Contradicting the assumption that the great men of antiquity were only ordinary normal beings, we must concede the fact that most extraordinary conditions must have existed and, indeed, have been pre-exquisite, before a Greece could have arisen in antiquity, or an Athens in Greece, or a man such as Plato in Athens.
By very nature, the sources of admiration are as mysterious to my mind as the roots of genius. Do we admire what we understand, or what we do not understand? Admiration is of two kinds, of which the more common proceeds from wonder at something which we do not understand. There is, however, an admiration which goes with understanding.
Edgar Poe composed several stories, of which The Goldbug is one, in which an impenetrable enigma is first presented, to be solved afterwards as by a talisman; but, then, a lesson in cryptography ensues, wherein the talisman is explained away, and the miraculous gives place to the reasoning faculties of a mind of unusual power.
He has done something very similar in his poem, The Raven, where the poem is followed by an analysis of its gestation, which is called The Philosophy of Composition. Would it be more remarkable to write The Raven by inspiration, or to write it through conscious skill? To find the hidden treasure through the talisman of The Goldbug, or through the possession of analytical faculties such as those of the protagonist of Poe's tale?
Much consideration will lead to the conclusion that one process is as marvellous as the other.
It may be said that there is nothing miraculous in nature, and it may be said that it is all miraculous.
MY LITERARY AND ARTISTIC INCLINATIONS
Generally speaking, I neither understand old books very well, nor do I care for them—I have been able to read only Shakespeare, and perhaps one or two others, with the interest with which I approach modern writers.
It has sometimes seemed to me that the unreadableness of the older authors might be made the foundation of a philosophic system. Yet I have met with some surprises.
One was that I enjoyed the Odyssey.