Of course I have received neither. But I have sent to Mohl through his niece, to beg he would send the said letter to you, and you would inform me of the particulars. I hope you have already received it. If not, see about it, for we must not lose sight of the man.
The copy of the “Outlines” must now be in his hands. These “Outlines,” the child of our common toil, begin now to be known in Germany. Ewald has already taken a delight in them; he will review them. Meyer is quite enchanted with your Turanians, but would gladly, like many others, know something more of the Basques. For me it is a great event, having made a friendship for life and an alliance with Ewald, over Isaiah's
“No peace with the wicked;”
and on still higher grounds. Those were delightful days which I spent in Göttingen and Bonn, as also with Bethman-Hollweg, Camphausen, and others. I see and feel the misery of our people far more deeply than I expected, only I find more comfort than I hoped in the sympathy of my contemporaries, who willingly give me a place among themselves.
A proposal to enter the Upper House (of which, however, I do not care to speak) I could of course only refuse, with many thanks. I have finished my “Egypt,” Volume. IV., with Bötticher, and sent it for press for the 1st January.
As an intermezzo, I have begun a specimen for a work suggested to me in a wonderful manner from England, America, and Germany (particularly by Ewald and Lücke),—a real Bible for the people, that is, a sensible and sensibly printed text, with a popular statement of the results of the investigations of historical criticism, and whatever the spirit may inspire besides.
I am now working from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Baruch, where, beyond all expectation, I found new light on the road I was treading.
We live in the happiest retirement. Your visit, and that of your mother, of whom we all became very fond, was a great delight to us, though a short one. Fanny and I have a plan to greet her at Christmas by a short letter. Now write me word how it fares with you.
[64.]
My dear Friend,—I think you will not have misunderstood my silence since your last letter. Your heart will have told you that no news could be pleasanter to me than that you would undertake to bring the last sevenfold child of my English love into public notice. This can of course only be during the Parliamentary recess. You know better than any one what is the unity of the seven volumes, and what is the aim and result. Your own is a certainly not unimportant, and an independent part of it. But you have with old affection worked yourself and thought yourself into the whole, even where the particulars were of less interest to you. Lastly, as you have told me to my delight, Jowett has begun to interest himself in the work, and you have therefore one near at hand who, from one point of view, can help you as reflecting English opinion. Ewald told me that I had wished to give a Cosmos of the mind in that work. At all events, this idea has floated before me for many years, and is expressed in the Preface to the “God Consciousness.” Only it is not more than a study for that which floats before me. My two next volumes will give more of it. If I only knew what to do with the work for Germany! My [pg 445] task was arranged for England. It seemed to me important, under the guidance of the rediscovered Hippolytus, whose form first rose clearly before me during the first work, to show the organic development of the leading ideas of Christendom in the teachers and heroes, beginning from the first Pentecostal feast; in order to sift the ground, and show to my readers—