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call up at will the spirit of research. It was like 

 that other spirit which cometh when it listeth, and 

 greater wisdom was shown in following out at the time 

 a profitable line of thought, than in adhering to a 

 fixed lesson-plan. By degrees all discontent vanished, 

 and I became acclimatised to my new intellectual con- 

 ditions. Continuing to work strenuously but happily 

 till the autumn of 1850, I then came to England. 

 But I soon returned to Germany, being this time 

 accompanied by my lifelong friend, Mr. Thomas Archer 

 Hirst, late Director of Studies in the Eoyal Naval 

 College. 



To those Marburg days I look back with warm 

 affection, both in regard to Nature and to man. The 

 surrounding landscape with its various points of interest 

 and beauty is still present to my mind's eye: the 

 Dommelsberg, the Kirch spitze, Spielslust, Marbach, 

 Werda, and farther off Kirchain, with its neighbouring 

 spurt of basaltic rock. On this huge wart stands a 

 Catholic church, many Catholic crosses, and a village 

 containing a purely Catholic population. It might be 

 described as an oasis of Catholicism amid a howling 

 desert of Protestantism, for Protestantism was regnant 

 everywhere around. And then there were the various 

 places of refreshment dotted over the neighbourhood, 

 to which we resorted in little parties from time to time. 

 Close at hand was Ockershausen, where the students 

 used to enjoy their pancakes and sour milk, without a 

 thought that the sourness was produced by little grow- 

 ing microscopic rods — the lactic acid ferment. The 

 mention of this living ferment reminds me that during 

 my time at Marburg existed a delicacy which is now 

 eaten with precautions. On slices of black bread were 

 nicely spread layers of fresh butter, and on these again 

 thin slices of rohe Schinken — raw ham. The discovery 



