MY DEAR STUMPF,--Your two letters from Rügen of Sept. 8th, and from Halle of Jan. 2 came duly, and I can assure you that their contents was most heartily appreciated, and not by me alone. I fairly squealed with pleasure over the first one and its rich combination of good counsel and humorous commentary, and read the greater part of it to my friend Royce, assistant professor of philosophy here, who enjoyed it almost as much as I. There is a heartiness and solidity about your letters which is truly German, and makes them as nutritious as they are refreshing to receive. Your _Kater-Gefühl_,[82] however, in your second letter, about your _Auslassungen_[83] on the subject of Wundt, amused me by its speedy evolution into _Auslassungen_ more animated still. I can well understand why Wundt should make his compatriots impatient. Foreigners can afford to be indifferent for he doesn't _crowd_ them so much. He aims at being a sort of Napoleon of the intellectual world. Unfortunately he will never have a Waterloo, for he is a Napoleon without genius and with no central idea which, if defeated, brings down the whole fabric in ruin. You remember what Victor Hugo says of Napoleon in the Miserables--"Il gênait Dieu"; Wundt only _gêners_ his _confrères_; and whilst they make mincemeat of some one of his views by their criticism, he is meanwhile writing a book on an entirely different subject. Cut him up like a worm, and each fragment crawls; there is no _noeud vital_ in his mental medulla oblongata, so that you can't kill him all at once.