everything
+seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to
+the plough, no ruins on which to try one's own spade. Hermann and
+Haupt gave me work to do, but it was all in the critical line--the
+genealogical relation of various MSS., or, again, the peculiarities of
+certain poets, long before I had fully grasped their general
+character. What Latin vowels could or could not form elision in
+Horace, Propertius, or Ovid, was a subject that cost me much labour,
+and yet left very small results as far as I was personally concerned.
+One clever conjecture, or one indication to show that one MS. was
+dependent on the other, was rewarded with a Doctissime or
+Excellentissime, but a paper on Aeschylus and his view of a divine
+government of the world received but a nodding approval.
+
+They certainly taught their pupils what accuracy meant; they gave us
+the new idea that MSS. are not everything, unless their real value has
+been discovered first by finding the place which they occupy in the
+pedigree of the MSS. of every author. They also taught us that there
+are mistakes in MSS. which are inevitable, and may safely be left to
+conjectural emendation; that MSS. of modern date may be and often are
+more valuable than more ancient MSS., for the simple reason that they
+were copied from a still more ancient MS., and that often a badly
+written and hardly legible MS. proves more helpful than others
+written by a calligraphist, because it is the work of a scholar who
+copied for himself and not for the market. All these things we learnt
+and learnt by practical experience under Hermann and Haupt, but what
+we failed to acquire was a large knowledge of Greek and Latin
+literature, of the character of each author and of the spirit which
+pervaded their works. I ought to have read in Latin, Cicero, Tacitus,
+and Lucretius; in Greek, Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle;
+but as I read only portions of them, my knowledge of the men
+themselves and their objects in life remained very fragmentary. For
+instance, my real acquaintance with Plato and Aristotle was confined
+to a few dialogues of the former and some of the logical works of the
+latter. The rest I learnt from such works as Ritter and Preller's
+_Historia Philosophiae Graecae et Romanae ex fontium locis contexta_,
+and from the very useful lectures of Niedner on the history of ancient
+philosophy. However, I thought I had to do what my professors told me,
+and shaped my reading so that they should approve of my work.
+
+This must not be understood as in any way disparaging my teachers.
+Such an idea never entered my head at the time. People have no idea in
+England what kind of worship is paid by German students to their
+professors. To find fault with them or to doubt their _ipse dixit_
+never entered our minds. What they said of other classical scholars
+from whom they differed, as Hermann did from Otfried Mueller, or Haupt
+from Orelli, was gospel, and remained engraved on our memory for a
+long time. Once when attending Hermann's lectures, another student who
+was sitting at the same table with me made disrespectful remarks about
+old Hermann. I asked him to be quiet, and when he went on with his
+foolish remarks, I could only stop him by calling him out. As soon as
+the challenge was accepted he had of course to be quiet, and a few
+days after we fought our duel without much damage to either of us. I
+only mention this because it shows what respect and admiration we felt
+for our professor, also because it exemplifies the usefulness of
+duelling in a German university, where after a challenge not another
+word can be said or violence be threatened even by the rudest
+undergraduate. A duel for a Greek conjecture may seem very absurd, but
+in duels of this kind all that is wanted is really a certain knowledge
+of fencing, care being taken that nothing serious shall happen. And
+yet, though that is so, the feeling of a possible danger is there, and
+keeps up a certain etiquette and a certain proper behaviour among men
+taken from all strata of society. Nor can I quite deny that when I
+went in the morning to a beautiful wood in the neighbourhood of
+Leipzig, certain misgivings were difficult to suppress. I saw myself
+severely wounded, possibly killed, by my antagonist, and carried to a
+house where my mother and sister were looking for me. This went off
+when I met the large assembly of students, beautifully attired in
+their club uniforms, the beer barrels pushed up on one side, the
+surgeon and his instruments waiting on the other. There were ever so
+many, thirty or forty couples I think, waiting to fight their duels
+that morning. Some fenced extremely well, and it was a pleasure to
+look on; and when one's own turn came, all one thought of was how to
+stand one's ground boldly, and how to fence well. Some of the
+combatants came on horseback or in carriages, and there was a small
+river close by to enable us to escape if the police should have heard
+of our meeting. For popular as these duels are, they are forbidden and
+punished, and the severest punishment seemed always to be the loss of
+our uniforms, our arms, our flags, and our barrels of beer. However,
+we escaped all interference this time, and enjoyed our breakfast in
+the forest thoroughly, nothing happening to disturb the hilarity of
+the morning.
+
+Not being satisfied with what seemed to me a mere chewing of the cud
+in Greek and Latin, I betook myself to systematic philosophy, and even
+during the first terms read more of that than of Plato and Aristotle.
+I belonged to the philosophical societies of Weisse, of Drobisch, and
+of Lotze, a membership in each of which societies entailed a
+considerable amount of reading and writing.
+
+At Leipzig, Professor Drobisch represented the school of Herbart,
+which prided itself on its clearness and logical accuracy, 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 difficulties. I wished to know what it all meant, for
+I was not satisfied with mere words. There is hardly a word that has
+so many meanings as Idea, and I doubt whether any of the raw recruits,
+just escaped from school, and unacquainted with the history of
+philosophy, could have had any idea of what Hegel's Idea was meant
+for. Yet they talked about it very eloquently and very positively over
+their glasses of beer; and anybody who came from Berlin and could
+speak mysteriously or rapturously about the Idea and its evolution by
+the dialectic process, was listened to with silent wonder by the young
+Saxons, who had been brought up on Kant and Krug. The Hegelian fever
+was still very high at that time. It is true Hegel himself was dead
+(1831), and though he was supposed to have declared on his deathbed
+that he left only one true disciple, and that that disciple had
+misunderstood him, to be a Hegelian was considered a _sine qua non_,
+not only among philosophers, but quite as much among theologians, men
+of science, lawyers, artists, in fact, in every branch of human
+knowledge, at least in Prussia. If Christianity in its Protestant form
+was the state-religion of the kingdom, Hegelianism was its
+state-philosophy. Beginning with the Minister of Instruction down to
+the village schoolmaster, everybody claimed to be a Hegelian, and
+this was supposed to be the best road to advancement. Though
+Altenstein, who was then at the head of the Ministry of Instruction,
+began to waver in his allegiance to Hegel, even he could not resist
+the rush of public and of official opinion. It was he who, when a new
+professor of philosophy was recommended to him either by Hegel himself
+or by some of his followers, is reported to have said: "Gentlemen, I
+have read some of the young man's books, and I cannot understand a
+word of them. However, you are the best judges, 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 possible, and dismissed him with the
+words: 'Enfin, si je peux y entrer, je ne les prendrai pas.' This
+seems to me very much what you say of your young philosopher. If I can
+understand his books, I am not to take him." This Hegelian fever was
+very much like what we have passed through ourselves at the time of
+the Darwinian fever; Darwin's natural evolution was looked upon very
+much like Hegel's dialectic process, as the general solvent of all
+difficulties. The most egregious nonsense was passed under that name,
+as it was under the name of evolution. Hegel knew very well what he
+meant, so did Darwin. But the empty enthusiasm of his followers became
+so wild that Darwin himself, the most humble of all men, became quite
+ashamed of it. The master, of course, was not responsible for the
+folly of his so-called disciples, but the result was inevitable.
+After the bow had been stretched to the utmost, a reaction followed,
+and in the case of Hegelianism, a complete collapse. Even at Berlin
+the popularity of Hegelianism came suddenly to an end, and after a
+time no truly scientific man liked to be called a Hegelian. These
+sudden collapses in Germany are very instructive. As long as a German
+professor is at the head of affairs and can do something for his
+pupils, his pupils are very loud in their encomiums, both in public
+and in private. They not only exalt him, but help to belittle all who
+differ from him. So it was with Hegel, so it was at a later time with
+Bopp, and Curtius, and other professors, particularly if they had the
+ear of the Minister of Education. But soon after the death of these
+men, particularly if another influential star was rising, the change
+of tone was most sudden and most surprising; even the sale of their
+books dwindled down, and they were referred to only as landmarks,
+showing the rapid advance made by living celebrities. Perhaps all this
+cannot be helped, as long as human nature is what it is, but it is
+nevertheless painful to observe.
+
+I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with Hegelianism through
+Professor Christian Weisse at Leipzig, who, though he was considered a
+Hegelian, was a very sober Hegelian, a critic quite as much as an
+admirer of Hegel. He had a very small audience, because his manner of
+lecturing was certainly most trying and tantalizing. But by being
+brought into personal contact with him one was able to get help from
+him wherever he could give it. Though Weisse was convinced of the
+truth of Hegel's Dialectic Method, he often differed from him in its
+application. This Dialectic Method consisted in showing how thought is
+constantly and irresistibly driven from an affirmative to a negative
+position, then reconciles the two opposites, and from that point
+starts afresh, repeating once more the same process. Pure being, for
+instance, from which Hegel's ideal evolution starts, was shown to be
+the same as empty being, that is to say, nothing, and both were
+presented as identical, and in their identity giving us the new
+concept of Becoming (_Werden_), which is being and not-being at the
+same time. All this may appear to the lay reader rather obscure, but
+could not well be passed over.
+
+So far Weisse followed the great thinker, and I possess still, in his
+own writing, 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 categories, like
+angels of God, ascend and descend from heaven to earth. We must
+remember that the true Hegelian regarded the Ideas as the thoughts of
+God. Hegel looked upon this evolution of thought as at the same time
+the evolution of Being, the Idea being the only thing that could be
+said to be truly real. In order to understand this, we must remember
+that the historical key to Hegel's Idea was really the Neo-Platonic
+or Alexandrian Logos. But of this Logos we ignorant undergraduates,
+sitting at the feet of Prof. Weisse, knew absolutely nothing, and even
+if the Idea was sometimes placed before us as the Absolute, the
+Infinite, or the Divine, it was to us, at least to most of us, myself
+included, _vox et praeterea nihil_. We watched the wonderful
+evolutions and convolutions of the Idea in its Dialectic development,
+but of the Idea itself or himself we had no idea whatever. It was all
+darkness, a vast abyss, and we sat patiently and wrote down what we
+could catch and comprehend of the Professor's explanations, but the
+Idea itself we never could lay hold of. It would not have been so
+difficult if the Professor had spoken out more boldly. But whenever he
+came to the relation of the Idea to what we mean by God, there was
+always even with him, who was a very honest man, a certain theological
+hesitation. Hegel himself seems to shrink occasionally from the
+consequence that the Idea really stands in the place of God, and that
+it is in the self-conscious spirit of humanity that the ideal God
+becomes first conscious of himself. Still, that is the last word of
+Hegel's philosophy, though others maintain that the Idea with Hegel
+was the thought of God, and that human thought was but a repetition of
+that divine thought. With Hegel there is first the evolution of the
+Idea in the pure ether of logic from the simplest to the highest
+category. Then follows Hegel's Philosophy of Nature, that is, the
+evolution of the Idea in nature, the Idea having by the usual
+dialectic process negatived itself and entered into its opposite
+(_Anderssein_), passing through a new process of space and time, and
+ending in the self-conscious human soul. Thus nature and spirit were
+represented as dominated by the Idea in its logical development.
+Nature was one manifestation of the Idea, History the other, and it
+became the task of the philosopher to discover its traces both in the
+progress of nature and in the historical progress of thought.
+
+And here it was where the strongest protests began to be heard.
+Physical Science revolted, and Historical Research soon joined the
+rebellion. Professor Weisse also, in spite of his great admiration for
+Hegel, protested in his Lectures against this idealization of history,
+and showed how often Hegel, if he could not find the traces he was
+looking for in the historical development of the Idea, was misled by
+his imperfect knowledge of facts, and discovered what was not there,
+but what he felt convinced ought to have been there. Nowhere has this
+become so evident as in Hegel's _Philosophy of Religion_. The
+conception was grand of seeing in the historical development of
+religion a repetition of the Dialectic Progress of the Idea. But facts
+are stubborn things, and do not yield even to the supreme command of
+the Idea. Besides, if the historical facts of religion were really
+such as the Dialectic Process of the Idea required, these facts are
+no longer what they were before 1831, and what would become then of
+the Idea which, as he wrote in his preface to his _Metaphysics_, could
+not possibly be changed to please the new facts? It was this part of
+Weisse's lectures, it was the protest of the historical conscience
+against the demands of the Idea, that interested me most. I see as
+clearly the formal truth as the material untruth of Hegel's
+philosophy. The thorough excellence of its method and the desperate
+baldness of its results, strike me with equal force. Though I did not
+yet know what kind of thing or person the Idea was really meant for, I
+knew myself enough of ancient Greek philosophy and of Oriental
+religions to venture to criticize Hegel's representation and
+disposition of the facts themselves. I could not accept the answer of
+my more determined Hegelian friends, _Tant pis pour les faits_, but
+felt more and more the old antagonism between what ought to be and
+what is, between the reasonableness of the Idea, and the
+unreasonableness of facts. I found a strong supporter in a young
+Privat-Docent who at that time began his brilliant career at Leipzig,
+Dr. Lotze. He had made a special study of mathematics and physical
+science, 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 Religion_. I joined his philosophical society, and
+I lately found among my old papers several essays which I had written
+for our meetings. They amused me very much, but I should be sorry to
+see them published now. It is curious that after many years I, as a
+Delegate of the University Press at Oxford, was instrumental in
+getting the first English translation of Lotze's _Metaphysics_
+published in England; and it is still more curious that Mark Pattison,
+the late Rector of Lincoln, should have opposed it with might and main
+as a useless book which would never pay its expenses. I stood up for
+my old teacher, and I am glad to say to the honour of English
+philosophers, that the translation passed through several editions,
+and helped not a little to establish Lotze's position in England and
+America. He died in 1881.
+
+It is extraordinary how the young minds in German universities survive
+the storms and fogs through which they have to pass in their academic
+career. I confess I myself felt quite bewildered for a time, and began
+to despair altogether of my reasoning powers. Why should I not be able
+to understand, I asked myself, what other people seemed to understand
+without any effort? We speak the same language, why should we not be
+able to think the same thought? I took refuge for a time in
+history--the history of language, of religion, and of philosophy.
+There was a very learned professor at Leipzig, Dr. Niedner, who
+lectured on the History of Greek Philosophy, and whose _Manual for the
+History of Philosophy_ has been of use to me through the whole of my
+life. Socrates said of Heraclitus: "What I have understood of his
+book is excellent, and I suppose therefore that even what I have not
+understood is so too; but one must be a Delian swimmer not to be
+drowned in it." I tried for a long time to follow this advice with
+regard to Hegel and Weisse, and though disheartened did not despair. I
+understood some of it, why should not the rest follow in time? Thus, I
+never gave up the study of philosophy at Leipzig and afterwards at
+Berlin, and my first contributions to philosophical journals date from
+that early time, when I was a student in the University of Leipzig. My
+very earliest, though very unsuccessful, struggles to find an entrance
+into the mysteries of philosophy date even from my school-days.
+
+I remember some years before, when I was quite young, perhaps no more
+than fifteen years of age, listening with bated breath to some
+professors at Leipzig who were talking very excitedly about philosophy
+in my presence. I had no idea what was meant by philosophy, still less
+could I follow when they began to discuss Kant's _Kritik der reinen
+Vernunft_. One of my friends, whom I looked up to as a great
+authority, confessed that he had read the book again and again, but
+could not understand the whole of it. My curiosity was much excited,
+and once, while he was taking a walk with me, I asked him very timidly
+what Kant's book was about, and how a man could write a book that
+other men could not understand. He tried to explain what Kant's book
+was about, but it was all perfect darkness before my eyes; I was
+trying to lay hold of a word here and there, but it all floated before
+my mind like mist, without a single ray of light, without any way out
+of all that maze of words. But when at last he said he would lend me
+the book, I fell on it and pored over it hour after hour. The result
+was the same. My little brain could not take in the simplest ideas of
+the first chapters--that space and time were nothing by themselves;
+that we ourselves gave the form of space and time to what was given us
+by the senses. But though defeated I would not give in; I tried again
+and again, but of course it was all in vain. The words were here and I
+could construe them, but there was nothing in my mind which the words
+could have laid hold on. It was like rain on hard soil, it all ran
+off, or remained standing in puddles and muddles on my poor brain.
+
+At last I gave it up in despair, but I had fully made up my mind that
+as soon as I went to the University I would find out what philosophy
+really was, and what Kant meant by saying that space and time were
+forms of our sensuous intuition. I see that, accordingly, in the
+summer of 1841, I attended lectures on Aesthetics by Professor Weisse,
+on Anthropology by Lotze, and on Psychology by Professor Heinroth, and
+I slowly learnt to distinguish between what was going on within me,
+and what I had been led to imagine existed outside me, or at least
+quite independent of me. But before I had got a firm grasp of Kant,
+of his forms of intuition, and the categories of the understanding, I
+was thrown into Hegelianism. This, too, was at first entire darkness,
+but I was not disheartened. I attended Professor Weisse's lectures on
+Hegel in the winter of 1841-2, and again in the winter of 1842-3 I
+attended his lectures on Logic and Metaphysics, and on the Philosophy
+of History. He took an interest in me, and I felt most strongly
+attracted by him. Soon after I joined his Philosophical Society, and
+likewise that of Professor Drobisch. In these societies every member,
+when his turn came, had to write an essay and defend it against the
+professor and the other members of the society. All this was very
+helpful, but it was not till I had heard a course of lectures on the
+History of Philosophy, by Professor Niedner, that my interest in
+Philosophy became strong and healthy. While Weisse was a leading
+Hegelian philosopher, and Drobisch represented the opposite philosophy
+of Herbart, Niedner was purely historical, and this appealed most to
+my taste. Still, my philosophical studies remained very disjointed. At
+last I was admitted to Lotze's Philosophical Society also, and here we
+chiefly read and discussed Kant's _Kritik_. Lotze was then quite a
+young man, undecided as yet himself between physical science and pure
+philosophy.
+
+Weisse was certainly the most stirring lecturer, but his delivery was
+fearful. He did not read his lectures, as many professors did, but
+would deliver them _extempore_. He had no command of language, and
+there was a pause after almost every sentence. He was really thinking
+out the problem while he was lecturing; he was constantly repeating
+his sentences, and any new thought that crossed his mind would carry
+him miles away from his subject. It happened sometimes in these
+rhapsodies that he contradicted himself, but when I walked home with
+him after his lecture to a village near Leipzig where he lived, he
+would readily explain how it happened, how he meant something quite
+different from what he had said, or what I had understood. In fact he
+would give the whole lecture over again, only much more freely and
+more intelligibly. I was fully convinced at that time that Hegel's
+philosophy was the final solution of all problems; I only hesitated
+about his philosophy of history as applied to the history of religion.
+I could not bring myself to admit that the history of religion, nor
+even the history of philosophy as we know it from Thales to Kant, was
+really running side by side with his Logic, showing how the leading
+concepts of the human mind, as elaborated in the Logic, had found
+successive expression in the history and development of the schools of
+philosophy as known to us. Weisse was strong both in his analysis of
+concepts and in his knowledge of history, and though he taught Hegel
+as a faithful interpreter, he always warned us against trusting too
+much in the parallelism between Logic and History. Study the writings
+of the good philosophers, he would say, and then see whether they will
+or will not fit into the Procrustean bed of Hegel's Logic. And this
+was the best lesson he could have given to young men. How well founded
+and necessary the warning was I found out myself, the more I studied
+the religion and philosophies of the East, and then compared what I
+saw in the original documents with the account given by Hegel in his
+_Philosophy of Religion_. It is quite true that Hegel at the time when
+he wrote, could not have gained a direct or accurate knowledge of the
+principal religions of the East. But what I could not help seeing was
+that what Hegel represented as the necessity in the growth of
+religious thought, was far away from the real growth, as I had watched
+it in some of the sacred books of these religions. This shook my
+belief in the correctness of Hegel's fundamental principles more than
+anything else.
+
+At that time Herbart's philosophy, as taught by Drobisch at Leipzig,
+came to me as a most useful antidote. The chief object of that
+philosophy is, as is well known, the analysing and clearing, so to
+speak, of our concepts. This was exactly what I wanted, only that
+occupied as I was with the problems of language, I at once translated
+the object of his philosophy into a definition of words. Henceforth
+the object of my own philosophical occupations was the accurate
+definition of every word. All words, such as reason, pure reason,
+mind, thought, were carefully taken to pieces and traced back, if
+possible, to their first birth, and then through their further
+developments. My interest in this analytical process soon took an
+historical, that is etymological, character in so far as I tried to
+find out why any words should now mean exactly what, according to our
+definition, they ought to mean. For instance, in examining such words
+as _Vernunft_ or _Verstand_, a little historical retrospect showed
+that their distinction as reason and understanding was quite modern,
+and chiefly due to a scientific definition given and maintained by the
+Kantian school of philosophy. Of course every generation has a right
+to define its philosophical terms, but from an historical point of
+view Kant might have used with equal right _Vernunft_ for _Verstand_,
+and _Verstand_ for _Vernunft_. Etymologically or historically both
+words have much the same meaning. _Vernunft_, from _Vernehmen_, meant
+originally no more than perception, while _Verstand_ meant likewise
+perception, but soon came to imply a kind of understanding, even a
+kind of technical knowledge, though from a purely etymological
+standpoint it had nothing that fitted it more for carrying the
+meaning, which is now assigned to it in German in distinction to
+_Vernunft_, than understanding had as distinguished from reason. It
+requires, of course, a very minute historical research to trace the
+steps by which such words as reason and understanding diverge in
+different directions, in the language of the people and in
+philosophical parlance. This teaches us a very important distinction,
+namely that between the popular development of the meaning of a word,
+and its meaning as defined and asserted by a philosopher or by a poet
+in the plenitude of his power. Etymological definition is very useful
+for the first stages in the history of a word. It is useful to know,
+for instance, that _deus_, God, meant originally bright, bright
+whether applied to sky, sun, moon, stars, dawn, morning, dayspring,
+spring of the year, and many other bright objects in nature, that it
+thus assumed a meaning common to them all, splendid, or heavenly,
+beneficent, powerful, so that when in the Veda already we find a
+number of heavenly bodies, or of terrestrial bodies, or even of
+periods of time called Devas, this word has assumed a more general,
+more comprehensive, and more exalted meaning. It did not yet mean what
+the Greeks called [Greek: theoi] or gods, but it meant something
+common to all these [Greek: theoi], and thus could naturally rise to
+express what the Greeks wanted to express by that word. There was as
+yet no necessity for defining deva or [Greek: theos], when applied to
+what was meant by gods, but of course the most opposite meanings had
+clustered round it. While a philosophical Greek would maintain that
+[Greek: theos] meant what was one and never many, a poetical Greek or
+an ordinary Greek would hold that it meant what was by nature many.
+But while in such a case philosophical analysis and historical
+genealogy would support each other, there are ever so many cases where
+etymological analysis is as hopeless as logical analysis. Who is to
+define _romantic_, in such expressions as romantic literature.
+Etymologically we know that romantic goes back finally to Rome, but
+the mass of incongruous meanings that have been thrown at random into
+the caldron of that word, is so great that no definition could be
+contrived to comprehend them all. And how should we define _Gothic_ or
+_Romanic_ architecture, remembering that as no Goths had anything to
+do with pointed arches, neither were any Romans responsible for the
+flat roofs of the German churches of the Saxon emperors.
+
+Enough to show what I meant when I said that Professor Drobisch, in
+his Lectures on Herbart, gave one great encouragement in the special
+work in which I was already engaged as a mere student, the Science of
+Language and Etymology. If Herbart declared philosophy to consist in a
+thorough examination (_Bearbeitung_) of concepts, or conceptual
+knowledge, my answer was, Only let it be historical, nay, in the
+beginning, etymological; I was not so foolish as to imagine that a
+word as used at present, meant what it meant etymologically. _Deus_ no
+longer meant brilliant, but it should be the object of the true
+historian of language to prove how _Deus_, having meant originally
+brilliant, came to mean what it means now.
+
+For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher, and that sounded so
+grand that the idea of preparing for a mere schoolmaster, teaching
+Greek and Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a sphere. Soon,
+however, while dreaming of a chair of philosophy at a German
+University, I began to feel that I must know something special,
+something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn
+Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian. I had only heard what we call in German
+the chiming, not the striking of the bells of Indian philosophy; I had
+read Frederick Schlegel's explanatory book _Ueber die Sprache und
+Weisheit der Indier_ (1808), and looked into Windischmann's _Die
+Philosophie im Fortgange der Weltgeschichte_ (1827-1834). These books
+are hardly opened now--they are antiquated, and more than antiquated;
+they are full of mistakes as to facts, and mistakes as to the
+conclusions drawn from them. But they had ushered new ideas into the
+world of thought, and they left on many, as they did on me, that
+feeling which the digger who prospects for minerals is said to have,
+that there must be gold beneath the surface, if people would only dig.
+That feeling was very vague as yet, and might have been entirely
+deceptive, nor did I see my way to go beyond the point reached by
+these two dreamers or explorers. The thought remained in the
+rubbish-chamber of my mind, and though forgotten at the time, broke
+forth again when there was an opportunity. It was a fortunate
+coincidence that at that very time, in the winter of 1841, a new
+professorship was founded at Leipzig and given to Professor Brockhaus.
+Uncertain as I was about the course I had to follow in my studies, I
+determined to see what there was to be learnt in Sanskrit. There was a
+charm in the unknown, and, I must confess, a charm also in studying
+something which my friends and fellow students did not know. I called
+on Professor Brockhaus, and found that there were only two other
+students to attend his lectures, one Spiegel, who already knew the
+elements of Sanskrit, and who is still alive in Erlangen,[9] as a
+famous professor of Sanskrit and Zend, though no longer lecturing, and
+another, Klengel; both several years my seniors, but both extremely
+amiable to their younger fellow student. Klengel was a scholar, a
+philosopher, and a musician, and though after a term or two he had to
+give up his study of Sanskrit, he was very useful to me by his good
+advice. He encouraged me and praised me for my progress in Sanskrit,
+which was no doubt more rapid than his own, and he confirmed me in my
+conviction that something might be made of Sanskrit by the philologist
+and by the philosopher. It should not be forgotten that at that time
+there was a strong prejudice against Sanskrit among classical
+scholars. The number of men who stood up for it, though it included
+names such as W. von Humboldt, F. and A. W. von Schlegel, was still
+very small. Even Herder's and Goethe's prophetic words produced
+little effect. It is said that when the Government had been persuaded,
+chiefly by the two Humboldts, to found a chair of Sanskrit at the
+University of Wuerzburg, and had nominated Bopp as its first occupant,
+the philological faculty of the University protested against such a
+desecration, and the appointment fell through. It is true, no doubt,
+that in their first enthusiasm the students of Sanskrit had uttered
+many exaggerated opinions. Sanskrit was represented as the mother of
+all languages, instead of being the elder sister of the Aryan family.
+The beginning of all language, of all thought, of all religion was
+traced back to India, and when Greek scholars were told that Zeus
+existed in the Veda under the name of Dyaus, there was a great flutter
+in the dovecots of classical scholarship. Many of these enthusiastic
+utterances had afterwards to be toned down. How we did enjoy those
+enthusiastic days, which even in their exaggerated hopes were not
+without some use. Problems such as the beginning of language, of
+thought, of mythology and religion, were started with youthful hope
+that the Veda would solve them all, as if the Vedic Rishis had been
+present at the first outburst of roots, of concepts, nay, that like
+Pelops and other descendants of Zeus, those Vedic poets had enjoyed
+daily intercourse with the gods, and had been present at the
+mutilation of Ouranos, or at the over-eating of Kronos. We may be
+ashamed to-day of some of the dreams of the early spring of man's
+sojourn on earth, but they were enchanting dreams, 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 it. It was delightful to see that Dyaus meant originally the
+bright sky, something actually seen, but something that had to become
+something unseen. All knowledge, whether individual or possessed by
+mankind at large, must have begun with what the senses can perceive,
+before it could rise to signify something unperceived by the senses.
+Only after the blue aether had been perceived and named, was it
+possible to conceive and speak of the sky as active, as an agent, as a
+god. Dyaus or Zeus might thus be called the most sublime, he who
+resides in the aether, [Greek: aitheri naion hypsizygos], the heavenly
+one, or [Greek: ouranios hypatos] and [Greek: hypsistos], the highest,
+and at last _Iupiter Optimus Maximus_, a name applied even to the true
+God. When Zeus had once become like the sky, all seeing or omniscient
+([Greek: epopsios]), would he not naturally be supposed to see, not
+only the good, but the evil deeds of men also, nay, their very
+thoughts, whether pure or criminal? And if so, would he not be the
+avenger of evil, the watcher of oaths ([Greek: horkios]), the
+protector of the helpless ([Greek: ikesios])? Yet, if conceived, as
+for a long time all the gods were conceived and could only be
+conceived, namely, as human in their shape, should we not necessarily
+get that strange amalgamation of a human being doing superhuman
+work--hurling the thunderbolt, shouting in thunder, hidden by dark
+clouds, and smiling in the serene blue of the sky with its brilliant
+scintillations? All this and much more became perfectly intelligible,
+the step from the visible to the invisible, from the perceived to the
+conceived, from nature to nature's gods, and from nature's god to a
+more sublime unseen and spiritual power. All this seemed to pass
+before our very eyes in the Veda, and then to be reflected in Homer
+and Pindar.
+
+  [9] Herr Geheimrath von Spiegel now lives at Munich.
+
+Some details of this restored picture of the world of gods and men in
+early times, nay, in the very spring of time, may have to be altered,
+but the picture, the eidyllion remained, and nothing could curb the
+adventurous spirit and keep it from pushing forward and trying to do
+what seemed to others almost impossible, namely, to watch the growth
+of the human mind as reflected in the petrifactions of language.
+Language itself spoke to us with a different voice, and a formerly
+unsuspected meaning.
+
+We knew, for instance, that _ewig_ meant eternal, but whence eternal.
+Nothing eternal was ever seen, and it seemed to the philosopher that
+eternal could be expressed by a negation only, by a negation of what
+was temporary. But we now learnt that _ewig_ was derived in word and
+therefore in thought from the Gothic _aiwar_, time. _Ewigkeit_ was
+therefore originally time, and "for all time" came naturally to mean
+"for all eternity." Eternity also came from _aeternus_, that is
+_aeviternus_, for time, i. e. for all time, and thus for eternity,
+while _aevum_ meant life, lifetime, age. But now came the question, if
+_aevum_ shows the growth of this word, and its origin, and how it
+arrives in the end at the very opposite pole, life and time coming to
+mean eternity, could we not by the same process discover the origin
+and growth of such short Greek words as [Greek: aei] and [Greek: aiei]?
