Because Robert Musil's own training and inclinations were scientific, he was particularly qualified to describe the problems of the modern intellectual. Musil believed that although modern man's reason and logic have been acutely developed, his emotional life has been stunted and his social adjustment has been rendered precarious. Intellectual man finds himself isolated and a victim of introspection. Musil contended that the tension between the intellect and the emotions must be resolved, that solutions must somehow be provided which will lead to a richer and higher level of human existence. In Musil's work the intellectual hero strives to heal the fatal split in his psyche and to achieve a more balanced character and a better integration with other human beings.

The following words describe Vasco Bruno's mental state, not merely while in the military hospital, but throughout his life as one of Érico Veríssimo's most important heroes. More interesting, they summarize Veríssimo's creative activities through the seven novels preceding O Tempo e o Vento:

Nestas longas horas de hospital tomo e retomo as minhas lembranjas e bem como um menino que brinca com esses cubos de madeira em cujas faces estao colocados fragmentos simetricos dum quadro, procure formar com minhas experiencias um painel que tenha sentido revelador. Viro e reviro os blocos coloridos; ten to as mais diversas combinajoes, fico alvorojado, pensando que cheguei a algum resultado claro, para no fim verificar que tudo nao passa duma caleidoscopica confusao sem pe nem cabefa. Desisto do jogo. Mas fico com a secreta esperanja de que com os elementos de que disponho, um dia ainda hei de resolver o problema. (Saga, p. 120)

After certain preliminaries, Baudelaire plunges into the main body of his essay on laughter, “De l'essence du rire,” with these striking words: “Le Sage ne rit qu'en tremblant. De quelles lèvres pleines d'autorité, de quelle plume parfaitement orthodoxe est tombée cette étrange et saisissante maxime? Nous vient-elle du roi philosophe de la Judée? Faut-il l'attribuer à Joseph de Maistre, ce soldat animé de l'Esprit-Saint? J'ai un vague souvenir de l'avoir lue dans un de ses livres, mais donnée comme citation, sans doute. Cette sévérité de pensée et de style va bien à la sainteté majestueuse de Bossuet; mais la tournure elliptique de la pensée et la finesse quintessenciée me porteraient plutôt à en attribuer l'honneur à Bourdaloue, l'impitoyable psychologue chrétien.” Of course, it is the variations which Baudelaire extracted from his somber theme, “Le Sage ne rit qu'en tremblant,” and, even more, his own original suggestions, which are of primary interest to the reader and student of Baudelaire. But in view of the speculations which occupy most of the passage above, the secondary question of the source of that theme is one which obviously intrigued Baudelaire and one, therefore, which calls for an answer from his present-day students.

David H. Stewart, in his “Anna Karenina: The Dialectic of Prophecy” (PMLA, lxxix, 266–282), mentions the epigraph of the novel (“Vengeance is mine, I shall repay, saith the Lord”) without making it clear that it is a well-known Biblical quotation (Romans xii.19) and without considering the implications of this fact. I shall give the verse and the two which follow it in full (in the King James version) because of the importance of the original context of the statement: