Divine Fury (61 page)

48
. Daines Barrington, “An Account of a Very Remarkable Young Musician,” a letter from the Honourable Daines Barrington, F.R.S., to Mathew Maty, M.D., Sec. R.S.,
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 1770
, 60:54–64, accessed July 12, 2012,
http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/60/54
.

49
. Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, “Concerning Musical Genius” (1784), trans. Richard W. Harpster, in
German Essays on Music
, eds. Jost Hermand and Michael Gilbert (New York: Continuum, 1994), 15–16.

50
. See Gladwell,
Outliers
, 40–68, as well as the British psychologist Michael Howe,
Genius Explained
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 2–7.

51
. Christoph Wolff, “Defining Genius: Early Reflections of J. S. Bach’s Self-Image,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
145, no. 4 (2001): 474–481; Kivy,
Possessor and the Possessed
, esp. 37–56; Albert Einstein,
Mozart, His Character, His Work
, trans. Arthur Mendel and Nathan Broder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 129. Norbert Elias argues, by contrast, that Mozart was “a genius before the age of [Romantic] genius,” who suffered in a society that “had no legitimate place for the highly individualized artist” in its midst (Elias,
Mozart
, 19). That was certainly true of his adult career, but as a child prodigy, Mozart benefited from the timing of his prodigious debut.

52
. As two of the foremost historians of European science in this period have written, “the vanguard of European intellectuals . . . came to disdain both wonder and wonders in the first half of the eighteenth century,” setting the tone of the age. See Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park,
Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750
(New York: Zone Books, 2001), 329, and, in general, chap. 9 “The Enlightenment and the Anti-Marvelous,” 329–363; Leopold Mozart, in a letter of July 30, 1768, cited in Elias,
Mozart
, 72; “Marvelous,”
The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert: Collaborative Translation Project
, trans. Virginia Swain (Ann Arbor: Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library, 2007), accessed August 31, 2012,
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.598
.

53
.
Aristide ou le citoyen
(Lausanne), October 11, 1766, cited in Deutsch,
Mozart
, 62; Diderot, “Sur le génie,” in
Oeuvres complètes
, 4:26–27.

54
. Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Dictionnaire de la musique
(Paris: Duchesne, 1768), 227; Johann Caspar Lavater,
Physiognomische Fragmente
, 4:80. Lavater’s “one in a million” quotation is cited in
Laconics, or the Best Words of the Best Authors
, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Carey, 1829), 2:33. Lavater’s ratio was regularly included in collections of famous quotations in Britain and the United States in the nineteenth century. On Galton, see chap. 5, below.

55
. Kant,
Critique of Judgment
, 187, 175–177.

56
. Ibid., 176–177.

57
. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Poetry and Truth from My Own Life
, intro. Karl Bruel, rev. trans. Minna Steele Smith (London: George Bell and Sons, 1908), 2:285–286; Duff,
Essay on Original Genius
, 91. Duff included the “mechanical arts” as well. See Gerard,
Essay on Genius
, 14; Duff,
Essay on Original Genius
, 140.

58
. Edmond Halley, cited in Patricia Fara,
Newton: The Making of a Genius
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 163; David Hume,
The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688
, foreword William B. Todd, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983), 6:542; “Isaac Newton,”
Historic Gallery of Portraits and Paintings, or Biographical Review
, 7 vols. (London: Vernor, Hoode, and Sharpe, 1807), 1:20.

59
. The ardent admirer, John Conduitt, is cited in Fara,
Newton
, 16. In what follows, I draw heavily on Fara’s incomparable study. For other assessments of Newton’s reception as a “genius,” see Richard Yeo, “Genius, Method, and Morality: Images of Newton in Britain, 1760–1860,”
Science in Context
2 (1988): 257–284.

60
. Robert Iliffe, “‘Is He Like Other Men?’ The Meaning of the
Principia Mathematica
, and the Author as Idol,” in Gerald Maclean, ed.,
Culture and Society in the Stuart Restoration
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 159–179. On Newton as a saint, see Fara,
Newton
, chap. 1 (“Sanctity”). “Genius,” Fara rightly observes, “resembles sanctity.” The line on Newton’s Cambridge statue is from Lucretius, who intended it originally to celebrate Epicurus. The statue was sculpted by Louis-François Roubiliac in 1755. It still stands.

61
. Fara,
Newton
, 34–49.

62
. Colman is cited in Andrew Elfenbein,
Romantic Genius: The Prehistory of a Homosexual Role
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 35. Colman in fact made his declaration in jest, ridiculing the habit in others. Wilde is cited in Richard Ellmann,
Oscar Wilde
(New York: Knopf, 1988), 160. Wilde’s line may well be apocryphal: no contemporary account of it exists.

63
. See, for example, Koselleck,
Futures Past
; Gauchet,
Disenchantment of the World
, esp. 176–180.

64
. The origin of celebrity in the eighteenth century is a topic that is drawing cutting-edge research. See, for example, Antoine Lilti’s forthcoming
Figures publiques: Aux origines de la célébrité
(1750–1850) (Paris: Fayard, forthcoming), as well as Fred Inglis,
A Short History of Celebrity
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), esp. chaps. 1–3. Chamfort is cited in Antoine Lilti, “The Writing of Paranoia: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Paradoxes of Celebrity,”
Representations
103 (2008): 53–83.

