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Friday, April 18, 1913.
THE ELO.N COLLEG.E W E E.K T. Y .
THE LONELINESS OF GENIUS.
Beautiful Essay Presented By Miss LiUiaa Johnson at Psiphelian Entertainment.
Peerless and cloudless Mont Blanc environment, particularly economic and
towers in silence and sublimity above the social conditions cause genius to fo ow
Hundred Alpine peaks that surround it. their certa.n bent. Dryden has said:
The eagle called by the Greeks the lone “Genius must-be born and never can
fiver- soars conipanionless and alone taught. i ’
over’the whiteeapped mountatins of the Mon of genius like all other hu-
man beings have their faults. They are
^‘He'^cksped the crag with crooked hands often careless of social duties and have
(TortoThe sun in lonely lands but few friends. Solitude reigns on the
King’d with the azure world he stands summits. There is often fo.md a lack o
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; kindliness among groat men, envy and
He watches from liis mountain walls, fear of bemg ^upplanted a^^gments jea -
And like a thunder-bolt he falls.” ousy and discord. Dean bvvitt s stin^
, ...uaHips;"; is ii'g sarcasm caused him many lonely
“Liittleness is nassion- hours and the bitterness of being almost
solitary.” The man o ge J" friendless. Pride is an important trait
tossed by an innate power «eeks fellow- ^
ship in the deep untroi ( en si.ence o wound traditional customs, to
, bring in new ideas, to destroy cherished
What is genius? Exalted intellectual overturn old idols. The work
))Ower capable of operating independent ? ^ genius is long and arduous. When
of tuition, an extra-ordinary faculty or ^ enters his mind nothing ex
original creation and achievement? u
is that all? Is it of the heart innate, soul- ijg solving some
1)orn and incommunicabje ? Some ihave pj.p]j]gjj, importance, leaving home one
thought it to be a combination of inher- wrote upon his door the following:
ited qualities and the outcome of collec- jg ^111 not return this
tive experiences of previous states of ex- n j^jj^ut an hour afterwards he
istence in this or other worlds. Is it a seeing the writing he took
happy medium between the gods and man, ^ visitor and went again not
that we must worship blindly at its -^YYien the pe-
thronfi? At any rate w’e are led to the meditation is over genius can as-
conclusion that genuius is volitional, in- duties of ordinary life and be
tuitive power and implies penetration and envied for his brilliant qual-
. _ I? 4-U« »-vrt«TC»^ rtf CAP-
roneentration of mind; the power of see- .
ities.
Some one has said that it is cbara«*ter-
into things, and a wide mental rang^e,
« vision of the dawn. Genius beholds and ^ ,„div-idually
understands conditions with tew ideals possible from the rest of the
It solves the problems of great momen Oftentimes it feels -a depressing
in the twinkling of an eye. It rings u mivvorthiness. Shakespere said:
ty out of multiplicity, order out o^ con world should task you to re
fusion, harmony out of discord and light ^
iiut of darkness. It can brin^ into Ian lived in me, that you should love,
5;uage the silence and emotion ° ® niy death, dear love, forget me quite
Genius by insdnct withdraws rom e ppoyg >■
gaities of social life and the crow e geniuses have a particular aversion to
haunts of men. We do not find genius rp^gy jggj jjj^g ^j^gy j^j.g
altogether inherent in the homes o e ^^^g^ toward them and are making some
rich and great, nor in courts, nor pa aces, criticism. Often they are distrust-
iior classic halls, but as often in the log
iOfiT
ful of their fellow men. It is said that
cabin and the humble home. ® Tchaikousky, the great Russian musician
cell at Bedford, the chamber of in ness j^g participated in the table d’hote
in London, from Sinai s slope an e ^ foreign hotel, fancied that every one
shores of Gennesaret have come t e table looked at him with abhorrence
jrrandest truths e\er diso\eied, tie j^g jj^g effrontery to force
deepest emotions e\er felt, the su) mies their noble company,
conceptions ever born. Loneliness in men of genius is caused
“The ancients defied genius, today we -^y gQpgriority in endowment and delicacy
venerate it. All genius deserves homage organism. The iworld misinterprets
and that which is neither fortified by he- j|^g thoughts and feelings of men held to
I'oism nor protected by good fortune de- j,,. successful. They are praised, con
serves something more it is entitled to oralulated and envied when they feel far-
lireathing room, to patronage, to kind- u,f,re the need of a sympathetic hand-
ness, to encouragement.” shake and even the need of compasion.
