Chapter VI Conclusion
The allusion in the foregoing page is to a very long letter which the Horseherd wrote to my husband, dated September 10, 1897, eighteen months after his first letter. This was followed three days later by a short note, saying that the long letter was not written for publication, and that it was the Horseherd’s express wish that it should not be printed. In this note he mentions that he was perfectly well, and that he had been so successful in his trade, that he no longer sat with an oil lamp by an iron stove, but was “every inch a gentleman,” as he expressed it. The Pferdebürla was brought out early in 1899, and my husband sent a copy to the only address he had,—“Pferdebürla, Post-Office, Pittsburgh,”—with the following letter:—
“(Translation.) 7 Norham Gardens, Feb. 10 /99.
Dear far-off Friend:
“You see I have kept my promise, and after many delays the book is ready. How are you? whether you are sitting by your iron and oil light, or have become a great and rich man. Well, all that is only external, the great thing, the Self, remains unchanged. I am growing old—past seventy-five—and have still so much to do, and am now printing a big book, the Six Systems of Indian Philosophy. That would please you, for those old fellows saw deeper than our philosophers, though they don’t talk so much about it. Now write and tell me how it is with you, and whether you are pleased or not with your and my book. But make haste, for who knows how long it may last. It is strange how well one can know those whom one has never seen,”
With all good wishes,
F. Max Müller.”
The book and letter were returned as unclaimed after three months. But on September 29, 1899, the Horseherd wrote again, giving his real name, Fritz Menzel, and the address Monangahela Hotel, Pittsburgh. This letter I have been unable to find. On October 17, 1899, I wrote by my husband’s desire.
“Dear Sir: My husband, who is seriously ill, wishes me to send you this letter from him, written last February and returned late in April, and to say, as he has now received your letter of September 29, with your real name and address, he is sending you the copy of his book, Das Pferdebürla, which was also returned to him.”
After a few months both letter and book came back unclaimed, and from that time nothing more has been heard from the Horseherd. The book bears the inscription:—
“To the Pferdebürla, with greetings from his Pardner.”
A few words must be said about the translation. In August, 1898, a translation of the first article on Celsus, made by Mr. O. A. Fechter of North Yakima, Washington, U.S.A., was sent to my husband by an old friend, Mrs. Bartlett, wife of the Rev. H. M. Bartlett, rector of the church in the same place. He liked it and returned it at once, begging that the other articles, which had appeared in the Deutsche Rundschau, though not yet published as a book, might be translated. For more than two years nothing was heard from North Yakima, though I wrote more than once during my husband’s illness, so anxious was he to see the translation carried out. At length, just before Christmas, 1901, I wrote once more and registered the letter, which was safely delivered, and I then heard that my friend had not only written repeatedly, but that the whole finished translation had been sent, nearly two years before, and that she was astonished at hearing nothing further. Some fault in the post-office had caused the long silence on both sides. A rough copy of the translation had been kept, and was sent over after it had been clearly written out.
I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to the Rev. J. Estlin Carpenter, who has revised the whole work in the most thorough manner, devoting to it much of his very valuable time.
Georgina Max Müller
Footnotes
1 The Greek term “logos” was rendered Geschichte in the German title.
2 The word Pferdebürla is apparently a Silesian equivalent for Pferdebursche, and is represented in this volume by the term “horseherd,” after the analogy of cowherd, swineherd, or shepherd. The termination bürla is probably a local corruption of the diminutive bürschel or bürschlein.
3 “What difference does it make,” he would ask, “whether it was written by the son of Zebedee, or some other John, if only it reveals to us the Son of God?” (letter from the Vicar of St. Giles’s, Oxford, Life and Letters, II, Chap. xxxvi.).
4 See the letters between Max Müller and Dr. G. J. Romanes, Life and Letters, II, Chap. xxxi.
5 Ueber die Wahre Geschichte des Celsus.
6 Contra Celsum, I, 8.
7 Contra Celsum, I, 63.
8 Luke v. 8.
9 1 Tim. i. 15.
10 Tit. iii. 3.
11 Miss Swanwick’s translation.
12 κόσμος νοητός, ἀόρατος.
13 κόσμος ἰδεῶν.
14 ἰδέα τῶν ἰδεῶν.
15 παραδεἰγματα.
16 Philo, vol. I, p. 106.
17 τιθήνη.
18 De Ebriet., VIII, 1, 361 f.
19 υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ.
20 μονογενής.
21 πρωτόγονος.
22 σοφία = θεοῦ λόγος.
23 πρεσβύτερος υἱὸς.
24 νεώτερος υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ.
25 δυνάμεις.
26 M. M., Theosophy and Psychological Religion, p. 406.
27 Lücke, Commentary on the Gospel of John.
28 M. M., Theosophy and Psychological Religion, p. 383.
29 M. M., Theosophy, p. 404.
30 See the Deutsche Rundschau, 1895, XXXIII, p. 47.
31 μονογενής υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ.
32 Ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγέιετο.
33 λόγος τῆς ζοῆς.
34 The original was, however, in German.
35 Deutsche Rundschau, 1895, LXXXII, 409 ff., “The Parliament of Religions in Chicago,” by F. Max Müller.
36 See Prof. Dr. Paul Flechsig, Neue Untersuchungen über die Markbildung in den menschlichen Gehirnlappen, p. 67.
37 These pronouns, referring of course to England and the Continent, were reversed in the original.
38 Academy, January 2, 1897, p. 12.
39 Ascent of Man, p. 187.
40 Origin of Species, 5th ed., 1869, p. 255.
41 Descent of Man, 1871, Vol. I, p. 36.
42 Ascent of Man, 1894, p. 9.
43 Vol. XVIII, p. 464.
44 Lloyd Morgan, Animal Life and Intelligence, p. 350.
45 H. Drummond, Ascent of Man, 1894, p. 169.
46 See Science of Thought, p. 405.
47 See the author’s preface to his English translation (second edition) of Kant’s Critic of Pure Reason, p. xxviii, to which we now add the prophetic words of Shelley, in his Prometheus Unbound (II, 4):—
“He gave man speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the Universe.”
48 Ascent of Man, 1894, p. 200.
49 Science of Language, 1891, p. 499.
50 Cf. Biographies of Words, by M. M., 1888.
51 This must of course be understood of authoritative or canonical Scripture.—ed. J. E. C.