terature in
the "Westminster Review" might have just _read_ my book: this he cannot
have done, or else he is a thorough bungler; for he (1) understands me
only as representing the personal God (apparently the one in the clouds,
as you once expressed it, _a-straddle_, riding) and leaving out everything
besides; (2) that the last twenty-seven chapters of the book of Isaiah are
not, as one has hitherto conceived, written by one man, but by Jeremiah,
although he is already the glorified saint of the 53d chapter, _and_ by
Baruch. Now thank God that the sheet is finished, and think occasionally
in a friendly way of your true friend.

I shall to-day finish the ante-Solonic God-Consciousness of the Hellenes.
That does one good.

[78.]

CHARLOTTENBERG, _Friday, May 8, 1857_.

I must at least begin a letter to you to-day, because I feel I must thank
you, and express my delight at the letter and article. The _letter_
confirms my fears in the highest degree, namely, that _you are not well_,
not to say that you begin to be a hypochondriacal old bachelor. But that
is such a natural consequence of your retired sulky Don's life, and of
your spleen, that I can only wonder how you can fight so bravely against
it. But both letter and article show me how vigorous are both your mind
and heart. It is quite right in you to defend Froude, though no one better
knows that the general opinion is (as is even acknowledged by members of
the German romantic school) that Shakespeare intentionally counteracted
the corrupt instinct and depraved taste of his nation in the matter of
Oldcastle. Whatever strange saints there have been in all countries, yet
the Wycliffites, true to their great and noble master, were martyrs, and
Milman has insisted on this most nobly. To misapprehend Wyeliffe himself,
that is, not to recognize him as the first and purest reformer, the man
between the Waldenses, Tauler, and Luther, is, however, a heresy more
worthy of condemnation than the ignoring of Germany in the Reformation,
and doubly deplorable when one sees such blind faith in the bloody
sentences of that most miserable court of judgment of Henry VIII. I must
therefore invert your formula thus, "L'histoire romanique (romantique) ne
vaut pas le Roman historique." (I am not speaking of "Two Years Ago," for
I only began to read the book yesterday.) _But_ I am very glad that you
think so highly of Froude personally, and therefore this matter does not
disturb me.