Chapter 2
LIFE, LOVE AND DEATH
From all the accounts that Max Muller gave of his intellectual aims, methods and work it could be seen that he was less a scholar m the strict sense of the word than an intellectual, and the difference is basic It is that which distinguishes a painter or sculptor from a craftsman What then is an intellectual ? An intellectual is a man or woman who applies his intellectual faculties to understanding and interpreting the world around him in any or all its aspects As a result of study, observation or experiment, he formulates conclusions which he believes to be true and communicates his ideas to his fellow-men with a view to influencing their minds, lives and actions
But within this definition, broadly speaking, intellectuals fall into two classes The first type is des cerebrauxpur sang , and the second, those whose intellectual activity is driven by an emotional motive power, principally love, but at times even by its opposite, hatred ‘Great thoughts come from the heart,’ said Vauvenargues, and even impersonal scientific thought dealing with the world of matter does not furnish any exception Pasteur’s scientific researches were inspired by compassion
Max Muller belonged to this type, just as his respected and elder contemporary, Darwin, belonged to the other type Muller was naturally endowed with an immense zest for life, and also with an overmastering impulse to love He believed the two to be connected m some way, and at the very end of his life wrote to his son*
You certainly have grown older and more serious — no wonder, considering what you have had to go through You’ll understand now my old motto, Das Leben tst ernst [Life is earnest], though that does not prevent us from enjoying what can be enjoyed I hope you would grow very fond of somebody or something — that is after all the secret of enjoying life, call it a hobby or some passion, even a passion for statistics or something of the kind, but a passion, Otherwise, life becomes humdrum Dressing and washing in the morning and undressing at night — one gets so tired of it
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What suffering Max Muller inflicted on himself by falling in love at first sight has already been described But when at last he got married he could have been expected to live happily ever afterwards He could not and did not, however, for love brings the idea of death ever near to life, and even when it is not expected it seems to lie in ambush everywhere
‘All men are under a sentence of death, with indefinite reprieves 5 , said Victor Hugo As a rule, however, men are able to forget that this sentence is the most certain thing in life The spectacle of death always carries this anaesthetic with it There is nothing wrong in this reaction so long as men live and die like animals, which basically they are But it becomes contemptible when it is aired as a superior moral attitude
As soon as man became conscious of his existence and capable of evaluating it, he also felt that living was meamngless unless he could reconcile it with death One of the oldest and most sublime of the Hindu religious utterances is that which says ‘What should I do with anything which does not make me indestructible ^ The answer given so far has been an amazing illusion, belief in the continuation of individual life after death
This consolation has been enough in most circumstances, for basically men live on by virtue of a biological impulse But when one human being has loved another so much that he or she has ceased to be self-reliant in living, the death of the loved one mortally wounds that biological urge to live And that wound is most grievous when a child dies, for here two biological forces clash, the one which makes us clmg to our own life and the other which makes us love our children When this happens even the strong and the brave can only limp through life They are never able to recover their faith in earthly life Even when they have an unwavering faith in an afterlife, they cannot explain why they should have received this blow
This terrible calamity of living on, crippled by death, befell Max Muller when he lost his eldest daughter in 1876 when she was only sixteen years old In her biography Mrs Max Muller wrote ‘He never entirely recovered from this loss the spring, the joy of life was gone He suffered severely, and it was months before he could at all rouse himself and take up work again 5 But she did not describe what his suffering really was He set that down in a diary, kept over seven years on 486 folios To read this volume among the papers left by Max Muller is a harrowing experience
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However, he was familiar with the idea of death from his childhood on account of the early death of his father After that he also saw many relatives die, and on many occasions recorded his thoughts and feelings about death More intimately the idea of death came home to him when a year after his marriage his wife lay very near to death for some days after the birth of her first child On December 20 the child was born, and for two days the doctors were without any hope of saving the mother Even before this she was very unwell, causing Muller very great anxiety So on December 10 he wrote to Miss Grenfell Tf anything should happen to her now, our Christmas will be a very sad time ? I try to keep up my spirits, but it is hard work yet I feel that suffering with her is worth more than all the happiness of the world with others I pray to God that it may all pass over, but if it must be, we both feel that it is meant as a wholesome trial, and that we must thank God for what He gives and what He takes from us *
He described his state of mind when his wife was sufficiently recovered, and wrote on February 6, 1861 .
Darling baby I hardly dare to call her ours as yet, and yet what can we call ours if God did not vouchsafe it to us from day to day ? And yet it is so difficult to give oneself up entirely to Him, to trust everything to His Love and Wisdom I thought I could say ‘Thy will be done*, but when you were so ill I found I could not — my own will struggled against His will — I prayed as we ought not to pray — and yet He heard me My darling, it is so difficult not to grow very fond of this life and all its happiness — but the more we love it, the more we suffer, for we know we must leave it and it must all pass away Does love pass away, too ? I cannot believe it
Some months later he also wrote to Palgrave about his rebellious mood Palgrave’s father had died, and he wrote.
