Edgar Allan Poe wrote the most gruesome stories that have ever been told, just to prove that life is a tragedy and not worth living. But who ever lived fuller and applied himself to hard work more conscientiously in order to make his point? Poe wrote and rewrote, and changed and added and interlined and balanced it all on his actor's tongue, and read it aloud before the glass. Poe shortened his days and flung away a valuable fag-end of his life, trying to show that life is not worth living, and thus proved it is. Gray spent thirteen years writing his "Elegy," and so made clear the point that the man who does good work does not at the last lay him down and rest his head upon the lap of earth, a youth to fortune and to fame unknown. Gray secured both fame and fortune. He was so successful that he declined the Laureateship, and had the felicity to die of gout. Gray's immortality is based upon the fact that his life gave the lie to his logic. The man who thinks out what he wants to do, and then works and works hard, will win, and no others do, or ever have, or can--God will not have it so. * * * * * As a violinist Paganini far surpassed all other players who ever lived; and when one follows the story of his life, the fact is apparent that he succeeded because he worked. And yet behold the paradox! The idea existed in his own day, and is abroad yet, that "the devil guided his hand," for the thought that the devil is more powerful than God has ever been held by the majority of men--more especially if a fiddle is concerned. Such patience, such persistency, such painstaking effort as the man put forth for a score of years would have made him master at anything. The public knows nothing of these long years of labor and preparation--it sees only the result, and this result shows such consummate ease and naturalness--all done without effort--that it exclaims, "A genius--the devil guides his hand!" The remark was made of Titian and his wonderful color effects, and then again of Rembrandt with his mysterious limpid shadows--their competitors could not understand it! And so they disposed of the subject by attributing it to a supernatural agency. Things all men can do and explain are natural; things we can not explain are "supernatural." Progress consists in taking things out of the supernatural pigeonhole and placing them in the natural. As soon as we comprehend the supernatural, we are a bit surprised to find it is perfectly natural. But the limitations of great men are seen in that when they have acquired the skill to do a difficult thing well, and the public cries, "Genius!" why the genius humors the superstition and begins to allow the impression to get out mysteriously that he "never had a lesson in his life."