River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1908-03-19

| wear or wrappers of every style and
color, or to be absorbed in researches
and calculations and ridiculous inven-
| tons"
| But, after Ill, semi-insanity in some
| forms has Its advantages. Many
world-famous men-poetg, maizena,
| ticians, philosophers, historians,
| writer's, statesmen and scientists
would probably never have been heard
of but for that one little streak of in
sanity which lent luster and impetus
| to their minds and prompted them to
accomplish something of tremendous
| value to mankind.
For instance, "Folstoi belongs to the
category of the semi-insane who are
! termed originals At eight years of
age he was seized with an irresistible
desire to fly This idea haunted him
to such degree that he decided to
put it into practice. He shut himself
up in his study room, climbed up to
the window and made the movements
for flying in the air. He fell from a
height of more than 16 feet and was
sick for some time following"
Tolstoi's Peculiar Mania.
| Later Tolstois particular brand of
insanity prompted him to fall in love,
| not once, but threefold; for, having
met the three daughters of DR.. Berce,
he began by being very much taken
by the oldest, then he thought he was
in love with the second, and finally
fn11 4,,s-o IL
romance ended abruptly, for Tolstoi
suddenly decided that instead of get
ting married he would NOW hay with
the moujiks in peasants blouse.
Ossip LOurie, who made a psyche
logical study of many of the great Rus
sian novelists of the nineteenth CEN
fury, summed up Tolstoi's case in the
following way:
"Tolstoi is one of those rare men to
whom the English aphorism, They
are certainly cracked, but the crack
lets in light might apply. In a word,
| Tolstoi was semi-insane genius"
| Even Socrates must have had a
streak of insanity in him, for he went
into ecstacies which were almost cata-
leptic fits. At table, or in the streets
of Athens, or in the camps, he would
suddenly stop short, sometimes with
out motive. At other times, on the &C.
casion of a sneeze either by himself
or one of his neighbors, he would act,
or would not act, according to whether
the sneeze had taken place on his
right hand or on his left"
Insanity of Some Great Men.
Prof. Grasset cites the cases of
ihany other great men of past and
present times whose brands of in
sanity were manifested in various
| ways. Pascal, for instance, could not
stand seeing water without falling into
perfect fit of passion" Then Au-
guste Comte who has exerted a vast
and lasting influence on the philo-
sophical position of the savants of the
nineteenth century, was undoubtedly
semi-insane when he was not wholly
insane. He wrote incoherent letters.
| While he was taking a walk one day
| he wanted to drag mis- wife with him
| into the Lake d'Enghein. During his
meals he would try to drive his knife
into the table, like Walter SCOTS
Highlander, and he would order the
succulent back of pig and recite bits
| of Homer"
Of Cork, Prof. Grasset writes that
| he made an attempt to commit sui
eide at the age of IS and belongs to
| the category of the semi-insane who
have been termed vagabonds or wan
derers.''
Guy de Maupassant died insane. He
had often confessed to Paul Bourget
that he frequently saw his double. In
going into his own room he would see
himself seated upon his own sofa. The
roots of his disease seemed to be
confused with the very qualities of his
| talent" Villemain had ideas of perse-
cutiOn. Jean Jacques Rousseau was
successfully clockmaker, mountebank.
music master, painter and servant,
and then followed the paths of medi-
cine, music, theology and botany. He
used to mediate bareheaded in the
sun at midday. He fell in love at IL.
He would suddenly depart from an
inn, leaving his trunk behind him.
OSA IL NC ANClFd1, CuO pO41I1Cdl WIlL0E
and poet, was subject to hallucina-
| tions. He would be found on the street
corner, his hat in his hand, lost in
sort of ecstacy In the Tuileries he
saw the goldfish in the big fountain
putting their heads out of the water
! trying to entice him to follow them to
the bottom. The queen of Sheba was
waiting for him, they said. He was
found at the Palais Royal dragging a
| live lobster along at the end of a blue
ribbon. He tried to fly like the birds,
and one day at a moment, in one of
| the streets of Paris, when he waited
with his arms spread out for his soul
to mount to star, he was gathered in
| by a gendarme because he had pre-
pared for this ascension by taking off
bis terrestrial garments"
Freaks of Men of Genius.
Baudelaire dyed his hair green. He
was an epicure of odors, and used to
say that his soul scared upon perfumes
as the souls of other men scared upon
music. One day after throwing a
travelling glazier downstairs and break
ing every pane of glass Baudelaire ex-
claimed: THE beauty of life! The
beauty of life" He declared later that
he experienced at that moment an Gin