He was one of that class of men who have acquired an entirely different kind of culture, literary or artistic, for which their professional specialization has no use… More lettered than many men of letters…, endowed with greater ’facility’ 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 an indifference tinged with fantasy, or a sustained and haughty application, scornful, bitter and conscientious.
~ Proust, Swann’s Way
A description of Legrandin. I don’t imagine I’m “more lettered than many men of letters” but, though I’ve known once or twice the temptation of “haughty application,” my standard response to the workaday world is precisely “indifference tinged with fantasy.” Legrandin, c’est moi.
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