Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/46

 genius has been discovered, namely, the great adaptability-to-training genius. These are the people who chiefly spoil the trade for us; for they are often able to overshadow real genius, or at least to hinder it from duly making its way. When two people known to each other in their youth meet again advanced in years, a thousand different feelings must spring up in them. One of the most unpleasant may be that they now find themselves deceived in many a thing which they had formerly, in the play of anticipation, counted on for certain. Even the sweetest, demurest and best of maidens are invariably sweeter, demurer and better, when they have found themselves prettier in the looking glass. It is interesting to observe in everyone a certain uniformity of sentiment, as springing from their particular temperaments. In the case of Johnson everything took on a certain harshness: what had once taken root in him could not be got out again; hence his dictum, “I love a good hater." Severity and tenderness are qualities which in all of us usually enter into everything we do. When we are old we pride ourselves upon a juvenile sensibility we never possessed. In this way age will even excuse the sins of its youth, and improve the picture by retouching. Thus an old