ke and says something which profoundly shocks some
capitalistic pirate who honestly feels himself a pillar of law and
order, and in this situation I see an irony which gradually demands
fictional expression, as imagined characters and more extensive
clashes begin to shape in my brain. There you have a not at all
impossible evolution of a story. But now suppose that instead of my
being present at this party, a friend had been present, quite as alive
as I to the ironies of the situation, and suppose my friend later
repeated the incident to me--why should it not serve me just as well,
why should it not start the fictional urge, the gestation of character
and incident?

Generalizing is dangerous work. Of course, there may be authors in
whom it would start the process. But I have never known one. Even in
so exceptional a case as this--of course, the usual friendly
suggestion has no real meat of fiction in it at all--something is
lacking to fire the imagination. It is exactly as if your nose were
called upon to sense, or your retina to image, an odor or a scene
described to you and not directly experienced. Your brain accepts the
description, but there is no warmth in the reaction, no tingle of
life. Just so, it would almost seem, the conception for a story, a
poem, no doubt for a picture, too, or a strain of music, is something
less, or more, than merely mental; it is in some subtle way sensory,
as if the brain had fingers which must themselves touch the thing
directly to get the feel of it. Is it not, perhaps, this fact which
has caused so many artists, consciously or unconsciously, to believe
in "inspiration"?

The singing line walks from nowhere into the poet's head, the perfect
situation comes to the writer of fiction when he is least expecting
it. To take a humble example, I was once sitting in an editor's
office, listening while he expounded to me a grand "plot" for a series
of stories. I looked across the street from his window to avoid his
eyes, lest I should show my lack of appreciation, and there beheld a
slight incident which I instantly knew was a starting-point. It
turned out to be worth a year's income to me. Yet, to a merely
impersonal judgment, the editor's idea was more interesting and worth
while than mine. Only it wasn't mine; that's the point. It was foreign
born, and could never become a citizen of my mental commonwealth. I
have not quite reached the pitch of calling my ideas inspirations, but
I long