44 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wholly normal and sane ? " For there is surely a suggestion of tem- 

 porary mental unsoundness in the idea of that lonely wanderer through 

 the crowded streets of London suddenly seeing in the figures he met 

 so many specters, and feeling himself to be but another "ghastly 

 phantom haunted by demons." And, if all anger is a sort of madness, 

 it is but natural that one should see something of a momentary mania 

 in those terrible outbursts of a spirit of revolt against all things which 

 now and again made desolate the Chelsea home, and wrung from the 

 sage's wife the humiliating confession that she felt as if she were 

 " keeper in a madhouse." 



The idea that there is an affinity between genius and mental dis- 

 ease seems at first foreign to our modern habits of thought. In the 

 one, we have human intellect rejoicing in Titanic strength ; in the 

 other, that same intellect disordered and pitiably enfeebled. Yet, as 

 has been hinted, the belief in the connection of the two is an old and 

 persistent one. In truth, the common opinion has always gravitated 

 toward this belief. A word or two may make this clear. 



To the multitude of men genius wears a double aspect. Superla- 

 tive intellectual endowment is plainly something very unlike the ordi- 

 nary type of intelligence. The relation of lofty superiority includes 

 that of distance, and mediocrity in viewing the advent of some new 

 spiritual star may adopt either the one or the other manibre de voir. 

 Which aspect it will select for special contemplation depends on cir- 

 cumstances. In general it may be said that, since the recognition of 

 greatness presupposes a power of comprehension not always granted 

 to mediocrity, the fact of distance is more likely to impress than the 

 fact of altitude. It is only when supreme wisdom has justified itself, 

 as in the predictions of the true prophet, that its essential Tightness is 

 seen by the crowd. Otherwise the great man has had to look for rec- 

 ognition mainly from his peers and the slightly more numerous com- 

 pany of those whose heads rise above the mists of contemporary pre- 

 judice. 



It is easy to see that this vulgar way of envisaging genius as marked 

 divergence from common-sense views of things may lead on to a con- 

 demnation of it as a thing unnatural and misshapen. For, evidently, 

 such divergence bears a superficial likeness to eccentricity. Indeed, 

 ' as has been well said, the original teacher has this much in common 

 with the man mentally deranged, that he " is in a minority of one " ; 

 and, when pains are not taken to note the direction of the divergence, 

 originality may readily be confounded with the most stupid singular- 

 ity ; and, further, a cursory glance at the constitution of genius will 

 suffice to show that the originator of new and startling ideas is very 

 apt to shock the sense of common men by eccentricities in his manner 

 of life. A man whose soul is being consumed by the desire to dis- 

 cover some new truth, or to give shape to some new artistic idea, is 

 exceedingly liable to fall below the exactions of conventional society 



