Loudon free press. (Loudon, Tenn.) 1852-1855, 1853-02-19

The Story Of Geaias.-It is strange that Of
the great geniuses of the past we know 50 little
personally. Men who have lived in the REQ ions
of thou. hit leave no social history. The indiyid.
uality CT Homer is doubted, not without reason.
Plato, the mighty river Of philosophy that flows
on through the present, and eternally into the
future; whose mind was SO comprehensive and
prophetic, that his style is singularly modern,
and never will seem ancient; Of his social rela-
tons know scarcely nothing. What mcagre
account that is of our universal poet, Shakespeare
All we know of Milton, we find condensed in
three Or four Introductory pages to Paradise Lost;
leaves which open like plain foldingdoors into
the celestial region he has created The truth
is, great thinkers live interiorly. They dwell
in the mansions Of thought; they walk in the
gardens of fancy; in wildernesses of imagina-
ton they are at home. They never go abroad
With them to go abroad is to be at home to
company. The city is their solitude----solitude's
their only populous palaces. Their companions
are ideas, which are no babblers. Mental crea.
tons represent the mind, but they never gossip
of persons. 1t is in vain that we ask Othello
what Shakespeare ordinarily had for breakfast;
Milton's Eve refuses to relate any secrets of
the curtain lectures incident to the great epic
poet The genius who lives to-day fails to come
to his own, during his lifetime. 1t is not TIL
some years after hfso--iGeh that his great merits
are discovered, and we interest ourselves to
know more of him. When he lived he had no
reporters, and he is like an eel in the fingers of
his late biographer. How fortunate that the
living genius is not suspected! five knew that
our pale ncighbor, with the massive marble
forehead, and strange, farlooking eyes, who
lodges in Mr.. Smiths garnet over the way, were
some "mute unglorious Milton" who has failed
to sell his epic to any rash publisher for fifteen
pounds, yet who will sell it some day, and make
everlasting fame, with the everlasting fortunes
of numberless publishers; if we could believe
in this wonder, how many of us would make
haste to hire out as the servant of such man;
to he near him, and write down all those strik-
ing thoughts and little personalities Of his
which will possess SO deep an interest for flu
ture generations! But we don't believe it; and
he dies unregistered; and our children, who re-
coSnize his greatness, pity our stupidity. We
condemn the Jews who witnessed the miracles
Of Christ, and heard his heavenly teachings, yet
crucifed him as an impostor. We forget that
VIC are just like them, at heart. Human nature
is a Jew. Therefore, We must content ourselves
with the few bones of facts, that have been dug
up out of the graves of the past, as relics of
genius. Only narrowminded men and cyclists
write of themselves the truly great man sell
dom thinks Of an autobiography. 1t is Byron
not Shakespeare, who writes Childe Harold, Don
Juan, Cain, Manfred, and the Corsair, all about
himself, and seems utterly unable to get out of
that intense but narrow circle of fire---his own
individuality Yankee Blade.