The zealous fanaticism inspired by an art or a science was evident in this man; it betrayed itself in the strange, persistent abstraction of his mind expressed by his dress and bearing, which were in keeping with the anomalous peculiarities of his person.
His large, hairy hands were dirty, and the nails, which were very long, had deep black lines at their extremities.

His shoes were not cleaned and the shoe-strings were missing.

Of all that Flemish household, the master alone took the strange liberty of being slovenly.

His black cloth trousers were covered with stains, his waistcoat was unbuttoned, his cravat awry, his greenish coat ripped at the seams,--completing an array of signs, great and small, which in any other man would have betokened a poverty begotten of vice, but which in Balthazar Claes was the negligence of genius.
Vice and Genius too often produce the same effects; and this misleads the common mind.

What is genius but a long excess which squanders time and wealth and physical powers, and leads more rapidly to a hospital than the worst of passions?
Men even seem to have more respect for vices than for genius, since to the latter they refuse credit.