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Chapter XXIII: Appendix: Poetry and the Insane

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The following letter was written by a druggist confined in the Asylum of Sainte-Anne:--

Sainte-Anne, le 26 février 1880.

MADAME,

Veuillez agréer l’hommage
De ce modeste sonnet
Et le tenir comme un gage
De mon sincère respect.

SONNET.

Souvenez-vous, reine des dieux,
Vierge des vierges, notre mère,
Que vous êtes sur cette terre
L’ange gardien mystérieux.[485]

The same man addressed to M. Magnan a long poem on a dramatic representation accompanied by the following graceful _envoi_:--

VÉNÉRÉ DOCTEUR,

L’estime et la reconnaissance
Sont la seule monnaie du cœur
Dont votre pauvre serviteur
Dispose pour la récompense
Qu’il doit à vos soins pleins d’honneur.

Recevez donc cet humble hommage,
Docteur admiré, révéré,
Et j’ajouterai bien-aimé,
Si vous vouliez tenir pour gage
Qu’en cela du moins J’AI PAYE.[486]

The following lines are from a long satirical poem by a writer who appears to have cherished much less respect for his physician. He believed that he had been changed into a beast, and recognised a colleague in every horse or donkey he met. He wished to browse in every field, and only refrained from doing so out of consideration for his friends:--

Les médicastres sans vergogne
Qui changent en sale besogne
Le plus sublime des mandats,
Ces infâmes aliénistes,
Qui, reconnus pour moralistes,
Sont les pires des scélérats!
Ils détruisent les écritures
Pour maintenir les impostures
Des ennemis du bien public.
Ils prostituent leur justice
Pour se gorger du bénéfice
De leur satanique trafic.[487]

The author of the following lines on the same day made an attempt at suicide, and then a homicidal attack on his mother.

À MONSIEUR LE DOCTEUR C.

ÉPITRE (_13 mai 1887_).

Un docteur éminent sollicite ma muse.
Certes l’honneur est grand; mais le docteur s’amuse,
Car, dans ce noir séjour, le poète attristé
Par le souffle divin n’est guère visité....
Faire des vers ici, quelle rude besogne!
On pourra m’objecter que jadis, en Gascogne,
Les rayons éclatants d’un soleil du Midi
Réveillaient quelquefois mon esprit engourdi;
Il est vrai: dans Bordeaux, cité fière et polie,
J’ai fêté le bon vin, j’ai chanté la folie,
Celle bien entendu qui porte des grelots.

Mais depuis, un destin fatal à mon repos
M’exile loin des bords de la belle Gironde,
Qu’enrichissent les vins les plus fameux du monde!
Aussi plus de chansons, de madrigaux coquets!
Plus de sonnets savants, de bacchiques couplets!
Ma muse tout en pleurs a replié ses ailes,
Comme un ange banni des sphères éternelles!
Dans sa cage enfermé l’oiseau n’a plus de voix....
Hélas! je ne suis point le rossignol des bois,
Pas même le pinson, pas même la fauvette;
Vous me flattez, docteur, en m’appelant poète....
Je ne suis qu’un méchant rimeur, et je ne sais
Si ces alexandrins auront un grand succès....
Cependant mon désir est de vous satisfaire;
Votre estime m’honore et je voudrais vous plaire,
Mais Pégase est rétif quand il est enchaîné;
D’un captif en naissant le vers meurt condamné.
Si vous voulez, docteur, que ma muse renaisse,
Je ne vous dirai pas: rendez-moi ma jeunesse.
Non, mais puisque vos soins m’ont rendu la santé,
Ne pourriez-vous me rendre aussi la liberté?
Des vers! Pour que le ciel au poète en envoie
Que faut-il? le grand air, le soleil et la joie!
Accordez-moi ces biens: mon luth reconnaissant,
Pour vous remercier comme un Dieu bienfaisant,
Peut-être trouvera, de mon cœur interprète,
Des chants dignes de vous, et dignes d’un poète!

The following lines well express the solitary sadness of the melancholiac:--

A SE STESSO.

E con chi l’hai?
Con tutti e con nessuno,
L’ho con il cielo, che si tinge a bruno,
L’ho con il metro, che non rende i lai,
Che mi rodono il petto.
Nell’odio altrui, nel mal comun mi godo.

And these are of marvellous delicacy and truth:--

TIPO FISICO-MORALE DI P. L.

QUI RICOVERATO.

