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Having put them into the hands of this most formidable of personalities. I gave them to the others, and in fact this led to the urgent invitation from Darmesteter to become his continuator on the Sacred Books of the East, which also put in train my connection with this University (Oxford). So, some years afterward, when the first sections of the Gâthas were ready, at the urgent request of some of my leading colleagues, I sent them copies, receiving grateful acknowledgments from them in private communications[1].
The various expressions of opinion referred to were important enough to me at one period, for there was as usual a clique of mendacious pretenders (of a known type) who had control of some of the newspapers. And as to one particular they are important to me now, for they show that I have worked in a catholic spirit. Those distinguished gentlemen who have expressed themselves with much toleration of my well-meant labours belong to various schools. They prove by their sympathy that they do not regard my results as one-sided[2]. To my sorrow I must confess that I have spent more time and labour on this subject and its adjuncts than any one now living, or I might almost say than any one without the qualification; and on the whole with greater facilities. The XXXIst volume of the Sacred Books of the East was made after the only exhaustive effort ever even attempted by any one, for I had edited the Asiatic Commentaries, Pahlavi, with all the known MSS, collated, the Sanskrit with five MSS, and the Persian, and made the first attempt ever made by any one at a full
- ↑ See Darmesteter’s remarks even on the interrupted edition and so early as Nov. 26th 1883 in the Revue Critique, also another eminent person in the London Athenaeum April 12th 1881, the Academy of September 13th 1884 (long enough ago!), the Deutsche literaturzeitung September 24, 1887, of S. B. E. XXXI; then again of the fuller edition of the Gâthas the Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen of May 1893, Revue Critique of September 1893, etc. Pischel in Z. D. M. G. 1896 etc. It is usual in issuing circulars for the purpose of promoting the sale of a book to cite various notices from reviews. But l allude to them here for a particular reason.
- ↑ Well may they hold to this, for I report almost every conceivable opinion ancient or modern, while I distinctly express my own preference.
