Word: genius
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Dates: during 1890-1899
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...against her fate, is vanquished, but not without making the most heroic efforts to overcome the poison of her passion. Before we finish the play she has not only succeeded in interesting us, but she has won our pity and sympathy; nothing could be a greater tribute to the genius of Racine than this acknowledgment which every reader of the play must make...
...indeed can describe intelligently their own sufferings, but still fewer can describe those of others; this called for the genius of a Corneille or a Racine. This power of living, for the time being, the lives of others is peculiar to the highest development of English as well as French Drama...
...life itself. Corneille put Don Rodrique face to face with fate and then left him to conquer or perish as might be. It is the wonderful consistency with which the character of the Cid is developed in relation to the other personages in the play which mark the genius of Corneille...
...proportion and of the helpful relation of parts to the whole organism which other races mostly grope after in vain. Spenser, in the enthusiasm of his new Platonism, tells us that "Soul is form,and doth the body make," and no doubt this is true of the highest artistic genius. Form without soul, the most obsequious observance of the unities, the most perfect a priori adjustment of parts, is a lifeless
...many functions. For the sould is not only that which gives form, but that which gives life, the mysterious and pervasive essence always in itself beautiful, not always so in the shapes which it informs, but even then full of infinite suggestion. In literature it is what we call genius, an insoluble ingredient which kindles, lights, inspires and transmits impulsion to other minds, wakens energies in them hitherto latent, and makes them startlingly aware that they too may be parts of the controlling purpose of the world. A book may be great in other ways than as a lesson...