w as either."

"Ay; but do they come, as you would seem to imply, of the same stock?"
said Mueller. "Force of will and force of character are famous clays in
which to mould a Wellington or a Columbus; but is not something more--at
all events, something different--necessary to the modelling of a
Raffaelle?"

"I don't fancy so. Power is the first requisite of genius. Give power in
equal quantity to your Columbus and your Raffaelle, and circumstance
shall decide which will achieve the New World, and which the
Transfiguration."

"Circumstance!" cried the painter, impatiently. "Good heavens! do you
make no account of the spontaneous tendencies of genius? Is Nature a
mere vulgar cook, turning out men, like soups, from one common stock,
with only a dash of flavoring here and there to give them variety?
No--Nature is a subtle chemist, and her workshop, depend on it, is
stored with delicate elixirs, volatile spirits, and precious fires of
genius. Certain of these are kneaded with the clay of the poet, others
with the clay of the painter, the astronomer, the mathematician, the
legislator, the soldier. Raffaelle had in him some of 'the stuff that
dreams are made of.' Never tell me that that same stuff, differently
treated, would equally well have furnished forth an Archimedes or a
Napoleon!"

"Men are what their age calls upon them to be," I replied, after a
moment's consideration. "Be that demand what it may, the supply is ever
equal to it. Centre of the most pompous and fascinating of religions,
Rome demanded Madonnas and Transfigurations, and straightway Raffaelle
answered to the call. The Old World, overstocked with men, gold, and
aristocracies, asked wider fields of enterprise, and Columbus added
America to the map. What is this but circumstance? Had Italy needed
colonies, would not her men of genius have turned sailors and
discoverers? Had Madrid been the residence of the Popes, might not
Columbus have painted altar-pieces or designed churches?"

Mueller, still sitting on the floor, shook his head despondingly.

"I don't think it," he replied; "and I don't wish to think it. It is too
material a view of genius to satisfy my imagination. I love to believe
that gifts are special. I love to believe that the poet is born a poet,
and the artist an artist."

"Hold! I believe that the poet is born a poet, and the artist an artist;
but I also believe the poetry of the one and the art of the other to be
only diverse manifesta