+It seems almost impossible, yet remembering that _aevum_ meant
+originally life, we find in Vedic Sanskrit _eva_, course, way, life,
+the same as _aevum_, while the Sanskrit _ayush_, likewise derived from
+_i_, to go, forms its locative _ayushi_. _Ayushi_, or originally
+_ayasi_, would mean "in life, in time," and turned into Greek would
+regularly become then [Greek: aiei], lifelong, or ever. It was not
+difficult to find fault with this and other etymologies, and to ask
+for an explanation of [Greek: aien] and [Greek: aies], as derived from
+the same word _ayus_. It is curious that people will not see that
+etymologies, and particularly the gradual development in the form and
+meaning of words, can hardly ever be a matter of mathematical
+certainty.
+
+Historical, nay, even individual, influences come in which prevent the
+science of language from becoming purely mechanical. Pott, and
+Curtius, and others stood up against Bopp and Grimm, maintaining that
+there could be nothing irregular in language, particularly in phonetic
+changes. If this means no more than that under the same circumstances
+the same changes will always take place, it would be of course a mere
+truism. The question is only whether we can ever know all the
+circumstances, and whether there are not some of these circumstances
+which cause what we are apt to call irregularities. When Bopp said
+that Sanskrit _d_ corresponds to a Greek [Greek: d], but often also to
+a Greek [Greek: th], I doubt whether this is often the case. All I say
+is, if _deva_ corresponds to [Greek: theos], we must try to find the
+reason or the circumstances which caused so unusual a correspondence.
+If no more is meant than that there must be a reason for all that
+seems irregular, no one would gainsay that, neither Bopp nor Grimm,
+and no one ever doubted that as a principle. But to establish these
+reasons is the very difficulty with which the Science of Language has
+to deal.
+
+There is no word that has not an etymology, only if we consider the
+distance of time that separates us from the historical facts we are
+trying to account for, we should sometimes be satisfied with
+probabilities and not always stipulate for absolute certainty. Many of
+Bopp's, Grimm's, and Pott's etymologies have had to be surrendered,
+and yet our suzerainty over that distant country which they conquered,
+over the Aryan home, remains. If there is an etymology containing
+something irregular, and for which no reason has as yet been found, we
+must wait till some better etymology can be suggested, or a reason be
+found for that apparent irregularity. If the etymological meaning of
+_duhitar_, daughter, as milkmaid, is doubted, let us have a better
+explanation, not a worse; but the general picture of the early family
+among the Aryans "somewhere in Asia" is not thereby destroyed. The
+father, Sk. _pitar_, remains the protector or nourisher, though the
+_i_ for _a_ in _pater_ and [Greek: pater] is irregular. The mother,
+_matar_, remains the bearer of children, though _ma_ is no longer used
+in that sense in any of the Aryan languages. _Pati_ is the lord, the
+strong one--therefore the husband; _vadhu_, the yoke-fellow, or the
+wife as brought home, possibly as carried off by force. _Vis_ or
+_vesa_ is the home, [Greek: oikos] or _vicus_, what was entered for
+shelter. _Svasura_, [Greek: hekyros], _Socer_, the father-in-law, is
+the old man of the _svas_, the _famuli_, or the family, or the
+clients, though the first _s_ is irregular, and can be defended only
+on the ground of mistaken analogy. _Bhratar_, _frater_, brother, was
+the supporter; _svastar_, _soror_, sister, the comforter, &c.
+
+What do a few objections signify? The whole picture remains, as if we
+could look into the _vesa_, the [Greek: oikos] the _veih_, the home, the
+village of the ancient Aryans, and watch them, the _svas_, the people,
+in their mutual relations. Even compound words, such as _vis-pati_,
+lord of a family or a village, have been preserved to the present day
+in the Lithuanian _Veszpats_, lord, whether King or God. It is enough
+for us to see that the relationship between husband and wife, between
+parents and children, between brothers and sisters, nay, even between
+children-in-law and parents-in-law, had been recognized and sanctified
+by names. That there are, and always will be, doubts and slight
+differences of opinion on these prehistoric thoughts and words, is
+easily understood. We were pleased for a long time to see in _vidua_,
+widow, the Sanskrit _vidua_, i. e. without a man or a husband. We now
+derive _vi-dhava_, widow, from _vidh_, to be separated, to be without
+(cf. _vido_ in _divido_, and Sk. _vidh_), but the picture of the Aryan
+family remains much the same.
+
+When these and similar antiquities were for the first time brought to
+light by Bopp, Grimm, and Pott, what wonder that we young men should
+have jumped at them, and shouted with delight, more even than the
+diggers who dug up Babylonian palaces or Egyptian temples! No one did
+more for these antiquarian finds and restorations than A. Kuhn, a
+simple schoolmaster, but afterwards a most distinguished member of the
+Berlin Academy. How often did I sit with him in his study as he
+worked, surrounded by his Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit books. In later
+times also, when I had made some discoveries myself as to the
+mythological names or beings identical in Vedic and Greek writings,
+how pleasant was it to see him rub his hands or shake his head. Long
+before I had published my identifications they were submitted to him,
+and he communicated to me his own guesses as I communicated mine to
+him. Kuhn would never appropriate what belonged to anybody else, and
+even in cases where we agreed, he would always make it clear that we
+had both arrived independently at the same result.
+
+It is in the nature of things that every new generation of scholars
+should perfect their tools, and with these discover flaws in the work
+left by their predecessors. Still, what is the refined chiselling of
+later scholars compared with the rough-hewn stones of men like Bopp or
+Grimm? If the Cyclopean stones of the Pelasgians are not like the
+finished works of art by Phidias, what would the Parthenon be without
+the walls ascribed to the Cyclops? It is the same in all sciences, and
+we must try to be just, both to the genius of those who created, and
+to the diligence of those who polished and refined.
+
+For all this, however, I met with but small sympathy and encouragement
+at Leipzig; nay, I had to be very careful in uttering what were
+supposed to be heretical or unscholarlike opinions in the seminary of
+Gottfried Hermann, or in the Latin society of Haupt. The latter
+particularly, though he knew very well how much light had been spread
+on the growth of language by the researches of Bopp, Grimm, and Pott,
+and though Grimm was his intimate friend of whom he always spoke with
+real veneration, could not bear his own pupils dabbling in this
+subject. And of course at that time my knowledge of comparative
+philology was a mere dabbling. If he could discover a false quantity
+in any etymology, great was his delight, and his sarcasm truly
+withering, particularly as it was poured out in very classical Latin.
+Gottfried Hermann was a different character. He saw there was a new
+light and he would not turn his back to it. He knew how lightly his
+antagonist, Otfried Mueller, valued Sanskrit in his mythological
+essays, and he set to work, and in one of his last academical programs
+actually gave the paradigms of Sanskrit verbs as compared with those
+of Greek. He saw that the coincidences between the two could not be
+casual, and if they were so overwhelming in the mere termination of
+verbs, what might we not expect in words and names, even in
+mythological names? He by no means discouraged me, nay, he was sorry
+to lose me, when in my third year I went to Berlin. He showed me great
+kindness on several occasions, and when the time came to take my
+degree of M.A. and Ph.D., he, as Dean of the Faculty, invited me to
+return to Leipzig, offering me an exhibition to cover the expenses of
+the Degree.
+
+  [Illustration: F. MAX MUeLLER _Aged Twenty_]
+
+My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire to hear Bopp, but
+yet more from a desire to make the acquaintance of Schelling. My
+inclination towards philosophy had become stronger and stronger; I had
+my own ideas about the mythological as a necessary form of ancient
+philosophy, and when I saw that the old philosopher had advertised his
+lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not resist, and went to
+Berlin in 1844. I must say at once that Professor Bopp, though he was
+extremely kind to me, was at that time, if not old--he was only
+fifty-three--very infirm. In his lectures he simply read his
+_Comparative Grammar_ with a magnifying glass, and added very little
+that was new. He lent me some manuscripts which he had copied in Latin
+in his younger days, but I could not get much help from him when I
+came to really difficult passages. This, I confess, puzzled me at the
+time, for I looked on every professor as omniscient. The time comes,
+however, when we learn that even at fifty-three a man may have
+forgotten certain things, nay, may have let many books and new
+discoveries even in his own subject pass by, because he has plenty to
+do with his own particular studies. We remember the old story of the
+professor who, when charged by a young and rather impertinent student
+with not knowing this or that, replied: "Sir, I have forgotten more
+than you ever knew." And so it is indeed. Human nature and human
+memory are very strong during youth and manhood, but even at fifty
+there is with many people a certain decline of mental vigour that
+tells chiefly on the memory. Things are not exactly forgotten, but
+they do not turn up at the right time. They just leave a certain
+knowledge of where the missing information can be found; they leave
+also a kind of feeling that the ground is not quite safe and that we
+must no longer trust entirely to our memory. In one respect this
+feeling is very useful, for instead of writing down anything, trusting
+to our memory as we used to do, we feel it necessary to verify many
+things which formerly were perfectly clear and certain in our memory
+without such reference to books.
+
+I remember being struck with the same thing in the case of Professor
+Wilson, the well-known Oxford Professor of Sanskrit. He was kind
+enough to read with me, and I certainly was often puzzled, not only by
+what he knew, but also by what he had forgotten. I feel now that I
+misjudged him, and that his open declaration, "I don't know, let us
+look it up," really did him great honour. I still have in my
+possession a portion of Panini's Vedic grammar translated by him. I
+put by the side of it my own translation, and he openly acknowledged
+that mine, with the passages taken from the Veda, was right. There was
+no humbug about Wilson. He never posed as a scholar; nay, I remember
+his saying to me more than once, "You see, I am not a scholar, I am a
+gentleman who likes Sanskrit, and that is all." He certainly did like
+Sanskrit, and he knew it better than many a professor, but in his own
+way. He had enjoyed the assistance of really learned Pandits, and he
+never forgot to record their services. But he had himself cleared the
+ground--he had really done original work. In fact, he had done nothing
+but original work, and then he was abused for not having always found
+at the first trial what others discovered when standing on his
+shoulders. Again, he was found fault with for not having had a
+classical education. His education was, I believe, medical, but when
+once in the Indian Civil Service, he made himself useful in many ways,
+educational and otherwise. When he left India he was Master of the
+Mint. Such a man might not know Greek and Latin like F. A. von
+Schlegel, or any other professor, but he knew his own subject, 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 Sanskrit. Such a feeling is natural among small
+schoolmasters, but it is dying out at last among real scholars. I have
+known very good Sanskrit scholars who knew no Greek at all, and very
+little Latin. And I have also known Greek scholars who knew no
+Sanskrit and yet attempted comparisons between the two. When Lepsius
+was made a Member of the Berlin Academy, Lachmann, who ought to have
+known better, used to say of him: "He knows many things which nobody
+knows, but he also is ignorant of many things which everybody knows."
+Such remarks never speak well for the man who makes them.
+
+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 age, and is still violently assailed for opinions he may have
+uttered fifty years ago. When quite a young man I wrote, at Baron
+Bunsen's request, a long letter on the Turanian Languages. It was
+published in 1854, but it still continues to be criticized as if it
+had been published last year. Of course, considering the rapid advance
+of linguistic studies, a great part of that letter became antiquated
+long ago; but at the time of its first appearance it contained nearly
+all that could then be known on these allophylian, that is, non-Aryan
+and non-Semitic languages; and I may, perhaps, quote the opinion of
+Professor Pott, no mean authority at that time, who, after severely
+criticizing my letter, declared that it belonged to the most important
+publications that had appeared on linguistic subjects for many years.
+And yet, though I have again and again protested that I could not
+possibly have known in 1854 what has been discovered since as to a
+number of these Turanian languages, everybody who writes on any of
+them seems to be most anxious to show that in 1894 he knows more than
+I did in 1854. No astronomer is blamed for not having known the planet
+Neptune before its discovery in 1846, or for having been wrong in
+accounting for the irregularities of Saturn. But let that pass; I only
+share the fate of others who have lived too long.
+
+After all, all our knowledge, whatever show we may make of it, is very
+imperfect, and the more we know the better we learn how little it is
+that we do know, and how much of unexplored country there is beyond
+the country which we have explored. We must judge a man by what he has
+done--by his own original work. There are many scholars, and very
+useful they are in their own way, but if their books are examined, one
+easily finds the stores from which they borrowed their materials. They
+may add some notes of their own and even some corrections,
+particularly corrections of the authors from whom they have borrowed
+most; but at the end where is the fresh ore that they have raised;
+where is the gold they have extracted and coined? There are cases
+where the original worker is quite forgotten, whereas the retailers
+flourish. Well, facts are facts, whether known or not known, and the
+triumphal chariot of truth has to be dragged along by many hands and
+many shoulders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PARIS
+
+
+My stay in Paris from March, 1845, to June, 1846, was a very useful
+intermezzo. It opened my mind and showed me a new world; showed me, in
+fact, that there was a world besides Germany, though even of Germany
+and German society I had seen as yet very little. I had been working
+away at school and university, but with the exception of my short stay
+in Berlin, I had little experience of men and manners outside the
+small sphere of Dessau and Leipzig.
+
+I had been at Berlin some nine months when, in December, 1844, my old
+friend Baron Hagedorn came to see me, and invited me to spend some
+time with him in Paris. He had his own apartments there, and promised
+to look after me. At the same time my cousin, Baroness Stolzenberg,
+whom I have mentioned before as wishing me to enter the Austrian
+diplomatic service, offered to send me to England at her expense as a
+teacher. I hesitated for some days between these two offers. I knew
+that my own patrimony had been nearly spent at Leipzig and Berlin, and
+the time had come for me to begin to support myself; and how was I to
+do that in Paris? On the other hand, I had long felt that for
+continuing my Sanskrit studies a stay in Paris, and later perhaps in
+London also, was indispensable. I had also to consider the feelings of
+my mother, whose whole heart was absorbed in her only son. However,
+Sanskrit, and my love of an independent life won the day, and I
+decided to accept Hagedorn's proposal. My mind once made up, I wanted
+to be off at once, but Hagedorn could not fix the exact time when he
+would be free to leave, and told me to keep myself in readiness to
+start whenever he found himself free to go. I accordingly went to stay
+with my mother and my married sister at Chemnitz, and indulged in
+idleness and the unwonted dissipations of parties, dances, and long
+skating expeditions. At last, feeling I could not afford to wait any
+longer, I went off to Dessau to see Hagedorn, and found to my great
+disappointment that he was detained by important legal business in
+connection with his property near Munich, and could not yet fix a date
+for his departure. So it was settled that I was to go on to Paris
+without him, and instal myself in his apartment, 25, Rue Royale St.
+Honore.
+
+I got my passport wherein I was carefully described with all my
+particular marks, and started off on my foreign travels. At first all
+went well. I stopped a few days at Bonn, and again at Brussels, where
+I had my first experience of hearing a foreign language spoken round
+me, and found that my French was sadly deficient. But from Brussels
+on, my experiences were anything but agreeable. The journey to Paris
+took twenty-four hours, and we travelled day and night without any
+stop for meals. Most of the passengers were well provided with food
+and wine, but had it not been for the kindness of some old ladies, my
+fellow-travellers, I should really have starved. When we crossed the
+frontier the luggage of all passengers was carefully examined. But the
+_douanier_, in trying to open my portmanteau, broke the lock, and then
+began a fearful cursing and swearing. I was perfectly helpless. I
+could hardly understand what the French _douaniers_ said, still less
+make them understand what I had to say. They had done the damage, but
+would do nothing to remedy it. The train would not wait, and I should
+certainly have been left behind if the other travellers had not taken
+my part, and I was allowed to go on to Paris. I looked a mere boy,
+very harmless, not at all the clever smuggler the officials took me to
+be. 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 Sanskrit.
+
+But my miseries were not yet over, on the contrary, they became much
+worse. On my arrival in Paris I got a _fiacre_ and told the man to
+drive to 25, Rue St. Honore; _Royale_ I considered of no importance;
+but, alas! at the right number of the Rue St. Honore, the _concierge_
+stared at me, telling me that no Baron Hagedorn lived there. Try
+Faubourg St. Honore, they said, but here the same thing happened. And
+all this was on a rainy afternoon, I being tired out with travelling
+and fasting, and perfectly overwhelmed by the immensity of Paris. I
+knew nobody at Paris, having trusted for all such things to Baron
+Hagedorn, in fact I was _au desespoir_. Then as I was driving along
+the Boulevard des Italiens, looking out of window, I saw a familiar
+figure--a little hunchback whom I had known at Dessau, where he
+studied music under Schneider. It was M. Gathy, a man well known by
+his musical writings, particularly his _Dictionary of Music_. I
+shrieked Gathy! Gathy! and he was as much surprised when he recognized
+the little boy from Dessau, as I was when in this vast Paris I
+discovered at last a face which I knew. I jumped out of my carriage,
+told Gathy all that had happened to me, being all the time between
+complete despair and perfect delight. He knew Hagedorn and his rooms
+very well. It was the Rue Royale St. Honore. The _concierge_ was quite
+prepared for my arrival, and took us both to the rooms which were _au
+cinquieme_, but large and extremely well furnished. I was so tired
+that I lay down on the sofa, and called out in my best French,
+_Donnez-moi quelque chose a manger et a boire_. This was not so easily
+done as said, but at last, after toiling up and down five flights of
+stairs, he brought me what I wanted; I restored myself in the true
+sense of the word, and then began to discuss the most necessary
+matters with M. Gathy. He was the most charming of men, half German,
+half French, full of _esprit_, and, what was more important to me,
+full of real kindness and love. As soon as I saw him I felt I was
+safe, and so I was, though I had still some battles to fight. First of
+all, I had taken but little money with me, looking upon Hagedorn as my
+banker. Fortunately I remembered the name of one of his friends, about
+whom Hagedorn had often spoken to me and who was in Rothschild's Bank.
+I went there to find that he was away, but another gentleman there
+told me that I could have as much as I liked till Hagedorn or his
+friend came back. So I was lucky, unlucky as I had been before.
+
+The next step I had to consider was what I should do for my breakfast,
+luncheon, and dinner. Breakfast I could have at home, but for the
+other meals I had to go out and get what I wanted wherever I could. It
+was not always what I wanted, for it had to be cheap, and even a
+dinner _a deux francs_ in the Palais Royal seemed to me extravagant. I
+became more knowing by-and-by, and discovered smaller and simpler
+restaurants, where Frenchmen dined and had arranged for a less showy
+but more wholesome diet.
+
+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 memory. My
+principal amusement at first was to go on voyages of discovery through
+the town. The beauty of the city itself, and the rush and crowd in
+the streets delighted me, and I remember specially a few days after my
+arrival, when I went to watch "le tout Paris" going out to the races
+at Longchamps, that I was so struck by the difference between these
+streets full of equipages of all sorts, ladies in resplendent dresses,
+and well-groomed gentlemen, and the quiet streets that I had been
+accustomed to in Dessau and Leipzig, that I could hardly keep myself
+from laughing out loud. However, when the novelty wore off there was
+another contrast that struck me, and made me more inclined to cry this
+time than to laugh, and that was, that while at home I knew almost
+every face I passed, here in these crowds I was a stranger and knew no
+one, and I suffered cruelly from the solitude at first.
+
+I began my work, however, at once, and on the third day after my
+arrival I was at the Bibliotheque Royale armed with a letter of
+introduction from Humboldt, and the very next day was already at work
+collating the MSS. of the _Kathaka Upanishad_. I had also to devote
+some hours daily to the study of French; for, much as I grudged these
+hours, I fully realized that in order to get full advantage from my
+stay in Paris, I must first master French.
+
+Next came the great question, how to make the acquaintance of Burnouf.
+I did not know the world. I did not know whether I should write to him
+first, in what language, and to what address. I knew Burnouf from his
+books, and I felt a desperate respect for him. After a time Gathy
+discovered his address for me, and I summoned up courage to call on
+him. My French was very poor as yet, but I walked in and found a dear
+old gentleman in his _robe de chambre_, 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 day. He received me with great civility, such as I had not
+been accustomed to before. He spoke of some little book which I had
+published, and inquired warmly after my teachers in Germany, such as
+Brockhaus, Bopp, and Lassen. He told me I might attend his lectures in
+the College de France, and he would always be most happy to give me
+advice and help.
+
+I at once felt perfect trust in the man, and was really _aux cieux_ to
+have found such an adviser. He was, indeed, a fine specimen of the
+real French savant. He was small, and his face was decidedly German,
+with the _tete carree_ which one sees so often in Germany, only
+lighted up by a constant sparkle, which is distinctively French. I
+must have seemed very stupid to him when I tried to explain to him
+what I really wanted to do in Paris. He told me himself afterwards
+that he could not make me out at first. I wanted to study the Veda,
+but I had told him at the same time that I thought the Vedic hymns
+very stupid, and that I cared chiefly for their philosophy, that is,
+the Upanishads. This was really not true, but it came up first in
+conversation, and I thought it would show Burnouf that my interest in
+the Veda was not simply philological, but philosophical also. No doubt
+at first I chiefly copied the Upanishads and their commentaries, but
+Burnouf was not pleased. "We know what is in the Upanishads," he used
+to say, "but we want the hymns and their native comments." I soon came
+to understand what he meant; I carefully attended his lectures, which
+were on the hymns of the Rig-veda and opened an entirely new world to
+my mind. We had the first book of the Rig-veda as published by Rosen,
+and Burnouf's explanations were certainly delightful. He spoke freely
+and conversationally in his lectures, and one could almost assist at
+the elaboration of his thoughts. His audience was certainly small;
+there was nothing like Renan's eloquence and wit. But Burnouf had ever
+so many new facts to communicate to us. He explained to us his own
+researches, he showed us new MSS. which he had received from India, in
+fact he did all he could to make us fellow workers. Often did he tell
+us to look up some passage in the Veda, to compare and copy the
+commentaries, and to let him have the result of our researches at the
+next lecture. All this was very inspiriting, particularly as Burnouf,
+upon examining our work, was very generous in his approval, and quite
+ready, if we had failed, to point out to us new sources that should
+be examined. He never asserted his own authority, and if ever we had
+found out something which he had not known before, he was delighted to
+let us have the full credit for it. After all, it was a new and
+unknown country, that had to be explored and mapped out, and even a
+novice might sometimes find a grain of gold.
+
+His select class contained some good men. There were Barthelemy St.
+Hilaire, the famous translator of Aristotle, and for a time Minister
+of Foreign Affairs in France, the Abbe Bardelli, R. Roth, Th.
+Goldstuecker, and a few more.
+
+Barthelemy St. Hilaire was a personal friend of Burnouf, and came to
+the College de France not so much to learn Sanskrit as to hear
+Burnouf's lucid exposition of ancient Indian religion and philosophy.
+Bardelli was a regular Italian Abbe, studying Sanskrit at Paris, but
+chiefly interested in Coptic. He was, like St. Hilaire, much my
+senior, but we became great friends, and he once confided to me what
+had certainly puzzled me--his reasons for becoming an ecclesiastic. He
+had been deeply in love with a young lady; his love was returned, but
+he was too poor to marry, and she was persuaded and almost forced to
+marry a rich man. Dear old Abbe, always taking snuff while he told me
+his agonies, and then finishing up by saying that he became a priest
+so as to put an end for ever to his passion. Who would have suspected
+such a background to his jovial face? I don't know how it was that
+people, much my seniors, so often confided to me their secret
+sufferings. I may have to mention some other cases, and I feel that
+after my friends are gone, and so many years have passed over their
+graves, there is no indiscretion in speaking of their confidences. It
+may possibly teach us to remember how much often lies buried under a
+grave bright with flowers. I saw Bardelli's own grave many years later
+in the famous cemetery at Pisa. R. Roth and Th. Goldstuecker were both
+strenuous Sanskrit scholars. Both owed much to Burnouf, Roth even more
+than Goldstuecker, though the latter has perhaps more frequently spoken
+of what he owed to Burnouf. Roth was my senior by several years, and
+engaged in much the same work as myself. But we never got on well
+together. It is curious from what small things and slight impressions
+our likes and dislikes are often formed. I have heard men give as a
+reason for disliking some one, that he had forgotten to pay half a
+cab-fare. So in Roth's case, I never got over a most ordinary
+experience. He and two other young students and myself, having to
+celebrate some festal occasion, had ordered a good luncheon at a
+restaurant. To me with my limited means this was a great extravagance,
+but I could not refuse to join. Roth, to my great surprise and, I may
+add, being very fond of oysters, annoyance, took a very unfair share
+of that delicacy, and whenever I met him in after life, whether in
+person or in writing, this incident would always crop up in my mind;
+and when later on he offered to join me in editing the Rig-veda, I
+declined, perhaps influenced by that early impression which I could
+not get rid of. I blame myself for so foolish a prejudice, but it
+shows what creatures of circumstance we are.
+
+With Goldstuecker I was far more intimate. He was some years older than
+myself and quite independent as far as money went. He knew how small
+my means were, and would gladly have lent me money. But through the
+whole of my life I never borrowed from my friends, or in fact from
+anybody, though I was forced sometimes when very hard up for ready
+money, and when I knew that money was due to me but had not arrived
+when I expected it, to apply to some friend for a temporary advance. I
+will try and recall the lines in which I once applied to Gathy for
+such a loan.
+
+    Versuch' ich's wohl, mein herzgeliebter Gathy,
+    Mit schmeichelndem Sonnet Sie anzupumpen?
+    Ich bitte nicht um schwere Goldesklumpen,
+    Ich bitte nur um etliche Ducati.
+    Auch zahl' ich wieder ultimo Monati.
+    Auf Wiedersehn bei Morel und Frascati
+    Und Nachsicht fuer den Brief, den allzu plumpen!
+    Zwar reiche Nabobs sind die braven Inder,
+    Doch arme Teufel die Indianisten!
+    Reich sind hienieden schon die Heiden-Kinder,
+    Doch selig werden nur die armen Christen!
+    Reimsucher bin ich, doch kein Reimefinder,
+    Und _sans critique_ sind all die Sanscritisten.
+
+This kind of negotiating a loan I have to confess to, but the idea of
+borrowing money, without knowing when I could repay it, never entered
+my mind. Relations who could have helped me I had none, and nothing
+remained to me but to work for others. Indeed my want of money soon
+began to cause me very serious anxiety in Paris. Little as I spent, my
+funds became lower and lower. I did not, like many other scholars,
+receive help from my Government. I had mapped out my course for
+myself, and instead of taking to teaching on leaving the University,
+had settled to come to Paris and continue my Sanskrit studies, and it
+was in my own hands whether I should swim or sink. It was, indeed, a
+hard struggle, far harder than those who have known me in later life
+would believe. All I could do to earn a little money was to copy and
+collate MSS. for other people. I might indeed have given private
+lessons, but I have always had a strong objection to that form of
+drudgery, and would rather sit up a whole night copying than give an
+hour to my pupils. My plan was as follows: to sit up the whole of one
+night, to take about three hours' rest the next night, but without
+undressing, and then to take a good night's rest the third night, and
+start over again. It was a hard fight, and cannot have been very good
+for me physically, but I do not regret it now.
+
+Often did I go without my dinner, being quite satisfied with boiled
+eggs and bread and butter, which I could have at home without toiling
+down and toiling up five flights of stairs that led to my room.
+Sometimes I went with some of my young friends _hors de la barriere_,
+that is, outside Paris, outside the barrier where the _octroi_ has to
+be paid on meat, wine, &c. Here the food was certainly better for the
+price I could afford to pay, but the society was sometimes peculiar. I
+remember once seeing a strange lady sitting not very far from me, who
+was the well-known Louve of Eugene Sue's _Mysteres de Paris_. One of
+my companions on these expeditions was Karl de Schloezer, who was then
+studying Arabic in Paris. He was always cheerful and amusing, and a
+delightful companion. He knew much more of the world than I did, and
+often surprised me by his diplomatic wisdom. "Let us stand up for each
+other," he said one day; "you say all the good you can of me, I saying
+all the good I can of you." I became very fierce at the time, charging
+him with hypocrisy and I do not know what. He, however, took it all in
+good part, and we remained friends all the time he was at Paris, and
+indeed to the day of his death. He was very fond of music, but I was,
+perhaps, the better performer on the pianoforte. He had invited me, a
+violin, and violoncello, to play some of Mozart's and Beethoven's
+Sonatas. Alas! when we found that he murdered his part, I sat down and
+played the whole evening, leaving him to listen, not, I fear, in the
+best of moods. He took his revenge, however; and the next time he
+asked me and the two other musicians to his room, we found indeed
+everything ready for us to play, but our host was nowhere to be found.
+He maintained that he had been called away; I am certain, however,
+that the little trick was played on purpose.
+
+He afterwards entered the Prussian diplomatic service and was the
+protege of the Princess of Prussia, afterwards the Empress of Germany.
+That was enough to make Bismarck dislike him, and when Schloezer
+served as Secretary of Legation under Bismarck as Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg, he committed the outrage of challenging his chief to a
+duel. Bismarck declined, nor would it, according to diplomatic
+etiquette, have been possible for him not to decline. Later on,
+however, Schloezer was placed _en disponibilite_, that is to say, he
+was politely dismissed. He had to pay a kind of farewell visit to
+Bismarck, who was then omnipotent. Being asked by Bismarck what he
+intended to do, and whether he could be of any service to him,
+Schloezer said very quietly, "Yes, your Excellency, I shall take to
+writing my Memoirs, and you know that I have seen much in my time
+which many people will be interested to learn." Bismarck was quiet for
+a time, looking at some papers, and then remarked quite unconcernedly,
+"You would not care to go to the United States as Minister?" "I am
+ready to go to-morrow," replied Schloezer, and having carried his
+point, having in fact outwitted Bismarck, he started at once for
+Washington. Bismarck knew that Schloezer could wield a sharp pen, and
+there was a time when he was sensitive to such pen-pricks. They did
+not see much of each other afterwards, but, owing to the protection of
+the Empress, Schloezer was later accredited as Prussian envoy to the
+Pope, and died too soon for his friends in beautiful Italy.
+
+One of my oldest friends at Paris was a Baron d'Eckstein, a kind of
+diplomatic agent who knew everybody in Paris, and wrote for the
+newspapers, French and German. He had, I believe, a pension from the
+French Government, and was, as a Roman Catholic, strongly allied with
+the Clerical Party. This did not concern me. What concerned me was his
+love of Sanskrit and the ancient religion of India. He would sit with
+me for hours, or take me to dine with him at a restaurant, discussing
+all the time the Vedas and the Upanishad and the Vedanta philosophy.
+There are several articles of his written at this time in the _Journal
+Asiatique_, and I was especially grateful to him, for he gave me
+plenty of work to do, particularly in the way of copying Sanskrit MSS.
+for him, and he paid me well and so helped me to keep afloat in Paris.
