He tears off or breaks whatever causes him the slightest discomfort, while the poor valet who has been the means of it meets with a violent and positive proof of his anger.

No thought was ever more carried away by its own speed.

"His handwriting, when he tries to write, "is a mass of disconnected and undecipherable signs;[1211] the words lack one-half of their letters." On reading it over himself, he cannot tell what it means.

At last, he becomes almost incapable of producing a handwritten letter, while his signature is a mere scrawl.

He accordingly dictates, but so fast that his secretaries can scarcely keep pace with him: on their first attempt the perspiration flows freely and they succeed in noting down only the half of what he says.