Beulah - Page 147/348

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."