Oct 22, 2015 - Sale 2394

Sale 2394 - Lot 352

Price Realized: $ 1,950
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
TO SELF-PROCLAIMED GENIUS: "GENIUS IS LIKE DIGESTION" SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. Autograph Letter Signed, "G.B.S.," to F. Day Tuttle, Jr., on genius and when it is appropriate to form an opinion about it with respect to oneself. 1 page, oblong 8vo, personal stationery; vertical center fold. With the original envelope, addressed in his hand. (TFC) Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, 30 November 1921
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"Nobody but a born idiot would dare to think of himself as a man of genius at 19. You don't think that until you know; and you don't know until you have produced works of genius. . . .
"So take your degree and have done with it: it is only a brief episode at the beginning of life, like learning the multiplication table. Nobody cares twopence about your opinion of yourself: you will be judged by your fruits and not by your roots. If you feel preoccupied with yourself, so much the worse: there must be something wrong. Genius is like digestion in one respect: it does not claim attention until it is out of order."
Frank Day Tuttle, Jr. (1902-1989) was the son of a successful New York industrialist, who achieved a Bachelor's degree at Yale in 1924, but whose other life accomplishments have thus far evaded the notice of historians.