Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions by Isaac Disraeli
page 83 of 636 (13%)
page 83 of 636 (13%)
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daughter. The difference of her fate and mine filled me with profound
grief; my tears hindered me from seeing any longer, and when the palpitations of my heart allowed me to re-ascend the chair, all had disappeared." This scene was a discovery; from that moment Clairon knew no rest, and rejoiced when she could get her mother to confine her in that room. The happy girl was a divinity to the unhappy one, whose susceptible genius imitated her in every gesture and every motion; and Clairon soon showed the effect of her ardent studies. She betrayed in the common intercourse of life, all the graces she had taught herself; she charmed her friends, and even softened her barbarous mother; in a word, the enthusiastic girl was an actress without knowing what an actress was. In this case of the youth of genius, are we to conclude that the accidental view of a young actress practising her studies imparted the character of Clairon? Could a mere chance occurrence have given birth to those faculties which produced a sublime tragedian? In all arts there are talents which may be acquired by imitation and reflection,--and thus far may genius be educated; but there are others which are entirely the result of native sensibility, which often secretly torment the possessor, and which may even be lost from the want of development, dissolved into a state of languor from which many have not recovered. Clairon, before she saw the young actress, and having yet no conception of a theatre--for she had never entered one--had in her soul that latent faculty which creates a dramatic genius. "Had I not felt like Dido," she once exclaimed, "I could not have thus personified her!" The force of impressions received in the warm susceptibility of the childhood of genius, is probably little known to us; but we may perceive them also working in the _moral character_, which frequently discovers itself in childhood, and which manhood cannot always conceal, however it |
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