His nerves are always tight-stretched, like the string of a bow; his life is all effort.

In a short period he loses his tone.

Behold him sitting on a chair; he is not sitting, but braced upon its angles, as if his bones were of iron and his nerves steel; every nerve is drawn, his hands are closed like a miser's--it is his lips and head that speak, not his tongue and heart.

He prefers talking about love to possessing it, as he prefers Socrates to Jesus.

Nature is his church, and he is his own god.