GENIUS AND HARD WORK.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 18, Issue 31, 16 April 1907, Page 2

GENIUS AND HARD WORK.

Some young men who think themselves gifted with genius, are inclined to the kangaroo style of progressing.

They flatter themselves that they, at least, may attain to the heights of fame by a series of leaps, and that, too, without training or hard work.

Before they begin their leapings, such fanciful young persons should ponder the words of Salvini, the great Italian actor, to the pupils of art. "Above all, study—studystudy," says this chieftain in a profession which is supposed to reserve its prizes for genius. "All the genius in the world," he adds, "will not help you along with any act unless you become a hard student. It has taken years to master a, single part.' J Macready, while stopping at a hotel was heard crying "murder" for two hours. ITc was practising to act the intonation which would express agony and'' fear.

Charlotte Cushman, during her public readings, once prepared for an encore by studying a comic anecdote. It was but twenty lines, yet for three days it was read and re-read, until

she had learned the best way to bring out its ludicrous features. The successes of great orators have been due as much to their hard study as to their genius. They prepared for the fitting occasion, so that when it came it should find them ready.

If ever a man had a genius for oratory, it was the brilliant Irishman, Henry Grattan. Yet it required years; of study and practice to develop that genius. He used to play in private theatricals and declaim in the woods. Against him were his short statue, and long arms, and an awkward and grotesque manner. His personal appearance was not prepossessing ; he had neither wit nor pathos, and at the beginning' of his speeches he hesitated and drawled. Hut in spite of theso natural defects he made himself, by hard work and much practice, one of the mastering orators of the House of Commons. Henry Clay snid that he made hinn self an orator by forming the habit at the age of twenty-seven, and exercising it, for years after, of daily reading some good book and speaking upon a theme suggested by its consents. "These off-hand efforts," he said, in an address to young men, "were sometimes made in a cornfield, and at others in the forest, and not unfrequently in some distant barn, with the horse and ox for my auditors. It is to this early practice in the great art that I am indebted for the primary and leading impulses that stimulated me forward, and shaped and moulded my subsequent entire destiny. Improve, then, young gentlemen, the superior advantages you here enjoy. Let not a day pass without exercising your powers of speech. Young man. there is no such thing as extemporaneous acquisition.'" The lives of unsuccessful men aIjo'iimi in illustrations of genius retreating from the occasion for which it was too indolent to prepare.