Hindu Medicine c5.s1.9

c5.s1.9

In discourse Zimmer excelled; here all the facets of his rich nature shone forth brightly. He always spoke about essential things, or rather whatever he touched upon became essential. Although he abounded in witticisms and sarcasms, although he was a brilliant raconteur, sparkling and overflowing with ideas, he was fundamentally serious, even grave. To him nothing was trifling, everything was part of the whole. Talking rapidly, as if possessed by his subject, as if driven on by a demon, he delighted in joining the nearest up with the farthest, in pointing out historical parallels, in establishing crossline combinations. The characterization which a great Sanskrit scholar once applied to Hindu philosophers—a characterization that Zimmer found most appropriate—might be applied to him also, perhaps with a slightly different meaning: he philosophized "in die Quere," latitudinally, as it were.² And he did so with a breadth of knowledge that was astounding. German, French, English poetry and prose, classical literature, art of the various periods, the story of man's highest endeavors and of his most ridiculous foibles—all