He is incapable of continued labor applied to the creation of a work; but, in a paroxysm of rage caused by wounded vanity, or in a crisis brought on by creditors, he leaps the Eurotas and attains to some great triumph of his intellect.

After which, weary, and surprised at having created anything, he drops back into the marasmus of Parisian dissipation; wants become formidable; he has no strength to face them; and then he comes down from his pedestal and compromises.
Influenced by a false idea of his grandeur and of his future,--the measure of which he reckons on the noble success of one of his former comrades, one of the few great talents brought to light by the revolution of July,--he allows himself, in order to get out of his embarrassments, certain laxities of principle with persons who are friendly to him,--laxities which never come to the surface, but are buried in private life, where no one ever mentions or complains of them.
The shallowness of his heart, the impurity of his hand, which clasps that of all vices, all evils, all treacheries, all opinions, have made him as inviolable as a constitutional king.

Venial sins, which excite a hue and cry against a man of high character, are thought nothing of in him; the world hastens to excuse them.

Men who might otherwise be inclined to despise him shake hands with him, fearing that the day may come when they will need him.

He has, in fact, so many friends that he wishes for enemies.
Judged from a literary point of view, Nathan lacks style and cultivation.