Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/113

Rh creative work by reason of their good working qualities—because they do not in general use artificial stimulants and irregular modes of life to help their brains to wear out their bodies. They keep themselves broad awake in order to dream! They seek to do imaginative work, and take as models the lives of men who do unimaginative work—that is to say, precisely the opposite routine to that of men by whom imaginative work is done. These prove negatively what the examples of creative genius prove positively. If scholars toil late into the early hours, it is to continue their day's work, not to begin it. It is interest that chains them to the desk at midnight, not impulse that calls them there. All philosophers have not always been sober men; but they have taken their indulgences as refreshments and recreations—as interruptions to work, and not as its necessary accompaniments. If Balzac's may be taken as [the type of the artist's life, Kant's may be taken as the type of the student's. The habits of both are equally well known. Kant also gave a daily dinner-party; but when his guests were gone he took a walk in the country instead of seeking broken slumbers in a state of hunger. He came home at twilight, and read from candle-light till bedtime at ten. He rose punctually at five, and, over one cup of tea and part of a pipe, laid out his plan of work for the day. At seven he lectured, and wrote till dinner-time at about one. The regularity of his life was automatic. It was that of Balzac save in fulfilling all the accepted conditions of health—early rising, early lying down, moderate daily work, nightly rest, regular exercise, and a diet regulated with the care not of a lunatic but of a physician. A cup of tea and half a pipe in the morning cannot be looked upon as stimulants to a man in such perfect health as Kant always enjoyed; and, if they can be, let it be observed that it was while engaged with these he thought about his work—it was his hour for what Campbell called his "fuming meditations." He certainly used no other stimulant to work, in the common sense of the word; but even he illustrates, in another point, the need of the mind for artificial conditions, however slight they may be, when engaged in dreaming. During the blind-man's holiday between his walk and candle-light he sat down to think in twilight fashion; and, while thus engaged, he always placed himself so that his eyes might fall on a certain old tower. This old tower became so necessary to his thoughts that, when some poplar-trees grew up and hid it from his window, he found himself unable to think at all, until, at his earnest request, the trees were cropped and the tower brought into sight again. Kant's old tower recalls Buffon's incapability of thinking to good purpose except in full dress and with his hair in such elaborate order that, by way of external stimulus to his brain, he had a hair-dresser to interrupt his work twice, or, when very busy, thrice a day. It is curious to note the touch of kindred between the imaginative savant Buffon and the learned artist Haydn, who could not work