A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK T HE ultimate verdict on M. Poincare will,
I think, be that he was an amazingly efficient human machine, strangely devoid of imagination, to say nothing of some of the -warmer qualities without which humanity can be inhuman. His devotion to his work, whether it was speaking or writing, was astoniShing. When he:consulted a doctor about his health some time in middle life he was ordered to take regular exercise. That baffled hiM. He had never taken exercise. ite had no time to waste on exercise. So he made elaborate arrangements to be massaged daily in such a position that he could occupy himself without interruption with his papers and his pen. 31. de Jouvenel, who accompanied the ex-President on some of his crowded Sunday speaking tours, used to tell how it meant leaving home early in. the morning after a week in which Poincare had dOne more than two ordinary men, driving all day, often over bumpy by-roads, and delivering anything up to eleven speeches of substantial length. De Jouvenel, whO was twenty years yoUnger, felt like a rag at the end of the day, and once asked his companion whether he was not tired. " Tired ? " said Poincare with a puzzled look. " I hear people talk about being tired, but I have never been tired in my life."
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