Even if we are the most shiftless and craziest of mortals, if we still recognize that we have a genius - a Muse - to consult, then no one may presume to come between us and our genius.

"Talk of fate!  How little one can know what is fated to one another! - what he can do and what he can not do!  I doubt whether one can give or receive any pertinent advice.  In all important crises one can only consult his genius.*  Though he were the most shiftless and craziest of mortals, if he still recognizes that he has any genius to consult, no one may presume to go between him and her.  They, methinks, are poor stuff and creatures of a miserable fate who can be advised and persuaded in very important steps.  Show me a person who consults his genius, and you have shown me a person who cannot be advised.  You may know what a thing costs or is worth to you; you can never know what it costs or is worth to me.  All the community may scream because one person is born who will not do as it does, who will not conform because conformity to him is death, - he is so constituted.  They know nothing about his case; they are fools when they presume to advise him . . . In the course of generations, however, people will excuse you for not doing as they do, if you will bring enough to pass in your own way."

Henry David Thoreau, 1858

Photo: Potentilla leaf, with a formation of the Lumpy Ridge looming in the background; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; October 8, 2012.  

* For Thoreau, "genius" is a muse who visits us in order to bring us inspiration.  This muse is partly an aspect of our own personality, and partly an independent presence with a reality all its own.