Genius in Sunshine and Shadow

by Maturin M. Ballou

Erasmus, the Dutch scholar and philosopher, defrauded of his patrimony while an orphan of tender years, devoted himself to learning, and cheerfully submitted to every deprivation to secure it. While pursuing his studies in Paris he was clothed in rags, and his form was cadaverous from want of food. It was at this time that he wrote to a friend, "As soon as I get any money, I will buy first Greek books and then clothes." Thus nurtured in the school of adversity, he rose to a proud distinction; and to him, more than to any other writer, was attributed the success of the Reformation,—it being expressively remarked that he laid the egg which Luther hatched. If it be true that an atmosphere of hardship is necessary to the nurture of genius, then certainly Erasmus encountered the requisite discipline; but as Dr. Johnson says in his epigrammatic way, "there is a frightful interval between the seed and the timber." Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may ripen. Thus fame may follow, but seldom is contemporary; nor does true genius fail to recognize this. Milton's ambition, to use his own words, was, "to leave something, so written, to after ages that they should not willingly let it die;" and Cato said he had rather posterity should inquire why no statues were erected to him, than why they were. Motherwell calls fame "a flower upon a dead man's heart." Were it otherwise, were fame contemporary, it would be but the breath of popular applause, the shallowest phase of reputation. "I always distrust the accounts of eminent men by their contemporaries," says Samuel Rogers. "None of us has any reason to slander Homer or Julius Caesar; but we find it difficult to divest ourselves of prejudices when we are writing about persons with whom we have been acquainted."

It is tears which wash the eyes of poor humanity, and enable it to see the previously invisible land of beauty; it is threshing which separates the wheat from the chaff; every ripened genius has passed its Gethsemane hours. "The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough!" says Carlyle. Izaak Walton, the delightful biographer and charming miscellaneous writer, was an humble hosier in London in early life. It was sorrow caused by the death of his wife and children in the stived quarters of a poor city tradesman, which led him finally to turn his back upon the great metropolis and seek a home in the country. What seemed to him to be "dim funereal tapers," proved to be "heaven's distant lamps." Influenced by the inspiring surroundings of Nature, he produced his "Complete Angler;" of which Charles Lamb said, "It might sweeten a man's temper at any time to read it," and which modern criticism has pronounced one of the best pastorals in the English language. Spenser, author of the "Faerie Queene," of whose birth little is known, died in great destitution, though he was buried near Chaucer in Westminster Abbey. Of his poetry Campbell says: "He threw the soul of harmony into our verse, and made it more warmly, tenderly, and magnificently descriptive than it ever was before, or, with a few exceptions, it has ever been since." The best critics agree that the originality and richness of his allegorical personages vie with the splendor of ancient mythology.

Let us not forget to speak of Schiller in his early indigence and distress, wanting friends and wanting bread, but yet bravely fighting the battle of life. The humble cottage is still extant, near Leipsic, where he wrote the "Song of Joy" in those trying days.[118] We recall Crabbe, stern poet of life's strivings and hardships, reduced to the verge of starvation, and only relieved by the noble charity of Edmund Burke; and Otway, one of the most admirable of English dramatists, author of "Venice Preserved," choked to death by the crust of bread he eagerly swallowed when weakened by famine. Butler, the author of "Hudibras,"[119] died in poverty in a London garret. Santara, the famous French painter, died neglected and penniless in a pauper hospital. Andrea del Sarto labored hard and patiently at a tailor's bench to procure the means of pursuing art; and Benvenuto Cellini[120] languished in the dungeons of San Angelo.

We have spoken of De Foe in prison, he who produced two hundred volumes, yet died insolvent. Dr. Johnson said there was never anything written by man that was wished longer by its readers, except "Don Quixote," "Robinson Crusoe," and "Pilgrim's Progress." The author of "Robinson Crusoe" says of himself: "I have gone through a life of wonders, and am the subject of a great variety of providences. I have been fed more by miracles than Elijah when the ravens were his purveyors. In the school of affliction I have learned more philosophy than at the academy, and more divinity than from the pulpit. In prison I have learned that liberty does not consist in open doors and the egress and regress of locomotion. I have seen the rough side of the world as well as the smooth, and have in less than half a year tasted the difference between the closet of a king and the dungeon of Newgate." "Talent is often to be envied," says Holmes, "and genius very commonly to be pitied; it stands twice the chance of the other of dying in a hospital, in jail, in debt, in bad repute."

The example of Robert Greene's life carries with it an impressive moral. He was well educated, taking his degree at Cambridge, England, and was a successful playwright and poet; but he was also improvident and reckless in his life, exhibiting more than the usual eccentricities of genius. He squandered his patrimony in dissipation, and died in great poverty. His last book, "The Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance," is a book both curious and rare.[121]

With all his dissipated proclivities, Henry Fielding had much more genius than Robert Greene. He too was constantly poor through his own recklessness. Lady Montagu, who was a kinswoman of his, said: "He was always wanting money, and would have wanted it had his hereditary lands been as extensive as his imagination." And yet he was a marvel of industry, ever slaving with the pen, writing often under excruciating pain, and producing his most famous work, "Tom Jones," as has been said, with an ache and a pain to every sentence. He was, as usual, very short of money when this work was finished, and tried to sell it to a second-class publisher for twenty-five pounds. Thomson the poet heard of this from Fielding, and told him to come to Miller the book-publisher. This individual gave it to his wife to read, and she bade him to secure it by all means; so the publisher offered the impecunious author two hundred guineas for it, and the bargain was closed, to the entire satisfaction of both parties.[122] Critics have remarked upon the similarity between Steele and Fielding, though attributing the greater genius and learning to the latter. They were certainly alike in one respect; namely, as regarded a chronic state of impecuniosity.

Fielding said of himself that he had no choice but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman for a living. His genius deserved a better fate. Owing to his poverty he was forced to throw upon the market many productions which he had much better have thrown into the fire. Fortunately, in literature it is the rule that the unworthy perishes, and only the good remains. Many of Fielding's works have a just and lasting fame, and no library is complete without them. In spite of his many imperfections, which made brusque Dr. Johnson refuse to sit at table with him, there was much that was fine and lovable in Harry Fielding,—truthful, generous to a fault, and with wit and wisdom marvellously combined. Gibbon, speaking of his own genealogy, refers to the fact of Fielding being of the same family as the Earl of Denbigh, who, in common with the imperial family of Austria, is descended from the celebrated Rodolph of Hapsburg. "While one branch," he says, "have contented themselves with being sheriffs of Leicestershire and justices of the peace, the other has furnished emperors of Germany and kings of Spain; but the magnificent romance of 'Tom Jones' will be read with pleasure when the palace of the Escurial is in ruins and the imperial eagle of Austria is rolling in the dust."