ection of the tasks
he set me; but our conversations on archaeological subjects have also
been of the greatest interest.

After his death I tried to return in some small degree what his
unselfish kindness had bestowed by accepting the invitation to become
his biographer. In "Richard Lepsius," I describe reverently but without
deviating one step from the truth, this wonderful scholar, who was a
faithful and always affectionate friend.

I can scarcely believe it possible that the dignified man, with the
grave, stern, clear-cut, scholarly face and snow-white hair, was but
forty-five years old when he began to direct my studies; for, spite of
his erect bearing and alert, movements, he seemed to me at that time a
venerable old man. There was something in the aristocratic reserve of
his nature and the cool, penetrating sharpness of his criticism,
which is usually found only in men of more mature years. I should have
supposed him incapable of any heedless word, any warm emotion, until
I afterwards met him under his own roof and enjoyed the warm-hearted
cheerfulness of the father of the family and the graciousness of the
host.

It certainly was not the cool, calculating reason, but the heart, which
had urged him to devote so many hours of his precious time to the young
follower of his science.

Heinrich Brugsch, my second teacher, was far superior to Lepsius as
a decipherer and investigator of the various stages of the ancient
Egyptian languages. Two natures more totally unlike can scarcely be
imagined.

Brugsch was a man of impulse, who maintained his cheerfulness even when
life showed him its serious side. Then, as now, he devoted himself with
tireless energy to hard work. In this respect he resembled Lepsius, with
whom he had other traits in common-first, a keen sense of order in the
collection and arrangement of the abundant store of scientific material
at his disposal; and, secondly, the circumstance that Alexander von
Humboldt had smoothed the beginning of the career of investigation for
both. The attention of this great scholar and influential man had been
attracted by Brugsch's first Egyptological works, which he had commenced
before he left school, and his keen eye recognized their value as
well as the genius of their author. As soon as he began to win renown
Humboldt extended his powerful protection to him, and induced his
friend, the king, to afford him means for continuing his education in
Paris and for a jou