I know from experience that in the presence of great grief I have nothing to say, and for a loss like yours there is no comfort till we can say by
ourselves, ‘Thy will be done I * * * 5 . I remember but one time in my whole
life when I could not say that . when my wife, whom I had loved for
six years without the faintest hope of ever calling her my wife, when she, after one year of a blessed life, was for two days given up as hopeless by the doctors, then I broke down, and I could not say, ‘Thy will
be done*.
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Whenever Max Muller heard of the death of someone who was a friend or relative, and more especially when parents lost a child, he tried, in offering his consolation, to understand or rather come to terms with death But he could only fall back on faith So, when he heard of the death of his sister Auguste’s little son, who was his godson, he wrote to his mother
Sorrow is necessary and good for men , one learns to understand that each joy must be indemnified by suffering, that each new tie which knits our hearts to this life must be loosed again, and the tighter and the closer it was knit, the keener the pain of loosening it Should we then attach our hearts to nothing, and pass quietly and unsympathetically through this world, as if we had nothing to do with it ? We neither could nor ought to act so Nature itself knits the first tie between parents and children, and new ties through our whole life We are not here for reward, for the enjoyment of undisturbed peace, or from mere accident, but for trial, for improvement, perhaps for punishment, for the only union which can ensure the happiness of men, the union between our self and God’s self, is broken, or at least obscured, by our birth, and the highest object of our life is to find this bond again, to remain ever conscious of it, and hold fast to it in life and death
Muller wrote this when he was only twenty-five
At the age of forty-three when he was the father of four children, three daughters and one son, he wrote in a reconciled vein on the occasion of another bereavement of his sister, the death this time of a daughter He observed to his wife ‘Krug [his brother-in-law] speaks so freely about those who are no more , I can only listen, for what can one say ? Our view of death is wrong, no doubt, because our view of life is wrong ’
He thought his happiness in his family was so great that he could neither wish nor ask for more Then he remarked T should like to sit quiet, to rest and be thankful, not to move, lest something should move and fall ’
Early in 1868 he lost his only sister Auguste, and after getting a letter from his mother wrote to his wife ‘Now that she is gone, all those pleasant recollections which constantly pass through one’s mind are altogether changed, all life and reality taken out of them; one’s own life brought more clearly before one’s mind, as what it really is, a short stay in a foreign land ’
Again he reverts to their own life with the same premonition.
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‘There is still so much left us, so much to be happy and thankful for, and yet here, too, the thought always rushes across one’s brightest hours, it cannot last ’ A fear of happiness seems to have been growing on him, for a month later he again wrote to his wife ‘It is true that I have plenty of happiness, but great happiness makes one think so often that it cannot last, and that one will some day have to give up all to which one’s heart clings . But at the same time we can thankfully enjoy all that God gives, and few have more reason to say this than I ’
Six years later, after visiting the grave of his sister-in-law Charlotte, he wrote to his wife ‘By a grave one learns what life really is, that it is not here but elsewhere , that this is the exile, and there is our home / As we grow older the tram of life goes faster and faster, those with whom we travelled together step out from station to station, and our own station, too, will soon be reached^
These are only a few of the reflections on death which Max Muller set down even before he suffered any bereavement in his own immediate family He could never forget death None the less, his natural vitality enabled him to carry on a post-marital love affair with almost childlike gusto, in which he could be as playful as he was passionate For instance, three years after his marriage, when he was conducting an examination for the Civil Service Commissioners in London, he wrote to his wife
I have not much time, my dear wifey, and I am sitting surrounded by sixty candidates, all writing Sanskrit as hard as ever they can — but I can send you a few lines just to shake hands with you or to send you a loving kiss It is quite miserable to be away from you, and I feel hardly myself when I am away from you We have grown into one as much as two souls ever can, and I feel when I am with you that there is nothing more to wish for, that life is perfect May God let us enjoy His happiness for many years
He also showed his capacity for love by being willing to spend money on her without being compelled to do so by being blackmailed by the turning of her back on him in bed, in the manner of the normal Hindu wife who believes that in married life money or gold, silk, and fine cotton, are the outward signs of an inward grace A Maltese lace shawl for the ‘dear wifey’ at ten pounds, a satm gown, pins and jewellery are mentioned in Muller’s letters There are also two unusual communications after more than mne years of marriage.