+Knowing as he did everybody, he was very anxious to introduce me to
+his friends, such as George Sand, Lamennais, the Comtesse d'Agoult
+(Daniel Stern), Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and others; but I much
+preferred half an hour with him or with Burnouf to paying formal
+visits. I heard afterwards many unkind things about Baron
+d'Eckstein's political and clerical opinions, but though in becoming a
+convert to Roman Catholicism he may have shown weakness, and as a
+political writer may have been influenced by his near friends and
+patrons, I never found him otherwise than kind, tolerant, and
+trustworthy. His life was to have been written by Professor
+Windischmann, but he too died; and who knows what may have become of
+the curious memoirs which he left? At the time of the February
+revolution in 1848, he was in the very midst of it. He knew Lamartine,
+who was the hero of the day, though of a few days only. He attended
+meetings with Lamartine, Odilon, Barrot, and others, and he assured me
+that there would be no revolution, because nobody was prepared for it.
+
+Lamartine who had been asked by his friends, all of them royalists and
+friends of order, whether he would, in case of necessity, undertake to
+form a ministry under the Duchesse d'Orleans as regent, scouted such
+an idea at first, but at last promised to be ready if he were wanted.
+The time came sooner than he expected, and the Duchesse d'Orleans
+counted on him when she went to the Chamber and her Regency was
+proclaimed. Lamartine was then so popular that he might have saved the
+situation. But the mob broke into the Chamber, shots were fired, and
+there was no Lamartine. The Duchesse d'Orleans had to fly, and
+fortunately escaped under the protection of the Duc de Nemours, the
+only son of Louis Philippe then in Paris, and the dynasty of the
+Orleans was lost--never to return. Baron d'Eckstein lost many of his
+influential friends at that time, possibly his pension also, but he
+had enough to live upon, and he died at last as a very old man in a
+Roman Catholic monastery, a most interesting and charming man, whose
+memoirs would certainly have been very valuable.
+
+But to return to Burnouf, I never can adequately express my debt of
+gratitude to him. He was of the greatest assistance to me in clearing
+my thoughts and directing them into one channel. "Either one thing or
+the other," he said. "Either study Indian philosophy and begin with
+the Upanishads and Sankara's commentary, or study Indian religion and
+keep to the Rig-veda, and copy the hymns and Sayana's commentary, and
+then you will be our great benefactor." A great benefactor! that was
+too much for me, a mere dwarf in the presence of giants. But Burnouf's
+words confirmed me more and more in my desire to give myself up to the
+Veda.
+
+Burnouf told me not only what Vedic MSS. there were at the
+Bibliotheque Royale, he also brought me his own MSS. and lent them to
+me to copy, with the condition, however, that I should not smoke while
+working at them. He himself did not smoke, and could not bear the
+smell of smoke, and he showed me several of his MSS. which had become
+quite useless to him, because they smelt of stale tobacco smoke. I
+did all I could to guard these sacred treasures against such
+profanation.
+
+Another and even more useful warning came to me from Burnouf. "Don't
+publish extracts from the commentary only," he said; "if you do, you
+will publish what is easy to read, and leave out what is difficult." I
+certainly thought that extracts would be sufficient, but I soon found
+out that here also Burnouf was right, though there was always the fear
+that I should never find a publisher for so immense a work. This fear
+I confided to Burnouf, but he always maintained his hopeful view. "The
+commentary must be published, depend upon it, and it will be," he
+said.
+
+So I stuck to it and went on copying and collating my Sanskrit MSS.,
+always trusting that a publisher would turn up at the proper time. I
+had, of course, to do all the drudgery for myself, and I soon found
+out that it was not in human nature, at least not in my nature, to
+copy Sanskrit from a MS. even for three or four hours without
+mistakes. To my great disappointment I found mistakes whenever I
+collated my copy with the original. I found that like the copyists of
+classical MSS. my eye had wandered from one line to another where the
+same word occurred, that I had left out a word when the next word
+ended with the same termination, nay that I had even left out whole
+lines. Hence I had either to collate my own copy, which was very
+tedious, or invent some new process. This new process I discovered by
+using transparent paper, and thus tracing every letter. I had some
+excellent _papier vegetal_ made for me, and, instead of copying,
+traced the whole Sanskrit MS. This had the great advantage that
+nothing could be left out, and that when the original was smudged and
+doubtful I could carefully trace whatever was clear and visible
+through the transparent paper. At first I confess my work was slow,
+but soon it went as rapidly as copying, and it was even less fatiguing
+to the eyes than the constant looking from the MS. to the copy, and
+from the copy to the MS. But the most important advantage was, that I
+could thus feel quite certain that nothing was left out, so that even
+now, after more than fifty years, these tracings are as useful to me
+as the MS. itself. There was room left between the lines or on the
+margin to note the various readings of other MSS.; in fact, my
+materials grew both in extent and in value.
+
+Still there remained the question of a publisher. To print the
+Rig-veda in six volumes quarto of about a thousand pages each, and to
+provide the editor with a living wage during the many years he would
+have to devote to his task, required a large capital. I do not know
+exactly how much, but what I do know is that, when a second edition of
+the text of the Veda in four volumes was printed at the expense of the
+Maharajah of Vizianagram, it cost that generous and patriotic prince
+four thousand pounds, though I then gave my work gratuitously.
+
+While I was working at the Bibliotheque Royale, Humboldt had used his
+powerful influence with the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV, to
+help me in publishing my edition of the Rig-veda in Germany. Nothing,
+however, came of that plan; it proved too costly for any private
+publisher, even with royal assistance.
+
+Then came a vague offer from St. Petersburg. Boehtlingk, the great
+Sanskrit scholar, as a member of the Imperial Russian Academy, invited
+me to come to St. Petersburg and print the Veda there, in
+collaboration with himself, and at the expense of the Academy. Burnouf
+and Goldstuecker both warned me against accepting this offer, but,
+hopeless as I was of getting my Veda published elsewhere, I expressed
+my willingness to go on condition that some provision should be made
+for me before I decided to migrate to Russia, as I possessed
+absolutely nothing but what I was able to earn myself. Boehtlingk, I
+believe, suggested to the Academy that I should be appointed Assistant
+Keeper of the Oriental Museum at St. Petersburg, but his colleagues
+did not apparently consider so young a man, and a mere German scholar,
+a fit candidate for so responsible a post. Boehtlingk wished me to
+send him all my materials, and he would get the MSS. of the Rig-veda
+and of Sayana's commentary from the Library of the East India Company,
+and Paris. No definite proposition, however, came from the Imperial
+Academy, but an announcement of Boehtlingk's appeared in the papers
+in January, 1846, to the effect that he was preparing, in
+collaboration with Monsieur Max Mueller of Paris, a complete edition of
+the Rig-veda.
+
+All this, I confess, began to frighten me. For me, a poor scholar, to
+go to St. Petersburg without any official invitation, without any
+appointment, seemed reckless, and though I have no doubt that
+Boehtlingk would have done his best for me, yet even he could only
+suggest private lessons, and that was no cheerful outlook. The Academy
+would do nothing for me unless I joined Boehtlingk, but at last
+offered to buy my materials, on which I had spent so much labour and
+the small fund at my disposal. If the Academy could have got the
+necessary MSS. from Paris and London, I should have been perfectly
+helpless. Boehtlingk could have done the whole work himself, in some
+respects better than I, because he was my senior, and besides, he knew
+Panini, the old Indian grammarian who is constantly referred to in
+Sayana's Commentary, better than I did. With all these threatening
+clouds around me, my decision was by no means easy.
+
+It was Burnouf's advice that determined me to remain quietly in Paris.
+He warned me repeatedly against trusting to Boehtlingk, and promised,
+if I would only stay in Paris, to give me his support with Guizot, who
+was then Minister for Foreign Affairs, and very much interested in
+Oriental studies.
+
+Boehtlingk seems never to have forgiven me, and he and several of his
+friends were highly displeased at my ultimate success in securing a
+publisher for the Rig-veda in England. Their language was most
+unbecoming, and they tried, and actually urged other Sanskrit
+scholars, to criticize my edition, though I must say to their credit
+that they afterwards confessed that it was all that could be desired.
+
+Many years later, Boehtlingk published a violent attack on me,
+entitled _F. Max Mueller als Mythendichter_, but I thought it
+unnecessary to take up the dispute, and preferred to leave my friends
+to judge for themselves between me and this propounder of accusations,
+the legitimacy of which he was utterly unable to establish. However,
+as I discovered later that he accused me of having acted
+discourteously towards the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, with
+whom I had never had any direct dealings, and stated that he had
+prevented that illustrious body from ever making me a corresponding
+member, I thought it right to offer an explanation to the Secretary,
+and I have in my possession his reply, in which he wrote that there
+was no foundation whatever for Professor Boehtlingk's statements.
+
+However, the outcome of it was that I did not go to St. Petersburg,
+but went on with my work at the Library in Paris, till one day I found
+it necessary to run over to London, to copy and collate certain MSS.,
+and there I found the long-sought-for benefactors, who were to enable
+me to carry out the work of my life.
+
+Of course, during my stay in Paris there was no idea of my going into
+society, or of buying tickets for theatres or concerts. I went out to
+dinner at some small restaurant, but otherwise I remained at home, and
+viewed Paris life from my high windows, looking out on the Chambre des
+Deputes on one side, the Madeleine close to me on the left, and the
+Porte St. Martin far away at the end of the Boulevards. Baron
+d'Eckstein, as I have said, was willing to introduce me into society,
+but I refused his kind offers. In fact, I was more or less of a bear,
+and I now regret having missed meeting many interesting characters,
+and having kept aloof from others, because my interests were absorbed
+elsewhere. Burnouf asked me sometimes to his house; so did a Monsieur
+Troyer, who had been in India and published some Sanskrit texts, and
+whose daughter, the Duchesse de Wagram, made much of me, as she was
+very fond of music. There were some German families also, some rich,
+some poor, who showed me great kindness.
+
+I was too much oppressed with cares and anxieties about my life and my
+literary plans to think much of society and enjoyment. Even of the
+students and student life I saw but little, though I was actually
+attending lectures with them. I must say, however, 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 extravagances. A
+Frenchman, if he once begins to work, can work and does work very
+hard. I remember seeing several instances of this, but it is possible
+that I may have seen the pick of the Quartier Latin only. One who was
+then a young man, preparing for the Church, but already with an eye to
+higher flights, was Renan. At first he still looked upon all young
+Germans with suspicion, but this feeling soon disappeared. I remember
+him chiefly at the Bibliotheque Royale, where he had a very small
+place in the Oriental Department. Hase, the Greek scholar, Reinaud,
+the Arabist, and Stanislas Julien, the Sinologue, were librarians
+then. Hase, a German by birth, was most obliging, but he was greatly
+afraid of speaking German, and insisted on our always speaking French
+to him. Often did he call Renan to fetch MSS. for me: "Renan," he
+would call out very loudly, "allez chercher, pour Monsieur Max Mueller,
+le manuscrit sanscrit, numero ...," and then followed a pause, till he
+had translated "1637" into French. In later years Renan and I became
+great friends, but we German scholars were often puzzled at his great
+popularity, which certainly was owing to his style more even than to
+his scholarship. Some time later, when I was already established in
+England, we had a little controversy, and I printed a rather fierce
+attack on his _Grammaire Semitique_. But we were intimate enough for
+me to show him my pamphlet, and when he wrote to me, "Pardonnez-moi,
+je n'ai pas compris ce que vous vouliez dire," I suppressed the
+pamphlet, though it was printed, and we remained friends for life. He
+translated my first article on Comparative Mythology, and I had a
+number of most interesting letters from him. It was his wife who did
+the translation, while he revised it. That French pamphlet is very
+scarce now; my own pamphlet was entirely suppressed; even I myself can
+find no copy of it among the rubbish of my early writings, and what I
+regret most, I threw away his letters, not thinking how interesting
+they would become in time.
+
+With all my work, however, I found time to attend some lectures at the
+College de France, and to make the acquaintance of some distinguished
+French _savants_ of the _Institut_. I went there with Burnouf, or
+Stanislas Julien, or Reinaud, little dreaming that I should some day
+belong to the same august body. Many of my young French friends, who
+afterwards became _Membres de l'Institut_, rose to that dignity much
+later. I was made not only a corresponding, but a real member of the
+Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1869, before my
+friends, such as G. Perrot 1874, Michel Breal 1875, Gaston Paris 1876,
+and Jules Oppert 1881, occupied their well-merited academical
+_fauteuils_. The struggle when I was elected in 1869 was a serious
+one; it was between Mommsen and myself, between classical and Oriental
+scholarship, and for once Oriental scholarship carried the day.
+Mommsen, however, was elected in 1895, and there can be little doubt
+that his strong and outspoken political antipathies had something to
+do with the late date of his election.
+
+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 expected.
+Though I was able to express myself _tant bien que mal_, I have always
+felt hampered in a long conversation. Of course, the French themselves
+have always been polite enough to say that they could not have
+detected that I was a German, but I knew better than that, and never
+have I, even in later years, gained a perfect conversational command
+of that difficult language.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND
+
+
+While working in Paris I constantly felt the want of some essential
+MSS. which were at the Library of the East India Company in London,
+and my desire to visit England consequently grew stronger and
+stronger; but I had not the wherewithal to pay for the journey, much
+less for a stay of even a fortnight in London. At last (June, 1846) I
+thought that I had scraped together enough to warrant my starting. At
+that time I had never seen the sea, and I was very desirous of doing
+so. I well remember my unbounded rapture at my first sight of the
+silver stream, and like Xenophon's Greeks I could have shouted,
+[Greek: thalatta, thalatta]. Once on board my rapture soon collapsed
+and was succeeded by that well-known feeling of misery which I have so
+frequently experienced since then, and I huddled myself up in a corner
+of the deck.
+
+There a young fellow-traveller saw the poor bundle of misery, and
+tried to comfort me, and brought me what he thought was good for me,
+not, however, without a certain merry twinkle in his eye and a few
+kindly jokes at my expense. We landed at the docks in London, a real
+drizzly day, rain and mist, and such a crowd rushing on shore that I
+missed my cheerful friend and felt quite lost. In addition to all this
+a porter had run away with my portmanteau, which contained my books
+and MSS., in fact all my worldly goods. At that moment my young friend
+reappeared, and seeing the plight I was in, came to my assistance.
+"You stay here," he said, "and I will arrange everything for you;" and
+so he did. He fetched a four-wheeler, put my luggage on the top,
+bundled me inside, and drove with me through a maze of London streets
+to his rooms in the Temple. Then, still knowing nothing about me, he
+asked me to spend the night in his rooms, gave me a bed and everything
+else I wanted for the night. The next morning he took me out to look
+for lodgings, which we found in Essex Street, a small street leading
+out of the Strand.
+
+The room which I took was almost entirely filled by an immense
+four-post bed. I had never seen such a structure before, and during
+the first night that I slept in it, I was in constant fear that the
+top of the bed would fall and smother me as in the German _Maerchen_.
+When the landlady came in to see me in the morning, after asking how I
+had slept, the first thing she said was, "But, sir, don't you want
+another 'pillar'?" I looked bewildered, and said: "Why, what shall I
+do with another pillar? and where will you put it?" She then touched
+the pillows under my head and said, "Well, sir, you shall have
+another 'pillar' to-morrow." "How shall I ever learn English," I said
+to myself, "if a 'pillar' means really a soft pillow?"
+
+But to return to my unknown friend, he came every day to show me
+things which I ought to see in London, and brought me tickets for
+theatres and concerts, which he said were sent to him. His name was
+William Howard Russell, endeared to so many, high and low, under the
+name of "Billy" Russell, the first and most brilliant war-correspondent
+of _The Times_ during the Crimean War. He remained my warm and true
+friend through life, and even now when we are both cripples, we
+delight in meeting and talking over very distant days.
+
+I had come over to London expecting to stay about a fortnight, but I
+had been there working at the Library in Leadenhall Street for nearly
+a month, and my work was far from done, when I thought that I ought to
+call and pay my respects to the Prussian Minister, Baron Bunsen. I
+little thought at the time when I was ushered into his presence that
+this acquaintance was to become the turning-point of my life. If I
+owed much to Burnouf, how can I tell what I owed to Bunsen? I was
+amazed at the kindness with which from the very first he received me.
+I had no claim whatever on him, and I had as yet done very little as a
+scholar. It is true that he had known my father in Italy, and that
+Humboldt, with his usual kindness, had written him a strong letter of
+recommendation on my behalf, but that was hardly sufficient reason to
+account for the real friendship with which he at once honoured me.
+
+Baroness Bunsen, in the life of her husband, writes: "The kindred
+mind, their sympathy of heart, the unity in highest aspirations, a
+congeniality in principles, a fellowship in the pursuit of favourite
+objects, which attracted and bound Bunsen to his young friend (i. e.
+myself), rendered this connexion one of the happiest of his life." I
+am proud to think it was so.
+
+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
+life, namely, the _editio princeps_ of the Rig-veda. Often has he told
+me how, at the time when he was prosecuting his studies at Goettingen,
+the very existence of such a book was unknown as yet in Germany. The
+name of Veda had no doubt been known, and there was a halo of mystery
+about it, as the oldest book of the world. But what it was and where
+it was to be found no one could tell. Mr. Astor, a pupil of Bunsen's
+at Goettingen, had arranged to take Bunsen to India to carry on his
+researches there. But Bunsen waited and waited in Italy, till at last,
+after maintaining himself by giving private lessons, he went to Rome,
+was taken up by Brandes and Niebuhr, the Prussian Ambassador there,
+became the friend of the future Frederick William IV, and thus
+gradually drifted into diplomacy, giving up all hopes of discovering
+or rescuing the Rig-veda.
+
+People have hardly any idea now, how, in spite of the East India
+Company conquering and governing India, India itself remained a _terra
+incognita_, unapproachable by the students of England and of Europe.
+That there were literary treasures to be discovered in India, that the
+Brahmans were the depositaries of ancient wisdom, was known through
+the labours of some of the most eminent servants of the East India
+Company. It had been known even before, through the interesting
+communications of Roman Catholic missionaries in India, that the
+manuscripts themselves, at least those of the Veda, were not
+forthcoming. Even as late as the times of Sir W. Jones, Colebrooke,
+and Professor Wilson, the Brahmans were most unwilling to part with
+MSS. of the Veda, except the Upanishads. Professor Wilson told me that
+once, when examining the library of a native Rajah, he came across
+some MSS. of the Rig-veda, and began turning them over; but "I
+observed," he said, "the ominous and threatening looks of some of the
+Brahmans present, and thought it wiser to beat a retreat." Dr. Mill
+had known of a gentleman who had a very sacred hymn of the Veda, the
+Gayatri, printed at Calcutta. The Brahmans were furious at this
+profanation, and when the gentleman died soon after, they looked upon
+his premature death as the vengeance of the offended gods.
+Colebrooke, however, was allowed to possess himself of several most
+valuable Vedic MSS., and he found Brahmans quite ready to read with
+him, not only the classical texts, but also portions of the Veda.
+"They do not even," he writes, "conceal from us the most sacred texts
+of the Veda." His own essays on the Veda appeared in the _Asiatic
+Researches_ as early as 1801. But people went on dreaming about the
+Veda, instead of reading Colebrooke's essays.
+
+It was curious, however, that at the time when I prepared my edition
+of the Rig-veda, Vedic scholarship was at a very low ebb in Bengal
+itself, and there were few Brahmans there who knew the whole of the
+Rig-veda by heart, as they still did in the South of India.
+Manuscripts were never considered in India as of very high authority;
+they were always over-ruled by the oral traditions of certain schools.
+However, such manuscripts, good and bad, but mostly bad, existed, and
+after a time some of them reached England, France, and even Germany.
+Portions of those in Berlin and Paris I had copied and collated, so
+that I could show Bunsen the very book which he had been in search of
+in his youth. This opened his heart to me as well as the doors of his
+house. "I am glad," he said, "to have lived to see the Veda. Whatever
+you want, let me know; I look upon you as myself grown young again."
+And he did help me, as only a father can help his son.
+
+Perhaps he expected too much from the Veda, as many other people did
+at that time, and before the _verba ipsissima_ were printed. As the
+oldest book that ever was composed, the Veda was supposed to give us a
+picture of what man was in his most primitive state, with his most
+primitive ideas, and his most primitive language. Everybody interested
+in the origin and the first development of language, thought,
+religion, and social institutions, looked forward to the Veda as a new
+revelation. All such dreams, natural enough before the Veda was known,
+were dispersed by my laying sacrilegious hands on the Veda itself, and
+actually publishing it, making it public property, to the dismay of
+the Brahmans in India, and to the delight of all Sanskrit scholars in
+Europe. The learned essays of Colebrooke in India, and the extracts
+published by Rosen, the Oriental librarian of the British Museum,
+might indeed have taught people that the Veda was not a book without
+any antecedents, that it would not tell us the secrets of Adam and
+Eve, or of Deukalion and Pyrrha. I myself had both said and written
+that the Veda, like an old oak tree, shows hundreds and thousands of
+circles within circles; and yet I was afterwards held responsible for
+having excited the wildest hopes among archaeologists, when I had done
+my best, if not to destroy them, at all events to reduce them to their
+proper level. Schelling seemed quite disappointed when I showed him
+some of the translations of the hymns of the Rig-veda; and Bunsen,
+who was still under Schelling's influence, had evidently expected a
+great many more of such philosophical hymns as the famous one
+beginning:
+
+"There was not nought nor was there aught at that time."
+
+To the scholar, no doubt, the Veda remained and always will remain the
+oldest of real books, that has been preserved to us in an almost
+miraculous way. By book, however, as I often explained, I mean a book
+divided into chapters and verses, having a beginning and an end, and
+handed down to us in an alphabetic form of writing. China may have
+possessed older books in a half phonetic, half symbolic writing; Egypt
+certainly possessed older hieroglyphic inscriptions and papyri;
+Babylon had its cuneiform monuments; and certain portions of the Old
+Testament may have existed in a written form at the time of Josiah,
+when Hilkiah, the high priest, found the law book in the sanctuary (2
+Kings xxii. 8). But the Veda, with its ten books or _Mandalas_, its
+1017 hymns or _Suktas_, with every consonant and vowel and accent
+plainly written, was a different thing. It may safely be called a
+book. No doubt it existed for a long time, as it does even at present,
+in oral tradition, but as it was in tradition, so it was when reduced
+to writing, and in either form I doubt whether any other real book can
+rival it in antiquity. More important, however, than the purely
+chronological antiquity of the book, is the antiquity or primitiveness
+of the thoughts which it contains. If the people of the Veda did not
+turn out to be quite such savages as was hoped and expected, they
+nevertheless disclosed to us a layer of thought which can be explored
+nowhere else. The Vedic poets were not ashamed of exposing their fear
+that the sun might tumble down from the sky, and there are no other
+poets, as far as I know, who still trembled at the same not quite
+unnatural thought. Nor do I find even savages who still wonder and
+express their surprise that black cows should produce white milk. Is
+not that childish enough for any ancient or modern savage? Mere
+chronology is here of as little avail as with modern savages, whose
+customs and beliefs, though known as but of yesterday, are represented
+to us as older than the Veda, older than Babylonian cylinders, older
+than anything written. When certain modern savages recognize the
+relationship of paternity, maternity, and consanguinity, this is
+called very ancient. If they admit traditional restrictions as to
+marriage, food, the treatment of the dead, nay, even a life to come,
+this too, no doubt, may be very old; but it may be of yesterday also.
+There are even quite new gods, whose genesis has been watched by
+living missionaries. The great difficulty in all such researches is to
+distinguish between what is common to human nature, and what is really
+inherited or traditional. All such questions have only as yet been
+touched upon, and they must wait for their answer till real scholars
+will take up the study of the language of living savages, in the same
+scholarlike spirit in which they have taken up the study of Vedic and
+Babylonian savages. But we must have patience and learn to wait. 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 civilized. It may safely be said of this
+as of other mere ideas, that it may be true, but that there is no
+evidence to show that it is true. At all events it takes much for
+granted, and neglects, as it would seem, the very lessons which the
+theory of evolution has taught us. It is the nature of evolution to be
+continuous, and not to proceed _per saltum_. Therein lies the beauty
+of genealogical evolution that we can recognize the fibres which
+connect the upper strata with the lower, till we strike the lowest, or
+at least that which contains what seem to be the seeds and germs of
+early thoughts, words, and acts. We can trace the most modern forms of
+language back to Sanskrit, or rather to that postulated linguistic
+stratum of which Sanskrit formed the most prominent representative,
+just as we can trace the French _Dieu_ back to Latin _Deus_ and
+Sanskrit _Devas_, the brilliant beings behind the phenomena of nature;
+and again behind them, _Dyaus_, the brilliant sky, the Greek _Zeus_,
+the Roman _Iovis_ and _Iuppiter_, the most natural of all the Aryan
+gods of nature. This is real evolution, a real causal nexus between
+the present and the past. It used to be called history or pragmatic
+history, whether we take history in the sense of the description of
+evolution, or in that of evolution itself. History has generally to
+begin with the present, to go back to the past, and to point out the
+palpable steps by which the past became again and again the present.
+Evolution, on the contrary, prefers to begin with the distant past, to
+postulate formations, even if they have left no traces, and to speak
+of those almost imperceptible changes by which the postulated past
+became the perceptible present, as not only necessary, but as real.
+Perhaps the difference is of no importance, but the historical method
+seems certainly the more accurate, and the more satisfactory from a
+purely scientific point of view.
+
+In all such evolutionary researches language has always been the most
+useful instrument, 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 principles. Here, too, no doubt,
+intermediate links which must have existed, are sometimes lost beyond
+recovery, and when we arrive at the very roots of language, we feel
+that there may have been whole aeons before that radical period. Here
+science must recognize her inevitable horizons, but here again no
+surviving literary monument could carry us so far as the Veda. Hence
+its supreme importance for Aryan philology--for the philology of the
+most important languages of historical mankind. Other languages,
+whether Babylonian or Accadian, whether Hottentot or Maori, may be,
+for all we know, much more ancient or much more primitive; but, as
+scientific explorers, we can only speak of what we know, and we must
+renounce all conjectures that go beyond facts.
+
+In all these researches no one took a livelier interest and encouraged
+me more than Bunsen. When some of my translations of the Vedic hymns
+seemed fairly satisfactory, I used to take them to him, and he was
+always delighted at seeing a little more of that ancient Aryan torso,
+though at the time he was more specially interested in Egyptian
+chronology and archaeology. Often when I was alone with him did we
+discuss the chronological and psychological dates of Egyptian and
+Aryan antiquity. Kind-hearted as he was, Bunsen could get very
+excited, nay, quite violent in arguing, and though these fits soon
+passed off, yet it made discussions between His Excellency the
+Prussian Minister and a young German scholar somewhat difficult. At
+that time much less was known of the earliest Egyptian chronology than
+is now. But I was never much impressed by mere dates. If a king was
+supposed to have lived 5,000 years before our era, "What is that to
+us?" I used to say, "He sits on his throne _in vacuo_, and there is
+nothing to fix him by, nothing contemporary which alone gives interest
+to history. In India we have no dates; but whatever dates and names of
+kings and accounts of battles the Egyptian inscriptions may give us,
+as a book there is nothing so old in Egypt as the Veda in India.
+Besides, we have in the Veda thoughts; and in the chronology of
+thought the Veda seems to me older than even the Book of the Dead."
+
+As to the actual date of the Veda, I readily granted that
+chronologically it was not so old as the pyramids, but supposing it
+had been, would that in any way have increased its value for our
+studies? If we were to place it at 5000 B. C., I doubt whether anybody
+could refute such a date, while if we go back beyond the Veda, and
+come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit and of
+the Proto-Aryan language I doubt very much whether even 5,000 years
+would suffice for that. There is an unfathomable depth in language,
+layer following after layer, long before we arrive at roots, and what
+a time and what an effort must have been required for their
+elaboration, and for the elaboration of the ideas expressed in them.
+
+Our battles waxed sometimes very fierce, but we generally ended by
+arriving at an understanding. As a young man, Bunsen had clearly
+perceived the importance of the Veda for an historical study of
+mankind and the growth of the human mind, but he was not discouraged
+when he saw that it gave us less than had been expected. "It is a
+fortress," he used to say, "that must be besieged and taken, it cannot
+be left in our rear." But he little knew how much time it would take
+to approach it, to surround it, and at last to take it. It has not
+been surrendered even now, and will not be in my time. It is true
+there are several translations of the whole of the Rig-veda, and their
+authors deserve the highest credit for what they have done. People
+have wondered why I have not given one of them in my Sacred Books of
+the East. I thought it was more honest to give, in co-operation with
+Oldenburg, specimens only in vols. xxxii and xlvi of that series, and
+let it be seen in the notes how much uncertainty there still is, and
+how much more of hard work is required, before we can call ourselves
+masters of the old Vedic fortress.
+
+Bunsen's interest in my work, however, took a more practical turn than
+mere encouragement. It was no good encouraging me to copy and collate
+Sanskrit MSS. if they were not to be published. He saw that the East
+India Company were the proper body to undertake that work. Bunsen's
+name was a power in England, and his patronage was the very best
+introduction that I could have had. It was no easy task to persuade
+the Board of Directors--all strictly practical and commercial men--to
+authorize so considerable an expenditure, merely to edit and print an
+old book that none of them could understand, and many of them had
+perhaps never even heard of. Bunsen pointed out what a disgrace it
+would be to them, if some other country than England published this
+edition of the Sacred Books of the Brahmans.
+
+Professor Wilson, Librarian of the Company, also gave my project his
+support, and at last, not quite a year after my arrival in England,
+after a long struggle and many fears of failure, it was settled that
+the East India Company were to bear the cost of printing the Veda, and
+were meanwhile to enable me to stay in London, and prepare my work for
+press.
+
+I had already been working five years copying and collating, and my
+first volume of the Rig-veda was progressing, but it was only when all
+was settled that I realized how much there was still to do, and that I
+should have very hard work indeed before the printing could begin. I
+must enter into some details to show the real difficulties I had to
+face.
+
+I felt convinced that the first thing to do was to publish a correct
+text of the Rig-veda. That was not so difficult, though it brought me
+the greatest kudos. The MSS. were very correct, and the text could
+easily be restored by comparing the Pada and Sanhita texts, i. e. the
+text in which every word was separated, and the text in which the
+words were united according to the rules of Sandhi. Anybody might have
+done that, yet this, as I said, was the part of my work for which I
+have received the greatest praise.
+
+When my edition of the Rig-veda containing text and commentary was
+nearly finished, another scholar, who had assisted me in my work, and
+who had always had the use of my MSS., my Indices, in fact of the
+whole of my _apparatus criticus_, published a transcript of the text
+in Latin letters, and thus anticipated part of the last volume of my
+edition. His friends, who were perhaps not mine, seemed delighted to
+call him the first editor of the Rig-veda, though they ceased to do so
+when they discovered misprints or mistakes of my own edition repeated
+in his. He himself was far above such tactics. He knew, and they knew
+perfectly well that, whatever the _vulgus profanum_ may think, my real
+work was the critical edition of Sayana's commentary on the Rig-veda.
+I had determined that this also should be edited according to the
+strictest rules of criticism. I knew what an amount of labour that
+would involve, but I refused to yield to the pressure of my colleagues
+to proceed more quickly but less critically.
