Auden on Originals

Peter J. Leithart, March 20, 2004

A comment from W.H. Auden's Dyer's Hand rings true:

"All those who success in life depends neither upon a job which satisfies some specific and unchanging social need, like a farmer's, nor, like a surgeon's, upon some craft which he can be taught by others and improve by practice, but upon 'inspiration,' the lucky hazard of ideas, live by their wits, a phrase which carries a slightly pejorative meaning. Every 'original' genius, be he an artist or a scientist, has something a bit shady about him, like a gambler or a medium."