Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/38

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS every word said by his characters was distinctly heard by him," and this the philosopher explains by a theory of hallucination. But Dickens himself, while suffering illness and sorrow in the darkest hour of his life, wrote to Forster:

 "May I not be forgiven for thinking it a wonderful testimony to my being made for my art, that when, in the midst of this trouble and pain, I sit down to my book, some beneficent power shows it all to me, and tempts me to be interested, and I don't invent it—really do not—but see it, and write it down. . . . It's only when all fades away and is gone, that I begin to suspect that its momentary relief has cost me something."

Special examples of this kind must have brought Schopenhauer to avow that "Genius is a man who knows without learning, and teaches the world what he never learned." Lavater, observing its distinctive individuality, said: "Who can produce what none else can, has genius," and that its proportion to the vulgar is "like one to a million." I may summarize all these reflections by the statement that genius lies in the doing of one thing, or many things, through power resulting from the unconscious action of the free intellect, in a manner unattainable by the conscious effort of ordinary men.

So much for the stress of natural aptitude required to sustain these claims. That this inherent power can display its full capabilities only through industry, only by "taking trouble," the world, quite as well as Mr. Howells, has long been aware. We demand that the Will shall perfect its work, and know that the gift