This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ON GENIUS AND COMMON SENSE.
103

He is a man of capacity who possesses considerable intellectual riches: he is a man of genius who finds out a vein of new ore. Originality is the seeing nature differently from others, and yet as it is in itself. It is not singularity or affectation, but the discovery of new and valuable truth. All the world do not see the whole meaning of any object they have been looking at. Habit blinds them to some things: short-sightedness to others. Every mind is not a gauge and measure of truth. Nature has her surface and her dark recesses. She is deep, obscure, and infinite. It is only minds on whom she makes her fullest impressions that can penetrate her shrine or unveil her Holy of Holies. It is only those whom she has filled with her spirit that have the boldness or the power to reveal her mysteries to others. But Nature has a thousand aspects, and one man can only draw out one of

    repeat 7956 words.” We all laughed at this, but a person in one corner of the room, holding one hand to his forehead, and seeming mightily delighted, called out, “Ay, indeed! And pray, was he found to be correct?” This was the [[wikt:supererogation|]] of literal matter-of-fact curiosity. Jedediah Buxton's counting the number of words was idle enough; but here was a fellow who wanted some one to count them over again to see if he was correct.

    “The force of dulness could no farther go!”