65
. Sébastien-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort,
Combien le génie des grands écrivains influe sur l’esprit de leur siècle
, in
Oeuvres complètes de Chamfort
, 5 vols. (Paris: Chaumerot Jeune, 1824–1825), 1:203–204; Johann Gottfried Herder, “Vom Erkennen und Erfinden der menschlichen Seele,” in
Schriften zu Philosophie, Literatur, Kunst und Altertum [1774–1787]
, vol. 4 of
Werke
, eds. J. Brummack and M. Bollacher, 10 vols. (Frankfurt: Deutscher Klassiker, 1994), 4:381.

66
. Diderot,
Le neveu de Rameau
, ed. and intro. Jean-Claude Bonnet (Paris: Flammarion, 1983), 49–50. See also Otis Fellows, “The Theme of Genius in Diderot’s
Neveu de Rameau
,”
Diderot Studies
, no. 2 (1952): 168–199; James Mall, “
Le Neveu de Rameau
and the Idea of Genius,”
Eighteenth-Century Studies
11, no. 1 (1977): 26–39. Diderot speaks of geniuses as monsters in his
Elémens de physiologie
, ed. J. Mayer (Paris: M. Didier, 1964), 296. He also refers to “le monstre appelé homme de génie” in his
Réfutation de l’ouvrage de Helvétius intitulé L’Homme
in
Oeuvres complètes
.

67
. Diderot,
Le neveu de Rameau
, 101.

THE DAWN OF THE IDOLS

1
. Benjamin Franklin to Mrs. Sarah Bache, June 3, 1779, in
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
, eds. Leonard W. Labaree et al., 40 vols. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959–1999), 29:613. On monuments to men of genius, see Judith Colton,
The Parnasse François: Titon du Tillet and the Origins of the Monument to Genius
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979); Alfred Neumeyer, “Monuments to ‘Genius’ in German Classicism,”
Journal of the Warburg Institute
2, no. 2 (1938): 158–163. On images of genius in crockery and other forms, see Samuel Taylor, “Artists and
Philosophes
as mirrored by Sèvres and Wedgwood,” in Francis Haskell, Anthony Levi, and Robert Shackleton, eds.,
The Artist and the Writer in France: Essays in Honour of Jean Seznec
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 21–40, and the many excellent articles in Thomas W. Gaehtgens and Gregor Wedekind, eds.,
Le culte des grands hommes, 1750–1850
(Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2010). The scriptural reference is to 1 Corinthians 13.8–11 and 1 John 5:21. Franklin’s line on idol worship is from his essay “On the Providence of God in the Government of the World” (1732) in the
Papers of Benjamin Franklin
, 1:267.

2
. Joyce E. Chaplin,
The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius
(New York: Basic Books, 2006), 136; Honoré-Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, “Éloge funèbre de Benjamin Franklin,” delivered on June 11, 1790, accessed October 23, 2012,
www.assemblee-nationale.fr/histoire/Mirabeau1790-BFranklin.asp
; Joseph Aude,
Le journaliste des ombres, ou Momus aux Champs Elysées
(Paris: Gueffier, 1790), 61. The play was performed at the Theater of the Nation in Paris on July 14, 1790, and featured Franklin, Voltaire, and Rousseau conversing together in the Elysian fields.

3
. John Adams,
Diary of John Adams
, vol. 2, entry for June 23, 1779, accessed on November 14, 2012,
www.masshist.org/publications/apde/portia.php?id=DJA02d484
.

4
. On the process of pantheonization, see Jean Claude Bonnet,
Naissance du Panthéon: Essai sur le culte de grands hommes
(Paris: Fayard, 1998); Mona Ozouf, “The Pantheon: The École Normale of the Dead,” in
Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past
, ed. Pierre Nora, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, intro. Lawrence D. Kritzman, 3 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 3:325–429. Ozouf distinguishes carefully between the eighteenth-century use of “hero” and “
grand homme
,” but says nothing about genius.
Mercure de France
, December 4, 1790, cited in James A. Leith, “Les trois apotheoses de Voltaire,”
Annales historiques de la Révolution française
51 (1979): 161–209 (citation on 205).

5
. Condorcet is cited in François Azouvi,
Descartes et la France: Histoire d’une passion nationale
(Paris: Fayard, 2002), 130. Condorcet’s text was read in the National Assembly by his nephew on April 12, 1791. See Jean Le Rond d’Alembert,
Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot
, trans. and intro. Richard N. Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 60.

6
. Sébastien-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort,
Combien le génie des grands écrivains influe sur l’esprit de leur siècle
, in
Oeuvres completes de Chamfort
, 5 vols. (Paris: Chaumerot Jeune, 1824–1825), 1:203–204. Thomas is cited in Jean-Claude Bonnet, “Les morts illustres: Oraison funèbre, éloge académique, nécrologie,” in
Lieux de mémoires
, 2 (Part 3): 217–241.

7
. On revolutionary almanacs, see Serge Bianchi,
La révolution culturelle de l’an II: Élites et peuple, 1789–1799
(Paris: Aubier, 1982), 200. Fabre d’Églantine is cited in
Archives parlementaires
, 78:503. The other proposed holidays were consecrated to virtue, work, opinion, and gratitude (
récompense
). Although plans to celebrate the
fête du génie
were entertained, and it is possible that celebrations were actually held locally in the provinces, I have not found any mention of this in the relevant documents held in F/1cI/84–102 at the Archives Nationales in Paris.