Browne, one of the greatest masters of English prose, was so modest that he was always blushing causelessly; Hooker, one of the chief luminaries of the English Church, could never look any one in the face; Dry den, the recognized prince of the literary men of his time, was, said Congreve, the most easily put out of countenance of any man he had ever met. It is not difficult to see why the timid temperament—which is very far from involving lack of courage[1]—should be especially associated with intellectual aptitudes. It causes a distaste for social contact and so favors those forms of activity which may be exerted in solitude, these latter, again, reacting to produce increased awkwardness in social relations. Moreover, the mental state of timidity, which may be regarded as a mild form of folie du doute, a perpetual self-questioning and uncertainty, however unpleasant it may be from the social point of view, is by no means an unsatisfactory attitude in the face of intellectual problems, for it involves that unceasing self-criticism which is an essential element of all good intellectual work, and has marked more or less clearly the greatest men of scientific genius. Fundamentally, no doubt, timidity is a minor congenital defect of the nervous mechanism, fairly comparable to stammering. It may be noted that the opposite characteristic of over self-confidence, with more or less tendency to arrogance and insolence, is also noted, but with much less frequency, and usually in men whose eminence is not due to purely intellectual qualities. In some cases, it would seem, the two opposite tendencies are combined, the timid man seeking refuge from his own timidity in the assumption of arrogance.
In a certain number of cases information is given as to the general emotional disposition, whether to melancholy and depression, or of a gay, cheerful and genial character. In sixty-two cases the disposition is noted as melancholy, in twenty-nine as cheerful or jovial; in eight cases both dispositions are noted as occurring, in varying association, in the same person. This marked tendency to melancholy among persons of intellectual aptitude is no new observation, but was indeed one of the very earliest points noted concerning men of genius. It was remarked by Aristotle, and Reveillé-Parise, one of the earliest and still one of the most sagacious of the modern writers on genius, devoted a chapter to the point. It is not altogether difficult to account for this phenomenon. Melancholy children, as Marro found, are in large proportion the offspring of elderly fathers, as we have also found our persons of intellectual eminence to be. A tendency to melancholy, again, even though it may always fall short of insane melancholia, is allied to those neurotic and abnormal conditions which we have
- ↑ "None are so bold as the timid when they are fairly roused," wrote Mrs. Browning in her 'Letters.' The same point has been brought out by Dugas in his essay on timidity.
