“During the five or six last visits to the museum, I had observed near me, apparently engaged in the same work as myself--the attempt to cypher out the meaning of the inscriptions--an old gentleman, evidently French, and as evidently belonging to the small remnant of the old _Noblesse_ yet surviving on the soil of _le Grand Nation_, judging from his carriage, air, and manner--refined, polished, yet simple in the extreme; and from the benignance that beamed from his countenance, it was clear that there was happiness and content in his breast, and that he was a benefactor to, as well as a devoted student of, all that was interesting concerning mankind. “On previous occasions when we met there had passed between us merely the compliments of the day, and those general courtesies due between well-bred people. This time, however, as if by mutual concession and attraction, our greeting was much warmer and more prolonged; for, after saluting, we drew chairs before the tablets and began conversing about the arrow-headed characters; and the old gentleman, whose name was Ravalette, said: ‘Sir, how is it that I see you daily here, taking copies, and trying to decypher letters that the best scholars in Europe have abandoned in sheer and hopeless despair? Surely a youth like you cannot hope for success where they have failed?’ “‘True,’ was the reply, ‘_they_ may despair, but is that a reason why others should? I believe I shall yet correctly read these enigmas of the ages.’ “The old man smiled at my antiquarian enthusiasm, and merely remarked, that Meses and the chronologists had better be looking out for their laurels, else the parvenus of the present day would not leave many to be gathered. “‘It is my invincible conviction,’ said I, ‘that these sculptures were wrought many ages prior to the making of the pottery found beneath the valley of the Nile; and that the inscriptions on yonder porphyritic tablets were engraved there a hundred centuries before the date of Adam--an individual, by the way, whom I certainly regard as having had an origin and existence in the imaginations of ancient poets, a mere myth, handed down the night of Time as an heirloom to the ages--at least all such as had a taste for things they could not comprehend--and had an existence _there only_!’ “‘Then you do not entertain the belief that all men sprang from only one source?’ “‘Yes--no. Yes; because God created all. No; because there are at least ten separate and distinct families of human kind!’ “‘But may not all these differences spring from climate and the diverse localizations and circumstances attending upon a wide separation of the constituents of an original family?’