Literary Character of Men of Genius. Disraeli Isaac

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to exhibit a minute picture of that age of transition in our national history.

      The titles of CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS and QUARRELS OF AUTHORS do not wholly designate the works, which include a considerable portion of literary history.

      Public favour has encouraged the republication of these various works, which often referred to, have long been difficult to procure. It has been deferred from time to time with the intention of giving the subjects a more enlarged investigation; but I have delayed the task till it cannot be performed. One of the Calamities of Authors falls to my lot, the delicate organ of vision with me has suffered a singular disorder,[A]—a disorder which no oculist by his touch can heal, and no physician by his experience can expound; so much remains concerning the frame of man unrevealed to man!

      In the midst of my library I am as it were distant from it. My unfinished labours, frustrated designs, remain paralysed. In a joyous heat I wander no longer through the wide circuit before me. The "strucken deer" has the sad privilege to weep when he lies down, perhaps no more to course amid those far-distant woods where once he sought to range.

      [Footnote A: I record my literary calamity as a warning to my sedentary brothers. When my eyes dwell on any object, or whenever they are closed, there appear on a bluish film a number of mathematical squares, which are the reflection of the fine network of the retina, succeeded by blotches which subside into printed characters, apparently forming distinct words, arranged in straight lines as in a printed book; the monosyllables are often legible. This is the process of a few seconds. It is remarkable that the usual power of the eye is not injured or diminished for distant objects, while those near are clouded over.]

      Although thus compelled to refrain in a great measure from all mental labour, and incapacitated from the use of the pen and the book, these works, notwithstanding, have received many important corrections, having been read over to me with critical precision.

      Amid this partial darkness I am not left without a distant hope, nor a present consolation; and to HER who has so often lent to me the light of her eyes, the intelligence of her voice, and the careful work of her hand, the author must ever owe "the debt immense" of paternal gratitude.

CONTENTS. PAGE

       Table of Contents

      INTRODUCTION 3

      CHAPTER I.

      Of literary characters, and of the lovers of literature and art. 11

      CHAPTER II.

      Of the adversaries of literary men among themselves.—Matter-of-fact men, and men of wit.—The political economists.—Of those who abandon their studies.—Men in office.—The arbiters of public opinion.—Those who treat the pursuits of literature with levity. 14

      CHAPTER III.

      Of artists, in the history of men of literary genius.—Their habits and pursuits analogous.—The nature of their genius is similar in their distinct works.—Shown by their parallel areas, and by a common end pursued by both. 20

      CHAPTER IV.

      Of natural genius.—Minds constitutionally different cannot have an equal aptitude.—Genius not the result of habit and education.— Originates in peculiar qualities of the mind.—The predisposition of genius.—A substitution for the white paper of Locke. 24

      CHAPTER V.

      Youth of genius.—Its first impulses may be illustrated by its subsequent actions.—Parents have another association of the man of genius than we.—Of genius, its first habits.—Its melancholy. —Its reveries.—Its love of solitude.—Its disposition to repose. —Of a youth distinguished by his equals.—Feebleness of its first attempts.—Of genius not discoverable even in manhood.—The education of the youth may not be that of his genius.—An unsettled impulse, querulous till it finds its true occupation.—With some, curiosity as intense a faculty as invention.—What the youth first applies to is commonly his delight afterwards.—Facts of the decisive character of genius. 31

      CHAPTER VI.

      The first studies.—The self-educated are marked by stubborn peculiarities.—Their errors.—Their improvement from the neglect or contempt they incur.—The history of self-education in Moses Mendelssohn.—Friends usually prejudicial in the youth of genius. —A remarkable interview between Petrarch in his first studies, and his literary adviser.—Exhortation. 55

      CHAPTER VII.

      Of the irritability of genius.—Genius in society often in a state of suffering.—Equality of temper more prevalent among men of letters.—Of the occupation of making a great name.—Anxieties of the most successful.—Of the inventors.—Writers of learning.— Writers of taste. —Artists. 69

      CHAPTER VIII.

      The spirit of literature and the spirit of society.—The inventors. —Society offers seduction and not reward to men of genius.—The notions of persons of fashion of men of genius.—The habitudes of the man of genius distinct from those of the man of society.— Study, meditation, and enthusiasm, the progress of genius.—The disagreement between the men of the world and the literary character. 89

      CHAPTER IX.

      Conversations of men of genius.—Their deficient agreeableness may result from qualities which conduce to their greatness.—Slow-minded men not the dullest.—The conversationists not the ablest writers. —Their true excellence in conversation consists of associations with their pursuits. 99

      CHAPTER X.

      Literary solitude.—Its necessity.—Its pleasures.—Of visitors by profession.—Its inconveniences. 109

      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. 116

      CHAPTER XII.

      The enthusiasm of genius.—A state of mind resembling a waking dream distinct from reverie.—The ideal presence distinguished from the real presence.—The senses are really affected in the ideal world, proved by a variety of instances.—Of the rapture or sensation СКАЧАТЬ