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‘I have ordered for you/ he writes on January 31, 1869, ‘24 pint bottles of champagne from London I thought small bottles would be better for your small meals — they will arrive tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday rnormng Is there anything else I can send you, for with all your hard work, I feel sure that you want support
He wrote again three days later T am so glad to hear that you are better Would it not be better to ask Seymour to let you have a dozen of his port and pay him for it ? I have no port here, and if I write to London it will take several days before it settled again and is fit to dunk If you cannot get any port, the best thing would be to write to the Civil Service ’
Two days later he tells about a different kind of order T also want to ordei a carpet for your bedroom The green carpet turned out very bad, it is tapestry, not Brussels — so I had one of those put down in the nursery, and the other put away I have had all the boards taken up and relaid The curtains will look very well, but the old chintz would not do ’
Mrs Max Muller liked the social life of the class from which she came, and at times she appears to have been away from home These absences, as well as Max Muller’s when he travelled abroad, gave him the opportunity to write letters to his wife, which are preserved in five volumes They give a picture of the sunshine and showers in their married life, the sadness being as tender as the gaiety, with the religious note always coming up to the dominant level, as when he wrote T am yours as you are mine It is not that you own me or I own you — we were given to each other by Him who made all things — you are mine by Divine right as I am yours Though many people talk of Divine right and know not what they mean, My own beloved Soul, I know it, and sometimes feel as if I live with you in heaven and in full eternity ’
Muller on his part hated social life as conventionally understood, especially in London So he wrote to his wife on July 16, 1864. T should not like to live in London, no, not for much money, — this noise, this skirmish, this dming out and gossiping, this trying to outdo each other in pretence and conceit, is quite sickening ’
Again, learning of the death of Dickens, he wrote* ‘Poor Charles Dickens 1 It is a great loss — but I believe his life was not happy in spite of all his brilliant success They call him vulgar, but in his abstaining from mixing in what people call good society, I think he showed the true nobility of his soul I confess I never see so much
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vulgarity of soul as among that good society with, its insolence of wealth and pnde of millinery ’
And in 1890 he wrote ‘It is the most horrible invention, what is called Society, and is really no society at all, but simply makebelieve, stupidity, and vanity Life is one thing, society another — but society eats up life 5
He particularly disliked the large dinner parties in London, and preferred a small party of four to six guests To the end of his life he received many distinguished guests in his own house at Oxford, and from all parts of the world Even when he was only a young married man the great Tennyson came and stayed one night in his house in High Street His wife, a young housekeeper, did her best for the honoured guest, but at dinner Tennyson was rather put out to find that the sauce with the salmon was not the one he preferred He was pleased however with the wing of a chicken, and said that the only advantage he got from being Poet Laureate was that he generally received the liver-wmg of a chicken The next morning at breakfast the young people rather plumed themselves on having been able to get a dish of cutlets, but Tennyson whipped off the cover of the hot dish and seeing them cried out ‘Mutton chops f the staple of every bad inn in England 1 ’ But otherwise he was delightful, and asked many questions about Indian poetry Max Muller knew Ruskm very well, and could not help comparing the two He wrote ‘It is difficult to define the difference between an Oxford man and a Cambridge man, but if Ruskm was decidedly a representative of Oxford, Tennyson was a true son of the sister university ’ That was not on the score of manners, for Ruskm could be very ill-mannered in writing as well as in speaking
When children came Max Muller’s happiness brimmed over There were three daughters, the first Ada, born in December i860; the second Mary, bom February 1862; and the third Beatrice, bom August 1864 Then arrived the only son, on June 9, 1867 Max Muller had professed to be quite satisfied with his three little girls, but he also rejoiced in the birth of what in Germany was called a Stammhalter Giving the news to his cousin, Captain Adolph von Basedow, he wrote ‘I wish to ask you to be one of his godfathers. Both G and I wish the boy not to be exclusively English, and, like his name, Wilhelm Grenfell, so his godfathers should be of both countries He can then later on choose his own home, and like the old proverb, ubi bene , ibi patna ’
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Of course, to all responsible and affectionate parents children are a constant trial, but the really important thing in the parent-child relationship is the question whether under these eddies of anxiety and even irritation there runs a deep current of happiness In Max Muller’s case there could be no doubt about that After his death a companion of his daughters, who was then Mrs Boas, wrote a description of Muller as a father ‘The memory I have of him will always be chiefly that of the loving father of our dear child-friends, Ada, Mary, and Beatrice No doubt you will have quite forgotten the way in which he would join, with bright unfeigned sympathy, m our plays and projects on the happy Saturday half-holiday afternoons we spent together, but we — the children — will never forget it ’
But even then Max Muller’s distrust of life in this world, his sense of the evanescence of human happiness, would not leave him, as will be seen from the following letter to his wife written on March 13, 1869
I long to have my two chicks here again — it seems so incomplete without them How hard it must be to give up one of one’s own children — and yet there was a time when we had not got them and we seemed quite satisfied with life then So it goes on — more and more ties with every year — happiness that binds us to this life, while we ought really to try to get freer and freer from what binds us here, and more ready to leave it all when the time comes to part
