The Dative.

Some locker room banter from the classics reading room:––

     Τὰ συμμαθητά συμμαθητής δε ἐγὼ δε (Several classmates and I) were recently sitting in the reading room diverting one another's attention by discussing the 'personalities' of the Latin cases. One liked Ablative: multifarious, clever, at odds with others, a rogue ever to be "the one who got away."  Another admired Accusative, so sensible, so very direct, solid, dependable, fitting, and squarely and logically engaged with those around him.  The Hellenist among us, of course, loved Genitive, even if more for its Greek than for its Latin qualities.  But Genitive, said I, mixes too much with the other parts of speech: it is noun in form, but its sympathies lie with those insubstantial adjectives.

     To me, though, Dative is an avis rara, multum mihi dilecta: delicate, with a very circumscribed and yet high-minded set of qualities, touching on all that is ultimate, all that is tending towards something, or has some purpose in mind in doing something.  Dative is the most cognitive of cases, as it expresses such fine things as purpose and interest; and, although only in the most intimate of relations, it may even borrow from Genitive the notion possession.  It can float about in ethereal reference.  And it was endangered, being, like all fine things, doomed to perish quickly in the carelessness neglect of the vulgus.