—Je les vois, victimes du génie,
Au foible prix d'un éclat passager,
Vivre isolés, sans jouir de la vie!
Vingt ans d'ennuis pour quelques jours de gloire.
Such are the necessity, the pleasures, and the inconveniences of solitude! It ceases to be a question whether men of genius should blend with the masses of society; for whether in solitude, or in the world, of all others they must learn to live with themselves. It is in the world that they borrow the sparks of thought that fly upwards and perish but the flame of genius can only be lighted in their own solitary breast.
[Footnote A: See the article on Cowley in "Calamities of Authors.">[
CHAPTER XI.
The meditations of genius.—A work on the art of meditation not yet produced.—Predisposing the mind.—Imagination awakens imagination. —Generating feelings by music.—Slight habits.—Darkness and silence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vivacity of our conceptions.—The arts of memory.—Memory the foundation of genius. —Inventions by several to preserve their own moral and literary character.—And to assist their studies.—The meditations of genius depend on habit.—Of the night-time.—A day of meditation should precede a day of composition.—Works of magnitude from slight conceptions.—Of thoughts never written.—The art of meditation exercised at all hours and places. —Continuity of attention the source of philosophical discoveries. —Stillness of meditation the first state of existence in genius.
A continuity of attention, a patient quietness of mind, forms one of the characteristics of genius. To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius—the men of reasoning and the men of imagination. There is a thread in our thoughts, as there is a pulse in our hearts; he who can hold the one, knows how to think; and he who can move the other, knows how to feel.
A work on the art of meditation has not yet been produced; yet such a work might prove of immense advantage to him who never happened to have more than one solitary idea. The pursuit of a single principle has produced a great system. Thus probably we owe ADAM SMITH to the French economists. And a loose hint has conducted to a new discovery. Thus GIRARD, taking advantage of an idea first started by Fenelon, produced his "Synonymes." But while, in every manual art, every great workman improves on his predecessor, of the art of the mind, notwithstanding the facility of practice, and our incessant experience, millions are yet ignorant of the first rudiments; and men of genius themselves are rarely acquainted with the materials they are working on. Certain constituent principles of the mind itself, which the study of metaphysics curiously developes, offer many important regulations in this desirable art. We may even suspect, since men of genius in the present age have confided to us the secrets of their studies, that this art may be carried on by more obvious means than at first would appear, and even by mechanical contrivances and practical habits. A mind well organised may be regulated by a single contrivance, as by a bit of lead we govern the fine machinery by which we track the flight of time. Many secrets in this art of the mind yet remain as insulated facts, which may hereafter enter into an experimental history.
Johnson has a curious observation on the Mind itself. He thinks it obtains a stationary point, from whence it can never advance, occurring before the middle of life. "When the powers of nature have attained their intended energy, they can be no more advanced. The shrub can never become a tree. Nothing then remains but practice and experience; and perhaps why they do so little may be worth inquiry."[A] The result of this inquiry would probably lay a broader foundation for this art of the mind than we have hitherto possessed, ADAM FERGUSON has expressed himself with sublimity:—"The lustre which man casts around him, like the flame of a meteor, shines only while his motion continues; the moments of rest and of obscurity are the same." What is this art of meditation, but the power of withdrawing ourselves from the world, to view that world moving within ourselves, while we are in repose? As the artist, by an optical instrument, reflects and concentrates the boundless landscape around him, and patiently traces all nature in that small space.
[Footnote A: I recommend the reader to turn to the whole passage, in
Johnson's "Betters to Mrs. Thrale," vol. i. p. 296.]
There is a government of our thoughts. The mind of genius can be made to take a particular disposition or train of ideas. It is a remarkable circumstance in the studies of men of genius, that previous to composition they have often awakened their imagination by the imagination of their favourite masters. By touching a magnet, they become a magnet. A circumstance has been, recorded of GRAY, by Mr. Mathias, "as worthy of all acceptation among the higher votaries of the divine art, when they are assured that Mr. Gray never sate down to compose any poetry without previously, and for a considerable time, reading the works of Spenser." But the circumstance was not unusual with Malherbe, Corneille, and Racine; and the most fervid verses of Homer, and the most tender of Euripides, were often repeated by Milton. Even antiquity exhibits the same exciting intercourse of the mind of genius. Cicero informs us how his eloquence caught inspiration from a constant study of the Latin and Grecian poetry; and it has been recorded of Pompey, who was great even in his youth, that he never undertook any considerable enterprise without animating his genius by having read to him the character of Achilles in the first Iliad; although he acknowledged that the enthusiasm he caught came rather from the poet than the hero. When BOSSUET had to compose a funeral oration, he was accustomed to retire for several days to his study, to ruminate over the pages of Homer; and when asked the reason of this habit, he exclaimed, in these lines—