The Man of Genius

352

Pp. 119, 120, 121.

353

Sbarbaro, e. g., in the midst of numberless absurdities, wrote: “The man who feels no hatred for the foul and unjust things which cumber our social life is the false phantom of a citizen, a eunuch in heart and mind” (Forche, 21).

“Parliamentary systems do not work well, since they do not allow of the best being at the top, and nonentities at the bottom” (Forche, 3). This, however, is borrowed from Machiavelli’s Decades.

“If you call me a malcontent,” he said to the Council of Public Instruction, “you do me honour: progress is due to rebels and malcontents. Christ Himself was a rebel and an agitator.”

354

Revue politique et littéraire, 1888, No. 1.

355

We have seen that a love of symbolism is one of the characteristics of monomaniacs.

356

M. Jules Tellier has not inaptly called him, in Victor Hugo’s style, “l’homme-frisson.”

357

Responsibility in Mental Disease, p. 47.

358

Knutzen, of Schleswig, in 1674, preached that there was neither God nor devil, that priests and magistrates were useless and pernicious, that marriage was unnecessary, that man ended with death, and that every one ought to be guided by his own inner consciousness of right. For this reason he gave to his disciples the name of the Conscientarii, garnishing his discourses with grotesque quotations. He went about begging and preaching in strange garments. It is not known what became of him after 1674. His writings are Epistola amici ad amicum, Schediasma de lacrimis Christi, &c.

359

Responsibility, p. 53.

360

Revue des Deux Mondes, 1880.

361

Dubois, People of India, p. 360.

362

1 Samuel xxi. 14, 15.

363

Ibid., xix. 9, 10, 23.

364

Ibid., xix. 24.

365

Berbrugger, Exploration Scientifique de l’Algérie, 1855.

366

Western Barbary, p. 60.

367

Travels, p. 133.

368

Beck, Allegemeine Schilderung des Othom. Reiches., p. 177.

369

Ibid., p. 529.

370

Ida Pfeiffer, Voyage, vols. v., vi.

371

Medhurst, State and Prospects, London, 1838, p. 75.

372

Cook, Voyages, vol. ii. p. 19.

373

Vol. iv. p. 49.

374

D’Orbigny, L’Homme Américain, ii. p. 92.

375

Müller, Geschichte der Urreligion, Basle, 1853.

376

Revue Scientifique, 1887.

377

See my Tre Tribuni, 1887.

378

Ideler, Versuch einer Theorie des Wahnsinnes, p. 236 (1842).

379

Hecker, Tanzmanie, Berlin, 1834, p. 120. Traces exist even to-day, as at Echternach, in Luxembourg.

380

Pensiero e Meteore, 1878, p. 129.

381

Archivio di Psichiatria, 1880, Fasc. ii.

382

Nasse, Zeitschrift, 1814, i. p. 255.

383

Versuch, i. p. 274.

384

Swedenborg, by M. de Beaumont-Vassy, 1842; Mattei, Em. de Swedenborg, sa vie, 1863.

385

Mayor, Madame de Krüdener, Turin, 1884.

386

See Macaulay, History, vol. ii.

387

Bonghi, Vita di S. F. d’Assisi, 1885.

388

Bonghi.

389

Archiv für Psychiatrie, 1881.

390

Villari, Vita di Savonarola, pp. 11, 304.

391

De Veritate Prophetica, 1497.

392

Villari, p. 406.

393

Villari, ii. p. 408.

394

See Perrens, E. Marcel, 1880; Démocratie en France dans le Moyen Age, 1875.

395

Letter to Charles IV. Document 33 in Papencordt.

396

“Invidia e fuoco.” Thus the anonymous historian, and Zeffirino Re. Muratori reads juoco, “gaming,” but not even thus can the sentence be explained; for it was certainly other vices than envy and gambling that were consuming the nobility of those days.

397

Even after the first plébiscite, Stefano Colonna, in opposing him, said, “If this madman makes me angry, I will have him thrown from the Capitol” (p. 349).

