The Man of Genius. Lombroso Cesare

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СКАЧАТЬ and Epilepsy – Melancholy – Megalomania —Folie du doute– Alcoholism – Hallucinations – Moral Insanity – Longevity.

      IT is now possible to explain the frequency among men of genius, even when not insane, of those forms of neurosis or mental alienation which may be called latent, and which contain the germs and as it were the outlines of these disorders.

       Chorea and Epilepsy.– Many men of genius, like the insane, are subject to curious spasmodic and choreic movements. Lenau and Montesquieu left upon the floor of their rooms the signs of the movements by which their feet were convulsively agitated during composition; Buffon, Dr. Johnson, Santeuil, Crébillon, Lombardini, exhibited the most remarkable facial contortions.89 There was a constant quiver on Thomas Campbell’s thin lips. Chateaubriand was long subject to convulsive movements of the arm. Napoleon suffered from habitual spasm of the right shoulder and of the lips; “My anger,” he said, one day after an altercation with Lowe, “must have been fearful, for I felt the vibration of my calves, which has not happened to me for a long time.” Peter the Great suffered from convulsive movements which horribly distorted his face. Carducci’s face at certain moments, writes Mantegazza, is a veritable hurricane; lightnings dart from his eyes and his muscles tremble.90 Ampère could only express his thoughts while walking, and when his body was in a state of constant movement.91 Socrates often danced and jumped in the street without reason, as if by a freak.

      Julius Cæsar, Dostoieffsky, Petrarch, Molière, Flaubert, Charles V., Saint Paul, and Handel, appear to have been all subject to attacks of epilepsy. Twice upon the field of battle the epileptic vertigo nearly had a serious influence on Cæsar’s fate. On another occasion, when the Senate had decreed him extraordinary honours, and had gone out to meet him with the consuls and prætors, Cæsar, who at that moment was seated at the tribune, failed to rise, and received the Senators as though they were ordinary citizens. They retired showing signs of discontent, and Cæsar, suddenly returning to himself, immediately went home, took off his clothes and uncovering his neck, exclaimed that he was ready to deliver his throat to any one who wished to cut it. He explained his behaviour to the Senate as due to the malady to which he was subject; he said that those who were affected by it were unable to speak standing, in public, that they soon felt shocks in their limbs, giddiness, and at last completely lost consciousness.92

      Convulsions sometimes hindered Molière from doing any work for a fortnight at a time. Mahomet had visions after an epileptic fit: “An angel appears to me in human form; he speaks to me. Often I hear as it were the sound of cats, of rabbits, of bells: then I suffer much.” After these apparitions he was overcome with sadness and howled like a young camel. Peter the Great and his son by Catherine were both epileptics.

      It may be noted here that artistic creation presents the intermittence, the instantaneousness, and very often the sudden absences of mind which characterize epilepsy. Paganini, Mozart, Schiller, and Alfieri, suffered from convulsions. Paganini was even subject to catalepsy.93 Pascal from the age of twenty-four had fits which lasted for whole days. Handel had attacks of furious and epileptic rage. Newton and Swift were subject to vertigo, which is related to epilepsy. Richelieu, in a fit, believed he was a horse, and neighed and jumped; afterwards he knew nothing of what had taken place.94 Maudsley remarks that epileptics often believe themselves patriarchs and prophets. He thinks that by mistaking their hallucinations for divine revelations they have largely contributed to the foundation of religious beliefs. Anne Lee, who founded the sect of Shakers, was an epileptic: she saw Christ come to her physically and spiritually. The vision which transformed Saint Paul from a persecutor into an apostle seems to have been of the same order. The Siberian Shamans, who profess to have intercourse with spirits, operate in a state of convulsive exaltation, and choose their pupils by preference from among epileptic children.

      Melancholy.– The tendency to melancholy is common to the majority of thinkers, and depends on their hyperæsthesia. It is proverbially said that to feel sorrow more than other men constitutes the crown of thorns of genius. Aristotle had remarked that men of genius are of melancholic temperament, and after him Jürgen-Meyer has affirmed the same. “Tristes philosophi et severi,” said Varro.

      Goethe, the impassible Goethe, confesses that “my character passes from extreme joy to extreme melancholy;” and elsewhere that “every increase of knowledge is an increase of sorrow;” he could not recall that in all his life he had passed more than four pleasant weeks. “I am not made for enjoyment,” wrote Flaubert.95 Giusti was affected by hypochondria, which reached to delirium; sometimes he thought he had hydrophobia. Corradi has shown96 that all the misfortunes of Leopardi, as well as his philosophy, owe their origin to an exaggerated sensibility, and a hopeless love which he experienced at the age of eighteen. In fact, his philosophy was more or less sombre according as his health was better or worse, until the tendency was transformed into a habit. “Thought,” he wrote, “has long inflicted on me, and still inflicts, such martyrdom as to produce injurious effects, and it will kill me if I do not change my manner of existence.”97 In his poems Leopardi appears the most romantic and philanthropic of men. In his letters, on the other hand, he appears cold, indifferent to his parents, and still more to his native country. From the publications of his host and protector Ranieri98 may be seen how little grateful he was to his friends, and that he was eccentric to the verge of insanity. Desiring death every moment in verse, he took exaggerated pains to cling to life, exposing himself to the sun for hours together, sometimes eating only peaches, at other times only flesh, always in extremes. No one hated the country more than he, who so often sang its praises. He hardly reached it before he wished to return, and stayed with difficulty an entire day. He made day night, and night day. He suspected every one; one day he even suspected that he had been robbed of a box in which he preserved old combs.

      The list of great men who have committed suicide is almost endless. It opens with the names of Zeno Aristotle(?), Hegesippus, Cleanthes, Stilpo, Dionysus of Heraclea, Lucretius, Lucan, and reaches to Chatterton, Clive, Creech, Blount, Haydon, David. Domenichino was led to commit suicide by the contempt of a rival; Spagnoletto by the abduction of his daughter; Nourrit by the success of Dupré; Gros could not survive the decadence of his genius. Robert, Chateaubriand, Cowper, Rousseau, Lamartine on several occasions nearly put an end to their lives. Burns wrote in a letter: “My constitution and frame were ab origine blasted with a deep incurable taint of melancholia which poisons my existence.” Schiller passed through a period of melancholy which caused him to be suspected of insanity. In B. Constant’s letters we read: “If I had had my dear opium, it would have been the moment, in honour of ennui, to put an end to an excessive movement of love.”99 Dupuytren thought of suicide even when he had reached the climax of fame. Pariset and Cavour were only saved from suicide by devoted friends. The latter twice attempted to kill himself. Lessmann, the humorous writer, who wrote the Journal of a Melancholiac, hanged himself in 1835 during an attack of melancholia. So died, also, the composer of Masaniello, Fischer, Romilly, Eult von Burg, Hugh Miller, Göhring, Kuh (the friend of Mendelssohn), Jules Uberti, Tannahill, Prévost-Paradol, Kleist, who died with his mistress, and Majláth, who drowned himself with his daughter.

      George Sand, who seems, however, free from all neurosis, declared that whether it was that bile made her melancholy, or that melancholy made her bilious, she had been seized at moments of her life by a desire for eternal repose – for suicide. She attributed this to an affection of the liver. “It was an old chronic disorder, experienced and fought with from early youth, forgotten like an old travelling companion whom one believes one has left behind, but who suddenly presents himself. This СКАЧАТЬ