+
+Sayana quotes a number of Sanskrit works which, at the time when I
+began my edition, had not yet been edited. Such were the Nirukta, the
+glossary of the Rig-veda; the Aitareya-brahmana, a very old
+explanation of the Vedic sacrifice; the Asvalayana Sutras, on the
+ceremonial; and sundry works of the same character. Sayana generally
+alludes very briefly only to these works and presupposes that they are
+known to us, so that a short reference would suffice for his purposes.
+To find such references and to understand them required, however, not
+only that I should copy these works, which I did, but that I should
+make indices and thus be able to find the place of the passages to
+which he alluded. This I did also, but over and over again was I
+stopped by some short enigmatical reference to Panini's grammar or
+Yaska's glossary, which I could not identify. All these references are
+now added to my edition, and those who will look them up in the
+originals, will see what kind of work it was which I had to do before
+a single line of my edition could be printed. How often was I in
+perfect despair, because there was some allusion in Sayana which I
+could not make out, and which no other Sanskrit scholar, not even
+Burnouf or Wilson, could help me to clear up. It often took me whole
+days, nay, weeks, before I saw light. A good deal of the commentary
+was easy enough. It was like marching on the high road, when suddenly
+there rises a fortress that has to be taken before any further advance
+is to be thought of. In the purely mechanical part other men could and
+did help me. But whenever any real difficulty arose, I had to face it
+by myself, though after a time I gladly acknowledged that here, too,
+their advice was often valuable to me. In fact I found, and all my
+assistants seemed to have found out the same, that if they were
+useful to me, the work they did for me was useful to them, and I am
+proud to say that nearly all of them have afterwards risen to great
+prominence in Sanskrit scholarship. From time to time I also worked at
+interpreting and translating some of the Vedic hymns, though I had
+always hoped that this part of the work would be taken up by other
+scholars.
+
+Bunsen was also my social sponsor in London, and my first peeps into
+English society were at the Prussian Legation. He often invited me to
+his breakfast and dinner parties, and when I saw for the first time
+the magnificent rooms crowded with ministers, and dukes, and bishops,
+and with ladies in their grandest dresses, I was as in a dream, and
+felt as if I had been lifted into another world. Men were pointed out
+to me such as Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Van der Weyer,
+the Belgian Minister, Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's and author of
+the _History of Greece_, Archdeacon Hare, Frederick Maurice, and many
+more whom I did not know then, though I came to know several of them
+afterwards. Anybody who had anything of his own to produce was welcome
+in Bunsen's house, and among the men whom I remember meeting at his
+breakfast parties, were Rawlinson, Layard, Hodgson, Birch, and many
+more. Those breakfast parties were then quite a new institution to me,
+and it is curious how entirely they have gone out of fashion, though
+Sir Harry Inglis, Member for Oxford, Gladstone, Member for Oxford,
+Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), kept them up to the last,
+while in Oxford they survived perhaps longer than anywhere else. They
+had one great advantage, people came to them quite fresh in the
+morning; but they broke too much into the day, particularly when, as
+at Oxford, they ended with beer, champagne, and cigars, as was
+sometimes the case in undergraduates' rooms.
+
+How I was able to swim in that new stream, I can hardly understand
+even now. I had been quite unaccustomed to this kind of society, and
+was ignorant of its simplest rules. Bunsen, however, was never put out
+by my gaucheries, but gave me friendly hints in feeling my way through
+what seemed to me a perfect labyrinth. He told me that I had offended
+people by not returning their calls, or not leaving a card after
+having dined with them, paying the so-called digestion-visit to them.
+How should I know? Nobody had ever told me, and I thought it obtrusive
+to call. Nor did I know that in England to touch fish with a knife, or
+to help yourself to potatoes with a fork, was as fatal as to drop or
+put in an _h_. 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
+fork, often scattering it over your plate and possibly over the
+table-cloth. I must confess also that fish-knives always seemed to me
+more civilized than forks in dividing fish, but fish-knives did not
+exist when I first came to England. 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 discarded. Let us hope it is
+by the survival of the fittest. When I first went to Oxford everybody
+took wine with his neighbours, now it is only at such conservative
+colleges as my own--All Souls--that the old custom still survives. But
+then we have not even given up wax candles yet, and we look upon gas
+as a most objectionable innovation.
+
+Another great difficulty I had was in writing letters and addressing
+my friends properly as Sir, or Mr. Smith, or Smith. I was told that
+the rule was very simple and that you addressed everybody exactly as
+they addressed you. What was the consequence? When I received an
+invitation to dine with the Bishop of Oxford who addressed me as "My
+dear Sir," I wrote back "My dear Sir," and said that I should be very
+happy. How Samuel Wilberforce must have chuckled when he read my
+epistle. But how is any stranger to know all the intricacies of social
+literature, particularly if he is wrongly informed by the highest
+authorities. I must confess that even later in life I have often been
+puzzled as to the right way of addressing my friends. There is no
+difficulty about intimate friends, but as one grows older one knows
+so many people more or less intimately, and according to their
+different characters and stations in life, one often does not know
+whether one offends by too great or too little familiarity. I was once
+writing to a very eminent man in London who had been exceedingly
+friendly to me at Oxford, and I addressed him as "My dear Professor
+H." At the end of his answer he wrote, "Don't call me Professor." All
+depends on the tone in which such words are said. I imagined that
+living in fashionable society in London, he did not like the somewhat
+scholastic title of Professor which, in London particularly, has
+always a by-taste of diluted omniscience and conceit. I accordingly
+addressed him in my next letter as "My dear Sir," and this, I am sorry
+to say, produced quite a coldness and stiffness, as my friend
+evidently imagined that I declined to be on more intimate terms with
+him, the fact being that through life I have always been one of his
+most devoted admirers. I did my best to conform to all the British
+institutions, as well as I could, though in the beginning I must no
+doubt have made fearful blunders, and possibly given offence to the
+truly insular Briton. Bunsen seemed to delight in asking me whenever
+he had Princes or other grandees to lunch or dine with him.
+
+One day he took me with him to stay at Hurstmonceux with Archdeacon
+Hare, and a delightful time it was. There were books in every room,
+on the staircase, and in every corner of the house, and the Archdeacon
+knew every one of them, and as soon as a book was mentioned, he went
+and fetched it. He generally knew the very place at which the passage
+that was being discussed, occurred, and excelled even the famous dog,
+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 _History_, and at once climbed up the ladder
+and brought down from the shelf the very volume in which the disputed
+passage occurred. He had been taught this one trick of fetching a
+certain volume from the shelves of the library, and the conversation
+was turned and turned till it was brought round to a passage in that
+very volume. The guests were, no doubt, amazed, but as it was before
+the days of Darwin and Lubbock, it led to no more than a good laugh. I
+was surprised and delighted at the honesty with which the Archdeacon
+admitted the weak points of the Anglican system, and the dangers which
+threatened not only the Church, but the religion of England. The real
+danger, he evidently thought, came from the clergy, and their
+hankering after Rome. "They have forgotten their history," he said,
+"and the sufferings which the sway of a Roman priesthood has inflicted
+for centuries on their country." I think it was he who told me the
+story of a young Romanizing curate, who declared that he could never
+see what was the use of the laity.
+
+One day when I called on Bunsen with my books, and I frequently called
+when I had something new to show him, he said: "You must come with me
+to Oxford to the meeting of the British Association." This was in
+1847. Of course I did not know what sort of thing this British
+Association was, but Bunsen said he would explain it all to me, only I
+must at once sit down and write a paper. He, Bunsen, was to read a
+paper on the "Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference
+to Asiatic and African Ethnology and the Classification of Languages,"
+and he wanted Dr. Karl Meyer and myself to support him, the former
+with a paper on Celtic Philology, and myself with a paper on the Aryan
+and Aboriginal Languages of India. I assured him that this was quite
+beyond me. I had hardly been a year in England, and even if I could
+write, I knew but too well that I could not read a paper before a
+large audience. However, Bunsen would take no refusal. "We must show
+them what we have done in Germany for the history and philosophy of
+language," he said, "and I reckon on your help." There was no escape,
+and to Oxford I had to go. I was fearfully nervous, for, as Prince
+Albert was to be present, ever so many distinguished people had
+flocked to the meeting, and likewise some not very friendly
+ethnologists, such as Dr. Latham, and Mr. Crawford, known by the name
+of the Objector General. Our section was presided over by the famous
+Dr. Prichard, the author of that classical work, _Researches into the
+Physical History of Mankind_, in five volumes, and it was he who
+protected me most chivalrously against the somewhat frivolous
+objections of certain members, who were not over friendly towards
+Prince Albert, Chevalier Bunsen, and all that was called German in
+scholarship. All, however, went off well. Bunsen's speech was most
+successful, and it is a pity that it should be buried in the
+_Transactions of the British Association for 1847_. At that time it
+was considered a great honour that his speech should appear there _in
+extenso_. When Bunsen declared that he would not give it, unless Dr.
+Meyer's paper and my own were published in the _Transactions_ at the
+same time, there was renewed opposition. I was so little proud of my
+own essay, that I should much rather have kept it back for further
+improvement, but printed it was in the _Transactions_, and much
+canvassed at the time in different journals.
+
+I have always been doubtful about the advantages of these public
+meetings, so far as any scientific results are concerned. Everybody
+who pays a guinea may become a member and make himself heard, whether
+he knows anything on the subject or not. The most ignorant men often
+occupy the largest amount of time. Some people look upon these
+congresses simply as a means of advertising themselves, and I have
+actually seen quoted among a man's titles to fame the fact that he had
+been a member of certain congresses. Another drawback is that no one,
+not even the best of scholars, is quite himself before a mixed
+audience. Whereas in a private conversation a man is glad to receive
+any new information, no one likes to be told in public that he ought
+to have known this or that, or that every schoolboy knows it. Then
+follows generally a squabble, and the best pleader is sure to have the
+laughter on his side, however ignorant he may be of the subject that
+is being discussed. But Dr. Prichard was an excellent president and
+moderator, and though he had unruly spirits to deal with, he succeeded
+in keeping up a certain decorum among them. Dr. Prichard's authority
+stood very high, and justly so, and his _Researches into the Physical
+History of Mankind_ still remain unparalleled in ethnology. His
+careful weighing of facts and difficulties went out of fashion when
+the theory of evolution became popular, and every change from a flea
+to an elephant was explained by imperceptible degrees. He dealt
+chiefly with what was perceptible, with well-observed facts, and many
+of the facts which he marshalled so well, require even now, in these
+post-Darwinian days I should venture to say, renewed consideration.
+Like all great men, he was wonderfully humble, and allowed me to
+contradict him, who ought to have been proud to listen and to learn
+from him.
+
+But though I cannot say that the result of these meetings and
+wranglings was very great or valuable, I spent a few most delightful
+days at Oxford, and I could not imagine a more perfect state of
+existence than to be an undergraduate, a fellow, or a professor there.
+A kind of silent love sprang up in my heart, though I hardly confessed
+it to myself, much less to the object of my affections. I knew I had
+to go back to be a University tutor or even a master in a public
+school in Germany, and that was a hard life compared with the freedom
+of Oxford. To be independent and free to work as I liked, that was
+everything to me, but how I ever succeeded in realizing my ideal, I
+hardly know. At that time I saw nothing but a life of drudgery and
+severe struggle before me, but I did not allow myself to dwell on it;
+I simply worked on, without looking either right or left, behind or
+before.
+
+While at Oxford on this my first flying visit, I had a room in
+University College, the very college in which my son was hereafter to
+be an undergraduate. My host was Dr. Plumptre, the Master of the
+College, a tall, stiff, and to my mind, very imposing person. He was
+then Vice-Chancellor, and I believe I never saw him except in his cap
+and gown and with two bedels walking before him, the one with a gold,
+the other with a silver poker in his hands. We have no Esquire bedels
+any longer! All the professors, too, and even the undergraduates,
+dressed in their mediaeval academic costume, looked to me very grand,
+and so different from the German students at Leipzig or still more at
+Jena, walking about the streets in pink cotton trousers and
+dressing-gowns. It seemed to me quite a different world, and I made
+new discoveries every day. Being with Bunsen I was invited to all the
+official dinners during the meeting of the British Association, and
+here, too, the Vice-Chancellor acted his part with becoming dignity.
+He never unbent; he never indulged in a joke or joined in the laughter
+of his neighbours. When I remarked on his immovable features, I was
+told that he slept in starched sheets--and I believed it. At one of
+these dinners, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte caused a titter during a
+speech about the freedom which people enjoyed in England. "In France,"
+he said, "with all the declamations about _Liberte_, _Egalite_,
+_Fraternite_, there is very little freedom, and, with all the trees of
+_liberte_ which are being planted along the boulevards, there is very
+little of real liberty to be found there!" "But you in England," he
+finished, "you have your old tree of liberty, which is always
+flowering and showering _peas_ on the whole world." He wanted to say
+peace. We tried to look solemn but failed, and a suppressed laugh went
+round till it reached the Vice-Chancellor. There it stopped. He was
+far too well bred to allow a single muscle of his face to move. "He
+throws a cold blanket on everything," my neighbour said; and my
+knowledge of English was still so imperfect that I accepted many of
+these metaphorical remarks in their literal sense, and became more and
+more puzzled about my host. It was evidently a pleasure to my friends
+to see how easily I was taken in. On the walls of the houses at Oxford
+I saw the letters F. P. about ten feet from the ground. Of course it
+was meant for Fire Plug, but I was told that it marked the height of
+the Vice-Chancellor, whose name was Frederick Plumptre.
+
+My visit to Oxford was over all too soon, and I returned to London to
+toil away at my Sanskrit MSS. in the little room that had been
+assigned to me in the Old East India House in Leadenhall Street. That
+building, too, in which the reins of the mighty Empire of India were
+held, mostly by the hands of merchants, has vanished, and the place of
+it knoweth it no more. However, I thought little of India, I only
+thought of the library at the East India House, a real Eldorado for an
+eager Sanskrit student, who had never seen such treasures before. I
+saw little else there, I only remember seeing Tippoo Sahib's tiger
+which held an English soldier in his claws, and was regularly wound up
+for the benefit of visitors, and then uttered a loud squeak, enough to
+disturb even the most absorbed of students. I felt quite dazed by all
+the books and manuscripts placed at my disposal, and revelled in them
+every day till it became dark, and I had to walk home through Ludgate
+Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, generally carrying ever so many books
+and papers under my arms. I knew nobody in the city, and no one knew
+me; and what did I care for the world, as long as I had my beloved
+manuscripts?
+
+In March, 1848, I had to go over to Paris to finish up some work
+there, and just came in for the revolution. From my windows I had a
+fine view of all that was going on. I well remember the pandemonium in
+the streets, the aspect of the savage mob, the wanton firing of shots
+at quiet spectators, the hoisting of Louis Philippe's nankeen trousers
+on the flag-staff of the Tuileries. When bullets began to come through
+my windows, I thought it time to be off while it was still possible.
+Then came the question how to get my box full of precious manuscripts,
+&c., belonging to the East India Company, to the train. The only
+railway open was the line to Havre, which had been broken up close to
+the station, but further on was intact, and in order to get there we
+had to climb three barricades. I offered my _concierge_ five francs to
+carry my box, but his wife would not hear of his risking his life in
+the streets; ten francs--the same result; but at the sight of a louis
+d'or she changed her mind, and with an "Allez, mon ami, allez
+toujours," dispatched her husband on his perilous expedition. Arrived
+in London I went straight to the Prussian Legation, and was the first
+to give Bunsen the news of Louis Philippe's flight from Paris. Bunsen
+took me off to see Lord Palmerston, 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 Paris. So even a poor scholar had to
+play his small part in the events that go to make up history.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+EARLY DAYS AT OXFORD
+
+
+It had been settled that my edition of the Rig-veda should be printed
+at the Oxford University Press, and I found that I had often to go
+there to superintend the printing. Not that the printers required much
+supervision, as I must say that the printing at the University Press
+was, and is, excellent--far better than anything I had known in
+Germany. In providing copy for a work of six volumes, each of about
+1000 pages, it was but natural that _lapsus calami_ should occur from
+time to time. What surprised me was that several of these were
+corrected in the proof-sheets sent to me. At last I asked whether
+there was any Sanskrit scholar at Oxford who revised my proof-sheets
+before they were returned. I was told there was not, but that the
+queries were made by the printer himself. That printer was an
+extraordinary man. His right arm was slightly paralysed, and he had
+therefore been put on difficult slow work, such as Sanskrit. There are
+more than 300 types which a printer must know in composing Sanskrit.
+Many of the letters in Sanskrit are incompatible, i. e. they cannot
+follow each other, or if they do, they have to be modified. Every
+_d_, for instance, if followed by a _t_, is changed to _t_; every _dh_
+loses its aspiration, becomes likewise _t_, or changes the next _t_
+into _dh_. Thus from _budh_ + _ta_, we have _Buddha_, i. e. awakened.
+In writing I had sometimes neglected these modifications, but in the
+proof-sheets these cases were always either queried or corrected. When
+I asked the printer, who did not of course know a word of Sanskrit,
+how he came to make these corrections, he said: "Well, sir, my arm
+gets into a regular swing from one compartment of types to another,
+and there are certain movements that never occur. So if I suddenly
+have to take up types which entail a new movement, I feel it, and I
+put a query." An English printer might possibly be startled in the
+same way if in English he had to take up an _s_ immediately following
+an _h_. 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 Sanskrit. In spite of the extreme accuracy of my
+printer, however, I saw, that after all it would be better for myself,
+and for the Veda, if I were on the spot, and I decided to migrate from
+London to Oxford.
+
+My first visit had filled me with enthusiasm for the beautiful old
+town, which I regarded as an ideal home for a student. Besides, I
+found that I was getting too gay in London, and in order to be able to
+devote my evenings to society, I had to get up and begin work soon
+after five. May, therefore, saw me established for the first time in
+Oxford, in a small room in Walton Street. The moving of my books and
+papers from London did not take long. At that time my library could
+still be accommodated in my portmanteau, it had not yet risen to
+12,000 volumes, threatening to drive me out of my house. A happy time
+it was when I possessed no books which I had not read, and no one sent
+books to me which I did not want, and yet had to find a place for in
+my rooms, and to thank the author for his kindness.
+
+I at once found that my work went on more rapidly at Oxford than in
+London, though if I had expected to escape from all hospitality I
+certainly was not allowed to do that. Accustomed as I was to the
+Spartan diet of a German _convictorium_, or a dinner at the Palais
+Royal _a deux francs_, the dinners to which I was invited by some of
+the Fellows in Hall, or in Common Room, surprised me not a little. The
+old plate, the old furniture, and the whole style of living, impressed
+me deeply, particularly the after-dinner railway, an ingenious
+invention for lightening the trouble of the guests who took wine in
+Common Room. There was a small railway fixed before the fireplace, and
+on it a wagon containing the bottles went backwards and forwards,
+halting before every guest till he had helped himself. That railway, I
+am afraid, is gone now; and what is more serious, the pleasant, chatty
+evenings spent in Common Room are likewise a thing of the past.
+Married Fellows, if they dine in Hall, return home after dinner, and
+junior Fellows go to their books or pupils. In my early Oxford days, a
+married Fellow would have sounded like a solecism. The story goes that
+married Fellows were not entirely unknown, and that you could hold
+even a fellowship, if you could hold your tongue. Young people,
+however, who did not possess that gift of silence, had often to wait
+till they were fifty, before a college living fell vacant, and the
+quinquagenarian Fellow became a young husband and a young vicar.
+
+What impressed me, however, even more than the great hospitality of
+Oxford, was the real friendliness shown to an unknown German scholar.
+After all, I had done very little as yet, but the kind words which
+Bunsen and Dr. Prichard had spoken about me at the meeting of the
+British Association, had evidently produced an impression in my favour
+far beyond what I deserved. I must have seemed a very strange bird,
+such as had never before built his nest at Oxford. I was very young,
+but I looked even younger than I was, and my knowledge of the manners
+of society, particularly of English society, was really nil. Few
+people knew what I was working at. Some had a kind of vague impression
+that I had discovered a very old religion, older than the Jewish and
+the Christian, which contained the key to many of the mysteries that
+had puzzled the ancient, nay, even the modern world. Frequently, when
+I was walking through the streets of Oxford, I observed how people
+stared at me, and seemed to whisper some information about me.
+Tradespeople did not always trust me, though I never owed a penny to
+anybody; when I wanted money I could always make it by going on faster
+with printing the Rig-veda, for which I received four pounds a sheet.
+This seemed to me then a large sum, though many a sheet took me at
+first more than a week to get ready, copy, collate, understand, and
+finally print. If I was interested in any other subject, my exchequer
+suffered accordingly--but I could always retrieve my losses by sitting
+up late at night. Poor as I was, I never had any cares about money,
+and when I once began to write in English for English journals, I had
+really more than I wanted. My first article in the _Edinburgh Review_
+appeared in October, 1851.
+
+At that time the idea of settling at Oxford, of remaining in this
+academic paradise, never entered my head. I was here to print my
+Rig-veda and work at the Bodleian; that I should in a few years be an
+M.A. of Christ Church, a Fellow of the most exclusive of colleges,
+nay, a married Fellow--a being not even invented then--and a professor
+of the University, never entered into my wildest dreams. I could only
+admire, and admire with all my heart. Everything seemed perfect, the
+gardens, the walks in the neighbourhood, the colleges, and most of all
+the inhabitants of the colleges, both Fellows and undergraduates. 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--could, in fact, govern itself without a Minister of Education
+to appoint professors, without a Royal Commissioner to look after the
+undergraduates and their moral and political sentiments. And here at
+Oxford I was told that the Government did not know Oxford, nor Oxford
+the Government, that the only ruling power consisted in the Statutes
+of the University, that professors and tutors were perfectly free so
+long as they conformed to these statutes, and that certainly no
+minister could ever appoint or dismiss a professor, except the Regius
+professors. "If we want a thing done," my friends used to explain to
+me, "we do it ourselves, as long as it does not run counter to the
+statutes."
+
+But Oxford changes with every generation. It is always growing old,
+but it is always growing young again. There was an old Oxford four
+hundred years ago, and there was an old Oxford fifty years ago. To a
+man who is taking his M.A. degree, Oxford, as it was when he was a
+freshman, seems quite a thing of the past. By the public at large no
+place is supposed to be so conservative, so unchanging, nay, so
+stubborn in resisting new ideas, as Oxford; and yet people who knew it
+forty or fifty years ago, like myself, find it now so changed that,
+when they look back they can hardly believe it is the same place. Even
+architecturally the streets of the University have changed, and here
+not always for the better. Architects unfortunately object to mere
+imitation of the old Oxford style of building; they want to produce
+something entirely their own, which may be very good by itself, but is
+not always in harmony with the general tone of the college buildings.
+I still remember the outcry against the Taylor Institution, the only
+Palladian building at Oxford, and yet everybody has now grown
+reconciled to it, and even Ruskin lectured in it, which he would not
+have done, if he had disapproved of its architecture. He would never
+lecture in the Indian Institute, and wrote me a letter sadly reproving
+me for causing Broad Street to be defaced by such a building, when I
+had had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was very loud in his
+condemnation of other new buildings. He abused even the New Museum,
+though he had a great deal to do with it himself. He had hoped that it
+would be the architecture of the future, but he confessed after a time
+that he was not satisfied with the result.
+
+In his days we still had the old Magdalen Bridge, the Bodleian
+unrestored, and no trams. Ruskin was so offended by the new bridge, by
+the restored Bodleian, and by the tram-cars, that he would go ever so
+far round to avoid these eyesores, when he had to deliver his
+lectures; and that was by no means an easy pilgrimage. There was, of
+course, no use in arguing with him. Most people like the new Magdalen
+Bridge because it agrees better with the width of High Street; they
+consider the Bodleian well restored, particularly now that the new
+stone is gradually toning down to the colour of the old walls, and as
+to tram-cars, objectionable as they are in many respects, they
+certainly offend the eye less than the old dirty and rickety
+omnibuses. The new buildings of Merton, in the style of a London
+police-station, offended him deeply, and with more justice,
+particularly as he had to live next door to them when he had rooms at
+Corpus.
+
+These new buildings could not be helped at Oxford. The stone, with
+which most of the old colleges were built, was taken from a quarry
+close to Oxford, and began to peel off and to crumble in a very
+curious manner. Artists like these chequered walls, and by moonlight
+they are certainly picturesque, but the colleges had to think of what
+was safe. My own college, All Souls, has ever so many pinnacles, and
+we kept an architect on purpose to watch which of them were unsafe and
+had to be restored or replaced by new ones. Every one of these
+pinnacles cost us about fifty pounds, and at every one of our meetings
+we were told that so many pinnacles had been tested, and wanted
+repairing or replacing. Many years ago, when I was spending the whole
+Long Vacation at Oxford, I could watch from my windows a man who was
+supposed to be testing the strength of these pinnacles. He was armed
+with a large crowbar, which he ran with all his might against the
+unfortunate pinnacle. I doubt whether the walls of any Roman castellum
+could have resisted such a ram. I spoke to some of the Fellows, and
+when the builder made his next report to us, we rather objected to the
+large number of invalids. He was not to be silenced, however, so
+easily, but told us with a very grave countenance that he could not
+take the responsibility, as a pinnacle might fall any day on our
+Warden when he went to chapel. This, he thought, would settle the
+matter. But no, it made no impression whatever on the junior Fellows,
+and the number of annual cripples was certainly very much reduced in
+consequence.
+
+It is true that Oxford has always loved what is old better than what
+is new, and has resisted most innovations to the very last. A
+well-known liberal statesman used to say that when any measure of
+reform was before Parliament, he always rejoiced to see an Oxford
+petition against it, for that measure was sure to be carried very
+soon. It should not be forgotten, however, that there always has been
+a liberal minority at Oxford. It is still mentioned as something quite
+antediluvian, that Oxford, that is the Hebdomadal Council, petitioned
+against the Great Western Railway invading its sacred precincts; 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
+world.
+
+Many things, of course, have been changed, and are changing every year
+before our very eyes; but what can never be changed, in spite of some
+recent atrocities in brick and mortar, is the natural beauty of its
+gardens, and the historical character of its architecture. Whether
+Friar Bacon, as far back as the thirteenth century, admired the
+colleges, chapels, and gardens of Oxford, we do not know; and even if
+we did, few of them could have been the same as those which we admire
+to-day. 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 philosopher, who is sometimes claimed as a Fellow of Brasenose
+College, probably long before that College existed; but what is said
+in that play in praise of the University, may at least be taken as a
+recollection of what Greene saw himself, when he took his degree as
+Bachelor of Arts in 1578. In his play of the _History of Friar Bacon_,
+Greene introduces the Emperor of Germany, Henry II, 1212-50, as paying
+a visit to Henry III of England, 1216-73, and he puts into his mouth
+the following lines, which, though they cannot compare with Shelley's
+or Mat Arnold's, are at all events the earliest testimony to the
+natural attractions of Oxford. Anyhow, Shelley's and Mat Arnold's
+lines are well known and are always quoted, so that I venture to quote
+Greene's lines, not for the sake of their beauty, but simply because
+they are probably known to very few of my readers:
+
+    "Trust me, Plantagenet, these Oxford schools
+     Are richly seated near the river-side:
+     The mountains full of fat and fallow deer,
+     The battling[10] pastures lade with kine and flocks,
+     The town gorgeous with high built colleges,
+     And scholars seemly in their grave attire."
+
+  [10] Will it be believed that the battels (bills) in College
+  are connected with this word?
+
+The mountains round Oxford we must accept as a bold poetical licence,
+whether they were meant for Headington Hill or Wytham Woods. The
+German traveller, Hentzner, who described Oxford in 1598, is more true
+to nature when he speaks of the wooded hills that encompass the plain
+in which Oxford lies.
+
+But while the natural beauty of Oxford has always been admired and
+praised by strangers, the doctors and professors of the old University
+have not always fared so well at the hands of English and foreign
+critics. I shall not quote from Giordano Bruno, who visited England in
+1583-5, and calls Oxford "the widow of true science[11]," but Milton
+surely cannot be suspected of any prejudice against Oxford. Yet he
+writes in 1656 in a letter to Richard Jones: "There is indeed plenty
+of amenity and salubrity in the place when you are there. There are
+books enough for the needs of a University: if only the amenity of the
+spot contributed so much to the genius of the inhabitants as it does
+to pleasant living, nothing would seem wanting to the happiness of the
+place."
+
+  [11] _Opere_, ed. Wagner, i. p. 179.
+
+These ill-natured remarks about the Oxford Dons seem to go on to the
+very beginning of our century. The buildings and gardens are praised,
+but by way of contrast, it would seem, or from some kind of jealousy,
+their inhabitants are always treated with ridicule. Not long ago a
+book was published, _Memoirs of a Highland Lady_. Though published in
+1898, it should be remembered that the memoirs go back as far as 1809.
+Nor should it be forgotten that at that time the authoress was hardly
+more than thirteen years of age, and certainly of a very girlish, not
+to say frivolous, disposition. She stayed some time with the then
+Master of University, Dr. Griffith, and for him, it must be said, she
+always shows a certain respect. But no one else at Oxford is spared.
+She arrived there at the time of Lord Grenville's installation as
+Chancellor of the University. Though so young, she was taken to the
+Theatre, and this is her description of what she saw and heard:--"It
+was a shock to me; I had expected to be charmed with a play, instead
+of being nearly set to sleep by discourses in Latin from a pulpit.
+There were some purple, and some gold, some robes and some wigs, a
+great crowd, and some stir at times, while a deal of humdrum speaking
+and dumb show was followed by the noisy demonstrations of the
+students, as they applauded or condemned the honours bestowed; but in
+the main I tired of the heat and the mob, and the worry of these
+mornings, and so, depend upon it, did poor Lord Grenville, who sat up
+in the chair of state among the dignitaries, like the Grand Lama in
+his temple guarded by his priests." One thing only she was delighted
+with, that was the singing of Catalani at one of the concerts. Yet
+even here she cannot repress her remark that she sang "Gott safe the
+King." She evidently was a flippant young lady or child, and with her
+sister, who afterwards joined her at Oxford, seems to have found
+herself quite a fish out of water in the grave society of the
+University.
+
+The room in the Master's Lodge which appalled her most and seems to
+have been used as a kind of schoolroom, was the Library, full of
+Divinity books, but without curtains, carpet, or fireplace. Here they
+had lessons in music, drawing, arithmetic, history, geography, and
+French. "And the Master," she adds, "opened to us what had been till
+then a sealed book, the New Testament, so that this visit to Oxford
+proved really one of the fortunate chances of my life."
+
+This speaks well for the young lady, who in later life seems to have
+occupied a most honoured and influential position in Scotch society.
+But Oxford society evidently found no favour in her eyes.
