“C’est le travail des fous d’épuiser leurs cervelles
Sur des riens fatigants, sur quelques bagatelles,”
said Hécart in his Gualana, which, by the way, is only the work of a mattoid.
Many of them, though fewer than among the mattoids, mingle drawing with poetry, as though neither art by itself were sufficient for the impetus of their ideas. Their style lacks the polish which comes of much elaboration, but abounds in incisive and vigorous sentences, so that it often equals, and even surpasses, the productions of calmer and more refined art.
Passion.—This should not cause surprise any more than the tendency to versification in individuals who, before losing their reason, were ignorant of prosody, when it is remembered that poetry—as Byron well said and demonstrated in his own person—is the expression of passion under excitement, and grows in vigour and effectiveness as the excitement increases.
That rhythm can relieve and express abnormal psychic excitement much better than prose can be deduced from the poetic inspirations of drunkards, as well as from the spontaneous affirmations of insane poets.
“Je vous-écris en vers, n’en soyez point choqué,
En prose je ne sais exprimer ma pensée,”
an insane criminal wrote to Arboux, clearly explaining this tendency.[299]
A lunatic at Pesaro gave this reason for some of his verses: “Poetry is a spontaneous emanation from the mind—poetry is the cry of the soul pierced by a thousand griefs.”[300]
Atavism.—Vico had already guessed, and Buckle, at a later date, has admirably explained that, among primitive peoples, all thinkers and sages were poets. In fact, the earliest histories were put into a fixed form and handed down by the bards of Gaul, or by the Toolkolos of Tibet; likewise in America,[301] the Deccan,[302] Africa,[303] and Oceania.[304] Ellis writes that the Polynesians have recourse to their ballads as to historical documents when any question arises regarding the deeds of their ancestors. And as in ancient India, so also in mediæval Europe, the sciences were explained in verse. Montucla speaks of a mathematical treatise of the thirteenth century written in verse; an Englishman versified the Institutes of Justinian, and a Pole wrote a rhyming work on heraldry.