“Not oft near home does genius bright- It is often in the most brilliant success
ly shine.” that weakness and loneliness are more
No more than precious stones while in the keenly felt. We reserve our sympathy for
mine.” those who fail; for those who are afflict-
The determining causes of genius have ed, yet the successful often needs our
V)een found to be due to a combination of sympathy more. A man once replied to
individual tendencies with a strong sen- a friend who had asked him if it were not
sorial impression made during adolescence a great satisfaction to have attained to
and not to hereditary and surrounding in- such p-eatness. “Do you know” he said,
fluences as was once thought. Poe, An- “I think it rather the other way. To have
gelo and Picardo furnish excellent proof reached a certain standard entails upon
of this statement. Sometimes surround- necessity of seeing that one never
ing influences with a predisposition and falls below it, and it is more depressing,
heriditary transmission determine the ^ think to fail where one has once suc-
form that genius shall take. Sometimes needed than never to have succeeded at
all.' ’ It hurts to fail but worse even than
that is the isolation which undoubted and
unquestioned success often in itself con
demns in man. He can depend on no
one, he can take counsel with no one, none
can help or sustain him; he is surrounded
witl) envy when he yearns for sympathy
lie is praised for strength when he desires
to confess his weakness. “Lord Byron’s
life was made up of the wildest extremes
and antagonism. His nature warred with
its environments and his environments
mocked his nature. The springs of his
life were early embittered, and he felt
alone in a hostile world. Born amid ene
mies lie died amid strangers. A lyre so
finely strung could not be so roughly
swept and no string be broken.” Our
American Bryant had the temperament
and nature of a delicate girl. In the great
c:ties he was as a trembling faun in the
uncouth denizens of the farm-yard; a
frail plant in the Sharp thistles and
stunted oaks of a northern clime. The
untimely death of Poe came as he lived,
alone, and the brightest genius of Amer
ican Literature went out in the great un
known, in whose firmament there shone
no star. But these men of genius are in
sulated more by their fineness of intellect
and t'heir superlative sensitiveness than
by neglect of the world. Their keenest
grief is often utter absence of friends
who are sympathetic. From Gray’s Epi-
laph we read “He gained from Heaven—
‘twas all he wished—a friend.” Yes! that
is il, they all have admirers, patrons and
flatterers, but how few have real friends!
And without friends men of genius are
more alone in crowded thorough-fares or
parlors of a metropolis than by the sullen
crater of Aetaa or the voiceless shores of
the Arctic sea.
Loneliness not only results from the na
ture of genius hut enhances its power. It
deepens and intensifies emotion; it gives
tlie soul self knowledge. In the thick
darkness and deep silence we come to a
sense of true values and right propor
tions. It counteracts the undecided and
dispersive influence of society. Dickens
by mingling too much in society brought
his literary career to an untimely end. By
separation and loneliness the saints dis
covered the individuality of spirit, the
unity of life, the breath which animates
all worlds, “Now I return to the source
where I came forth” said Plotinus dy
ing, “The flight of the alone to the
alone.” “In whose words are summed
up that sense that comes only to those
who have lived inward lives. Even
hence in our clay built | rison the listener
may now and again hear the distant si
lence of eternity, as in emerging from a
great city into the lonely mountain fast
nesses when we strain our ears to listen
to the great, unbroken quiet, the vast ex
panse of stillness.” It was in the thick
still darkness that Moses heard the voice
of God—Again it was in the still night
time that the little boy, Samuel, heard
the voice call. No great religious teach
ers or reformers has ever yet escaped the
fasting and temptation in the wilderness.
St. Paul himself the most protestant of
all the apostles, the most modern minded
mind in the Bible submitted to the aus
terities of solitude during three years of
lonely preparation in Arabia for the great
work he was to do. In recounting his
vision to the Galatians he writes: “Imm'
diately I conferred not with flesh and
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blood; neither went I up to Jerusalem to
them that were apostles before me, but I
went into Arabia.” Such it always is
when men of genius escape the sordid life
and reach the sphere of a gra^fler, nobler
purer loneliness in which they attain to
the ideal.
This world would be common place in
deed and drift into hopeless ruts were it
not for the men of genius and their min
istry to the children of men. Yet they
seem like Burns to be of a nobler fa
ambassador from the courts of a
?pliere and estranged from the worl’_,
the peculiarity of their nature and !•> ,
sion. The Scottish lad mingled in i-,
busiest scenes of life at the plow *
simple peasants, at the board of Ediw>^
bureh's nobility. Yet he stands “among\^
thi'jn, but not of them, in a shroud of h
thoughts which arejiot their thoughts.”
“Great men exist that they may be great-
cr men. The destiny of organised nature
is 1 meloriation and who can set its lim- ^
its. It is for man to tame the choas. On
every side whilst he lives to scatter the/
seeds of science and of song, that cli/
mate, animals , and men, may be milder ana
the charms of love and benefit may b4
multiplied, by those God fearing men on_^r‘
whom abides “The light that never
on land or sea!”
brighten the
threads of purp!
dwell companioi
aiigels of light
the lowliest va i
the doors ineffay
of that gold'
awaits.
It is they
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