The kind reader of these pages who is familiar with the struggles and troubles of my childhood, who has followed me in thought on the thorny path of early youth, and knows something of my experiences as self-taught scholar and tutor, will perhaps accuse me of dejection, and blame me for want of perseverance and steadiness of purpose. Possibly I have disregarded the golden saying of my mother, "One must make one's bed half the night, the better to rest the other half." I did give way to dejection, but my resolve, however blameworthy it may be, should be looked upon as the natural consequence of a struggle for existence which began all too early and lasted sadly too long. Man is not made of iron, too great a tension must be followed by a relaxation, and since the first fair half of my life began to near its ending, my former iron will also began to lose some of its force. The wings of my ambition were too weak to soar after exalted ideals, and I contented myself with the prospect of a modest professorship at the University of my native land and the meagre livelihood this would give me. In England, where a man in his early thirties is, so to speak, still in the first stage of his life, and energy is only just beginning to swell the sails of his bark, my longing for rest was often misunderstood and disapproved of. In London I met a gentleman of sixty who wanted to learn Persian and start a career in India; and I was going to stop my practical career at the age of thirty-two! The difference seems enormous, but in the foggy North man's constitution is much tougher and harder than in the South. My physical condition, my previous sufferings and privations, may to some extent account for my despondency; I had to give in, although my object was only half gained.