does it happen to us, venerated readers, not to recognize a man of genius, even when he takes no particular pains to escape detection! A man of genius may be for ten years our next-door neighbor—he may dine in company with us twice a week—his face may be as familiar to our eyes as our arm-chair—his voice to our ears as the click of our parlor-clock—yet we are never more astonished than when all of a sudden, some bright day, it is discovered that our next-door neighbor is—a man of genius. Did you ever hear tell of the life of a man of genius, but what there were numerous witnesses who deposed to the fact, that until, perfidious dissembler, he flared up and set the Thames on fire, they had never seen anything in him—an odd creature, perhaps a good creature—probably a poor creature—But a Man of Genius! They would as soon have suspected him of being the Cham of Tartary! Nay, candid readers, are there not some of you who refuse to the last to recognize the man of genius, till he has paid his penny to Charon, and his passport to immortality has been duly examined by the custom-house officers of Styx! When one half the world drag forth that same next-door neighbor, place him on a pedestal, and have him cried, "O yez! O yez! Found a man of genius! Public property—open to inspection!" does not the other half the world put on its spectacles, turn up their nose, and cry, "That a man of genius, indeed! Pelt him!—pelt him!" Then of course there is a clatter, what the vulgar call "a shindy," round the pedestal. Squeezed by his believers, shied at by his scoffers, the poor man gets horribly mauled about, and drops from the perch in the midst of the row. Then they shovel him over, clap a great stone on his relics, wipe their foreheads, shake hands, compromise the dispute, the one half the world admitting that though he was a genius, he was still an ordinary man; the other half allowing that though he was an ordinary man, he was still a genius. And so on to the next pedestal with its "Hic stet," and the next great stone with its "Hic jacet."
The manager of the Grand Theatrical Exhibition gazed on the blind sailor, and did not know him from Adam!
