All this ended in a warm and lasting friendship. But do you not consider admirable his delightful manner of love-making? They met in the Louvre, at Versailles, and in the adjoining woods; they took long walks, even in January, several times a week; he admired “a radiant physiognomy, a splendid bearing, a white hand, superb black hair”; a mind whose intelligence and attainments were worthy of his own, the charms of an unusual type of beauty, the attractions of a broad and miscellaneous culture, the fascinations of a toilet, and a coquetry cleverly directed and managed; he breathed the exquisite perfume of an education so well chosen, and of a “nature so refined, that it summed up for him an entire civilisation”; to sum it all up, he was under the charm. Then the spectator reappears and resumes his post. He disputed the purport of a reply, of a gesture; he dissociated himself from his feelings that he might form an unbiassed judgment; he expressed candidly and epigrammatically his views one day, to regret them the next.
Such was the man as we find him reflected in his books. As a dilettante he wrote and studied, passing from one subject to another, as suggested by the occasion or his own fancy, without devoting himself to one system of knowledge, without dedicating himself to the worship of one idea. This was owing to no lack of study or of natural endowment; few men, on the contrary, have enjoyed a broader mental training. Besides French he was master of six languages, including their literature and philology: Italian, Greek, Latin, English, Spanish, and Russian. I believe, also, that he read German. An occasional phrase, or a reference in his correspondence, shows the extent to which he had directed these studies.
_Calo_ he spoke in such a manner as to astonish the Spanish gipsies. He was familiar with the various Spanish dialects, and was able to decipher the archaic title-deeds of Catalonia. He understood perfectly English versification. Those only who have studied an entire literature, both in print and in manuscript, during the several successive periods of its development, in style and in orthography, are able to appreciate the skill and perseverance necessary to know Spanish as the author of _Don Pedro_ knew it, and Russian as the author of _The Cossacks_ and of _The False Demetrius_ knew it. With a natural gift for languages, he pursued their acquirement even after reaching maturity. During the latter part of his life he became interested in philology, and while living in Cannes devoted himself to the critical studies which compose the comparative grammar.