But is it not the very essence of genius, as it is the peculiarity of
instinct, to spring from the depths of the invisible?

Yet who shall say what stores of thought unspoken, what unknown treasures
of observation never to be communicated, what patient reflections
unuttered, may be housed in those toil-worn brains, in which, perhaps,
slowly and obscurely, accumulate the germs of faculties and talents by
which some more favoured descendant may one day benefit? How many poets
have died unpublished or unperceived, in whom only the power of expression
was lacking!

When he was seven years old his parents recalled him to Saint-Léons, in
order to send him to the school kept by his godfather, Pierre Ricard, the
village schoolmaster, "at once barber, bellringer, and singer in the
choir." Rembrandt, Teniers, nor Van Ostade never painted anything more
picturesque than the room which served at the same time as kitchen,
refectory, and bedroom, with "halfpenny prints papering the walls" and "a
huge chimney, for which each had to bring his log of a morning in order to
enjoy the right to a place at the fireside."

He was never to forget these beloved places, blessed scenes of his
childhood, amid which he grew up like a little savage, and through all his
material sufferings, all his hours of bitterness, and even in the
resignation of age, their idyllic memory sufficed to make his life
fragrant. He would always see the humble paternal garden, the brook where
he used to surprise the crayfish, the ash-tree in which he found his first
goldfinch's nest, and "the flat stone on which he heard, for the first
time, the mellow ringing of the bellringer frog." (1/4.) Later, when
writing to his brother, he was to recall the good days of still careless