"Ĉu la afero estas ebla?" mi demandis. "Netaŭge kian lingvon oni elektos. Mi bezonas vian aŭtoritaton por silentigi tiujn kiuj kredas ke la propono nur estas ĥimera."
"Nu," li respondis, "vi devas demandi tion de pli junaj kritikistoj ol mi. Vi scias ke mi jam skribis mian kredon ke Esperanto estas la plej bona sistemo ĝis nun elpensita; mi ne povas diri plu." Mi petegis, eble iom supermezure, sed sensukcese.
Sed, kiam mi estis forironta el lia gastama domo, li redonis al mi albumeton (baptopatran donacon de Mendelssohn), en kiu mi petis ke li skribu sian nomon, kaj mi legis—"Ĉu universala lingvo estas ebla? Jes.—M.M."
WHAT MAX MÜLLER SAID.
I wonder whether the columns of The Esperantist are disposed freely to admit that ever-present personal pronoun, "I." I am perhaps bold in introducing it, but I cannot help thinking that a new language must have to put up with some of the inconveniences, at least, that all old languages have had to tolerate.
What I have to relate is but a little personal souvenir, but it is connected with the name of a great linguist, and an authority well worth quoting.
I was in Venice, not standing between a palace and a prison, but gliding along the canals of the fairy city in a gondola, as every mortal should if he desires to realise that life is worth living. I was reading an article, "Reminiscences," by Max Müller, which delighted me so that the first thing I did on returning home was to write to him, somewhat on these lines—
"I am a stranger to you, and if I don’t write on the spur of the moment, I should not venture to do so at all. Yet surely we ought to know one another. You, a godson of Max Maria von Weber, and I a godson of Felix Mendelssohn! You learnt your Latin and Greek in Leipzig, and so did I; only you went to the Nicolai-Schule and I to the Thomas-Schule, which accounts for the difference in the result. But we must have eaten our schoolboy apples from the same old woman’s basket in the Grimmaische Strasse, etc., etc."
Well, Max Müller answered in the kindest spirit. He had heard my father play with Mendelssohn, and he had seen a picture of mine, so we were not strangers. Would I come to Oxford on my return to England and be his guest.
Some months later I went, and spent several days at his house. There was a unique opportunity of fully ascertaining his views on the adoption of a universal language.