Note 63 — THE PLAIN SPEAKER (continued 10)

Even her j’existe in Valeria (when she first acquires the use of sight) is pointed like an epigram, and put in italics, like a technical or metaphysical distinction, instead of being a pure effusion of joy. Accordingly a French pit-critic took up the phrase, insisting that to exist was common to all things, and asked what the expression was in the original German. This treatment of passion is topical and extraneous, and seldom strikes at the seat of the disorder, the heart.