There was evidently something singularly dual in his temperament. His character was composed of two distinct elements which were complements of each other: a burning hatred of stupidity and an unbounded love of art. This hatred, as is so often the case with hatred, felt itself irresistibly attracted to its object. Stupidity in all its forms, such as folly, superstition, self-conceit, and illiberality, attracted him magnetically, and inspired him. He was compelled to depict it trait by trait; he deemed it, in and for itself, entertaining, even when others could not discover it to be interesting or comical. He made a formal collection of stupidities, absurd pleas for law-suits, and vapid illustrations; he collected a mass of wretched verse, written by physicians alone; every evidence of human stupidity, as such, had its value to him. In his works, indeed, he has done nothing else than erect monuments with a masterly hand to human limitation and blindness, to our misfortunes, so far as they depend upon our stupidities. I almost fear that the world's history was to him the history of human stupidity. His faith in the progress of the human race was exceedingly wavering. The mass, even the reading public, was to him "that everlasting blockhead which we call they (_on_)." If we wished to label this side of his character, and absolutely stamp him with one of those popular, but to him so detestable, words ending with "ist," it could not with full justice be pessimist, nor yet nihilist; imbecillist would be the word. To this unremitting pursuit of stupidity, whose embittered character was shrouded in its purely impersonal form, corresponded, as before stated, a passionate love of literature, which to him signified beauty and harmony, which was considered by him the highest, in fact the only true, art, and which he cultivated with a yearning for perfection that first kept him long silent, then caused him at a late day to become a master, and finally rendered him early unfruitful again. When he depicted the commonplace, it caused him more distress than others; he therefore endeavored to elevate his materials through the artistic manner of his treatment, and since in his eyes the most important attribute of authorship was the plastic power, he strove beyond all else to attain perspicuity. He has said so himself, and we feel it to be true when we study him through his style. In his very first work all the merits of this style came to light.