stance that can be cited. He learned to read at the age of five. "And since that time," he adds, "I may say, like Apelles, Nulla dies sine linea." And his biographer, Maxime du Camp, says further:
This is literally true; I do not think there ever existed a more indefatigable reader than Gautier. Any book was good enough to satisfy this tyrannical taste, that at times seemed to degenerate into a mania.… He took pleasure in the most mediocre novels, equally with books of high philosophic conceptions, and with works of pure science. He was devoured with the thirst for learning, and he used to say, "There is no conception so poor, no trash so detestable, that it does not teach something from which one may profit." He would read dictionaries, grammars, prospectuses, cook-books, almanacs.… He had no sort of system about his reading; whatever book came under his hand he would open with a sort of mechanical movement, nor lay it down again until he had turned the closing page.
[ 57 ]
