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He had learnt music in the same way that a scholar from the Academy of Inscriptions learns or pretends to learn Persian. He had learnt to admire such and such a piece, the first quality always lay in a sound that was just right, in a phrase that was perfectly correct.

[...] When I left Lussinge the most dismal time of the day would begin for me. I went, in that year's great heat, to seek the shade and a little coolness beneath the great chestnut trees of the Tuileries. 'Since I can't forget her, wouldn't I do better to kill myself?' I'd think. Everything was bur…

[...] This Mme Lavenelle is as dry as a piece of parchment and in any case has no wit, and above all no passion, and it's quite impossible for her to be affected other than by the sturdy thighs of a company of grenadiers parading through the garden of the Tuileries in white kerseymere knickerbock…

He also had delicate and charming turns of phrase, but they had to make sure not to rise about the Lilliputian littleness of his ideas.

[...] He was defending, as a solicitor, one of those poor idiots who get involved in conspiracy when they have only two thirds or three quarters of the courage needed for such a preposterous action. [...]