Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-09-15

THE NERVES OF GENIUS.
Insanity Not Hereditary Is the Verdict
Of the Medical Profession.

4
! Many persons described MS POSSESSES
! ing genius III certain lines are predis-
! posed to states of extreme irritability.
anu suffer from emotional disturb
ances resulting in nerve storms which
can only be described as subacute
mania.
Into what class other than the
| nervous of the neurotic are we to enter
such persons? IN this analysis we are
+ bound TO give much consideration to
the maxim that like begets like"
Shakespeare, the greatest poetic genius
! the world has ever seen, stands alone.
He appears to have had no family his
tory of ability and little is personally
known of him.
/ The genealogy of the poet Cowper
will illustrate the point, says the
Ianccrt. There was mental unsound-
ness on both sides of his ancestors,
who We're also distinguished, as he
was the grandson of a Justice and the
great nephew of a lord chancellor.
He suffered from religious halluci-
nations and had the strongest suicidal
tendency. having to be cared for in an
asylum for period OF over a year, yet
he wrote John Gilpin' when suffering
| from intense melancholia.
| Shelley had an insane ancestry; his
grandfather suffered from melanebolia
and was a miser, but wealthy. His
! father showed similar tendencies. His
mother vas violent and domineering.
| but of lonely and solitary habits. At
Elton he was called Mad Shelley" and
the day before he was drowned at
Spezzla. at the age of 80. he had vivid
! Authorizations. IN his picture his
eyes are large and animated and wild,
and his voice was said to be high.
weak and dscordant. and he was
described as shy. solitary. anti-social.
and the subject of ecstatic visions.
Charles and Mary Lamb had con-
vergent heredity of nervous instability
and nervous disease. Their father
died from dementia and paralysis at
30, and Charles died at 60 from what
he himself described as the Cursed
drinking" He was only five feet in
height he stammered. and always sur
fered from headaches. At the age OF
% he had to be placed in an asylum.
while his sister Mary stabbed her
mother Ia the heart while insane.
Wordsworth and his sister. Dorothy.
are almost parallel to Charles and
! Mary Lamb. Dorothy, like Mary.
was insane. and. like Mary. she was
poetical and in the closest sympathy
with her brothers pursuits. Dorothy
Wordsworth was described by De
Quincy as having eyes wild and star
ing with an embarrassed and distress
ing utterance. a creature oil hefs I'M
pulse. She later became mentally III
ficted and never recovered her rea-
son. Wordsworth himself described
his sister as a confirmed invalid,
One of Wordsvorth's children died
: from paralysis, another daughter was
peculiar, being alternately gentle anu
! vehement and suffering from form OF
insanity described today asa Of the
! maniac Oppressive" variety. Words
worth,s father died at AZ and like the
! fathers OF many insane persons was
described as a man of great force OF
character, and his mother died from
phthisis at 81.
The coleridge family had strongly
marked insane history. The father OF
Samuel TAYLOR Coleridge was eeeen-
trio and absentminded and his mother
is stated to have been unedneated anu
simple He himself ran away from
college. he quarreled with his brother
as a boy and left home, being absent
all night without apparent reason
| I .ater in life he left his wife and chill
dren and went off to Malta. Al the
ago of 20 he was broken down and died
a wreck at g.. His son Hartley drank
himself to death and died demented at
So
Southey came of insane stock on nus
mothers side, who herself mad parals.
sis in infancy. He had a maternai
uncle described as "idiotic. HIS
parental uncle left his estate to foot
man rather than to his sister, VINO
lived with him and who was dependent
unon him. Carlyle described him as
the "excitablest man" he ever met, ana
he died from dementia. HIS "iie pc
came insane and also some oil theii
children. He was described as haSiiis
the most vehement pair of hazel eyes
Tho sheridan family is notorious ior
neuropathfc and psychopathic anceS-
try. The mother of Richard brlhsies
sheridan the drastic, was paralszeo,
and died deu;ented at az. His mater
nal grandfather also sank into oe-
ncnt,a and a maternal uncle "aa
described as "absent-minded
married twice, marrying the ses-
ond wife. a few weeks after .he
aentb of his first, and winning her -
Is said. with copies of the love letter, err,
sent to his first wife. He died in deoe
ana acclasse through drink Only o'se
son left issue, and he married i.a ~, :.
healthy stock, OF when famous TO-
has resulted. rer-
Sir walter SCOTS family was per
neatea with nerve disorder. ms
father died from organic demen,ia ID,
and his mother was aphasie and dieu
from post hcmiplegic dementia. ine
maternal uncle also became deinei ,'a1,
He himself had two SONS VINO o'e of
childless. and two daughters. one ~
,,ho,, aied from brain fever and tue
o,ro,. urs I,ockhart, from phthisis'