The blow fell, and he was not ready In the summer of 1876 the whole family went to Germany, and settled for the time being at Dresden There the son Wilhelm went to a German Gymnasium, and the girls studied under masters and made good progress in their studies There he heard of the death of Edith, Dean Liddell’s daughter, and wrote to Stanley ‘Poor Liddell, I think of him every day, and I fear that he will never recover from that blow. That daughter of his was a most charming, lovable creature, so natural, so beautiful, and he so fond, so proud of her 1 “Let us die, in order,” says a poet in the Veda, “that the old may not weep for the young ” It was then, as it is now, inscrutable, and I doubt whether we have learnt to be more patient, and to wait for our time more cheerfully, than the old worshipper of the Vedic gods ’
‘Darkness and light divide the course of time’, said an old English mystic In the Veda , too, the night and day are called sisters. That
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the young do not weep for the old belongs to the day, and that is natural , but when the old weep for the young that belongs to the everlasting night out of which they never come In just over six months from the day he wrote about the death of Liddell’s daughter, Max Muller was to pass into that night
His eldest daughter Ada began to feel ill from the end of November, and was seriously ill in the second week of December It was meningitis She died at 6 a in on the morning of the 16th Mrs Max Muller had left a day-to-day account of her illness, death and burial in fifteen pages, and this is her account of the last moments
I remember when watching her that hour, I prayed that God’s Will might be ours We sent for Dr Oehme, but I saw what was at hand, the breath grew quieter and slower I threw myself on my knees by her and said aloud — ‘Lord into Thy hands we commend her spirit ’ Then came three deep sighs, and the shoulders moved a little, and all was still Max poured down some strong wine and we heard it swallowed I never heard any breath after that, and I turned to Max and cried, ‘It is over 5 I thought I felt a little fluttering of the heart, and we continued to fan her — but I believe now it was my own pulse, and when Dr Oehme came he said it was all over It was 6am that her sweet spirit must have passed away No struggle or spasm There could not have been anything more gentle and blessed Max told the other poor children and his old mother, and it was heart-breaking to hear their cries as I stood over the still form that should never hear cry or know sorrow again
She was buried on the 19th, a day before her sixteenth birthday, in the graveyard of the beautiful church at Dresden Max Muller remained there till April 1877 with his mother Then the family returned to England
The loss of his daughter completely broke Max Muller, and made him incapable of relying on his own mental resources in order to live So within a few days of his bereavement he wrote to his friends and relatives in identical language . ‘My whole life now belongs to her and her memory, till our long journey is over * It was not said under the immediate shock of grief This became his settled mood A year later he wrote to his wife * ‘ One can never believe m life again. One does what is one’s duty, but the joy of life of which we had so much, is all gone It is not that one does not feel grateful for what life is, — but one always asks — For how long ? This has
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ceased to be our home, though it was such a happy home — one feels now, it is a mere waiting room where one is hustled about 9 This leitmotive recurs in successive letters Some may be quoted January 8, 1878 T hope I shall have a little rest now — I cannot do without it — it is only when I am alone, and can be together with our darling child that I feel able to endure this life, and can go on with my work 9 August 23, 1878 Tt is strange being here alone — I feel as if I had no business to be here at all — I only live for you and with you My own life seems finished here on earth I have had that feeling ever since our darling left us — I ought to have gone first, not she. 9 He wrote this from Whitby, where he had gone to have a change January 13, 1879 T find it so hard to be idle, still harder to smile and look happy, and talk about everything except what is in one’s heart When I saw all the children together, I looked for one face only which was not there You know what it is I can bear it all when I am alone 9 April 20, 1879 ^ sometimes think I can go on no longer — what should I not give for my quiet study! I begin to feel the wear and tear of life much more than formerly — everything is a real effort — one can just do it and that is all 9 Again as late as December 14, 1881, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of his daughter’s death ‘My darling Georgie — If you were here, what could one say — it is always the same weight that crushes all thoughts and all words Ever since our dear Ada was taken from us, this life has become a mere waiting — one goes on as if it were the same as before, but one always feels it is not part of oneself is no longer here — and what is here, can only be for a short time Let us work on and love on to the last, as our own dear Ada did — happy child — that is what I always say when I think of her 9 It must have been a sore trial for Mrs Max Muller, strongminded woman that she was, to see her husband in this state of mind for the rest of his life I am not surprised that in her biography she did not give any description of it, and embodied her comment m just one sentence But without disclosing his state of mind there can be no full understanding of Max Muller’s personality Another decisive effect on Max Muller of his daughter’s death was his persistent distrust of happiness His third daughter Beatrice was happily married to Thomas Colyer-Fergusson, and had two children After staying with them in their house, Ightham Mote, m 1893 he wrote to his son ‘They all seem so happy here that one trembles 9 A year later he made the same kind of observation to his
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friend Madame Butenschon ‘My daughter also, and her husband, and her three children, often come to stay with us I ought to feel happy, mats la joie fait peur ! ’
The fact was that he had lost his faith in life, and when his first grandson was bom he could not repress his pessimism, though he only gave it a playful form because a new-born child always brings with it a rejuvenation of life So he wrote to his new-born grandson
