Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1850-08-08
MISCELLANY Y.
Written for the Eastern Times.
Genius---Learning.
BY HANSON D. WHITE.

BY HANSON D. WHITE.
Genie c'ea le traraii, says Monsieur Button.
Genius is but the repeated efforts of thinking.
1t is not the gift of inspiration, but the result
wrought out by powerful mind whose con-
centrated energies are applied to the realiza-
tion of given object. Newton, in CONVEX
sation with Bishop Pearce, informed that pre-
late that he had spent thirty years, at intervals
in reading over all the authors, or parts of au-
thors, that could furnish materials for his
Chronology of ancient Kingdoms and that
he had copied or rewritten the work no less
than sixteen times with his own hand.
The great art to learn mucb,' says Locke.
is to undertake little at time.' DR.. John
son remarks that 'All the performances at
which we look with praise or wonder. are in
stances Of the resistless force of perseverance.
1t is by this that the quarry becomes pyramid,
and that distant countries are united by canals
If man was to compare the effect of single
| stroke OF the pick axe, or of one impression of
the spade with the general design and last re-
snlt, he would be overwhelmed with the sense
of their disproportion yet those petty opera
tons, necessarily continued, in time surmount
the greatest difficulties and mountains are
levelled, and oceans bounded by the slender
force of human beings. 1t is therefore of the
utmost importance that those who have any in
tention of deviating from the beaten roads of
life, and acquiring a reputation superior to
names hourly swept away by time among the
refuse of fame, should add to their reason and
their spirit, the power of persisting in their
purposes; acquire the art of sapping what they
cannot batter; and the habit of vanquishing
obstinate resistance by obstinate attacks. Ap-
pelles was once reproached for the paucity Of
his pictures, and the indefatigable anxiety with
which he retouched his works. The only re-
ply which the artist vouchsafed was-'I paint
for posterity.' The truly noble and elevated
intellect realizes pleasure in the exercise of
Its faculties proportionate to the magnitude of
| the obstacles it encounters and it is this d-
vine faculty that causes the waste places of the
earth TO blossom as the rose-converts the
reeking morass into a delightful landscape, and
gives fame to genius, and Immortality to the
arts.
More is to be expected says the judicious
Chalmers, from laborious mediocrity than
from the erratic efforts of wayward genius
There may be a harlequin in mind as well as in
body; and always consider him to have been
one of this character, who boasted that he
could throw off hundred verses while stand
ing on one leg. 1t is not to such source as
this that we are indebted for good poetry
Apart from the effort indispensable to the pro-
vision of the staple of genius, or learning, the
profession of authorship would appear to be
by no means an easy one. All our celebrated
works, or those to which classical position
has been assigned, whether belonging to the
department of knowledge or fancy, have been
the fruit Of great intellectual exertion-
'The wel-ripened fruits of wise delay"
Demosthenes, who rose to the highest emf
nence by perseverance in vanquishing the ap-
parently insurmountable obstacles which op-
posed his progress, elaborated sentence after
sentence, thus elevating himself to the highest
heaven-the empyean of eloquence as the au
thor of the Principia rose to that of the mate
rial universe, step by step.
Pope was an indefatigable corrector. His
proof sheets were rendered almost illegible by
his numerous erasures and interlineations. S.
The author of the vicar of Wakefield consid
cred four lines day, good work. He was
seven years in composing the Deserted village
"a work in which the pure gold of intellect
radiates from every sentence and every line
The general presumption is, that men are sig
nalized less by industry than talent it is felt
to be little less than downright sacrilege to at
tribute genius TO any thing short of direct in
spiration but there is not an individual in the
priesthood Of genius who has not left as rich
legacy, the assurance that his elevation was at
tanned, less by dint of this 'heaven-born pow
-unattainable by the many-than by the
agency of a homely and lowly virtue, within
the reach of all.
When Antisthenes was asked what he got
by his learning, his reply was, that he could
converse with himself, without being indebted
TO others for good society. This privilege
have also the illiterate; but then what fear
ful, humiliating discrepancy must there be be-
tween the rich, glowing thoughts of the learned,
and the gross, turbid common piaceisms, and
and stulti6ed conceptions of the unlearned man
Windham, July 2I, 1850.
Adventures of a Starving Clergy
man in Vermont.
| We are often reminded of the man who
| hoaStod that he had heen a finrt,r ,,oarr