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thousands of homes where his face was never seen, shows that his rhetoric had caught an element of power from his early recollections of the independent, hard-headed farmers whom he met when a boy in his father's house. The bodies of these men had become tough and strong in their constant struggle to force scanty harvests from an unfruitful soil, which only persistent toil could compel to yield anything; and their brains, though forcible and clear, were still not stored with the important facts and principles which it was his delight to state and expound. In truth, he ran a race with the demagogues of his time in an attempt to capture such men as these, thinking them the very back-bone of the country. Whether he succeeded or failed, it would be vain to hunt through his works to find a single epithet in which he mentioned them with contempt. He was as incapable of insulting one member of this landed democracy,-sterile as most of their acres were, as of insulting the memory of his father, who belonged to this

class.

Webster's liking for the Saxon element of our composite language was, however, subordinate to his main purpose of self-expression. Every word was good, whether of Saxon or Latin derivation, which aided him. to embody the mood of mind dominant at the time he was speaking or writing. No man had less of what has been called "the ceremonial cleanliness of academical Pharisees"; and the purity of expression he aimed at was to put into a form, at once intelligible and tasteful, his exact thoughts and emotions. He tormented reporters, proof-readers, and the printers who had the misfortune to be engaged in putting one of his performances into type, not because this or that word was or was not Saxon or Latin, but because it was inadequate to convey perfectly his meaning. Mr. Kemble, a great Anglo-Saxon scholar, once, in a company of educated gentlemen, defied anybody present to mention a single Latin phrase in our language for which he could not furnish a more forcible Saxon equivalent. "The impenetrability of matter" was sug gested; and Kemble, after half a minute's reflection, answered, "The un-thorough-fareableness of stuff." Still, no English writer would think of discarding such an abstract, but convenient and accurate, term as "impenetrability" for the coarsely concrete and terribly ponderous word which declares that there is no possible thoroughfare, no road, by which we can penetrate that substance which we call "matter," and which our Saxon forefathers called "stuff." Wherever the Latin element in our language comes in to express ideas and sentiments which were absent from the Anglo-Saxon mind, Webster uses it without stint; and some of the most resounding passages of his eloquence owe to it their strange power to suggest a certain vastness in his intellect and sensibility, which the quaint, idiomatic, homely prose of his friend

Mason would have been utterly incompetent to convey. Still, he preferred a plain, plump, simple verb or noun to any learned phrase, whenever he could employ it without limiting his opulent nature to a meagre vocabulary, incompetent fully to express it.

Yet he never departed from simplicity; that is, he rigidly confined himself to the use of such words as he had earned the right to use. Whenever the report of one of his extemporaneous speeches came before him for revision, he had an instinctive sagacity in detecting every word that had slipped unguardedly from his tongue, which he felt, on reflec tion, did not belong to him. Among the reporters of his speeches he had a particular esteem for Henry J. Raymond, afterwards so well known as the editor of the "New York Times." Mr. Raymond told me that after he had made a report of one of Webster's speeches, and had presented it to him for revision, his conversation with him was always a lesson in rhetoric. "Did I use that phrase? I hope not. At any rate, substitute for it this more accurate definition." And then again: "That word does not express my meaning. Wait a moment, and I will give you a better one. That sentence is slovenly, that image is imperfect and confused. I believe, my young friend, that you have a remarkable power of reporting what I say; but if I said that, and that, and that, it must have been owing to the fact that I caught, in the hurry of the moment, such expressions as I could command at the moment; and you see they do not accurately represent the idea that was in my mind." And thus, Mr. Raymond said, the orator's criticism upon his own speech would go on, correction following correction, until the reporter feared he would not have it ready for the morning edition of his journal.

William Ross Wallace.

BORN in Lexington, Ky., 1819. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1881.

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"Or sit with Afric when her eyes of flame

Smoulder in dreams, beneath their swarthy lids,
Of youthful Sphinx, and kings at loud acclaim
On new-built Pyramids,

"But know thy Highest dwells at Home: there art And choral inspiration spring;

If thou wouldst touch the universal heart,

OF THINE OWN COUNTRY SING."

VOL. VII.-26

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THE

Isaac Mayer Wise.

BORN in Steingrub, Bohemia, 1819.

AN HEBRAIC VIEW OF GENIUS.

[The Cosmic God. 1876.]

HE existence of genius and its appearance at the right place and time is as mysterious as the centre of the universe. Genius is the superior spontaneity of the mind in productive and executive powers. It conceives, not by an act of volition or tiresome reflection, but freely, generously, and unsolicited; it conceives finished and complete thoughts, schemes, designs or images of universal truth, irresistible impulses to execute or realize, utter and promulgate. All this comes like a flash of lightning, unawares and not expected, in words, symbols, visions, or finished thoughts. The ancient Hebrews called it Ruach hak-kodesh, a holy spirit," and modern language names it Genius.

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Talent trims its productions for the public mart, and modifies them to suit its customers; it depends on outward circumstances. Genius is inconsiderate, self-relying, and, like unconscious beauty, without any intention to please. Talent wills, and genius must: it is an internal necessity. Talent is local, genius universal. Talents are acquired, and genius is inborn. The ancient Hebrews looked upon the men of genius as special messengers from on high; therefore the Psalmist sings: "Ye shall not touch my Messiahs, not maltreat my prophets," which is recast in the New Testament thus: "A sin against the Holy Ghost will not be forgiven." (With special reference to Deut., xviii. 18, 19.)

Wherever genius is placed it manifests itself by breaking through the crystallized forms, and pouring forth new creations of the mind, and is therefore the cause of all progressions in history. It is the same genius under all circumstances, although its peculiar manifestations always depend on outer circumstances. It is the same genius, whether among peasants or mechanics, students or poets, painters, sculptors, or architects, in the army, in the legislature or executive council of a nation, in a schoolmaster's chair or a composer's study. Its peculiar manifestations only depend on outward circumstances to throw it upon this or that department of human activity; but it will show everywhere its inventive force and the universality of its character. It is the highest differentiation of the vital force. The same genius which became a prophet in Israel, because the nation's general turn of mind was religious ethical, might have become an apostle of the fine arts, or formal philosophy, in Greece, or become a great statesman or soldier in Rome, a prominent legislator in England, or a successful inventor in this country, simply by the change of external elements giving direction to genius, which remains the same genius under all influences.

Genius is not inherited. All the great geniuses whose names history gratefully recorded stood alone, without a duplicate in their respective genealogies.

Most every genius works against his own will and interests; ninetynine out of each hundred are unhappy and dissatisfied-many miserable, wretched. They feel keener, love profounder, know better, hope and scheme loftier, expect more, are disappointed and mortified more fre quently, find less pleasure in carnal enjoyments, than the generality of people. In consequence of their creative powers they are always at war with existing and stereotyped forms and institutions, consequently in perpetual conflict with the conservative element and selfish motives. But there is in genius that irresistible force; it must-it must pour out the truth conceived, the beauty felt, the goodness admired, careless of all consequences. Therefore the ten thousand martyrs in all depart

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