A STUDY OF BRITISH GENIUS. 377 



Browne, one of the greatest masters of English prose, was so modest 

 that he was always blushing causelessly; Hooker, one of the chief 

 luminaries of the English Church, could never look any one in the 

 face; Dry den, the recognized prince of the literary men of his time, 

 was, said Congreve, the most easily put out of countenance of any man 

 he had ever met. It is not difficult to see why the timid temperament 

 — which is very far from involving lack of courage* — should be espe- 

 cially associated with intellectual aptitudes. It causes a distaste for 

 social contact and so favors those fonns of activity which may be 

 exerted in solitude, these latter, again, reacting to produce increased 

 awkwardness in social relations. Moreover, the mental state of tim- 

 idity, which may be regarded as a mild form of folie du doute, a per- 

 petual self-questioning and uncertainty, however unpleasant it may be 

 from the social point of view, is by no means an unsatisfactory attitude 

 in the face of intellectual problems, for it involves that unceasing self- 

 criticism which is an essential element of all good intellectual work, 

 and has marked more or less clearly the greatest men of scientific 

 genius. Fundamentally, no doubt, timidity is a minor congenital defect 

 of the nervous mechanism, fairly comparable to stammering. It may 

 be noted that the opposite characteristic of over self-confidence, with 

 more or less tendency to arrogance and insolence, is also noted, but 

 with much less frequency, and usually in men whose eminence is not 

 due to purely intellectual qualities. In some cases, it would seem, the 

 two opposite tendencies are combined, the timid man seeking refuge 

 from his own timidity in the assumption of arrogance. 



In a certain number of cases information is given as to the general 

 emotional disposition, whether to melancholy and depression, or of a 

 gay, cheerful and genial character. In sixty-two cases the disposition 

 is noted as melancholy, in twenty-nine as cheerful or jovial; in eight 

 cases both dispositions are noted as occurring, in varying association, 

 in the same person. This marked tendency to melancholy among 

 persons of intellectual aptitude is no new observation, but was indeed 

 one of the very earliest points noted concerning men of genius. It was 

 remarked by Aristotle, and Reveille-Parise, one of the earliest and still 

 one of the most sagacious of the modern writers on genius, devoted 

 a chapter to the point. It is not altogether difficult to account for this 

 phenomenon. Melancholy children, as Marro found, are in large pro- 

 portion the offspring of elderly fathers, as we have also found our 

 persons of intellectual eminence to be. A tendency to melancholy, 

 again, even though it may always fall short of insane melancholia, 

 is allied to those neurotic and abnormal conditions which we have 



* "None are so bold as the timid when they are fairly roused," wrote Mrs. 

 Browning in her 'Letters.' The same point has been brought out by Dugas in 

 his essay on timidity. 



