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
Thus the shadow of death falls among those who are existing with more than
life about them. Yet "there is no celebrity for the artist," said GESNER,
"if the love of his own art do not become a vehement passion; if the hours
he employs to cultivate it be not for him the most delicious ones of his
life; if study become not his true existence and his first happiness; if
the society of his brothers in art be not that which most pleases him; if
even in the night-time the ideas of his art do not occupy his vigils or
his dreams; if in the morning he fly not to his work, impatient to
recommence what he left unfinished. These are the marks of him who labours
for true glory and posterity; but if he seek only to please the taste of
his age, his works will not kindle the desires nor touch the hearts of
those who love the arts and the artists."
Unaccompanied by enthusiasm, genius will produce nothing but uninteresting
works of art; not a work of art resembling the dove of Archytas, which
beautiful piece of mechanism, while other artists beheld flying, no one
could frame such another dove to meet it in the air. Enthusiasm is that
secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius,
throwing the reader of a book, or the spectator of a statue, into the very
ideal presence whence these works have really originated. A great work
always leaves us in a state of musing.
CHAPTER XIII.
Of the jealousy of Genius.--Jealousy often proportioned to the degree of
genius.--A perpetual fever among Authors and Artists.--Instances of its
incredible excess among brothers and benefactors.--Of a peculiar species,
where the fever consumes the sufferer, without its malignancy.
Jealousy, long supposed to be the offspring of little minds, is not,
however, confined to them. In the literary republic, the passion fiercely
rages among the senators as well as among the people. In that curious
self-description which LINNAEUS comprised in a single page, written with
the precision of a naturalist, that great man discovered that his
constitution was liable to be afflicted with jealousy. Literary jealousy
seems often proportioned to the degree of genius, and the shadowy and
equivocal claims of literary honour is the real cause of this terrible
fear; for in cases where the object is more palpable and definite than
intellectual excellence, jealousy does not appear so strongly to affect
the claimant for admiration. The most beautiful woman, in the season of
beauty, is more haughty than jealous; she rarely encounters a rival;
and while her claims exist, who can contend with a fine feature or a
dissolving glance? But a man of genius has no other existence than in the
opinion of the world; a divided empire would obscure him, and a contested
one might prove his annihilation.
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