SICK-MEN WRITERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 205, 23 May 1908, Page 12

SICK-MEN WRITERS.

The theory that genius is a form of disease has' been : terribly overworked' by Lombroso and his imitators : and for some time back it has seemed to bo enjoying a. needed rest.! But: a new application of it' has just seen the light in France, of a sort to mako previous extravagances of tho" kind "seem tame. For it is no less a man than, Montaigne who is now affirmed Vto : have been' a; neurasthenic. "Montaigne Malado et Medccin" is the title of an inaugural thesis lately, read at'the University of liyons by Dr, Raymond Delacroix. It seems that , a .course in. " literary pathology" is maintained at' 1 that institution-; ;and;,the bold,theor;ist struck h.ish at the,man .of whom'it'was affirmed by Sainte-Bouve— who was, to ..be, sure, merely a. critic and. not a pathologist—'' Montaigne is the • wisest Frenchmau that : ever lived." If he; nevertheless, K can; bo'proved to bo ono whose wisdom).ivas: a by-product of sickness, 'then no' one is,safe. We shall noxt be told that Benjamin: Franklin -ivas a hypochAndriao I ?. Dr. Delacroix : goes about his task, in .tho' usual way. Ho collects painfully every minuto scrap, of . evidonco tliat Montaigne, was not-thoroughly;,sound physically. , The essayist confesses that lie suffered from the,stone: hence wo have tho'formidablo diagnosis: "A clear.case of artliritism, manifesting itself in ronal lithiasis and nephritic colic." Butthat is only a .beginning.- Montaigne was, on his mother's sido,' descended from Spanish Jews. It-is:well known'that Jews aro frequently neuropaths;- accordingly -we ' have our man possessed, at tho start, of: a damnosa horeditas. Furthermore, by a cortain amount of peering and-prying and inferring, it can be' plausibly | made out that Montaigne liad other morbid , symptoms. Dr. Delacroix enumerates: " a,'taste for'solitude; a melancholy.turn of spirit; love of long journeys'; vanity; ambition." ' To a more ignorant-out-. .sidei';Vithis -'does.'.-not. jeem''.necessarily fatal, but to a l professar in a " laboratory of legal medicine," it is clear that Montaigne was in a very bad way. ' If he gave tho world pearls of thought, they wore merely pearls secreted by his diseased tissues.. Tho attempt to-explaiii Montaigne by_ illhealth seems so absurd that-one hesitates.to take it soberly/-,;-May it. riot be simply a clever r academic : play of wit, intended. to throw iridiciilo/upon the whole solemn', pro-, cess ofV^rdyingvitbat- allgreat ■ wits, are near..\alliedito;;:madiiess'or,,disease? But -tlie thesis with the ntmo.st.; '' vin - the ■' Paris ." Figaro," ,'cverivif 'He 'does"-make' merry 7 at 'some of its 'cdnte'ritiori'g. '.VOiib. bf .liis neatest points is his (jitatiori of refusal to go and bo a companion of the King. This from the man of -consuming' ambition I. . But, then, •was itin6t r a proof, of that love of solitude -shows to be pathologic? ■iThoAruth' lsj you never, can catch theso sickman theorists. Your best ovidenco of health they pityingly take and read' into it a proof of morbidity. ■ l lt i was bound to' come, we suppose—this magisterial demonstration that Montaignd'w'as-a 1 confirmed invalid and neurasthenic. • The. writer who" stood 1 for the very type of sanity and .clear vision and detached judgment—tho man who said of himself, "Jo lie toys rieii sans gaycte "—ho had at last to be' held up "before us as a pining victim of melancholia.-*.'

AVo have often thought. that, tho. great trouble with these professors of literary pathology is'that they arc' not sick themselves. They • appear to • reason by a process of unconscious .personal contrast. ; " Here ami I," one;,of .them,,seen)6„to say, "perfectly sound in wind and. lunb. • 'Every 'oriran functions perfectly r and 1 have neither an ache nor a pain. Now, it niuat be this robust health of "mine that really differentiates me from a genius. I know well that I cannot pen a sentence which tho world will read twicc— lucky for mo . if . .it reads it onco —and to me the inference is irresistiblo that tho only reason why others write so much.better than I is that they aro in so much worso health than I.• If 1 wor'o a. nervous dyspeptic like Carlylo, or ate pie for breakfast like Emerson, I should rival their fame.'.' " We cannot understand Mcntsigna," affirms Dr; Dolacroix, " until wo know that his work was that of a sick man." Then ho must have been a "malade malgro lui," Wittily.' retorts, M. Roujoil, who adds that the thought of Montaigne is " tho plainest chapter in- the history of French health." Of course, a great writer may liavo bodily ailments. He may exhibit melancholy now ■and then. .What should we think of him if he did not, the world, being *kat' it is? If ho had foreseen his pathologic critics and not been melancholy, wo should be willing to surrender him to their ravages. Genius will remain inexplicable and incommunicable, do what we will. But the sick-man readers of the riddle are wofuily astray. Good

work is the product of vigour, not of dccay; it may bo vigour triumphin" over poor hoalth, but it is vigour.—Now York "Evening l'ost."