d. It may not
be logical, but it usually silences."

"Not quite, in this instance," said Henry, "for we know by their
manifestations that life and electricity are; they manifest themselves
to us."

"And by the same rule genius manifests itself to your brother,
although it may not to you."

"Thank you, Mr. Ranney," said Bart.

"Now I do not suppose," he went on, "that genius is a beneficent
little imp, or genie, lodged in the brain of the fortunate or
unfortunate, who is all-powerful, and always at hand to give strength,
emit a flash of light, or pour inspiration into the faculties, nor
does it consist in anything that answers to that idea. But there are
men endowed with quick, strong intellects, with warm, ardent, intense
temperaments, and with strong imaginations; where these, or their
equivalents, are found happily blended, the result is genius. There
is a working power that can do anything, and with apparent ease. If
it plunges down, it need not remain long; if it mounts up, it alights
again without effort or injury."

"And such a 'working power,' you suppose, would, of itself, be a
constant self-supply, and always equal to emergencies, and of its own
unaided spontaneous inspirations and energies, I suppose," said Henry,
"and has nothing to do but float and plunge about, diving and soaring,
in the amplitude of nature?"

"Well, Henry, you can't get out of a man what isn't in him. You need
not draw on a water-bottle for nectar, or hope to carve marble columns
from empty air; genius can't do that. An unformed, undeveloped mind
never threw out great things spontaneously, as the cloud throws out
lightning. Men are not great without achievement, nor wise without
study and reflection. Nor was there ever a genius, however strong and
brilliant in the rough, that would not have been stronger and more
brilliant by cutting," said Bart, with vehemence. "All I contend for
is, that genius, as I have supposed, can make the most and best of
things, often doing with them what other and commoner minds cannot do
at all."

"This is not the school-boy's idea of genius," said Ranney.

"And," said Bart, a little assertively, "I am not a school-boy."

"So I perceive," said Ranney, coolly.

"The fault I find with you geniuses--"

"We geniuses!!--"

"Is," said Henry, "you perpetually fly and caracol about, and just
because you can, apparently, and for the fun of the thing."

"Eagles fly," said Bart.

"And so do butterflies,