Slike strani
PDF
ePub

CHAPTER XVII.

A SECRET OF GENIUS.

ONE of the tests of greatness is bulk. Mere mass never demonstrated the possession of genius, but men who have borne the stamp of this rare and incommunicable quality have generally been creators on a great scale. One may write a single poem and give it the touch of immortality; a line may linger as long in the ear of the world as an epic or a lyric. But, as a rule, the man who writes one perfect verse adds to it many of a kindred beauty, and he who paints one great picture covers the walls of the gallery. Genius is energy quite as much as insight, and whether it dwell in Shakespeare or in Napoleon, in Michael Angelo or in Gladstone, it is always the mother of mighty works as well as of great thoughts. Shakespeare, Goethe, Lope de Vega, Moliere, Tennyson, Browning, Hugo, Balzac, Scott, Thackeray, fill great space on the shelves of our libraries as well as in our histories of literature. In "Louis Lambert' Balzac describes certain forces, when they take possession of strong personalities, as "rivers of will"; there is an impetus in these potential men which sweeps away all obstacles and rolls on with the momentum of a great stream. In men of genius the same tireless activity, the same forceful habit, are often found; nothing daunts them; noth

ing subdues them; they make all things tributary to self-expression.

The story of the achievements of Lope de Vega, of Scott, of Balzac, has at times a hint of commerce with magical powers; so difficult is it to reconcile such marvelous fecundity, such extraordinary creative force, with the usual processes of production. Nature has fixed definite boundaries to the activity of most men; there is an invisible line beyond which they seem powerless to go. Upon the man of genius no such limitations are imposed; if he drains his soul, it is instantly refilled from some invisible fountain. There is something magical about such an achievement as the writing of the "Comédie Humaine," with its eighty and more volumes and its vast community of characters. The physical feat of covering so much paper is no small matter; one does not wonder that Balzac retired to his workshop with an unwritten romance in his mind and returned with the completed work, worn, exhausted, almost emaciated. Such labors cannot be accomplished save by fasting and self-denial. More than two thousand personalities live and move and have their being in the "Comédie Humaine," and each is carefully studied, vividly realized, firmly drawn. In no actual community of the same number of souls is there anything approaching the distinctness of individuality, the variety and force of character, to be found in these volumes. Pioneers build houses, subdue forests, develop wastes. Balzac did

more; he fashioned a world and peopled it. All passions, appetites, aspirations, despairs, hopes, losses, labors, sufferings, achievements, were known to him; he had mastered them, and he used them as if they were to serve no other purpose than that of furnishing material for his hand. To have looked into the depths of human life with so wide and penetrating a gaze; to have breathed a soul into these abstract qualities; to have clothed them with the habits, mauners, characteristics, dress, social surroundings, of actual beings; to have lodged them in country and city-is there any fairy tale so wonderful, any miracle wrought by genie or magician so bewildering? Here, surely, are the evidences of the flow of one of those rivers of will which have more than once transformed society.

One of the secrets of this marvelous fecundity is to keep one's self in the mood and atmosphere in which imagination and heart work as one harmonious and continuous energy. There is an element of inspiration in all great work which is never wholly at command; with the greatest as with humbler men, it ebbs and flows. There are times when it comes in with the rush of the flood; when the mind is suddenly fertilized with ideas, when the heart is "a nest of singing birds,” when the whole visible world shines and glows. There are times, also, when its ebb leaves mind and heart as bare and vacant as the beach from which the tide has receded. These alternations of ebb and flow, of darkness and light, are

not unknown to the greatest souls; they are the invariable accompaniments of that quality of soul which makes a man the interpreter of his fellow and of the world which is common ground between them. There is something above us whose instruments we are; there are currents of inspiration which touch us and our strength is "as the strength of ten"; which pass from us and, like Samson shorn, we are as pygmies with other pygmies. No man wholly commands these affluent moods, these creative impulses; but some men learn the secret of appropriating them, of keeping within their range. These are the men who hold themselves with immovable purpose to the conditions of their work; who refuse all solicitations, resist all temptations, to compromise with customary habits and pleasures; who keep themselves in their own world, and, working or waiting, achieve complete self-expression. "I am always at work," said a great artist, "and when an inspiration comes I am ready to make the most of it." Inspiration rarely leaves such a man long unvisited. One looks at Turner's pictures with wonder in his heart. In this rushing, roaring, sooty London, with its leaden skies, its returning clouds and obscuring fogs, how were such dreams wooed and won? The painter's life answers the question. London had small share of Turner; he lived in a world of his own making, and the flush of its sky, the glory of its golden atmosphere, never wholly faded from his vision.

CHAPTER XVIII.

BOOKS AND THINGS.

ONE of the pleasantest features of life is the unconscious faculty which most things possess of forming themselves into groups, or allying themselves with each other in the most delightful associations. How easy and how agreeable it is to surround one's self with an atmosphere of congenial habits and customs! One wakes in the morning to a day that is no empty house to be explored and warmed and made habitable, but which stretches pleasantly on like a familiar bit of road, with its well-remembered turns and resting-places. It is a delightful prelude to the new day to recall, in a brief review just before rising, the dear faces of the household one is to see again, the sunny rooms to which one will shortly descend, the open fire before which one will stand while breakfast is being laid, the books still open from last night's reading, the friendly voices soon to be heard on the street, and the accustomed work waiting for one's hand. With such pictures in his mind one rises cheerfully to meet the toils and demands of another working day. The law of association weaves a man's life after a time into a rich and varied texture, in which

« PrejšnjaNaprej »