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.


We are entering into a fairy land, touching only shadows, and chasing the
most changeable lights; many stories we shall hear, and many scenes will
open on us; yet though realities are but dimly to be traced in this
twilight of imagination and tradition, we think that the first impulses of
genius may be often illustrated by the subsequent actions of the
individual; and whenever we find these in perfect harmony, it will be
difficult to convince us that there does not exist a secret connexion
between those first impulses and these last actions.

Can we then trace in the faint lines of his youth an unsteady outline of
the man? In the temperament of genius may we not reasonably look for
certain indications or predispositions, announcing the permanent