Anatomy of Inspiration

Rosamond E M Harding

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136263552
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

First Published in 1967. This volume is a collection of works, like letters, autobiographies and eye-witness accounts, relating to historical data that exits relating to 'mind in creation'. It includes an appendix with 'The Birth of a Poem' by Robert B.M. Nichols.

Chapter  I

Preparation

‘Let poets dream, let artists dream, let philosophers dream: let all thinkers be dreamers,’ said Victor Hugo.¹⁵²* In fact all creative thinkers are dreamers. In the older biographies and letters this faculty is often referred to as ‘castle-building’ or ‘day-dreaming.’ Herbert Spencer, in his Autobiography, tells us that when he was a boy he ‘was much given to castle-building’ and that this led to the intense concentration of his later years. ‘You cannot imagine all I dream of in my strolls out in the sun,’ writes George Sand to the Countess d’Agoult: . . . ‘I recollect having during whole hours fancied I was wandering through the Alps or in some part of America.’²⁷⁵ ‘My life,’ said Sir Walter Scott, ‘though not without its fits of waking and strong exertion, has been a sort of dream, spent in “chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy”…. Somewhere it is said that this castle-building . . . is fatal to exertion in actual life. I cannot tell, I have not found it so. I cannot, indeed, say like Madame de Genlis, that in the imaginary scenes in which I have acted a part I ever prepared myself for anything which actually befell me; but I have certainly fashioned out much that made the present hour pass pleasantly away, and much that has enabled me to contribute to the amusement of the public….²⁸⁰ But dreaming will not achieve results by itself. In the man or woman of genius there are always present great technical skill and originality. The technical skill is sometimes built up from childhood. The poet may scribble verses as a child: Landor, for example, from his earliest school-days, wrote verses for his own amusement, both in Latin and in English. ‘A man may be born a poet,’ writes Siegfried Sassoon, ‘but he has to make himself an artist as well. He must master the instrument…. without clarified construction and technical control, no poetical communication can be effective.’^277A Millais trained his memory from boyhood so that after coming in from a walk he could draw an exact likeness of almost everyone he had met.²¹⁴ Stevenson tells us that even as a boy when he went for a walk his mind was busy fitting what he saw with appropriate words and that when he read a book or a passage that pleased him he would try to imitate the quality that had attracted him.⁶ Somerset Maugham used in early days to ‘copy out passages from Dryden, Swift, Addison, and Cardinal Newman, not so much with any intention of reproducing them mechanically, as with the intention of cultivating an ear for the sounds of beautiful prose.’^147B

A prodigious memory might be thought essential to the creative mind. But there have been two men at least who reached eminence whose memories were perhaps only a little above the average. Priestley openly confessed to a defective memory and tells us in his Memoirs that he ‘had to devise, and have recourse to, a variety of mechanical expedients to secure and arrange’ his thoughts.²⁵² Darwin said ‘my memory is extensive, yet hazy’ and that he could not remember for more than a few days a date or line of poetry.⁶⁷ A vast memory is not, in fact, essential. Systematic and careful note-taking and the use of indexes may supply the deficiency.

The power of reading with great rapidity is sometimes cultivated: for example, Edison, the inventor, could read a book line by line.⁸⁹ Shelley took in seven or eight lines of print at a time.²⁰⁶ Thackeray would run his eye down the page and turn over to the next; assimilating the contents at a glance.³²⁸ Southey could see at once if the page contained anything of interest to him.²⁹² Schopenhauer, on the other hand, tended to discourage reading because he thought that the assimilation of so many new ideas checked the flow of original thought.³⁶⁵ Byron evidently thought much the same for he once remarked to Lady Blessington ‘to be perfectly original one should think much and read little,’ but he qualifies this statement by adding ‘and this is impossible, for one must have read much before one learns to think; for I have no faith in innate ideas, whatever I may have in innate predispositions….’²³

Originality depends on new and striking combinations of ideas. It is obvious therefore that the more a man knows the greater scope he has for arriving at striking combinations. And not only the more he knows about his own subject but the more he knows beyond it of other subjects. It is a fact that has not yet been sufficiently stressed that some persons who have risen to eminence in arts, letters or sciences have occasionally possessed considerable knowledge of subjects outside their own sphere of activity. There is a letter in which Pasteur reminds his father that his researches on molecular dissymmetry of natural organic products with their epoch-making results, were founded ‘on various notions borrowed from diverse branches of science.’²²⁴ What kind of knowledge and interests has a great scientist? Pasteur was a bachelor of literature as well as a doctor of science and his knowledge included crystallography, physics and chemistry. Lamarck began his career as a soldier, became a botanist and professor of invertebrate zoology; he also read physics, chemistry, meteorology and geography. Dr. Priestley’s son speaks of the variety of his father’s knowledge and of his miscellaneous reading as being ‘at all times very extensive.’²⁵³ Herbert Spencer’s Papers cover a range of subjects, as he tells us ‘from State-functions to a levelling-staff; from the genesis of religious ideas to a watch escapement; from the circulation in plants to an invalid bed; from the law of organic symmetry to planing machinery; from principles of ethics to a velocimeter; from a metaphysical doctrine to a binding-pin; from a classification of the sciences to an improved fishing-rod joint; from the general Law of Evolution to a better mode of dressing artificial flies.’²⁹⁴

