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Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions by Isaac Disraeli
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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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