[I had no dictionary and no grammar for the hieroglyphic language save Champollion’s.  No Stern had treated Coptic in a really scientific manner.  I was obliged to learn it according to Tuki, Peyron, Tattam, and Steinthal-Schwarze.  For the hieratic there was no aid save my own industry and the lists I had myself compiled from the scanty texts then at the disposal of the student.  Lepsius had never devoted much time to them.  Brugsch’s demotic grammar had appeared, but its use was rendered very difficult by the lack of conformity between the type and the actual signs.]

When I recall the amount of knowledge I mastered in a few terms it seems incredible; yet my labour was interrupted every summer by a sojourn at the springs—­once three months, and never for a less period than six weeks.  True, I was never wholly idle while using the waters, but, on the other hand, I was obliged to consider the danger that in winter constantly threatened my health.  All night-work was strictly forbidden and, if I sat too long over my books by day, my mother reminded me of my promise to the doctor, and I was obliged to stop.

During the first years I worked almost exclusively at home, for I was permitted to go out only in very pleasant weather.

Dr. Romberg had wisely considered my reluctance to interrupt my studies by a residence in the south, because he deemed life in a well-ordered household more beneficial to sufferers from spinal diseases than a warmer climate, when leaving home, as in my case, threatened to disturb the patient’s peace of mind.

For three winters I had been denied visiting the university, the museum, and the libraries.  On the fourth I was permitted to begin, and now, with mature judgment and thorough previous preparation, I attended the academic lectures, and profited by the treasures of knowledge and rich collections of the capital.

After my return from Wildbad Lepsius continued his Thursday visits, and during the succeeding winters still remained my guide, even when I had also placed myself, in the department of the ancient Egyptian languages, under the instruction of Heinrich Brugsch.

At school, of course, I had not thought of studying Hebrew.  Now I took private lessons in that language, to which I devoted several hours daily.  I had learned to read Sanscrit and to translate easy passages in the chrestomathy, and devoted myself with special zeal to the study of the Latin grammar and prosody.  Professor Julius Geppert, the brother of our most intimate family friend, was my teacher for four terms.

The syntax of the classic languages, which had been my weak point as a school-boy, now aroused the deepest interest, and I was grateful to Lepsius for having so earnestly insisted upon my pursuing philology.  I soon felt the warmest appreciation of the Roman comedies, which served as the foundation of these studies.  What sound wit, what keenness of observation, what a happy gift of invention, the old comic writers had at their disposal!  I took them up again a few years ago, after reading with genuine pleasure in Otto Ribbeck’s masterpiece, The History of Roman Poetry, the portions devoted to Plautus and Terence.