Al primo aspetto
Chi ti vede, saria
Costretto a dir che a te manca l’affetto;
E male s’apporria;
Che invece spesse fiate,
Sotto ruvido vel, palpitan lene
L’anime innamorate
Che s’accendon, riscaldansi nel bene.
Così rosa dal petalo
Invisibile quasi
Mette l’effluvio dai raccolti vasi,
Come dal gelsomino,
E i delicati odor dell’amorino;
Nemico a tutti i giuochi,
Di Venere, di Bacco indarno i fuochi
Ti soffiano; la cute
E di tal forza che sembrano mute
Le vezzose lusinghe ...
E invano a darti il fiato spira l’etra.
M. S.

The following little piece is a masterpiece of insane poetry:--

A UN UCCELLO DEL CORTILE.

Da un virgulto ad uno scoglio
Da uno scoglio a una collina,
L’ala tua va pellegrina
Voli o posi a notte e dì.

Noi confitti al nostro orgoglio,
Come ruote in ferrei perni,
Ci stanchiamo in giri eterni,
Sempre erranti e sempre qui!
CAVALIERE Y.

INDEX.

Albertus Magnus, 7

Alcoholism in men of genius, 54, 316, 325

Alexander the Great, 6, 54, 146

Alfieri, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 103

Amiel, 52-53

Ampère, 29, 34, 67, 315

Anæsthesia of men of genius, 33

Anabaptists, 256

Arabesques by insane artists, 200

Argentine men of genius, 313

Aristotle, 8, 13

Art in the insane, 179 _et seq._

Artists, distribution of great European, 117 _et seq._

Atavism in literature of the insane, 172

Bach, 139

Bacon, 61

Balzac, 6, 47, 342

Barometrical condition and genius, 101

Baudelaire, 28, 69-72, 316, 325

Beethoven, 34, 61, 146

Berlioz, 27

Bernouilli, 141

Blake, W., 6, 56

Bolyai, 73

Bruno, G., 25, 35, 47, 106, 316

Buffon, 34, 339

Burns, 41

Byron, 7, 9, 29, 56, 61, 62, 103, 146

Cabanis, 17

Cæsar, Julius, 39, 54

Campanella, 285-291

Campbell, T., 6, 38, 146

Cardan, 21, 35, 74-77, 145, 314, 323

Carducci, 38

Carlo Dolce, 67

Carlyle, 7, 61

Casanova, 59

Cavendish, 14

Cavour, 43, 354

Cerebral characteristics of men of genius, 8-13, 327

Chamfort, 14

Charity, hysterical, 349

Charles V., 13, 146

Chateaubriand, 38, 44

Chopin, 43, 47, 48

Choreic symptoms in men of genius, 38

Civilization on genius, influence of, 153 _et seq._

Clare, J., 165

Clarke, Marcus, 8

Climatic influences on genius, 117 _et seq._

Codazzi, 73

Coleridge, 22, 44, 55

Coleridge, Hartley, 55

Columbus, 56

Comte, 15, 60, 73

Concato, 72

Conception of men of genius, 149

Cowley, 23

Cowper, 24

Cranial characteristics of men of genius, 8-13, 327

Criminality of genius, 57 _et seq._

Cuvier, 11

Dante, 8, 11, 15, 35, 46, 106

Darwin, 13, 106, 356-357

Décadent poets, 230 _et seq._

Descartes, 22

Dickens, 23

Diderot, 34

Discoveries, dates of, 105 _et seq._

Disease on genius, influence of, 151

Domenichino, 17

Donizetti, 9, 11, 62

Dostoïeffsky, 8, 321, 339-341

Double personality of men of genius, 24

Dreams, genius working during, 21, 326

Dumas _père_, 7, 62

Dupuytren, 41

Education on genius, influence of, 159-160

Egoism of men of genius, 318-319

Enfantin, Prosper, 295-296

Epilepsy and genius, 38

Epileptoid nature of genius, 336 _et seq._

Erasmus, 6, 8, 13

Flaxman, 7

Flaubert, 7, 14, 17, 28, 40, 50, 60, 331, 341

Florentine genius, 123, 154-155

Foderà, 91

_Folie du doute_ of men of genius, 48 _et seq._

Fontenelle, 62

Forgetfulness of men of genius, 33

Foscolo, 9, 11, 18, 20, 29, 31, 104, 106

Francis of Assisi, 258-260

Frederick II., 62

French genius, 127

Galvani, 109-110, 114

Gambetta, 11, 12

Gauss, 12

Genius, Aristotle on, 1;
Plato on, 2;
Diderot on, 3;
Richter on, 19

Genius, a neurosis, 5;
distinct from talent, 19, 35;
in the insane, 161 _et seq._;
in mattoids, 226 _et seq._;
its epileptoid nature, 336 _et seq._;
in the sane, 353 _et seq._

