GENIUS DUE TO DISEASE?

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 June 1932, Page 2

GENIUS DUE TO DISEASE?

I PROBLEM OF CONSUMPTIVES. Did Robert Louis Stevenson, John Keats, Mrs Browning, D. H. Lawrence, and other famous who were victims of consumption, receive the stimulating powers of. genius from the poisons of tuberculosis? Dr. S. Vere Pearson, physician to the Mundesley Sanatorium, raised this ciuestion- recently when addressing the Royal Institute of Public Health congress at Belfast on the psychology of the consumptive. Dr. Pearson said that undoubtedly there was a sort of restless agitation produced in certain phases of pulmonary tuberculosis. There was also a feeling of apprehension lest life should be shortened. Both this apprehension and restlessness might act as a stimulus to production, and particularly to the production of authors, who could pursue their calling without much bodily exertion. ; The reactions of well-known writers to the misfortunes and inconveniences of consumption had probably been much exaggerated in the past, especially in the case of Robert Louis Stevenson. There was a similar tendency to-day in regard to D. H. Lawrence.

Lawrence’s reactions to his early life, his married life, the war, and other matters had a greater effect on his character and writings than the consequences of the somewhat prolonged trouble he had with his health. “Lawrence always resisted the receipt of proper advice from any experienced doctor until shortly before his death.” Dr. Pearson added. “Of all modern writers he seems to have understood better most the connections between mental upsets and ill-health, but to ascribe much of the peculiarities of his writings to tuberculosis is erroneous.”

Referring to the beneficial effects of happiness and equanimity on the disease, Dr. Pearson instanced the case of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In 1842 it was considered an enormous .feat for her to walk across her room. Four years later she married, and the life of happiness and equanimity which she and Robert Browning enjoyed enabled her to live until 1861 —a very long spell of life for one who had been so ill.