o their ability and enthusiasm. Their
enthusiasm is fortunately contained in a receptacle as generous as
Philemon's famous pitcher. And the harder the genius tries to pour it
empty, the more the sparkling liquid bubbles up inside. The
transaction is like "the quality of mercy"--

"It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

The ability to receive as well as give this sort of help varies widely
with the individual. Some geniuses of large psychic power are able
instantly to seize out of any crowd whatever creativeness there is in
it. These persons are spiritual giants. Their strength is as the
strength of ten because their grasp is sure. They are such stuff as
Shakespeares are made of.

Others are not psychically gifted. They can absorb creativeness only
from their nearest and dearest, in the most favoring environment, and
only after the current has been seriously depleted by wastage in
transmission. But these are the two extremes. They are as rare as
extremes usually are.

In general I believe that genius, though normally capable of drawing
creativeness from a number of different sources, has as a rule
depended largely on the collaboration of one chief master by proxy.
This idea gazes wide-eyed down a fascinating vista of speculation.
Who, for instance, was Lincoln's silent partner? the power behind the
throne of Charlemagne? Buddha's better self? Who were the secret
commanders of Grant, Wellington, and Caesar? Who was Moliere's hidden
prompter? the conductor of the orchestra called Beethoven? the psychic
comrade of Columbus?

I do not know. For history has never commemorated, as such, the
masters by proxy with honor due, or indeed with any honor or
remembrance at all. It will take centuries to explore the past with
the sympathetic eye and the understanding heart in order to discover
what great tombs we have most flagrantly neglected.

Already we can single out a few of them. The time is coming when
music-lovers will never make a pilgrimage to the resting-place of
Wagner without making another to the grave of Mathilde Wesendonk,
whose "virtue" breathed into "Tristan and Isolde" the breath of life.
We shall not much longer neglect the tomb of Charles Darwin's father,
who, by making the evolutionist financially independent, gave his
services to the world. Nor shall we disregard the memory of that other
Charles-Darwin-by-proxy--his wife. For her tireless comradeship and
devotion and freely lavished vitality