estations of the world, and--not to be ungallant--she is more
like an irritated mosquito than like the elegant _camellia japonica_ to
which she would prefer to be compared.

There is a great deal of solid comfort in the revelations of Madame de
Boigne; she is at times so very untruthful that her malice does no real
harm; she is so very clever; and she paints interiors so well; and gives
the atmosphere of French Society before and during the Revolution in a
most fascinating way. She always thinks the worst, of course; but a
writer of memoirs who always thought the best would be as painfully
uninteresting as Froude is when he describes the character of Henry
VIII. But this is a digression.

Mr. John Addington Symonds speaks of the style of Sir Thomas Browne as
displaying a "rich maturity and heavy-scented blossom." Mr. Mencken
cannot accuse any modern Englishman or American of imitating, in his
desire to be academic, Browne's hyperlatinism or his use of Latin words,
like "corpage," "confinium," "angustias," or "Vivacious abominations"
and "congaevous generations."

Mr. Symonds says:

He professes a mixture of the boldest scepticism and the most
puerile credulity. But his scepticism is the prelude to confessions
of impassioned faith, and his credulity is the result of tortuous
reflections on the enigmas of life and revelation. Perhaps the
following paragraph enables us to understand the permanent temper
of his mind most truly:

"As for those wingy mysteries in divinity, and airy subtleties in
religion, which have unhinged the brains of better heads, they
never stretched the pia mater of mine. Methinks there be not
impossibilities enough in religion for an active faith: the deepest
mysteries ours contains have not only been illustrated but
maintained by syllogism and the rule of reason. I love to lose
myself in a mystery; to pursue my reason to an O altitudo! 'Tis my
solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved
enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Resurrection.
I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason
with that odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, _Certum est quia
impossible est_. I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest
point, for to credit ordinary and visible objects, is not faith,
but persuasion."

Leaving all question of theology, or criticism