What is Aufrecht about? But above all, how are you yourself? God preserve you. My family greet you. Heartily yours in old affection.
[65.]
It was, my dear friend, in expectation of the inclosed that I did not sooner return an answer and my thanks for your affectionate and detailed letter. I wish you would take advantage of my communication to put yourself in correspondence with Benfey. He is well disposed towards you, and has openly spoken of you as “the apostle of German science in England.”
And then he stands infinitely higher than the present learned men of his department. He would also be very glad if you would offer yourself to him for communications suitable for his Oriental Journal from England, to which he always has an eye. (Keep this copy, perhaps Jowett may read it.) Humboldt's letter says in reality two things:—
1. He does not approve of the sharply defined difference between nomadic and agricultural languages; the occupations may change, yet the language remains the same as before. That is against you. The good old man does not consider that the language will or can become another without perishing in the root.
2. He does not agree in opposing one language to all others as inorganic. This is against me. But first, this one language is still almost the half of the human race, and secondly, I have said nothing which his brother has not said as strongly. It is only said as a sign of life, and that “my praise and my admiration may appear honest.”
In the fifth volume of my “Egypt” I call the languages sentence-languages and word-languages; that is without metaphor, and cannot be misunderstood. The distinction itself is right. For organic is (as Kant has already defined it) an unity in parts. A granite mountain is not more thoroughly granite than a square inch of granite, but a man without hands or head is no man.
I am delighted to hear that your Veda gets on. If you would only not allow yourself to be frightened from the attempt to let others work for you in mere handicraft. Even young men have not time for everything. You have now fixed your impress on the work, and any one with the will and with the necessary knowledge of the tools, could not go far wrong under your eye. I should so like to see you free for other work. Only do not leave Oxford. Spartam quam nactus es orna. You would not like Germany, and Germany could offer you no sphere of activity that could be compared ever so distantly with your present position. I have often said to you, Nature and England will not allow themselves to be changed from without, and therein consists exactly their worth in the divine plan of development; but they often alter themselves rapidly from within. Besides, the reform is gone too far to be smothered. Just now the Dons and other Philisters can do what they like, for the people has its eyes on other things. But the war makes the classes who are pressing forwards more powerful than ever.
The old method of government is bankrupt forever. So do not be low-spirited, my dear M., or impatient. It is not so much the fault of England, as of yourself, that you do not feel settled and at home. You have now as good a position as a young man of intellect, and with a future before him, could possibly have anywhere, either in England or in Germany. Make a home for yourself. Since I saw your remarkable mother, I have been convinced that, unlike most mothers, she would not stand in the way of your domestic happiness, even were it contrary to her own views, but that she must be the best addition to your household for any wife who was worthy of you. Oxford is London, and better than London; and London is the world, and is German. How gladly would Pauli, that honest, noble German soul, stay, if he had but an occupation. The subjection of the mind by the government here becomes more vexatious, more apparent, more diabolical. One form of tyranny is that of Augustus, the more thorough, because so sly. They will not succeed in the end, but meanwhile it is horrible to witness. More firmly than ever I settle myself down here in Heidelberg, and will take the whole house, and say, “You must leave me my cottage standing, and my hearth, whose glow you envy me.” We are now on the point of binding ourselves, without binding ourselves; and the prudent man in P(aris) pretends not to observe it—just like the devil, when a soul is making some additional conditions.
Still, it is possible that the desire to aid in the councils of Vienna at any price may carry us so far that we may join in the march against Poland and Finland. After all, the rivers flow according to the laws of gravitation.