Genie

“ What shall we say then of that vague thing, genius, which is to mankind what the thing some call soul is to man? For my part, I believe it to be volcanic rather than sedimentary. It is as if the spirit of the race had accumulated in a creature, the spirit of life claiming to be born. Genius will out, but it is most frequent in certain periods of human history, such as the Elizabethan or Medician, in certain places, such as France, Italy, and the Low Countries, under certain influences, such as oppression, war, revolution, or social decay. ”

“ The Artist, by an harmonious Mixture of these, makes the Musick either strong and martial, brisk and airy, grave and solemn, or soft and moving.
There seems to be in Man a Composition of natural Powers and Capacities, not unlike to these. From hence I would take the first Original of their distinguishing Genij. The Words by which they are usually explain'd, have a manifest Allusion hereto. Thus we say of some Men, they have a brisk and airy Genius; of others, they have a strong and active Genius, a quick and lively Spirit, a grave and solemn Temper, and the like. ”

“ Upborne and surrounded as we are by this all-creating nature, soft and fluid as a cloud or the air, why should we be such hard pedants, and magnify a few forms? Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of figure? The soul knows them not, and genius, obeying its law, knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches. Genius studies the causal thought, and, far back in the womb of things, sees the rays parting from one orb, that diverge ere they fall by infinite diameters. ”

“ Thus the manifestations of the Creative Spirit, and the operations of His laws in the material world, are no less wonderful and minute than the results are beautiful and complete; so likewise, in the universe of mind and the world of poetry, brilliant effects require for their production the spontaneous impulses of genius, their first cause, together with the combined and often recondite workings of all the agencies which constitute the intellectual being. ”

“ This notion growing somewhat wider, the Genius comes to denote all the full powers, almost the personality, of developed manhood, and especially those powers which make for pleasure and happiness: this is the origin of such common phrases as genium curare, genio indulgere, meaning practically to 'look after oneself,' 'to indulge oneself.' Every man, then, has this 'spirit of his manhood' in his Genius, and correspondingly every woman her Iuno, or spirit of womanhood, which are worshipped on the birthdays of their owners. ”

“ The poet, the seer, the musician, the sculptor know something of this inability to reach in their work expression worthy of its conception. And if this is so with the artist, how much more so with the genius, who is compelled by a force he does not wholly understand, and yet is possessed of some executive power of demonstration!
The genius lives in advance of his time, having a flash-like insight into knowledge hidden as mystery from the understandings of his fellow-men. ”

“ How varied are the subjects which her versatile genius has delineated! Has it not fathomed the depths of the poet's soul, and laid bare to our gaze its glorious intellectual operations and their results,—its creations and aspirings,—its hopes and fears,—not only with poetic feeling, but with philosophic accuracy? Has not that genius led us into the interior of conventional life, and showed to us the vanity, the heartlessness, the petty strifes, the mean jealousies of the circles whose idols are outward appearances? ”

“ I think he was admiring not the genius, but the consequences to which the genius had brought him—a vast genius, a magnificent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and strong,—to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood and scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden motives, and expose the black thoughts of men,—an awful, an evil spirit. ”

“ Now, so to place these images, totalized and fitted to the limits of the human mind, as to elicit from, and to superinduce upon, the forms themselves the moral reflections to which they approximate, to make the external internal, the internal external, to make nature thought, and thought nature—this is the mystery of genius in the fine arts. Dare I add that the genius must act on the feeling, that body is but a striving to become mind—that it is mind in its essence? ”

“ What the painter wants, in addition to, and as the complement of, the other elements, is genius and sense; what the doctor needs to crown and give worth and safety to his accomplishments, is sense and genius: in the first case, more of this, than of that; in the second, more of that, than of this. These are the “Brains” and the “That.”
And what is genius? and what is sense? Genius is a peculiar native aptitude, or tendency, to any one calling or pursuit over all others. ”

