There is a perpetual aim at something pointed, which as perpetually merges into something dull.

He is like a bad swimmer, strikes out with great force, makes a confounded splash, and never gets a yard the further for it.

It is a great effort not to sink.

Indeed, Monsieur D'A--, your literature is at a very reduced ebb; bombastic in the drama--shallow in philosophy--mawkish in poetry, your writers of the present day seem to think, with Boileau-- "'Souvent de tous nos maux la raison est le pire.'" "Surely," cried Madame D'Anville, "you will allow De la Martine's poetry to be beautiful ?" "I allow it," said he, "to be among the best you have; and I know very few lines in your language equal to the two first stanzas in his 'Meditation on Napoleon,' or to those exquisite verses called 'Le Lac;' but you will allow also that he wants originality and nerve.

His thoughts are pathetic, but not deep; he whines, but sheds no tears.