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; a student stood ready to take
his hat and overcoat and hang them up in their places; while he went
directly to his stand--a high pine desk; threw his left elbow upon it;
dropped his head so low that his eyes could not be seen; tilted the desk
over on its front legs, so that you expected every moment to see it
pitching forward into the lecture-room, with the lecturer after it; and,
seizing a quill, always provided for the purpose, began at once to speak,
and to twist and twirl and tear in pieces the quill.
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