Part 39 (2/2)
The greatest geniuses have been the greatest workers Sheridan was considered a genius, but it was found that the ”brilliants” and ”off-hand sayings” hich he used to dazzle the House of Commons were elaborated, polished and repolished, and put down in his ency
Genius has been well defined as the infinite capacity for taking pains
If ling youth of to-day howand plodding, what an uplift of inspiration and encourageive! How often I have wished that the discouraged, struggling youth could know of the heartaches, the headaches, the nerve-aches, the disheartening trials, the discouraged hours, the fears and despair involved in works which have gained the admiration of the world, but which have taxed the utmost powers of their authors You can read in a few minutes or a few hours a poeht, but the days and ery often required to produce it would stagger belief
The greatest works in literature have been elaborated and elaborated, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, often rewritten a dozen tiery which literary men have put into the productions which have stood the test of time is almost incredible Lucretius worked nearly a lifetime on one poem It completely absorbed his life It is said that Bryant rewrote ”Thanatopsis” a hundred times, and even then was not satisfied with it John Foster would sole sentence He would hack, split, prune, pull up by the roots, or practise any other severity on whatever he wrote, till it gained his consent to exist Chalmers was once asked what Foster was about in London ”Hard at it,” he replied, ”at the rate of a line a week”
Even Lord Bacon, one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived, at his death left large nuhts set down for use” Huland” Lord Eldon astonished the world with his great legal learning, but when he was a student too poor to buy books, he had actually borrowed and copied e law books
Matthew Hale for years studied law sixteen hours a day Speaking of Fox, some one declared that he wrote ”drop by drop” Rousseau says of the labor involved in his smooth and lively style: ”My manuscripts, blotted, scratched, interlined, and scarcely legible, attest the trouble they cost ed to transcribe four or five times before it went to press
Some of my periods I have turned or returned in hts before they were fit to be put to paper”
Beethoven probably surpassed all otherfidelity and persistent application There is scarcely a bar in his music that was not written and rewritten at least a dozen times His favorite maxim was, ”The barriers are not yet erected which can say to aspiring talent and industry 'thus far and no further'” Gibbon wrote his autobiography nine ti, summer and winter, at six o'clock; and yet youth aste their evenings wonder at the genius which can produce ”The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” upon which Gibbon worked twenty years Even Plato, one of the greatest writers that ever lived, wrote the first sentence in his ”Republic” nine different ways before he was satisfied with it Burke wrote the conclusion of his speech at the trial of Hastings sixteen tiy” twenty tiics, and twelve years to write the Aeneid He was so displeased with the latter that he attempted to rise from his deathbed to commit it to the flames
Haydn was very poor; his father was a coachirl He was sent away from horeat deal of information, but he had a hard life of persecution until he became a barber in Vienna Here he blacked boots for an influential man, who became a friend to him In 1798 this poor boy's oratorio, ”The Creation,” ca of a new sun which never set He was courted by princes and dined with kings and queens; his reputation was , no ht hundred compositions, ”The Creation”
eclipsed the Vienna, soarden
When a es to put himself into Parliament, when a man like Francis Joseph Cauished et a hint as to what it means to make the most possible out of ourselves and our opportunities Perhaps ninety-nine of a hundred under such unfortunate circumstances would be content to remain helpless objects of charity for life If it is your call to acquire money power instead of brain power, to acquire business power instead of professional power, double your talent just the salover's apprentice of Glasgow, Scotland, as too poor to afford even a candle or a fire, and who studied by the light of the shop s in the streets, and when the shops were closed cli to the lamp-post with the other,--this poor boy, with less chance than almost any boy in America, became the most eminent scholar of Scotland
Francis Parkreatest historians in spite of everything, because he made himself such
Personal value is a coin of one's own ; one is taken at the worth he has put into hihest luxury at one time was only a penny roll, eaten in the streets of Philadelphia
Michael Faraday was a poor boy, son of a blackse of thirteen to a bookbinder in London Michael laid the foundations of his future greatness byhimself familiar with the contents of the books he bound He reone, to read and study the precious volumes Lord Tenterden was proud to point out to his son the shop where he had shaved for a penny A French doctor once taunted Flechier, Bishop of Nismes, who had been a tallow-chandler in his youth, with the in, to which he replied, ”If you had been born in the same condition that I was, you would still have been but a maker of candles”
Edwin Chadwick, in his report to the British Parlia on half ti the rest of their tiress during the year Businessthe busiest lives by si one, two, three, or four hours daily to study or other literary work
James Watt received only the rudiular on account of delicate health He ence hich he pursued his studies at hoar; he was ”born e of fourteen as a musician in the band of the Hanoverian Guards, devoted all his leisure to philosophical studies He acquired a large fund of general knowledge, and in astronomy, a science in which he holly self-instructed, his discoveries entitle hireatest astronoton was the son of a , born under the roof of a Westmoreland farmer; almost from infancy his lot had been that of an orphan No acadee crowned him with its honors; to read, to write, to cipher--these had been his degrees in knowledge Shakespeare learned littleat school, but by self-culture heliterary es of education, and his youth was passed in aluson, the son of a half-starved peasant, learned to read by listening to the recitations of one of his elder brothers While a mere boy he discovered several -wheels, and by s worked out an excellent s with a coreat e by out-of-the-way paths! Gifford worked his intricate problems with a shoemaker's awl on a bit of leather Rittenhouse first calculated eclipses on his plow-handle
Colued to becorapher and astronomer of his time
When Peter the Great, a boy of seventeen, became the absolute ruler of Russia his subjects were little better than savages, and in himself even the passions and propensities of barbaris his whole career But he determined to transform himself and the Russians into civilized people
He instituted refore of twenty-six started on a visit to the other countries of Europe for the purpose of learning about their arts and institutions At Saardareat East India dockyard that he apprenticed himself to a shi+pbuilder, and helped to build the _St
Peter_, which he pro his travels, after he had learned his trade, he worked in England in paper-mills, saw-mills, rope-yards, watch the work and receiving the treat, his constant habit was to obtain as ard to every place he was to visit, and he would deations, on such occasions, he carried his tablets in his hand and whatever he deemed worthy of remembrance was carefully noted down
He would often leave his carriage if he saw the country people at work by the wayside as he passed along, and not only enter into conversation with thericultural affairs, but also accompany thes of their implements of husbandry Thus he obtained e, which he would scarcely have acquired by other means, and which he afterward turned to admirable account in the improvement of his own country
The ancients said, ”Know thyself”; the twentieth century says, ”Help thyself” Self-culture gives a second birth to the soul A liberal education is a true regeneration When a enerally remain a man, not shrink to a manikin, nor dwindle to a brute But if he is not properly educated, if he has e, if he hasto hold crah to pass the examination, he will continue to shrink, shrivel, and dwindle, often below his original proportions, for he will lose both his confidence and self-respect, as his crammed facts, which never became a part of himself, evaporate from his distended reat advantage in the struggle for existence Thenew, but it revealspower until it sees beauty where before it saw only ugliness It reveals a world we never suspected, and finds the greatest beauty even in the coassiz could see worlds of which the uneducated eye never dreas the uneducated hand can not do It beco, skilful, indeed it alence The cultured will can seize, grasp, and hold the possessor, with irresistible power and nerve, to almost superhuman effort The educated touch can almost perform miracles The educated taste can achieve wonders alical, profound, masterly reason of a Gladstone and that of the hod-carrier who has never developed or educated his reason beyond what is necessary to enable him to mix mortar and carry brick!