THE PROCREATION OF GENIUS 151 



of life. But the inspired poet or painter is essentially 

 naiTOw in point of general capacity ; the whole force 

 of his nature is exerted in one direction. His genius 

 is the result of a disproportionate development of 

 some particular faculty ; in other words, it means a 

 disturbance of his mental equilibrium, and therefore 

 belongs to the order of neuropathic phenomena. 



Let us take the three great European poets of the 

 last generation — Byron, Goethe, and Victor Hugo — 

 and see what instruction their history yields, from 

 the pathological point of view. Byron's eccentricities 

 are well known ; they manifested themselves in un- 

 bridled passion and melancholia. The tumultuous 

 state of his feelings is weU indicated in a passage of 

 his diary : " This journal is a relief. When I am 

 tired, as I generally am, out comes this and down 

 goes everything. But I can't read it over ; and God 

 knows what contradictions it may contain. If I am 

 severe with myself (but I fear one lies more to one- 

 self than to anybody else), every page should confute, 

 refute, and utterly abjure its predecessor." And this 

 from a young man who, as he himself put it, had 

 awoke one morning and found himself famous — a 

 poet who had the world at his feet and to whom 

 apparently no element of human happiness was 



