The Elegant Magister 115Kant then moved freely in what was high society for Königsberg: noble
officers, rich merchants, and the court of the count.
The Keyserlingks had definite cultural interests, especially in music,
and their palace was appointed with the most beautiful furniture, china,
and paintings. The countess was also interested in philosophy and had ear¬
lier in her life translated Wolff into French, which goes a long way toward
explaining why Kant was appreciated early on and made a regular dinner
guest. Kant occupied almost always the place of honor to the right of the
countess.^74 Kant's association with this family was to last more than thirty
years. He felt great respect for the countess, who was three years younger
than he was. After her death in 1791, he called her "an adornment of her
sex" in a footnote to his Anthropology. There was, of course, never any ro¬
mantic involvement. The social distance between Kant and the countess
was just too great for that thought even to arise. The countess presented
to Kant, however, the type of woman he might have wanted to marry, if
that had been at all possible.
Kant became a person of elegance during this period, someone who
shone at social events with his intelligence and wit. He became an elegant
Magister {"ein eleganter Magister"), someone who took great care of his
outer appearance, whose maxim was that it was "better to be a fool in style
than a fool out of style." It is our "duty not to make a distasteful or even
unusual impression on others."^75 As late as 1791 a Danish poet found it
"pleasing that Kant prefers a somewhat exaggerated elegance (Galanterie)
over carelessness in dressing."^76 He always followed also the "maxim" that
the colors of one's dress should follow the flowers. "Nature does not create
anything that does not please the eye; the colors it puts together always fit
precisely with each other." Accordingly, a brown coat required a yellow vest.
Late in his life Kant preferred mottled (meliert) colors. During the period
under consideration, he was more inclined to extravagance, wearing coats
with golden borders, and a ceremonial sword.^77 He cut a figure quite dif¬
ferent from his more clerically and Pietistically inclined Königsberg col¬
leagues, who wore more modest black or, at most, gray.^78
Kant was a very attractive man: "His hair was blond, the color of his
face fresh, and his cheeks showed even in old age a healthy blush." His eyes
were particularly arresting. As one contemporary exclaimed: "From where
do I take the words to describe to you his eye! Kant's eye was as if it had
been formed of heavenly ether from which the deep look of the mind, whose
fiery beam was occluded by a light cloud, visibly shone forth. It is impos¬
sible to describe the bewitching effect of his look on my feeling when I sat