The Daily Telegraph - Thursday, June 13, 1895

TOWN EDITION.
THE OUTSIDE WORLD.

It is denied that Oscar Wilde is mad. In our opinion he has been insane for years. The majority of men who manifest genius with respect to the emotions are more or less insane, or, to put it in a more scientific way, they display signs of atavism and degeneration. Many of the men who have aided in making the world's history were victims of epilepsy, as was Mahomet, founder of a great religion, and Julius Cæsar, military leader, statesman, and author. Many men of genius have suffered from spasmodic and choreic movements, notably Lenau, Montesquien, Buffon, Dr Johnson, Santeuil, Thomas, Campbell, Socrates, and Napoleon. Suicide, essentially a symptom of mental disorder, has carried off many a man of genius, including such immortals as Chatterton, Blount, Haydon, Clive, and David. Alcoholism and morphinism are now recognised as evidences of degeneration, and have had as victims Coleridge, Sheridan, Steele, Addison, Hoffman, Charles Lamb, Burns, and many others. In men of genius the moral sense is sometimes obtunded or absent. Sallust, Seneca, and Bacon were suspected felons; Rousseau, Byron, Foscola, and Caresa were grossly immoral; while Casanova, the gifted mathematician, was a common swindler. The late Paul Verlaine, a gifted French poet, was outside his art a low and sensual brute.