should all be systematically read by scholars familiar with Vedic themes and diction, and with an eye open to covert allusion and reference, and should be completely excerpted with the Rik Saṁhitā in hand and with constant references made opposite the Rik verses to the ancillary or illustrative passages which bear upon them. It is idle folly to pretend that this last work would not be immensely facilitated by a large mass of translations[1] of the more difficult texts, accurately made, and provided with all possible ingenious contrivances for finding out quickly the relations between the ancillary texts and the fundamental ones. Thus to have demonstrated the necessity for so far-reaching an undertaking, may prove to be not the least of Whitney's services to Vedic scholarship.
The Century Dictionary.—Doubtless much of the best of Whitney's strength through nearly ten of his closing years was given to the work devolving on him as editor-in-chief of The Century Dictionary, an Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language (see p. lx, below). But for that, he might perhaps have brought out this commentary himself. Since I, more than any one else, have personal reasons to regret that he did not do so, there is perhaps a peculiar fitness in my saying that I am glad that he did not. Whoever has visited for example the printing-offices which make the metropolitan district of Boston one of the great centers of book-production for America, and has seen the position of authority which is by them accorded to that admirable work, and has reflected upon the powerful influence which, through the millions of volumes that are affected by its authority, it must thus exercise in the shaping of the growth of our English language,—such an one cannot fail to see that Whitney was broad-minded and wise in accepting the opportunity of superintending the work of its production, even at the risk of not living to see the appearance of the already long-delayed Atharva-Veda. Perhaps his most potent influence upon his day and generation is through his labors upon the Century Dictionary.
Acknowledgments.—I desire in the first place to make public acknowledgment of my gratitude to the late Henry Clarke Warren of Cambridge. He had been my pupil at Baltimore; and, through almost twenty years of intimate acquaintance and friendship, we had been associated in our Indian studies. To his enlightened appreciation of their value and potential usefulness is due the fact that these dignified volumes can now be issued; for during his lifetime he gave to Harvard University in sundry
- ↑ Roth writes to Whitney, July 2, 1893: Ich begreife nicht, wie ein junger Mann, statt nach wertlosen Dingen zu greifen, nicht lieber sich an die Uebersetzung und Erklärung eines Stückes aus Tāittirīya Brāhmaṇa oder Māitrāyaṇī Saṁhitā wagt; nicht um die minutiae des Rituals zu erforschen, sondern um den Stoff, der zwischen diesen Dingen steckt, zugänglich zu machen und zu erläutem. Auch in den Medizinbüchern gäbe es viele Abschnitte, die verstanden und bekannt zu werden verdienten.
