"My dear Nicholson,

* * * * *

"I am strangely thrown anew into sympathy with _your_ studies. I have been
working really hard at Arabic for some time--and why, do you think?
Because I had the temerity to undertake (for philological reasons) to
teach a friend modern Arabic. I could not have been so rash or so foolish
as to undertake to teach ancient Arabic; yet I am almost driven on
learning the ancient by the number of questions which have kept
arising.... I have been looking up all my old MSS., and am surprised at
the extent of my former attainments, very much indeed of which I had
forgotten. But words come back to me with a pleasant rapidity, and I am
delighted to find how much I have exaggerated to myself the gap between
old and new Arabic."


With this letter those belonging to the year 1858 come to an end.

With 1859 begin Newman's criticisms on the policy and unscrupulous methods
of Louis Napoleon.

The latter had made himself absolute ruler of France in 1851. Later on he
annexed Savoy and Nice. In his campaign in Lombardy against Austria he was
assisted by Great Britain. In May, when this letter following was written,
Napoleon's Manifesto had just been published in the London papers of 4th
May:--