GENIUS AND INSANITY. 459 



that our facts will compel us to reject this saving clause. There is no 

 question among competent critics of the splendid quality of genius of 

 Swift, of Carlyle, or of Beethoven. Nor in cases of so-called healthy 

 genius can it be said that nothing abnormal ever shows itself. The 

 above references to Goethe may serve to indicate the liability to ab- 

 normal deviation even in the strongest and seemingly most stable 

 type of genius. As for Shakespeare, the instance commonly referred 

 to by Lamb and others who have come to the defense of genius, it is 

 enough to say that our knowledge of his personality and life is far too 

 meager to justify any conclusion on the point.* 



And this brings us to another very important consideration. If 

 too much has been made of the alleged positive instances, too much 

 has been made also of the apparent contradictions or exceptions. The 

 record of past greatness is far too scanty for the most plodding stu- 

 dent to find all cases of morbid symptoms which have presented them- 

 selves. We who live in an age when a fierce light beats on the throne 

 of intellect, when the public which genius serves is greedy of every 

 trivial detail of information respecting its behavior in the curtained 

 recess of private life, can hardly understand how our ancestors could 

 have neglected to chronicle and to preserve the words and deeds of 

 the greatest of men. Yet such is the case, and the further we go 

 back the scantier the biographic page. Inasmuch, too, as many of the 

 symptoms of nervous disease in the intellectual heroes themselves or 

 their families would possess no significance to the ordinary lay mind, 

 we may feel confident that in many cases where we have a fairly full 

 record important data are omitted. 



Another thought naturally occurs to one in this connection. With- 

 out indorsing the ancient proverb that the best men die in their 

 youth, we may find good grounds for conjecturing that many endowed 

 with the gift of genius have passed away before their powers culmi- 

 nated in the production of a great monumental work. The early col- 

 lapse of so many who did attain fame suggests this conclusion. And 

 among such short-lived and unknown recipients of the divine afflatus 

 it seems reasonable to infer that there were a considerable number who 

 succumbed to some of those forms of j)sycho-physical disease which 

 have so often attacked their survivors. 



It seems, then, to be an irresistible conclusion that the foremost 

 among human intellects have had more than their share of the ills 

 that flesh is heir to. The possession of genius appears in some way 

 to be unfavorable to the maintenance of a robust mental health. And 

 here arises the question how we are to view this connection. Is the 



certain kind of moonlight genius given them to compensate them for their imperfection 

 of nature," and who are invariably " tinged with melancholy " (" Autocrat of the Break- 

 fast-Table," chap. viii). 



* Even the little that we know does not all point one way. Against the fine business 

 capacity, and so forth, we have to set the youthful excesses of which rumor speaks. 



