enormously great, that it does not in the least
matter whether the proof can be _thoroughly_ given in all its details. I
have therefore in my need thought of Roediger, and have sent a letter to
him, of which I inclose a copy. You will see from it that I hold fast to
your friendly promise, to stand by me in the matter of Iran. What I said
on the certainty and satisfactory completeness of the tools contained in
my English edition, is, I am firmly convinced, not too strong. Still, I do
not mean to say that a comparison with rich results might not be
instituted between such Coptic _roots_ (I do not admit it of the
grammatical _forms_) as have not yet been rediscovered among the
hieroglyphics and the ancient Asiatic: some of them may be found again in
ancient Egyptian, almost unformed and not yet ground down; but that is
mere pedantry in most cases. We have enough in what lies before us in the
oldest form in attested documents, to show us the right formula for the
equation.

And now for a few words about my family, which is so truly attached to
you, and watches your success with real affection. But no, I have
something else to say first on the Niebelungen. Your delightful letter
awoke a thought which has often crossed my mind, namely, that it does not
appear to me that the historical and early national element, which is but
thinly veiled under the poetical matter, has ever been sufficiently
searched out and distinguished. Grimm hates the historical elements which
lie beyond his "Beginnings of Nations," and my late dear friend Lachmann
occupied himself with them most unwillingly. When, in 1825, I wrote that
little treatise in French for Chateaubriand, which he printed in his
"Melanges," I went over what had been said on this point, as far as it
concerned me, and I was surprised to see how little had been done in it.
Since that time I have heard of no investigations of the kind. But who can
now believe that the mention of Gunther and the Burgundians is the one
isolated historical fact in the poem? Is it not evident, for instance,
that the myth of the contemporaneousness of Attila and the great Theodoric
of the Ostrogoths has its historical root in the fact that _Theodoric,
King of the Visigoths_, fell in the great battle of Chalons, 451, fighting
against Attila; but his son Thorismund, to revenge his father's death,
defeated the barbarians in a last assault, and gained the victory, on
which the Franks pursued the Huns even acr