398

See Papencordt, Cola di Rienzi, 1844; Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Rom, vi. p. 267.

399

Papencordt.

400

Life, i. 32.

401

Ibid., i. 17.

402

Papencordt, doc. 83.

403

See letter to Fra Michele.

404

Hoxemio, De actis pontif., vols. ii. and iii.

405

Muratori, Cronaca Estense, xviii. p. 409.

406

Chronaca, p. 140.

407

Book x.

408

Gregorovius, vol. vi. p. 294.

409

“He said that they had bewitched him in prison” (Anonimo).

410

Even within a few months from his first assumption of the tribunate he became “addicted to rich food, and began to multiply suppers, banquets, and revels of divers meats and wines. About the end of December he began to grow stout and ruddy, and eat with a better appetite” (Anonimo, p. 92).

411

Gaye, Carteggio inedito d’artisti, Florence, 1839; Hoxemio, Qui Gesta Pontificum, &c., &c., Leodii, 1822, ii. pp. 272-514; Papencordt, Cola di Rienzi, Hamburg, 1847; Hobhouse, Historic Illustrations of Childe Harold, 1818; De Sade, Mémoires de Pétrarque, iii.

412

Even in the autograph MSS. we find cotidie for quotidie; Capitalo for Capitolis; patrabantur for perpetrabantur; speraverim for spreverim; michi for mihi. I have already noted the strange blunder of explaining the Pomærium– the district between the inner and outer walls of Rome – by “the garden of Italy.” All this indicates a scholarship which was neither very full nor very accurate. As to his caligraphy, there is nothing particular to remark.

413

Among his vagaries, we have already noted that of crowning himself with seven crowns. In his seals there were seven stars and seven rays, which, under the second Tribunate, became eight.

414

Monomaniacs while remaining constant to a fixed erroneous idea, vary, to a degree which amounts to contradiction, in the accessory details. It is thus that I explain the fact that, in his second tribunate he claimed to be the son, not of the emperor, but of a bastard of his. There has been found, near the Ponte Senatorio, in excavating the ruins of a building, restored apparently by Rienzi, this inscription dictated by him – according to Gabrini – in order to publish to the world his disgraceful delusion: “Nicolaus, Tribunus, Severus, Clemens, Laurentii, Teutonici filius, Gabrinius, Romae Senator,” with a timid allusion to a German, who was not Henry, but an illegitimate son of his (Gabrini, Osservazioni storico-critiche sulla Vita di Rienzi, 1706, p. 96).

415

Anonimo, p. 92.

416

See for other proofs my Tre Tribuni, 1887.

417

P. C. Falletti, Del carattere di Fra Tommaso Campanella, Turin, 1889; Rivista Storica Italiana, vol. vi. fasciculo 2; Amabile, Fra T. Campanella e la sua congiura, Naples, 1882; Fra T. C. nei Castelli di Napoli, &c., vol. ii.; Fra T. Pignatelli e la sua congiura, 1887; Berti, Lettere inedite di T. Campanella, 1878; Idem, Nuovi documenti su Campanella, 1881.

418

Abbé Saglier, Vie de Saint Jean de Dios; M. duCamp, La Charité à Paris, 1885.

419

It is a curious point, that all these saints (Lazzaretti, Loyola, &c.) began by leading a wild life.

420

Maxime du Camp, Souvenirs Littéraires, 1882 (2nd ed.)

421

See the paper on David Lazzaretti, by Nocito and Lombroso, in the Archivio di Psichiatria, 1881, vol. i. fasc. ii. iii.; Verga, Lazzaretti e la pazzia sensoria, Milan, 1880; Caravaggio, Inchiesta e Relazione su Arcidosso, 1878, Gazzetta Ufficiale, for October 1, No. 321.

422

Signes physiques des manies raisonnantes, 1876.

423

Verga, Lazzaretti, 1880.

424

At Pesaro I had under my care several nuns from Roman convents, whose language I never heard surpassed in obscene blasphemy. I have also attended exceedingly devout Jews, whose first symptom was the wish to be baptised, and who, immediately after their recovery, became more orthodox than before.

