The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1893-10-26
TIE OFFICES OF GENIUS AND
TALENT.

hlcnell6u Is udu6 W say Wy thS
poet dramatist: "All, all, have desert
ed me save the indOmitabIe energy
Armand dc Rechelieu." Richelieu was
O philosopher as well as genius in
state craft. The desertiOn of kim,
courtier and fair.dsy friends aroused
the latent energy and splendid re-
sources of his magnificent will and
brilliant intellect. Genius is God
given and as its flashing wheels spin
along in the new grooves OF time they
emit sparks that caught in the
alchemy OF the utilitarian are forged
into the electric motors of progress in
civilization, the sciences, and all the
mighty Ferris wheels that revolve
upward in tho advancement and COM
fort of the race. Genius erratic and
sometimes ephemeral, strikes from
the flint the IDEA and talent fashions
it to the uses and erjoyments of man.
kind. Genius sails without a COM
pass, but talent attaches a
rudder and ballasts the vessel
to ride the storms that
lash the waves into Jury, while 1t
sails serenely into the harbor of
safety. Genius knows no law, but is a
law unto itself, perhaps, and often
wreckipg itself, but going down it
leaves the sunlight of thought to dig
pei the gloom of Ignorance, and be-
hind it the eternal light OF truth
shines brightly into the darkest re-
cesses of ignorance and superstition
Genius is a martyr, it sacrifices itself
upon the altar of the public good, and
talent, like the vestal Virgins, keeps
the flame burning through the ages.
Genius wings its unblinking flight
into the very eye of the sunlight, and
with eagle pinions rushes onward and
upward to battle its plumage in i'm
mortal fame. Washington was the
genius of liberty and Franklin sealed
the behest to the sons and daughters
of social, political and religious indie
pendence with the stamp of talent
The genius Of Washington, unlike
that of Napoleon Bonaparte, was
lofty, uLselfish and serene While
the father Of his country breathed
his last breath in the full enjoyment
of his glorious accomplishments, the
man of destiny, with CJrsican silence,
awaited the flight of his spirit to the
sad dirge of the waves az they dashed
against the barren and rugged rocks OF
st. Helena. Washington was an ex-
ceptiop; the Corsican was representa-
tive. He was the unwilling victim
upon the altar OF his own ambition.
Genius in it's mighty efforts racks and
wrecks its physical supports and jars
and strains its organs of thought and
transmission to the world without OF
the beauty of its gorgeous temple.
Mirabeau's mighty intellect so shat
tered his leonile frame that in an evil
hour he soothed the delicate tendrils
of his brain with the fatal juice of the
hemp of India and died in great agony
at the moment that he alone could
have checked the French revolution
and saved Louis the XVI and his
Queen, the proud Austrian, the impla-
cable Marie Antoinette. Mirabeau the
very genius of revolution died on the
threshold of his conversion to royalty.
Genius plays its tragic part in this
world without rhyme or reason" but
its chariot wheels cut new channels
upon the earth's surface into which
the mass OF humanity PUSHES and
slakes its thirst in the life blood of lite
martyr. Genius cannot control itself
but 1t controls "listening senates,"
and noulds the character of people
to its own supreme will. Thos. F.
Marshall of Kentucky and Haskell Of