But to such a man as Schopenhauer,--one who considered five sixths of the population to be knaves or blockheads, and who had thought out a system for the remaining fraction,--to such a man as he, the question of esteem, or the lack thereof, was of small consequence. He cared nothing for the existence which he led in the minds of other people. To his own self he was true, to the calling of his destiny constant, and he felt that he could sit and snap his fingers at the world, knowing that Time, who is at least a gentleman, would bring him his due unasked. Schopenhauer's character was made up of that combination of seeming contradictions which is the peculiarity of all great men. He had the audacity of childhood and the timidity of genius. He was suspicious of every one, and ineffably kind-hearted. With stupidity in any form he was blunt, even to violence, and yet his manner and courtesy were such as is attributed to the gentlemen of the old school. If he was an egotist, he was also charitable to excess; and who shall say that charity is not the egotism of great natures? He was honesty itself, and yet thought every one wished to cheat him. To mislead a possible thief he labeled his valuables Arcana Medica, put his banknotes in dictionaries, and his gold pieces in ink bottles. He slept on the ground floor, that he might escape easily in case of fire. If he heard a noise at night he snatched at a pistol, which he kept loaded at his bedside. Indeed, he might have chosen for his motto, "Je ne crains rien fors le dangier," and yet who is ever so foolish as a wise man? Kant's biography is full of similar vagaries, and one has but to turn to the history of any of the thinkers whose names are landmarks in literature, to find that eccentricities no less striking have also been recorded of them. Voltaire said, "On aime la vie, mais le néant ne laisse pas d'avoir du bon;" and Schopenhauer, not to be outdone, added more massively, that if one could tap on the tombs and ask the dead if they cared to return, they would shake their heads. His views of life, however, and of the world in general, will be considered later on, and for the moment it is but necessary to note that he regarded happiness as consisting solely in the absence of pain, and laid down as one of the supreme rules for the proper conduct of life that discontent should be banished as far as possible into the outer darkness.