with a mere outline or a weak sketch in water-color.

All this is part of the reward of genius, and compensates him for a
lonely existence in a world with which he has nothing in common and
no sympathies. But since size is relative, it comes to the same thing
whether I say, Caius was a great man, or Caius has to live amongst
wretchedly small people: for Brobdingnack and Lilliput vary only
in the point from which they start. However great, then, however
admirable or instructive, a long posterity may think the author
of immortal works, during his lifetime he will appear to his
contemporaries small, wretched, and insipid in proportion. This is
what I mean by saying that as there are three hundred degrees from the
base of a tower to the summit, so there are exactly three hundred
from the summit to the base. Great minds thus owe little ones some
indulgence; for it is only in virtue of these little minds that they
themselves are great.

Let us, then, not be surprised if we find men of genius generally
unsociable and repellent. It is not their want of sociability that is
to blame. Their path through the world is like that of a man who goes
for a walk on a bright summer morning. He gazes with delight on the
beauty and freshness of nature, but he has to rely wholly on that for
entertainment; for he can find no society but the peasants as they
bend over the earth and cultivate the soil. It is often the case that
a great mind prefers soliloquy to the dialogue he may have in this
world. If he condescends to it now and then, the hollowness of it may
possibly drive him back to his soliloquy; for in forgetfulness of his
interlocutor, or caring little whether he understands or not, he talks
to him as a child talks to a doll.

Modesty in a great mind would, no doubt, be pleasing to the world;
but, unluckily, it is a _contradictio in adjecto_. It would compel a
genius to give the thoughts and opinions, nay, even the method and
style, of the million preference over his own; to set a higher value
upon them; and, wide apart as they are, to bring his views into
harmony with theirs, or even suppress them altogether, so as to let
the others hold the field. In that case, however, he would either
produce nothing at all, or else his achievements would be just upon a
level with theirs. Great, genuine and extraordinary work can be done
only in so far as its author disregards the method, the thoughts, the
opinions of his contemporaries, and quie