Ere he returned, Madame descended and passed from the sparkling sunshine into the gloom of the portico, with a melancholy consciousness of the symbolic. For her spirit, too, had its poetic intuitions and insights… – Israel Zangwill, Dreamers of the Ghetto, “From a Mattress Grave,” 1897

Once the last trace of emotion has been eradicated, nothing remains of thought but absolute tautology. – Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno