Indeed he was perfectly free from the fault which besets so many
_savans_ and _literati_, of intolerance towards those whose
pursuits had disqualified them for any particular sympathy with his
own. His style of conversation was popular in the highest degree, and
unscholastic; so much so, that any stranger who should have studied his
works, and been unacquainted with his person, would have found it
difficult to believe, that in this delightful companion he saw the
profound author of the Transcendental Philosophy.
The subjects of conversation at Kant's table were drawn chiefly from
natural philosophy, chemistry, meteorology, natural history, and above
all, from politics. The news of the day, as reported in the public
journals, was discussed with a peculiar vigilance of examination. With
regard to any narrative that wanted dates of time and place, however
otherwise plausible, he was uniformly an inexorable sceptic, and held
it unworthy of repetition. So keen was his penetration into the
interior of political events, and the secret policy under which they
moved, that he talked rather with the authority of a diplomatic person
who had access to cabinet intelligence, than as a simple spectator of
the great scenes which were unfolding in Europe.
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