Nay, rather he seized upon existence as a monkey snatches a nut,
and after no long toying with it, proceeds deftly to strip off
the mere husks to reach the savory kernel within.

Poetry and the sublime transports of passion scarcely reached
ankle-depth with him now. He in nowise fell into the error of
strong natures who flatter themselves now and again that little
souls will believe in a great soul, and are willing to barter
their own lofty thoughts of the future for the small change of
our life-annuity ideas. He, even as they, had he chosen, might
well have walked with his feet on the earth and his head in the
skies; but he liked better to sit on earth, to wither the soft,
fresh, fragrant lips of a woman with kisses, for like Death, he
devoured everything without scruple as he passed; he would have
full fruition; he was an Oriental lover, seeking prolonged
pleasures easily obtained. He sought nothing but a woman in
women, and cultivated cynicism, until it became with him a habit
of mind. When his mistress, from the couch on which she lay,
soared and was lost in regions of ecstatic bliss, Don Juan
followed suit, earnest, expansive, serious as any German student.
But he said I, while she, in the transports of intoxication, said
We. He understood to admiration the art of abandoning himself to
the influence of a woman; he was always clever enough to make her
believe that he trembled like some boy fresh from college before
his first partner at a dance, when he asks her, "Do you like
dancing?" But, no less, he could be terrible at need, could
unsheathe a formidable sword and make short work of Commandants.
Banter lurked beneath his simplicity, mocking laughter behind his
tears--for he had tears at need, like any woman nowadays who says
to her husband, "Give me a carriage, or I shall go into a