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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 Author: Various Release Date: May 12, 2005 [EBook #15819] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. *** Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. [Transcriber's note: Footnotes moved to end of document.] THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. VOL. XIII.--FEBRUARY, 1864.--NO. LXXVI Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by Ticknor and Fields, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. * * * * * GENIUS. When Paul Morphy plays seven games of chess at once and blindfold, when young Colburn gives _impromptu_ solution to a mathematical problem involving fifty-six figures, we are struck with hopeless wonder: such power is separated by the very extent of it from our mental operations. But when we further observe that these feats are attended by little or no fatigue,--that this is the play, not the tension of faculty, we recognize a new kind, not merely a new degree, of intelligence. These men seem to leap, not labor step by step, to their results. Colburn sees the complication of values, Morphy that of moves, as we see the relation of two and two. What is multiform and puzzling to us is simple to them, as the universe lies rounded and is one thought in the Original Mind. We seek in vain for the secret of this mastery. It is private,--as deeply hidden from those who have as from those who have it not. They cannot think otherwise than so, and to this exercise have been provoked by every influence in life. The boy who is an organized arithmetic and geometry will count all the hills of potatoes and reckon the kernels of corn in a bushel, and his triangles soon begin to cover the barn-door. He sees nothing but number and dimension; he feeds on these, another fellow on apples and nuts. But his brother loves application
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