I am glad you like your Grandmama, I like her too, and I know she will be very kind to you, and she will not mind your crying I do not wonder at your crying, it is a hard world you enter, as you will find out by and by Many people would cry all their lives, if they were not ashamed of it And now when you have cried yourself out, try to sleep, and forget the beginning troubles of your life Your grandfather is trying to do the same, but he does not always succeed
Not finding it satisfying enough to dwell on his lost daughter in thought alone, he began to keep a diary which over the years ran to nearly one thousand pages of close handwriting In it he set down not only his feelings about her, and expressions of inconsolable grief, but also his thoughts on all his interests, including even politics, as if he could give utterance to them only in her imagined presence There is something infinitely pathetic to find a man of has intellect and at the age of fifty-seven addressing an analysis of his political opinions and comments to a dead daughter
I feel more and more as I grow older, how blessed your little life has been [he wrote on May 2, 1881] Have you lost more than you have been spared ? It is difficult sometimes to have patience with this life I feel more and more solitary — frightened almost when I see how I stand alone in my opinions and judgements I try my best to be true — I have no interests that draw me away right or left — and yet I arrive at conclusions far away from those of my friends
The whole country [he continued by way of illustrating the difference] rings with the praise of Disraeli and abuse of Carlyle Now, I have watched Disraeli’s career — and I have always felt that he has lowered through life the standard of political morality in England Expediency was his guiding star through life — nor did he make any secret of it — which is a kind of tribute which selfishness, as a hypocrite, it is true, but yet as recognizing the existence of higher natures, pays to unselfishness. Never has there been, even by accident, a spark of generosity from that block of brass, never even an appeal to the nobler
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instincts of those whom he addressed, and excited Now, other statesmen, however discouraging their experience of men may be, have not lost all faith in true nobility Gladstone has that redeeming feature in him that he believes in ideals, in duty, in unselfishness, in generosity I know he has not always been true to himself, but he has tried, and those who look at history as it passes before their eyes have again and again seen him struggling to be true to his better self To see this keeps a belief in morality alive among the people, but to watch a career like D’s, destroys all faith in public virtue I know nothing against D’s private life, and it speaks well for him that he had had so many private friends But a man may have too many friends Woe to you, if all the world speaks well of you 1 G Smith once wrote of him that he was a valet in the guise of a statesman — hard words, no doubt, but do they not express some truth ?
England mourns over Disraeli and has forgotten Carlyle — it is difficult to hold to one’s convictions, but one must
All this seems morbid I have seen Hindu women nursing their grief, or rather their self-pity, over years with a persistence which I have always regarded as perverse, almost unclean So I was grieved to see something similar in Max Muller But an introspective and analytical mmd like his could not be unaware of the moral aspect of his grief and fail to put forward a justification for what he was doing He gave one explanation long before his bereavement. He had gone on a visit to Queen Victoria at Osborne House, where he found the rooms full of recollections of Prince Albert and everyone talking about him as if he were still among them Mentioning this in a letter to his wife, he also offered his explanation ‘This/ he wrote, hs thoroughly German, and it always struck me in England how carefully all conversation on those who have gone before us is avoided, and how much of comfort and good influence derived from the memory of those we loved is thereby lost 9
Three years after the death of Ada he wrote to his son, who at that time was only twelve
Young as you are [he wrote] you have felt what it is to have one whom we love dearly taken from us We do not mourn for her — she is happy, and she has been spared many of the hard struggles of this life We mourn for ourselves, because we miss her so much, and we know she would have made our life so bright and happy But we must learn to be ready to give up everything, however dearly we love it, when God bids us to do so Sooner or later we know we shall have to leave all those
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whom we love on earth, till we meet again as God’s love and wisdom may order it Think always what those whom you loved and who loved you on earth, would think of you, and then you will never never go far wrong
Of course, behind all this lay the Christian view of life and death, and above all its central doctrine of resurrection In his childhood Max Muller had read and pondered the inscription over the gateway of the God’s Acre at Dessau where his father was buried ‘Death is not death, it is but the ennobling of man’s nature ’ Anyhow, Muller kept his diary for many years I shall give some quotations from it He began to wnte in it from December 1876, and called the reflective chapters Paroksha in Sanskrit, which can be translated as Out of Sight In the third Paroksha , under the date February 8, 1877, occurs this cry of agony, at the thought of another blow
Since yesterday morning Wilhelm is ill with scarlet fever I cannot gather my thoughts — I cannot I feel after God, that He may help I am dumb before him My dear Ada gone — and now God shows me again and makes me feel, how we are all in His hand — O God have mercy upon me, a miserable sinner f When Thou threatenest, then they believe in Thee, says the old poet in the Veda — and is it not so even now? How careless my happy life has been — now They terrible thunder, O God, has roused me Oh let me never forget God’s mercy — let me enter upon a new life and remain steadfast in it There cannot be many years to live — let me live them in the sight of God
Feb 10 Wilhelm is better, and now that this dark cloud is passing away, the old sorrow returns I feel as if God had intended to remind me how much is life to me, how much is still entrusted to me, how my life is still blessed above thousands and thousands I shall not forget this warning — I shall try to do my duty, but I shall keep a sacred place where I can find you, my dear Child, where I can speak to you, and be guided by you .
