But the common clay-born
man, possessing only talents, may do only what has been done before
him. At the best, if he work hard, and cherish himself exceedingly,
he may duplicate any or all previous performances of his kind; he may
even do some of them better; but there he stops, the composite hand
of his whole ancestry bearing heavily upon him.
And again, in the matter of his ideas, which have been thrust upon
him, and which he has been busily garnering from the great world ever
since the day when his eyes first focussed and he drew, startled,
against the warm breast of his mother--the tyranny of these he cannot
shake off. Servants of his will, they at the same time master him.
They may not coerce genius, but they dictate and sway every action of
the clay-born. If he hesitate on the verge of a new departure, they
whip him back into the well-greased groove; if he pause, bewildered,
at sight of some unexplored domain, they rise like ubiquitous finger-
posts and direct him by the village path to the communal meadow.
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