"The man of génie is he whose ranging soul occupies itself with all that is in nature, receiving from her no idea that is not roused by his distinctive play of emotion. All is brought to life, turned to account; nothing is lost, nothing wasted.... He casts upon nature an eye gifted for the comprehension of abysses.... As for his constructs, they are too audacious for ordinary reason to inhabit.... In the arts as in the sciences … the genius seems to change the very nature of things; his character envelops whatever it touches; he casts into the future his piercing lights; he leaps ahead of his century, and it is powerless to follow him. He leaves behind those intellects which seek, even rightly, as may be, to criticize — poor lockstepped minds which leave nature as they found it. Behold him they may but are powerless to know him. For the genius alone may tell us truly who and what he is."