Feb 17 I often thought, my dear Child, how painful it would be if at any time you shall have been brought to think that your father’s faith was less orthodox than your own I know it might have happened, for the distance between my own religious views and yours was great It could not be otherwise, and it is difficult to bridge over that distance except by love and trust And yet I always felt that you, as a child, and I, as a man, were only speaking each our language but meaning the
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same There is a difference between the childlike faith of a man (all real faith must be childlike) and the childlike faith of a child The one is Paradise not yet lost, the other Paradise lost but regained The one is right for the child, and the other is right for the man It is the will of God that it should be so — but it is also the will of God that we shall all bear with each other, and join, each in his own voice, in the great hymn of praise
The same day My dear Child — The more I think of your life upon earth, the more perfect it seems to me How much have you been spared 1 Our miseries generally begin at eighteen — our feelings and passions awake, and oh f how much such hearts as yours were to suffer , before they find satisfaction and rest The miseries endured by young girls and young men of deep and intense feelings are beyond all description How much I suffered myself, and how often do such sufferings blight a whole life Of all that, you know nothing — you carried away the purest idea of life
February 22, 1877 My child, how I long for you — every thought of mine seems lame — it always turns to you and then it will not move further
March 5, 1877 My dear child, I thought I should have taken you to Italy and shown you that beautiful country of sunshine and art — how you would have revelled in both
September 11, 1877 $° many friends come to see me, and they speak to me of what I have lost, and I must listen to what they say — they mean to be kindly, I know — but the heart only knows its own bitterness Darling child 1 I was very happy before you were given me — I might have lived a happy life even if I had never known you That is true, and I try to work myself back into that time when I was alone or when I was alone with your mother, who was not your mother yet They were happy days, and why shall the days be not be happy again?
October 4, 1877 One often feels tempted to say, Blessed are those who have nothing on earth, for they can lose nothing There are philosophers who hold that it is the highest wisdom to love nothing There is some truth in this
October 21, 1877 We meet friends who have suffered as we have suffered, and who seem so bright and happy What has time to do with real sorrow? And yet we are like other people, certainly not better or truer Can the same thing happen to us ? Can we too be bright and happy again? One turns away from such a thought, one hopes it is impossible And yet how happy are our children Why cannot we be
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like them ? Their time will come later With me the happy life of my youth, for I was young till I was 53, is gone Life itself is changed Nothing seems to be my own
December 8, 1877 I try to work hard as a help — not that I wish to — it turns my thoughts away from thee, my deai Child, I could not There is much that has to be done, and it will be done I do not lose my time in idle sorrow — sorrow is good, it strengthens me, only sometimes it overcomes me and revives the sharp pam and brings back the sense of emptiness, of yearning, and hunger
I was quite drunk with life — then you were taken from me — and now I can see at last, what others have seen long ago, that our home is not here
December 20, 1877 Today you would have been seventeen
April 2, 1878 But for you, I should never have felt that this life is an exile — I felt so fully at home in it Now I know what it is
June 16, 1878 I am tired now, and long for rest — but there is so much that remains to be done I want my old life to come back, to be every morning with you again, my dear Child — to live a quiet life with you — but it seems almost impossible And yet how I have felt your presence and your help
But for you, I should probably never have undertaken that work Now I want to finish it for you, and to dedicate it to you, if I can find the right expression
In April 1878, Max Muller had delivered his Hibbert Lectures on the origin and growth of religion, and he was publishing them m the summer He told his daughter about this
‘To Her
Whose dear Memory Encouraged, directed, and supported me In writing these Lectures,
They are now dedicated As a Memorial Of a Father’s undying Love *
Thus have I fulfilled something of what I felt I ought to do for you when you were taken from us, my dear Child — What I cannot do for you here on earth I shall try to do for others — that was what I felt then, when I looked everywhere for a meaning and purpose in what seemed, so mysterious, so unnatural
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July 1 8, 1878 One is driven along day after day — but now and then there comes a sudden lull, sometimes for a few minutes only, but in those few minutes Oh what a world of sadness and bitterness One asks no longer Why — one knows there is no answer to that It is so, and as it is, it must be borne
August 3 , 1 878 ‘Our wedding day — nineteen years ago — what happiness then — what happiness ever since — except that one great grief And yet it is to that grief I cling — it is that grief which has opened a new world before my eyes
September 12, 1879 I thought I shall find rest — but found none We travelled about from place to place, saw things and men, but hardly an hour had I to myself From Shevenmgen we went through Holland, saw Leyden, Haarlem, Utrecht, Amsterdam — then to Dessau where the children were very happy To me, it is a place of the past — I no more belong to it
September 25, 1879 Grief is a sweet remembrance of happiness that was
November 16, 1879 Wilhelm is here for his Sunday — and you Darling are not There is the old riddle always before me — Why was my child taken from me ? Human understanding has no answer for it and yet I feel as certain as I can feel of anything, that this is as it is, it is good, it is best, better than anything I can wish for What makes me start sometimes is the returning joyfulness of life It seems so thoughtless, so forgetful — but I never forget you, my Darling — and the more you are with me, the better I feel
December 16, 1879 The day is gone — no new light, we cannot know, we cannot even imagine — we can only trust, hope for the best, the wisest
December 20, 1879 Her nineteenth birthday Last night of the year — 31 Dec 1879
My last word, my last thoughts belong to thee — life is heavy, it will never again be what it was I try hard, but why deceive oneself? I seem to have done Darling child, the bright sun set with you — the evening cannot be like the morning or the noon
February 22, 1880 Driven on, less and less rest — no time hardly to look back Yesterday was Mary’s 18th birthday — how different all is from what might have been
October 9, 1880 What gaps — it is work that keeps me away from you to myself! Life is drawing to an end, and I have still more work to
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finish, if I can But I long for rest In a few days my mother will be eighty — is so long a life a blessing ? It seems a long and tiring journey to a home which others have reached by a much shorter road
September 3, 1881 In Dresden again — 1876 and now 1881 — and all as hard and unintelligible as ever — that one riddle no one can solve — how different life would have been but for that stroke I have been changed perhaps, I have grown better — more ready to surrender self — but the heart bleeds — bleeds as much as ever, as often as ever How constantly you are with me Help me, help thy mother who wants help, and I cannot help, do not know how to help her How many are gone — and I still full of work Dean Stanley gone too, he and Rolleston I miss like my left and right arms — they were so trusty
Sunday, 5 September Just come back from your grave — full of memories, Darling Child — and are you not to be envied for your short and sunny journey through life ?
