Literary Character of Men of Genius: Drawn from Their Own Feelings and ConfessionsDisraeli, Isaac
General
Literary Character of Men of Genius: Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions
Disraeli, Isaac
Authors, English; James I, King of England, 1566-1625; Literature
Yet many glorious efforts, and even artificial inventions, have been
contrived to assist and save its moral and literary existence in that
perpetual race which genius holds with time. We trace its triumph in the
studious days of such men as GIBBON, Sir WILLIAM JONES, and PRIESTLEY. An
invention by which the moral qualities and the acquisitions of the
literary character were combined and advanced together, is what Sir
WILLIAM JONES ingeniously calls his "Andrometer." In that scale of human
attainments and enjoyments which ought to accompany the eras of human
life, it reminds us of what was to be learned, and what to be practised,
assigning to stated periods their appropriate pursuits. An occasional
recurrence, even to so fanciful a standard, would be like looking on a
clock to remind the student how he loiters, or how he advances in the
great day's work. Such romantic plans have been often invented by the
ardour of genius. There was no communication between Sir WILLIAM JONES and
Dr. FRANKLIN; yet, when young, the self-taught philosopher of America
pursued the same genial and generous devotion to his own moral and
literary excellence.
"It was about this time I conceived," says Franklin, "the bold and arduous
project of arriving at moral perfection," &c. He began a daily journal, in
which against thirteen virtues accompanied by seven columns to mark the
days of the week, he dotted down what he considered to be his failures; he
found himself fuller of faults than he had imagined, but at length his
blots diminished. This self-examination, or this "Faultbook," as Lord
Shaftesbury would have called it, was always carried about him. These
books still exist. An additional contrivance was that of journalising his
twenty-four hours, of which he has furnished us both with descriptions and
specimens of the method; and he closes with a solemn assurance, that "It
may be well my posterity should be informed, that to this _little
artifice_ their ancestor owes the constant felicity of his life." Thus we
see the fancy of Jones and the sense of Franklin, unconnected either by
character or communication, but acted on by the same glorious feeling to
create their own moral and literary character, inventing similar although
extraordinary methods.
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