Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1883 — Unconscious Genius. [ARTICLE]

Unconscious Genius.

Genius is often unconscious of its power. Perhaps it is always so at the beginning of its career. Shakespeare did not take the trouble of collecting his plays; he had little thought of their making him famous. Ball, the Boston sculptor, began his career as a pain ter,, with no thought of modeling forms. But one day, his unconscious genius made itself vaguely felt by making him restless toward his art and dissatisfied with his work. He had been painting a picture, and it so wearied him that he scraped it all out. He shut himself up in his studio for two or three flays, indisposed to see any one or to do anything. Suddenly, he was seized by an impulse to model something. He went to a sculptors studio near by, got a lump of clay, and began. After trying several things he made a miniature bust of Jenny Lind, then the star of the music-loving world. The little bust made a great liit, and from that day Ball anew that his vocation had found him.