He was sometimes not shaved for three whole days and nights.

At any rate, there he is.

It is of no use saying that he does not exist, as many of the Close ladies try to do.

And at least he does not paint strange women; he prefers flowers and cows and the Polchester woods, although anything less like cows, flowers and woods, Mrs.Sampson, wife of the Dean, who once had a water-colour in the Academy, says she has never seen.

Samuel Trefusis is a failure, and, what is truly awful, he does not mind; nobody buys his pictures and he does not care; and, worst taste of all, he laughs at his relations, although he lives on them.
Nothing further need be said.
To Helen, Mary and Jeremy he had always been a fascinating object, although they realised, with that sharp worldly wisdom to be found in all infants of tender years, that he was a failure, a dirty man, and disliked children.