nth of books, essays, and pamphlets, which have
issued from my workshop during the last fifty years.[3]

[3] As giving a clear and complete abstract of my writings I
may now recommend M. Montcalm's _L'origine de la Pensee et de
la Parole_, Paris, 1900.

All I could say was that each man must find his own way in life, but
if there was any secret about my success, it was simply due to the
fact that I had perfect faith, and went on never doubting even when
everything looked grey and black about me. I felt convinced that what
I cared for, and what I thought worthy of a whole life of hard work,
must in the end be recognized by others also as of value, and as
worthy of a certain support from the public. Had not Layard gained a
hearing for Assyrian bulls? Did not Darwin induce the world to take an
interest in Worms, and in the Fertilization of Orchids? And should the
oldest book and the oldest thoughts of the Aryan world remain despised
and neglected?

For many years I never thought of appointments or of getting on in the
world in a pecuniary sense. My friends often laughed at me, and when I
think of it now, I confess I must have seemed very Quixotic to many of
those who tried for this and that, got lucrative appointments, married
rich wives, became judges and bishops, ambassadors and ministers, and
could hardly understand what I was driving at with my Sanskrit
manuscripts, my proof-sheets and revises. Perhaps I did not know
myself. Still I was not quite so foolish as they imagined. True, I
declined several offers made to me which seemed very advantageous in a
worldly sense, but would have separated me entirely from my favourite
work.

When at last a professorship of Modern Literature was offered me at
Oxford, I made up my mind, though it was not exactly what I should
have liked, to give up half of my time to studies required by this
professorship, keeping half of my time for the Veda and for Sanskrit
in general. This was not so bad after all. People often laughed at me
for being professor of the most modern languages, and giving so much
of my time and labour to the most ancient language and literature in
the world. Perhaps it was not quite right my giving up so much of my
time to modern languages, a subject so remote from my work in life,
but it was a concession which I could make with a good conscience,
having always held that language was one and indivisible, and that
there never had been a break between Sanskrit