His nephew
Fontenelle admits that his general address and manner were by no means
prepossessing. Others use stronger language, and it seems to be
confessed that either from shyness, from pride, or from physical defects
of utterance, probably from all three combined, he did not attract
strangers. Racine is said to have assured his son that Corneille made
verses "cent fois plus beaux" than his own, but that his own greater
popularity was owing to the fact that he took some trouble to make
himself personally agreeable. Almost all the anecdotes which have been
recorded concerning him testify to a rugged and somewhat unamiable
self-contentment. "Je n'ai pas le merite de ce pays-ci," he said of the
court, "Je n'en suis pas moins Pierre Corneille," he is said to have
replied to his friends as often as they dared to suggest certain
shortcomings in his behaviour, manner or speech, "Je suis saoul de
gloire et affame d'argent" was his reply to the compliments of Boileau.
Yet tradition is unanimous as to his affection for his family, and as to
the harmony in which he lived with his brother Thomas who had married
Marguerite de Lamperiere, younger sister of Marie, and whose household
both at Rouen and at Paris was practically one with that of his brother.
No story about Corneille is better known than that which tells of the
trap between the two houses, and how Pierre, whose facility of
versification was much inferior to his brother's, would lift it when
hard bestead, and call out "Sans-souci, une rime!" Notwithstanding this
domestic felicity, an impression is left on the reader of Corneille's
biographies that he was by no means a happy man. Melancholy of
temperament will partially explain this, but there were other reasons.
He appears to have been quite free from envy properly so called, and to
have been always ready to acknowledge the excellences of his
contemporaries. But, as was the case with a very different
man--Goldsmith--praise bestowed on others always made him uncomfortable
unless it were accompanied by praise bestowed on himself. As Guizot has
excellently said, "Sa jalousie fut celle d'un enfant qui veut qu'un
sourire le rassure contre les caresses que recoit son frere."

Although his actual poverty has been recently denied, he cannot have
been affluent. His pensions covered but a small part of his long life
and were most irregularly paid. He was no "dedicator," and the
occasional presents of rich men, such as Montauron (w