“The kind confidence which, judging by an invitation lately sent me through H. Lobstein, you appear to feel in my abilities, has aroused in me no less pleasure than serious doubts as to how far I may myself confide in my own powers. I in no wise mistake the importance of these doubts, especially at my age and in my circumstances. How I shall solve the problem of life depends chiefly on their right or wrong solution, and therefore, as long as they are still unsettled, every impulse from without is of infinite moment to the whole inner life and aspiration. You could neither be aware of the soil on which your words, perhaps but carelessly meant, had fallen, nor still less of the connection in which they stand with my own inclinations and mental tendency. It is not as if I had previously entertained the idea of attempting the deciphering of hieroglyphics; rather, till now, I have been chiefly attracted towards archaeology and general comparative philology, upon the broader field of that science to which, in any case I had resolved to devote myself. Although these did not give me much prospect of an assured livelihood for the future, yet I wished to prosecute the two studies together in Paris, because they have so many points in common, and indeed seem to me in their essential substance to form a more perfect whole. Then latterly I was led by chance to a subject which attracted me more the farther I pursued it, and at last prompted me to collect the results in a short treatise which I am about to have published in Berlin. This treatise is immediately concerned with palaeographic researches into Sanscrit writing, but I was soon led from the peculiarities of this writing, which in many respects is wonderfully consonant with nature, to more universal palaeographic laws. I found myself forced at last, by the subject itself, to express my views on the organic and essentially necessary connection between writing and language considered in their broadest relation, and on the value of a scientific palaeography in the investigation of language. Indeed, I could not refrain, at the close, from referring to Egypt itself, where there seems to open such a splendid and fertile field for this new science as never before in Europe, or even in Asia. Thus, on one hand, I am attracted by the idea of an Egyptian palaeography which cannot possibly be sought for except in accordance with the universal laws of writing and language, and therefore must be capable of rational scientific treatment. Yet, on the other hand, I cannot avoid noticing the special obstacles, of other than a scientific kind, which present themselves, and particularly the precarious direction which might be permanently given to my studies by an over-hasty decision. It is true that on this path also archaeology and comparative philology would be the guides and companions whom I should most desire. But in their Egyptian costume they would probably be