MEN OF GENIUS DEFICIENT IN CONVERSATION.

Western Star, Issue 1077, 30 October 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

MEN OF GENIUS DEFICIENT IN CONVERSATION.

The great Pater Corneille, whose genius resembled that of Shakespeare! and who has so forcibly expressed the sublime sentiments of the hero, had nothing iu his exterior that indicated his genius; on the contrary, his conversation was so insipid that it never failed of wearying. Nature, who had lavished on him the,gifts of genius, had forgotten to blend with them her more ordinary ones. He did not even speak correctly that language of which he was such a master.

Whoa, hia friends represented to him how much he might please by not disdaining to correct these trivial errors he would smile, and say, “ I am not the less Peter Corneille.” Descartes, whose habits were formed in solitude and meditation, was silent in mixed company; and Thomas described hia mind by saying that he had received his intellectual wealth from nature in solid bars, but not in correct coin; or as Addison expressed the same idea, by comparing himself to

to a baker who possessed tho wealth of his friends at home, though he carried none of it in his pockets ; or, as that judicious moralist Nicolle, one of the Port Koval Society, said of a aointillant wit, “ lie conquers me in tho drawing room, but he surrenders to me at discretion on the staircase.” Tho deficiencies of Addison iri conversation are well known. He preserved a rigid silence amongst strangers; but if he was silent, it was the silence of meditation. How often, at that moment, he laboured at some fu'ure Spectator. Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

The cynical Mandoville compared Addison, after having passed an evening in his company, to a “ silent parson in a tie-wig.” Ic is no shame to an Addison to receive tho censures of a Mandevillo; he, has only to -'blush when he calls down those of a Pope. Yirgil was heavy in conversation, and resembled more an ordinary man than an enchanting poet. La Fontaine, says La Bruyero, appeared coarse, heavy, and stupid • he could not speak or describe what ho had just seen; but when he wrote he was the model of I ,poetry. Isocrates, celebrated for his beautiful oratorical compositions, was of so timid a disposition that he never ventured to speak in public. He compared himself to a whetstone, which will not cut, but enables other things to do this; for his productions served as models to' other orators. Vaucauson was said to be as much a machine as any he had made. , 1 -ii ,:. Dryden says of himself, “ My conversation is slow and dull ; my humour saturnine and reserved. In short, I’m none of those who, try to break jests in company or make repartees."