Many poetical emotions may be quickened by reminiscences from childhood; and a style of writing, or the use of words or sounds, reminding us of early days, might be the most effective methods of expression. Thus, for instance, a drowsy repetition of pleasant-sounding words may be very telling in a lullaby, even if they convey no scientific meaning, or do not contribute to the sense of the poem, and so long as they do not distort it. The examples of repetitions from degeneracy in Verlaine are chosen so unhappily as to place Nordau in the wrong and Verlaine in the right in the judgment of unbiassed persons; the one is a serenade, and the other is entitled “Chevaux du Bois,” in which the sensation of a child on a merry-go-round is suggested. Another is supposed to be sung by, or suggests, Pierrot Gamin, that is a young idiot. When Verlaine wishes to qualify a noun in a manner which is difficult to express in ordinary adjectives, he, like millions of his fellows, has recourse to the method of giving a new, or symbolic, signification to an old adjective, and this, according to Nordau, is a sign of mental degeneration. To prove his case he quotes such terms as “a narrow and vast affection,” “a slow landscape,” “a slack liqueur,” “a gilded perfume,” “a terse contour,” etc. He does not seem to know that the paucity of language renders such expressions not only legitimate but extremely useful in many professions and trades, let alone poetry. Has he never heard of a warm colour, a lively tint, a cold tone, etc.? Are the French wine-growers mad when they say that wine is heavy, light, full, dead, alive, slack, round, green, angular, smooth, velvety, etc.? We are glad to see that he recognises Verlaine’s ability as a poet and does not find fault with some of his poems. Thus he says of “Chanson d’Automne” that “there are few poems in French literature that can rival” it. While rejoicing at the fairness that Nordau here displays, we must however point out the eccentricity of his logic. He desires to warn us against degeneration, and therefore points to a poet whose degeneracy has not prevented him from writing a masterpiece of literature. It should also be noticed that the “Chanson d’Automne,” which meets with such ample praise from Nordau, is on the same theme which underlies other pieces of poetry quoted in his work as examples of legitimate and sane poetry. When he does intimate that a poet might burst into song over flowers, trees, books, and twittering birds, but not over the sympathy he feels in his consciousness with the powers that have called them forth, simply because science has not so far been able to analyse and classify those powers, he only shows that he is illogical enough to proffer his limited view of what is poetical as an infallible standard of the poetry of the world.