understood, the thinker thus loses the aid of those who, by their very heredity, should be best able to help him.
Long observations of the families and followers of original thinkers, and some experience as a secretary to several such, have led me to form a plan for myself which I find so useful that I venture to recommend it to the notice of the children, pupils, and secretaries of men of Genius.
When I find my power of understanding my employer coming to an end, and myself growing weary of his peculiar style, I try to find out to whom, among those on his own intellectual level, he personally feels most antagonistic and is most unjust. I give myself a bath (so to speak) in the ideas of this rival, and (if opportunity serves) in his actual personal influence. For instance, supposing that I were working under Mr. Spurgeon, the famous preacher, and grew tired, I should seek Mr. Bradlaugh.[1] I should seek, not conflict of opinion, but variety of attitude and emotion. I should not ask him what he thought of the Millennium, nor talk to him about Mr. Spurgeon; but I should try to get, somehow, a bath in Mr. Bradlaugh's peculiar magnetism. I should ask him to go to an Oratorio with me; and try to get him to talk to me about the Future destinies of Man. When the needful relaxation had been produced, this (to judge from all my experience) is what would happen:—I should find myself writing, without effort or fatigue, an Article on the Future of Humanity, of which Mr. Spurgeon (and perhaps also Mr. Bradlaugh) would say: "You have expressed my meaning more exactly than I
- ↑ I mention these two gentlemen because, as I have never studied under either of them, nothing I say can be taken as personal.
