One of Nordau’s characteristics is a weak or dull logical faculty, often to be observed in those who over-study for examination and in specialists fanatically inclined. Without this peculiarity he could not possibly have omitted to ask himself the question, “How about all other worshippers of Christ?” when he concludes that Verlaine’s mind is degenerate because he speaks devotedly of the Virgin Mary, while a lunatic labourer says that he follows the commandments of Christ. Nordau does not see that in this manner he completely gives himself away, and lets us perceive that it is not the symbolist whom he considered degenerate, but the whole Christian populations of the world that have existed during two thousand years, and that still exist. Only his lack of a sense of the ridiculous, already pointed out, has prevented him from remembering that the man in his cups considers himself the only sober man of the company. The verses which Verlaine has written in praise of a vagabond life Nordau holds up as a sure sign of lurking lunacy. Are then all poets who write in praise of a vagabond life degenerates? Is not the true secret of Nordau’s conclusion to be found in the fact that he entirely misses the satire against our modern system which underlies Verlaine’s and other writers’ poems on this same subject? He does the same with regard to Verlaine’s poem addressed to the demented king, Louis II. of Bavaria. When we behold the follies of reigning sovereigns, who are supposed to be in the full enjoyment of their faculties, making such poor use of their opportunities, degrading and ruining their people, rousing a hatred against themselves and their dynasty, or striving at low _bourgeois_ aims, or even, to use Nordau’s own expression, selling their royalty for a big cheque; when we read of the monarchs of the past, of their crimes and their meanesses, how can we wonder that the unfortunate King Louis should inspire sympathy in a poet, and that he should satirize the so-called reasonable monarchs by eulogizing the demented one? Nordau makes much of that form of mental weakness which manifests itself in echolalia, or the mania of repeating for no reason the same words and the same sentences. But to deny the poet, who aims at conveying an emotion and for that purpose wishes to create a certain mood in his listeners, the use of choruses, refrains, and cadenced repetitions, he runs counter to the oldest literary tradition in the world. He would surely not object to repetitions in verses intended to be sung; and if we are right in placing poetry half way between speech and music in the list of the vehicles of thought, as we have done in a previous chapter, euphonies, musicalities of words, and repetitions are both permissible and rational.