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24
Hereditary Genius
too much stress on apparent specialities, thinking overrashly that, because a
man is devoted to some particular pursuit, he could not possibly have
succeeded in anything else. They might just as well say that, because a
youth had fallen desperately in love with a brunette, he could not possibly
have fallen in love with a blonde. He may or may not have more natural
liking for the former type of beauty than the latter, but it is as probable as
not that the affair was mainly or wholly due to a general amorousness of
disposition. It is just the same “with special pursuits. A gifted man is often
capricious and fickle before he selects his occupation, but when it has been
chosen, he devotes himself to it with a truly passionate ardour. After a man
of genius has selected his hobby, and so adapted himself to it as to seem
unfitted for any other occupation in life, and to be possessed of but one
special aptitude, I often notice, with admiration, how well he bears himself
when circumstances suddenly thrust him into a strange position. He will
display an insight into new conditions, and a power of dealing with them,
with which even his most intimate friends were unprepared to accredit him.
Many a presumptuous fool has mistaken indifference and neglect for
incapacity; and in trying to throw a man of genius on ground where he was
unprepared for attack, has himself received a most severe and unexpected
fall. I am sure that no one who has had the privilege of mixing in the society
of the abler men of any great capital, or who is acquainted with the
biographies of the heroes of history, can doubt the existence of grand
human animals, of natures pre-eminently noble, of individuals born to be
kings of men. I have been conscious of no slight misgiving that I was
committing a kind of sacrilege whenever, in the preparation of materials for
this book, I had occasion to take the measurement of modern intellects
vastly superior to my own, or to criticise the genius of the most magnificent
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