He was one of that class of men who, apart
from a scientific career in which they may well have proved brilliantly
successful, have acquired an entirely different kind of culture, literary
or artistic, of which they make no use in the specialised work of their
profession, but by which their conversation profits. More 'literary' than
many 'men of letters' (we were not aware at this period that M. Legrandin
had a distinct reputation as a writer, and so were greatly astonished to
find that a well-known composer had set some verses of his to music),
endowed with a greater ease in execution than many painters, they imagine
that the life they are obliged to lead is not that for which they are
really fitted, and they bring to their regular occupations either a
fantastic indifference or a sustained and lofty application, scornful,
bitter, and conscientious. Tall, with a good figure, a fine, thoughtful
face, drooping fair moustaches, a look of disillusionment in his blue
eyes, an almost exaggerated refinement of courtesy; a talker such as we
had never heard; he was in the sight of my family, who never ceased to
quote him as an example, the very pattern of a gentleman, who took life in
the noblest and most delicate manner.
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