In his demeanour, he himself tells us, there was a certain stiff dignity which excited the ridicule of his companions.

It was in his nature even as a boy, he also tells us, to assume airs of command: one of his own acquaintance and of his own years said of him, "We were all his lacqueys." Here we have in anticipation the aged Goethe whose Jove-like presence put Heine out of countenance; the god "cold, monosyllabic," of Jean Paul.
But behind the stiff demeanour, in youth as in age, there was the mercurial temperament, the _etwas unendlich Ruehrendes_, which made him a problem at all periods of his life even to those who knew him most intimately.

He has himself noted his youthful reputation for eccentricity, "his lively, impetuous, and excitable temper"; and this was the side of him that most impressed his associates till he was past middle age.

In boyhood, also, as even in his latest years, he was subject to bursts of violence in which he lost all self-control.

When attacked by three of his schoolmates, he fell upon them with the fury of a wild beast, and mastered all three.