For this strangely educated man, who in his outward manners seemed to remain a somewhat rude child of nature, was after all ready to yield, not only to an unkindly irritability, but also to the more genial emotions. It is pleasing, for example, to know that he had a particular fondness for animals; and his pets were allowed in his lodging liberties which, however objectionable to a tidy housemaid, showed at least the essential gentleness of his heart. Tutored as he was himself in the severest school of poverty, it is also pleasing to know that he cherished a kindly sympathy for the poor, and was ever ready to help them as he could, sometimes at the cost of no small sacrifice to himself.[93] The finer sensibilities of his nature were also easily touched by music. Though he had no musical culture, and used to regret that he had had none, an old Hebrew melody, long after he had broken off all connection with the Jews, could move him so deeply that he was obliged, even in company, to seek relief in tears.[94] For in the uncontrolled simplicity of his nature he allowed his feelings to find their natural vent without much restraint from circumstances; and therefore he was seen at times in the theatre excited to loud sobbing by a tragedy, or to boisterous laughter over a comedy.[95] Nor is it to be regarded as an unpleasant feature of his character, but rather as an indication of a wholesome check on the general irregularity of his life, that, even after he had thrown off all the peculiar restraints of his national religion, he clung with evident fondness to many of those rabbinical habits which he had cultivated in his earlier years. From Fischer's account of the style of Maimon's works we have seen how his intellectual work was affected by his Talmudic studies. The criticism is evidently just. Maimon himself had met with it, and acknowledged its justice. He protested indeed that it did not affect the truth of his speculations, though he evidently felt its disadvantages, and laboured at times to acquire a more methodical style.[96] The rabbinical habits of Maimon, however, were most quaintly seen in peculiarities of outward manner. Gesticulations customary in the study of the Talmud he was seen to adopt not infrequently when he forgot himself in the earnestness of conversation, or when in a company he fell into a brown study, or even in the studies of his retirement. Thus in reading Euler's mathematical works or any other book which required great attention, he would fall into the Talmudic singsong and rhythmical swing of the body.[97]