Anything to escape from realities--that was his maxim. He
puzzled his contemporaries. But we can now locate him with absolute
certainty. He personifies the Revolt from Reason. SURTOUT, MON AMI,
POINT DE ZELE. He talks about the Scylla of Atheism and the Charybdis
of Christianity--a state of mind which, by the way, is not conducive to
bold navigation. He was always wavering between the two in an attitude
of suburban defiance, reconciling what is irreconcilable by extracting
funny analogies all round for the edification of "nice people" like
himself. Oh, very English! He did not lack candour or intelligence. Nor
do you. He understood the teachings of the giants. So do you. But they
irked him. To revenge himself he laid penny crackers under their
pedestals. His whole intellectual fortune was spent in buying penny
crackers. There was something cheeky and pre-adolescent about him--a
kind of virginal ferocity. That iridescent charm of sexlessness which
somebody, one of these days, must be good enough to analyse for us! He
lacked the male attributes of humility, reverence and sense of
proportion.
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