It is precisely so with the minds of certain other people.

When they speak, you know exactly what they are going to say; you have heard the same thing so many times already from them, you know all their ideas by heart.

These people are welcomed everywhere: because they have nothing peculiar about them; and peculiarity, especially in the upper classes, is always irritating and offensive; they detest all innovations.
Albert was peculiar; consequently much discussed, and very differently estimated.

He was charged with sins of the most opposite character, with faults so contradictory that they were their own defence.

Some accused him, for instance, of entertaining ideas entirely too liberal for one of his rank; and, at the same time, others complained of his excessive arrogance.