The morning call., 1893-10-22
TIE ETIOLOGY OF GENIUS

S0NtiOn olo mere 1aFOEaDie, ONT IN aQQltl0n
to these we have, in marked degree, what
Is IN some quarters now claimed to be the
sine qua non in the production of the genius
the commiDgling of races.
Many years ago a writer in the
Edinburgh Review gave expression to
some ideas on the subject of American
writer's. He believed there were some, in
TACT, he mentioned a writer named Cooper,
who had published few books. and there
was, he said. "a Mr.. Irving" who had
written some pleasant sketches. but
after ALL" he asked, why should the
people of America care to write books
when England stands ready to send them
books by the barrelful?"
Truly pertinent question, but not
withstanding this readiness on the part
of another country. the imaginative genius
of America was not to be suppressed. The
children of tbe Puritans, of the Neither
landers, of the Huguenots. the cavaliers.
and representatives of all other people
and divisions who poured into the coun-
try, began TO write, to publish and even
the audacty OF the idea Ito send back to
England the products of their brains.
There was great deal of stuff written.
During the latter part of the last century
and the early part Of this America proba-
bly, produced more literary rubbish than
any other country in the world. But de-
spite this TACT, the contributions during
that period of the new land to the per-
manent living literature of the world,
work bearing the unmistakable stamp of
genius, would have made the eyes of the
Edinburgh Reviewer open wide in in
credulOuS amaZement, could he have lived
10 realize that America. rejecting Eng
lands barrelfuls Of literature, was
writing great books for English readers.
One can imagine his hewildered and
grieved surprise could he have read few
weeks since that of the dozen greatest
books of the present day, as listed by an
English periodical. more than half are
written by Americans, and. curiously
enough, five are from the pens of authors
who call California theiI home.
There Is something more than mere CO.
incidence in this fact-sOmethlng besides
environment, new conditions and new
life. Tie potent factor in the production
of genius and its near relative, talent, is
the new blood, the mixed blood that flows
in the veins of our American people. THIS
idea that the blood of many races is es-
sential to the production Of genius has
mucn TO support it. Those peoples whose
bio, has been kept puFest, most jealously
guarded from new infusiOns from other
nations, are not the nations most distin-
guished BY representatives in the higher
realms Of literature. art. science.
The German people. TO whom we in
stacuvely turn for all these, are essen
TALLY people of mixed blood. The same
is true. IN lesser degree, of the French
nation. and mott eablY is it true that the
great French geniuses whom the average
reader recalls to-day are representatives of
widely separated races. Hugo, Zola, Du-
mas, Flauhert, Rousard, not one of them
is of pure French ancestry.
a recent study by Havelock Ellis of this
subject has resulted in some interesting
facts regarding what he terms the etioIogy
of genius in England. Taking the first
five English poets whose supremacy dur
Ing the last twenty-five Years is univer-
sally acknowledged. 1enDyson, Browning,
Swinbnrne, Rosetti and Morris, Profess
sor Ellis makes an interesting study Of
their ancestry. The TenDysons are from
a. Danish part of England. and oD the
mothers side the poet was descended from
a French ancestor named DE Fauvel.
, Taken asp whole, Tennyson himself wrote,
THE family Is of predominant Scandina-
vian stock, mingliug with Lincolnshire
people. but with prominent Huguenot
strain"
Swinburne, also, is of Scandinavian
stock. mingled with Celtic and French
blood. Morris is Welsh borderer, with
an Anglo-DaBish strain received through
=
lish only on the side of one grandpaTent.
For the rest he belongs to sunny Italy.
Browning, so often called the sturdy
English tradesman," Browning, the master
of English poetry according to DR.. Ellis,
with a basis of Saxon stock is modified by
an intermixture on the one hand of the
old dark British race. His grandfather
married West Indian Creole and his
father married Sarisnna Weidmann. W hose
father was German and her mother Scotch.
Ii there is anything at all in the theory
of the mixed ancestry of genius no one
need wonder at the marvellous master
whom this mingling OF alien strains pro-
duced.
Otner English writers Ellis brings for
ward in the course Of his study-Oliye
Schreiner, Barine-Gould. Thomas Hardy.
Austin Dobson, all of mixed ancestry.
Curiousy enough be notes that while
among native British writers ten show
more or less foreign blood. and not one
can be called purely English, out of
every ten distinguished British scientific
men five were pure English and only one
had foreign blood.
In conclusion our author deduces that
wherever the races have remained COM
paratiVey pure we seldom find any high
or energetic civilization. and never any fine
Towering of genius Great Britain. he
claim has been especially exposed to the
influence of race intermiXture, and TO it is
due all that is hneSt IN Engilsn magma
tive geDins.
That it is in he main imaginative and
speculative tendency that is developed
through the interminging of races is sug-
gestively evident in the development of
tie American genius. How much we owe
To our mixed blood of the w0rid-famed
Yankee inventiveness" we will never be
able to determine. Probably the debt
2 is a large one. The whole trend of
American literature, however, is to bear
out Professor Ellis theory as to the et-
oIogy of genius There have been many
theories advanced from time to time
to account for the appearance among
US of this singular. subtle quality that men
call genius. They have ranged from the
dogmatist, VINO soemDly maintains with
Button that genius is but another name
for Industry" to the medical luIninary of
modern times, who has pronounced genius
to be merely another name for scrofula."
claiming that this disease produces certain
changes in the blood and the tissues of the
brain that set UP the extraordinary mental
activities and manifestations that for want
of better name we classify as genius.
The genius is a many-sided character.
He has higher. wider outlook, keener
insight than the ordinary mortal. He be-