There is a fashion just now in criticism to over-
accentuate the physical and moral weaknesses of the artist.
Lombroso started the fashion, Nordau carried it to its logical
absurdity, yet it is nothing new. In Hazlitt's day he complains,
that genius is called mad by foolish folk. Mr. Newman writes in
his Wagner, that "art in general, and music in particular, ought
not to be condemned merely in terms of the physical degeneration
or abnormality of the artist. Some of the finest work in art and
literature, indeed, has been produced by men who could not, from
any standpoint, be pronounced normal. In the case of Flaubert, of
De Maupassant, of Dostoievsky, of Poe, and a score of others,
though the organic system was more or less flawed, the work
remains touched with that universal quality that gives artistic
permanence even to perceptions born of the abnormal." Mr. Newman
might have added other names to his list, those of Michael Angelo
and Beethoven and Swinburne. Really, is any great genius quite
sane according to philistine standards? The answer must be
negative.
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