If we take the word Genius in the Kantian, imaginative, or æsthetic
sense, it may be said that _all Geniuses are amorous_; and that the
degree of their greatness may as a rule be measured by their
susceptibility to feminine charms. The most poetic part of the
Scriptures is the Song of Solomon with its glowing pictures of feminine
charms. Homer, though he lived long before the age of Romantic Love,
spent his life in describing the mischief caused by Helen’s beauty.
Among the Roman poets the most original was also the most amorous. As
Professor Sellar remarks of Ovid, “In the most creative periods of
English literature he seems to have been more read than any other
ancient poet, not even excepting Virgil; and it was on the most creative
minds, such as those of Marlowe, Spenser, Shakspere, Milton, and Dryden,
that be acted most powerfully ... and although the spirit of antiquity
is better understood now than it was in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, yet in the capacity of appreciating works of brilliant fancy
we can claim no superiority over the centuries which produced Spenser,
Shakspere, and Milton, nor over those which produced the great Italian,
French, and Flemish painters,” to whom Ovid supplied such abundant
material.
Coming to more recent times, we have seen that Dante, the first modern
poet, was also the first modern lover, rarely if ever surpassed in
rapturous adoration. How the greatest of the Spanish bards was
influenced by feminine beauty may be inferred from the glowing
descriptions of it and its influence in _Don Quixote_; and as for
Shakspere, even had he not written _Romeo and Juliet_, his early poems
alone would prove him to have been in his youth every inch a lover; for
no one, not even with Shakspere’s imagination, could have painted such
unique feelings with his realistic and infallible touch, unless he had
felt them more than once and had them indelibly branded on his heart’s
memory.
In the galaxy of German poets Goethe ranks first, owing to his
manysidedness. Yet he lacked the very highest of literary gifts—wit; and
in this respect as well as through his deeper insight into Modern Love,
Heine must be rated higher than Goethe. Heine’s personal loves are but
thinly covered over by the clear amber of his lyrics, in which they are
imbedded. Goethe’s loves have become proverbial for their
number—Kätchen, Friederike, Lili, Charlotte, Christiane, etc. Schiller,
Wieland, Bürger, Bodenstedt, and the lesser lights might all have
appended a D.L., or Doctor of Love, to their names.
Shelley, Mr. Hamilton tells us, “had an irresistible natural tendency to
fall in love”; and Byron, speaking of one of his loves, says, “I had and
have been attached fifty times since, yet I recollect all we said to
each other, all our caresses, her features, my restlessness,
sleeplessness,” etc. And in the next chapter on “Genius in Love,” we
shall meet with numerous similar cases of English, German, and French
men of genius constantly in Love.
To account for this amorous propensity of Genius is easy enough. Genius
means creative power allied with a taste for the Beautiful. This taste
may be gratified by the contemplation of the beauties of Nature—the
creative power by reproducing them on canvas or manuscript. But Nature’s
masterpiece is lovely woman, who not only yields the highest
gratification of artistic taste, but inspires Love: and what is Love but
a creative impulse—a desire to link one’s name and personality, in
future generations, with this embodiment of consummate human beauty?