It draws its load cheerfully, and is patient of the bit and of the whip. Talent seems, at first, in one sense, higher than genius - namely, that is it is more uniformly and absolutely submitted to the will, and therefore more distinctly human in its character. Genius, on the other hand, is much more like those instincts which govern the admirable movements of the lower creatures, and therefore seems to have something of the lower or animal character. A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend. A poet, like the goose, sails without visible landmarks to unexplored regions of truth, which philosophy has yet to lay down on its atlas.
Talent is often to be envied, and genius very commonly to be pitied.
It stands twice the chance of the other of dying in a hospital, in jail, in debt, in bad repute. For a divine instinct, such as drives the goose southward and the poet heaven ward, is a hard thing to manage, and proves too strong for many whom it possesses. When a true Genius appears in the World, you may know him by this infallible Sign, that the Dunces are all in Confederacy against him.