【答案解析】1. He was a conceited monster. Never for a moment did he look at the world or at people, except in relation to himself. To himself, he was not merely the most important person in the world; in his own eyes he was the only person who existed. He considered himself to be one of the greatest playwrights in the world, one of the greatest thinkers, and one of the greatest composers. If you hear him talk, it seems as if he were the mixture of Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Plato. And you have no trouble in hearing him talk. He was one of the most exhausting conversationalists that ever lived. An evening spent with him was an evening spent listening to a monologue. At times, he was brilliant, at other times, he was annoyingly tiresome. But whether he was brilliant or dull, he had only one topic of conversation: himself, what he thought and what he did. 2. He thought arrogantly that he was always in the fight. The slightest hint of disagreement, from anyone, on the most trivial point, was enough to set him off on a harangue that might last for several hours, in which he proved himself right in so many ways, and with such exhausting volubility, that finally his hearer, stunned and deafened, would agree with him, for the sake of peace.