He was entangled in a paradox
He was giving his youth away by handfuls
He was haunted and begirt by presences
He was measured and urbane
He was most profoundly skeptical
He was nothing if not grandiloquent
He was quaking on the precipice of a bad bilious attack
He was utterly detached from life
He went hot and cold
He would fall into the blackest melancholies