" I have no idea what
genius is, but so far as I can form any conception about it, I should say
it was a stupid word which cannot be too soon abandoned to scientific and
literary _claqueurs_.
I do not know exactly what Christina expected, but I should imagine it
was something like this: "My children ought to be all geniuses, because
they are mine and Theobald's, and it is naughty of them not to be; but,
of course, they cannot be so good and clever as Theobald and I were, and
if they show signs of being so it will be naughty of them. Happily,
however, they are not this, and yet it is very dreadful that they are
not. As for genius--hoity-toity, indeed--why, a genius should turn
intellectual summersaults as soon as it is born, and none of my children
have yet been able to get into the newspapers. I will not have children
of mine give themselves airs--it is enough for them that Theobald and I
should do so."
She did not know, poor woman, that the true greatness wears an invisible
cloak, under cover of which it goes in and out among men without being
suspected; if its cloak does not conceal it from itself always, and from
all others for many years, its greatness will ere long shrink to very
ordinary dimensions.
Pages:
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170