Leipsic
The elder Lepsius kept most of the letters which his son wrote him from Leipsic, where he began his studies. They show how earnestly he took hold of the matter from the start, and how attentively the president of the court at Naumburg watched not only the practical daily life, but also the scientific activity of his son. The methodical official wished to be informed as to the expenditure of every groschen which he allowed his son, and the accounts accompanying the student’s letters show us how cheaply it was possible to live in Leipsic some fifty years ago. A good dinner, with soup, roast, and salad or compote, cost three groschen, Richard thought the morning coffee too dear at a groschen, the beer at dinner for fourteen days came to seven groschen, a room at the inn for one night was three groschen, a pat (half-pound) of butter was two groschen, three pfennigs. However, the hard-working student seems to have been absolved from this exact rendering of accounts in the third term, but it had been of great advantage to him, for it would have been impossible for him to bring the greatest of his subsequent works to such a successful issue, or indeed to produce them at all, without the strict sense of order which he had acquired both by inheritance and training. For example, after his return from Egypt he was able without the slightest error to join and fit into their proper places the thousands of sheets of paper with which he had taken impressions of the inscriptions. This shows a painstaking exactness in the marking and numbering of each leaf such as had been practised by no previous traveller, not even by Champollion and Rosellini, in whose works errors are by no means rare.
From the first, it was clear to him that he wished to study philology, but he hesitated for some time as to what course he should pursue afterwards. He had presented himself at the proper time, but in those days the professors took things easily. Godfrey Hermann, of whom he had the highest expectations, only began to lecture after Whitsuntide, “most of the others, such as Beck, Rost, Nobbe, Weiske, only at the beginning of June.” The first course of lectures which he attended was Wachsmuth’s “Universal History.” “I was much pleased,” he writes to his father, “with his introduction, in which he expressed his views on the exposition of the general conception, on the division and proper treatment of history. He has besides an agreeable fluent delivery, and a very pleasant voice. Yet his public lectures on Roman History, which followed immediately, were almost more interesting to me. Here his discourse is perfectly unfettered, because he has already laid his foundations in the preceding lectures on Universal History. Roman History is a department to which he has given special attention, and in the treatment of which he repeatedly differs from those views of Niebuhr’s which have introduced a new epoch. On this account it is very interesting to hear him criticise Niebuhr, of whom, however, he speaks with the greatest respect.”
The philosopher Krug he had imagined as quite a different person and much younger. He writes to his father of him: “He has the face of an old philosopher, and it is so beset with solemn wrinkles that at first I could not reconcile it with the biting satirical wit which one finds in his writings. His eyes, however, are very brilliant, and they wander perpetually over the ceiling as if he were unaware of the presence of auditors, during the quiet almost monotonous, but pointed discourse, in which he never blunders or hesitates for a syllable.”
From what might be called the more fortuitous selection of the other courses of lectures which he attended, it is apparent with how little consciousness of his ultimate goal he began his studies, and he makes his father the confidant of his indecision. The interesting letter of the seventh of August, 1829, which we give herewith, shows the young aspirant for the right path in the best light, and proves that he had just discerned in the great philologist, Godfrey Hermann, the man in Leipsic from whom he had most to gain.
Before the end of his first term he writes to his father in this letter:
“It will naturally be far more difficult for me to give you a satisfactory explanation of my position regarding science, than regarding practical affairs, since I will not even boast of having come to fixed views on the subject myself. Indeed I consider it a main point during the first part of my stay at the University, and one by no means easily or quickly settled, to come to an understanding with myself about this, and to take a steady survey of my whole course in life, but particularly of my studies. For I feel more and more this important distinction between the school and the university, that here one is suddenly deprived of all guidance and special instruction as to the direction which one should pursue. The many beginnings made at school, without any definite aim in view, must be either continued or abandoned, either pursued more zealously or regarded as a side issue, according to one’s own choice and judgment. On this account, too, I do not reproach myself that as yet I have no unalterable plan nor perfect system in my studies, since scarcely anyone could have made such a decision so quickly, or, were such a hastily formed scheme adopted, it might lead to a one-sided development which should be most foreign to philology especially. Altogether, there is no science in which this question can be more important and at the same time more difficult, than in ours, since we have no positive series of lectures to observe, like the lawyers, doctors, and theologians, but each must choose and trace out his own road over the boundless field of philology, according to his own powers and individual character. Now, so far as my purely scientific education is concerned, from the very beginning two main paths present themselves, between which most students make a voluntary or involuntary choice; namely, philology proper and archæology. Naturally, they are so closely connected that one can never be entirely divorced from the other, but nevertheless every one devotes himself more to one than the other. Indeed either of the two departments alone is sufficiently extensive to demand all the powers of one person. This distinction between, and this independence of, the two branches have been most fully illustrated in our two greatest philologists, Hermann and Böckh, each of whom has formed his own school, entirely distinct from the other. I would think it rash and foolish at present to wish to decide in favor of either, since I know too little of either to make such a decision from my own conviction and independent judgment. In any case it is well for me at first, as far as possible, to attach myself to the school of Hermann, and apply myself entirely to languages, for an accurate knowledge of languages is an indispensable foundation in every other branch, and certainly there can nowhere be found a more accomplished teacher than Hermann, even if there actually are more learned men, which I will not dispute. I learn daily to admire more his incomparable clearness and acuteness in the exercise of the soundest criticism. I listen attentively and with pleasure to his lectures, and perhaps in time will try to become a member of his Greek club, which has already trained eminent philologists and given the first impulse to many learned works....
