This cunning course not only concealed his intelligence but ensured his safety.

Every day he remained in his mother's house utterly listless and unclean, flinging himself on the ground and bespattering his person with foul and filthy dirt.

His discoloured face and visage smutched with slime denoted foolish and grotesque madness.

All he said was of a piece with these follies; all he did savoured of utter lethargy.

In a word, you would not have thought him a man at all, but some absurd abortion due to a mad fit of destiny.
He used at times to sit over the fire, and, raking up the embers with his hands, to fashion wooden crooks, and harden them in the fire, shaping at their lips certain barbs, to make them hold more tightly to their fastenings.