ist, the
misanthrope, while in Raabe we even have a pessimistic humorist.

This brief list needs scarcely be supplemented by other names of poets
of melancholy, such as Reinhold Lenz, Heinrich von Kleist, Robert
Southey, Byron, Leopardi, in order to command our attention by reason of
the tragic fate which ended the lives of nearly all of these men, the
most frequent and the most terrible being that of insanity. It is of
course a matter of common knowledge that chronic melancholy or the
persistent brooding over personal misfortune is an almost inevitable
preliminary to mental derangement. And when this melancholy takes root
in the finely organized mind of genius, it is only to be expected that
the result will be even more disastrous than in the case of the ordinary
mind. Lombroso holds the opinion that if men of genius are not all more
or less insane, that is, if the "spheres of influence" of genius and
insanity do not actually overlap, they are at least contiguous at many
points, so that the transition from the former to the latter is
extremely easy and even natural. But genius in itself is not an abnormal
mental condition. It does not even consist of an extraordinary memory,
vivid imagination, quickness of judgment, or of a combination of all of
these. Kant defines genius as the talent of invention. Originality and
productiveness are the fundamental elements of genius. And it is an
almost instinctive force which urges the author on in his creative work.
In the main his activity is due less to free will than to this inner
compulsion.

"Ich halte diesen Drang vergebens auf,
Der Tag und Nacht in meinem Busen wechselt.
Wenn ich nicht sinnen oder dichten soll,
So ist das Leben mir kein Leben mehr,"

says Goethe's Tasso.[5] If this impulse of genius is embodied in a
strong physical organism, as for example in the case of Shakespeare and
Goethe, there need be no detriment to physical health; otherwise, and
especially if there is an inherited tendency to disease, there is almost
sure to be a physical collapse. Specialists in the subject have pointed
out that violent passions are even more potent in producing mental
disease than mere intellectual over-exertion. And these are certainly
characteristic in a very high degree of the mind of genius. It has often
been remarked that it is the _corona spinosa_ of genius to feel all pain
more intensely than do other men. Schopenhauer says "der, in welchem der
Genius l