The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-21

the genius is apt to give evidence Of the fact that he is in state of abnorm ality for which he is irresponsible. One thought has overwhelmed him and be- yond that all else is blank. He Is ab- stracted, capricious and does-he knows not what He is a maniac in one way or another How else shall we explain the conduct of Dante? On one occasion when about to pass blacksmith's shop he paused then wheeled about and, strid- ing into the shop, proceeded to hurl the smiths implements of work into the street. The smith looked into his face and thought he saw the face of mad man. For the time the face was that of a madman. Upon the departure of the poet tho smith quietly gathered up his tools, lamenting the while the fate of the insane.
 The Roman philosopher. Seneca, said: There is no great genius free from tincture of madness and this sentiment has been repeated in every age since Seneca wrote his "De/ Tranquilitate Animi."
 MT Hamilton W. Mabie in his sketch of the life of Keats dissents from this opinion. He asserts that genius Is the very highest form of sanity and health; but the statement of MT. Mabie, the de- batter, is not consistent with the facts related by MT. Mabie, the biographer. He says of Keats that as a boy The was overclouded at times with the stirrings of genius. which made him an alien on kt.~ ffa,.x otrn nnpo "a shouting throng" "Overclouded'' and solitary and an 'alien" from his kind? Why, MT. Mabie, those terms describe symptomatic melancholia. and everybody knows of the despondency and melan- choly of Keats after his sojourn in the lake country.
 That the genius in his moods of im- agination is insane to certain degree. is a conviction that has been held by the profoundest thinkers in all the ages. I shall quote from some of them.
 Plato said, "As the Corybantian revel- lers, when they dance. are not in their right mind. so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are com posing their beautiful strains; but when they fall under the power of music and metre they arc inspired and possessed, like Baachic maidens. who draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are un- der the influence of Dionysius, but not when they are in their right mind. And the soul of the lyric poet does the same as they themselves tell us u. there is no invention in him until he is in- spired and out of his senses"
 Democritus said that insanity was an essential condition to the writing of poetry.
 Cicero spoke of the 'furor poeticus." and Horace wrote of the "amabilis in sania," form of insanity to which poets are given.
 But there are many geniuses in spheres other than poetry and one might ask were such men insane at times, as Socrates. Aristotle and Pythagoras, in philosophy? Herodotus and Livy. in his tory? Demosthenes and Cato, in oratory?
 These and many others seem to con tradict the view thus far advanced. But I answer: Of these mems lives we know very little, but what we do know would lead us to think that sometimes they were.
 Socrates had hallucinatsvns which he ascribed to his attendant demon. Lucre- tius had pronounced mania. He wrote his ..De Rarum Natura" and at A commit ted self-murder. Pausanius suffered for years with . pursuing demon The great Maltus died g madman. Pettcles had