425

Deposition of the witness Vichi.

426

His first arrest took place in the island of Monte Cristo, for preaching sedition among the fishermen. Thence, he was transferred to Orbetello (see Verga, Su Lazzaretti e la follia sensoria, 1880).

427

Nocito and Lombroso, Davide Lazzaretti (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1880, ii. Turin). In this article are detailed the causes of the error into which the experts fell – an error which cost the country an enormous expenditure and several human lives.

428

Lo Statute Civile del Regno Pontificio in Italia.

429

See Lombroso, Remarks on the Passanante Trial, 1876, pp. 16, 17.

430

Esquirol mentions a madwoman who said to him, “I have not the courage to kill myself; I must kill some one else, so that I can die.” She attempted the life of her daughter.

431

In spite of all this, six Italian mental specialists have declared Passanante free from all suspicion of insanity; and he is still confined in a convict prison.

432

See, for further details, Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. iv.

433

Las Neurosis de los Hombres celebres en la Historia Argentina, by José Maria Ramon Mejia, Buenos Ayres, 1878.

434

De Vita Propria.

435

Schurz, ii.

436

Ibid., p. 283.

437

January, 1765.

438

Of 45 insane writers referred to by Philomneste (op. cit.) there were – 15 who devoted themselves to poetry, 12 to theology, 5 to prophecy, 3 to autobiography, 2 to mathematics, 2 to mental pathology, 2 to politics. Poetry predominates for the reason above given, while, on the other hand, theology, philosophy, and the like are more prominent in the mattoids.

439

Page 200.

440

He declares that musk reminds him of scarlet and gold, and describes “perfumes which have the smell of infants’ flesh, or of the dawn,” &c., &c.

441

Manso, Vita, p. 249.

442

Du Vin, i. 1880.

443

Schurz, i. 328.

444

Kreisler is, like himself, full of strange ideals, always at war with reality, and ends by becoming insane.

445

“Francesco, inferma, entro le membra infermeHo l’anima.”

446

Epistolario, iii. 1.

447

“Mad Nat Lee,” who was for a long time an inmate of Bedlam, minutely describes the insanity of genius in his poems; e. g., in Cæsar Borgia: —

“Like a poor lunatic that makes his moan,And, for a while, beguiles his lookers-on,He reasons well. His eyes their wildness lose,He vows his keepers his wronged sense abuse,But if you hit the cause that hurts his brain,Then his teeth gnash, he foams, he shakes his chain.”

See Winslow, Obscure Diseases of the Brain, p. 210, London, 1863. See also the chapter “On the Art of Insanity,” for proofs of a like tendency on the part of insane painters.

448

“Vi son dei giorni che il mio cor vien menoE il fango mi conquista.”

449

“Venga l’obbrobrio – dell’uomo sobrio;Venga il disprezzo del genere umano;Venga l’inferno – del Padre Eterno;Vi scenderò col mio bicchiere in mano.”

450

See Dilthey, Dichterische Einbildungskraft und Wahnsinn, Leipzig, 1886.

451

Letter from Edmond de Goncourt to Emile Zola (Lettres de Jules de Goncourt, Paris, 1885).

452

Déjerine, De l’Hérédité dans les Maladies, 1886; Ribot, De l’Hérédité, 1878; Ireland, The Blot upon the Brain, 1885.

453

See Part II., pp. 126-132. I must rectify a mistake I have made in not assigning sufficient importance to the influence of race in France. In fact, in revising my studies on a large scale, I find that the departments peopled by the Belgio-Germanic race yield the maximum proportion of geniuses as 40 per cent., while the Celtic departments yielded only 13·5 per cent., and the Iberian 20 per cent.

