Monday, the 6th, he was much weaker and more torpid: he spoke not a
word, except on the occasion of my question about the Moors, as
previously stated, and sate with sightless eyes, lost in himself, and
manifesting no sense of our presence, so that we had the feeling of
some mighty shade or phantom from some forgotten century being seated
amongst us.
About this time, Kant had become much more tranquil and composed. In
the earlier periods of his illness, when his yet unbroken strength was
brought into active contest with the first attacks of decay, he was apt
to be peevish, and sometimes spoke roughly or even harshly to his
servants. This, though very opposite to his natural disposition, was
altogether excusable under the circumstances. He could not make himself
understood: things were therefore brought to him continually which he
had not asked for; and often it happened that what he really wanted he
could not obtain, because all his efforts to name it were
unintelligible. A violent nervous irritation, besides, affected him
from the unsettling of the equilibrium in the different functions of
his nature; weakness in one organ being made more palpable to him by
disproportionate strength in another. But now the strife was over; the
whole system was at length undermined, and in rapid and harmonious
progress to dissolution.
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