I had no difficulty, upon leaving the Stanislas College, in taking up one of the negotiations which I had broken off when I joined it, and in carrying out my original plan of hiring a student’s lodging in Paris.  This is my present position.  I have hired a room in a sort of school near the Luxemburg, and in exchange for a few lessons in mathematics and literature I am, as the saying goes, “about quits.”  I did not expect to do so well.  I have, moreover, nearly the whole of the day to myself, and I can spend as much time as I please at the Sorbonne, and in the libraries.  These are my real homes, and it is in them that I spend my happiest hours.  This mode of life would be very pleasant if I was not haunted by painful recollections, apprehensions only too well founded, and above all by a terrible feeling of isolation.  Come and join me, therefore, my dear friend, and we shall pass some very pleasant hours together.

I have spoken to you thus far of the facts which have contributed to detain me for the present in Paris, and I have said nothing to you about the ulterior plans which I have in my head; for you take for granted, I suppose, that I merely look upon this as a transitory situation, pending the completion of my studies.  It is upon the more remote future, in fact, that my thoughts are concentrated, now that my present position is assured.  From this arises a fresh source of intellectual worry, by which I am at present beset, for it is quite painful to me to have to specialize myself, and besides there is no specialty which fits exactly into the divisions of my mind.  But nevertheless it must be done.  It is very hard to be fettered in one’s intellectual development by external circumstances.  You can imagine what I suffer, after having left my mind so absolutely free to follow its line of development.  My first step was to see what could be done with regard to Oriental languages, and I was promised some lectures with M. Quatremere and M. Julien, professor of Chinese at the College de France.  The result went to prove that this was not my outward specialty. (I say outward because internally I shall never have one, unless philosophy be classed as one, which to my mind would be inaccurate.) Then I thought of the university, and here, as you will understand, fresh difficulties arose.  A professorship in the strict sense of the term is almost intolerable in my eyes, and even if one does not retain it all one’s life long it must be held for a considerable period.  I could get on very well with philosophy if I were allowed to teach it in my own way, but I should not be able to do that, and before reaching that stage one would have to spend years at what I call school literature, Latin verses, themes, etc.  The perspective seemed so dreadful that I had at one time resolved to attach myself to the science classes, but in that case I should have been compelled to specialize myself more than in any other branch, for in scientific literature the principle