That ascertainable
proportion must be somewhat below the real proportion, but in any case
it scarcely suggests that insanity is an essential factor of genius.
Let us, however, go beyond the limits of British genius, and consider
the evidence more freely. There is, for instance, Tasso, who was
undoubtedly insane for a good part of his life, and has been much
studied by the pathologists. De-Gaudenzi, who has written one of the
best psychopathological studies of Tasso, shows clearly that his
father, Bernardo, was a man of high intelligence, of great emotional
sensibility, with a tendency to melancholy as well as a mystical
idealism, of somewhat weak character, and prone to invoke Divine aid in
the slightest difficulty. It was a temperament that might be considered
a little morbid, outside a monastery, but it was not insane, nor is
there any known insanity among his near relations. This man's wife,
Porzia, Tasso's mother, arouses the enthusiasm of all who ever mention
her, as a creature of angelic perfection. No insanity here either, but
something of the same undue sensitiveness and melancholy as in the
father, the same absence of the coarser and more robust virtues.
Moreover, she belonged to a family by no means so angelic as herself,
not insane, but abnormal--malevolent, cruel, avaricious, almost
criminal. The most scrupulous modern alienist would hesitate to deprive
either Bernardo or Porzia of the right to parenthood. Yet, as we know,
the son born of this union was not only a world-famous poet, but an
exceedingly unhappy, abnormal, and insane man.
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