Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/28

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS times more impressive than that which it conveys to the unprepared reader. Natural aptitude, of a truth—but aptitude so unique, so compelling, as to have seemed supernatural to the ancients, preternatural to the common folk of all times, prenatal and culminative to the scientific observer of heredity, evolution, environment. Having progressed from the "wit" of our English forefathers to this expressive "genius," shall we go back to "natural aptitude" forsooth? If we must have a paraphrase, let us resort to the essential and basic salt rather than to a triturated and hyper-reduced solution. I would rather seek for it, at the other extreme, in some extravagant gloria of Carlyle's Past and Present:

 "Genius, Poet, do we know what these words mean? An inspired Soul once more vouchsafed to us, direct from Nature's own fire-heat, to see the Truth, and speak it and do it."

"Genius is the 'inspired gift of God.' It is the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential, in all men, in this man it has become actual. So says John Milton, who ought to be a judge; so answer him the Voices of all Ages and all Worlds."

I would not dispute about words, and am quite aware that Carlyle's other view may constitute a ground for appeal to Philip sober. And I am equally aware how far his "infinite capacity for taking trouble" has echoed and extended,—until it has become almost a cult with men less authoritative than its latest transmitter, and given what infinite comfort [14]