It annoyed him, too, to have his family everlastingly holding up as a model this pedant who only knew life as it is in books, and passed his existence investigating what men had done in other epochs, in order to draw conclusions in harmony with Germany's views.

While young Desnoyers had great facility for admiration, and reverenced all those whose "arguments" Argensola had doled out to him, he drew the line at accepting the intellectual grandeur of this illustrious relative.
During his stay in Berlin, a German word of vulgar invention had enabled him to classify this prig.

Heavy books of minute investigation were every month being published by the dozens in the Fatherland.

There was not a professor who could resist the temptation of constructing from the simplest detail an enormous volume written in a dull, involved style.
The people, therefore, appreciating that these near-sighted authors were incapable of any genial vision of comradeship, called them Sitzfleisch haben, because of the very long sittings which their works represented.
That was what this cousin was for him, a mere Sitzfleisch haben.
Doctor von Hartrott, on explaining his visit, spoke in Spanish.
He availed himself of this language used by the family during his childhood, as a precaution, looking around repeatedly as if he feared to be heard.

He had come to bid his cousin farewell.