“ Immediately the form of the Genius began to change into smoke, and extended itself as before over both the shore and the sea; and then, collecting itself, began to enter the vase, and continued to do so in a slow and equal manner, till nothing remained without. A voice immediately issued forth, saying, “Now then, thou credulous fisherman, dost thou believe me now I am in the vase?” But instead of answering the Genius, he immediately took the leaden cover, and put it on the vase. “Genius,” he cried, “it is now your turn to ask pardon, and choose what sort of death is most agreeable to you. ”

“ Reading furnishes Matter, Reflexion digests it, and makes it our own; as the Flesh and Blood which are made out of the Food we eat. And Prudence and the Knowledge of the World, must direct us how to employ our Genius, and on all occasions make the best Use of it. ”

“ Such is the picture of genius viewed in the stillness of MEDITATION; but there is yet a more excited state, when, as if consciousness were mixing with its reveries, in the allusion of a scene, of a person, of a passion, the emotions of the soul affect even the organs of sense. This excitement is experienced when the poet in the excellence of invention, and the philosopher in the force of intellect, alike share in the hours of inspiration and the ENTHUSIASM of genius. ”

“ He believed that Genius,—a kind of mystic, God-inspired faculty, that lived on intuition and not on painfully acquired knowledge,—discovers at a glance the secrets of nature and ethics and history. "Where we see only the confused light of the Milky Way, they see stars." Though he would have himself disclaimed the title to genius, he had a supreme confidence in his own thought. ”

“ Genius, in its deep, wild burnings, its impassioned breathing, feeding as a smothered fire upon her own young heart, seeking ever to find a vent, an echo—to be known, acknowledged, loved; but falling back with every effort, till even genius seemed increase of sorrow—and hope yet glimmered there, pale, sickly, shadowy, in its faint rays emitting but increase of light, to be immersed in deeper gloom. ”

“ Who, having listened to such, has forgotten what a man of genius has said at such moments? Who dwells not on the single thought or the glowing expression, stamped in the heat of the moment, which came from its source? Then the mind of genius rises as the melody of the Æolian harp, when the winds suddenly sweep over the strings —it comes and goes—and leaves a sweetness beyond the harmonies of art. ”

“ A genius, so called, is a Sensitive whose waking dreams are the conceptions of exalted Spirit minds, reflected or projected upon his or her aura, which, like a mirror, receives the impression and in turn reflects it upon the brain of the Sensitive. ”

“ What parts, what gems, what colors shine,— Ah, but I miss the grand design. Like vaulters in a circus round Who leap from horse to horse, but never touch the ground. For Genius made his cabin wide, And Love led Gods therein to bide. The atom displaces all atoms beside, And Genius unspheres all souls that abide. ”

“ By following strictly the laws that govern the evolution of life, we control the formation of the body and brain. Strong mental traits become intensified by cultivation from generation to generation and finally culminate in one glorious outburst of power, called Genius. But there is one peculiarity about mind. It resembles that wonderful century plant which, after decades of developing, flowers and dies. Genius is the long unfolding bloom of mind, and leaves no posterity. We carefully prepare for the future development of Genius. ”

“ But genius, and nothing else, is not enough, even for a painter: he must likewise have sense; and what is sense? Sense drives, or ought to drive, the coach; sense regulates, combines, restrains, commands, all the rest—even the genius; and sense implies exactness and soundness, power and promptitude of mind.
Then for the young doctor, he must have as his main, his master faculty, SENSE—Brains— [Greek] , justness of mind, because his subject-matter is one in which principle works, rather than impulse, as in painting ”

“ That the Poetic Genius is the True Man, and that the Body or Outward Form of Man is derived from the Poetic Genius. Likewise that the Forms of all things are derived from their Genius, which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel and Spirit and Demon. ”

“ The imitation of the ancients was, essential, characteristic, ideal. The first cleared nature of accident, defect, excrescence; the second found the stamen which connects character with the central form; the third raised the whole and the parts to the highest degree of unison. Of genius I shall speak with reserve, for no word has been more indiscriminately confounded; by genius I mean that power which enlarges the circle of human knowledge, which discovers new materials of nature, or combines [5] the known with novelty, whilst talent arranges, cultivates, polishes the discoveries of genius. ”

