u6 Kant: A Biographyacross him and when he suddenly raised his lowered eyes to look at me. I
always felt as if I looked through this blue ether-like fire into the most holy
of Minerva."^79
Yet at 5 feet, 2 inches (1.57 meters) tall, and of slender build, he was
neither athletic nor an imposing figure. His chest was somewhat sunken,
which made breathing difficult, and he could not endure heavy physical
exertion. At times he complained of a lack of air. Delicate and sensitive, he
was also subject to allergic reactions. Freshly printed newspapers would
make him sneeze. Accordingly, if he dominated a conversation or social
function, it was not by his physical presence but by his charm and wit. In
many ways he embodied the ideal of an intellectual and man of letters
fostered during the period of the Rococo in Germany and France.^80 Ac¬
cordingly, it is not at all unlikely that Kant did indeed advise the young
Herder that he should "not brood so much over his books, but rather follow
his own example."^81
How important elegance was in Königsberg during the period, and to
Kant especially, can also be seen from Borowski, who reports that in one
of Kant's disputation sessions a student had proposed the thesis "that in¬
teraction in general, and especially among students must be connected
with grace (Grazie)." Kant did not reject this thesis, but he explained that
the common German concept of "Höflichkeit" or "politeness" really meant
"courtly" or "noble" manners, and was thus connected to a certain estate.
Instead, he argued that one should aim at a certain kind of "urbanity."^82
In other words, though Kant "mixed with people in all the estates, and
gained true trust and friendship," he never forgot where he came from.^83
The republican ideals he later formulated in his political writings were thus
rooted in his personal life.
The topic of elegance in the eighteenth century was inevitably bound up
with relations between the sexes. Kant, who never married, and who - as far
as we know — never had sex, is often thought to have had little to do with
women, but this is false. In addition to being the darling of the Countess
Keyserlingk, Kant also socialized with a number of other women, who
remembered him long after they had separated. The earliest was perhaps
Charlotte Amalie of Klingspor. She wrote to Kant in 1772 that she felt cer¬
tain he was still her friend "just as you were then," that is, after the middle
of the fifties, and she assured him that she had benefited from his "benev¬
olent instruction" that "in philosophy truth is everything and that a philoso¬
pher has a pure faith." She thanked him as well for having sent her long
before Christoph Martin Wieland's "Reminders to a Girlfriend " ("Enn-