"And what do you think of him?"

"Tertullian, one of the most fascinating characters of ancient or modern
times. In my study of his writings I have worked out a psychological
study of the man himself as revealed through them. His realism, I might
say materialism, is entirely foreign to my own nature, but I cannot
help being attracted by that wild African spirit, so full of savage
contradictions, so full of energy that it never knew repose: in him you
find all the imperialism of ancient times. When you consider that he
lived in a time when the church was struggling for utterance amid the
horrors of persecution, his mad Christianity becomes singularly
attractive; a passionate fear of beauty for reason of its temptations, a
fear that turned to hatred, and forced him at last into the belief that
Christ was an ugly man."

"I know nothing of the monks of the eighth century and their poetry,
but I do know something of Tertullian, and you mean to tell me that
you admire his style--those harsh chopped-up phrases and strained
antitheses."

"I should think I did. Phrases set boldly one against the other; quaint,
curious, and full of colour, the reader supplies with delight the
connecting link, though the passion and the force of the description
lives and reels along. Listen:

"'Quae tunc spectaculi latitudo! quid admirer? quid rideam? ubi gaudeam?
ubi exultem, spectans tot ac tantos reges, qui in coelum recepti
nuntiabantur, cum ipso Jove et ipsis suis testibus in imis tenebris
congemiscentes!--Tunc magis tragoedi audiendi, magis scilicet vocales in