“Some time ago Graser1 was in Leipsic, only in passing through, but he let himself be persuaded to remain here several days in order to have the pleasure of seeing Hermann. He went to Hermann’s lectures regularly, and was quite enthusiastic about him. At six o’clock he went as a guest to the Greek club, of which he had previously been an honored member. I too went as a guest. There was a discussion concerning a paper on several passages from Plato De legibus, and it was not long before Graser broke in, with a prodigious flood of compliments by way of preface, but with much learning and great acuteness, and gave his opinion on several of the passages. Hermann received it very well. Then they fell to making panegyrics upon each other, and Graser was so inspired by Hermann’s rejoinders that time after time he exclaimed, with every gesture of admiration: Admiror, admiror ingenii tui acumen praestantissimum, vir illustris, venerande, and so on, so that the members were all in a great state of amazement over it. But he spoke good, fluent Latin, and what he said was very scholarly and clever. Finally, Hermann made another little eulogium upon him. These two hours gave me far more pleasure than if I had spent an evening at the theatre, for it is not every day that one can see such enthusiasm as was expressed here for Hermann; it was so genuine, and yet in its whole essence so intelligent and clear.”
This letter, certainly unusually mature and thoughtful for a lad of eighteen, is followed by many others, from which we may see how judiciously Lepsius knew how to divide his time, with what diligence he not only attended lectures, but also twice a day read Greek and Roman classics with his friend Schweckendieck for hours, and still found time to practise music, play chess and visit socially, a welcome guest, among families of good standing in Leipsic. Shortly before the outbreak of the revolution of July, there was a significant fermentation among the German students. After the momentous Carlsbad Decrees, and in consequence of the “Executive Order” carried through by Metternich, the University was placed under political supervision “for the security of public order.” Thus it became not only dangerous to take an active share in the movement for liberty, but even to have any close intercourse with a fellow-student who was suspected of having taken part in “seditious intrigues,” and what were not so styled by the wretched oppressors of political liberty during the supremacy of Metternich’s influence?
How anxious must the Naumburg Landrath have felt when he learned that an older fellow-student of his son’s, of whom the latter wrote to him with great warmth, was involved in demagogic alliances in his native city of Brunswick, at that time a centre of the political dissatisfaction which was soon to lead to the expulsion of Duke Charles. This singularly talented man, named Silberschmidt, was ten years older than young Richard, and had interested him greatly. He had an eventful life behind him, and was so thoroughly at home in the most diverse departments of science, that Lepsius described him to his father as a “universal genius.” In his nine-and-twentieth year he began to study law, had essayed all possible branches of literature, had been page to the King of Westphalia in Cassel, huntsman and fencing-master, said he had studied in Giessen, written a dissertation “On the Immortality of the Soul,” a book on the art of fencing, many dramas, reviews, etc., and called himself also the author of a work on chess. Lepsius who, even as a student, was already an able chess-player, recognized in his fellow-lodger one of the greatest masters of this noble game, and when he visited Silberschmidt in his apartment the latter showed him a very remarkable testimonial. It contained a certificate from the parish of Ströbeck, in Halberstadt, that it had been beaten at chess by Silberschmidt. This was subscribed by the local town magistrate, and stamped with the seal of the parish. The parish in question enjoyed a wide celebrity on account of its chess playing, in which every peasant was a master, and in which even the boys had to pass an examination. Old electoral foundations had endowed the people of Ströbeck with great privileges and possessions on account of their skill in this game. They had never been beaten until Silberschmidt had appeared to conquer them. A Jew from Brunswick had also told Richard’s landlord that his remarkable new friend was the most famous of all living chess-players. As he also proved to be “pleasant, and anything but conceited,” and showed himself “an industrious man of excellent moral principles, and at the same time always cheerful and interesting in his conversation,” Richard supposed he could derive nothing but benefit from intercourse with him. All that he writes to his father of the Brunswicker proves the brilliant talents of the latter, but also shows that he tried to win his younger fellow-student by boasting. Silberschmidt had spoken to Lepsius about his demagogic associations, and as soon as the father had warned his son against this dangerous man, Richard knew how to withdraw from the connection with tact and address. Here, as in every similar case, the youth, scarcely past his boyhood, shows himself entirely submissive to the superior wisdom of his father, and at the same time he already evinces the discretion which he afterwards exhibited in every position in which he was placed during a long life in the midst of the world, where there could not fail to be conflicts and collisions of every kind.
At the end of the second term at Leipsic he debated with his father whether he should not exchange the Leipsic University for another, and in this consultation also we see him weigh the pros and cons with a clear head and great circumspection. To Leipsic he was attached by many a good comrade and many a pleasant family, from whom he had received kindness, and beneath whose roof he had sung and danced and been treated like a son of the house. Of the academic instructors, Hermann alone detained him on the Pleisse, and as the latter intended to travel during the coming summer term, he decided on a change of University. At first his father had some objection, we can no longer fathom what, to Göttingen, whither Richard most desired to go. He therefore weighed Berlin, to which he was particularly attracted by Böeckh, Lachmann, C. Ritter and Bopp, against Bonn, where he had the highest expectations of Welcker and Niebuhr. In his last letter from Leipsic the son decides for the Rhenish University, but during the vacation, which brought him and his father once more together, he seems to have succeeded in inducing the latter to accede to his desire to enter the Georgia Augusta, and so we see him, in the spring of 1830, proceed to Göttingen by way of Eisenach and Cassel, where he saw Spohr conduct a performance of “The White Lady.”