温馨提示：本站仅提供公开网络链接索引服务，不存储、不篡改任何第三方内容，所有内容版权归原作者所有
AI智能索引来源：http://www.wehd.com/373/473.html
点击访问原文链接

Denis Diderot (1713-1784). The Prophetic Quality of Genius. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays

进入原网站 导航首页
Denis Diderot (1713-1784). The Prophetic Quality of Genius. David J. Brewer, et al., eds. 1900. The World's Best Essays Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record David J. Brewer, et al., eds.  The World’s Best Essays.  1900. The Prophetic Quality of Genius
By Denis Diderot (1713–1784) THERE is in men of genius, poets, philosophers, painters, orators, musicians, I know not what special quality of the soul, secret, indefinable, without which nothing very great or beautiful is ever created. Is it the imagination? No. I have seen fine and strong imaginations which promised much, and fulfilled nothing or very little. Is it judgment? No. Nothing is more common than men of good judgment, whose productions are sluggish, tame, and cold. Is it the mind? No. The mind speaks of great things, but brings forth but small ones. Is it enthusiasm, vivacity, or even dash? No. Enthusiastic people give themselves a deal of trouble to do things that are not good for anything. Is it sensitiveness? No. I have seen those whose soul was promptly and deeply affected, who were unable to listen to a recitation of a high order without getting beside themselves,—transported, intoxicated, crazy; who could not read a pathetic paragraph without shedding tears, and who stammered like children when they spoke or when they wrote. Is it taste? No. Taste effaces defects rather than produces beauties; it is a gift which one acquires more or less; it is not an endowment of nature. Is it a certain conformation of the head and the viscera, a certain constitution of the fancy? I give my consent, but on the condition that it shall be acknowledged that neither I nor any one has any precise notion of it, and that there be added to it an observing mind. When I speak of the observing mind, I do not mean that petty daily spying into words, acts, and looks,—that tact so familiar to womenkind, who possess it in a greater degree than the strongest minds, than the greatest wits, than the most vigorous geniuses. The subtilty which I might well compare to the art of passing millet seeds through the eye of a needle is a miserable, petty, daily study whose entire utility is minute and domestic, by means of which the valet deceives his master, and the master deceives those whose valet he is, by outwitting them. The observing mind of which I speak puts forth its energies without effort, without contention; it does not look,—it sees; it improves itself; it expands without studying;… it is a machine that says, “This is going to succeed,” and it will succeed; “It is not going to succeed,” and it does not succeed; “This is true,” or “That is false,” and it turns out as it has told it would. It is noticed both in great and small things. This kind of prophetic mind is not the same in all conditions of life; each state has its own. It is not always a safeguard against falls, but the fall which it brings about never carries contempt with it. © 2024 WEHD.com

智能索引记录