+
+Her uncle and aunt, as she tells us, were frequently out at dinner
+with other Heads of Houses, for there was, of course, no other
+society. These dinners seem to have been very sumptuous, though their
+own domestic life was certainly very simple. For breakfast they had
+tea, and butter on their bread, and at dinner a small glass of ale,
+college home-brewed ale. "How fat we got!" she exclaims. The Master
+seems to have been a man of refined taste, fond of drawing, and what
+was called poker-painting; he was given also to caricaturing, and
+writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently fond of his
+society, but of the other Oxford society she only mentions the
+ultra-Tory politics, and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of
+Houses. "The various Heads," she writes, "with their respective wives,
+were extremely inferior to my uncle and aunt. More than half of the
+Doctors of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small gentry or
+country clergy, or even of a lower grade. Many of these, constant to
+the loves of their youth, brought ladies of inferior manners to grace
+what appeared to them so dignified a station. It was not a good style;
+there was little talent, and less polish, and no sort of knowledge of
+the world. And yet the ignorance of this class was less offensive than
+the assumption of another, when a lady of high degree had fallen in
+love with her brother's tutor, and got him handsomely provided for in
+the Church, that she might excuse herself for marrying him. Of the
+lesser clergy, there were young witty ones--odious; young learned
+ones--bores; and elderly ones--pompous; all, however, of all grades,
+kind and hospitable. But the Christian pastor, humble, gentle,
+considerate, and self-sacrificing, had no representative, as far as I
+could see, among these dealers in old wines, rich dinners, fine china,
+and massive plate."
+
+"The religion of Oxford appeared in those days to consist in honouring
+the King and his Ministers, and in perpetually popping in and out of
+chapel. Chapel was announced by the strokes of a big hammer, beaten on
+every staircase half an hour before by a scout. The education was
+suited to Divinity. A sort of supervision was said to be kept over the
+young, riotous community, 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 committed. There were rules that had in a
+general way to be obeyed, and lectures that had to be attended, but as
+for care to give high aims, provide refining amusements, give a worthy
+tone to the character of responsible beings, there was none ever even
+thought of. The very meaning of the word 'education' did not appear to
+be understood. The college was a fit sequel to the school. The young
+men herded together; they lived in their rooms, and they lived out of
+them, in the neighbouring villages, where many had comfortable
+establishments.... All sorts of contrivances were resorted to to
+enable the dissipated to remain out all night, to shield a culprit, to
+deceive the dignitaries." This was in 1809, and even later.
+
+And yet with all this, and while we are told that those who attended
+lectures were laughed at, it seems strange that the best divines, and
+lawyers, and politicians of the first half of our century, some of
+whom we may have known ourselves, must have been formed under that
+system. We can hardly believe that it was as bad as here described,
+and we must remember that much of the _Memoirs_ of this Scotch lady
+can have been written from memory only, and long after the time when
+she and her sister lived at University College. Life there, no doubt,
+may have been very dull, as there were no other young ladies at
+Oxford, and it cannot have been very amusing for these young girls to
+dine with sixteen Heads of Houses, all in wide silk cassocks, scarves
+and bands, one or two in powdered wigs, so that, as we are told, they
+often went home crying. All intercourse with the young men was
+strictly forbidden, though it seems to have been not altogether
+impossible to communicate, from the garden of the Master's Lodge, with
+the young men bending out of the college windows, or climbing down to
+the gardens.
+
+One of these young men, who was at University College at the same
+time, might certainly not have been considered a very desirable
+companion for these two Scotch girls. It was no other than Shelley.
+What they say of him does not tell us much that is new, yet it
+deserves to be repeated. "Mr. Shelley," we read, "afterwards so
+celebrated, was half crazy. He began his career with every kind of
+wild prank at Eton. At University he was very insubordinate, always
+infringing some rule, the breaking of which he knew could not be
+overlooked. He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to about
+these and other irregularities, he was in the habit of making such
+extraordinary gestures, expressive of his humility under reproof, as
+to overset first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing
+tutor. When he proceeded so far as to paste up atheistical squibs on
+the chapel doors, it was considered necessary to expel him privately,
+out of regard to Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who came up at once.
+He and his son left Oxford together."
+
+No one would recognize in this picture the University of Oxford, as it
+is at present. _Nous avons change tout cela_ might be said with great
+truth by the Heads of Houses, the Professors, and Fellows of the
+present day. And yet what the Highland lady, or rather the Highland
+girl, describes, refers to times not so long ago but that some of the
+men we have known might have lived through it. How this change came
+about I cannot tell, though I can bear testimony to a few survivals of
+the old state of things.
+
+The Oxford of 1848 was still the Oxford of the Heads of Houses and of
+the Hebdomadal Board. That board consisted almost entirely of Heads of
+Houses, and a most important board it was, considering that the whole
+administration of the University was really in its hands. The
+colleges, on the other hand, were very jealous of their independence;
+and even the authority of the Proctors, who represented the University
+as such, was often contested within the gates of a college. It is
+wonderful that this old system of governing the University through the
+Heads of Houses should have gone on so long and so smoothly. Having
+been trusted by the Fellows of his own society with considerable power
+in the administration of his own college, it was supposed that the
+Head would prove equally useful in the administration of the
+University. A Head of a House became at once a member of the Council.
+And, on the whole, they managed to drive the coach and horses very
+well. But often when I had to take foreigners to hear the University
+Sermon, and they saw a most extraordinary set of old gentlemen walking
+into St. Mary's in procession, with a most startling combination of
+colours, black and red, scarlet and pink, on their heavy gowns and
+sleeves, I found it difficult to explain who they were. "Are they your
+professors?" I was asked. "Oh, no," I said, "the professors don't wear
+red gowns, only Doctors of Divinity and of Civil Law, and as every
+Head of a House must have something to wear in public, he is
+invariably made a Doctor." I remember one exception only, and at a
+much later time, namely, the Master of Balliol, who, like Canning at
+the Congress of Vienna, considered it among his most valued
+distinctions never to have worn the gown of a D.C.L. or D.D. It is
+well known that when Marshal Bluecher was made a Doctor at Oxford he
+asked, in the innocence of his heart, that General Gneisenau, his
+right-hand man, might at least be made a chemist. He certainly had
+mixed a most effective powder for the French army under Napoleon.
+
+"But," my friend would ask, "have you no _Senatus Academicus_, have
+you no faculties of professors such as there are in all other
+Christian universities?" "Yes and no," I said. "We have professors,
+but they are not divided into faculties, and they certainly do not
+form the _Senatus Academicus_, or the highest authority in the
+University."
+
+It seems very strange, but it is nevertheless a fact, that as soon as
+a good tutor is made a professor, he is considered of no good for the
+real teaching work of the colleges. His lectures are generally
+deserted; and I could quote the names of certain professors who
+afterwards rose to great eminence, but who at Oxford were simply
+ignored and their lecture-rooms deserted. The real teaching or
+coaching or cramming for examination is left to the tutors and Fellows
+of each college, and the examinations also are chiefly in their hands.
+Many undergraduates never see a professor, and, as far as the teaching
+work of the University is concerned, the professorships might safely
+be abolished. And yet, as I could honestly assure my foreign friends,
+the best men who take honour degrees at Oxford are quite the equals of
+the best men at Paris or Berlin. The professors may not be so
+distinguished, but that is due to a certain extent to the small
+salaries attached to some of the chairs. England has produced great
+names both in science and philosophy and scholarship, but these have
+generally drifted to some more attractive or lucrative centres. When I
+first came to Oxford one professor received L40 a year, another
+L1,500, and no one complained about these inequalities. A certain
+amount of land had been left by a king or bishop for endowing a
+certain chair, and every holder of the chair received whatever the
+endowment yielded. The mode of appointing professors was very curious
+at that time. Often the elections resembled parliamentary elections,
+far more regard being paid to political or theological partisanship
+than to scientific qualifications. Every M.A. had a vote, and these
+voters were scattered all over the country. Canvassing was carried on
+quite openly. Travelling expenses were freely paid, and lists were
+kept in each college of the men who could be depended on to vote for
+the liberal or the conservative candidate. Imagine a professor of
+medicine or of Greek being elected because he was a liberal! Some
+appointments rested with the Prime Minister, or, as it was called, the
+Crown; and it was quoted to the honour of the Duke of Wellington, that
+he, when Chancellor of the University, once insisted that the electors
+should elect the best man, and they had to yield, though there were
+electors who would declare their own candidate the best man, whatever
+the opinion of really qualified judges might be. All this election
+machinery is much improved now, though an infallible system of
+electing the best men has not yet been discovered. One single elector,
+who is not troubled by too tender a conscience, may even now vitiate a
+whole election; to say nothing of the painful position in which an
+elector is placed, if he has to vote against a personal friend or a
+member of his own college, 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 University.
+
+It took me some time before I could gain an insight into all this. The
+old system passed away before my very eyes, not without evident
+friction between my different friends, and then came the difficulty of
+learning to understand the working of the new machinery which had been
+devised and sanctioned by Parliament. Reformers arose even among the
+Heads of Houses, as, for instance, Dr. Jeune, the Master of Pembroke
+College, who was credited with having _rajeuni l'ancienne universite_.
+But he was by no means the only, or even the chief actor in University
+reform. Many of my personal friends, such as Dr. Tait, afterwards
+Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rev. H. G. Liddell, afterwards Dean of
+Christ Church, Professor Baden-Powell, and the Rev. G. H. S. Johnson,
+afterwards Dean of Wells, with Stanley and Goldwin Smith as
+Secretaries, did honest service in the various Royal and Parliamentary
+Commissions, and spent much of their valuable time in serving the
+University and the country. I could do no more than answer the
+questions addressed to me by the Commissioners and by my friends, and
+this is really all the share I had at that time in the reform of the
+University, or what was called Germanizing the English Universities.
+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 dinner, because the Heads of Houses would no longer
+admit him to their hospitable boards.
+
+Certainly to have been a member of the much abused Hebdomadal Board,
+and a Head of a College in those pre-reform days must have been a
+delightful life. Before the days of agricultural distress the income
+of the colleges was abundant; the authority of the Heads was
+unquestioned in their own colleges; not only undergraduates, but
+Fellows also had to be submissive. No junior Fellow would then have
+dared to oppose his Head at college meetings. If there was by chance
+an obstreperous junior, he was easily silenced or requested to retire.
+The days had not yet come when a Master of Trinity ventured to remark
+that even a junior Fellow might possibly be mistaken. Colleges seemed
+to be the property of the Heads, and in some of them the Fellows were
+really chosen by them, and the rest of the Fellows after some kind of
+examination. The management of University affairs was likewise
+entirely in the hands of the Heads of Colleges, and it was on rare
+occasions only that a theological question stirred the interest of
+non-resident M.A.s, and brought them to Oxford to record their vote
+for or against the constituted authorities. Men like the Dean of
+Christ Church, Dr. Gaisford, the Warden of Wadham, Dr. Parsons, and
+the Provost of Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, were in their dominions supreme,
+till the rebellious spirit began to show itself in such men as Dr.
+Jeune, Professor Baden-Powell, A. P. Stanley, Goldwin Smith and
+others.
+
+Nor were there many very flagrant abuses under the old regime. It was
+rather the want of life that was complained of. It began to be felt
+that Oxford should take its place as an equal by the side of foreign
+Universities, not only as a high school, but as a home of what then
+was called for the first time "original research." There can be no
+question that as a teaching body, as a high school at the head of all
+the public schools in England, Oxford did its duty nobly. A man who at
+that time could take a Double First was indeed a strong man, well
+fitted for any work in after life. He would not necessarily turn out
+an original thinker, a scholar, or a discoverer in physical science,
+but he would know what it was to know anything thoroughly. To take
+honours at the same time in classics and mathematics required strength
+and grasp, and the effort was certainly considerable, as I found out
+when occasionally I read a Greek or Latin author with a young
+undergraduate friend. What struck me most was the accurate knowledge
+a candidate acquired of special authors and special books, but also
+the want of that familiarity with the language, Greek or Latin, which
+would enable him to read any new author with comparative ease. The
+young men whom I knew at the time they went in for their final
+examination, were certainly well grounded in classics, and what they
+knew they knew thoroughly.
+
+The personal relations existing between undergraduates and their
+tutors were very intimate. A tutor took a pride in his pupils, and
+often became their friend for life. The teaching was almost private
+teaching, and the idea of reading a written lecture to a class in
+college did not exist as yet. It was real teaching with questions and
+answers; while lectures, written and read out, were looked down upon
+as good enough for professors, but entirely useless for the schools.
+The social tone of the University was excellent. Many of the tutors
+and of the undergraduates came of good families, and the struggle for
+life, or for a college living, or college office, was not, as yet, so
+fierce as it became afterwards. College tutors toiled on for life, and
+certainly did their work to the last most conscientiously. There was
+perhaps little ambition, little scheming or pushing, but the work of
+the University, such as the country would have it, was well done. If
+the Honour-Lists were small, the number of utter failures also was not
+very large.
+
+For a young scholar, like myself, who came to live at Oxford in those
+distant days, the peace and serenity of life were most congenial,
+though several of my friends were among the first who began to fret,
+and wished for more work to be done and for better use to be made of
+the wealth and the opportunities of the University. My impression at
+that time was the same as it has been ever since, that a reform of the
+Universities was impossible till the public schools had been
+thoroughly reformed. The Universities must take what the schools send
+them. There is every year a limited number of boys from the best
+schools who would do credit to any University. But a large number of
+the young men who are sent up to matriculate at Oxford are not up to
+an academic standard. Unless the colleges agree to stand empty for a
+year or two, they cannot help themselves, but have to keep the
+standard of the matriculation examination low, and in fact do, to a
+great extent, the work that ought to have been done at school. Think
+of boys being sent up to Oxford, who, after having spent on an average
+six years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line of Greek
+or Latin which they have not seen before. Yet so it was, and so it is,
+unless I am very much misinformed. It is easy for some colleges who
+keep up a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class men;
+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 degree, and few
+people have any idea how little a pass degree may mean. Those tutors
+have indeed hard work to do and get little credit for it, though their
+devotion to their college and their pupils is highly creditable. Fifty
+years ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is now,
+because candidates were not allowed to pass in different subjects at
+different times, but the whole examination had to be done all at once,
+or not at all.
+
+I had naturally made it a rule at Oxford to stand aloof from the
+conflict of parties, whether academical, theological, or political. I
+had my own work to do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude
+my opinions, which naturally were different from those prevalent at
+Oxford. Most people like to wash their dirty linen among themselves;
+and though I gladly talked over such matters with my friends who often
+consulted me, I did not feel called upon to join in the fray. I lived
+through several severe crises at Oxford, and though I had some
+intimate friends on either side, I remained throughout a looker on.
+
+Seldom has a University passed through such a complete change as
+Oxford has since the year 1854. And yet the change was never violent,
+and the University has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated
+and reinvigorated. It has been said that our constitution has now
+become too democratic, and that a University should be ruled by a
+Senatus rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain extent.
+There has been too much unrest, too constant changes, and a lack of
+continuity in the studies and in the government of the University.
+Every three years a new wave of young masters came in, carried a
+reform in the system of teaching and examining, and then left to make
+room for a new wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones had a
+fair trial. Senior members of the University, heads of houses and
+professors, have no more voting power than the young men who have just
+taken their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than these
+young Masters, who always meet together and form a kind of compact
+phalanx when votes are to be taken. There was even a Non-placet club,
+ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the
+reforming party, or threatened to change any established customs,
+whether beneficial or otherwise to the University. The University, as
+such, was far less considered than the colleges, and money drawn from
+the colleges for University purposes was looked upon as robbery,
+though of course the colleges profited by the improvement of the
+University, and the interests of the two ought never to have been
+divided, as little as the interests of an army can be divided from the
+interests of each regiment.
+
+When I came to Oxford there was still practically no society except
+that of the Heads of Houses, and there were no young ladies to grace
+their dinners. Each head took his turn in succession, and had twice or
+three times during term to feed his colleagues. These dinners were
+sumptuous repasts, though they often took place as early as five. To
+be invited to them was considered a great distinction, and, though a
+very young man, I was allowed now and then to be present, and I highly
+appreciated the honour. The company consisted almost entirely of Heads
+of Houses, Canons, and Professors; sometimes there was a sprinkling of
+distinguished persons from London, and even of ladies of various ages
+and degrees. I confess I often sat among them, as we say in German,
+_verrathen und verkauft_. After dinner I saw a number of young men
+streaming in, and thought the evening would now become more lively.
+But far from it. These young men with white ties and in evening dress
+stood in their scanty gowns huddled together on one side of the room.
+They received a cup of tea, but no one noticed them or spoke to them,
+and they hardly dared to speak among themselves. This, as I was told,
+was called "doing the perpendicular," and they must have felt much
+relieved when towards ten o'clock they were allowed to depart, and
+exchange the perpendicular for a more comfortable position, indulging
+in songs and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to join.
+
+At that time I remember only very few houses outside the circle of
+Heads of Houses, where there was a lady and a certain amount of social
+life--the houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor Baden-Powell,
+Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell. In their houses there was less of
+the strict academical etiquette, and as they were fond of music,
+particularly the Donkins, I spent some really delightful evenings with
+them. Nay, as I played on the pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses
+began to patronize music at their evening parties, though no gentleman
+at that time would have played at Oxford. I being a German, and
+Professor Donkin being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play,
+and we certainly had an appreciative, though not always a silent,
+audience.
+
+In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships was still very
+perceptible in the society of the University. No Fellows were allowed
+to marry, and the natural consequence was that most of them waited for
+a college living, a professorship or librarianship, which generally
+came to them when they were no longer young men. Headships of colleges
+also had so long to be waited for that most of them were generally
+filled by very senior and mostly unmarried men. Besides, headships
+were but seldom given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even
+divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity, and for business
+habits. Some of the Fellows gave pleasant and, as I thought, very
+Lucullic dinners in college; and I still remember my surprise when I
+was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at Jesus College. My host
+was Mr. Ffoulkes, who afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an
+Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains, the whole
+furniture and the plate quite confounded me, 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 English.
+
+The City society was completely separated from the University society,
+so that even rich bankers and other gentlemen would never have
+ventured to ask members of the University to dine.
+
+Considering the position then held by the Heads of Houses, I feel I
+ought to devote some pages to describing some of the most prominent of
+them. At my age I may well hold to the maxim _seniores priores_, and
+will therefore begin with Dr. Routh, the centenarian President of
+Magdalen, as, though, the headship of a house seems to be an excellent
+prescription for longevity, there was no one to dispute the venerable
+doctor's claim to precedence in this respect. He was then nearly a
+hundred years old, and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his
+wish to have the _C, anno centesimo_, on his gravestone, for, though
+tired of life, he often declared, so I was told, that he would not be
+outdone in this respect by another very old man, who was a dissenter;
+he never liked to see the Church beaten. I might have made his
+personal acquaintance, some friends of the old President offering to
+present me to him. But I did not avail myself of their offer, because
+I knew the old man did not like to be shown as a curiosity. When I saw
+him sitting at his window he always wore a wig, and few had seen him
+without his wig and without his academic gown. He was certainly an
+exceptional man, and I believe he stood alone in the whole history of
+literature, as having published books at an interval of seventy years.
+His edition of the _Enthymemes_ and _Gorgias of Plato_ was published
+in 1784, his papers on the _Ignatian Epistles_ in 1854. His _Reliquia
+Sacra_ first appeared in 1814, and they are a work which at that time
+would have made the reputation of any scholar and divine. His editions
+of historical works, such as Burnet's _History of his own Time_ and
+the _History of the reign of King James_, show his considerable
+acquaintance with English history. I have already mentioned how he
+used to speak of events long before his time, such as the execution of
+Charles I, as if he had been present; nor did he hesitate to declare
+that even Bishop Burnet was a great liar. He certainly had seen many
+things which connected him with the past. He had seen Samuel Johnson
+mounting the steps of the Clarendon building in Broad Street, and
+though he had not himself seen Charles I when he held his Parliament
+at Oxford, he had known a lady whose mother had seen the king walking
+round the Parks at Oxford.
+
+However, we must not forget that many stories about the old President
+were more or less mythical, as indeed many Oxford stories are. I was
+told that he actually slept in wig, cap and gown, so that once when
+an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle of his College, he put
+his head out of window in an incredibly short time, fully equipped as
+above. Many of these stories or "Common-Roomers" as they were called,
+still lived in the Common Rooms in my time, when the Fellows of each
+College assembled regularly after dinner, to take wine and dessert,
+and to talk on anything but what was called _Shop_, i. e. Greek and
+Latin. No one inquired about the truth of these stories, as long as
+they were well told. In a place like Oxford there exists a regular
+descent, by inheritance, of good stories. I remember stories told of
+Dr. Jenkins, as Master of Balliol, and afterwards transferred to his
+successor, Mr. Jowett. Bodleian stories descended in like manner from
+Dr. Bandinell to Mr. Coxe, and will probably be told of successive
+librarians till they become quite incongruous. I am old enough to have
+watched the descent of stories at Oxford, just as one recognizes the
+same furniture in college rooms occupied by successive generations of
+undergraduates. To me they sometimes seem threadbare like the old
+Turkish carpets in the college rooms, but I never spoil them by
+betraying their age, and, if well told, I can enjoy them as much as if
+I had never heard them before.
+
+Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, was quite a representative of Old
+Oxford, and a well-known character in the University. I had been
+introduced to him by Baron Bunsen, and he showed me much hospitality.
+I was warned that I should find him very stiff and forbidding. His own
+Fellows called him the East-wind. But though he certainly was
+condescending, he treated me with great urbanity. He had a very
+peculiar habit; when he had to shake hands with people whom he
+considered his inferiors, he stretched out two fingers, and if some of
+them who knew this peculiarity of his, tendered him two fingers in
+return, the shaking of hands became rather awkward. One of the Fellows
+of his college told me that, as long as he was only a Fellow, he never
+received more than two fingers; when, however, he became Head Master
+of a school, he was rewarded with three fingers, or even with the
+whole hand, but, as soon as he gave up this place, and returned to
+live in college, he was at once reduced to the statutable two fingers.
+I don't recollect exactly how many fingers I was treated to, and I may
+have shaken them with my whole hand. Anyhow, I am quite conscious now
+of how many times I must have offended against academic etiquette.
+How, for instance, is a man to know that people who live at Oxford
+during term-time never shake hands except once during term? I doubt,
+in fact, whether that etiquette existed when I first came to Oxford,
+but it certainly had existed for some time before I discovered it.
+
+Dr. Jenkins, Master of Balliol, was also the hero of many anecdotes.
+It was of him that it was first told how he once found fault with an
+undergraduate because, whenever he looked out of window, he
+invariably saw the young man loitering about in the quad; to which the
+undergraduate replied: "How very curious, for whenever I cross the
+quad, I always see you, Sir, looking out of window." He had a quiet
+humour of his own, and delighted in saying things which made others
+laugh, but never disturbed a muscle of his own face. One of his
+undergraduates was called Wyndham, and he had to say a few sharp words
+to him at "handshaking," that is, at the end of term. After saying all
+he wanted, he finished in Latin: "Et nunc valeas Wyndhamme,"--the last
+two syllables being pronounced with great emphasis. The Master's
+regard for his own dignity was very great. Once, when returning from a
+solitary walk, he slipped and fell. Two undergraduates seeing the
+accident ran to assist him, and were just laying hands on him to lift
+him up, when he descried a Master of Arts coming. "Stop," he cried,
+"stop, I see a Master of Arts coming down the street." And he
+dismissed the undergraduates with many thanks, and was helped on to
+his legs by the M.A.
+
+Accidents, or slips of the tongue, will happen to everybody, even to a
+Head of a House. One of these old gentlemen, Dr. Symons, of Wadham,
+when presiding at a missionary meeting, had to introduce Sir Peregrine
+Maitland, a most distinguished officer, and a thoroughly good man.
+When dilating on the Christian work which Sir Peregrine had done in
+India, he called him again and again Sir Peregrine Pickle. The effect
+was most ludicrous, for everybody was evidently well acquainted with
+_Roderick Random_, and Sir Peregrine had great difficulty in remaining
+serious when the Chairman called on Sir Peregrine Pickle once more to
+address his somewhat perplexed audience.
+
+But whatever may be said about the old Heads of Houses, most of them
+were certainly gentlemen both by birth and by nature. They are
+forgotten now, but they did good in their time, and much of their good
+work remains. If I consider who were the Dean and Canons and Students
+I met at Christ Church when I first became a member of the House, I
+should have to give a very different account from that given by the
+Highland lady in her _Memoirs_. The Dean of Christ Church, who
+received me, who proposed me for the degree of M.A., and afterwards
+allowed me to become a member of the House, was Dr. Gaisford, a real
+scholar, though it may be of the old school. He was considered very
+rough and rude, but I can only say he showed me more of real courtesy
+in those days than anybody else at Oxford. He was, I believe, a little
+shy, and easily put out when he suspected anybody, particularly the
+young men, of want of consideration. I can quite believe that when an
+undergraduate, in addressing him, stepped on the hearthrug on which he
+was standing, he may have said: "Get down from my hearthrug," meaning,
+"keep at your proper distance." I can only say that I never found him
+anything but kind and courteous. It so happened that he had been made
+a Member of the Bavarian Academy, and I, though very young, had
+received the same distinction as a reward for my Sanskrit work, and
+the Dean was rather pleased when he heard it. When I asked him whether
+he would put my name on the books of the House, he certainly hesitated
+a little, and asked me at last to come again next day and dine with
+him. I went, but I confess I was rather afraid that the Dean would
+raise difficulties. However, he spoke to me very nicely, "I have
+looked through the books," he said, "and I find two precedents of
+Germans being members of the House, one of the name of Wernerus, and
+another of the name of Nitzschius," or some such name. "But," he
+continued, smiling, "even if I had not found these names, I should not
+have minded making a precedent of your case." People were amazed at
+Oxford when they heard of the Dean's courtesy, but I can only repeat
+that I never found him anything but courteous.
+
+Most of the Heads of Houses asked me to dine with them by sending me
+an invitation. The Dean alone first came and called on me. I was then
+living in a small room in Walton Street in which I worked, and dined,
+and smoked. My bedroom was close by, and I generally got up early, and
+shaved and finished my toilet at about 11 o'clock. I had just gone
+into my bedroom to shave, my face was half covered with lather, when
+my landlady rushed in and told me the Dean had called, and my dogs
+were pulling him about. The fact was I had a Scotch terrier with a
+litter of puppies in a basket, and when the Dean entered in full
+academical dress, the dogs flew at him, pulling the sleeves of his
+gown and barking furiously. Covered with lather as I was, I had to
+rush in to quiet the dogs, and in this state I had to receive the Very
+Rev. the Dean, and explain to him the nature of the work that brought
+me to Oxford. It was certainly awkward, but in spite of the disorder
+of my room, in spite also of the tobacco smoke of which the Dean did
+not approve, all went off well, though, I confess, I felt somewhat
+ashamed. In the same interview the Dean asked me about an Icelandic
+Dictionary which had been offered to the press by Cleasby and Dasent.
+"Surely it is a small barbarous island," he said, "and how can they
+have any literature?" I tried, as well as I could, to explain to the
+Dean the extent and the value of Icelandic literature, and soon after
+the press, which was then the Dean, accepted the Dictionary which was
+brought out later by Dr. Vigfusson, in a most careful and scholarlike
+manner. It might indeed safely be called his Dictionary, considering
+how many dictionaries are called, not after the name of the compiler
+or compilers, but after that of their editor.
+
+This Dr. Vigfusson was quite a character. He was perfectly pale and
+bloodless, and had but one wish, that of being left alone. He came to
+Oxford first to assist Dr. Dasent, to whom Cleasby, when he died, had
+handed over his collections; but afterwards he stayed, taking it for
+granted that the University would give him the little he wanted. But
+even that little was difficult to provide, as there were no funds that
+could be used for that purpose, however uselessly other funds might
+seem to be squandered. That led to constant grumbling on his part.
+Ever so many expedients were tried to satisfy him, but none quite
+succeeded. At last he fell ill and died, and when he was a patient at
+the Acland Home, where the nurses did all they could for him, he
+several times said to me when I sat with him, that he had never been
+so happy in his life as in that Home. I sometimes blame myself for not
+having seen more of him at Oxford. But he always seemed to me full of
+suspicions and very easily offended, and that made any free
+intercourse with him difficult and far from pleasant. Perhaps it was
+my fault also. He may have felt that he might have claimed a
+professorship of Icelandic quite as well as I, and he may have grudged
+my settled position in Oxford, my independence and my freedom.
+Whenever we did work together, I always found him pleasant at first,
+but very soon he would become wayward and sensitive, do what I would,
+and I had to let him go his own way, as I went mine.
+
+I remember dining with the famous Dr. Bull, Canon of Christ Church,
+who certainly managed to produce a dinner that would have done credit
+to any French chef. He was one of the last pluralists, and many
+stories were told about him. One story, which however was perfectly
+true, showed at all events his great sagacity. A well-known banker had
+been for years the banker of Christ Church. Dr. Bull who was the
+College Bursar had to transact all the financial business with him. No
+one suspected the banking house which he represented. Dr. Bull,
+however, the last time he invited him to dinner, was struck by his
+very pious and orthodox remarks, and by the change of tone in his
+conversation, such as might suit a Canon of Christ Church, but not a
+luxurious banker from London. Without saying a word, Dr. Bull went to
+London next day, drew out all the money of the college, took all his
+papers from the bank, and the day after, to the dismay of London, the
+bank failed, the depositors lost their money, but Christ Church was
+unhurt.
+
+Another of the Canons of Christ Church at that time had spent half a
+century in the place, and read the lessons there twice every day. Of
+course he knew the prayer-book by heart, and as long as he could see
+to read there was no harm in his reading. But when his eyesight failed
+him and he had to trust entirely to his memory, he would often go from
+some word in the evening prayer to the same word in the marriage
+service, and from there to the burial service, with an occasional slip
+into baptism. 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 away. I frequently stayed at Oxford during vacation, and
+thought of course that the evening service would never end, till at
+last I was asked to name the child, and then I went home.
+
+One Sunday I remember going to chapel, and after prayers had begun the
+following conversation took place, loud enough to be heard all through
+the chapel. Enter old Canon preceded by a beadle. He goes straight to
+his stall, and finding it occupied by a well-known D.D. from London,
+who is deeply engaged in prayer, he stands and looks at the
+interloper, and when that produces no effect, he says to the beadle:
+"Tell that man this is my stall; tell him to get out."
+
+Beadle: "Dr. A.'s compliments, and whether you would kindly occupy
+another stall."
+
+D.D.: "Very sorry; I shall change immediately."
+
+Old Canon settles in his stall, prayers continue, and after about ten
+minutes the Canon shouts: "Beadle, tell that man to dine with me at
+five."
+
+Beadle: "Dr. A.'s compliments, and whether you would give him the
+pleasure of your company at dinner at five."
+
+D.D.: "Very sorry, I am engaged."
+
+Beadle: "D.D. regrets he is engaged."