Genius, characteristics of men of, 6;
height, 6;
frequency of rickets, 7;
pallor, 7;
emaciation, 7;
cranial and cerebral characteristics, 8-13, 327;
stammering, 13;
lefthandedness, 13;
sterility, 13;
unlikeness to parents, 14;
physiognomy, 14;
precocity, 15, 315;
delayed development, 16;
misoneism, 17;
vagabondage, 18, 316;
unconsciousness and instinctiveness, 19;
somnambulism, 21;
inspiration, 22;
double personality, 24;
stupidity, 25;
hyperæsthesia, 26;
anæsthesia, 33;
forgetfulness, 33;
originality, 35, 317-318;
fondness for special words, 37;
frequency of chorea and epilepsy, 38;
melancholy, 40;
delusions of grandeur, 45;
_folie du doute_, 48 _et seq._;
alcoholism, 54, 316;
hallucinations, 56;
moral insanity, 57;
longevity, 64;
insanity, 66 _et seq._;
meteorological influences on, 100 _et seq._;
climatic influences on, 117 _et seq._;
influence of race, 126, 133;
influence of sex, 137;
influence of heredity, 139 _et seq._;
relation to criminality, 144 _et seq._;
age of parents, 149;
conception, 149;
influence of disease on, 151;
influence of civilization on, 153 _et seq._;
influence of education, 159-160;
characteristics of insane, 314 _et seq._;
analogy of sane and insane, 330 _et seq._;
in revolutions, 334-335

Giordani, 104

Giusti, 40, 104

Goethe, 7, 15, 21, 40

Gogol, 98-99

Goldsmith, 6

Goncourts, the, 28, 331, 339, 342

Grandeur among men of genius, delusions of, 45

Graphomaniacs, 212 _et seq._

Gray, 43

Guiteau, 313

Haller, 67, 319, 320

Hallucinations of men of genius, 56-57

Hamilton, Sir W. R., 109

Hamlet, 53

Haydn, 19

Head injuries and genius, 8, 151

Heat on genius, influence of, 103 _et seq._

Height of men of genius, 6

Heine, 6, 103, 152

Hoffmann, E. T. A., 90-91

Hogarth, 6

Howard, John, 8, 351

Hugo, V., 46

Hyperæsthesia of men of genius, 26

Insane, art and the, 179 _et seq._

Insane and the weather, 100

Insane among savages, the, 245

Insanity and genius, 66 _et seq._, 13, 143, 145, 148, 161 _et seq._, 314 _et seq._, 332

Insanity, epidemics of religious, 251 _et seq._

Inspiration, genius in, 22

Instinctiveness of genius, 19

Jesus, 45, 63

Jewish genius, 133-137

Johnson, Dr., 7, 49, 57

Kant, 8, 10

Kerner, 146

Keshub Chunder Sen, 244

Klaproth, 17

Kleist, 23

Knutzen, 244

Krüdener, Julie de, 257

Lagrange, 110

Lamartine, 20

Lamb, C., 6, 13, 67

Lamennais, 15

Laplace, 18

Lasker, 11

Lawsuit mania, 224-226

Lazzaretti, 296-308

Lee, N., 67

Leibnitz, 22

Lefthandedness of men of genius, 13

Lenau, 38, 85-87, 315, 316, 321, 325

Lesage, 104

Leopardi, 7, 41, 53, 104

Linnæus, 32

Literary mattoids, 209 _et seq._

Longevity of men of genius, 64

Lovat’s autocrucifixion, 183

Loyola, 257

Luther, 260-261

Mahomet, 31, 39, 325

Maine de Biran, 50, 101-103, 151

Mainländer, 72

Malebranche, 56

Malibran, 27

Mallarmé, 231

Malpighi, 108, 114

Manzoni, 49

Matteucci, 111

Mattoids, 212 _et seq._;
of genius, 226 _et seq._;
in art, 239;
in politics and religion, 242 _et seq._