December 5, 1881 The evening before the 58th birthday — Georgie and Mary gone to a ball — Beatrice in Paris, Wilhelm in Eton — I alone here — and yet no rest — no time to collect my thoughts — my memories — driven, driven on by work that comes to me — I feel I must do it, I feel I ought to do much more, but it is too late
In April, 1883, whilst at Hastings with his family Max Muller got a telegram that his mother was seriously ill It was followed by another which announced her death He at once started for Dessau, and arrived in time to be able to bury her He described the illness, death and funeral to his wife at length, and wrote about her to all her grand-daughters, dead as well as living To his dead daughter Max Muller wrote in retrospect in 1885
My dear Mother — my earliest recollection, my first love — my constant thought these many years taken away — a tie that bound me to the Eternal broken for a time And yet one fears the law of nature and joins in the old sigh of humanity with a heavy heart but not so crushed and tom as once all seemed so unnatural, so violent, so unintelligible To us the sun seems to set every day — seems to be gone — wasted — yet it is not so The sun remains — though our sun seems to set We are dazzled when the light is too great, and our eyes too small — we cannot enlarge our mmd enough to take in all the light about us — we shut our eyes and trust
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To his living daughters he wrote immediately To his youngest daughter Beatrice he wrote
As long as my mother lived, I felt that I belonged to her, now I belong to no one, though others belong to me You have no idea what a rich life hers has been, rich in joys, rich in sorrows, and rich in love and sympathy for others In her very last letters to me she was full of interest as to your singing She always hoped you would have a voice like hers When she was your age she sang at some great musical festivals, admired by the best judges
To his second daughter, now the eldest, the intellectual Mary, who w T as engaged to be married to a young Oxford don whom she passionately loved, he wrote*
I wish you had been able to see your dear grandmother once more if only as I saw her, sleeping on flowers, covered with palm-branches, taking with her some faded tokens of her early happiness, unchanged, calm, beautiful It is curious how forgetful we are of death, how little we think that we are dying daily, and that what we call life is really death, and death the beginning of life, a higher life . Even you, in your great happiness just now should feel that what you call your own is only lent to you
The undergraduates who regarded the freedom of Muller’s new house at 7 Norham Gardens as one of the best boons of their Oxford days, probably did so as much for the daughter as for the father One of them, writing an obituary notice of Max Muller after his death, reserved his most eloquent passages for Mary He wrote that m her c the exceptional physical beauty of both parents reappeared m a strangely etherealized form’ He continued ,
She was one of those of whom we all seem to perceive, after they are gone, that a hundred mystic signs had always marked them for another world than this I can see her still, with her classic head and straight, sweet features, with a wreath, in her dark hair, of gold olive leaves beaten flat and thin, which had been copied from an Etruscan model for one of her wedding gifts — a vision of almost incredible human grace, ‘a dream of form in days of thought’
This did honour to the undergraduates of Oxford, who showed that though they could drown themselves for Zuleika Dobson they
LIFE,[[283]]
could also rise to an abandoned admiration of a more spiritual physical attraction
Mary was endowed with remarkable intellectual gifts She did not know Greek when she was married, and learnt it from her husband in the course of six weeks while walking with him on long forest and mountain paths in Germany From his lips she learnt in that short time declension, conjugation, a considerable vocabulary and enough of syntax to be able to construe easy Greek like that of Xenophon at first sight
She was a good linguist, and translated before her death a very learned philological treatise by Scherer
From a very young age she was strong-willed, and offered problems to her parents Mrs Max Muller, a strong character, was sometimes imperious with her, and her husband remonstrated So one finds him writing to his wife on January 13, 1879, when Mary was just short of being seventeen
I am so much afraid you will grow out of harmony with Mary, and I sometimes look forward with trembling to the future She is a very good girl, so honest, so diligent She is not strong, she has not the feeling of health and strength like Beatrice But I feel certain she is full of love for us both, only she is shy and fnghtened We must not expect our children [he continued] to be exactly what we should like them to be They are given us to make the best of we can We have to conform to them — we are older and wiser, and can bear with them far better than they with us I do not mean that we should always yield to them We can be very strict and severe, but always show them our love and our real sorrow when we must spoil their pleasures If the ways of a mother and daughter once diverge they very seldom meet again You know I am not preaching to you — I only want to show you a danger You do not always understand Mary’s waywardness
I could see all the time that she considered the dress you worked for her too showy There is no harm in that, rather the contrary But what between seeming to be ungrateful and shrinking from attracting attention the poor child did not know what to do Many a grown up person would have felt the same difficulty If you had said one word that you too thought the dress more showy than you had expected, all would have been right But you only put your authority against her taste, and thus all your kindness in working the dress for her was lost However, I may have said too much, and particularly in writing one seems to say much more than one wants to say All I wish is to see you and the children happy together, and that you know
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Three years later it was the turn of the daughter to be remonstrated with On May 5, 1882, he wrote to Mary.
