I asked if real Genius did not know its own resources and husband them.
Margaret thought Genius often attempted more than it could do.
I said a man might have genius and presume, but that if he were a genius I should expect him to be modest. Still, as it must have a crowd of imitators, it might become the father of presumption. The substance creates the shadow.
William Story said no product could be as great as the producing power; but that did not seem to me to touch the point, for the question was not whether Apollo could not give birth to something less than himself, but whether the possession of power could create an unfounded claim to it.
The story of Latona followed.
Henry Hedge said that the word meant concealment.
Margaret thought this very expressive, and said that the isolation which Goethe and other geniuses had been craving since the world began Apollo had no need to seek. His mother was concealment. The oracle was then discussed,—how it was possible to consult it many times and receive each time a different answer,—how it could be bribed, as by Alexander, or would give two answers in one; but nothing very new was said.
I remembered the double answer of the Pythoness to Crœsus when he meditated crossing the Halys. “Thou shalt destroy a great empire,” she said. He thought it was the enemy’s: fate decided it should be his own.
Sophia Ripley thought the oracle belonged to Wisdom rather than Genius.
Margaret said Minerva dwelt in men’s houses. It was necessary a voice from Heaven should speak.