Narrative and Miscellaneous PapersDe Quincey, Thomas
General
Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers
De Quincey, Thomas
English essays; English fiction
This scene of disturbance over, which to Kant, a lover of peace and
tranquillity, caused a shock that he would gladly have been spared; it
was fortunate that no other of that nature occurred during the rest
of his life. Kaufmann, the successor of Lampe, turned out to be a
respectable and upright man, and soon conceived a great attachment to
his master's person. Things now put on a new face in Kant's family: by
the removal of one of the belligerents, peace was once more restored
amongst his servants; for hitherto there had been eternal wars between
Lampe and the cook. Sometimes it was Lampe that carried a war of
aggression into the cook's territory of the kitchen; sometimes it was
the cook that revenged these insults, by sallying out upon Lampe in the
neutral ground of the hall, or invaded him even in his own sanctuary of
the butler's pantry. The uproars were everlasting; and thus far it was
fortunate for the peace of the philosopher, that his hearing had begun
to fail; by which means he was spared many an exhibition of hateful
passions and ruffian violence, which annoyed his guests and friends.
But now all things had changed: deep silence reigned in the pantry; the
kitchen rang no more with martial alarums; and the hall was unvexed with
skirmish or pursuit. Yet it may be readily supposed that to Kant, at the
age of seventy-eight, changes, even for the better, were not welcome: so
intense had been the uniformity of his life and habits, that the least
innovation in the arrangement of articles as trifling as a penknife, or
a pair of scissors, disturbed him; and not merely if they were pushed
two or three inches out of their customary position, but even if they
were laid a little awry; and as to larger objects, such as chairs,
&c., any dislocation of their usual arrangement, any trans position, or
addition to their number, perfectly confounded him; and his eye appeared
restlessly to haunt the seat of the mal-arrangement, until the ancient
order was restored. With such habits the reader may conceive how
distressing it must have been to him, at this period of decaying powers,
to adapt himself to a new servant, a new voice, a new step, &c.
Aware of this, I had on the day before he entered upon his duties,
written down for the new servant upon a sheet of paper the entire
routine of Kant's daily life, down to the minutest and most trivial
circumstances; all which he mastered with the greatest rapidity. To
make sure, however, we went through a rehearsal of the whole ritual;
he performing the manoeuvres, I looking on and giving the word. Still I
felt uneasy at the idea of his being left entirely to his own discretion
on his first _debut_ in good earnest, and therefore I made a point of
attending on this important day; and in the few instances where the new
recruit missed the accurate manoeuvre, a glance or a nod from me easily
made him comprehend his failure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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