instance physical action
so intense or so dramatic in character that the remembrance of it
aroused a great deal more objective emotion than the composer was
conscious of while writing the music. In the third instance, the music
may have been influenced strongly though subconsciously by a vague
remembrance of certain thoughts and feelings, perhaps of a deep
religious or spiritual nature, which suddenly came to him upon
realizing the beauty of the scene and which overpowered the first
sensuous pleasure--perhaps some such feeling as of the conviction of
immortality, that Thoreau experienced and tells about in Walden. "I
penetrated to those meadows ... when the wild river and the woods were
bathed in so pure and bright a light as would have waked the dead IF
they had been slumbering in their graves as some suppose. There needs
no stronger proof of immortality." Enthusiasm must permeate it, but
what it is that inspires an art-effort is not easily determined much
less classified. The word "inspire" is used here in the sense of cause
rather than effect. A critic may say that a certain movement is not
inspired. But that may be a matter of taste--perhaps the most inspired
music sounds the least so--to the critic. A true inspiration may lack a
true expression unless it is assumed that if an inspiration is not true
enough to produce a true expression--(if there be anyone who can
definitely determine what a true expression is)--it is not an
inspiration at all.

Again suppose the same composer at another time writes a piece of equal
merit to the other three, as estimates go; but holds that he is not
conscious of what inspired it--that he had nothing definite in
mind--that he was not aware of any mental image or process--that,
naturally, the actual work in creating something gave him a satisfying
feeling of pleasure perhaps of elation. What will you substitute for
the mountain lake, for his friend's character, etc.? Will you
substitute anything? If so why? If so what? Or is it enough to let the
matter rest on the pleasure mainly physical, of the tones, their color,
succession, and relations, formal or informal? Can an inspiration come
from a blank mind? Well--he tries to explain and says that he was
conscious of some emotional excitement and of a sense of something
beautiful, he doesn't know exactly what--a vague feeling of exaltation
or perhaps of profound sadness.

What is the source of these instinctive feelings, these vague