... teaching him now the grammatical art, metre and language, now to discourse like orators, now familiarising him with narrative histories, at other times preparing him to listen to philosophers' speculations
He had no interest in war or armed soldiers, battle-cries, hardships and dangers but he spent sleepless nights devoting his time to reading, like another Demosthenes
He loved books: wise discourse, pithy sayings, proverbs, elegant compositions, elaborate verbal configuration, stylistic changes, neologism, poetic diction and especially philosophy, its uplifting heights, the interpretation of allegory
He was numbered with the philosophers, talked with orators about emphasis or zeugma, with opticians about characteristics of rays and when there was need of allegory he often surpassed Michael 61 himself