Much of the richness, as well as the fascination, of Rimbaud's art is due to the incongruities with which it is studded. These incongruities indicate a boyish sense of humor noticeable even in his treatment of serious subjects, imparting to them a certain cocasserie—a tough and sardonic humor indeed for a boy, but still a distinctive quality, savored by many. Like Hamlet, Arthur Rimbaud was given to madness, half feigned, half tragically-true, and his peevish jokes are of the same kind as those of that other embittered youth. These surprises also serve to color his descriptive poems, in verse and in prose, and in fact they may be thought to arise necessarily in the poetic process consciously cultivated by Rimbaud the voyant, who was not afraid to force his senses out of focus as a means of gaining access to the paradise of pure truth.