Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1899-04-25
MISFlr BRAINS.
THEY MAY MAKE A GENIUS OR AN
INSANE PATIENT.

Edgsr Allan Poe, Byron, Sir Joshus
Reyno de and hundred other men oi
genius have been either eccentric or the
victims of strange illusions.
DR.. Johnson used TO hear strange
voices calling To him, when none vas
near; snd B-n Jonson, ''th- rare" h,d
DAYS when even he though hs sss I'D
/ Lombroso sttrinate. vico's genius 10 =
fall from ladder when child, and sim
liar blows on the head made geniuses OF
Msbilion snd Goetry, the composer.
Pope WAS hunchbsck, = "poor physi-
cal note of interrogation Keats was
cousumptlve; and Heine, the German
poet, was an almost chronic invalid.
Byron, Poe, Z,ls, aud many other men
OF genius have been epileptic.
The brilliant Guv de Maupssssut lost
his reason, and his bright genius was ex-
tiuguished 10 an asylum; and for years
Mupkacsy, the great Hungarian painter,
WAS lost To art and the world In m sd-
house.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, the French
philosopher. spent his last years victim
TO terrible delusious, which made his life
torture To him. He could find no rest
suywhere from fSncied persecution and
insults even from his most attached
| friends.
One OF the greatest OF American theo-
logians, Prof. Austin Phelps, was drop
ped by careless nurse a. sn infant, and
his head was seriously injured. This fall
In some mysterious way IL said to have
been the cause OF his remarkable power
OF brain.
Pope had a mind a. distorted ~ his
body, and st times saw such fearful Wis
ions that he dared not sit or sleep alone
DE Quincy and Coleridge were eccentric
10 the point OF madness. the result per-
hsps OF laudanum ss much as Of genius.
William Blake, the great poet-palnter
OF the last century, was undoubtedly
his disordered fancy. Tasso, the great
Italian poet. was subject 10 attacks OF
mania 50 violent that he was more than
once confined in a msdhouse.
IL Is one OF the many mysteries OF the
human brain that an injury 10 one sec
tiou OF II may make man insane, while
blow on another part may convert y
dull msn into genius. The risk, how
ever, Ia too great 10 make it desirable TO
fall on ones head as means OF cultivat-
ing genius.
One Of the most curious phases OF gen.
ius IL that In msnv cases II has been the
direct outcome OF an accident or seri-
ous Illness. Psscsfs genius Is attributed
20 = dangerous Illness from which he suf-
fered when boy; and Zola was but y
d,,n .k,,lA ,,,,l a.riaua iliuaaa nyarfnnE
him and left him sn epileptic and n
genius.
Whether or not genius Is the result OF
y diseased condition Of the brain. IL is
beyond dispute that most men Of genius
are eccentric TO the verge Of insanity,
ssys the Philsdelphia Inquirer, while
many Of them become actually mad ;
and that manv dull children have bios
somed into genius as the direct copse-
quenc-s OF Injury Ia the brain.
Goethe wss the victim OF Illusions. and
used TO see strange visions In the street.
I ZDlS Ia a mass Of morbid fsncies which
IN AXE his life, successful "a 10 has been,
= purgstorv. Even when he retires for
the night he must open his eyes seven
times 10 assure himself that he actually
1--WE. hV ssNS btS frsVh w Nh'hk
from cab with an unlucky number TO
entering his house with his left foot.
Mrs. Browning spent many years OF
patient suffering ln bed; and among the
lesser lights OF our own day, Mr.. Clark
Russell IL crippled by rheumatism. Miss
Edna Ly II spends much of her time In
a bsth-chair, and Aubrey Besrdsley died
untim-lv OF consumption. These are bet
few illustrations of the seeming rule
thst genius carries with il suffering
either OF mind or BODY.
IL is one OF Natures singular methods
OF compensation that where men and
women OF genius are mentally sound,
they are made TO suffer some physical Ill
Sir Joshua Reynolds was, ss the world
knows, deaf; Beethoven for the last
seventeen years Of his life could not hear
note Of sll the exquisite music he pen
ned, and suffered terribly from melsn-
cholis; Scott and Byron were both
lame, and TO both their crippled condi-
ton WAS cause OF mental torture.