An unnamable critic notes some of the flaming errors of Verhaeren,--a few "among a hundred others." It is thither, toward the error, toward the stain, toward the wound, that the mediocre spirit, like the fly, wings its way unerringly. He looks at neither the eyes, the hair, the hands, the throat, nor all the grace of the woman passing by; he sees only, the mud with which some churl has bespattered her gown; he rejoices at the sight; he would like to see the spot grow and devour both the gown and the flesh of its wearer; he would have everything as ugly, as dirty and despicable as himself. Dialogue.--GOD: Who has made you man? MAN: Who has made you God? Religions turn madly about sexual questions. The world will never forgive the Jews for having disdained the religion which they gave to the world. There is in this a sort of intellectual treason which reminds one of those merchants who do not wear, or eat, or drink their own merchandise. When one comes to define the philosophy of the nineteenth century, one will discover that it was only theology. An opinion is shocking only when it is a conviction. Nothing so imparts the satisfaction of having accomplished one's duty as a good night's sleep, an excellent meal, a beautiful moment of love. What is life? A series of sensations. What is a sensation? A remembrance. One does n't live. One has lived. Life, said an old man, is a regret. The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it. There are things which one must have the courage not to write. As to possessing the truth: I think of those explorers who have with them a tame lion, and who sleep with one eye open. Those men who live with the greatest intensity are often the ones who seem to take least interest in life. To have a solid foundation of skepticism,--that is to say, the faculty of changing at any moment, of turning back, of facing successively the metamorphoses of life. Learning for learning's sake is perhaps as coarse as eating for eating's sake. It is a singular thing: in literature, when the form is not new, neither is the content. Man is an animal that "arrived"; that is all. It was an accident that endowed man with intelligence. He has made use of it: he invented stupidity. Sexual modesty is an advance over the exhibitionism of monkeys. Modesty is the delicate form of hypocrisy. Nothing so softens the obduracy of chaste hearts as the certainty of secrecy. The notion that the dead are not dead assumes, in the crowd, comical forms. I read in a novel (1901): "Madeleine read the letter over again. M. Piot was dead, the poor man! How cold he must be in that north wind!" Men are stupid. You have doubts? About what? About whom? About God? Why, that's a very simple matter: write to him.--I haven't his address.--Such, in fact, is the state of the question.