“ True, language is but the surface of a work of poetic fancy; but if the finger be placed upon the skin, we may feel the throbbing pulse which indicates the heart-beats of the inner being. Genius is like a clock; the visible index is guided by the invisible spring. Genius is like a tangled skein, inextricable and knotted, as it may seem, it is nevertheless inseparably one in its inner coherence. ”

“ Does not any theory of man which loses sight of the supreme sanity of Darwin, and with him of Aristotle, and Angelo, and Leonardo, and Newton, and Leibnitz, and Shakespeare, seem weak and paltry? Do not delicacy of sentiment, brilliancy of wit, fineness of rhythmical and æsthetic sense, the beautiful contributions of the talented special performer, sink into something like apologies—something even like profanation of that name to conjure by, the name of genius? ”

“ How much more comprehensible our great critic becomes when he nobly describes genius, "as the power of mind that collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the energy without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert!" And it is this POWER OF MIND, this primary faculty and native aptitude, which we deem may exist separately from education and habit, since these are often found unaccompanied by genius. ”

“ To have been something, even in childhood, to the formation of a noble nature; to have borne on those slight shoulders half the load of a man’s grand labour; and now to see Genius moving calm in its clear career; and to say inly, ‘Of that genius I am a part!’”
HELEN (sadly and humbly) .—“A part! Oh, no! A part? I don’t understand you.”
VIOLANTE.—“Take the child Beatrice from Dante’s life, and should we have a Dante? What is a poet’s genius but the voice of its emotions? All things in life and in Nature influence genius; but what influences it the most are its own sorrows and affections.” ”

“ Genius, lifting its life to the Ideal becomes itself a pure idea—It must comprehend all existence: all human sins and sufferings—But, in comprehending, it transmutes them—The Poet in his twofold being—The actual and the ideal—The influence of Genius over the sternest realities of earth—Over our passions—wars and superstitions—Its identity is with human progress—Its agency, even where unacknowledged, is universal. ”

“ To all that can be said of the preponderance of the Past, the single word Genius is a sufficient reply. The divine resides in the new. The divine never quotes, but is, and creates. The profound apprehension of the Present is Genius, which makes the Past forgotten. Genius believes its faintest presentiment against the testimony of all history; for it knows that facts are not ultimates, but that a state of mind is the ancestor of everything. ”

“ The different readiness of Apprehension, strength of Judgment, vivacity of Fancy and Imagination, with a more or less active Disposition, and the several Mixtures of which these Powers are capable, are sufficient to explain this. They may shew us how some have a particular Genius for Wit and Humour, others for Thought and Speculation. Whence it is, some love a constant and persevering Application to whatever they undertake; and others are continually jumping from one Thing to another, without finishing any thing at all. ”

“ But who shall evaluate genius? Who, but Genius, is competent to say whether or not it is a fitting dowry for that elusive and fickle Mistress? And though it had stood the test-fire of sacrifice, who is qualified to pronounce it genuine or false? ”

“ In the present state of our knowledge, then, genius must be looked upon as the most signal and impressive manifestation of that tendency of Nature to variation and individuation in her organic formations which modern science is compelled to retain among its unexplained facts. Why we have a Shakespeare, a Michael Angelo, a Goethe here and now, is a question that can not be answered. ”

“ What we call Genius results from this particular happy Complexion in the first Formation of the Person that enjoys it, and is Nature's Gift, but diversify'd by various specifick Characters and Limitations, as its active Fire is blended and allay'd by different Proportions of Phlegm, or reduc'd and regulated by the Contrast of opposite Ferments. Therefore as there happens in the Composition of a facetious Genius a greater or less, tho still an inferior degree of Judgment and Prudence, and different Kinds of Instincts and Passions, one Man of Wit will be vary'd and distinguish'd from another. ”