aits of distinguished men; and he showed his noble
catholicity of spirit, in having the great men of his native land all
there, without regard to their peculiar schools and sentiments. His
library contained about 4,000 volumes. They filled the room; table, chairs
and sofa were loaded with them; they lay in stacks upon the floor; and, in
some cases, were piled, two or three tiers deep, into the shelves against
the walls. To anybody else the library would have been a chaos; but he
could lay his hand at once upon any book he wished for. It was in this
room, thus crammed with books, that he used to entertain the little
parties he invited to sup with him. The repast was always frugal; the
conversation, on his part, such as might have gone into print. A
man-servant brought in the refreshments on a tray; or, sometimes, one of
his pupils officiated. His only sister, who kept house for him during the
greater part of his life, never made her appearance at these exclusively
masculine entertainments. He himself rarely paid any attention to the
progress of the meal, but seemed to be as much a visitor as any of his
guests. The little he needed was soon dispatched, and his thoughts were
again afloat, sounding along from theme to theme.

He never married, and, at the time I speak of, was almost alone in the
world. Neither father, nor mother, nor any other near relative remained to
him, save his sister, Johanna, whose care of him had need to be almost
maternal. Well-nigh every day in the year these two might be seen walking
out together to take the air. They went always arm in arm, a beautiful
embodiment of the tenderest affection. Hardly the king himself attracted
more attention in the street. Scarcely a person he met failed to raise his
hat and salute the venerable scholar with the heartiest good will. As he
was both short-sighted and suffering from diseased vision, he had to
depend upon his sister to know who bowed to him; and it was amusing to see
his returning salutation bestowed, in almost every instance, a little too
late. Many anecdotes were afloat in Berlin, and indeed all over Germany,
going to illustrate his habits of abstraction and absent-mindedness, some
of which no doubt were true, and all of which were likely enough to have
been so.

An exact description of his manners in the lecture-room would, by any one
who never saw him, be thought a caricature. He entered the room with his
eyes upon the floor, as if feeling his way;