Genius is a form of madness. Early in the Christian era, St. Augustine declared that there was no genius without a touch of insanity. The human being who is born without a grain of folly will never be a great poet, a great novelist, a great painter or sculptor, a great musician, or a great anything.

Unless you are erratic, irritable, full of fads, you need not aspire to attain sublime heights. Homer, Shakespeare, Raphael, Shelley, Wagner were lunatics. That is why, to my mind, nothing is more absurd, preposterous, than to go and poke one's nose into the private life of geniuses. Let us admire the work that their genius has left to us, without inquiring whether they regularly came home to tea, and were attentive fathers and faithful husbands. Do we not love Burns and Shelley?

Certainly, if I had lived in their times and had a marriageable daughter, I would have been careful to see that she did not fall in love with either of them; but what has that to do with their poetry and the enjoyment of it?

To this very day, in the autumn of my life, I enjoy the fables of dear old La Fontaine, and can't help smiling when I am reminded that he was married, but that he was separated from his wife. She lived in Lyons and he in Paris. One day they persuaded him to go to Lyons and 'make it up' with her.

He started. In those days the journey took five days and five nights. On the eleventh day after his departure he was back in Paris. 'Well,' they said to him, 'is it all right?'

'I could not see her,' replied he, 'when I called at her house. They told me that she had gone to Mass.' So he came back.

I once criticised the acting of a well-known actress before good folks, who said to me: 'Ah, but she is a woman who leads an irreproachable life!' What do I care about that? I am very glad to hear it, for the sake of her husband and children; but I would rather go and hear Miss So-and-so, who stirs my soul to its very depth by her genius, although I am told, by jealous people, no doubt, that she is not quite as good as she should be.

I hear that Sarah Bernhardt travels with either a lion, a bear, or a snake. Very well, that is her business. She goes to a hotel with her menagerie, and does not ask you to invite her to stay with you. Is that a reason for not going to see her play Phedre, Tosca, Fedora, or any other of her marvellous creations?

Wagner could not compose his operas unless he had on a red plush robe and a helmet. What do I care if this enabled him to write 'Lohengrin,' 'TannhÄuser,' and the Trilogy?

One day Alexandre Dumas, a lunatic of the purest water, called on Wagner. The latter kept him waiting half an hour. Then he appeared dressed as Wotan. 'Excuse me, Master,' he said to Dumas, 'I am composing a scene between the god and Brunnehilde.'

'Don't mention it, please,' replied Dumas, who, before leaving, invited him to come and see him in Paris. A few months later Wagner called on Dumas. The latter kept him waiting a little, and then appeared with nothing on but a Roman helmet and a shield.

'Excuse me, Maestro,' he said, 'I am writing a Roman novel.' The two great geniuses or lunatics were quits.

I knew a great poet who could no more write good poetry than he could fly unless he had blue paper. Victor Hugo would have been a failure if he had not been able always to be provided with very thick pens.

Balzac could write only on condition he was dressed as a monk, had the shutters of the room closed, and the lamps lighted. Alfred de Musset would compose his immortal poetry only when under the influence of drink. All lunatics, every one.