on to which my sufferings
still condemned me.

I had relinquished the study of the law. It seemed more than doubtful
whether my health would ever permit me to devote myself to a practical
profession or an academic career, and my interest in jurisprudence was
too slight to have it allure me to make it the subject of theoretical
studies.

Egyptology, on the contrary, not only attracted me but permitted me to
devote my whole strength to it so far as my health would allow. True,
Champollion, the founder of this science, termed it "a beautiful
dowerless maiden," but I could venture to woo her, and felt grateful
that, in choosing my profession, I could follow my inclination without
being forced to consider pecuniary advantages.

The province of labour was found, but with each step forward the
conviction of my utter lack of preparation for the new science grew
clearer.

Just then the kind heart of Wilhelm Grimm's wife brought her to me with
some delicious fruit syrup made by her own hands. When I told her what
I was doing and expressed a wish to have a guide in my science, she
promised to tell "the men" at home, and within a few days after his
sister-in-law's visit Jacob was sitting with me.

He inquired with friendly interest how my attention had been called
to Egyptology, what progress I had made, and what other sciences I was
studying.

After my reply he shook his venerable head with its long grey locks, and
said, smiling:

"You have been putting the cart before the horse. But that's the way
with young specialists. They want to become masters in the workshops of
their sciences as a shoemaker learns to fashion boots. Other things are
of small importance to them; and yet the special discipline first gains
value in connection with the rest or the wider province of the allied
sciences. Your deciphering of hieroglyphics can only make you a
dragoman, and you must become a scholar in the higher sense, a real and
thorough one. The first step is to lay the linguistic foundation."

This was said with the engaging yet impressively earnest frankness
characteristic of him. He himself had never investigated Egyptian
matters closely, and therefore did not seek to direct my course
minutely, but advised me, in general, never to forget that the special
science was nothing save a single chord, which could only produce its
full melody with those that belonged to the same lute.

Lepsius had a broader view than most of those engaged