Oh, some there are with beauty bright,
And they are lust of eyes,
And some who blind us with the mind
Our spirit them defies.
But genius is the great white light
Nor mind nor beauty buys.
And some will play a wanton air
To catch the vagrant soul;
Some find it sweet with dancing feet
To foot it toward the goal;
But he who hears the whirling spheres
Can ne’er again be whole.
Oh, he who hears the whirling spheres
Wher’er his steps have trod,
Has reached the end of human trend;
With wings his feet are shod,
For he has seen, beyond the screen,
Into the face of God.
--FREDERICK TRUESDELL, _Appleton’s Magazine_.
(1197)
* * * * *
The cultivated man is not in every case the best reporter. One
of the best I ever knew was a man who could not spell four words
correctly to save his life, and his verb did not always agree
with the subject in person and number; but he always got the
fact so exactly, and he saw the picturesque, the interesting,
and important aspect of it so vividly, that it was worth another
man’s while, who possest the knowledge of grammar and spelling,
to go over the report and write it out. Now, that was a man
who had genius; he had talent the most indubitable, and he got
handsomely paid in spite of his lack of grammar.--CHARLES A.
DANA.
(1198)
See SMALL BEGINNINGS.