Megalomania, 45-48

Melancholy in men of genius, 40-45

Mendelssohn, F., 7

Mendelssohn, M., 7, 13

Meteorological influences on genius, 100 _et seq._

Meyerbeer, 15

Michelangelo, 13, 15, 354-356

Michelet, 103, 229

Mill, J. S., 44

Milton, 8, 13, 104

Misoneism of men of genius, 17

Molière, 39, 42

Monge, 33

Moral insanity in men of genius, 57, 201, 333

Mountainous regions and genius, 128 _et seq._

Mozart, 20, 42

Musicians, distribution of great Italian, 120 _et seq._

Musset, A. de, 61

Napoleon, 18, 38, 49, 61, 103, 342-346

Nerval, Gérard de, 44, 68-69, 164

Newton, 17, 21, 80-81

Obscenity in art of the insane, 200-201

Originality of men of genius, 35, 317-318;
in the insane, 184-186

Orographic influences on men of genius, 122

Pallor of men of genius, 7

Paganini, 39

Paranoia, 173

Parents of men of genius, 144 _et seq._

Passanante, 308-313

Pascal, 39, 315, 316, 320

Patriotism and genius, 64

Peter the Great, 39

Philanthropists and moral insanity, 351

Physiognomy of men of genius, 8, 14

Poe, 318, 320

Poetry and the insane, 363-366

Political mattoids, 242 _et seq._

Pope, 7

Poushkin, 30, 103, 105

Praga, 326

Precocity of genius, 15, 315, 330

Race on genius, influence of, 117 _et seq._, 133

Religious doubts of men of genius, 318

Religious mattoids, 242 _et seq._

Renan, 50-52, 147

Restif de la Bretonne, 16

Revolutions and men of genius, 334-335

Richelieu, 39

Rickets in men of genius, 7

Rienzi, Cola da, 263-285

Rossini, 22, 35, 42

Rouelle, 33, 48

Rousseau, J. J., 11, 22, 81-85, 103, 314, 324

Saint Paul, 347-348

Sand, George, 42

San Juan de Dios, 291-294

Sanity and genius, 353 _et seq._

Savages and the insane, 245

Savonarola, 261-263

Schiller, 7, 10, 15, 22, 23, 41, 105

Schopenhauer, 18, 30, 91-98, 148, 315

Schumann, 9, 11, 68

Scotch genius, 154

Scott, Walter, 7, 8, 17

Sesostris, 354

Sex in genius, influence of, 136

Sexual abnormalities of men of genius, 316

Shelley, 22, 56

Socrates, 8, 21, 33, 38

Somnambulism of men of genius, 21

Spallanzani, 104, 110

Spanish genius, 127

Stammering in men of genius, 13

Sterility of men of genius, 13

Sterne, 7, 8

Stupidities of men of genius, 25

Suicide and genius, 41

Swedenborg, 256

Swift, 79-80, 315

Sylvester, 104

Symbolism in insane art, 187 _et seq._

Széchényi, 87-90

Talent and genius, 9

Tasso, 55, 77-79, 314, 316, 321

Thackeray, 10

Thermometrical influences on genius, 103

Tolstoi, 50

Torricelli, 109

Tourgueneff, 7, 10

Unconsciousness of genius, 19

Vagabondage of men of genius, 18, 316

Vanity of men of genius, 315, 330

Verlaine, 232-237

Villon, 59

Volta, 9, 17, 109

Voltaire, 7, 8, 42

Weather on genius, influence of, 100 _et seq._

Whitman, Walt, 7, 318

Words, fondness of men of genius for special, 37

Wülfert, 11

Xavier, St. Francis, 7

Zimmermann, 43

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THE

CULT OF BEAUTY:

_A MANUAL OF PERSONAL HYGIENE_.

BY C. J. S. THOMPSON.

[EXTRACT FROM PREFACE.]

_Too much care cannot be taken of the exterior of the human body, on which the general health so largely depends. The most recent discoveries in science go to prove that cleanliness, with proper attention to bodily exercise, is the greatest enemy to disease and decay. Quackery has never been more rampant than it is to-day, and advertised secret preparations for beautifying the person meet us at every turn. It is with the object of showing how Beauty may be preserved and aided on purely hygienic principles, that this work has been written, the greatest secret of Beauty being Health._

_CONTENTS_--

CHAPTER I.--THE SKIN.
CHAPTER II.--THE HANDS.
CHAPTER III.--THE FEET.
CHAPTER IV.--THE HAIR.
CHAPTER V.--THE TEETH.
CHAPTER VI.--THE NOSE.
CHAPTER VII.--THE EYE.

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The Man of GeniusChapter XXIII: Appendix: Poetry and the Insane

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