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 194 confidence and humility, "their friend, master, and servant, Hippolyte Taine." The prettiest of them all is aptly christened—

No Frenchman, save Baudelaire and Gautier, have carried their appreciation to a higher pitch than did Taine; and, if his sentiment lacks the fervid grace of Baudelaire's, it is of a simpler, saner, and more comprehensible order. How far the author of "Fleurs du Mal" was sincere in his fantastic passion for cats; how far he diverted himself by provoking the curiosity of the world, or by alarming its prejudices; and how far the world—its curiosity and prejudices being well