_Contrast, Intermittence, Double Personality._--When the moment of inspiration is over, the man of genius becomes an ordinary man, if he does not descend lower; in the same way personal inequality, or, according to modern terminology, double, or even contrary, personality, is the one of the characters of genius. Our greatest poets, Isaac Disraeli remarked (in _Curiosities of Literature_), Shakespeare and Dryden, are those who have produced the worst lines. It was said of Tintoretto that sometimes he surpassed Tintoretto, and sometimes was inferior to Caracci. Great tragic actors are very cheerful in society, and of melancholy humour at home. The contrary is true of genuine comedians. “John Gilpin,” that masterpiece of humour, was written by Cowper between two attacks of melancholia. Gaiety was in him the reaction from sadness. It was singular, he remarked, that his most comic verses were written in his saddest moments, without which he would probably never have written them. A patient one day presented himself to Abernethy; after careful examination the celebrated practitioner said, “You need amusement; go and hear Grimaldi; he will make you laugh, and that will be better for you than any drugs.” “My God,” exclaimed the invalid, “but I am Grimaldi!” Débureau in like manner went to consult an alienist about his melancholy; he was advised to go to Débureau. Klopstock was questioned regarding the meaning of a passage in his poem. He replied, “God and I both knew what it meant once; now God alone knows.” Giordano Bruno said of himself: “_In hilaritate tristis, in tristitia hilaris_.” Ovidio justly remarked concerning the contradictions in Tasso’s style, that “when the inspiration was over, he lost his way in his own creations, and could no longer appreciate their beauty or be conscious of it.”[62] Renan described himself as “a tissue of contradictions, recalling the classic _hirocerf_ with two natures. One of my halves is constantly occupied in demolishing the other, like the fabulous animal of Ctesias, who ate his paws without knowing it.”[63] “If there are two such different men in you,” said his mistress to Alfred de Musset, “could you not, when the bad one rises, be content to forget the good one?”[64] Musset himself confesses that, with respect to her, he gave way to attacks of brutal anger and contempt, alternating with fits of extravagant affection; “an exaltation carried to excess made me treat my mistress like an idol, like a divinity. A quarter of an hour after having insulted her I was at her knees; I left off accusing her to ask her pardon; and passed from jesting to tears.”