Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 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 Lis plays; he had little thought of their making him famous. Thomas Bal!, tl:q Boston sculptor, began his career as a painter, with no thought of mod&ling forms. But one day, his unconscious genius made itself vsgr.cly felt by making him restless toward his art and dissatisfied with his work. He had keen 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 days 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 hit, and from that day Ball knew that his vocation had found him.