But intensely as he mourned the unhappy occurrences at the sea-side, for the malignity of fate which by means of his past had destroyed all his plans for a beautiful future, and entangled an innocent noble maiden in his own doom and hurled her into destruction, yet he was but little qualified for a hermit's life; amidst the penance to which he had condemned himself, the promptings to activity and love of life stirred ever anew within him; he would work and labour, and if at times he thought more with silent sadness of the charming girlish picture that had entered into his life like a transient dream, full of beautiful promise, yet the recollection of a shattered bliss could not force the relinquishment of every one of the joys of life upon him. He had much sympathy with the belief and mode of thought of the Buddhists, but not the inclination to bury himself in nonentity. He seemed to hear in distant reverberation the stream of the great world pass by, and it drove him forth out of his solitude into the temptations of life. He often imagined himself to be like Saint Augustine, who was visited in his desert by the seductive spirits of brighter days; often the pictures of Lago Maggiore rose before his mind, the recollection of a southern night, and while wandering through the apartments of his castle, he believed still to perceive the shining traces of that mysterious visit which had never been explained to him. He had been neither to the chief town nor to the sea-side during those two years; then an event occurred which drew him forth out of his brooding quiet life, the Jubilee at the University. He would not be missing when all the scattered intellectual life in the Province suddenly concentrated round one focus, and the companions of his youth, the veterans of former days at the University, the later rising generation of studious youths, bound in one common bond, met one another in equal enthusiasm for works of science. Blanden's first walk in Königsberg was to the little house in the _Prinzessinstrasse_ in which the great Thinker lived. If any one spirit descended to preside at this festival, it could only be that of Emmanuel Kant, who had imprinted his noble impression for ever upon this High School. Like the silver Albertus upon the cap, all citizens of _Alma Mater_ bore the Thinker's picture in their heart. And Blanden heard the inflammatory words of the spirited King who laid the foundation stone of the new University in the _Königsgarten_. He declared that it should be a home of light, and should scare the bird of night back into its darkness. What a noble flight did that Prince's enthusiasm take! He sounded the trumpet in the conflict of intellect, but by his call he never failed to awake that which was opposed to his own ideas.