GENIUS TETE-A-TETE.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 14, 18 June 1920, Page 3

GENIUS TETE-A-TETE.

FUGI1TVE MEETINGS OF MASTER MINDS. Something there is in the meeting of one man of genius with another that strongly affects the imagination. Curiosity is keen to learn tlie precise cir.cumstances in which they met, and every detail of the episode assumes a peculiar significance. BURNS AND SCOTT. "Virgilium vidi tantum" ("Virgil have I only seen"), wrote Ovid, and although his veracity has been questioned, his alleged glimpse of his fellow-poet is typical of all such rencontres. His very words, indeed, have attained the dignity of a cliche. They are, used, for instance, by Sir Walter Scott in describing the solitary occasion on which his path crossed that of Robert Burns. "As for Burns," he says, "I can truly say, Virgilium vidi tantum," and then he proceeds to recount his memorable experience. A shy lad of fiftten, sitting silent in a company at Professor Fergusson's he heard Burns inquirn whose were the lines under a certain pathetic print which hung on the wai!. Scott alone could tell, whispered the author's name to a friend, and it was passed on to Burns, who rewarded the youngster with a look and a word. NAPOLEON AND THACKERAY. "My only recommendation," declared Thackeray, "is that I have seen Napoleon and Goethe, and am the owner of Schiller's sword." The glimpse of Napoleon which he was fortunate in obtaining was of a most transient kind. Let us quote his own record : I came from India as a child, and our ship touched at an island on the way home, where my black servant took me for a long walk over rocks and hills untill we reached a garden, where we saw a man walking. 'That is he!' cried the black man. 'That is Bonaparte! He eats three sheep every day, and all the children he can lay hands on !" After which the terrified child wonld nO doubt beg to be taken away. It was in Weimar that the novelist, now a gay student of nineteen, became the proud possessor of Schiller's sword and there at the same time he met ' 'the Grand -old Goethe." Twice had he seen him in the distance before the morning on which the poet received him in his apartments. The eyes of Goethe, extraordinarily dark, piercing, and brilliant, impressed him especially. "I felt quite afraid before them," he says, "and recollect comparing theni to the eyes of the hero of a certain romance. . . . who had made a bargaan with a Certain Person and at an extreme old age retained these eyes in all their awful splendour." GALILEO AND MILTON. - A not less notable fugitive meeting was that between Galileo and Milton. The ihcident took place at a spot near Flor-

ence. "Paradise Lost" had not yet been composed, but Galileo's tale of discoveries was complete. Milton still enjoyed the full use of his eyes; hopelesa blindness had fallen upon Galileo. And there was tke curious . chance meeting between Emerson and George Eliot in a W arwickshire coach. The American wished to know the . name of the young lady's favourite hook, and she replied, "The Confessions of Rousseau." "That is my favourite, too," said Emerson,