the rare genius and the commonalty of human souls that feel to the quick
all the grandest and divinest things which the rare genius places before
them, sighing within themselves, "This rare genius does but express that
which was previously familiar to us, so far as thought and sentiment
extend"? Nay, the genius itself, however eloquent, never does, never
can, express the whole of the thought or the sentiment it interprets; on
the contrary, the greater the genius is, the more it leaves a something
of incomplete satisfaction on our minds,--it promises so much more than
it performs; it implies so much more than it announces. I am impressed
with the truth of what I thus say in proportion as I re-peruse and
re-study the greatest writers that have come within my narrow range of
reading; and by the greatest writers I mean those who are not exclusively
reasoners (of such I cannot judge), nor mere poets (of whom, so far as
concerns the union of words with music, I ought to be able to judge), but
the few who unite reason and poetry, and appeal at once to the common-
sense of the multitude and the imagination of the few. The highest type
of this union to me is Shakspeare; and I can comprehend the justice of no
criticism on him which does not allow this sense of incomplete
satisfaction augmenting in proportion as the poet soars to his highest.
I ask again, In what consists this distinction between the rare genius
and the commonalty of minds that exclaim, "He expresses what we feel, but
never the whole of what we feel"? Is it the mere power over language, a
larger knowledge of dictionaries, a finer ear for period and cadence, a
more artistic craft in casing our thoughts and sentiments in well-
selected words? Is it true what Buffon says, "that the style is the
man"? Is it true what I am told Goethe said, "Poetry is form"? I cannot
believe this; and if you tell me it is true, then I no longer pine to be
a writer. But if it be not true, explain to me how it is that the
greatest genius is popular in proportion as it makes itself akin to us by
uttering in better words than we employ that which was already within us,