midnight before
The former led him to indulge in his reprehensible habit of drinking , and the latter soon made him upset all the systems of order and regulation . Day he turned into night and night into day . He shunned for the most part the society of Hitzig and his circle of friends , with their stimulating discussions that cultivated the mind whilst unfolding and developing the feelings , and frequented a low wine-shop and the common coarse company that was to be met with there . Hence during nearly all the rest of his life , that is , from 1816 to 1821 , he spent his mornings in the discharge of his official duties at the Supreme Court -LRB- two mornings a week , Monday and Thursday -RRB- , or in writing ; the afternoons he generally slept , or in summer took a walk ; and the evenings and nights always found him in the wine-shop of his choice ; and he never liked to leave it until morning came , nor did any other engagements prevent him from putting in an appearance at his habitual haunt , even though it were past midnight before he were free . As already remarked , however , it was not to sit and drink like a sot that he gave way to this degrading habit , but to get himself `` exalted '' as he called it , and then when he was duly `` exalted '' came the firework display of wit and glowing fancy , going on hour after hour without rest or interruption for the space of five or six hours at once . If his tongue was not the medium through which he discharged the creations of his teeming imagination , his eagle eye was spying out all that was ridiculous or strikingly extraordinary , or even what was possessed of a touch of pathos or deep feeling , or he employed his hand in sketching and drawing inimitable caricatures . He never sat idle and silent , and drank steadily and stolidly as so many confirmed drinkers do .