Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

Dans sa jeunesse, il était reveur; plus tard, il devint triste, et, plus tard encore, tout cela se changea en mauvaise humeur presque continuelle. Quand je commencai a le connaitre, il aimait fort tout ce qui porte a la reverie: Ossian, le demi-jour, la musiqe mélancholique. Je l’ai vu se passionner au murmure du vent, parler avec enthousiasme des mugissements de la mer, etre tenté quelquefois de ne pas croire hors de toute vraisemblance les apparitions nocturnes; enfin. Les habitudes géometriques de son esprit l’ont toujours porté a analyser jusqu’a ses émotions. Il rancontait que, dans sa jeunesse, il avait aimé les romans, en meme temps que les sciences exactes. Peut-etre que son esprit se ressentait de ce premier mélange.

Mémoires de Madame de Rémusat, 1802-1808, Paris, Ancienne Maison Michel Lévy Frères, 1880, pp.100-102, PDF

In his youth he was a dreamer; later in life he became a moody, and later still an habitually ill-tempered man. When I first began to know him well, he was exceedingly fond of all that induces reverie – Ossian, the twilight, melancholy music. I have seen him enraptured by the murmur of the wind, I have heard him talk with enthusiasm of the moaning of the sea, and he was tempted sometimes to believe that nocturnal apparitions were not beyond the bounds of possibility. The geometrical turn of his mind disposed him to analyze even his emotions. He used to say that in his youth he had liked reading romances as well as studying the exact sciences; and probably he was influenced by so incongruous a mixture.

Madame de Rémusat, Memois of the Empress Josephine, Vol.1, NY, Collier & Son, 1879/1910, pp.66-69