The University daily. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 18??-????, 1880-06-07


and children long alter they, happy once
more, lost in the realm 81 fancy have for
gotten al about III OF the scores 81 mer
who have made themselves shining lights
TO the world Of literature, science and ART,
Sir Walter Scott possessed perhaps The
best balanced mind Though the great
est novelist Of his time, and one Of the
most admired, he yet had that rare tacl
and adaptability which made II possible fol
him to descend from his haunt On the
Pierien hill, and mingle with his friends
and family As bright and CHEEKY as child.
The same mind that could revise all the
gray old traditions Of the hoary past. and
invest them with such a peculiar charm;
that cold leave to posterity such fiction
as tIvanhoe, and such poetry as the
Lay Of the Last Minstrel, z could also
find pleasure in the society Of the Scotch
peasantry, Of even in playing with his
favorite dogs as he rambIed over the
heath-covered moors.
Fndng tongues IN trees books ii the r,nnine brooks,
Sermonsin stones and good II everything, &
His compatriot, Burns. though endow.
ed with goodly amount Of the same
Scotch humcr that characterized his more
gifted countryman, did not possess this
faculty Following his pillow over the IN
fertile farm at Mossgiel, wrapped in his
own beautiful yet sometimes crude mag
inings, hewas as completely isolated from
all intellectual companionship as is the
hopeless prisoner in his cell. Ah!
Tho genius visits not your iowly shea. "
for of all great gifts, the penalty attached
to this is the surest and yet the hardest to
bear.
What thought Of feeling did Milton
have in common with those BIZ whom he
was surroundede Standing within the
portals Of the sublime temple !of inspira-
ton, while before him passed angels whose
garments were bright with thu glory EN-.
anatingl from the presence of the Most
High. the grand and Godlike yet fallen
Lucifer, seraphs and cherubs, beings only
to be created by a mighty and God given
genius, could he have left that beautiful
province over which he had been made
king andruler, and found, the level of the
gay cavalier and closesshayeil puritan I
Why should he have done 50 when, by
turning away from them, he could stand
face to face with such angels as Raphael
and Michael or could envoke from his
brain ethuriel with his spear, or see, with
his sightless eyes, Uriel descending from
heaven on the slanting beams Of the
sum- NJ
Z One by one from every age and coun.
try, rise before me types of this mental
isolation. The blind old bard Of Scios
isle; the gifted Italian who has left Us
such a record Of his mighty genius and Of
his stern defiance Of his exile and loneli-
ness in the Divine Comedia;" the great
master of art. at the wave Of whose crea.
tive wand the domes and spires Of St
Peters sprang up as.if by magic; Beetho-
ven, Mozart, Handel, wrapped in the di
vine strains that seemed emanating from
the choirs that strike their golden harps
beside the river Of life; Bruno, the mar
tyred philosopher, who, like the Chal
dean Of old, Had watched the stars, till
he had peopled them with beings bright
as their own. beams" Napoleon following
the laurel-crowned spectre Of glory, until
the sun that rose in such cloudless splen.
dor at Austerlitz, set in defeat and blood
at Waterloo the unhappy boy, Chatter
ton, whose soul scorned the narrow pris-
on wall that held his body, and whose
hand 'Rashly dared to stop his vital
breath; and those too who sleep their
last long sleep in the little Protestant
burying ground under the shadow Of the
walls Of the imperial Roman city, far
away from the blue skies of their native
land, are one and all but sorroWful illus
tratisn Of the fact that those to whom
God has given the glorious heritage q
genius must perforce accept with it the
loneliness and isolation that the Gift
brings. Time, standing far back in the
shadow of forgotten ages while one BY
one through his withered fingers drop the
golden links ofthe passing years, assures
US through history that it has ever been