little
trouble. (As a fact he takes endless trouble; but, to be sure, he saves
an immense deal by going the right way to work.) All knowledge is
notoriously painful (that is to say, to philosophers). Moreover, the
fellow mixes it up with emotion (an integral part of man which
philosophy ignores, and stultifies itself, as a rule, by ignoring). He
is one with the Oracles, a suspected tribe. He idles like an Oracle,
attending on inspiration, and when he has received the alleged afflatus,
the fellow--so different from us--is neither to hold nor to bind. The
easiest way with him seems to be a pitying contempt. "For all good
poets," says Socrates sagely in the Ion, "epic as well as lyric, compose
their lovely strains, not by art, but because they are inspired and
possessed. And as the Corybantian dances are not quite 'rational,' so
the lyric poets are, so to speak, not quite '_all there_.' ... They tell
us," he goes on condescendingly, "that they bring songs from honeyed
fountains, culling them from the gardens and dells of the Muses; that,
like the bees, they wing from one flower to another. Yes of a truth: the
Poet is a light and a winged and a holy thing, without invention in him
until he is inspired and out of his senses, and out of his own wit;
until he has attained to this he is but a feeble thing, unable to utter
his oracles." I can imagine all this reported to Homer in the Shades and
Homer answering with a smile: "Well, and who in the world is denying it?
I certainly did not, while I lived and sang upon earth. Nay, I never
even sang, but invited the Muse to sing to me and through me. [Greek:
_Menin haeide theha ... Handra moi hennepe, Moysa_.]--Surely the dear
fellow might remember the first line of my immortal works! And if he
does remember, and is only bringing it up against me that in the
intervals of doing my work in life I was a feeble fellow, go back and
tell him that it is likely enough, yet I fail to see how it can be any
business of his, since it was only my work that I ever asked for
recognition. They say that I used to go about begging a dinner on the
strength of it. Did I?... I cannot remember. Anyhow, that nuisance is
over sometime ago, and _his_ kitchen is safe!"

To you, who have followed the argument of this little book, the theory
of poetic "inspiration" will be intelligible enough. It earned a living
in its day and, if revived in ours, might happily supersede much modern
chatter about art and techni