+
+Old Canon: "Oh, he won't dine!"
+
+The cathedral was very empty, and fortunately this conversation was
+listened to by a small congregation only. I can, however, vouch for
+it, as I was sitting close by and heard it myself.
+
+Bodley's Library, too, was full of good stories, though many of them
+do not bear repeating. When I first began to work there, Dr. Bandinell
+was Bodleian Librarian. Working in the Bodleian was then like working
+in one's private library. One could have as many books and MSS. as one
+desired, and the six hours during which the Library was open were a
+very fair allowance for such tiring work as copying and collating
+Sanskrit MSS. I well remember my delight when I first sat down at my
+table near one of the windows looking into the garden of Exeter. It
+seemed a perfect paradise for a student. I must confess that I
+slightly altered my opinion when I had to sit there every day during a
+severe winter without any fire, shivering and shaking, and almost
+unable to hold my pen, till kind Mr. Coxe, the sub-librarian, took
+compassion on me and brought me a splendid fur that had been sent him
+as a present by a Russian scholar, who had witnessed the misery of the
+Librarian in this Siberian Library. Now all this is changed. The
+Library is so full of students, both male and female, that one has
+difficulty in finding a place, certainly in finding a quiet place; and
+all sorts of regulations have been introduced which have no doubt
+become necessary on account of the large number of readers, but which
+have completely changed, or as some would say, improved the character
+of the place. As to one improvement, however, there can be no two
+opinions. The Library and the reading-room, the so-called Camera, are
+now comfortably warmed, and students may in the latter place read for
+twelve hours uninterruptedly, and not be turned out as we were by a
+warning bell at four o'clock. And woe to you if you failed to obey the
+warning. One day an unfortunate reader was so absorbed in his book
+that he did not hear the bell, and was locked in. He tried in vain to
+attract attention from the windows, for it was no pleasant prospect to
+pass a night among so many ghosts. At last he saw a solitary woman,
+and shouted to her that he was locked in. "No," she said, "you are
+not. The Library is closed at four." Whether he spent the night among
+the books is not known. Let us hope that he met with a less logical
+person to release him from his cold prison.
+
+Dr. Bandinell ruled supreme in his library, and even the Curators
+trembled before him when he told them what had been the invariable
+custom of the Library for years, and could not be altered. And,
+curiously enough, he had always funds at his disposal, which is not
+the case now, and whenever there was a collection of valuable MSS. in
+the market he often prided himself on having secured it long before
+any other library had the money ready. Now and then, it is true, he
+allowed himself to be persuaded by a plausible seller of rare books
+or MSS., but generally he was very wary. He was not always very
+courteous to visitors, and still less so to his under-librarians. The
+Oriental under-librarian Professor Reay, in particular, who was old
+and somewhat infirm, had much to suffer from him, and the language in
+which he was ordered about was such as would not now be addressed to
+any menial. And yet Professor Reay belonged to a very good family,
+though Dr. Bandinell would insist on calling him Ray, and declared
+that he had no right to the e in his name. In revenge some people
+would give him an additional i and call him Dr. Bandinelli, which made
+him very angry, because, as he would say to me, "he had never been one
+of those dirty foreigners." Silence was enjoined in the library, but
+the librarian's voice broke through all rules of silence. I remember
+once, when Professor Reay had been looking for ever so long to find
+his spectacles without which he could not read the Arabic MSS., and
+had asked everybody whether they had seen them, a voice came at last
+thundering through the library: "You left your spectacles on my chair,
+you old ----, and I sat on them!" There was an end of spectacles and
+Arabic MSS. after that. There were two men only of whom Dr. Bandinell
+and H. O. Coxe also were afraid, Dr. Pusey, who was one of the
+Curators, and later on, Jowett, the Master of Balliol.
+
+There was a vacancy in the Oriental sub-librarianship, and a very
+distinguished young Hebrew scholar, William Wright, afterwards
+Professor at Cambridge, was certainly by far the best candidate. But
+as ill-luck--I mean ill-luck for the Library--would have it, he had
+given offence by a lecture at Dublin, in which he declared that the
+people of Canaan were Semitic, and not, as stated in Genesis, the
+children of Ham. No one doubts this now, and every new inscription has
+confirmed it. Still a strong effort was made to represent Dr. Wright
+as a most dangerous young man, and thus to prevent his appointment at
+Oxford. The appointment was really in the hands of Dr. Bandinell; and
+after I had frankly explained to him the motives of this mischievous
+agitation against Dr. Wright, and assured him that he was a scholar
+and by no means given to what was then called "free-handling of the
+Old Testament," he promised me that he would appoint him and no one
+else. However, poor man, he was urged and threatened and frightened,
+and to my great surprise the appointment was given to some one else,
+who at that time had given hardly any proofs of independent work as a
+Semitic scholar, though he afterwards rendered very good and honest
+service. I did not disguise my opinion of what had happened; and for
+more than a year Dr. Bandinell never spoke to me nor I to him, though
+we met almost daily at the library. At last the old man, evidently
+feeling that he had been wrong, came to tell me that he was sorry for
+what had happened, but that it was not his fault: after this, of
+course, all was forgotten. Dr. Wright had a much more brilliant career
+opened to him, first at the British Museum, and then as professor at
+Cambridge, than he could possibly have had as sub-librarian at Oxford.
+He always remained a scholar, and never dabbled in theology.
+
+Some very heated correspondence passed at the time, and I remember
+keeping the letters for a long while. They were curious as showing the
+then state of theological opinion at Oxford; but I have evidently put
+the correspondence away so carefully that nowhere can I find it now.
+Let it be forgotten and forgiven.
+
+Many, if not all, of the stories that I have written down in this
+chapter may be legendary, and they naturally lose or gain as told by
+different people. Who has not heard different versions of the story of
+a well-known Canon of Christ Church in my early days, who, when rowing
+on the river, saw a drowning man laying hold of his boat and nearly
+upsetting it. "Providentially," he explained, "I had brought my
+umbrella, and I had presence of mind enough to hit him over the
+knuckles. He let go, sank, and never rose again." Nobody, I imagine,
+would have vouched for the truth of this story, but it was so often
+repeated that it provided the old gentleman with a nickname, that
+stuck to him always.
+
+I could add more Oxford stories, but it seems almost ill-natured to do
+so, and I could only say in most cases _relata refero_. When I first
+came here Oxford and Oxford society were to me so strange that I
+probably accepted many similar stories as gospel truth. My young
+friends hardly treated me quite fairly in this respect. I had many
+questions to ask, and my friends evidently thought it great fun to
+chaff me and to tell me stories which I naturally believed, for there
+were many things which seemed to me very strange, and yet they were
+true and I had to believe them. The existence of Fellows who received
+from L300 to L800 a year, as a mere sinecure for life, provided they
+did not marry, seemed to me at first perfectly incredible. 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
+employments, particularly if they could gain an exhibition or
+scholarship. But after a man had passed his examinations, the country
+or the government had nothing more to do with him. "Swim or drown" was
+the maxim followed everywhere; and it was but natural that the first
+years of professional life, whether as lawyers, medical men, or
+clergymen, were years of great self-denial. But they were also years
+of intense struggle, 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 employment. To imagine that after the country had done
+its duty by providing schools and universities, it would provide
+crutches for men who ought to learn to walk by themselves, was beyond
+my comprehension, particularly when I was told how large a sum was
+yearly spent by the colleges in paying these fellowships without
+requiring any _quid pro quo_.
+
+Having once come to believe that, and several other to me
+unintelligible things at Oxford, I was ready to believe almost
+anything my friends told me. There are some famous stone images, for
+instance, round the Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum. They are
+hideous, for the sandstone of which they are made has crumbled away
+again and again, but even when they were restored, the same brittle
+stone was used. They are in the form of Hermae, and were planned by no
+less an architect than Sir Christopher Wren. When I asked what they
+were meant for, I was assured quite seriously that they were images of
+former Heads of Houses. I believed it, though I expressed my surprise
+that the stone-mason who made new heads, when the old showed hardly
+more than two eyes and a nose, and a very wide mouth, should carefully
+copy the crumbling faces, because, as I was informed, he had been told
+to copy the former gentlemen.
+
+It was certainly a very common amusement of my young undergraduate
+friends to make fun of the Heads of Houses. They did not seem to feel
+that shiver of unspeakable awe for them of which Bishop Thorold
+speaks; nay, they were anything but respectful in speaking of the
+Doctors of Divinity in their red gowns with black velvet sleeves. If
+it is difficult for old men always to understand young men, it is
+certainly even more difficult for young men to understand old men.
+There is a very old saying, "Young men think that old men are fools,
+but old men know that young men are." Though very young myself, I came
+to know several of the old Heads of Houses, and though they certainly
+had their peculiarities, they did by no means all belong to the age of
+the Dodo. They were enjoying their _otium cum dignitate_, as befits
+gentlemen, scholars, and divines, and they certainly deserved greater
+respect from the undergraduates than they received.
+
+At the annual _Encaenia_, a great deal of licence was allowed to the
+young men; and I know of several strangers, especially foreigners, who
+have been scandalized at the riotous behaviour of the undergraduates
+in the Theatre, the Oxford _Aula_, when the Vice-Chancellor stood up
+to address the assembled audience. My first experience of this was
+with Dr. Plumptre, who, as I have said, was very tall and stately;
+when his first words were not quite distinct, the undergraduates
+shouted, "Speak up, old stick." When the Warden of Wadham, the Rev.
+Dr. Symons, was showing some pretty young ladies to their seats in the
+Theatre, he was threatened by the young men, who yelled at the top of
+their voices, "I'll tell Lydia, you wicked old man." Now Lydia was his
+most excellent spouse. At first the remarks of the undergraduates at
+the _Encaenia_, or rather _Saturnalia_, were mostly good-natured and
+at least witty; but they at last became so rude that distinguished
+men, whom the University wished to honour by conferring on them
+honorary degrees, felt deeply offended. Sir Arthur Helps declared that
+he came to receive an honour, and received an insult. Well do I
+remember the Rev. Dr. Salmon, who was asked where he had left his
+lobster sauce; Dr. Wendell Holmes was shouted at, whether he had come
+across the Atlantic in his "One Hoss Shay"; the Right Hon. W. H.
+Smith, First Lord of the Admiralty, was presented with a Pinafore, and
+Lord Wolseley with a Black Watch. There was a certain amount of wit in
+these allusions, and the best way to take the academic row and riot
+was Tennyson's, who told me on coming out that "he felt all the time
+as if standing on the shingle of the sea shore, the storm howling, and
+the spray covering him right and left." After a time, however, these
+_Saturnalia_ had to be stopped, and they were stopped in a curious
+way, by giving ladies seats among the undergraduates. It speaks well
+for them that their regard for the ladies restrained them, and made
+them behave like gentlemen.
+
+The reign of the Heads of Houses, which was in full force when I first
+settled in Oxford, began to wane when it was least expected. There
+had, however, been grumblings among the Fellows and Tutors at Oxford,
+who felt themselves aggrieved by the self-willed interference of the
+Heads of Colleges in their tutorial work, and, it may be, resented the
+airs assumed by men who, after all, were their equals, and in no sense
+their betters, in the University.
+
+Society distinctly profited when Fellows and Tutors were allowed to
+marry, and when several of the newly-elected of the Heads of Houses,
+having wives and daughters, opened their houses, and had interesting
+people to dine with them from the neighbourhood and from London.
+
+The Deanery of Christ Church was not only made architecturally into a
+new house, but under Dr. Liddell, with his charming wife and
+daughters, became a social centre not easily rivalled anywhere else.
+There one met not only royalty, the young Prince of Wales, but many
+eminent writers, artists, and political men from London, Gladstone,
+Disraeli, Richmond, Ruskin, and many others. Another bright house of
+the new era was that of the Principal of Brasenose, Dr. Cradock, and
+his cheerful and most amusing wife. There one often met such men as
+Lord Russell, Sir George C. Lewis, young Harcourt, and many more. She
+was the true Dresden china marquise, with her amusing sallies, which
+no doubt often gave offence to grave Heads of Houses and sedate
+Professors. No one knew her age, she was so young; and yet she had
+been maid of honour to some Queen, as I told her once, to Queen Anne.
+Having been maid of honour, she never concealed her own peculiar
+feelings about people who had not been presented. When she wanted to
+be left alone, she would look out of window, and tell visitors who
+came to call, "Very sorry, but I am not at home to-day." Queen's
+College also, under Dr. Thomson, the future Archbishop of York, was a
+most hospitable house. Mrs. Thomson presided over it with her peculiar
+grace and genuine kindness, and many a pleasant evening I spent there
+with musical performances. But here, too, the old leaven of Oxford
+burst forth sometimes. Of course, we generally performed the music of
+Handel and other classical authors; Mendelssohn's compositions were
+still considered as mere twaddle by some of the old school. At one of
+these evenings, the old organist of New College, with his wooden leg,
+after sitting through a rehearsal of Mendelssohn's _Hymn of Praise_,
+which I was conducting at the pianoforte, walked up to me, as I
+thought, to thank me; but no, he burst out in a torrent of real and
+somewhat coarse abuse of me, for venturing to introduce such flimsy
+music at Oxford. I did not feel very guilty, and fortunately I
+remained silent, whether from actual bewilderment or from a better
+cause, I can hardly tell.
+
+  [Illustration: _F. Max Mueller Aged 30._]
+
+Long before Commissions came down on Oxford a new life seemed to be
+springing up there, and what was formerly the exception became more
+and more the rule among the young Fellows and Tutors. They saw what a
+splendid opportunity was theirs, having the very flower of England
+to educate, having the future of English society to form. They
+certainly made the best of it, helped, I believe, by the so-called
+Oxford Movement, which, whatever came of it afterwards, was certainly
+in the beginning thoroughly genuine and conscientious. The Tutors saw
+a good deal of the young men confided to their care, and the result
+was that even what was called the "fast set" thought it a fine thing
+to take a good class. I could mention a number of young noblemen and
+wealthy undergraduates who, in my early years, read for a first class
+and took it; and my experience has certainly been that those who took
+a first class came out in later life as eminent and useful members of
+society. Not that eminence in political, clerical, literary, and
+scientific life was restricted to first classes, far from it. But
+first-class men rarely failed to appear again on the surface in later
+life. It may be true that a first class did not always mean a
+first-class man, but it always seemed to mean a man who had learned
+how to work honestly, whether he became Prime Minister or Archbishop,
+or spent his days in one of the public offices, or even in a
+counting-house or newspaper office.
+
+I felt it was an excellent mixture if a young man, after taking a good
+degree at Oxford, spent a year or two at a German University. He
+generally came back with fresh ideas, knew what kind of work still had
+to be done in the different branches of study, and did it with a
+perseverance that soon produced most excellent results. Of course
+there was always the difficulty that young men wished to make their
+way in life, that is to make a living. The Church, the bar, and the
+hospital, absorbed many of those who in Germany would have looked
+forward to a University career. In my own subject more particularly,
+my very best pupils did not see their way to gaining even an
+independence, unless they gave their time to first securing a curacy,
+or a mastership at school; and they usually found that, in order to do
+their work conscientiously, they had to give up their favourite
+studies in which they would certainly have done excellent work, if
+there had been no _dira necessitas_. 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 studies. But the feeling
+of the majority was always against what was called derisively Original
+Research, and the fellowship-funds continued to be frittered away,
+payment by results being considered a totally mistaken principle, so
+that often, as in the case of the new septennial fellowships, there
+remained the payment only, but no results.
+
+Still all this became clear to me at a much later time only. My first
+years at Oxford were spent in a perfect bewilderment of joy and
+admiration. No one can see that University for the first time,
+particularly in spring or autumn, without being enchanted with it. To
+me it seemed a perfect paradise, and I could have wished for myself no
+better lot than that which the kindness of my friends later secured
+for me there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EARLY FRIENDS AT OXFORD
+
+
+I was still very young when I came to settle at Oxford, only
+twenty-four in fact; and, though occasionally honoured by invitations
+from Heads of Houses and Professors, I naturally lived chiefly with
+undergraduates and junior Fellows, such as Grant, Sellar, Palgrave,
+Morier, and others. Grant, afterwards Sir Alexander Grant and
+Principal of the University of Edinburgh, was a delightful companion.
+He had always something new in his mind, and discussed with many
+flashes of wit and satire. He possessed an aristocratic contempt for
+anything commonplace, or self-evident, so that one had to be careful
+in conversing with him. But he was generous, and his laugh reconciled
+one to some of his sharp sallies. How little one anticipates the
+future greatness of one's friends. They all seem to us no better than
+ourselves, when suddenly they emerge. Grant had shown what he could do
+by his edition of Aristotle's _Ethics_. He became one of the
+Professors at the new University at Bombay and contributed much to the
+first starting of that University, so warmly patronized by Sir Charles
+Trevelyan. On returning to this country he was chosen to fill the
+distinguished place of Principal of the Edinburgh University. More was
+expected of him when he enjoyed this _otium cum dignitate_, but his
+health seemed to have suffered in the enervating climate of India,
+and, though he enjoyed his return to his friends most fully and
+spending his life as a friend among friends, he died comparatively
+young, and perhaps without fulfilling all the hopes that were
+entertained of him. But he was a thoroughly genial man, and his
+handshake and the twinkle of his eye when meeting an old friend will
+not easily be forgotten.
+
+Sellar was another Scotchman whom I knew as an undergraduate at
+Balliol. When I first came to know him he was full of anxieties about
+his health, and greatly occupied with the usual doubts about religion,
+particularly the presence of evil or of anything imperfect in this
+world. He was an honest fellow, warmly attached to his friends; and no
+one could wish to have a better friend to stand up for him on all
+occasions and against all odds. He afterwards became happily married
+and a useful Professor of Latin at Edinburgh. I stayed with him later
+in life in Scotland and found him always the same, really enjoying his
+friends' society and a talk over old days. He had begun to ail when I
+saw him last, but the old boy was always there, even when he was
+miserable about his chiefly imaginary miseries. Soon after I had left
+him I received his last message and farewell from his deathbed. We
+are told that all this is very natural and what we must be prepared
+for--but what cold gaps it leaves. My thoughts often return to him, as
+if he were still among the living, and then one feels one's own
+loneliness and friendlessness again and again.
+
+Palgrave roused great expectations among undergraduates at Oxford, but
+he kept us waiting for some time. He took early to office life in the
+Educational Department, and this seems to have ground him down and
+unfitted him for other work. He had a wonderful gift of admiring, his
+great hero being Tennyson, and he was more than disappointed if others
+did not join in his unqualified panegyrics of the great poet. At last,
+somewhat late in life, he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford,
+and gave some most learned and instructive lectures. His knowledge of
+English Literature, particularly poetry, was quite astounding. I
+certainly never went to him to ask him a question that he did not
+answer at once and with exhaustive fullness. Some of his friends
+complained of his great command of language, and even Tennyson, I am
+told, found it sometimes too much. All I can say is that to me it was
+a pleasure to listen to him. I owe him particular thanks for having,
+in the kindest manner, revised my first English compositions. He was
+always ready and indefatigable, and I certainly owed a good deal to
+his corrections and his unstinted advice. His _Golden Treasury_ has
+become a national possession, and certainly speaks well both for his
+extensive knowledge and for his good taste.
+
+Lastly there was Morier, of whom certainly no one expected when he was
+at Balliol that he would rise to be British Ambassador at St.
+Petersburg. His early education had been somewhat neglected, but when
+he came to Balliol he worked hard to pass a creditable examination. He
+was a giant in size, very good-looking, and his manners, when he
+liked, most charming and attractive. Being the son of a diplomatist
+there was something both English and foreign in his manner, and he
+certainly was a general favourite at Oxford. His great desire was to
+enter the diplomatic service, but when that was impossible, he found
+employment for a time in the Education Office. But society in London
+was too much for him, he was made for society, and society was
+delighted to receive him. But it was difficult for him at the same
+time to fulfil his duties at the Education Office, and the result was
+that he had to give up his place. Things began to look serious, when
+fortunately Lord Aberdeen, a great friend of his father, found him
+some diplomatic employment; and that once found, Morier was in his
+element. He was often almost reckless; but while several of his
+friends came altogether to grief, he managed always to fall on his
+feet and keep afloat while others went down. As an undergraduate he
+came to me to read Greek with me, and I confess that with such mistakes
+in his Greek papers as [Greek: oi pathoi] instead of [Greek: ta pathe],
+I trembled for his examinations. However, he did well in the schools,
+knowing how to hide his weak points and how to make the best of his
+strong ones. I travelled with him in Germany, and when the
+Schleswig-Holstein question arose, he wrote a pamphlet which certainly
+might have cost him his diplomatic career. He asked me to allow it to
+be understood that the pamphlet, which did full justice to the claims
+of Holstein and of Germany, had been written by me. I received many
+compliments, which I tried to parry as well as I could. Fortunately
+Lord John Russell stood by Morier, and his prophecies did certainly
+turn out true. "Don't let the Germans awake from their slumbers and
+find a work ready made for them on which they all agree." But the
+signatories of the treaty of London did the very thing against which
+Morier had raised his warning voice, as the friend of Germany as it
+was, though perhaps not of the Germany that was to be. Schleswig-Holstein
+_meer-umschlungen_ became the match, (the Schwefel-hoelzchen), that was
+to light the fire of German unity, a unity which for a time may not
+have been exactly what England could have wished for, but which in the
+future will become, we hope, the safety of Europe and the support of
+England.
+
+Morier's later advance in his diplomatic career was certainly most
+successful. He possessed the very important art of gaining the
+confidence of the crowned heads and ministers he had to deal with.
+Bismarck, it is true, could not bear him, and tried several times to
+trip him up. Even while Morier was at Berlin, as a Secretary of
+Legation, Bismarck asked for his removal, but Lord Granville simply
+declined to remove a young diplomatist who gave him information on all
+parties in Germany, and to do so had to mix with people whom Bismarck
+did not approve of. Besides, Morier was always a _persona grata_ with
+the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess, and that was enough to make
+Bismarck dislike him. Later in life Bismarck accused him of having
+conveyed private information of the military position of the Germans
+to the French Guards, such information being derived from the English
+Court. The charge was ridiculous. Morier was throughout the war a
+sympathizer with Germany as against France. The English Court had no
+military information to convey or to communicate to Morier, and Morier
+was too much of a diplomatist and a gentleman, if by accident he had
+possessed any such information, to betray such a secret to an enemy in
+the field. Bismarck was completely routed, though his son seemed
+inclined to fasten a duel on the English diplomatist. Morier rose
+higher and higher, and at last became Ambassador at St. Petersburg.
+When I laughed and congratulated him he said, "He must be a great fool
+who does not reach the top of the diplomatic tree." That was too much
+modesty, and yet modesty was not exactly his fault; but he agreed
+with me as to _quam parva sapientia regitur mundus_.
+
+Nothing could seem more prosperous than my friend Morier's career; but
+few people knew how utterly miserable he really was. He had one son,
+in many respects the very image of his father, a giant in stature,
+very handsome, and most attractive. In spite of all we said to him he
+would not send his son to a public school in England, but kept him
+with him at the different embassies, where his only companions were
+the young attaches and secretaries. He had a private tutor, and when
+that tutor declared that young Morier was fit for the University, his
+father managed to get him into Balliol, recommending him to the
+special care of the Master. He actually lived in the Master's house
+for a time, but enjoyed the greatest liberty that an undergraduate at
+Oxford may enjoy. His father was wrapped up in his boy, but at the
+same time tried to frighten him into hard work, or at least into
+getting through the examinations. All was in vain; young Morier was so
+nervous that he could never pass an examination. What might be
+expected followed, and the father had at last to remove him to begin
+work as an honorary attache at his own embassy. I liked the young man
+very much, but my own impression is that his nervousness quite
+unfitted him for serious work. The end was beyond description sad. He
+went to South Africa in the police force, distinguished himself very
+much, came back to England, and then on his second voyage to the Cape
+died suddenly on board the steamer. I have seldom seen such utter
+misery as his father's. He loved his son and the son loved his father
+passionately, but the father expected more than it was physically and
+mentally possible for the son to do. Hence arose misunderstandings,
+and yet beneath the surface there was this passionate love, like the
+love of lovers. When I saw my old friend last, he cried and sobbed
+like a child: his heart was really broken. He went on for a few years
+more, suffering much from ill health, but really killed at last by his
+utter misery. I knew him in the bright morning of his life, at the
+meridian of his great success, and last in the dark night when light
+and life seems gone, when the moon and all the stars are extinguished,
+and nothing remains but patient suffering and the hope of a brighter
+morn to come.
+
+How little one dreamt of all this when we were young, and when an
+ambassador, nay, even a professor, seemed to us far beyond the reach
+of our ambition. I could go on mentioning many more names of men with
+whom I lived at Oxford in the most delightful intimacy, and who
+afterwards turned up as bishops, archbishops, judges, ministers, and
+all the rest. True, it is quite natural that it should be so with a
+man who, as I did, began his English life almost as an undergraduate
+among undergraduates. Nearly all Englishmen who receive a liberal
+education must pass either through Oxford or through Cambridge, and I
+was no doubt lucky in making thus early the acquaintance of a number
+of men who later in life became deservedly eminent. The only drawback
+was that, knowing my friends very intimately, 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 demand.
+
+Thomson was a dear friend of mine when he was still a fellow of
+Queen's College. We worked together, as may be seen by my
+contributions to his _Laws of Thought_, and the translation of a Vedic
+hymn which he helped me to make. I think he had a kind of anticipation
+of what was in store for him. Though for a time he had to be
+satisfied, even when he was married, with a very small London living,
+he soon rose in the Church, at a time when clergymen of a liberal way
+of thinking had not much chance of Crown preferment. But having gone
+at the head of a deputation to Lord Palmerston, to inform him that
+Gladstone's next election as member for Oxford was becoming doubtful,
+owing to all the bishoprics being given to the Low Church party--the
+party of Lord Shaftesbury--Palmerston remembered his stately and
+courteous bearing, and when the see of Gloucester fell vacant, gave
+him that bishopric to silence Gladstone's supporters. This was a very
+unexpected preferment at Oxford, but Thomson made such good use of his
+opportunity that, when the Archbishopric of York became vacant, and
+Palmerston found it difficult to make his own or Lord Shaftesbury's
+nominee acceptable to the Queen, he suggested that any one of the
+lately elected bishops approved of by the Crown might go to York, and
+some one else fill the see thus vacated. It so happened that Thomson's
+name was the first to be mentioned, and he was made Archbishop,
+probably one of the youngest Archbishops England has ever known. He
+certainly fulfilled all expectations and proved himself the people's
+Archbishop, for he was himself the son of a small tradesman, a fact of
+which he was never ashamed, though his enemies did not fail to cast it
+in his teeth. 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 me, and was now His Grace the
+Lord Archbishop, with a palace to inhabit and an income of about
+L10,000 a year. However, though as a German and as a friend of Bunsen
+I was looked upon as a kind of heretic, I never made the Archbishop
+blush for his old friend, and I always found him the same to the end
+of his life, kind, courteous, and ready to help, though it is but fair
+to remember that an Archbishop of York is one of the first subjects of
+the Queen, and cannot do or say everything that he might like to do or
+to say. When I had to ask him to do something for a friend of mine,
+who as a clergyman had given great offence by his very liberal
+opinions, he did all he could do, though he might have incurred great
+obloquy by so doing.
+
+But when I think of these men, friends and acquaintances of mine, whom
+I remember as young men, very able and hard working no doubt, yet not
+so entirely different from others who through life remained unknown,
+it is as if I had slept through a number of years and dreamt, and had
+then suddenly awoke to a new life. Some of my friends, I am glad to
+say, I always found the same, whether in ermine or in lawn sleeves;
+others, however, I am sorry to say, had _become_ something, the old
+boy in them had vanished, and nothing was to be seen except the
+bishop, the judge, or the minister.
+
+It was not for me to remind them of their former self, and to make
+them doubt their own identity, but I often felt the truth of Matthew
+Arnold's speeches, who, in social position, never rose beyond that of
+inspector of schools, and who often laughed when at great dinners he
+found himself surrounded by their Graces, their Excellencies, and my
+Lords, recognizing faces that sat below him at school and whose names
+in the class lists did not occupy so high a place as his own. Not that
+Matthew Arnold was dissatisfied; he knew his worth, but, as he himself
+asked for nothing, it is strange that his friends should never have
+asked for something for him, which would have shown to the world at
+large that he had not been left behind in the race. It strikes one
+that while he was at Oxford, few people only detected in Arnold the
+poet or the man of remarkable genius. I had many letters from him, but
+I never kept them, and I often blame myself now that in his, as in
+other cases, I should have thrown away letters as of no importance.
+Then suddenly came the time when he returned to Oxford as the poet, as
+the Professor of poetry, nay, afterwards as the philosopher also,
+placed high by public opinion among the living worthies of England.
+What was sometimes against him was his want of seriousness. A laugh
+from his hearers or readers seemed to be more valued by him than their
+serious opposition, or their convinced assent. He trusted, like
+others, to _persiflage_, and the result was that when he tried to be
+serious, people could not forget that he might at any time turn round
+and smile, and decline to be taken _au grand serieux_. People do not
+know what a dangerous game this French _persiflage_ is, particularly
+in England, and how difficult it becomes to exchange it afterwards for
+real seriousness.
+
+Those early Oxford days were bright days for me, and now, when those
+young and old faces, whether undergraduates or archbishops, rise up
+again before me, I being almost the only one left of that happy
+company, I ask again, "Did they also belong to a mere dreamland, they
+who gave life to my life, and made England my real home?" When I first
+saw them at Oxford, I was really an undergraduate, though I had taken
+my Doctor's degree at Leipzig. I lived, in fact, my happy university
+life over again, and it would be difficult to say which academical
+years I enjoyed more, those at Leipzig and Berlin, or those at Oxford.
+There were intermediate years in Paris, but during my stay there I saw
+but little of students and student life. I was too much oppressed with
+cares and anxieties about my present and future to think much of
+society and enjoyment. At Oxford, these cares had become far less, and
+I could by hard work earn as much money as I wanted, and cared to
+spend. In Paris, I was already something of a scholar and writer; at
+Oxford I became once more the undergraduate.
+
+This young society into which I was received was certainly most
+attractive, though that it contained the germs of future greatness
+never struck me at the time. What struck me was the general tone of
+the conversation. Of course, as Lord Palmerston said of himself when
+he was no longer very young, "boys will be boys," but there never was
+anything rude or vulgar in their conversation, and I hardly ever heard
+an offensive remark among them. Most of my friends came from Balliol,
+and were serious-minded men, many of them occupied and troubled by
+religious, philosophical, and social problems.
+
+What puzzled me most was the entire absence of duels. Occasionally
+there were squabbles and high words, which among German students could
+have had one result only--a duel. But at Oxford, either a man
+apologized at once or the next morning, and the matter was forgotten,
+or, if a man proved himself a cad or a snob, he was simply dropped. I
+do not mean to condemn the students' duels in Germany altogether.
