Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Nov. 1845.
Please to tell Mr. Hennell that "habits of thought" is not a translation of the word particularismus. This does not mean national idiosyncrasy, but is a word which characterizes that idiosyncrasy. If he decidedly objects to particularism, ask him to be so good as substitute exclusiveness, though there is a shade of meaning in particularismus which even that does not express. It was because the word could only be translated by a circumlocution that I ventured to Anglicize it.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Tuesday morning, Dec. (?) 1845.
I have been idle, and have not done a stroke to the prefaces, but they shall be sent as soon as possible. Thanks for the copy of the Latin preface and letter. They are in preconceived harmony with my ideas of the appropriate.
I will leave the titlepage to you and Mr. Hennell. Thanks for the news in your last extra Blatt. I am glad to find that the theological organs are beginning to deal with philosophy, but I can hardly imagine your writer to be a friend with a false cognizance on his shield. These dear orthodox people talk so simply sometimes that one cannot help fancying them satirists of their own doctrines and fears, though they mean manfully to fight against the enemy. I should like if possible to throw the emphasis on critically in the titlepage. Strauss means it to be so: and yet I do not know how we can put anything better than what you say.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, Dec. 1845.
I send you to-day the conclusion of the chapter you are reading, and, unless you find anything of importance to be rectified, you need not return this to me, but may forward the whole to the printer as soon as you have read it. I am not altogether satisfied with the use of the word sacrament as applied specifically to the Abendmahl. It seems like a vulgarism to say the sacrament for one thing, and for another it does not seem aboriginal enough in the life of Jesus; but I know of no other word that can be substituted. I have altered passover to paschal mealtho pascha, but τὸ πάσχα is used in the New Testament of the eating of the lamb par excellence. You remember, in the title of the first section in the Schluss—which I had been so careless as to omit—the expression is "Nothwendiger Uebergang der Kritik in das Dogma." Now, dogmatism will not do, as that would represent Dogmatismus. "Dogmatik" is the idea, I believe—i.e., positive theology. Is it allowable to say dogmatics, think you? I do not understand how the want of manuscript can be so pressing, as I have only had one proof for the last fortnight. It seems quite dispiriting to me now not to see the proofs regularly. I have had a miserable week of headache, but am better now, and ready for work, to which I must go.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 1st Jan. 1846.
I do pity you, with the drunken Christmas workmen keeping you in this uncomfortable interregnum. But do not go distraught; the spring will really come and the birds—many having had to fly across the Atlantic, which is farther than you have to go to establish yourself. I could easily give the meaning of the Hebrew word in question, as I know where to borrow a lexicon. But observe, there are two Hebrew words untranslated in this proof. I do not think it will do to give the English in one place and not in another, where there is no reason for such a distinction, and there is not here, for the note in this proof sounds just as fee-fo-fum-ish as the other without any translation. I could not alter the "troublesome," because it is the nearest usable adjective for schwierig, which stands in the German. I am tired of inevitable importants, and cannot bear to put them when they do not represent the German.
Letter to Miss Sara Hennell, 26th Jan. 1846.