However charming the kindness of a lord may be, compared to the kindness of a great artist, it always suggests play-acting, pretence. Saint-Loup’s aim was to please; Elstir’s was to give, and to give himself: he would have gladly given whatever he possessed, ideas, works and all the rest that he valued much less highly, to anyone who understood him. But he found something lacking in the company of most people, and lived in a state of isolation and unsociability which fashionable people saw as ill-mannered and affected, the powers-that-be as wrong-headed, his neighbours as mad, and his family
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