GENIUS AND TALENT. 



343 



is Diana of the Epliesians ! " till the town-clerk comes to disperse 

 them. 



On the other hand, if any bold iconoclast, sick of this perpetual 

 adulatory hero-worship, this fulsome laudation of the divine affla- 

 tus, ventures to hint that genius, after all, does not really differ so 

 much from mere talent — poor but honest and industrious talent 

 — that the distinction is mainly one of degree, not of kind, and 

 that what in its youth was simply called talent grows with time 

 and repute into genuine genius — the orthodox worshipers have al- 

 ways their thunderbolt ready forged to crush and annihilate him. 

 " This fellow," they say, with a toss of the head, " being in very 

 truth a born frog, ventures to maintain that frogs, by dint of in- 

 flation, can puff themselves out to the dignity of oxen, or that at 

 best there is but little difference of size and build between the two 

 species. That is just because he is a mere frog, and jealous of the 

 vast superiority of bovine greatness." To be sure, when the oxen 

 themselves were yet but young bullocks, sporting in the fields, 

 these same orthodox critics would have eagerly contended for 

 their essential f rogginess ; but now that they are full grown and 

 fat, and florally wreathed with sacrificial garlands, as becomes an 

 Apis, the orthodox have forgotten their former recalcitrancy. As 

 of old, the fathers stone the prophets, and the children occupy 

 themselves with building their sepulchres. But let that pass. 

 The point is, that if one tries to put the question as to the nature 

 of genius in its true aspect, one is at once regarded in the invidi- 

 ous light of a modern Zoilus. 



Nevertheless, this question of genius and talent is a truly sci- 

 entific one, a psychological problem, one might almost say, in the 

 wider sense, a matter of anthropometry. It is well that it should 

 be discussed on scientific grounds, without any of the hysterical 

 and inflated verbiage with which geniuses and their biographers 

 have too frequently befogged it. Wherein does genius really 

 consist, and how does it differ from mere talent ? That, simply 

 put, is the net question which we have here categorically to an- 

 swer ; and to anticipate at once the answer forced ujDon me as a 

 humble observer by consideration of the facts, I find at bottom 

 that the two are in ultimate analysis almost identical. Genius is 

 talent either pushed to an exceptionally high degree, or exerted in 

 a very unusual direction, or linked with a rare amount of striking- 

 industry, or dashed with a certain peculiar vein of bizarre origi- 

 nality. In short, it is such talent as makes itself specially re- 

 marked — talent which has in it something of the unique ; while 

 other talent, often equally great or even greater, but lacking in 

 the special element of individuality, remains to the last " mere tal- 

 ent," and never attains to any higher level of public recognition. 



The first form of these four is the one so aptly and bravely 



