Do you remember how Browning's Sarto defends himself?
"Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try." He did not see that Balzac, one of the greatest talkers that ever lived according to Theophile Gautier, was condemning the temptation to which he himself had no doubt yielded too often.

To my surprise, Oscar did not even read much now.

He was not eager to hear new thoughts, a little rebellious to any new mental influence.

He had reached his zenith, I suppose: had begun to fossilise, as men do when they cease to grow.
One day at lunch I questioned him: "You told me once that you always imagined yourself in the place of every historic personage.

Suppose you had been Jesus, what religion would you have preached ?" "What a wonderful question!" he cried.