Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/23

GENIUS of one life; so that the producer did not make experiments, and patch together, and follow his own caprice, but was altogether in the power of the dæmonic spirit of his genius, and acted according to its orders."

The great writers, mystics and iconoclasts alike, upon whose works our present generation fed in youth, have been subject to this hallucination. There is scarcely an exception in the group of English worthies just prior to our own period of the colored photograph, cast-iron architecture, law as a business, and of book-making as a staple, time-regulated, and surely productive trade. All strike the key of De Quincey's rhapsody on Shakespeare: "O mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers." It is true that Carlyle, with his varying treatment of prerogative, once or twice made outbursts that have encouraged others to rise, like the poor wise man in the legend, and say: "I doubt!" As we read Mr. Howells's protest, it perforce calls to mind the highest authority citable in its support. Yes, Carlyle wrote that genius "means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all." And he apostrophizes one of his heroes, enduring the discipline of youth:

 "Daily return the quiet dull duties. . . . Patience, young man of genius, as the Newspapers would now call you; it is indispensably beneficial nevertheless! To swallow one's disgusts, and do faithfully the ugly commanded [9]