His favorite poets were Horace and Pope; his chosen
philosophers, Hobbes and Voltaire. He took his exercise and his fresh
air under protest; and always walked the same distance to a yard, on the
ugliest high-road in the neighborhood. He was crooked of back, and quick
of temper. He could digest radishes, and sleep after green tea.
His views of human nature were the views of Diogenes, tempered by
Rochefoucauld; his personal habits were slovenly in the last degree; and
his favorite boast was that he had outlived all human prejudices.
Such was this singular man, in his more superficial aspects. What
nobler qualities he might possess below the surface, no one had ever
discovered. Mr. Vanstone, it is true, stoutly asserted that "Mr. Clare's
worst side was his outside"--but in this expression of opinion he
stood alone among his neighbors. The association between these two
widely-dissimilar men had lasted for many years, and was almost close
enough to be called a friendship. They had acquired a habit of
meeting to smoke together on certain evenings in the week, in the
cynic-philosopher's study, and of there disputing on every imaginable
subject--Mr. Vanstone flourishing the stout cudgels of assertion, and
Mr.
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