“What woman indeed, (and we may add) how many men, could have preserved all the grace and brilliancy of Parisian society in analyzing its nature—explained the most abstruse metaphysical theories of Germany precisely, yet perspicuously and agreeably—and combined the eloquence which inspires exalted sentiments of virtue, with the enviable talent of gently indicating the defects of men or of nations, by the skilfully softened touches of a polite and merciful pleasantry.”
It has been maintained that all human minds are originally constituted alike, and that the diversity of gifts which afterwards appears results from education. But it is plain enough that God hath made marvellous differences, original and constitutional, which no education can wholly reduce. All children are not alike precocious; and all adults are not alike capable of learning or of teaching. Education will do much, but it cannot convert talent into genius, or efface the distinction which subsists between them. No education can give what nature has denied—for education can only work on that which is given. Some receive at birth minds so obtuse, that although sent to school, furnished with accomplished teachers, and surrounded with all the appliances of learning, they emerge dunces; while others, by the sheer force of their genius, push their way upwards to eminence, amid every form of hardship, difficulty, and privation. The character of mental products is as much determined by the natural condition and constitution of mind as are the natural products of the earth determined by its physical conditions. It would be just as irrational to expect glowing pictures, grand conceptions, and lofty harmonies to spring in the universal mind, as to expect to clothe the whole globe with the cocoa, the palm-tree, and the banian. Original genius must be inherited. The thoughts which rise in the gifted mind—the flash of wit and the play of fancy—are as independent of the will as is the weed at the bottom of the sea, or the moss on the summit of the hill independent of the farmer. In glancing over the catalogue of our mental aristocracy, we are struck with the versatility of genius. It is no hard unbending thing, confined to a few topics, and hemmed in by a few principles; but a free mountain flame, not unfrequently as broad in its range as burning in its radiance. Many of both sexes are equally happy in science, art, philosophy, and literature.