For two days he had not left his room; for two days nobody had been permitted to enter it except the old waitress who silently and softly laid the cloth on his table, and placed on it the meals she had brought for him from a neighboring restaurant.
Averting his thoughts from all worldly affairs, the philosopher had worked and reflected, and heard nothing but the intellectual voices that spoke to him from the depths of his mind. Without, history had walked across the battle-field with mighty strides and performed immortal deeds; and here, in the philosopher’s room, the mind had unveiled its grand ideas and problems.
On the 14th of October, and in the night of the 14th and 15th, Hegel finished his “Phenomenology of the Mind,” a work by which he intended to prepare the world for his bold philosophical system, and in which, with the ringing steps of a prophet, he had accomplished his first walk through the catacombs of the creative intellect.
All the power and strength of reality, in his eyes, sprang from this system, which he strove to found in the sweat of his intellectual brow,—and his system had caused him to forget the great events that had occurred in his immediate neighborhood.
Now he had finished his work; now he had written the last word. The pen dropped from his hands, which he folded over his manuscript as if to bless it silently.
He raised his head, which, up to this time, he had bent over the paper, and his blue eyes, so gentle and lustrous, turned toward heaven with a silent prayer for the success of his work. His fine, intellectual face beamed with energy and determination; the philosopher was conscious of the struggle to which his work would give rise in the realm of thought, but he felt ready and prepared to meet his assailants.
“The work is furnished,” he exclaimed, loudly and joyfully; “it shall now go out into the world!”
He hastily folded up his manuscript, wrapped a sheet of paper around it, sealed it and directed it.
Then he looked at his watch.
“Eight o’clock,” he said, in a low voice; “if I make haste, the postmaster will forward my manuscript to-day.”