are useless to all but the workers; for when an inspiration comes it must be warmly welcomed and instantly utilized, else it will perish like any other unregarded thought. James Watt hit upon the idea of his great invention, the missing link in the steam engine, suddenly while walking through a park on a Sunday morning; but this was preceded and succeeded by intense study, by constant labor and deep thought, without which his genius would never have amounted to much.

Not only does the conception come unsought, but the execution often runs in a line quite independent of the author. Sir Walter Scott could not himself tell, when he began a story, how it would turn out. He was led by a sort of divine influence into the right path, and this influence is especially favorable to those who have diligence, perseverance, ambition. Genius is a spirit that has no sympathy with indolence and sloth. She may exhibit herself in a hundred ways in a hundred different characters; but never to the careless idler.

Furthermore, genius is the power of being able to see in common things what ordinary people cannot see in them; it is the power of being able to penetrate to the heart of men and things, and pluck out their mystery. This was Shakespeare's power, or one of his powers: he could see through men's words and looks into the inner workings of their hearts. Could any amount of labor, or of mere talent, procure him this power? distinction between the He says that all literabranches, the literature

De Quincey makes a fine works of genius and of talent. ture may be divided into two

of knowledge and the literature of power; that the office of the former is to teach, and of the latter

to move; and that the former is bound, in the natural course of things, to fall into oblivion, while the latter will last as long as the language lasts. I think this is a true distinction. I know that I come into the former category myself; but I do not care; for no man can make himself a man of genius, and if I succeed in teaching something useful, I am satisfied. Oblivion overtakes us all finally. Let the reader call to mind those authors whose works have moved and elevated him, touched springs that have raised him to a higher level in life, and then compare them with those which have merely informed or instructed him, and he will perceive the justice of this distinction.

Max Nordau makes another distinction between genius and talent which will, I think, make the difference perfectly clear. I translate from his book entitled "Paradoxe :"

"What is talent? What is genius? The answer to this question consists usually of indefinite phrases, in which nouns that express admiration and adjectives that express laudation predominate. With such an answer we are not satisfied. We do not want complimentary phrases, but a plain, sober definition. Well, I do not think we are far from the truth when we say That one having talent is a creature who can perform the common activities of life better than the majority of those who perform them, or who endeavor to learn how to perform them; and that a genius is a person who discovers new activities never practiced before, or who practices or performs old activities after a method quite peculiar to and original with himself. I purposely define talent as the attribute of a creature, and genius as the attribute of a person.

For talent does not seem to me to be limited to humanity. It is found also in the animal kingdom. A poodle that can be trained to perform cleverer tricks than any other dog has talent; also a robin or a blackbird that can sing better than his mates; perhaps even a pike that can hunt more successfully, or a fire-fly that can glow more brightly, than his comrades. Genius, on the other hand, is inconceivable among any beings except human beings, individual human beings. It is the attribute of that individual who, in popular language, breaks new paths, and discovers fields which were never trodden by any before him. That, as far as human observation goes, has never been done by a single animal." This definition has, to say the least, the merit of clearness, and, I think, of originality.

Schopenhauer, on the other hand, has a very curious conception of the value of works of genius. "Genius," says he, "produces no work of practical value. Music is composed; poetry is conceived; pictures are painted; but a work of genius is never a thing to use. Uselessness is its title of honor." Surely this must be intended in a Pickwickian sense. What is a poem or a picture which touches our hearts, or gives us higher conceptions of life, of no practical value? This, it seems to me, is the highest and noblest of all values.

Now let me show by what a curious twist this word genius has come to its present meaning. Among the ancients every man was supposed to possess a dæmon, or inward guiding spirit, which he was bound to obey, or suffer irreparable loss. This was called his genius. Those who implicitly obeyed this spirit, or

genius, were the favorites of the gods, the prophetic souls who became the leaders and teachers of mankind. Hence nearly every man of uncommon intellectual power, ancient and modern, has attributed his best thoughts and best efforts to this spirit, or genius, this power beyond him, which inspires him to do or to say great things. And now, from being a spirit animating men and women, genius has come to mean a quality of mind possessed by them, and this quality, possessed to a certain extent by all men, is superabundantly great and active in a favored few.

CHAPTER IV.

I

INDICATIONS OF GENIUS.

REMEMBER being struck by the remark of a French writer-I have forgotten his name-who declared that if, in reading a work of genius, one takes a deep interest in it, and feels in the reading of it some of the enthusiasm which the author must have felt in the writing of it, this is a proof that the reader possesses some of the spirit which created it, or a spirit similar to that of him who created it. This is, I think, a fair inference; it commends itself to the mind as a just conclusion; for every one naturally loves to associate with persons of his own cast of mind, and difference in degree is not difference in quality. "Tell me whom you admire," says Sainte Beuve, "and I will tell you what you are." Tell me what books you admire, and I will tell you what qualities of mind you possess; nay, what qualities of heart, too; for your predilections in this respect are sure indications of moral as well as of mental qualities. Dante's sarcastic answer to the Prince of Verona was, after all, nothing but the statement of a simple truth. The prince asked him how he could account for the fact that in the household of princes the fool