The insane are particularly prone to suffer from dreads, so that some people argue from their dreads to the thought of insanity. It is quite a mistake, however, to think of dreads as necessarily connected with insanity in any way. They are irrational though they will commonly be found to be dependent on some special physical condition. This is usually some exaggeration of attention to a sensation natural enough in itself but disturbing when dwelt on to such a degree that it produces a much greater reaction in these individuals than in other people. These dreads have existed in all sorts of people. It is said that they are more frequent in the highly intellectual, especially in the class known as geniuses, and they are often said to represent the definite evidence of a relationship between genius and insanity. I have always felt, however, that they are quite as common among ordinary people who have no genius and no signs of it as among the so-called geniuses. They are not so much spoken of by ordinary people, however, because they are rather ashamed of them. Genius, on the contrary, is quite willing, as a rule, to exploit its peculiarities for the benefit of the public, or what is even more true, its peculiarities are remembered and commented on as details of history.

With this in mind the following paragraph from Dr. Dorland's book on "The Ages of Mental Virility" [Footnote 50] deserves to be recalled. He has gathered a number of examples that are very interesting:

[Footnote 50: The Century Co., New York, 1908]

Fear has played an important rÔle in the development of the antipathies of the great—fear that was often groundless in its origin and inexplicable in its manifestation. The unaccountable fear of dogs is not so common as ailurophobia, although it is said that De Musset cordially detested them, and Goethe despised them, notwithstanding, forsooth, he kept a tame snake. Much more frequent is the fear of spiders, centipedes, and other insects. Charles Kingsley, thorough naturalist though he was, entertained an unconquerable horror of spiders, even the common house spider; Turenne became weak when he saw a spider; while the author of the "Turkish Spy" once asserted that he would far prefer, with sword in hand, "to face a lion in his desert lair than to have a spider crawl over him in the dark." Lord Lauderdale, on the contrary, while declaring that the mewing of a cat was "sweeter to him than any music," had a most intense dislike for the flute and the bag-pipe; and Dr. Johnson was so fond of his cats that he would personally buy oysters for them, his servants being too proud to do so.

There are curious contradictions to be found in these matters. Montaigne confesses that he did his best writing and was in the best humor for keeping at his Essays while stroking his favorite cat with his left hand, his other being occupied with his writing. This would be seriously disturbing to many people, but apparently occupied certain distracting sensory tendencies and enabled him to concentrate his mental energies. To many people the very thought of doing anything like this would put all ideas for writing out of their mind. Other of Montaigne's peculiarities are quite as interesting. He always refused to sit down with thirteen at table, his liking for odd numbers was so great that he made all sorts of excuses in order not to use {625} even numbers and his aversion for Friday made the quota of work that he could do on that day much less than any other day of the week.