egree he would have been such in a more
light-hearted nation which did not take too seriously every form of
recreation.

For his poetic and his literary aspirations were alike addressed
immediately to life, and though he did not seek a practical end with
absolute invariability, yet he ever had a practical aim before his eyes,
whether it was near or far. Therefore his thought was always clear, his
phraseology was lucid and readily intelligible, and since, with his
extensive knowledge, he continually held to the interest of the day,
followed it, and intelligently occupied himself with it, his
conversation also was diversified and stimulating throughout; so that I
have not readily become acquainted with anyone who more gladly received
and more spiritedly responded to whatever happy idea others might bring
forward.

Bearing in mind his type of thought, his mode of entertaining himself
and others, and his honorable purpose of influencing his generation, he
can scarcely be reproached for feeling an antagonism toward the more
modern philosophical schools. When, at an earlier period, Kant gave
merely the preludes of his greater theories in his minor writings, and
in a lighter style seemed to express himself problematically upon
the most weighty themes, then he still stood close enough to our friend;
but when the huge system was erected, all those who had thus far gone
their way poetizing and philosophizing in full freedom, were forced to
see in Kant's monumental work a menacing citadel which would limit their
serene excursions over the field of experience.

Yet not merely the philosophers, but also the poets, had much, and,
indeed, everything, to fear from the new intellectual tendency, so soon
as large numbers should allow themselves to be attracted by it. It would
at first appear as though its purpose was mainly directed toward
knowledge, and then toward the theory of morals and its immediately
subsidiary subjects. It was readily obvious, however, that, if it was
intended to establish, more firmly than had hitherto been the case,
those weighty affairs of higher knowledge and of moral conduct, and if
there the demand was made for a sterner, more coherent judgment,
developed from the depths of humanity--it was readily obvious, I repeat,
that taste also would soon be referred to such principles, and,
therefore, the attempt would be made absolutely to set aside individual
fancies, chance culture, and popular peculiarities, and