We see a great man, they a disobedient child; we track him through his glory, they are wearied by the sullen resistance of one who is obscure and seems useless.
The career of genius is rarely that of fortune or happiness; and the father, who himself may not be insensible to glory, dreads lest his son be found among that obscure multitude, that populace of mean artists, self-deluded yet self-dissatisfied, who must expire at the barriers of mediocrity.
If the youth of genius be struggling with a concealed impulse, he will often be thrown into a train of secret instruction which no master can impart.

Hippocrates profoundly observed, that "our _natures_ have not been taught us by any master." The faculty which the youth of genius displays in after-life may exist long ere it is perceived; and it will only make its own what is homogeneous with itself.

We may often observe how the mind of this youth stubbornly rejects whatever is contrary to its habits, and alien to its affections.

Of a solitary character, for solitariness is the wild nurse of his contemplations, he is fancifully described by one of the race--and here fancies are facts: He is retired as noon-tide dew, Or fountain in a noon-day grove.
The romantic SIDNEY exclaimed, "Eagles fly alone, and they are but sheep which always herd together." As yet this being, in the first rudiments of his sensations, is touched by rapid emotions, and disturbed by a vague restlessness; for him the images of nature are yet dim, and he feels before he thinks; for imagination precedes reflection.

One truly inspired unfolds the secret story-- Endow'd with all that Nature can bestow, The child of fancy oft in silence bends O'er the mixt treasures of his pregnant breast With conscious pride.