 This impenetrability has been taken by some to signify an incapacity for clear expression on Hamann’s part. Hegel remarked: “The French have a saying: Le stile c’est l’homme meme (‘The style is the man himself’); Hamann’s writings do not have a particular style but rather are style through and through” [Hegel, 209]. Others, however, have pointed to the clarity and concision of his letters, in contrast to the puzzling style he uses to address the public. They suggest that Hamann’s challenging style forms are an important part of Hamann’s hermeneutics and his understanding of the relationship between the writer and reader: two halves of a whole who must relate themselves to one another and unite for a common goal (“Reader and Critic”, 1762). The reader cannot be passive and must work to reconstruct Hamann’s meaning. As Hamann observed, “A writer who is in a hurry to be understood today or tomorrow runs the danger of being misunderstood the day after tomorrow.”