tingen and Bonn, as also with Bethman-Hollweg, Camphausen, and others.
I see and feel the misery of our people far more deeply than I expected,
only I find more comfort than I hoped in the sympathy of my
contemporaries, who willingly give me a place among themselves.

A proposal to enter the Upper House (of which, however, I do not care to
speak) I could of course only refuse, with many thanks. I have finished my
"Egypt," Volume. IV., with Boetticher, and sent it for press for the 1st
January.

As an intermezzo, I have begun a specimen for a work suggested to me in a
wonderful manner from England, America, and Germany (particularly by Ewald
and Luecke),--a real Bible for the people, that is, a sensible and sensibly
printed text, with a popular statement of the results of the
investigations of historical criticism, and whatever the spirit may
inspire besides.

I am now working from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Baruch, where, beyond all
expectation, I found new light on the road I was treading.

We live in the happiest retirement. Your visit, and that of your mother,
of whom we all became very fond, was a great delight to us, though a short
one. Fanny and I have a plan to greet her at Christmas by a short letter.
Now write me word how it fares with you.

[64.]

CHARLOTTENBERG, BADEN, _January 11, 1855._

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I think you will not have misunderstood my silence since
your last letter. Your heart will have told you that no news could be
pleasanter to me than that you would undertake to bring the last sevenfold
child of my English love into public notice. This can of course only be
during the Parliamentary recess. You know better than any one what is the
unity of the seven volumes, and what is the aim and result. Your own is a
certainly not unimportant, and an independent part of it. But you have
with old affection worked yourself and thought yourself into the whole,
even where the particulars were of less interest to you. Lastly, as you
have told me to my delight, Jowett has begun to interest himself in the
work, and you have therefore one near at hand who, from one point of view,
can help you as reflecting English opinion. Ewald told me that I had
wished to give a Cosmos of the mind in that work. At all events, this idea
has floated before me for many years, and is expressed in the Preface to
the "God Consciousness." Only it is not more than _a study_ for that which
floats before me. My two next volumes wi