Genius
The greatest results in life are
attained by simple means, and the exercise of ordinary qualities. The common
life of every day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords ample
opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind; and 41. its most
beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room for
self-improvement. 42. The road of human welfare lies along the old
highway of steadfast well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and
work in the truest: spirit, will usually be the most successful.
Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not so
blind as men are. 43. Those who look into practical life will find that
fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on
the side of the best navigators. In the pursuit of even the highest branches
of human inquiry, the commoner qualities are found the most useful, such as
common sense, attention, application, and perseverance.
Genius
may not be necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain
the use of these ordinary qualities. 44. The very greatest men have been
among the least believers in the power of genius, and as worldly wise and
persevering as successful men of the commoner sort. 45. Some have even
defined genius to be only common sense intensified. A distinguished teacher
and president of a college spoke of it as the power of making efforts. John
Foster held it to be the power of lighting one’s own fire. Buffon said of genius
"it is patience".