The Banner-Democrat., 1895-06-08
THE ROMANCE OF GENIUS.

In the old paintings, Christ is dis
; tinguished from His disciples by the
halo around His brow. This is an
eloquent expression of His divinity. OF
that power which every one felt on APP
: preaching Him. 1t may also be
, noticed that there is a strangeness.
not unlike this, surrounding men of
genius. The giants are always
alone" Their agonies and ecstacies,
alike, separate them from the multitude
This ISOLATION is the tragic element in
the lives of the prophets, especially in
the lives of poets. '.those prophets of
: the beautiful God hath set a seal
) upon their brows. Men recognize the
symbol, and according to theirnatures.
draw near unto the influence, or else
try TO cruelty the bearer of it.
Carlyle tells us that the people of
Florence, pointing to stern faced
Dante would say, There goes the
man that has been to hell" Ia some
dim way they realized the sufferings
of the exile who painted the Inferno.
On the same principle, every Eng
lishman stood in awe of the great Dean
Swift, ''who was always alone, alone
and gnashing in the darkness Even
gentle Keats, produced like feeling
of exclusiveness; his genius drawing
around him invisible rings of fire
through which Mediaority dare not
break-rings like those surrounding
Faust in the forest. However. it is Il
mistake to think great gifts are grant
ed for misery alone. The pleasure of
sensitive natures is as exquisite as their
pain. There is too, mighty joy in
the consciousness of power. These
men "feel in placid awe the strong
imagination roll. sphere of stars
about their souls;' and the feeling is
one of exultation.
Much of our latter day criticism
tries to dispel all romance from the
lives OF authors, by showing the events
of those lives are like the events OF
any other lives; just as if we thought
the romance lay in the circumstances
of the poets life, and not in his mind
and spirit!
This school of criticism is based on
the idea, men of genius are like all
other men, and should be judged ac-
cordingly. Hence it is calm, unsym-
pathetic and severe. The idea itself,
is false-an extreme reaction against
hero-worship. The fact is. men of
genius are not like other men; If so,
they would lack the genius! In this
spirit. the critics give US the life of
Edgar Poe, and try to make us think
of him as only drunkard. They tell
us he was the son of stage players; his
father lacked talent and possessed
vices. They explain how kind Mr..
Allan of Virginia was in adopting him.
They dilate on the wretched failure he
made of his school career. and the.days
at West Point. Then they show him
to us rebellng against his benefactor,
falling into dissipated habits. worship-A
ing with an intense blind madness his
young wife, railing against high
heaven when the wife dies, paying no
debts, using no self-control. drink
ing wines that do all bnt send him to
the insane asylum-they tell 1t to us
in detail, without mercy. To
satisfy them. let us think of it
calmly. Let us think of the weak |
life and the drunkard meeting his
death in the Baltimore hospital; then,
for one moment, let lis listen to the
strains of his poetry, to the music of
his soul-wild, weird, but strangely
notwithstanding in it an expression
of ''love that is more than love-"
shrieking in anguish at the destiny to
which it is born, scornful, ecstatic,
full of rapture, mystic as the wind
which bloweth where it listeth, and
none knows whence it comes or whittier
it goes! Let us listen for one moment
to the soul strains of Edgar Allan Poe,
and our hearts will be thrilled, like
seven stringed instrument when swept
by a master hand! 1t is the genius of
the man that binds and fascinates us,
and ace sciU not consider him only as a
drunkdrd.
Rather will we consider his life but
another instance of the helpless
ness of strength; another instance of
that truth which the Greeks typalied
in the sufferings of the Titan, who
stealing the divine fire from the gods,
gave it to man. and was doomed to
be torn by vulture for hundreds
of years. ..Prometheus, bound in
passion, by brute force. to the cold
stone. Turning looks of invocation {
toward the ocean and the sum-" The
vast waters and the vast armament are
at rest; the vast soul is in agony.