INTELLECTUAL STIMULANTS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 522, 1 June 1909, Page 4

INTELLECTUAL STIMULANTS.

;■ .To ,all-engaged in literary work there comes '. a. timO; (9®ys -an English jiaper) when-for the time.: bejng iho; : imagination \flags, kle.-us seem to haye-vahiihed^;arid .all-appeals .to !iiispirajjj<® ;s»m'. Jo- be TOwerle^... .There arc. woll'itnflu'u .Cases, in'.which, groat writers have, had .recourse' to aiiificial' stimuli. Voltaire and ;Balzap i found what: they-required in coffee. :Gootho.;prefeited' burgundy, while Do Masset - and-; Edgar Allan. Poo. fled to alcohol. Hasohish was to Baiidelairfi what opium was to the ftutihor of "The Confessions.'' In his, oa/ly days Gooiho, found that indulgence in ,wme impedy-his intellectual work; for -ho' had noticed that when Schiller drank more tlmn u&ual tho literary results wero deplorable. The faults' with which Schiller had i • been reproached by his" critics, Qoothe declared,. wort due to 110 Other eaUsfe.than this. 1 The mixture of alcohol,and absintlie in which pe_Musset .placed Ills hopes ruined his brain, and ho coaswl to -Wnto. Poo died in delirium '.tromens. Tho genius of De-QuinCoy was do stroyed; by .opium.; MOfe innocent have by'others to awaken inspiration.--. Soms liko :to havo noise and movement artiitid them. Ono French 'painter dOos-his best work when his friends are fencing. in : tho..room or talking aiid shouting ftrtlind him. Some writers go to a cafe or • walk up :atid;';do(fnVtho 'busy,stfeeU to think' over what they,are,going tp write. Men engigcdv.ia;.scientific., pursuits ..-will w-alk fiiriously lUp 'and down their room, with bent IwkJbfoMng to the depths tho .p.rqbieilis that baffld,;thorn. Kant went '.for.tho Sarrto-walk.;.everyvday. thinking over his I'Knfcjlc." ■: Cosar. FrattcK usid to play, for an hour-passages from-liis "jßeatitudes'"' to excite, himself to-', composition. Goncourt confessed in l , his "Journal" that, like Flaubert,ho i> compelled-,!'do monter lo bourrichon" before lie felt-fit to sit down and Write. What is tho common basis of all those various, ways of arousing mental activityf Tiiey '■:must-givo: rise to sensorial stimuli which'S6t ; in motion tho play of cerobral .phenomena, . Matisso suggests. tliat theso stimuli excite -the '6ccretions of: certain glands. - These secretions alone Would inorcaso tho' dynamic power of tho corcbral - mhohinc, .'although lie scorns'to .be doubtful if ..this '.explains oVerything.: Tho one thing cloar. is that intellectual effort- roquifbs in tho majority of instances a condition of "nervous exaltation. That is one of tho reasons why poets : aro not always men of quite amiable characters.. As ho remarks, Plato was quite right in crowning them with flarlandsi ftnd Itanishing them from his Republic.