GENEROSITY, THOROUGHGOING
Rev. A. J. Potter, the "Fighting Parson" of Texas, tells this:
Holding services at a place one time I took
up a collection for the support of missions.
There was a poor old lady present who I
noticed dropt a $5 gold piece in the hat.
I knew she was very poor and not able to
afford so much, and thought she had intended
to throw in a quarter, but made a
mistake. So next day I met her husband and
said to him: "Look here, your wife put a
$5 gold piece in the hat yesterday; I think
she must have made a mistake." "No, no,"
he replied, "my wife didn't make no mistake.
She don't fling often, but, let me tell you,
when she flings she flings."
It is just such "flings" of the generous
giver that lend "wings" to the
glorious gospel.
(1196)
GENIUS
Oh, some there are with beauty bright,
And they are lust of eyes,
And some who blind us with the mind
Our spirit them defies.
But genius is the great white light
Nor mind nor beauty buys.
And some will play a wanton air
To catch the vagrant soul;
Some find it sweet with dancing feet
To foot it toward the goal;
But he who hears the whirling spheres
Can ne'er again be whole.
Oh, he who hears the whirling spheres
Wher'er his steps have trod,
Has reached the end of human trend;
With wings his feet are shod,
For he has seen, beyond the screen,
Into the face of God.
—Frederick Truesdell, Appleton's Magazine.
(1197)
The cultivated man is not in every case the best reporter. One of the best I ever knew was a man who could not spell four words correctly to save his life, and his verb did not always agree with the subject in person and number; but he always got the fact so exactly, and he saw the picturesque, the interesting, and important aspect of it so vividly, that it was worth another man's while, who possest the knowledge of grammar and spelling, to go over the report and write it out. Now, that was a man who had genius; he had talent the most indubitable, and he got handsomely paid in spite of his lack of grammar.—Charles A. Dana.
(1198)
See Small Beginnings.
GENIUS AND WORK
Edison, when asked his definition of
genius, answered: "Two per cent is genius,
and ninety-eight per cent is hard work."
When asked on another occasion: "Mr.
Edison, don't you believe that genius is inspiration?"
he replied: "No! Genius is
perspiration."
(1199)
GENIUS CAN NOT BE HIDDEN
The author of "Uncle Remus" apparently
succeeded because he did not try. The literary
world and the publishers came to him;
he did not go to them. Here was a young,
unknown, untraveled printer, of narrow
school advantages, tho profitably educated
in the best classics, and possessing, besides,
much curious knowledge of negroes, of dogs,
of horses, of the way of the red stream in
the swamp, and of the folk of the woods.
He had some familiar old stories to tell—so
old and so familiar that no one had thought
them worth while writing down—and he
told them as quietly and as simply as he
talked. But good work, tho hidden away
in an obscure newspaper, gets itself recognized
sooner or later, and one day Harris
received an invitation to write some of his
tales for one of the foremost of American
magazines. He couldn't understand it at all,
but he wrote the stories, among them an account
of the amusing adventures of Br'er
Rabbit, Br'er Fox, and the Tar Baby, which
clinched his literary fame. His tales succeeded
far beyond his expectations, and for
the same reason that made "Æsop's Fables"
an imperishable classic. For they were the
slow fruitage of the wonder, the humor, and
the pathos of a race of primitive storytellers.
They were instinct with those primal
passions which appeal to human nature,
savage and civilized, the world over. (Text.)
Ray Stannard Baker, The Outlook.
(1200)
GENIUS DISCOUNTED
Those who know Goldsmith best had
recognized his genius so little that when he
published "The Traveler" it was difficult to
persuade them that he had written it himself.
He was throughout life the butt of inferior
wits, and in the arts which secured
earthly success was completely distanced by
inferior men, because he had no power of
