contain "the best that has been thought and said in the world." For genius will aspire, will improve, will rise in spite of every obstacle. Study, thought, ideas, these are its life; and wherever men of culture and ideas come together, there it finds itself at home. Das Gleiche kann nur vom Gleichen erkannt werden. And if it fail

Lord Chester

at first, it will keep on until it succeeds. field, who became the type of a fine gentleman, tells how awkward, silent and shy he felt on first entering good society. After sitting dumb as a post for a long while, he plucked up courage enough to say to one of the noble ladies, "It is a fine day." "Yes, indeed it is," replied the lady, with a smile and a kindly look; and she went on conversing with him until he gradually lost his shyness and talked with ease. This was the beginning of the man who became the most polished and accomplished gentleman in Europe. Even Henry Ward Beecher, who, of all men, seemed to have most liberty before an audience, was timid and uneasy at times. 'Many a time," says his wife, "when going to speak on a subject of special interest which I greatly desired to hear, he would say, 'Oh! don't go! I am sure I am going to fail, and I don't want you to be present.' For several years I yielded to such a request, and, anxious and troubled lest he should fail, awaited his return. But he invariably came home cheerful, and would say, 'I had great liberty; now I wish you had gone. The audience appeared greatly interested and very appreciative. They gave me great comfort and courage;' and he would appear happy and surprised. As I came to understand his moods better, I no longer feared any failure."

It is the same in other fields. "It is in me, and it

will out," said Sheridan, on failing in his first effort to make a speech. "You will not listen to me," said Benjamin Disraeli to the House of Commons, on a similar occasion; "but the time will come when you shall listen to me." And each made his word good. Both these men of genius determined to go on studying and practicing until they succeeded. They knew that the power was in them; that success depended on themselves; and they were determined to leave nothing undone to secure it. Charles O'Conor said it would have made no difference what profession he had adopted; he would have attained about the same relative success in any profession. That is the feeling of every man of true genius.

CHAPTER VII.

THE

DOES POVERTY SMOTHER GENIUS?

HE heroic soldier, Wolfe, thought so highly of Gray's "Elegy," that he declared he would rather be the author of it than the conqueror of Quebec ; and Daniel Webster, on hearing the poem read to him on his death-bed, said he would willingly exchange his fame as an orator for that of the poet who composed the Elegy. Beautiful as this poem is; studded as it is with happy figures and natural sentiments, which appeal to the heart and mind of cultivated people more strongly perhaps than those of any other poem in our language; there is one passage in it which, as far as truth is concerned, is, in my opinion, of doubtful correctness:

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire—
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll;

Chill Penury repressed their noble rage

And froze the genial current of the soul.

This "noble rage" is not so easily repressed.

Pen

ury alone will never extinguish the "celestial fire” of

genius. An unhappy stroke of fate may kill it; disease and death may annihilate it; but poverty, never. No man of genius, born a clod-hopper, ever passed seventy years hopping over clods. In whatever rank or station he may be born, he is bound, if he live, to leave his mark on his age or country.

My assertion that those who have no genius do not care to study, do not care to learn, implies with equal force that those who have genius do always care to study, do always care to learn; and they generally succeed in making themselves known even under the most adverse circumstances. "A hero," says Kossuth, "is one who overcomes difficulties." So is a man of genius. Overcoming difficulties is the distinguishing mark of his character. If he has the "celestial fire”

in him, he is bound to make it blaze and shed light and warmth on those around him. Take, for instance, the living artist, Mr. Daniel C. Beard, whose life I find thus described by a newspaper reporter: "Mr. Beard has had a curious life experience. He was in his youth a raftsman on the Mississippi. During the war he was a soldier, and served at one time on the staff of General Sherman. When he began to put his ideas on canvas, it was in the rudest way. There was little art in this country then, and especially in Cincinnati, where he was a resident. He prepared his own canvas; he made his own brushes, going to a farmer's and selecting the hair for that purpose. He told me the other day that from the time he began, in this primitive way, to paint, he never received instruction of any kind from any one. 'In my work,' said he, 'I did like Topsy, I just growed.' Some of his paintings, especially the animal caricatures, are famous.

Of course he "growed," as all men of genius grow, who succeed in living. Yet it is probable that a man with wonderful powers of mind, suitable for extraordinary emergencies, may never bring his powers into play until these emergencies occur. Such, I suppose, was the genius of Grant and Marlborough. But this is not proven. Grant and Marlborough might have shown. their powers in another field had they not become soldiers.

I know there have been many unsuccessful great men, many noble and brilliant geniuses, who have fared ill at the hands of Fate; but they were not suppressed by poverty. "Chill Penury" never froze the ardor of their souls.

Genius is a natural force which is bound to work as surely as grass grows or fire burns; but as the grass is sometimes burnt before it is grown, and the fire quenched before it is well lit, so are many noble spirits, by dire contending forces, often extinguished before they have well begun to live. "Some souls," says Richter, "fall from heaven like flowers; but ere the pure, fresh buds have had time to open, they are trodden in the dust of the earth, and lie soiled and crushed beneath the foul tread of some brutal hoof."

Some of the most brilliant men in history failed through circumstances beyond human control. Their history is simply an exemplification of the truth that the race is not always to the swift, nor the prize to the most worthy. Yet although they failed in the attainment of the objects they aimed at, their death simply cut them short in a career that would certainly have been glorious. Nay, it is often glorious as it is. They have left a brilliant example of heroic endeavor,