The evening tribune. (Pawtucket, R.I.) 189?-190?, 1897-06-07
GENIUS AND MADNESS
THE SUBJECT REVIVED ~ REcOL-
LEcTlCN3 or TEkNYsON.


} Noted Instances OF EccentricIty.
Professor Max Mullcr's "Reminiscences Of
tho poet Tennyson, which arc printed In
The CosmUpolis, tend to confirm the old
and widely accepted theory that great gen.
hus ~ apt to bc allied with great eccen-
tricity. There seems to have been In the
late poet laureate taint of the bad tenn
per and intense egoism which character
ized his famous contemporary, Thomas
Carlyle. and made him say and do 30 many
upgraoeful things. DR.. Muller quotes
Tsnnyson, for example, as finding fault
with the meals spread for him by his host
IA breach Of good manners for which
schoolboy would be properly punished. Al
dinner he manifested annoyance because
the sauce served with salmon was not the
k1nd he liked. At breakfast he whipped
Oh the cover Of the hot dish sst before him
and exolaimed testify; "Mutton chops.
The staple of every bad Inn In England"
Like Carlyle, the laureate was ut his mel.
lowest and best while under the influence
Of his indispensable pipe. DIR. Muller 10
6tes that on one oocasion, being taunted
by some friends with his inability to break
the smoking habit. Tennyson announced
his intention to give IL up at ones and for
ever. The same evening he threw his pipes
and tobacco out Of his bedroom window.
After two days abstention he was very
moody and oaptious, and the third day he
was intolerably 60. After passing rest
less night be got mp, went quietly to the
oardsn. picked up one Of his broken pipes,
filled 10 with tobacco and after short
pull came to breakfast with normal seren.
ity. He never again referred to the ques.
tion Of breaking the tobacco habit.
It IL astonishing how few great authors
have been free from marked idiosy ncrasies,
lending color to tho popular theory that
between tho most exalted intellects and
insanity there 10 only . very narrow di.
viding line. Dryden has put the belief
into famous couplet. Long before that
was written Aristotle wrote, mo excellent
soul II exempt from q mixture Of mad
ness" Seneca said the same thing In
other words and Pope echoes Dryden In
his Essay on Mani"
Remembrance and reflection how allied;
What thin partitions sense from thought di-
vtdel
DIR. Forbes Winslow, the famous English
authority on alienism, not long since gave
It as his deliberate opinion that there is
scientific foundation for the theory that
genius and madness are first cousins.
He says that persons Of genius are usually
persons of great sensibility and that nerv-
GUS irritability and emotional disturb
anoe 60 along with the ultra sensitive
temperament He points TO Scott and
Byron as examples Of men Of great genius
i've sensibility which tends to become
morbid, melancholy and deranged. 1t is
curious that DR.. Winslow should take two
poets as his illustrations, for, while all
true poets must be men Of genius, all men
Of genius ere certainly not poets. There
has been o general oopcurrenoe Of opinion
70 the e9ect that poetry II the product OF
mental conditions that are extraordinary,
II not abnormal Shelley, himself not
free from tho suspicion Of mental disorder,
declares that "poets are the hierophants of
an unapprehended inspiration, the mirrors
Of the gigantic shadows which futurity
casts upon the present." and this defini-'
ton itself suggests some incoherenoy Of
thought. Junius, in one Of his famous
letters to Sir william Draper, speaks of
1.-The melancholy madness of poetry" and
If We are to confine our inspection of gen.
fuses to poets and authors alone there
certainly is much evidence pointing to
the alleged affinity Of genius and insanity.
Coleridge could not have been entirely
sane or he would not have taken such de-
light in satirizing himself. The poet
Alfleri wore his hair SO long that, as he
sat in his box at the theater In Turin, 1t
streamed over the other side of the parti-
tion, where a lady broke out in voluble
admiration of It, The next day Alfleri
cut his tresses close to his head and sent
them in parcel to the lady. It was q
poets way Of rcproving rudeness. No busi-
ness man would have SO acted. Byron
did many strange things. His conversion
Of a skull found in the graveyard Of his
ancestors into drink cup was one of the
least crazy. These instances of poetic
freakiness could bo easily extended.
Young's "Night Thoughts" though
Young was as cheerful as a cricket when
he wrote 1t, is as full of the microbes
of melancholia, and Beattie was justified
In saying that whenever one finds himself
reading 1t in corner with pleasure sit
is time to shut tho hook and return to the
company"
Yet Charles Lamb observes in one of
his brilliant essays that "it Is impossible
for tho mind to conceive of a mad Shakes
peare," and he takes issue squarely with
DIR. Forbes Winslow's theory by declaring
that the near relationship of genius to in
puhAoy IA q poPuiuA AoiAoSy, eshu ohoo tbC
greatest wits will ever be found to be the
sanest writer's" 1.-THE ground Of the fal-
lacy" says Lamb, THAT men, finding the
raptures of tho higher poetry condition of
exaltation to which they have no parallel
in their own experience besides the spuri-
Gus resemblance Of It in dreams and fevers,
impute n state Of dreaminess and fever to
the poet He Is not possessed by his sub
ject, but has domination over It. In tho
groves of Eden he walks familiar as In his
native paths. He >ascends the cmpyrean
heaven and is not intoxicated. Ho trcads
tho burning mari without dismay. He
wings his flight without self loss through
/. realms Of chaos and old night" "
Between this judgment Of Lamb, who
was himself n bundle of eccentricitics. and
DR.. Winslow's scientific opinion there IL
plenty Of room for doubt and discussion.
But as to tho broader proposition that all
forms of genius are akin to madness, we
do not believe It can be sustained. The
weight of evidence and Of probability Is
against It. The gifts that make men great
inventors, daring explorers, successful