In truth, it was a face of rare loveliness; of oval outline, with
delicate yet noble features, whose expression seemed the reflex of
the divine afflatus. The uplifted eyes beamed with the radiance of
inspiration; the full, ripe lips were just parted; the curling hair
clustered with child-like simplicity round the classic head; and the
exquisitely formed hands clasped a lyre.
"Beulah, don't you think the eyes are most too wild?" suggested
Clara timidly.
"What? for a poetess! Remember poesy hath madness in it," answered
Beulah, still looking earnestly at her drawing.
"Madness? What do you mean?"
"Just what I say. I believe poetry to be the highest and purest
phase of insanity. Those finely strung, curiously nervous natures
that you always find coupled with poetic endowments, are
characterized by a remarkable activity of the mental organs; and
this continued excitement and premature development of the brain
results in a disease which, under this aspect, the world offers
premiums for. Though I enjoy a fine poem as much as anybody, I
believe, in nine cases out of ten, it is the spasmodic vent of a
highly nervous system, overstrained, diseased. Yes, diseased! If it
does not result in the frantic madness of Lamb, or the final
imbecility of Southey, it is manifested in various other forms, such
as the morbid melancholy of Cowper, the bitter misanthropy of Pope,
the abnormal moodiness and misery of Byron, the unsound and
dangerous theories of Shelley, and the strange, fragmentary nature
of Coleridge."
"Oh, Beulah! what a humiliating theory! The poet placed on an
ignominious level with the nervous hypochondriac! You are the very
last person I should suppose guilty of entertaining such a degraded
estimate of human powers," interposed Clara energetically.
"I know it is customary to rave about Muses, and Parnassus, and
Helicon, and to throw the charitable mantle of 'poetic
idiosyncrasies' over all those dark spots on poetic disks. All
conceivable and inconceivable eccentricities are pardoned, as the
usual concomitants of genius; but, looking into the home lives of
many of the most distinguished poets, I have been painfully
impressed with the truth of my very unpoetic theory. Common sense
has arraigned before her august tribunal some of the socalled
'geniuses' of past ages, and the critical verdict is that much of
the famous 'fine frenzy' was bona-fide frenzy of a sadder nature."
"Do you think that Sappho's frenzy was established by the Leucadian
leap?"
"You confound the poetess with a Sappho who lived later, and threw
herself into the sea from the promontory of Leucate. Doubtless she
too had 'poetic idiosyncrasies'; but her spotless life and, I
believe, natural death, afford no indication of an unsound
intellect. It is rather immaterial, however, to--" Beulah paused
abruptly as a servant entered and approached the table, saying: "Miss Clara, Dr. Hartwell is in the parlor and wishes to see you."