No one ever doubted that special aptitudes were required for music, mathematics, drawing, or for wit; but other aptitudes not less special are seldom recognised.  It is with authors as with actors:  mere delight in the art deludes them into the belief that they could be artists.  There are born actors, as there are born authors.  To an observant eye such men reveal their native endowments.  Even in conversation they spontaneously throw themselves into the characters they speak of.  They mimic, often quite unconsciously the speech and gesture of the person.  They dramatise when they narrate.  Other men with little of this faculty, but with only so much of it as will enable them to imitate the tones and gestures of some admired actor, are misled by their vanity into the belief that they also are actors, that they also could move an audience as their original moves it.

In Literature we see a few original writers, and a crowd of imitators:  men of special aptitudes, and men who mistake their power of repeating with slight variation what others have done, for a power of creating anew.  The imitator sees that it is easy to do that which has already been done.  He intends to improve on it; to add from his own stores something which the originator could not give; to lend it the lustre of a richer mind; to make this situation more impressive, and that character more natural.  He is vividly impressed with the imperfections of the original.  And it is a perpetual puzzle to him why the public, which applauds his imperfect predecessor, stupidly fails to recognise his own obvious improvements.

It is from such men that the cry goes forth about neglected genius and public caprice.  In secret they despise many a distinguished writer, and privately, if not publicly, assert themselves as immeasurably superior.  The success of a Dumas is to them a puzzle and an irritation.  They do not understand that a man becomes distinguished in virtue of some special talent properly directed; and that their obscurity is due either to the absence of a special talent, or to its misdirection.  They may probably be superior to Dumas in general culture, or various ability; it is in particular ability that they are his inferiors.  They may be conscious of wider knowledge, a more exquisite sensibility, and a finer taste more finely cultivated; yet they have failed to produce any impression on the public in a direction where the despised favourite has produced a strong impression.  They are thus thrown upon the alternative of supposing that he has had “the luck” denied to them, or that the public taste is degraded and prefers trash.  Both opinions are serious mistakes.  Both injure the mind that harbours them.