When I first came to know Bunsen, he was fifty-six, I twenty-four years of age; he was Prussian ambassador, I was nobody. But from the very beginning of our intercourse, he was to me like a friend and fellow-student; and when standing by his side at the desk in his library, I never saw the ambassador, but only the hard-working scholar, ready to guide, willing to follow, but always pressing forward to a definite goal. He would patiently listen to every objection, and enter readily into the most complicated questions of minute critical scholarship; but he always wanted to see daylight; he could not bear mere groping for groping’s sake. When he suspected any scholar of shallowness, pettiness, or professorial conceit, he would sometimes burst forth into rage, and use language the severity of which he was himself the first to regret. But he would never presume on his age, his position, or his authority. In that respect few men remained so young, remained so entirely themselves through life as Bunsen. It is one of the saddest experiences in life to see men lose themselves when they become ministers or judges or bishops or professors. Bunsen never became ambassador, he always remained Bunsen. It has been my good fortune in life to have known many men whom the world calls great,—philosophers, statesmen, scholars, artists, poets; but take it all in all, take the full humanity of the man, I have never seen, and I shall never see his like again. The rule followed in editing these letters has been a very simple one. I have given them as they were, even though I felt that many could be of interest to scholars only or to Bunsen’s personal friends; but I have left out whatever could be supposed to wound the feelings of any one. Unless this rule is most carefully observed, the publication of letters after the death of their writers seems to me simply dishonorable. When Bunsen speaks of public measures and public men, of parties in Church and State, whether in England or in Germany, there was no necessity for suppressing his remarks, for he had spoken his mind as freely on them elsewhere as in these letters. But any personal reflections written on the spur of the moment, in confidence or in jest, have been struck out, however strong the temptation sometimes of leaving them. Many expressions, too, of his kind feelings towards me have been omitted. If some have been left, I hope I may be forgiven for a pride not altogether illegitimate. [1.] LONDON, _Thursday, December 7_, 1848, 9 o’clock.