late in the world and in Italy. To have done something, it was necessary
that I should have had an education analogous to my pursuits, and at your
age." This class of the _late-learned_ is a useful distinction. It is so
with a sister-art; one of the greatest musicians of our country assures
me that the ear is as latent with many; there are the late-learned even
in the musical world. BUDÆUS declared that he was both "self-taught and
late-taught."

The SELF-EDUCATED are marked by stubborn peculiarities. Often abounding
with talent, but rarely with talent in its place, their native prodigality
has to dread a plethora of genius and a delirium of wit: or else, hard but
irregular students rich in acquisition, they find how their huddled
knowledge, like corn heaped in a granary, for want of ventilation and
stirring, perishes in its own masses. Not having attended to the process
of their own minds, and little acquainted with that of other men, they
cannot throw out their intractable knowledge, nor with sympathy awaken by
its softening touches the thoughts of others. To conduct their native
impulse, which had all along driven them, is a secret not always
discovered, or else discovered late in life. Hence it has happened with
some of this race, that their first work has not announced genius, and
their last is stamped with it. Some are often judged by their first
work, and when they have surpassed themselves, it is long ere it is
acknowledged. They have improved themselves by the very neglect or even
contempt which their unfortunate efforts were doomed to meet; and when
once they have learned what is beautiful, they discover a living but
unsuspected source in their own wild but unregarded originality. Glorying
in their strength at the time that they are betraying their weakness, yet
are they still mighty in that enthusiasm which is only disciplined by its
own fierce habits. Never can the native faculty of genius with its
creative warmth be crushed out of the human soul; it will work itself out