Ingenuousness

“ The very idea of such a stupendous and miraculous event, involving the hopes and fears, the rewards and punishments, the eternal peace or endless misery of the whole human race, is sufficiently astounding and overwhelming in itself; but when heightened by the most artful and gorgeous imitation that human ingenuity could invent or effect, the impression is beyond description or even conception! ”

“ Look again, as a result of the disturbing force of genius, at the effects of great inventions—how unexpected, complex, subtle, all but miraculous—throwing out alike the path of human history, and the calculations of the student. ”

“ Conception far out-went actual existence and experience. The object of ingenuity appeared to be to enchain and petrify by astonishment more than to allure by pleasure, impel by profit, or guide by wisdom. ”

“ He exemplified rather the talent than the genius of discovery, the patient sagacity which accumulates materials, rather than the fervid enthusiasm which traces the stream of nature's action to its spring, the great Creative Will. ”

“ Forms which were dull and hideous become endowed with grace and beauty, and vegetable existence rises to the scale of celestial life. Then, too, Genius appears clad in a panoply of translucent armour, grasping in his hand the whole terrestrial surface, and making every rood of earth subservient to his purposes;—Genius, the child of civilization, the mother of the Arts! ”

“ But the heavenly saints have been caught up to their home. Is there invention there? Does human ingenuity still work? How can it, if every heart is fully satisfied, and nothing can be improved? But then is all at one dead level? No, surely; for "discovery" shall abide when "invention" has vanished away,—constant, never-ceasing "discovery." The unfoldings, hour by hour, and age by age, of a Beauty that is infinite and inexhaustible,—the tasting a new and entrancing perfection in a Love in which every moment shows some fresh attraction, some new sweet compulsion to praise! ”

“ Almost daily we hear of some new thing, of some triumph of mind over matter, which those who witness it are ready to pronounce the ne plus ultra of human ingenuity. But to-morrow, the ever busy mind of man, acting under the impulse of an age eminently utilitarian, pushes on with its discoveries, and finds more room for improvement: the powers of ingenuity are again taxed with a new idea, and the next day brings forth a plus ultra. ”

“ And I will assert, without fear of contradiction, that no human ingenuity can produce work such as this without pleasure being a third party to the brain that conceived and the hand that fashioned it. ”

“ There she lay, blushing like a wild rose, trembling like its leaves, and smiling in spite of the fears that had so oppressed her—a creature so delicate and frail, that helplessness seemed her portion forever. Could it be possible, that pure genius in a creature like that, might accomplish more than all her strength of life and power of action? Was genius so far above everything else in this world? ”

“ So there are premonitory stirrings, as sweet and inexpressible, in the breast of the heaven-made child of genius. They are its surest sign. Talent grows insensibly, steadily and discreetly. Genius usually has, in early years, a joyous restlessness, a keen, insatiable relish of life ”

“ Departing with a boldness of genius from the systems of his predecessors in the same walks of literature, he delights by his ingenuity, while he astonishes by his courage, and surprises by his novelty. ”

“ The generative profile of that torso helps us to understand, reveals to us the proportions of the world. And the miracle is in this, that the assembled profiles, in the sense of depth, of length, and of width, express, by an incomprehensible magic, the human soul and its passions, and the character that shapes the heart of beings.
13The ancients have obtained by a minimum of gesture, by their modelling, both the individual character and the grace borrowed from grandeur that relates the human form to the forms of the universal life. ”

“ These wonder-working seeds of providence, patiently developing themselves in secret, were soon to burst forth in a wide harvest of change upon the field of human life. Certain men of mechanical genius arose, and their creative dreams wrought together in a mysterious way to the production of extraordinary results. ”

“ Ascending the scale of genius, for the sake of brevity, I pass the architect and mathematician, to say a word of the great mechanical inventor, whom I would place highest of all nature's eccentric and gifted sons. To that beauty or poetry of thought, sound, action, or expression, which constitutes the chief merit of the sons of genius, last under consideration, he adds utility and dignity, and furnishes the means for man's civilization. Could poetry or music be cultivated without mechanical means? ”

“ The versatile ingenium is the most useful of all. It can turn itself instantly from one object to another, assuming the proper manner for each. It can be serious with the grave, cheerful with the gay, and trifling with the frivolous. ”

“ The genius which was to penetrate the science of the age with a far more subtle science; to pass the bounds of space and time, venture into the dim spirit-realm, and attempt to establish a new religion in the world,- began its lessons in quarries and forges, in the smelting-pot and crucible, in ship-yards and dissecting-rooms. ”

“ For when literary, and scientific excellence coincide with that which is of a moral nature, it adds unspeakably to the value of a character. Ingenuity coupled with modesty, and great genius with benevolence and true piety, constitute the perfection of human character, and is what we should ever have in view. ”

“ For how can we imagine a thinker, a poet, an inventor, a hero, a master of science or of art, a genius of any kind, without a mighty ray of those two master-faculties which make the mystic and the occultist—the inner vision and the sovereign intuition. ”

