victorians on genius and work
Date: Fri, 25 May 2012 15:43:12 -0400 From: "John A. Walsh" jawalsh@indiana.edu Subject: Re: [VICTORIA] Re: Victorian idea of genius?
The text below is from a newspaper clipping I found in an old Swinburne anthology I picked up in a used bookstore many years ago. It includes a number of opinions that subordinate genius to industry, and many of the quotations are from 19th-century figures: Macaulay, Turner, Ruskin, Byron, Dickens, etc. Unfortunately, I have no idea from where or when the clipping came.
Here’s a transcription:
IS GENIUS ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS?
Men often complain that they do not possess the genius which Nature gave to other men who succeed. Note what some of the greatest men have to say on that point. Lord Macaulay, who sometimes wrote on his histories for 12 hours at a sitting, said, “I have made myself what I am by intense labour.” When Turner, the celebrated artist, was asked the secret of his tremendous success, he replied that he “had no secret but hard work.” John Ruskin wrote, “When I hear a young man spoken of as giving promise of high genius, the first question I ask about him is always, ‘Does he work?’” Byron said, “The only genius that I know anything of is to work 16 hours a day.” Dickens made a similar confession, “My imagination would never have served me as it has but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily toil.” Speaking of himself, Alexander Hamilton said: “People sometimes attribute my success to genius. All the genius I know anything about is hard work.” Daniel Webster, at 70 years of age, said in an address: “Work made me what I am. I never ate a bit of idle bread in my life.” The man who made the most far-reaching scientific discovery of all time, Isaac Newton, left this record: “If I have done the public any service it is due to nothing but industry and patient thought”—“Great Thoughts.”