that this suggests that consciousness may at this stage serve as a harmless vent
for tendencies that would otherwise cause great trouble if turned to practical
affairs. If Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the adolescent tyrant slayers of Greece,
had been theorists, they might have been harmless on the principle that its
analysis tends to dissipate emotion.
Lancaster[14] gathered and glanced over a thousand biographies, from which he
selected 200 for careful study, choosing them to show different typical directions
of activity. Of these, 120 showed a distinct craze for reading in adolescence; 109
became great lovers of nature; 58 wrote poetry, 58 showed a great and sudden
development of energy; 55 showed great eagerness for school; 53 devoted
themselves for a season to art and music; 53 became very religious; 51 left home
in the teens; 51 showed dominant instincts of leadership; 49 had great longings
of many kinds; 46 developed scientific tastes; 41 grew very anxious about the
future; 34 developed increased keenness of sensation or at least power of
observation; in 32 cases health was better; 31 were passionately altruistic; 23
became idealists; 23 showed powers of invention; 17 were devoted to older
friends; 15 would reform society; 7 hated school. These, like many other
statistics, have only indicative value, as they are based on numbers that are not
large enough and upon returns not always complete.
A few typical instances from Lancaster must here suffice. Savonarola was
solitary, pondering, meditating, felt profoundly the evils of the world and need
of reform, and at twenty-two spent a whole night planning his career. Shelley
during these years was unsocial, much alone, fantastic, wandered much by
moonlight communing with stars and moon, was attached to an older man.
Beecher was intoxicated with nature, which he declared afterward to have been
the inspiration of his life. George Eliot at thirteen had a passion for music and
became a clever pianist. At sixteen she was religious, founded societies for the
poor and for animals, and had fitting spells of misanthropy. Edison undertook to
read the Detroit Free Library through, read fifteen solid feet as the books stand
on the shelves, was stopped, and says he has read comparatively little since.
Tolstoi found the aspect of things suddenly changed. Nature put on a new
appearance. He felt he might commit the most dreadful crimes with no purpose
save curiosity and the need of action. The future looked gloomy. He became
furiously angry without cause; thought he was lost, hated by everybody, was
perhaps not the son of his father, etc. At seventeen he was solitary, musing about
immortality, human destiny, feeling death at hand, giving up his studies,
fancying himself a great man with new truths for humanity. By and by he took