When, one day, Durtal reproached him for concealing his productions, he replied with a certain melancholy, "No, I caught myself in time to choke down a base instinct, the desire of resaying what has been said.

I could have plagiarized Flaubert as well as, if not better than, the poll parrots who are doing it, but I decided not to.

I would rather phrase abstruse medicaments of rare application; perhaps it is not very necessary, but at least it isn't cheap." What surprised Durtal was his friend's prodigious erudition.

Des Hermies had the run of the most out-of-the-way book shops, he was an authority on antique customs and, at the same time, on the latest scientific discoveries.

He hobnobbed with all the freaks in Paris, and from them he became deeply learned in the most diverse and hostile sciences.