Well past fifty he looked thirty-five, no more.

His luxurious soul loathed the approach of age.

Unlike many men of indulgent natures, he loved youth for the sake of his art, and he had sacrificed upon that altar more than most men-sacrificed others.

His cruelty was not as that of the roughs of Seven Dials or Belleville, but it was pitiless.

He admitted to those who asked him why and wherefore when his selfishness became brutality, that everything had to give way for his work.