454

T. Gautier, according to the Goncourts, often declared that he could not – on account of his youth – convince himself that he was really the father of his daughter (Journal des Goncourt, 1888). “La Fontaine was not far removed from a bad man,” says Bourget. “What are we to think of a husband who deserts his young wife and his child, without any motive whatever?” Stendhal (Beyle) hated his father and was hated by him; he always declared his invincible repugnance towards compulsory family affection (Bourget, Essais de Psychologie, p. 310). “I consecrated myself to grief for her,” wrote Chateaubriand of Pauline de Baumont. “ … She had not been dead six months, when her place was filled in my heart” (Ibid.).

455

Revue Littéraire, Aug. 15, 1887, No. 3.

456

Lombroso, Delitti politici, 1890.

457

Correspondance, 1889, p. 538.

458

Feeri, Nuova Antologia, 1889.

459

See Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. ii.; L’Uomo Delinquente, part iii.

460

Encéphale, No. 5, 1887.

461

See the table in Déjerine, op. cit.

462

Mahomet had a strange fondness for his monkey; Richelieu for his squirrel; Crébillon, Helvetius, Bentham, Erskine, for cats – the latter also for a leech. Schopenhauer was very fond of dogs, and named them his heirs; and Byron had a regular menagerie of ten horses, eight dogs, three monkeys, five cats, five peacocks, an eagle, and a bear. Alfieri had a passion for horses. (Smiles, op. cit.)

463

Le Epilessie, p. 19, Turin, 1880.

464

Shenstone, Darwin, Swift, and Walter Scott were subject to giddiness (Smiles).

465

See L’Uomo Delinquente, part iii. p. 623.

466

“There is a fatality,” says Goncourt, “in the first chance which suggests your idea. Then there is an unknown force, a superior will, a sort of necessity of writing which command your work and guide your pen; so much so, that sometimes the book which leaves your hands does not seem to have come out of yourself; it astonishes you, like something which was in you, and of which you were unconscious. That is the impression which Sœur Philomène gives me” (Journal des Goncourt, Paris, 1888). Even Buffon, who had said that invention depends on patience, adds, “One must look at one’s subject for a long time; then it gradually unfolds and develops itself; you feel a slight electric shock strike your head and at the same time seize you at the heart; that is the moment of genius.”

467

Evidently the author himself.

468

Dostoïeffsky, Besi, Paris.

469

Archivio di Psichiatria, ix. 1., p. 89.

470

Taine, Revue des Deux Mondes– Dec. 1886, and Jan. 1887.

471

Renan, in Les Apôtres.

472

Renan.

473

Tonnini, Epilessie, 1886; Archivio di Psichiatria, 1886.

474

Les Hystériques, Paris, 1883.

475

Vinson, Les religions actuelles, 1884; Luke ii. 49; Matt. xii. 48; Mark iii. 33.

476

Anfosso, La Légende religieuse au moyen-âge, 1887.

477

On altruism in moral insanity and epilepsy, see L’Uomo Delinquente, pp. 556, 557. We have seen St. Francis love even the stars, the water, the fire, &c., and – abandon his family!

478

Lombroso, Studii sull’ipnotismo, 3rd ed.; Azam, Hypnotisme, Double Conscience; Beaunis, Le somnambulisme provoqué, La suggestion mentale; Drs. H. Bourru and P. Burot, Dugay, Richet, Janet, Revue Philosophique, 1884-89; Krafft-Ebing, Ueber den Hypnotismus, 1889; Jendrassik, Ueber die Suggestion, 1887; Binet and Feré, La Polarisation, 1885; Ibid., Le magnétisme animal; Beard, Nature and Phenomena of Trance, New York, 1880; Lombroso and Ottolenghi, Nuovi Studii sull’ipnotismo, 1890, and Sulla Transmissione del Pensiero, 1891.

479

Revue Littéraire, 1887.

480

Michelangelo Buonarroti; Epistolario, publicato da G. Milanese. 1888.

481

Michelangelo Buonarroti, di F. Parlagreco, 1888.

482

Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 1888.

483

Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. i. p. 149.

484

Letters, vol. i.

485

Quoted by Parant. Regnard, Sorcellerie, 1887.

486

Regnard, Sorcellerie, 1887.

487

Ibid.