's. The superadded
circumstance which would evolve the genius had not yet come; the universe had
not yet beckoned. Even Cæsar's fortune at one time was but a grand presentiment.
We know what a masquerade all development is, and what effective shapes may be
disguised in helpless embryos. - In fact, the world is full of hopeful analogies
and handsome dubious eggs called possibilities. Will saw clearly enough the
pitiable instances of long incubation producing no chick, and but for gratitude
would have laughed at Casaubon, whose plodding application, rows of note-books,
and small taper of learned theory exploring the tossed ruins of the world,
seemed to enforce a moral entirely encouraging to Will's generous reliance on
the intentions of the universe with regard to himself. He held that reliance to
be a mark of genius; and certainly it is no mark to the contrary; genius
consisting neither in self-conceit nor in humility, but in a power to make or
do, not anything in general, but something in particular. Let him start for the
Continent, then, without our pronouncing on his future. Among all forms of
mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.
    But at present this caution against a too hasty judgment interests me more
in relation to Mr. Casaubon than to his young cousin. If to Dorothea Mr.
Casaubon had been the mere occasion which had set alight the fine inflammable
material of her youthful illusions, does it follow that he was fairly
represented in the minds of those less impassioned personages who have hitherto
delivered their judgments concerning him? I protest against any absolute
conclusion, any prejudice derived from Mrs. Cadwallader's contempt for a
neighbouring clergyman's alleged greatness of soul, or Sir James Chettam's poor
opinion of his rival's legs, - from Mr. Brooke's failure to elicit a companion's
ideas, or from Celia's criticism of a middle-aged scholar's personal appearance.
I am not sure that the greatest man of his age, if ever that solitary
superlative existed, could escape these unfavourable reflections of himself in
various small mirrors; and even Milton, looking for his portrait in a spoon,
must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin. Moreover, if Mr. Casaubon,
speaking for himself, has rather a chilling rhetoric, it is not therefore
certain that there is no good work or fine feeling in him. Did not an immortal
physicist and interpreter of hieroglyphs write detestable verses? Has the theory
of the solar system been advanced by graceful manners and conversational tact?
Suppose we turn from outside estimates of
