syncrasy strengthens itself, and buries itself in coteries.
Unfortunately I have neither read "Indophilus" nor "Philindus:" please
tell me the numbers of the "Times." I can get a copy of the "Times" here
from the library from month to month. Trevelyan is an excellent man,
occasionally unpractical and mistaken, always meaning well and accessible
to reason. But does any one _study_ in London? _Dubito!_ But I don't
understand the plan of an Oriental College. Perhaps it is possible to
undertake London without giving up Oxford entirely. The power of
influencing the young men, who after ten or twenty years will govern the
land, is far greater in Oxford or Cambridge than in London. I am curious
about your "German Reading Book."

I maintain one thing,--you are not happy; and that comes from your bachelor
life. The progress of your Vedic work delights me: but how much in it is
still a riddle! Thus, for instance, the long hymn (2 Ash_t_aka, third
Adhyaya, Sukta viii. CLXIV.) p. 125. The hymn is first of all, as can be
proved, beyond verse 41 _not genuine_; but even this older portion is
late, surely already composed on the Sarasvati. The Veda is already a
finished book (verse 39), Brahma and Vish_n_u are gods (35, 36). The whole
is really wearisome, because it wishes to be mysterious without an idea.
(See 4 Ash_t_aka, seventh Adhyaya, vol. iii. p. 463.) Is not Brahma there
a god like Indra?

I depend on your marking all egregious blunders with a red pencil. Many
such must still have remained, leaving out of view all differences of
opinion. Tell me as much as you can on this point in a letter, for on the
Continent only notes for press are allowed to go as a packet. (But of
these you can bring in as much as you wish: the copy is a duplicate.) At
the end I should much like to write something about the present
impossibility of enjoying the Rig-Veda, and of the necessity of a
spiritual key. But I do not quite know, first of all, whether one can
really enter upon the whole: there is much that is conventional and mortal
by the side of what is imperishable. An anthology in about two or three
volumes would find a rapid sale, and would only benefit a more learned and
perfect edition. If you have arrived at the same conclusion, _I will blow
the trumpet_.

George greets you heartily, as do his mother and sisters. Perhaps I shall
move in April, 1859, to Bonn; _here_ I shall _not_ stay. _Deus
providebit._ With truest affection, yours.

Bes