This must not be understood as in any way disparaging my teachers. Such an idea never entered my head at the time. People have no idea in England what kind of worship is paid by German students to their professors. To find fault with them or to doubt their _ipse dixit_ never entered our minds. What they said of other classical scholars from whom they differed, as Hermann did from Otfried Müller, or Haupt from Orelli, was gospel, and remained engraved on our memory for a long time. Once when attending Hermann’s lectures, another student who was sitting at the same table with me made disrespectful remarks about old Hermann. I asked him to be quiet, and when he went on with his foolish remarks, I could only stop him by calling him out. As soon as the challenge was accepted he had of course to be quiet, and a few days after we fought our duel without much damage to either of us. I only mention this because it shows what respect and admiration we felt for our professor, also because it exemplifies the usefulness of duelling in a German university, where after a challenge not another word can be said or violence be threatened even by the rudest undergraduate. A duel for a Greek conjecture may seem very absurd, but in duels of this kind all that is wanted is really a certain knowledge of fencing, care being taken that nothing serious shall happen. And yet, though that is so, the feeling of a possible danger is there, and keeps up a certain etiquette and a certain proper behaviour among men taken from all strata of society. Nor can I quite deny that when I went in the morning to a beautiful wood in the neighbourhood of Leipzig, certain misgivings were difficult to suppress. I saw myself severely wounded, possibly killed, by my antagonist, and carried to a house where my mother and sister were looking for me. This went off when I met the large assembly of students, beautifully attired in their club uniforms, the beer barrels pushed up on one side, the surgeon and his instruments waiting on the other. There were ever so many, thirty or forty couples I think, waiting to fight their duels that morning. Some fenced extremely well, and it was a pleasure to look on; and when one’s own turn came, all one thought of was how to stand one’s ground boldly, and how to fence well. Some of the combatants came on horseback or in carriages, and there was a small river close by to enable us to escape if the police should have heard of our meeting. For popular as these duels are, they are forbidden and punished, and the severest punishment seemed always to be the loss of our uniforms, our arms, our flags, and our barrels of beer. However, we escaped all interference this time, and enjoyed our breakfast in the forest thoroughly, nothing happening to disturb the hilarity of the morning.