was the peasant boy from any temptation in works of a gross and
licentious nature, not only because of the happy ignorance of his rural
life, but because of a more enduring safeguard,--genius! Genius, that,
manly, robust, healthful as it be, is long before it lose its instinctive
Dorian modesty; shamefaced, because so susceptible to glory,--genius,
that loves indeed to dream, but on the violet bank, not the dunghill.
Wherefore, even in the error of the senses, it seeks to escape from the
sensual into worlds of fancy, subtle and refined. But apart from the
passions, true genius is the most practical of all human gifts. Like the
Apollo, whom the Greek worshipped as its type, even Arcady is its exile,
not its home. Soon weary of the dalliance of Tempe, it ascends to its
mission,--the Archer of the silver bow, the guide of the car of light.
Speaking more plainly, genius is the enthusiasm for self-improvement; it
ceases or sleeps the moment it desists from seeking some object which it
believes of value, and by that object it insensibly connects its self-
improvement with the positive advance of the world. At present Lenny's
genius had no bias that was not to the Positive and Useful. It took the
direction natural to its sphere, and the wants therein,--namely, to the
arts which we call mechanical. He wanted to know about steam-engines and
Artesian wells; and to know about them it was necessary to know something
of mechanics and hydrostatics; so he bought popular elementary works on
those mystic sciences, and set all the powers of his mind at work on
experiments.

Noble and generous spirits are ye, who, with small care for fame, and
little reward from pelf, have opened to the intellects of the poor the
portals of wisdom! I honour and revere ye; only do not think ye have
done all that is needful. Consider, I pray ye, whether so good a choice
from the tinker's bag would have been made by a boy whom religion had not
scared from the Pestilent, and genius had not led to the self-improving.