In society, he is boldly awkward, and exhibits a contempt for conventions and a critical air about things respected which makes him unpleasant to narrow minds, and also to those who strive to preserve the doctrines of old-fashioned, gentlemanly politeness; but for all that there is a sort of lawless originality about him which women do not dislike.

Besides, to them, he is often most amiably courteous; he seems to take pleasure in making them forget his personal singularities, and thus obtains a victory over antipathies which flatters either his vanity, his self-love, or his pride.
"Why do you present yourself like that ?" said the Marquise de Vandenesse one day.
"Pearls live in oyster-shells," he answered, conceitedly.
To another who asked him somewhat the same question, he replied,-- "If I were charming to all the world, how could I seem better still to the one woman I wish to please ?" Raoul Nathan imports this same natural disorder (which he uses as a banner) into his intellectual life; and the attribute is not misleading.
His talent is very much that of the poor girls who go about in bourgeois families to work by the day.

He was first a critic, and a great critic; but he felt himself cheated in that vocation.

His articles were equal to books, he said.

The profits of theatrical work then allured him; but, incapable of the slow and steady application required for stage arrangement, he was forced to associate with himself a vaudevillist, du Bruel, who took his ideas, worked them over, and reduced them into those productive little pieces, full of wit, which are written expressly for actors and actresses.