+Considering how mixed the society of German universities is, and the
+perfect equality that reigns among them--they all called each other
+"thou" in my time--the son of a gentleman required some kind of
+protection against the son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing
+and fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students, so that there
+remained nothing to a young student who wanted to escape from the
+insults of a young ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a
+challenge was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was the power
+of public opinion at the universities that not another word of insult
+would be uttered. In this way much mischief is prevented. Besides,
+every precaution is taken to guard against fatal accident, and I
+believe there are fewer serious accidents on the _mensura_ than in the
+hunting-field in England. When I was at Leipzig, where we had at least
+four hundred duels during the year, only two fatal accidents happened,
+and they were, indeed, accidents, such as will happen even at
+football. Of course duels can never be defended, but for keeping up
+good manners, also for bringing out a man's character, these academic
+duels seem useful. However small the danger is, it frightens the
+coward and restrains the poltroon. For all that, what has taken place
+in England may in time take place in Germany also, and men will cease
+to think that it is impossible to defend their honour without a piece
+of steel or a pistol. The last thing that a German student desires to
+do in a duel is to kill his adversary. Hence pistol duels, which are
+generally preferred by theological students, because they cannot
+easily get a living if their face is scarred all over, are generally
+the most harmless, except perhaps for the seconds.
+
+Before closing this chapter, I should like to say a few words on the
+impressions which the theological atmosphere of Oxford in 1848
+produced on me, and which even now fills me with wonder and amazement.
+
+When I came to Oxford, I was strongly recommended to Stanley on one
+side, and to Manuel Johnson on the other,--a curious mixture. Johnson,
+the Observer, was extremely kind and hospitable to me. He was a genial
+man, full of love, possibly a little weak, but thoroughly honest, nay,
+transparently so. I met at his house nearly all the leaders of the
+High Church movement, though I never met Newman himself, who had then
+already gone to reside at his retreat at Littlemore. On the other
+hand, Stanley received me with open arms as a friend of Bunsen,
+Frederick Maurice, and Julius Hare, and as I came straight from the
+February revolution in 1848, he was full of interest and curiosity to
+know from me what I had seen in Paris.
+
+At first I knew nothing, and understood nothing of the movement, call
+it ecclesiastical or theological, that was going on at Oxford at that
+time. I dined almost every Sunday at Johnson's house, and at his
+dinners and Sunday afternoon garden parties I met men such as Church,
+Mozley, Buckle, Palgrave, Pollen, Rigaud, Burgon, and Chretian, who
+inspired me with great respect, both for their learning and for what I
+could catch of their character. Stanley, on the other hand, Froude,
+and Jowett, proved themselves true friends to me in making me feel at
+home, and initiating me into the secrets of the place. There was,
+however, a curious reticence on both sides, and it was by sudden
+glimpses only that I came to understand that these two sets were quite
+divided, nay, opposed, and had very different ideals before them.
+
+I had been at a German university, and the historical study of
+Christianity was to me as familiar as the study of Roman history.
+Professors whom I had looked up to as great authorities, implicitly to
+be trusted, such as Lotze and Weisse at Leipzig, Schelling and
+Michelet at Berlin, had, after causing in me a certain surprise at
+first, left me with the firm conviction that the Old and New Testament
+were historical books, and to be treated according to the same
+critical principles as any other ancient book, particularly the sacred
+books of the East of which so little was then known, and of which I
+too knew very little as yet; enough, however, to see that they
+contained nothing but what under the circumstances they could
+contain, traditions of extreme antiquity collected by men who gathered
+all they thought would be useful for the education of the people.
+Anything like revelation in the old sense of the word, a belief that
+these books had been verbally communicated by the Deity, or that what
+seemed miraculous in them was to be accepted as historically real,
+simply because it was recorded in these sacred books, was to me a
+standpoint long left behind. To me the questions that occupied my
+thoughts were to what date these books, such as we have them, could be
+assigned, what portions of them were of importance to us, what were
+the simple truths they contained, and what had been added to them by
+later collectors. Well do I remember when, before going to Oxford, I
+spoke to Bunsen of the preface to my Rig-veda, and used the
+expression, "the great revelations of the world," he, perfectly
+understanding what I meant, warned me in his loud and warm voice,
+"Don't say that at Oxford." I could see no harm, nor Bunsen either,
+nor his son who was an Oxford man and a clergyman of the Church of
+England; but I was told that I should be misunderstood. I knew far too
+little to imagine that I had a right to speak of what was fermenting
+and growing within me. During my stay at Leipzig and Berlin, and
+afterwards in my intercourse with Renan and Burnouf, the principles of
+the historical school had become quite familiar to me, but the
+application of these principles to the early history of religion was
+a different matter. How far the Old and the New Testament would stand
+the critical tests enunciated by Niebuhr was a frequent subject of
+controversy, during the time I spent at Paris, between young Renan and
+myself. Though I did not go with him in his reconstruction of the
+history of the Jews and the Jewish religion, and of the early
+Christians and the Christian religion, I agreed with him in principle,
+objecting only to his too free and too idyllic reconstruction of these
+great religious movements. Besides, before all things, I was at that
+time given to philosophical studies, chiefly to an inquiry into the
+limits of our knowledge in the Kantian sense of the word, the origin
+of thought and language, the first faltering and half-mythological
+steps of language in the search for causes or divine agents. All this
+occupied me far more than the age of the Fourth Gospel and its
+position by the side of the Synoptic Gospels. I had talked with
+Schelling and Schopenhauer, and little as I appreciated or understood
+all their teachings, there were certain aspirations left in my mind
+which led me far away beyond the historical foundations of
+Christianity. What can we know? was the question which I often opposed
+to Renan at the very beginning of our conversations and controversies.
+That there were great truths in the teaching and preaching of Christ,
+Renan was always ready to admit, 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 race, Renan's eyes were always
+directed to the evidence, and to what we could still know of the early
+history of Christianity and its Founder. I could not deny that,
+historically speaking, we knew very little of the life, the work, and
+the teachings of Christ; 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
+Christ. To this opinion I remained true through life. I claimed for
+each man the liberty of believing in his own Christ, 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 imagination.
+
+Naturally, when I came to Oxford, I thought these things were familiar
+to all, however much they might admit of careful correction. Nor have
+I any doubt that to some of my friends who were great theologians,
+they were better known than to a young Oriental scholar like myself.
+But unless engaged in conversation on these subjects, and this was
+chiefly the case with my friends of the Stanley party, I did not feel
+called upon to preach what, as I thought, every serious student knew
+quite as well and probably much better than myself, though he might
+for some reason or other prefer to keep silence thereon.
+
+What was my surprise when I found that most of these excellent and
+really learned men were much more deeply interested in purely
+ecclesiastical questions, in the validity of Anglican orders, in the
+wearing of either gowns or surplices in the pulpit, in the question of
+candlesticks and genuflections. "What has all this to do with true
+religion?" I once said to dear Johnson. He laughed with his genial
+laugh, and blowing the smoke of his cigar away, said, "Oh, you don't
+understand!" But I did understand, and a great deal more than he
+expected. Truly religious men, I thought, might please themselves with
+incense and candlesticks, provided they gave no offence to their
+neighbours. It seemed to me quite natural also that men like Johnson,
+with a taste for art, should prefer the Roman ritual to the simple and
+sometimes rather bare service of the Anglican Church, but that things
+such as incense and censers, surplice and gown, should be taken as
+they are, as paraphernalia, the work of human beings, the outcome of
+personal and local influences, as church-service, no doubt, but not as
+service of God. God has to be served by very different things, and
+there is the danger of the formal prevailing over the essential, the
+danger of idolatry of symbols as realities, whenever too much
+importance is attributed to the external forms of worship and divine
+service.
+
+The validity of Anglican orders was often discussed at the
+Observatory, 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
+Wolsey. Anyhow I could not bring myself to see the importance of such
+questions, 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 God. That is what
+I called a truly religious and truly Christian life. What struck me
+particularly, both on the Newman side, and among those whom I met at
+Jowett's and Froude's, was a curious want of openness and manliness in
+discussing these simple questions, simple, if not complicated by
+ecclesiastical theories. When Newman at Iffley was spoken of, it was
+in hushed tones, and when rumours of his going over to Rome reached
+his friends at Oxford, their consternation seemed to be like that of
+people watching the deathbed of a friend. I am sorry I saw nothing of
+Newman at that time; when I sat with him afterwards in his study at
+Birmingham, he was evidently tired of controversy, and unwilling to
+reopen questions which to him were settled once for all, or if not
+settled, at all events closed and relinquished. I could never form a
+clear idea of the man, much as I admired his sermons; his brother and
+his own friends gave such different accounts of him. That even at
+Littlemore he was still faithful to his own national Church, anxious
+only to bring it nearer to its ancient possibly Roman type, can hardly
+be doubted. When he wrote from Littlemore to his friend De Lisle, he
+had no reason to economize the truth. De Lisle hoped that Newman would
+soon openly join the Church of Rome, but Newman answered: "You must
+allow me to be honest with you in adding one thing. 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 ... I must assure you then with great sincerity that I have
+not the shadow of an internal movement known to myself towards such a
+step. While God is with me where I am, I will not seek Him elsewhere.
+I might almost say in the words of Scripture, 'We have found the
+Messias!'..."
+
+How true this is, and yet the same Newman went over to the unreformed
+Church, because the Archbishop of Canterbury had sanctioned Bunsen's
+proposal of an Anglo-German bishopric of Jerusalem, quite forgetful of
+the fact that Synesius also had been bishop of Ptolemais. Again I say,
+What have such matters to do with true religion, such as we read of in
+the New Testament, as an ideal to be realized in our life on earth?
+And it so happened that at the same time I knew of families rendered
+miserable through Newman's influence, of young girls, daughters of
+narrow-minded Anglicans, hurried over to Rome, of young men at Oxford
+with their troubled consciences which under Newman's direct or
+indirect guidance could end only in Rome. Newman's influence must have
+been extraordinary; the tone in which people who wished to free
+themselves from him, who had actually left him, spoke of him, seemed
+tremulous with awe. I would give anything to have known him at that
+time, when I knew him through his disciples only. They were caught in
+various ways. I know of one, a brilliant writer, who had been
+entrusted by Newman with writing some of the _Lives of the Saints_. He
+did it with great industry, 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 insipid, and might be the inventions of their friends; such
+legends, he felt, would take no root on English soil, at all events
+not in the present generation. In consequence he informed Newman that
+he could not keep his promise, or that, if he did so, he must speak
+the truth, tell people what they might believe about these Saints, and
+what was purely fanciful in the accounts of their lives. And what was
+Newman's answer? He did not respect the young man's scruples, but
+encouraged him to go on, because, as he said, people would never
+believe more than half of these Lives, and that therefore some of
+these unsupported legends also might prove useful, if only as a kind
+of ballast.
+
+"I rejoice to hear of your success," he writes, August 21, 1843. "As
+to St. Grimball, of course we must expect such deficiencies; where
+matter is found, it is all gain, and there are plenty of Lives to put
+together, as you will see, when you see the whole list.
+
+"I am rather for _inserting_ (of course discreetly and in way of
+selection) the miracles for which you have not good evidence. (1) They
+are beautiful, you say, and will tell in the narrative. (2) Next you
+can say that the evidence is weak, and this will be bringing credit
+for the others where you say the evidence is strong. People will never
+go _so far_ as your narrative. Cut it down to what is true, and they
+will disbelieve a part of _it_; put in these legends and they will
+compound for the true at the sacrifice of what may be true, but is not
+well attested."
+
+I confess I cannot quite follow. If a man like Newman believed in
+these saints and their miracles, his pleading would become
+intelligible, but it seems from this very letter that he did not, and
+yet he tried to persuade his young friend to go on and not to gather
+the tares, "lest haply he might root up the wheat with them. Let both
+grow together until the harvest." I do not like to judge, 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 truth. And yet this was the man who at one time was
+supposed to draw the best spirits of Oxford with him to Rome. This was
+the man to whom some of the best spirits at Oxford confessed all they
+had to confess, and that could have been very little, and of whom
+they spoke with a subdued whisper as the apostle who would restore all
+faith, and bring back the Anglican sheep to the Roman fold.
+
+I saw and heard all that was going on, the hopes deferred, the secret
+visits to Littlemore, the rumours and more than rumours of Newman's
+defection. Such was the devotion of some of these disciples that they
+expected day by day a great catastrophe or a great victory, for after
+the publication of so many letters written at the time by Wiseman,
+Manning, De Lisle, and others, there can be little doubt that a great
+conversion or perversion of England to the Romish Church was fully
+expected. De Lisle writes: "England is now in full career of a great
+Religious Revolution, this time back to Catholicism and to the Roman
+See as its true centre ... the best friends of Rome in the Anglican
+Church are obliged still to be guarded." Such words admit of one
+meaning only, and if Newman had been followed by a large number of his
+Oxford friends, the results for England might really have been most
+terrible. But here, no doubt, the English national feeling came in.
+What England had suffered under Roman ecclesiastical rule had not yet
+been entirely forgotten, and the idea that a foreign potentate and a
+foreign priesthood should interfere with the highest interests of the
+nation, was fortunately as distasteful as ever, not only to a large
+party of the clergy, but to a still larger party of the laity also.
+It seemed to me very curious that so many of Newman's followers did
+not see the unpatriotic character of their agitation. Either
+subjection to Rome or civil war at home was the inevitable outcome of
+what they discussed very innocently at the Observatory, and little as
+I understood their schemes for the future, I often felt surprised at
+what sounded to me like very unpatriotic utterances.
+
+Another thing that struck me as utterly un-English and has often been
+dwelt on by the historians of this movement, was the curiously secret
+character of the agitation. What has an Englishman to fear when he
+openly protests against what he disapproves of in Church or State? But
+Newman's friends at Oxford behaved really, as has been often said,
+like so many naughty schoolboys, or like conspirators, yet they were
+neither. A very similar charge, however, was brought against the
+liberal party. They also seemed to think that they were out of bounds,
+and were doing in secret what they did not dare to do openly. It is
+well known that one friend of Newman's, who afterwards became a Roman
+Catholic, had a small chapel set up in his bedroom in college, with
+pictures and candles and instruments of flagellation. No one was
+allowed to see this room, till one evening when the flagellant had
+retired after dinner and fallen asleep, the servants found him lying
+before the altar. Nothing remained to him then but to exchange his
+comfortable college rooms for the less comfortable cell of a Roman
+monastery, and little was done by his new friends to make the evening
+of his life serene and free from anxiety. These things were known and
+talked about in Oxford, and generally with anything but the
+seriousness that the subject seemed to me to require. Again at the
+Observatory a point was made of having games in the garden such as
+boccia on a Sunday afternoon, thus evading the strict observance of
+the Sabbath, without openly trying to restore to it the character
+which it had in Roman Catholic countries.
+
+German theology was talked about as a kind of forbidden fruit, as if
+it was not right for them to look at it, to taste it, or to examine
+it. Even years later people were afraid to meet Professor Ewald,
+Bishop Colenso, and other so-called heretics at my house. They even
+fell on poor Ewald at an evening party. Ewald was staying with me and
+working hard at some Hebrew MSS. at the Bodleian. He was then already
+an old man, but in his appearance a powerful and venerable champion.
+He is the only man I remember who, after copying Hebrew MSS. for
+twelve hours at the Bodleian with nothing but a sandwich to sustain
+him, complained of the short time allowed there for work. He came home
+for dinner very tired, and when the conversation or rather the
+disputation began between him and some of our young liberal
+theologians, he spoke in short pithy sentences only. He considered
+himself perfectly orthodox, nay, one of the pillars of religion in
+Germany, and laid down the law with unhesitating conviction. As far as
+I can remember, he was answering a number of questions about St. Paul,
+and what he thought of Christ, of the Kingdom of Christ, and the Life
+to come, and being pestered and driven into a corner by his various
+questioners, and asked at last how he knew St. Paul's secret thoughts,
+he not knowing how to express himself in fluent English, exclaimed in
+a loud voice, "I know it by the Holy Ghost." Here the conversation
+naturally stopped, and poor Ewald was allowed to finish his dinner in
+peace. He had been Professor at Bonn, when Pusey came there as a young
+man to study Hebrew after he had been appointed Canon of Christ Church
+and Professor of Hebrew, and he expressed to me a wish to see Dr.
+Pusey. I told him it would not be easy to arrange a meeting,
+considering how strongly opposed Dr. Pusey was to Ewald's opinions.
+Personally I always found Pusey tolerant, and his kindness to me was a
+surprise to all my young friends. But the fact was, we moved on
+different planes, and though he knew my religious opinions well, they
+only excited a smile, and he often said with a sigh, "I know you are a
+German." 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 terror. He had read more heresy, he used to
+say, than anybody, and he wished no one to pass through the trials
+and agonies through which he had passed, chiefly, I should think,
+during his stay at a German university. The historical element was
+wanting in him, nay, like Hegel, he sometimes seemed to lay stress on
+the unhistorical character of Christianity. My idea, on the contrary,
+was that Christianity was a true historical event, prepared by many
+events that had gone before and alone made it possible and real. Even
+the abyss, if there were such an abyss, was, as it seemed to me, meant
+to be there on our passage through life, and was to be faced with a
+brave heart.
+
+But to return to my first experiences of the theological atmosphere of
+Oxford, I confess I felt puzzled to see men, whose learning and
+character I sincerely admired, absorbed in subjects which to my mind
+seemed simply childish. I expected I should hear from them some new
+views on the date of the gospels, the meaning of revelation, the
+historical value of revelation, or the early history of the Church.
+No, of all this not a word. Nothing but discussions on vestments, on
+private confession, on candles on the altar, whether they were wanted
+or not, on the altar being made of stone or of wood, of consecrated
+wine being mixed with water, of the priest turning his back on the
+congregation, &c. I could not understand how these men, so high above
+the ordinary level of men in all other respects, could put aside the
+fundamental questions of Christianity and give their whole mind to
+what seemed to me rightly called in the newspapers "mere millinery."
+I sought information from Stanley, but he shrugged his shoulders and
+advised me to keep aloof and say nothing. This I was most willing to
+do; I cared for none of these things. My mind was occupied with far
+more serious problems, such as I had heard explained by men of
+profound learning and honest purpose in the great universities of
+Germany; these troubles arose from questions which seemed to me to
+have no connexion with true religion at all. Even the differences
+between the reformed and unreformed churches were to me mere questions
+of history, mere questions of human expediency. I did not consider
+Roman Catholics as heretics--I had known too many of them of
+unblemished character in Germany. I might have regretted the abuses
+which called for reform, the excrescences which had disfigured
+Christianity like many other religions, but which might be tolerated
+as long as they did not lead to toleration for intolerance. Luther
+might no longer appear to me in the light of a perfect saint, but that
+he was right in suppressing the time-honoured abuses of the Roman
+Church admitted with me of no doubt whatsoever. Large numbers always
+had that effect on me, and when I saw how many good and excellent men
+were satisfied with the unreformed teaching of the Roman Church, I
+felt convinced that they must attach a different meaning to certain
+doctrines and ecclesiastical practices from what we did. I had
+learned to discover what was good and true in all religions, and I
+could fully agree with Macaulay when he said, "If people had lived in
+a country where very sensible people worshipped the cow, they would
+not fall out with people who worship saints."
+
+I know that many of my friends on both sides looked upon me as a
+latitudinarian, but my conviction has always been that we could not be
+broad enough. They looked upon me as wishing to keep on good terms
+with high and low and broad, and I made no secret of it, that I
+thought I could understand Pusey as well as Stanley, and assign to
+each his proper place. Stanley was of course more after my own heart
+than Pusey, but Pusey too was a man who interested me very much. I saw
+that he might become a great power whether for good or for evil in
+England. He was, in fact, a historical character, and these were
+always the men who interested me. He was fully aware of his importance
+in England, and the great influence which his name exercised. That
+influence was not always exercised in the right way, so at least it
+seemed to me, particularly when it was directed against such friends
+of mine as Kingsley, Froude, or Jowett. Once, I remember, when he had
+come to my house, 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 God. Curious to say, he relented, and
+admitted that he had used too strong language. To me everything that
+was said of God seemed imperfect, and never to apply to God Himself
+but only to the idea which the human mind had formed of Him. To me
+even the Hindu, if he spoke of Brahman or Krishna, seemed to have
+aimed at the true God, in spite of the idolatrous epithets which he
+used; then how could a man like Frederic Maurice be said to have
+worshipped a different God, considering that we all can but feel after
+Him in the dark, not being able to do more than exclude all that seems
+to us unworthy of Deity?
+
+A very important element in the ecclesiastical views of some of my
+friends was, no doubt, the artistic. If Johnson leant towards Rome, it
+was the more ornate and beautiful service that touched and attracted
+him. I sat near to him in St. Giles' Church; he told me what to do and
+what not to do during service. In spite of the Prayer-book, it is by
+no means so easy as people imagine to do exactly the right thing in
+church, and I had of course to learn a number of prayers and responses
+by heart. To me the service, as it was in my parish church, seemed
+already too ornate, accustomed as I had been to the somewhat bare and
+cold service in the Lutheran Church at Dessau. But Johnson constantly
+complained about the monotonous and mechanical performances of the
+clergy. He had a strong feeling for all that was beautiful and
+impressive in art, and he wanted to see the service of God in church
+full both of reverence and beauty.
+
+Johnson's private collection of artistic treasures was very
+considerable, and I learnt much from the Italian engravings and Dutch
+etchings which he possessed and delighted in showing. I often spent
+happy hours with him examining his portfolios, and wondered how he
+could afford to buy such treasures. But he knew when and where to buy,
+and I believe when his collection was sold after his death, it brought
+a good deal more than it had cost him. Another collection of art was
+that of Dr. Wellesley, the Principal of New Inn Hall, who was a friend
+of Johnson's and had collected most valuable antiquities during his
+long stay in Italy. He was the son of the Marquis of Wellesley, a
+handsome man, with all the refinement and courtesy of the old English
+gentleman. Though not perhaps very useful in the work of the
+University, he was most pleasant to live with, and full of information
+in his own line of study, the history of art, chiefly of Italian art.
+
+The beautiful services of the Roman Church abroad, and particularly at
+Rome, certainly exercised a kind of magic attraction on many of the
+friends of Wiseman and Newman, though one wonders that the sunny
+grandeur of St. Peter's at Rome should ever have seemed more
+impressive than the sombre sublimity and serene magnificence of
+Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, the introduction of a more ornate
+service, even of harmless candlesticks and the often very useful
+incense, had always a secret meaning. They were used as symbols of
+something of which the people had no conception, whereas in the early
+Church they had been really natural and useful.
+
+In the midst of all this commotion, and chiefly secret commotion, I
+felt a perfect stranger; I saw the bright and dark sides, but I
+confess I saw little of what I called religion. Though my own
+religious struggles lay behind me, still there were many questions
+which pressed for a solution, but for which my friends at Oxford
+seemed either indifferent or unprepared. My practical religion was
+what I had learnt from my mother; that remained unshaken in all
+storms, and in its extreme simplicity and childishness answered all
+the purposes for which religion is meant. Then followed, in the
+Universities of Leipzig and Berlin, the purely historical and
+scientific treatment of religion, which, while it explained many
+things and destroyed many things, never interfered with my early ideas
+of right and wrong, never disturbed my life with God and in God, and
+seemed to satisfy all my religious wants. I never was frightened or
+shaken by the critical writings of Strauss or Ewald, of Renan or
+Colenso. If what they said had an honest ring, I was delighted, for I
+felt quite certain that they could never deprive me of the little I
+really wanted. That little could never be little enough; it was like a
+stronghold with no fortifications, no trenches, and no walls around
+it. Suppose it was proved to me that, on geological evidence, the
+earth or the world could not have been created in six days, what was
+that to me? Suppose it was proved to me that Christ could never have
+given leave to the unclean spirits to enter into the swine, what was
+that to me? Let Colenso and Bishop Wilberforce, let Huxley and
+Gladstone fight about such matters; their turbulent waves could never
+disturb me, could never even reach me in my safe harbour. I had little
+to carry, no learned impedimenta to safeguard my faith. If a man
+possesses this one pearl of great price, he may save himself and his
+treasure, but neither the tinselled vestments of a Cardinal, nor the
+triple tiara that crowns the Head of the Church, will serve as
+life-belts in the gales of doubt and controversy. My friends at Oxford
+did not know that, though with my one jewel I seemed outwardly poor, I
+was really richer and safer than many a Cardinal and many a Doctor of
+Divinity. A confession of faith, like a prayer, may be very long, but
+the prayer of the Publican may have been more efficient than that of
+the Pharisee.
+
+After a time I made an even more painful discovery: I found men, who
+were considered quite orthodox, but who really were without any
+belief. They spoke to me very freely, because they imagined that as a
+German I would think as they did, and that I should not be surprised
+if they looked on me as not quite sincere. It was not only honest
+doubt that disturbed them. They had done with honest doubt, and they
+were satisfied with a kind of Voltairian philosophy, which at last
+ended in pure agnosticism. But even that, even professed agnosticism,
+I could understand, because it often meant no more than a confession
+of ignorance with regard to God, which we all confess, and need not
+necessarily amount to the denial of the existence of Deity. But that
+Voltairian levity which scoffs at everything connected with religion
+was certainly something I did not expect to meet with at Oxford, and
+which even now perplexes me. Of course, I should never think of
+mentioning names, but it seemed to me necessary to mention the fact,
+to complete the curious mosaic of theological and religious thought
+that existed at Oxford at the time of my arrival.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A CONFESSION
+
+
+One confession I have to make, and one for which I can hardly hope for
+absolution, whether from my friends or from my enemies. I have never
+done anything; I have never been a doer, a canvasser, a wirepuller, a
+manager, in the ordinary sense of these words. I have also shrunk from
+agitation, from clubs and from cliques, even from most respectable
+associations and societies. Many people would call me an idle,
+useless, and indolent man, and though I have not wasted many hours of
+my life, I cannot deny the charge that I have neither fought battles,
+nor helped to conquer new countries, nor joined any syndicate to roll
+up a fortune. I have been a scholar, a _Stubengelehrter_, and _voila
+tout_!
+
+Much as I admired Ruskin when I saw him with his spade and
+wheelbarrow, encouraging and helping his undergraduate friends to make
+a new road from one village to another, I never myself took to
+digging, and shovelling, and carting. Nor could I quite agree with
+him, happy as I always felt in listening to him, when he said: "What
+we think, or what we know, or what we believe, is in the end of
+little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do." My
+view of life has always been the very opposite! What we do, or what we
+build up, has always seemed to me of little consequence. Even Nineveh
+is now a mere desert of sand, and Ruskin's new road also has long
+since been worn away. The only thing of consequence, to my mind, is
+what we think, what we know, what we believe! To Ruskin's ears such a
+sentiment was downright heresy, and I know quite well that it would be
+condemned as extremely dangerous, if not downright wicked, by most
+people, particularly in England. My friend, Charles Kingsley, preached
+muscular Christianity, that is, he was always up and doing. Another
+old friend of mine, Carlyle, preached all his life that "it was no use
+talking, if one would not do." There is an old proverb in German, too,
+
+    "Die nicht mit thaten,
+     Die nicht mit rathen";
+
+actually denying the right of giving advice to those who had not taken
+a part in the fight.
+
+However, though I have not been a doer, a _faiseur_, as the French
+would say, I do not wish to represent myself as a mere idle drone
+during the long years of my quiet life. Nor did I stand quite alone in
+looking on a scholar's life--even when I was living in a garret _au
+cinquieme_--as a paradise on earth. Did not Emerson write, "The
+scholar is the man of the age"? Did not even Mazzini, who certainly
+was constantly up and trying to do, did not even he confess that men
+must die, but that the amount of truth they have discovered does not
+die with them? And Carlyle? Did he ever try to get into Parliament?
+Did he ever accept directorates? Did he join either the Chartists or
+the Special Constables in Trafalgar Square? As in a concert you want
+listeners as well as performers, so in public life, those who look on
+are quite as essential as those who shout and deal heavy blows.
+
+Nature has not endowed everybody with the requisite muscle to be a
+muscular Christian. But it may be said, that even if Carlyle and
+Ruskin were absolved from doing muscular work in Trafalgar Square,
+what excuse could they plead for not walking in procession to Hyde
+Park, climbing up one of the platforms and haranguing the men and
+women and children? I suppose they had the feeling which the razor has
+when it is used for cutting stones: they would feel that it was not
+exactly their _metier_. Arguing when reason meets reason is most
+delightful, whether we win or lose; but arguing against unreason,
+against anything that is by nature thick, dense, impenetrable,
+irrational, has always seemed to me the most disheartening occupation.
+Majorities, mere numerical majorities, by which the world is governed
+now, strike me as mere brute force, though to argue against them is
+no doubt as foolish as arguing against a railway train that is going
+to crush you. Gladstone could harangue multitudes; so could Disraeli;
+all honour to them for it. But think of Carlyle or Ruskin doing so!
+Stroking the shell of a tortoise, or the cupola of St. Paul's, would
+have been no more attractive to them than addressing the discontented,
+when in their hundreds and their thousands they descended into the
+streets. All I claim is that there must be a division of labour, and
+as little as Wayland Smith was useless in his smithy, when he hardened
+the iron in the fire for making swords or horse-shoes, was Carlyle a
+man that could be spared, while he sat in his study preparing thoughts
+that would not bend or break.
+
+But I cannot even claim to have been a man of action in the sense in
+which Carlyle was in England, or Emerson in America. They were men who
+in their books were constantly teaching and preaching. "Do this!" they
+said; "Do not do that!" The Jewish prophets did much the same, and
+they are not considered to have been useless men, though they did not
+make bricks, or fight battles like Jehu. But the poor _Stubengelehrte_
+has not even that comfort. Only now and then he gets some unexpected
+recognition, as when Lord Derby, then Secretary of State for India,
+declared that the scholars who had discovered and proved the close
+relationship between Sanskrit and English, had rendered more valuable
+service to the Government of India than many a regiment. This may be
+called a mere assertion, and it is true that it cannot be proved
+mathematically, but what could have induced a man like Lord Derby to
+make such a statement, except the sense of its truth produced on his
+mind by long experience?
+
+However, I can only speak for myself, and of my idea of work. I felt
+satisfied when my work led me to a new discovery, whether it was the
+discovery of a new continent of thought, or of the smallest desert
+island in the vast ocean of truth. I would gladly go so far as to try
+to convince my friends by a simple statement of facts. Let them follow
+the same course and see whether I was right or wrong. But to make
+propaganda, to attempt to persuade by bringing pressure to bear, to
+canvass and to organize, to found societies, to start new journals, to
+call meetings and have them reported in the papers, has always been to
+me very much against the grain. If we know some truth, what does it
+matter whether a few millions, more or less, see the truth as we see
+it? Truth is truth, whether it is accepted now or in millions of
+years. Truth is in no hurry, at least it always seemed to me so. When
+face to face with a man, or a body of men, who would not be convinced,
+I never felt inclined to run my head against a stone wall, or to
+become an advocate and use the tricks of a lawyer. I have often been
+blamed for it, I have sometimes even regretted my indolence or my
+quiet happiness, when I felt that truth was on my side and by my side.
