r instances, to the classes of persons
whom the theories we are noticing have in view. It is only to be
expected that the sharp jutting variation in the emotional and
aesthetic realm which the great artist often shows should carry with it
irregularities in heredity in other respects. Moreover, the very habit
of living by inspiration brings prominently into view any half-hidden
peculiarities which he may have in the remark of his associates, and
in the conduct of his own social duties. But mark you, I do not
discredit the superb art of many examples of the artistic
"degenerate," so-called; that would be to brand some of the highest
ministrations of genius, to us men, as random and illegitimate, and to
consider impure some of our most exalting and intoxicating sources of
inspiration. But I do still say that wherein such men move us and
instruct us they are _in these spheres_ above all things sane with our
own sanity, and wherein they are insane they do discredit to that
highest of all offices to which their better gifts make legitimate
claim--the instruction of mankind.

Again one of Balzac's characters hits the nail on the head. "My dear
mother," says Augustine, in the Sign of the Cat and Racket, "you judge
superior people too severely. If their ideas were the same as other
folks they would not be men of genius."

"Very well," replies Madame Guillaume, "then let men of genius stop at
home and not get married. What! A man of genius is to make his wife
miserable? And because he is a genius it is all right! Genius! genius!
It is not so very clever to say black one minute and white the next,
as he does, to interrupt other people, to dance such rigs at home,
never to let you know which foot you are to stand on, to compel his
wife never to be amused unless my lord is in gay spirits, and to be
dull when he is dull."

"But his imaginations...."

"What are such imaginations?" Madame Guillaume went on, interrupting
her daughter again. "Fine ones are his, my word! What possesses a man,
that all on a sudden, without consulting a doctor, he takes it into
his head to eat nothing but vegetables? There, get along! if he were
not so grossly immoral, he would be fit to shut up in a lunatic
asylum."

"O mother, can you believe?"

"Yes, I do believe. I met him in the Champs Elysees. He was on
horseback. Well, at one minute he was galloping as hard as he could
tear, and then pulled up to a walk. I said to myself at that moment,
'The