“ The mad strain which, in the case of greatly gifted people, has often seemed to be the [185] motive power of genius, in him took the form of a great cleverness,—an esoteric cleverness and ingenuity added to the sailor's dexterity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As creations of genius, they are indeed sublime; and when a coach is seen creeping over the one, in bigness as it were a fly; or when a railway train thunders through the other, and yet seems in comparison with it a mere toy, as it emerges and smokes along its way, one gets an idea of the immensity of each conception, which invests mechanic art with something like the attractive splendours of the painting and the poem. ”

“ In its pages the wonder tales and wonder facts meet and resolve; realism and idealism are joined—above all, there is a mystery no critic may solve. It is useless to criticize genius or a miracle, except to increase its wonder. ”

“ And this riddle of riddles we discover in the fact that a mere piece of mechanical craft can become an instrument one with our life, which enables us to follow, as through a flash of lightning, a power of ideal conception no less than execution, by virtue of which the imagination of genius penetrates to the core of life as instantaneously as it vanishes therefrom. ”

“ I see multitudes of examples of persons of genius, utterly deficient in grace and the power of pleasurable excitement. I wish to combine both. I know the obstacles in my way. I am wanting in that intuitive tact and polish, which nature has bestowed upon some, but which I must acquire. And, on the other hand, my powers of intellect, though sufficient, I suppose, are not well disciplined. Yet all such hindrances may be overcome by an ardent spirit. ”

“ If he has sensibility and taste, the magnificence, the graceful union of so many diverse inventions of art, the whole mighty creation of genius that quitted the world without leaving even a name, will come with magical impression on his mind, while it is contemplatively darkening into the awe of antiquity. ”

“ But I should be more proud of having imitated, however faintly, weakly, and at a distance, so masterly a pattern, than to enjoy the entire merit of invention, unless I could have marked my work with genius as well as with originality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For ought not true art to work upon us like a higher Nature, without putting forth much ingenuity and subtilty, without all that complication of poetical affinities and philosophical finesse? No, it should be simple and plain, but purified by the flame of genius from all weakness, all defects, and every kind of wretchedness. ”

“ The same feeling is at work, as we have already pointed out, in decorative art; in which 'a redundancy of useless or ridiculous ornament is called richness, and the inability to appreciate simple and beautiful, or grand and noble forms, receives the name of genius.' The connection is curious, likewise, between this ingenuity of poetry and that of the machinery which gives a distinguishing character to our epoch. ”

“ Out of his theme, patiently, deftly, ingeniously he extracted every atom of that beauty, sanity, inspired imagination which makes the imperfect more perfect, creates better than the materials permit, forces real life actually to assume and be what the passionate desire for sanity and beauty demands. ”

“ It seemed, two or three years ago, that the limit of mystification had been reached—that this comedy of errors could not be carried further; but human ingenuity is inexhaustible, and we now have whole schools, Cubists, Futurists, and the like, who joyously vie with each other in the creation of incredible pictures and of irreconcilable and incomprehensible theories. ”

“ Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. ”

“ There being, then, in "religion" a strong sensual element, ingenuity has been exercised to a wonderful extent in the contrivance of designs, nearly or remotely significant of this idea, or rather union of the conceptions to which we have referred. ”

“ All the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot make two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make hundreds of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in education and aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in a living robe of passionate flesh—how are you going to make them think and feel alike? ”

“ Taking genius, then, as synonymous with great inventor, accepting it de facto historically and psychologically, our task is limited to the attempt to separate characters that seem, from observation and experiment, to belong to it as peculiarly its own. ”

“ His cleverness began to prompt him; to show him how easily he could write rhymes much more pointed, much more witty, and considerably more harmful, than the majority of these coarse, imbecile jingles; his genius, which was the power beyond, held his mind back, and said: “Keep these powers holy for me.” ”

“ The difference, however, between the genius and the ingenium, is not very material; as the ingenium or disposition, was supposed by the ancients to be prompted by the genius, or tutelar spirit, who presided over and directed all the actions of mankind. ”

“ Talent has lined the walls with a hundred clever things, and could line miles of surface; genius gives us but one example, and the clever things are silenced. Here is the difference between that which expresses a noble idea, and that which is dexterously conventional. ”

“ It can classify and arrange, but it can never discover or invent. Talent can understand and admire the mechanical powers; Genius puts them in harness, and makes them traverse land and sea to do his bidding. ”

“ Among the maxims, called triads, which have come down to us from the Celtic bards, we find this: "The three primary requisites of genius,—an eye that can see nature; a heart that can feel nature; and boldness that dares follow nature." ”

“ Talent is measured and mathematical—dominated by prudence and the thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems.
Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the Greeks, and the music of Wagner. ”

“ His genius, to which madness had come as the liberating, the precipitating, spirit, disengaging its finer essence, consisted in a power of materialising vision, whatever is most volatile and unseizable in vision and without losing the sense of mystery, or that quality which gives its charm to the intangible. ”

“ Invention has ever imagination and poetry at its heart. ”

“ Being such, it has the infrequence that marks all excellence, both in life and its mirrored reflection. There is much of an unsatiric and subintellectual order, the kind that comes from ingenuity and cunning, and takes the shape of pranks and jests for the fun of them ”