The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1875-10-17
q ,rnIng Star and Catholic Messenger.
TTW oRrEANs. SUNDAY. OCTOBER II 1875.
ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTOR.
A GREAT CATHOLIC PoETEss.
Eatholic World.I

faculty of the human mind about which we
Instruction. Yet every one who knows any.
thing of it at all knows the two great types of
genius that appear in history-extremes be-
tween which lie all minds of mark. One is
the familiar form that the word itself at once
snggests-the regular fashion, it were, of
being exceptional. This is the erratic, fitfu',
thetic, eccentric character, who wears regard
less collars, fights his publisher on less than no
provocstion, eats opium if he chooses, and
Sometimes ohooses-or, if not opium, some
other stimuIant-bas whims and moods and
irrtabilities, and the biggest heart, and the
best tongue, and the most needless head, with
the most brilliant oddities in it, wherever be
goes-a totally lopsided organism, where the
soul connot be kept from wearing its way
through the body, and where few faculties,
Extraordinarily developed, doniineer over a
warped and stunted sS stem, to the ultimate
ruin of the whele man.
The other kind, calm, clear, broad, poised,
of the fret type. The strength of the one is in
balance, the force of the other in overbalance.
Yet the difference is only that the man of
balance is symmetrically developed; it is the
difference between the autumn maturity of the
fall-grown fruit and the hectic ripeness, with
the worm at the core, of the August windfal.
more frequent, the other the higher in history.
The reason is simply this, that a moderate de-
gree of uniform development gives neither
portionate prepondersnce of the intellect, even
where al the faculties are below the average,
will reproduce in miniature all the phenomena
Byron Don.J banning it over his gin and-wster,
and the brilliant Bohemian who dashes of the
cleverest leader of the next day, fresh from the
convival influence of registering champagne
supper, and the gentle youth who floods the
rural poets corner with heaven sealing banker
ings inspired by green tea, the difference is not
in kind, but in degree.
Men of this order are the ones who achieve
fame and famine. Their blossoms of promise
are bright, their early graves are green on all
at their high hopes and deeds, and bushes for
the petty faiIings that suffice to drag them
down. Literature, above all, is o very Col
gotha, all the ghastlier for it's glory, of their
self-conscious sensitiveness, their refined self
torture, their blasted lives and miserable
deaths. Yet there is hardly one but has
his little day, longer or shorter, but with al
ways some little sunshine and flowers of popu-
lar favor. Stimulated to their utmost by sus
ceptiblity to praise, they are the most brilliant
admired. Besides, their eccentricities are an
advertisement in themselves, and very often
first attract the attention which afterward dis
covers the powers underneath. The world, on
the contrary, finds nothing about the other
sort of genius to display any peculiar oapabili-
ties-e sort of pleasant self-completeneBs, it
may be, but no salient points and queer angles
and passes on, to cape at the man with half
the brains and nothing to balance them. Byron
woke up one morning and found himself
famous some one in Elizabeth's reign made .
list (is it not DIsraeli who preserves It y of the
best writer's of his day, wherein the nirteeath
name is that of the successful London manager
and decidedly good fellow, William Sh skspeare.
In fact, this latter type of genius is not only
rare OBJ all well-poised organisms are rare, but
seems to eyade public appreciation by some
happened with men of this order that not only
their families-of course, it is the exception, if
mans family ever discover his powers till the
ears-but their daily acquaintance, their most
intimate friends, nay, themselves, never sus-
pect their greatness.
But, if such q man of genius is an event of
his generation, and, with oil q mans oppor-
tunity for appreciation, activity, acquaintance,
and, above ALL women and their ennobling in
fuence, to bring out his best energies, often
dies undiscovered, what chance is there for a
woman of kindred abilities to struggle into the
light of recognitionf In literature, men are the
severest judges of women possible, except, of
course, their own sex. To the best of them the
expression " women of genius" is the mythical
relic of some lost tradition as old as Sappho's
day, and "women's thought" a contradiction
IN terms. All theiI experience teaches them o
disbelieve in it utterly. The truth is, most
women think very i'll in print. The cause lies
less in their nature than in their second nature
of education. Their thought is beautiful
enough-beauty is their mental as their bodily
characteristic-but seldom strong. and then its
strength is that of the tempered Toledo rather
than the shearing Andrea Ferrara. 1t comes
IN April CLEANS from behind cloud after cloud.
They lack concentration, terseness, sequence !;
in word, training. This breeds, with mainly
x
fuseness of preston, and dilctIon of ideas
(Hence that saddest thing on the til, wherein
women writers so abound, the unerceptonabIe
poem). 1t seems as though women wrote as if
converting, forgetting how much of the charm
Is in themselves and evaporates on the pen.
Every reader has noticed how the writings,
above all, the poems, of really extraordinary
women-women that men of mind looked up to
are to us such monuments of apparent
mediocrity that We wonder what they found to
worship. The most impartial critics nose in
cllDes involuntarily heSvenward the moment q
woman comes forward to claim any intellectual
place Of honor. And genius, the highest
quality mans special prerogative-horror of
horrOrcl All reason says it cannot be; and I'M
oeEneath subtle male esprit de corps too often
t SGas That it shall not be. Of course, the in
uuaer cannot climb the heights, but to avoid
accidents and disappointment she 10 seldom
s Sonere9 to try. Such are the difficulties which
aspirant
~ ought not to surprise rs, then, that AIDE
!alde Anne Proctor, even had Ghe been the most
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