" To veil his own
earnestness he turned most naturally to humour, employing it in a
spirit of reverence, as all the great humorists have done, to
express his deepest and most serious convictions. He was aware that
he ran the risk of being misunderstood by some, but he also knew
that it is useless to try to please all, and, like Mozart, he wrote
to please himself and a few intimate friends.
I cannot speak at length of his kindness, consideration, and
sympathy; nor of his generosity, the extent of which was very great
and can never be known--it was sometimes exercised in unexpected
ways, as when he gave my laundress a shilling because it was "such a
beastly foggy morning"; nor of his slightly archaic courtliness--
unless among people he knew well he usually left the room backwards,
bowing to the company; nor of his punctiliousness, industry, and
painstaking attention to detail--he kept accurate accounts not only
of all his property by double entry but also of his daily
expenditure, which he balanced to a halfpenny every evening, and his
handwriting, always beautiful and legible, was more so at sixty-six
than at twenty-six; nor of his patience and cheerfulness during
years of anxiety when he had few to sympathize with him; nor of the
strange mixture of simplicity and shrewdness that caused one who
knew him well to say: "II sait tout; il ne sait rien; il est
poete.
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