Frank, although as noble a fellow as ever sat a horse, is yet--you
cannot help thinking--very ignorant of Euripides; even the English
master at Dr. Bidlow's school, you feel sure, would balk at a dozen
problems you could give him.
You get an exalted idea of that uncertain quality which turns the heads
of a vast many of your fellows, called--Genius. An odd notion seems to
be inherent in the atmosphere of those college chambers, that there is a
certain faculty of mind--first developed, as would seem, in
colleges--which accomplishes whatever it chooses without any special
painstaking. For a time you fall yourself into this very unfortunate
hallucination; you cultivate it after the usual college fashion, by
drinking a vast deal of strong coffee and whiskey-toddy, by writing a
little poor verse in the Byronic temper, and by studying very late at
night with closed blinds.
It costs you however more anxiety and hypocrisy than you could possibly
have believed.
----You will learn, Clarence, when the Autumn has rounded your hopeful
Summer, if not before, that there is no Genius in life like the Genius
of energy and industry. You will learn, that all the traditions so
current among very young men that certain great characters have wrought
their greatness by an inspiration, as it were, grow out of a sad
mistake.
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