The admirable method of life which he recommends as a means of subduing unruly impulses, distinguished him to the end. It was his fortune to be equally a welcome guest whether at the imperial court or amidst the gay ringing of glasses in the friendly circle, and this was because he was able to take part in the sharpest exchange of opinions, and to experience the heartiest pleasure, without exceeding the limits of good breeding. He could play with his children and knew how to establish himself in their youthful souls. His student comrades remained the friends of his old age, and his travelling companions, over whom he had ruled as a leader, clung to him with affection until his or their death. Who ever showed greater fidelity or firmer friendship than he did towards those equals and colleagues who had come into close relations with him in scientific matters or in family intercourse? They remained closely linked to him in the bonds of affection for decades. From his school-days on, he felt the need of friendship, and when a youth in Paris he gave expression to his thoughts on friendship, and wrote: “A circle of four friends bears the same relation to one of three that a four-legged table bears to a three-legged. Thus two friends form a line and three a surface.” His choice of friends fell exclusively on men of intellectual prominence, but the “intellectual” in its modern, and especially in its Berlin, sense, was repugnant to him. Manfully did he defend the interests of those whom he knew to be men of ability and of whose labors he had availed himself. After the designer Weidenbach had done him invaluable service in Egypt and in the preparation of the great work on monuments and the embellishment of the museum at Berlin, he was left without employment. Lepsius wished to procure him a permanent situation in the museum, and with good right, for his best years had been passed entirely in works ordered by the government, and these he had executed in the best possible manner and without regard to the more lucrative situations which were offered him. Nevertheless the Minister, v. Raumer, coolly refused the petition for this very deserving artist, with the remark that Weidenbach might look for some other employment. Thereupon Lepsius replied to the high official, who was a man of strict piety but little human feeling, and whose ministry has long been recognized as pernicious, “So you think as Talleyrand did, who to the appeal of a suppliant “_Mais il faut pourtant que je vive_,” replied: “_Je n’en vois pas la nécessité_.” Lepsius knew how to procure the desired situation for his protégé, in spite of Raumer, and Weidenbach filled it admirably to the end.