My Autobiography Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: F. MAX MuLLER _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 Sch.e.l.ling. 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 gla.s.s, and added very little that was new. He lent me some ma.n.u.scripts 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 pa.s.sages. 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sages 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 a.s.sistance 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 cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sical 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sailed 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 pa.s.s; 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sport 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers 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 n.o.body 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 princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nt 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 pa.s.sed, 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 La.s.sen. 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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.serted 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 cla.s.s 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.

Goldstucker, 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 finis.h.i.+ng up by saying that he became a priest so as to put an end for ever to his pa.s.sion. 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 pa.s.sed 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. Goldstucker were both strenuous Sanskrit scholars. Both owed much to Burnouf, Roth even more than Goldstucker, 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 circ.u.mstance we are.

With Goldstucker 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 fur 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 Amba.s.sador 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. Bismarck knew that Schloezer could wield a sharp pen, and there was a time when he was sensitive to such pen-p.r.i.c.ks. 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 a.s.sured me that there would be no revolution, because n.o.body 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 d.u.c.h.esse 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 d.u.c.h.esse 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 d.u.c.h.esse 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 grat.i.tude to him. He was of the greatest a.s.sistance 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 cla.s.sical 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 publis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sistance.

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 Goldstucker 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 a.s.sistant 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 Muller 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, ent.i.tled _F. Max Muller 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 ill.u.s.trious 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.