His second rule was, to have a due balance of young men, frequently of very young men, selected fromthe students of the university, in order to impress a movement of gaiety and juvenile playfulness on the conversation; an additional motive for which, as I have reason to believe, was, that in this way he withdrew his mind from the sadness which sometimes overshadowed it, for the early deaths of some young friends whom he loved.

Thomas de Quincey - The Last Days of Immanuel Kant (1827)