rs of the same class half a century ago, is mainly
due to use. Sir Walter Scott, who, like most men of genuine power, had
great generosity, once observed to a brother author, 'You and I came
just in the nick of time.' He foresaw the formidable competition that
was about to take place, though he had no cause to fear it. I think in
these days he would have had cause; not that I disbelieve in his genius,
but that I venture to think he diffused it over too large an area. In
such cases genius is overpassed by the talent which husbands its
resources; in other words, Nature succumbs to second nature, as the wife
in the patriarchal days (when _she_ grew patriarchal) succumbed to the
handmaid. And after all, though we talk so glibly about genius, and
profess to feel, though we cannot express, in what it differs from
talent, are we quite so sure about this as we would fain persuade
ourselves? At all events, it cannot surely be contended that a man of
genius always writes like one; and when he does not, his work is often
inferior to the first-rate production of a man of talent. For my own
part, I am not sure whether (with the exception, perhaps, of the highest
gifts of song) the whole distinction is not fanciful.

We are ready enough in ordinary matters to allow that 'practice makes
perfect,' and the limit of that principle is yet to be found. Moreover,
the vast importance of exclusive application is almost unknown. We see
it, indeed, in men of science and in lawyers, but without recognition;
nay, socially, it is even quoted against them. The mathematician may be
very eminent, but we find him dry; the lawyer may be at the head of his
profession, but we find him dull; and it is observed on all sides how
very little great A and great B, notwithstanding the high position they
have earned for themselves in their calling, know of matters out of
their own line. On the other hand, the man of whom it was said that
'science was his forte and omniscience his foible,' has left no enduring
monument behind him; and so it must always be with mortals who have only
fifty years of thought allotted to them at the very most, and who
diffuse it. Everyone admits the value of application, but very few are
aware how its force is wasted by diffusion: it is like a volatile
essence in a bottle without a cork. When, on the other hand, it is
concentrated--you may call it 'narrowed' if you please--there is hardly
anything within its own sphere of action of whi