+I suppose there is no harm in personal canvassing, but as much as I
+disliked being canvassed, did I feel it degrading to canvass others. I
+know quite well how often it happened at a meeting when either a
+measure or a candidate was to be carried, that the voters had
+evidently been spoken to privately beforehand, had in the conscience
+of their heart promised their votes. The facts and arguments at the
+meeting itself might all be on one side, but the majority was in
+favour of the other. Men whose time was of little value had been round
+from house to house, a majority had been compacted into an inert
+unreasoning mass; and who would feel inclined to use his spade of
+reason against so much unreason? Some people, more honest than the
+rest, after the mischief was done, would say, "Why did you not call?
+why did you not write letters?" I may be quite wrong, but I can only
+say that it seemed to me like taking an unfair advantage, unfair to
+our opponents, and almost insulting to our friends. Still, from a
+worldly point of view, I was no doubt wrong, and it is certainly true
+that I was often left in a minority. My friends have told me again and
+again that if a good measure or a good man is to be carried, good men
+must do some dirty work. If they cannot do that, they are of no use,
+and I doubt not that I have often been considered a very useless man
+by my political and academic friends, because I trusted to reason
+where there was no reason to trust to. I was asked to write letters,
+to address and post letters, to promise travelling expenses or even
+convivial entertainments at Oxford, to get leaders and leaderettes
+inserted in newspapers. I simply loathed it, and at last declined to
+do it. If a measure is carried by promise, not by argument, if an
+election is carried by personal influence, not by reason, what happens
+is very often the same as what happens when fruit is pulled off a tree
+before it is ripe. It is expected to ripen by itself, but it never
+becomes sweet, and often it rots. A premature measure may be carried
+through the House by a minister with a powerful majority, but it does
+not acquire vitality and maturity by being carried; it often remains
+on the Statute-book a dead letter, till in the end it has to be
+abolished with other rubbish.
+
+However, I have learnt to admire the indefatigable assiduity of men
+who have slowly and partially secured their converts and their
+recruits, and thus have carried in the end what they thought right and
+reasonable. I have seen it particularly at Oxford, where
+undergraduates were indoctrinated by their tutors, till they had taken
+their degree and could vote with their betters. I take all the blame
+and shame upon myself as a useless member of Congregation and
+Convocation, and of society at large. I was wrong in supposing that
+the walls of Jericho would fall before the blast of reason, and wrong
+in abstaining from joining in the braying of rams' horns and the
+shouts of the people. I was fortunate, however, in counting among my
+most intimate friends some of the most active and influential
+reformers in University, Church, and State, and it is quite possible
+that I may often have influenced them in the hours of sweet converse;
+nay, that standing in the second rank, I may have helped to load the
+guns which they fired off with much effect afterwards. I felt that my
+open partnership might even injure them more than it could help them;
+for was it not always open to my opponents to say that I was a German,
+and therefore could not possibly understand purely English questions?
+Besides, there is another peculiarity which I have often observed in
+England. People like to do what has to be done by themselves. It
+seemed to me sometimes as if I had offended my friends if I did
+anything by myself, and without consulting them. Besides, my position,
+even after I had been in England for so many years, was always
+peculiar; for though I had spent nearly a whole life in the service of
+my adopted country, though my political allegiance was due and was
+gladly given to England, still I was, and have always remained, a
+German.
+
+And next to Germany, which was young and full of ideals when I was
+young, there came India, and Indian thought which exercised their
+quieting influence on me. From a very early time I became conscious of
+the narrow horizon of this life on earth, and the purely phenomenal
+character of the world in which for a few years we have to live and
+move and have our being. As students of classical and other Oriental
+history we come to admire the great empires with their palaces and
+pyramids and temples and capitols. What could have seemed more real,
+more grand, more likely to impress the young mind than Babylon and
+Nineveh, Thebes and Alexandria, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome? And now
+where are they? The very names of their great rulers and heroes are
+known to few people only and have to be learnt by heart, without
+telling us much of those who wore them. Many things for which
+thousands of human beings were willing to lay down their lives, and
+actually did lay them down, are to us mere words and dreams, myths,
+fables, and legends. If ever there was a doer, it was Hercules, and
+now we are told that he was a mere myth!
+
+If one reads the description of Babylonian and Egyptian campaigns, as
+recorded on cuneiform cylinders and on the walls of ancient Egyptian
+temples, the number of people slaughtered seems immense, the issues
+overwhelming; and yet what has become of it all? The inroads of the
+Huns, the expeditions of Genghis Khan and Timur, so fully described by
+historians, shook the whole world to its foundations, and now the sand
+of the desert disturbed by their armies lies as smooth as ever.
+
+What India teaches us is that in a state advancing towards
+civilization, there must be always two castes or two classes of men, a
+caste of Brahmans or of thinkers, and a caste of Kshatriyas, who are
+to fight; possibly other castes also of those who are to work and of
+those who are to serve. Great wars went on in India, but they were
+left to be fought by the warriors by profession. The peasants in their
+villages remained quiet, accepting the consequences, whatever they
+might be, and the Brahmans lived on, thinking and dreaming in their
+forests, satisfied to rule after the battle was over.
+
+And what applies to military struggles seems to me to apply to all
+struggles--political, religious, social, commercial, and even
+literary. Let those who love to fight, fight; but let others who are
+fond of quiet work go on undisturbed in their own special callings.
+That was, as far as we can see, the old Indian idea, or at all events
+the ideal which the Brahmans wished to see realized. I do not stand up
+for utter idleness or sloth, not even for drones, though nature does
+not seem to condemn even _hoc genus_ altogether. All I plead for, as a
+scholar and a thinker, is freedom from canvassing, from letter-reading
+and letter-writing, from committees, deputations, meetings, public
+dinners, and all the rest. That will sound very selfish to the ears of
+practical men, and I understand why they should look upon men like
+myself as hardly worth their salt. But what would they say to one of
+the greatest fighters in the history of the world? What would they say
+to Julius Caesar, 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 people?
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abiturienten, Examination at Zerbst, 106
+
+Acland, Dr., 245
+
+Admiration, power of, 90
+
+Aitareya-brahmana, 203
+
+All Souls' Fellowship, 23
+  -- -- pinnacles, 225, 226
+
+Altenstein, Minister of Instruction, 131
+
+Anglican system, 209
+  -- orders, 291
+
+Anhalt-Dessau, Duchy of, 46
+
+Antiquities hid in etymologies, 152-154
+
+Anti-Semitism, 70, 71
+
+Arnim, Count, 110
+
+Arnold, Matthew, 282-283
+
+Artistic element in the Oxford movement, 303, 304
+
+Aryan speakers may differ in blood, 32
+  -- and aboriginal languages of India, M. M.'s paper on, 210, 211
+
+Aryans of India, 197
+
+Aryas, meaning of, 32
+
+Asvalayana Sutras, 203
+
+Atavism, 17, 25, 26, 27, 30
+
+Atavistic influences, 27
+
+Autobiography, object of M. M. in writing his, vi
+
+Autos, the, 35
+
+
+Babies, studying, 86
+
+Bach family, 34
+
+Baden-Powell, Professor, 238, 245
+
+Bandinell, Dr., 259-261
+
+Bardelli, Abbe, 170
+
+Basedow, von, President, 54
+  -- the Pedagogue, 55, 76
+
+Bathing, 77
+
+Bernays, Professor, 69
+
+Bibliotheque Royale, 167
+
+Biographies, too lenient, 2
+  -- best kind of history, 14
+
+Bismarck, 175
+
+Bluecher, Marshal, 235
+
+Blum, Robert, 15
+
+Boden Professorship of Sanskrit, vii
+
+Bodleian Library, 258, 259
+
+Boehtlingk, 181, 182, 183
+
+Books, scarcity of, 67
+
+Bopp, 125, 132, 148, 151, 156
+  -- his lectures, 156, 157
+
+Brahmo Somaj, service for the, 61
+
+Breakfast parties, 205
+
+British Association at Oxford, 210, 215
+
+Brockhaus, Professor, 147
+
+Buckle, 287
+
+Bull, Dr., 40, 255, 256
+
+Bunsen, Baron, 5, 13, 16
+  -- first visit to, 190, 191
+  -- his kindness, 193, 199, 221
+
+Burgon, 287
+
+Burnouf, 167, 169, 178, 179-182, 288
+
+
+Camerarius, 51
+
+Canon of Christ Church, an old, 256-258
+
+Canvassing, 312, 313
+
+Carlyle, 310, 311
+
+Carus, Professor, 98, 109
+
+Chartist Deputation, 16
+
+Chretian, 287
+
+Christianity, historical teaching of, in Germany, 65, 287, 291
+  -- an historical event, 300
+
+Church, Dr., 287
+
+Church, not for young children, 60
+
+Circumstances, influence of, 24
+
+Clarke, Sir Andrew, 82, 86
+
+Classics, exaggerated praise of the, 101, 102
+  -- -- reactions from, 103
+  -- nothing takes their place, 103
+
+Colebrooke, 192
+
+Colenso, 298, 305
+
+Collegien-Buch, 121, 123-125
+
+Comparative Philology, Professorship of, 12
+
+Congregation and Convocation, why M. M. kept away from, 314, 315
+
+Conscience, the voice of, 63
+
+Coxe, Mr., 258
+
+Cradock, Dr. and Mrs., 267
+
+Crawford, Mr., the Objector General, 211
+
+Curtius, 132, 151
+
+
+Darwin, 2, 11, 17, 131
+
+David, 107, 109
+
+Deafness in M. M.'s family, 29
+
+De Lisle, 293, 296
+
+Dessau, Dukes of, 46
+  -- cheapness of life at, 56, 57
+  -- Gottesacker at, 57
+  -- only two classes at, 73
+  -- trade of, 73
+  -- public school at, 76
+  -- its walls, 89
+  -- M. M.'s world, 89
+  -- simplicity of life at, 92
+  -- -- effect on the character, 92, 96
+  -- moral sayings, 96
+
+Devas, [Greek: Theos], 144
+
+Dieu, Deus, Devas, 197
+
+Donkin, Professor, 246
+
+Double First, 240
+
+Drobisch, 129, 140, 142, 145
+
+Duels at University, 119, 128, 129, 284, 286
+
+Dyaus, Zeus, Iovis, 197
+
+
+Early life, roughing it, 91
+
+East India Company, 14
+
+East India House, 16, 215
+
+Eckart, 107, 109
+
+Eckstein, Baron d', 176, 177
+
+"Edinburgh Review," first article in, 222
+
+Egyptian chronology, 199
+
+"Elsie Venner," 31
+
+Emerson, 310
+
+Encaenia, 265, 266
+  -- jokes at, 265
+
+English and German Doctors, 84, 85
+
+Environment, 17, 18, 25
+
+Ernst, 110
+
+Eternal, _ewig_, 150, 151
+
+Etymologies, 152
+
+Evolution, 198
+
+Ewald, 298, 299, 305
+
+
+Fairy tales, influence of, 50-52
+
+Fear, the feeling of, 88
+
+Feast of Tabernacles, 71
+
+Fellowships, old system of, 246, 247, 263
+
+Forbiger, 99
+
+French master at Dessau, 75
+
+French Revolution, 16, 216
+
+Friar Bacon, 227
+
+Froege, Professor, 109
+  -- his wife and Mendelssohn, 109
+
+Froude, J. A., 8, 287
+
+Funkhaenel, 99
+
+
+Gaisford, Dr., 240, 252-254
+
+Gathy, M., 165, 172
+
+German regiments, hymns sung by, 62
+  -- students, 213
+
+Germany and Germans, prejudice against, 20, 21
+  -- religious feeling in, 62
+
+Germ-plasm, 19, 28
+
+Gewandhaus Concerts, 107
+
+Giordano Bruno on Oxford, 228
+
+Goethe, not always admired, 93
+
+Goldstuecker, 170-172
+
+Goldwin Smith, 238
+
+Gottesacker at Dessau, 57
+
+Grabau, M. M.'s concerts with, 110
+
+Grandfather of M. M., 79-81
+
+Grandmother of M. M., 53
+
+Grant, Sir Alexander, 272, 273
+
+Greene's Oxford, 227
+
+Greenhill, Dr., 245
+
+Grenville, Lord, 229
+
+Greswell, Mr., 245
+
+Griffith, Dr., Master of University, 229
+
+Grimm, 151
+
+Gruender, ein, 48
+
+Guizot, 182
+
+
+Habits acquired not hereditable, 33
+
+Hagedorn, Baron, 112-114, 162
+  -- journey with him, 112
+  -- his plan of life for M. M., 113
+
+Hahnemann, 82 _et seq._, 86
+
+Hallam's literary dog, 209
+
+Hare, Archdeacon, 205, 286
+  -- visit to, 208
+
+Hase, 185
+
+Haupt, his Latin Society, 121, 125
+  -- his dislike to modern philology, 155, 156
+
+Hawkins, Dr., 240, 249
+
+Headaches, suffering from, 81 _et seq._
+  -- how cured, 83
+
+Heads of Houses, 234, 264
+  -- -- their power, 239
+
+Hebdomadal Board, 239, 255
+
+Hebrew taught at the Nicolai-Schule, 100
+
+Hegel, 2
+  -- his philosophy, 130-138
+
+Hegel's idea, 133-135
+  -- "Philosophy of Nature," 135, 136
+  -- "Philosophy of Religion," 135, 142
+  -- "Metaphysics," 136
+
+Heinroth, 139
+
+Helps, Sir Arthur, 266
+
+Hentzner, his description of Oxford, 228
+
+Herbart, school of, 129, 140, 142
+
+Heredity, 17
+
+Hermann, Gottfried, 121, 125, 128
+  -- welcomed modern philology, 155
+  -- his kindness to M. M., 156
+
+Hermae round the Theatre, 264
+
+Highland lady at Oxford, 229
+
+Hiller, 107, 109
+  -- his oratorio, 110
+
+Historical method, 198
+  -- events, their influence transitory, 315, 316
+
+Hitopadesa, 51
+
+Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 6, 266
+
+Hoenicke, Dr., 78
+
+Horace, "cheekiness" of, 102
+
+Human weaknesses, allowance must be made for, 93, 94
+
+Humboldt, 181
+
+
+Imprisonment, M. M.'s, at University, 118, 119
+
+Indian thought, influence of, 315, 317
+
+Indolence, M. M.'s, 312
+
+Inherited and acquired qualities, difference between, 33
+
+Inspiration and infallibility, 65, 66
+
+Institut de France, 186
+  -- M. M. made Member, 186, 187
+
+
+Jenkins, Dr., Master of Balliol, 250
+
+Jerusalem, Bishopric of, 293
+
+Jews at Dessau, 68, 70
+  -- their privileges in Germany, 70
+
+Johnson, Manuel, 286, 303
+  -- his art treasures, 303
+
+Jowett, Professor, 4, 6, 287
+
+
+Kaliwoda, 107
+
+Kant's "Kritik," 138
+
+Kaspar Hauser, 18
+
+Keshub Chunder Sen, 61
+
+Kingsley, Charles, 5
+  -- and muscular Christianity, 309
+
+Klengel, 147
+
+Kuhn, A., 154
+
+
+Lamartine, 177
+
+Language, influence of, 31
+  -- differentiation of, 31, 32, 33
+  -- science of, 198
+
+Lassen, 23
+
+Latham, Dr., 210
+
+Layard, 11, 205
+
+Leipzig, 15
+  -- school at, 97
+  -- University, 115
+
+Lepsius, 159
+
+Liberals at University, 117, 118
+
+Liddell, Dr., 238
+  -- and Mrs., 267
+
+Liddell's Dictionary, 99
+
+Liszt, 107-111
+
+London, 188
+  -- society, peeps into, 205
+  -- M. M.'s social difficulties, 206-208
+
+Longchamps, 167
+
+Lotze, 129, 136, 139, 287
+
+Louis Lucien Bonaparte, 214
+
+Louis Napoleon, 16
+
+Luther, 64
+  -- his love of fairy tales, 50, 51
+  -- tercentenary, 105
+
+
+Maitland, Sir Peregrine, 251
+
+Mammoth, 18
+
+Manning, 296
+
+Masters, influence of, in German and English schools, 77
+
+Maurice, Frederick, 205, 286
+  -- Pusey's attack on, 302
+
+Memory changes, 39
+
+Mendelssohn family, 33, 34
+
+Mendelssohn, Felix, 107, 110
+  -- his death, 110
+  -- his concert for Liszt, 110, 111
+
+Mendelssohn's "Hymn of Praise," 105
+  -- music in Oxford, 268
+
+Metternich, 72
+  -- his system, 117
+
+Mezzofanti, 30
+
+Michelet, 287
+
+Mill, John Stuart, 7, 14
+  -- his Autos, 7
+
+Mill, Dr., mention of a Vedic hymn printed at Calcutta, 192
+
+Milton on Oxford, 228
+
+Modern Literature, Professorship of, 12
+
+Mommsen, 186, 187
+
+Moncalm, "L'origine de la Pensee," 10 _n._
+
+Monk, M. M.'s wish to be a, 24
+
+Monument-raising, 47
+
+Morier, 275-279
+
+Mother, M. M.'s, 57-59
+  -- her relations, 54, 55
+
+Mozley, 287
+
+MSS., copying, 179
+
+Mulde, excursion on foot along the, 112
+
+Mueller, Wilhelm, 47, 48
+  -- his poems, 48
+  -- his family, 52, 53
+  -- his home and society, 55
+  -- early death, 56
+  -- monument to, 49
+Music, its influence on M. M., 67
+  -- wished to make it his career, 111
+
+"Mysteres de Paris," 174
+
+
+Natural Science and Mathematics little taught at Nicolai-Schule, 100
+
+Neander, 21, 22
+
+Newman, 286, 292-296
+  -- want of openness in his friends, 292, 296
+  -- his influence, 293
+  -- on "Lives of the Saints," 294, 295
+
+Newspapers few in number, 71
+  -- influence of modern, 72
+  -- old, 74
+
+Nicolai-Schule, 99
+  -- chiefly for classics, 99-101
+
+Niebuhr, 191, 289
+
+Niedner, Dr., 127, 137, 140
+
+Nirukta, the, 203
+
+Nobbe, Dr., 99
+  -- his testimonial, 105
+
+
+Old and young men, 36
+
+Oriental languages, 146
+
+Orleans, Duchesse d', 177
+
+Oxford, first visit to, 213
+  -- settled at, 220
+  -- social life at, 220, 221
+  -- changes in, 223-226
+  -- new buildings, 224, 225
+  -- conservative, 226
+  -- Greene's, 227
+  -- Hentzner's description of, 228
+  -- Giordano Bruno on, 228
+  -- Milton on, 228
+  -- society in 1810, 229-231
+  -- great changes in, 243, 244
+  -- society at, in the forties and fifties, 244, 245
+  -- city society of, 245, 246
+  -- high tone of talk, 284
+  -- theological atmosphere at, 286
+  -- trivial questions of ceremony in, 291, 292, 300, 301
+
+
+Palgrave, 274, 287
+
+Palm, Dr., 99
+
+Palmerston, Lord, 16, 217
+
+Panini, 182
+  -- his grammar, 204
+
+Pantschatantra, 51
+
+Paper, scarcity of, 67
+
+Parental influences, 27
+
+Paris, 15, 162
+
+Paris, journey to, 163, 164
+  -- meals there, 166
+  -- hard struggles in, 173, 283
+
+Patagonians as types of humanity, 88
+
+Peel, Sir Robert, 205
+
+Philanthropinum, 54, 76
+
+Philology, love of, 121
+
+Philosophy, studied by M. M., 129, 137, 146
+
+Physical science, revolt of, against Hegel, 135
+
+Pillar and pillow, 189
+
+"Pitar," father, 153
+
+Pitcairn Islands, 18
+
+Plumptre, Dr., 213, 215, 265
+
+Poems, M. M.'s, 104, 105
+
+Pollen, 287
+
+Pott, 151, 160
+
+Pranks at University, 119, 120
+
+"Presence of mind," 262
+
+Prichard, Dr., 211, 212, 221
+
+Professor's lectures and fees, 121, 122
+
+Professors, feeling of German students for their, 127
+
+Proto-Aryan language, 200
+
+Prowe, Professor, 116, 117
+
+Public schools in Germany, 98
+  -- -- in England need reforming, 242
+
+Pusey, Dr., 261, 299, 302
+
+
+Race, differentiation of, 35
+
+Rawlinson, Sir H., 205
+
+Reay, Professor, 260
+
+Reinaud, 186
+
+Religion, practical, 305, 306
+
+Religious feeling in Germany, 68
+  -- -- great tolerance in, 70, 71
+  -- sentiments must be taught at home, 62
+  -- teaching in school, 63
+
+Renan, 185, 186, 288, 289, 290, 305
+
+Research, fellowships for, 270
+
+Revelation, subjective not objective, 66
+  -- in the old sense, 288
+
+Rigaud, John, 287
+
+Rig-veda, how to publish the, 181, 182
+  -- printing of, 222
+
+Roman Catholic Church, English national feeling opposed to, 296, 297
+
+Rose-bush, vision of the, 43, 44
+
+Roth, 170, 171
+
+Routh, Dr., 247-249
+
+Rubens, Levy, 75
+
+Ruskin, 224
+
+Russell, Sir W., 37, 190
+
+
+Sadowa, and Sixty-six, 38
+
+St. Hilaire, Barthelemy, 170
+
+St. Petersburg, idea of going to, 181, 183
+
+Salis-Schwabe, Madame, 98
+
+Salmon at Dessau, 56, 57
+
+"Salve caput cruentatum," 59
+
+Sanskrit Professorship, vii, 12
+  -- chair of, at Leipzig, 147
+  -- feeling against, 147
+  -- unedited works, 204
+
+Savigny, Professor, 122
+
+Sayana's Commentary, 202-204
+
+Schelling, 156, 195, 287, 289
+
+Schlegel's "Weisheit der Indier," 146
+
+Schleswig-Holstein question, 276
+
+Schloezer, Karl von, 174, 176
+
+School teaching, 67, 68
+  -- success at, 104, 105
+  -- routine of learning, 120
+
+Schopenhauer, 289
+
+Selbst-Kritik, 6
+
+Self, the, 42
+
+Sellar, Professor, 273, 274
+
+Seminaries and societies at University, 123
+
+Senatus Academicus, 236, 237
+
+Shelley, 233
+
+Simolin, Baron, 55
+
+Sister, M. M.'s, 115, 116
+
+Spiegel, Professor, 147
+
+Sport, M. M.'s dislike of, 80
+
+Stanislas Julien, 185
+
+Stanley, Dr., 5, 41, 238, 286, 287, 302
+
+Steel pens, 67
+
+Stories in Oxford, regular descent of, 248
+
+Strauss, 21, 305
+
+Stubengelehrter, 308, 311
+
+Student Clubs, 116
+
+Student life in Paris, 184
+
+Sunday games at the Observatory, 298
+
+Sykes, Colonel, 16
+
+Symons, Dr., 239, 240, 251
+
+Sympathy in the joys and sufferings of others, 41, 42
+
+
+Tait, Dr., 238
+
+Talents in families, 33-35
+
+Taylorian Professorship, 22
+
+Telegraphs, old, 72
+
+Testimonials, 4
+
+Thalberg, 111
+
+Thirlwall, 205
+
+Thomson, Dr. and Mrs., 267, 268, 280, 281
+
+Tippoo Sahib's tiger, 215
+
+Travelling in the thirties, 111
+
+Troyer, M., and the Duchesse de Wagram, 184
+
+Truth, 312
+
+Turanian languages, M. M.'s letter on, 160, 161
+
+Tutors and Fellows, 236
+  -- -- their influence, 241, 268, 269
+
+
+University, M. M.'s life at, 115, 116
+  -- pranks, 119, 120
+  -- duels at, 119, 128-130
+
+University Press, 218, 219
+
+Upanishads, 169
+
+
+Van der Weyer, 205
+
+Veda, 9, 12-14, 148, 168
+
+Veda, a mystery, 191, 194
+  -- MSS. of, in India, 192
+  -- -- brought to Europe, 193
+  -- oldest of real books, 195
+  -- primitive thought in the, 195, 197-199
+  -- date of, 200
+  -- translations of, 201
+  -- East India Company and the, 201
+  -- forming correct text of the Rig-, 202
+  -- enormous work involved, 204
+
+Vedic scholarship, 193
+
+_Veih_, home, 153
+
+_Vernunft_ and _Verstand_, 143
+
+Vigfusson, Dr., 254
+
+Voltairian philosophy at Oxford, 307
+
+
+Weismann, 27-30
+
+Weisse, 129, 132-135, 139-142, 287
+
+Wellesley, Dr., 304
+
+Wellington, Duke of, 16, 40, 205
+
+Westminster Abbey and St. Peter's, 304
+
+Wilberforce, Samuel, 207, 208
+
+Wilson, Professor, 158, 159
+
+Wiseman, 296
+
+Wolf, F. A., 48
+
+Wolseley, Lord, 266
+
+Wren, Sir Christopher, 264
+
+Wright, Dr., 261, 262
+
+
+Youth painted by the old, 35, 36
+
+
+Zerbst, examined at, 106
+  -- M. M.'s examiners at, 106
+
+Zeus, Dyaus, 148, 149
+
+
+
+
+OTHER BOOKS BY MAX MUeLLER
+
+
+Auld Lang Syne
+
+_First Series._ Illustrated. 8vo, $2.00
+
+"This book, the fruit of enforced leisure, as its author tells us, is
+a charming mass of gossip about people whom Professor Max Mueller has
+known during his long career--musicians, literary men, princes, and
+beggars. The last class is not, perhaps, the least interesting or
+amusing. To our mind, however, the chapter on musicians, with its
+delightful pictures of the author's early life, and the naive
+confessions as to musical tastes, with some of the stories about
+celebrated composers, forms the most interesting portion of a work
+which has not one dull page."--_The Spectator._
+
+"One of the most charming examples of reminiscent literature that has
+recently seen the light."--New York _Sun_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Auld Lang Syne
+
+_Second Series._ =My Indian Friends.= 8vo, $2.00.
+
+"The professor's 'Indian Friends' are not all of the nineteenth
+century. His oldest friends are in the Veda, about which he has always
+loved to write. Indeed, he spent the best years of his life over the
+text of the Rig Veda, and has a clear right to be heard upon the
+classic he has done so much to make familiar.... But the real charm of
+his recollections lies rather in their peaceful kindliness, in their
+wide and tolerant sympathies, and in their earnest aim, which will
+surely be attained in some measure, of bringing what is best in India
+closer home to foreigners."--_Literature._
+
+
+Science of Language
+
+Founded on Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution. _New Edition
+from New Plates. Largely Re-written._ In 2 vols., crown 8vo, $6.00.
+
+_CONTENTS:--Vol. I.--The Science of Language one of the Physical
+Sciences; The Growth of Language in Contradistinction to the History
+of Language; The Empirical Stage in the Science of Language; The
+Classificatory Stage in the Science of Language; The Genealogical
+Classification of Languages; Comparative Grammar; The Constituent
+Elements of Language; The Morphological Classification of Languages;
+The Theoretical Stage in the Science of Language--Origin of Language;
+Genealogical Tables of Languages._
+
+_CONTENTS:--Vol. II.--Introductory Lecture. New Materials for the
+Science of Language and New Theories; Language and Reason; The
+Physiological Alphabet; Phonetic Change; Grimm's Law; On the
+Principles of Etymology; On the Powers of Roots; Metaphor; The
+Mythology of the Greeks; Jupiter, The Supreme Aryan God; Myths of the
+Dawn; Modern Mythology._
+
+"In practical value to the student of the science of language, the
+work stands alone."--Boston _Transcript_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Ramakrishna
+
+=His Life and Sayings.= Crown 8vo, $1.50 _net_.
+
+"As a whole the little book marks one of the summit points of recent
+scientific religious literature. Max Mueller'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 teaching."--_American Historical
+Review._
+
+
+Science of Thought
+
+_Two Volumes._ Crown 8vo, $4.00.
+
+"Of the portion of the work in which the author exemplifies and
+illustrates his theory--his analysis of the Sanskrit roots, his
+chapters on Kant's philosophy, on the formation of words, on
+propositions and syllogisms--it is only necessary to say that while
+they contain, along with much that will reward a careful study, not a
+little that will arouse controversy, they have, like all the author's
+former productions, the prime merit of being free from the two
+greatest of literary faults--obscurity and dulness. A work in which
+two of the driest and hardest of studies, analytic philology and
+mental philosophy, are made at once lucid and attractive, is an
+acquisition for which all students of those mysteries have reason to
+be grateful."--New York _Evening Post_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Science of Religion
+
+=Lectures on the Science of Religion=; with Papers on Buddhism, and a
+Translation of the Dhammapada, or Path of Virtue. Crown 8vo, $2.00.
+
+_CONTENTS:--LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION; BUDDHIST NIHILISM;
+BUDDHA'S DHAMMAPADA, OR "PATH OF VIRTUE"; Introduction; The
+Twin-Verses; On Reflection; Thought; Flowers; The Fool; The Wise Man;
+The Venerable; The Thousands; Evil; Punishment; Old Age; Self; The
+World; The Awakened (Buddha); Happiness; Pleasure; Anger; Impurity;
+The Just; The Way; Miscellaneous; The Downward Course; The Elephant;
+Thirst; The Bhikshu (Mendicant); The Brahmana._
+
+
+Chips from a German Workshop
+
+_Five Volumes._ Crown 8vo, $2.00 per vol.; the set, $10.00.
+
+Vol. I. Essays on the Science of Religion.
+
+Vol. II. Essays on Mythology, Traditions and Customs.
+
+Vol. III. Essays on Literature, Biography and Antiquities.
+
+Vol. IV. Comparative Philology, Mythology, etc.
+
+Vol. V. Miscellaneous. Later Essays.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+=Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion=, as Illustrated by the
+Religions of India. [_Hibbert Lectures for 1878._] Crown 8vo, $1.50
+_net_.
+
+=Biographical Essays=: Rammohun Roy--Keshub Chunder Sen--Dayananda
+Sarasvati--Bunyiu Nanjio--Kenjiu Kasawara--Mohl--Kingsley. Crown 8vo,
+$2.00.
+
+=The German Classics.= From the Fourth to the Nineteenth Century. With
+biographical notices, translations into modern German and notes. _A
+New Edition, Revised, Enlarged and Adapted to_ SHERER'S "History of
+German Literature." 2 vols, $6.00 _net_.
+
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, _Publishers_
+
+153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Autobiography, by F. Max Mueller
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ***
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