fatal tree, wasting their energies on such men as Bruno, who said the
earth was round, and Galileo, whom they forced to say he was mistaken
when he said the earth moves. A pretty set of difficulties they have
involved us in with their accursed astronomy. Boccaccio and the
Troubadours should have been burned instead, and if this had been done
all the abominable modern literature which would persuade the faithful
that this world is not all sackcloth and ashes would never have been
written. Away with him who says that the earth is as beautiful as
heaven," and Gautier's phrase, _"Moi, je trouve la terre aussi belle
que le ciel, et je pense que la correction de la forme est la
vertu,"_ has become the heresy more intolerable than any other to
the modern cleric, and to me and to all the ardent and intellectual
spirits of my generation a complete and perfect expression of
doctrine. To some it will always seem absurd to look to Gautier rather
than to a Bedouin for light. Nature produces certain attitudes of
mind, and among these is an attitude which regards archbishops as more
serious than pretty women. These will never be among my disciples. So
leaving them in full possession of the sacraments, I pass on.

My generation was in sympathy with "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and it did
more than to reveal and clarify the ideas we were seeking. It would be
vain for me, as for any other man, to attempt to follow the course of
an idea and to try to determine its action upon life. Perhaps the part
of the book which interested us the least was that very part which
would be read aloud in court if a prosecution were attempted: I am
alluding to the scene when Mademoiselle de Maupin comes into Albert's
room. This scene was, however, inevitable, and could not be omitted,
for does it not contain that vision of beauty which Albert had been
seeking and which was vouchsafed to him for a little while? Never did
he see Mademoiselle de Maupin afterwards, she was but a phantom of his