at and original mind; it is the
principal quality of what one calls genius.

In possessing Schopenhauer the world possesses a personality the richer;
a somewhat garrulous personality it may be; a curiously whimsical and
sensitive personality, full of quite ordinary superstitions, of
extravagant vanities, selfish, at times violent, rarely generous; a man
whom during his lifetime nobody quite knew, an isolated creature,
self-absorbed, solely concerned in his elaboration of the explanation of
the world, and possessing subtleties which for the most part escaped the
perception of his fellows; at once a hermit and a boulevardier. His was
essentially a great temperament; his whole life was a life of ideas, an
intellectual life. And his work, the fruit of his life, would seem to be
standing the test of all great work--the test of time. It is not a
little curious that one so little realised in his own day, one so little
lovable and so little loved, should now speak to us from his pages with
something of the force of personal utterance, as if he were actually
with us and as if we knew him, even as we know Charles Lamb and Izaak
Walton, personalities of such a different calibre. And this man whom we
realise does not impress us unfavourably; if he is without charm, he is
surely immensely interesting and attractive; he is so strong in his
intellectual convictions, he is so free from intellectual affectations,
he is such an ingenuous egotist, so naively human; he is so mercilessly
honest and independent, and, at times (one may be permitted to think),
so mistaken.

R.D.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

Arthur Schopenhauer was born at No. 117 of the Heiligengeist Strasse, at
Dantzic, on February 22, 1788. His parents on both sides traced their
descent from Dutch ancestry, the great-grandfather of his mother having
occupied some ecclesiastical position at Gorcum. Dr. Gwinner in his
_Life_ does not follow the Dutch ancestry on the father's side, but
merely states that the great-grandfather of Schopenhauer at the
beginning of the eighteenth century rented a farm, the Stuthof, in the
neighbourhood of Dantzic. This ancestor, Andreas Schopenhauer, received
here on one occasion an unexpected visit from Peter the Great and
Catherine, and it is related that there being no stove in the chamber
which the royal pair selected for the night, their host, for the purpose
of heating it, set fire to several small bottles of brandy which had
been emptie