Now what I had so often to blame you for was being out of tune, not so much with me as with your mother — particularly not showing her that loving respect that a daughter should show to her mother, thus ennobling a relation which, I believe, forms the highest happiness in life Though when you were children, I was sometimes given to be very stern with you, your mother has always shown you the greatest kindness, and far too much of indulgences even — yet you were constantly opposing her and even finding fault with her I never doubted your heart, but I felt very unhappy about your manner You can say everything to a father and mother, but you should say it as a child, even when you are twice as old as you are now Now whenever you begin to express an opinion it was never done in a hesitating or inquisitive tone, but always as a determined assertion That seemed so unnatural It was almost impossible to argue anything out with you, or exchange opinions — because you simply reiterated your opinion and looked upon those who differed from you, and who at all events were older than you, with a kind of contemptuous smile Now such things jar on me like wrong notes , but particularly as I felt all the time that it was not real, but only put on It is quite true that I am often absorbed m my work, and many of the things which interest you have lost interest for me Yet I have seldom sent you away, and if I have done so I have done it with regret and with kindness, I believe You could make the few remaining years of my life much happier, if you would take your natural place, helping your mother, cheering your father, and practising that selfsurrender which is at the root of all true happiness because it makes us feel satisfied with ourselves
This letter from a father aged fifty-nine to a daughter aged twenty is very creditable to the former His daughter also caused him some worry when she fell in love with a not very wealthy young don, Fred Conybeare, and wanted to marry him His own situation in respect of his own marriage was ironically reversed On June 7, 1883, he wrote to his wife
If he [his daughter’s lover] really cares for Mary, he should show that he is worthy of her and capable of an effort and a sacrifice He must work and do somethmg, and show what is in him A mere ‘Coach’ would not do for her, nor for me You will be sorry if you allow yourself to be drawn further and further I know it is difficult to say No to a lovesick swam and a lovesick maiden — but I feel certain it is for their
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good If F will only work with a will, I do not see why he should not marry next year — but if he begins life sighing and dawdling, the chances of a happy marriage seem to be very distant As to their income, I know they can live on £800 a year — so could one — but whether you, and therefore I would be happy is another question Of course, if we old people were asked whether we would live on £8oo a year, or not live together at all, we should probably say, Let us live on £800 a year — but the week after there would be long faces and regrets And so it will be with them I know Mary and her ideas of what is nice, and generous, and comfortable I should be sorry for Fred if she had to do without a maid 1 [Of course, a lady’s maid is meant ]
However, they were married towards the end of the year Then a different kind of anxiety arose for Max Muller — whether Mary would be careful enough when expecting a child Less than a year after her marriage she had a child, which did not live, and Muller wrote to his wife ‘So it was not to be — and the little soul shrank back from this life Poor Mary seems to have suffered much, and to have no reward for it is very hard ’
Two years later she was expecting another child, and was ill Hearing about it Max Muller wrote to his wife who was with her daughter at Southwold in Suffolk ‘However one must be prepared for misfortune ’
On September 2, he wrote again ‘When will people learn that if women want to be mothers, they must live sensible and natural lives On September 4 the following telegram arrived at his house for Wilhelm, who was only nineteen, from his mother ‘To Wilhelm Max Muller, Oxford Mary passed away today in long faint Break it to Daddy and Bee Mummy’
Mrs Max Muller dared not send the news directly to her husband On the last page of the diary is pasted this telegram, and underneath Max Muller wrote ‘Friday, September 3, 1886 Mary left us . . ’ He wrote no more in that diary His sorrow was too deep for expression He gave the news of his fresh bereavement to others but thought more of the sorrow of others than his own Thus he wrote to Sir Robert Collins, Secretary to the Duchess of Albany ‘I have shared many sorrows, and even now, under this new blow, it is the misery of that poor husband and the grief of my wife that chokes the heart far more than my own distress ’
Thirteen years later he wrote to his son* ‘I wonder whether you remember the anniversary of today when dear Mary was taken from
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ns Who could understand it and account for it * And yet we must learn to see a meaning in everything, we must believe that as it was it was right 5
That was the last word of philosophy on death Max Muller’s wife was to receive the final blow after his death When she was writing his biography the third daughter Beatrice died, and the last words of that book were
‘Desolation rests on the earthly home where her father passed so many happy hours
‘And yet “Death is not death, if it gives us to those whom we have loved and lost, for whom we have lived, and for whom we long to live again ”*