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[Footnote: _Aurora Leigh_. See also the letter to Robert Browning,
May 6, 1845.]
Mrs. Browning's theory is not out of key with a professedly scientific
account of genius, not unpopular nowadays, which represents art as the
result of excess vitality. [Footnote: See R. C. Robbins, _Michael
Angelo_ (1904).]
Yet, on the whole, the frail poet still holds his own; how securely is
illustrated by the familiarity of the idea as applied to other artists,
outside the domain of poetry. It is noteworthy that in a recent book of
essays by the painter, Birge Harrison, one runs across the contention:
In fact, as a noted painter once said to me: These
semi-invalids neither need nor deserve our commiseration,
for in reality the beggars have the advantage
of us. _Their_ nerves are always sensitive and keyed
to pitch, while we husky chaps have to flog ours up to
the point. We must dig painfully through the outer
layers of flesh before we can get at the spirit, while the
invalids are all spirit.
[Footnote: From _Landscape Painters_, p.


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