Genius, Plans of
Great works often span generations, guided by the vision of those who began them.
"On the banks of the Rhine, there lies in ancient simplicity an old town, whose grand cathedral is to all a glory and a joy. Ages ago, the deep foundation-trench was dug, and the walls went slowly upward. Generation after generation, father and child, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, looked upon the massive but unfinished towers; and to-day a throng, who have no memory of those who laid the corner-stone, are carrying up the spires, already nearing heaven. The old plan of the architect, whose bones long ago crumbled in the dust, is still their guide. He died without seeing, save by the eye of genius, the glorious pile he planned; and, when he rises in the resurrection, that pile will sink to dust. His work was only human; but was not his a nobler work than the perfecting of a structure which one generation may finish, and another leave in ruins?"