The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-11-19
ABILITY AND GENIUS.
Ono Depends on Labor tho Other on tho
Fostering. of Unique Powers.

| Fostering of Unique Powers.
| The greatest difference between the
kinds of ability and capacity which are
now moro common than ever and the
higher forms of genius is, the London
| Spectator thinks, this-that the former
! depend upon the due division of labor,
the careful study of appropriate means
| and methods of intellectual discipline,
i'll IL word. on tho accumulation of suit
| able intellectual experience; while the
latter depend upon the careful fostering
of unique and only half understood in
stincts and powers, such as induced the
| prophets of the jewish people to retire
into the wilderness, or i'll our own cen
|. tury sent up Wordsworth to his rctrcnt
among the Cumberland hills. Thomas
Carlyle into his Dumfricsshire fast
ncsses, Alfred Tcnnyson to his scashorc
nominations and John Henry Newman
to his lonely Oxford rides and walks
and his still more solitary Sicilian wan
behring's.
Now, what we can clearly see is, that
so far as the special influence of the
nineteenth century is concerned, it acts
distractingly rather than favorably on
gifts of this unique order. We think
we can sec in the case of Browning, for
instance, how the genius of the man
was frittercd away by the distractions
OF society and the multiplied interests
which attracted his Shire wd intelligence.
What he wrote while he was compar-
ntivcly unknown was occasionally
hardly ineligible to the world las in
the case of ''Sordcllo"0, but for the
most part it was written under q pro-
found sense of intellectual compulsion,
or, rs the old world said, inspiration
But with one great exception The
Ring and the Book" which was more or
less due to the period of scclusion which
followed the death of his wife and IL
few smaller exceptions, especially
among the Dramatic Idylls," his later
poems gave no impression of the same
kind of subduing intellectual necessity
and ardor They arc often gritty in
thought and jolting in expression, as
we'll as very obscure, and cmbody none
of the passion contained in such poems
as "Pippa Passcs," or "rwo in the
Campagna." or eel Karslish. the Arab
ian Physician" or The Bishop Orders
His Tomb ut st. Praxcd's Church, or
Bishop Blougram's Apology" or
christmas Eve and Easter Day" or
cNSH Lie brdullHurlanS tuncral, or
twenty others.
The distractions of tho world told
upon him, and diverted him from that
concentrated devotion to the themes
most suited to his own genius which
was essential to their perfect render
ing; SO that when lie came to write, he
only gave us q hasty and confused vcr-
sion of his own r!cditations. The dis
fractions of world of scientific re-
search and astounding discoveries, and
inventions so ingenious that the human
mind itself seems almost dwarfed by its
own newest instruments, I'll initiate
against that chcrishing of the half I'M
conscious instincts of true Fcnius essen
tial to the mcditativc maturing of great
gifts. The cares of this world and the
distractions of social amuscmcnts and
art and science only too easily dissipate
that ardor of contemplation which the
highest literary achievements require.