Long practice had taught him a very dexterous mode of
_nesting_ himself, as it were, in the bed-clothes. First of all,
he sat down on the bedside; then with an agile motion he vaulted
obliquely into his lair; next he drew one corner of the bedclothes
under his left shoulder, and passing it below his back, brought it
round so as to rest under his right shoulder; fourthly, by a particular
_tour d'adresse_, he treated the other corner in the same way, and
finally contrived to roll it round his whole person. Thus swathed like
a mummy, or (as I used to tell him) self-involved like the silk-worm in
its cocoon, he awaited the approach of sleep, which generally came on
immediately. For Kant's health was exquisite; not mere negative health,
or the absence of pain, but a state of positive pleasurable sensation,
and a genial sense of the entire possession of all his activities.
Accordingly, when packed up for the night in the way I have described,
he would often ejaculate to himself (as he used to tell us at dinner)--
'Is it possible to conceive a human being with more perfect health than
myself?' In fact, such was the innocence of his life, and such the
happy condition of his situation, that no uneasy passion ever arose to
excite him--nor care to harass--nor pain to awake him.
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