Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/292

 GENEROSITY, THOROUGHGOING

Rev. A. J. Potter, the "Fighting Parson" of Texas, tells this:

Holding services at a place one time I took up a collection for the support of missions. There was a poor old lady present who I noticed dropt a $5 gold piece in the hat. I knew she was very poor and not able to afford so much, and thought she had intended to throw in a quarter, but made a mistake. So next day I met her husband and said to him: "Look here, your wife put a $5 gold piece in the hat yesterday; I think she must have made a mistake." "No, no," he replied, "my wife didn't make no mistake. She don't fling often, but, let me tell you, when she flings she flings."

It is just such "flings" of the generous giver that lend "wings" to the glorious gospel.

(1196)

GENIUS

Oh, some there are with beauty bright, And they are lust of eyes, And some who blind us with the mind Our spirit them defies. But genius is the great white light Nor mind nor beauty buys.

And some will play a wanton air To catch the vagrant soul; Some find it sweet with dancing feet To foot it toward the goal; But he who hears the whirling spheres Can ne'er again be whole.

Oh, he who hears the whirling spheres Wher'er his steps have trod, Has reached the end of human trend; With wings his feet are shod, For he has seen, beyond the screen, Into the face of God.

—, Appleton's Magazine.

(1197)

The cultivated man is not in every case the best reporter. One of the best I ever knew was a man who could not spell four words correctly to save his life, and his verb did not always agree with the subject in person and number; but he always got the fact so exactly, and he saw the picturesque, the interesting, and important aspect of it so vividly, that it was worth another man's while, who possest the knowledge of grammar and spelling, to go over the report and write it out. Now, that was a man who had genius; he had talent the most indubitable, and he got handsomely paid in spite of his lack of grammar.—

(1198)

See.

GENIUS AND WORK

Edison, when asked his definition of genius, answered: "Two per cent is genius, and ninety-eight per cent is hard work." When asked on another occasion: "Mr. Edison, don't you believe that genius is inspiration?" he replied: "No! Genius is perspiration."

(1199)

GENIUS CAN NOT BE HIDDEN

The author of "Uncle Remus" apparently succeeded because he did not try. The literary world and the publishers came to him; he did not go to them. Here was a young, unknown, untraveled printer, of narrow school advantages, tho profitably educated in the best classics, and possessing, besides, much curious knowledge of negroes, of dogs, of horses, of the way of the red stream in the swamp, and of the folk of the woods. He had some familiar old stories to tell—so old and so familiar that no one had thought them worth while writing down—and he told them as quietly and as simply as he talked. But good work, tho hidden away in an obscure newspaper, gets itself recognized sooner or later, and one day Harris received an invitation to write some of his tales for one of the foremost of American magazines. He couldn't understand it at all, but he wrote the stories, among them an account of the amusing adventures of Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and the Tar Baby, which clinched his literary fame. His tales succeeded far beyond his expectations, and for the same reason that made "Æsop's Fables" an imperishable classic. For they were the slow fruitage of the wonder, the humor, and the pathos of a race of primitive storytellers. They were instinct with those primal passions which appeal to human nature, savage and civilized, the world over. (Text.) , The Outlook.

(1200)

GENIUS DISCOUNTED

Those who know Goldsmith best had recognized his genius so little that when he published "The Traveler" it was difficult to persuade them that he had written it himself. He was throughout life the butt of inferior wits, and in the arts which secured earthly success was completely distanced by inferior men, because he had no power of