We repeat that this faculty of genius can exist independent of education, and where it is wanting, education can never confer it: it is an impulse, an instinct always working in the character of "the chosen mind;" One with our feelings and our powers, And rather part of us, than ours.
In the history of genius there are unquestionably many secondary causes of considerable influence in developing, or even crushing the germ--these have been of late often detected, and sometimes carried to a ridiculous extreme; but among them none seem more remarkable than the first studies and the first habits..