The Harrison times. (Harrison, Boone Co., Ark) 1876-1938, 1900-08-25
The Signs of Genius.

marks there can be no doubt. If |
man has not some idiosyncracy lik
beating his wife occasionally o
knocking the children around tn
house, he has not the signs and i
not a genius. Instead of eriticizinl
men for their assumed eeeentricities
it is well to remember that they ar,
the indications of great minds ant
worthy of alteration
A writer in recent magazine de
seribes the eceentricites of a number
of noted writers. This writer say.
Tennyson couldn't write his best un
less he had a jar of tobacco and G
and box of clay pipes at hand,
He would smoke a pipe once and
then break it He never smoked il
but once.
Now, there you are again.
know a man who writes twice as
much poetry as Tennyson ever did
Why, he can write after supper
more than Tennyson could in q
week, But it is not quite as good
quality, or maybe the fool publishers
just think it is not as good.
II he would get pipe and smoke
it, he might do better. Yet, on the
other hand, know another fellow
who smokes pipe and doesn't even
try to write poetry. Perhaps,
though, he doesn't change. pipes
frequently, yet he smokes it only
one too; but maybe he smokes it
longer. He smokes ita year. So
what can one tell?
Hawthorne was great whittier,
and it took all the dry goods boxes
in town for him to white, while he
wrote "a Scarlet Letter" So when
you are inclined to get mad and
swear at loafers sitting on the street
corners whiting and chewing
tobacco, to spit at cracks in the
sidewalks, while their wives make
the living, remember that they may
be-geniuses getting ready to write a
book.
Beethoven, we are told, would
pour cold water on his hands while
writing. Some people would be i'm
proved by pouring water on their
feet, but whether they would be en-
abled thereby to compose music
equal to Beethoven's or not, we are
not aware. He would also write
sometimes on the north side of the
house and sometimes on the south
side.
That is just where people make a
mistake when the children write on
the house Instead of commencing
them for their genius, they spank
them for dishguring the premises.
The side of house is not a good
place to write, though. A barn
door or a sheet of wrapping paper
or the side of the smokehouse would
be better. We do not like to see
houses marked up that way.
Schiller had to smell rotten apples
before he could write. Some PEG.
pies feet ought to answer the pur.
pose very well.
Freeman could not write his best
till he had breakfasted on toast
burned to crisp. Others have break
tasted on burnt toast, but it did not
make them historians. They clear
ly were not geniuses.
Others seemed to get their inspira
ton from the whisky, bottle, as fol
as instance, Byron and Poe. Tha
may be the reason SO much poo
truck is written, They run out o
liquor. 1t might do we'll to encour
age the use of more oft.
Some writers affect such a miser
able scrawl that nobody can deciph
err it. That goes for genius, if it i
written by Horace Greeley, but TO
lack of education, if by novice.
reckon Horace didn't write yer,
good hand, but | know a writing
teacher who can make birds an,
things, and shades his letters an
slants them exactly right, yet
doubt if he could write a piece 70
the paper if his life depended upon il
Iobserve that the hand-writin
does not cut much figure when 20
write anything worth while. II
is worth it, it will be deciphereC
even if the letters are not shaded
right, and if the Spencerian systel
of penmanship was never "dreame
OF in thy philosophy, Horatio.
Pardon that quotation from Job
Bunyan, or whoever wrote it.
Remember, hereafter; when yc
see anyone acting as he had c
capped from the bughouse, that