CHAPTER XII.
The enthusiasm of genius .-- A state of mind resembling a waking dream distinct from reverie .-- The ideal presence distinguished from the real presence .-- The senses are really affected in the ideal world, proved by a variety of instances .-- Of the rapture or sensation of deep study in art, in science, and literature .-- Of perturbed feelings in delirium .-- In extreme endurance of attention .-- And in visionary illusions .-- Enthusiasts in literature and art--of their self-immolations.
We left the man of genius in the stillness of meditation.

We have now to pursue his history through that more excited state which occurs in the most active operations of genius, and which the term _reverie_ inadequately indicates.

Metaphysical distinctions but ill describe it, and popular language affords no terms for those faculties and feelings which escape the observation of the multitude not affected by the phenomenon.
The illusion produced by a drama on persons of great sensibility, when all the senses are awakened by a mixture of reality with imagination, is the effect experienced by men of genius in their own vivified ideal world.
Real emotions are raised by fiction.

In a scene, apparently passing in their presence, where the whole train of circumstances succeeds in all the continuity of nature, and where a sort of real existences appear to rise up before them, they themselves become spectators or actors.

Their sympathies are excited, and the exterior organs of sense are visibly affected--they even break out into speech, and often accompany their speech with gestures.
In this equivocal state the enthusiast of genius produces his masterpieces.