gency.

Things all men can do and explain are natural; things we can not explain
are "supernatural." Progress consists in taking things out of the
supernatural pigeonhole and placing them in the natural. As soon as we
comprehend the supernatural, we are a bit surprised to find it is
perfectly natural.

But the limitations of great men are seen in that when they have
acquired the skill to do a difficult thing well, and the public cries,
"Genius!" why the genius humors the superstition and begins to allow the
impression to get out mysteriously that he "never had a lesson in his
life."

Any man who caters to the public is to a great degree spoiled by the
public. Actors act off the stage as well as on, falling victims to their
trade: their lives are stained by pretense and affectation, just as the
dyer's hand is subdued to the medium in which it works. The man of
talent who is much before the public poses because his audience wishes
him to; one step more and the pose becomes natural--he can not divest
himself of it. Paganini by hard work became a consummate player; and
then so the dear public should receive its money's worth, he evolved
into a consummate poseur--but he was still the Artist.

* * * * *

A large number of writers have described the appearance and playing of
Niccolo Paganini, but none ever did the assignment with the creepy
vividness of Heinrich Heine. The rest of this chapter is Heine's. I make
the explanation because the passage is so well known that it would be
both indiscreet and inexpedient for me to bring my literary jimmy to
bear and claim it as my own--much as I would like to.

Says Heinrich Heine:

I believe that only one man has succeeded in putting Paganini's
true physiognomy upon paper--a deaf painter, Lyser by name, who, in
a frenzy full of genius, has with a few strokes of chalk so well
hit the great violinist's head that one is at the same time amused
and terrified at the truth of the drawing. "The devil guided my
hand," the deaf painter said to me, chuckling mysteriously, and
nodding his head with a good-natured irony in the way he generally
accompanied his genial witticisms. This painter was, however, a
wonderful old fellow; in spite of his deafness he was
enthusiastically fond of music, and he knew how, when near enough
to the orchestra, to read the music in the musicians' faces, and to
judge t