Further, if he is an acrobat or a dancer, not
only does he take leaps which other people cannot execute, but he also
betrays rare elasticity and agility in those easier steps which others
can also perform, and even in ordinary walking. In the same way a man
of superior mind will not only produce thoughts and works which could
never have come from another; it will not be here alone that he will
show his greatness; but as knowledge and thought form a mode of
activity natural and easy to him, he will also delight himself in them
at all times, and so apprehend small matters which are within the
range of other minds, more easily, quickly and correctly than they.
Thus he will take a direct and lively pleasure in every increase of
Knowledge, every problem solved, every witty thought, whether of his
own or another's; and so his mind will have no further aim than to be
constantly active. This will be an inexhaustible spring of delight;
and boredom, that spectre which haunts the ordinary man, can never
come near him.
Then, too, the masterpieces of past and contemporary men of genius
exist in their fullness for him alone. If a great product of genius
is recommended to the ordinary, simple mind, it will take as much
pleasure in it as the victim of gout receives in being invited to a
ball.
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