Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation

And yet the pamphlet reveals some of the tangled roots from which the later concept of the original" or primitive genius grew. For here are two prerequisites of that later, more extravagant concept. One is the author's positive delight in the infinite differences of human temperaments and talents a delight from which might spring the preference for original or unique works of art. The other is his conviction that there is something necessary and foreordained about those differences: a conviction essential to faith in the artist who is apparently at the mercy of a genius beyond his own control. The importance of this latter belief was long ago indicated in Paul Kaufman's Heralds of Original Genius.