In _early_ life he studied everything till he had passed in it, whether it was medicine, law, theology, or any other branch. In after life he kept his knowledge on a steady platform, studying up all things together to a certain point at so much a day, "raising the platform" (as he called it) equally. He never passed a day without reading up something in one of his twenty-nine languages; hence he spoke them all without difficulty, never mixing them. He then read a good deal, and took notes, and cut any useful and interesting paragraphs from about ten English and four local papers. He used to examine into the meaning and the etymology of words as he went on, with all their bearings and different spellings; he never read hurriedly, passing anything over. He wrote for a certain time in the day at several different tables--a table to each work. He kept himself up in all the passing events of the day, wrote his journal, copied anything that struck him, and at night he always "cooled his head" with a novel. If he were sick he would go to bed for several days--went on the starvation system, banished all business from his mind, and had piles of novels on chairs by his bed. One day he would get up quite well and go to work again. The most remarkable thing about him was, that every man who spoke to him found, that his one specialty was Richard's specialty. It seemed as if there was nothing that he did not know; and as for hidden things, he seemed to guess them by intuition as if he were a magician. People will wonder if I tell them of a quality quite unsuspected on the exterior. The older he grew, the greater dislike he had for women who went wrong. He was always civil to them, especially in his own house, but there was a coldness in his manner to them, in contrast to people who were innocent, and he seemed to detect them by instinct. He used to tell me that he inherited this from his father, who in his old age was exactly the same, and if any lady known to have _affaires gallantes_ was coming, that he used to turn round to his mother and say, "Mind, Martha! I won't have that adulteress put by me." He was also very indignant if any lady was insulted. He especially disliked a man who boasted of favours received, or let one know in any way about it--he always said such a one was no Englishman; and when he heard that any woman had lost her reputation through being simply kind to anybody, he took her part. He said, "Those are not even the men who 'kiss and tell,' but the men who 'tell and have not kissed.' A man when he really has any affair with a woman, if he is a man, is deadly silent about it." In his journals he has mapped and classified his men into three sorts as regarding their conduct with women:-- "1. The English gentleman who kisses and does not tell. "2. The snob who kisses and tells, or if he does not actually tell, he insinuates with a smile and a gesture.