It would be an interesting experiment to set a series of questions for school children asking them to state what they would consider to be the likely interests and hobbies of certain famous men and women. It is doubtful if they would guess, for example, at the extensive and varied culture of James Watt, who, in addition to his knowledge of mechanics, was a skilled chemist and versed in most branches of physical science. He was interested in antiquities, metaphysics, medicine, etymology, music and law, and he knew German well enough to read the works of the German philosophers and to discuss modern German poetry.²²³ Emmanuel Kant read classics, mathematics, physics, astronomy, metaphysics, law, geography, travel, etc.³⁰⁶ Amongst the older books in his library of about 500 volumes, works on physics and mathematics predominated over works of philosophy.³⁰⁷ Once he described Westminster Bridge to an English acquaintance in such detail that he was asked how many years he had lived in London—Kant had never visited England in his life!³⁰⁵ Goethe’s studies and interests were extensive. He was a great collector of objects of art and of science. In his house there were collections of ‘engravings, etchings, drawings, autographs, coins, medals, plaques, majolicas, plaster casts, minerals, plants, fossils (about 4000), skeletons.’¹⁶ He watched the fields of art, literature and science at Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Paris, Milan, London and Edinburgh. He was interested in the construction of canals, harbours and tunnels. He followed with close attention the Greek war of liberty and took in periodicals of all the great European countries.¹⁷ Turning now to writers of novels we pick at random two: George Eliot and Alphonse Daudet. Philology was George Eliot’s favourite subject of study. In addition to this she read vastly not only serious works but novels such as those by Cherbuliez, Daudet, Gustave Droz and George Sand. She had a complete literary and scholarly knowledge of French, German, Italian and Spanish, and she read both Greek and Latin for pleasure. Hebrew was a favourite study to the end, and she was interested, though not learned, in astronomy.⁶⁵ Léon Daudet says of his father Alphonse: ‘His knowledge was vast and accurate. Moreover he surprised me sometimes, when our talk fell upon some scientific or social subject, by the truth of his information…. He read enormously and with method, and assimilated difficult questions to his mind with marvellous quickness.’⁶⁹

Sir Francis Galton, in a well-known passage, says that ‘the successful progress of thought appears to depend—first, on a large attendance in the antechamber [of consciousness]: secondly, on the presence there of no ideas except such as are strictly germane to the topic under consideration; thirdly, on the justness of the logical mechanism that issues the summons.’¹⁰⁶ Success depends on adequate knowledge: that is, it depends on sufficient knowledge of the special subject, and a variety of extraneous knowledge to produce new and original combinations of ideas. Technical skill must be so far developed that it is never a hindrance to the flow of ideas. The thinker does not sit down and say to himself: ‘now I am going to think out the relations between so and so.’ The process is not so much an active as a passive one. In short the thinker dreams over his subject. The success of this meditation depends, as Sir Francis Galton says, on the absence of irrelevant ideas. In order to inhibit irrelevant ideas the dreaming must be combined with a certain intensity of feeling.

The ideas connected with a favourite study appear to acquire a certain tone which binds them together as an interest, so that when the thinker gets into the mood associated with this subject all relevant ideas in any way connected with it will tend to come together or at any rate to become available. On the other hand the mood tends to act as a sieve which prevents the entry of irrelevant ideas, allowing only those which are relevant to enter. Galton himself says that the ‘exclusion of alien ideas is accompanied by a sense of mental effort and volition whenever the topic under consideration is unattractive, otherwise it proceeds automatically, for if an intruding idea finds nothing to cling to, it is unable to hold its place . . .’¹⁰⁶ It has been suggested that many ideas outside the subject become associated with it by a kind of interest association and acquire a similar tone. Thus they tend to become available at the same time as the ideas directly connected with the subject itself.¹⁴² The variety of interests tends to increase the richness of these extra ideas—fringe-ideas—associated with the subject and thus to increase the possibilities of new and original combinations of thought.

Dreaming over a subject is simply the faculty of allowing the will to focus the mind passively on the subject so that it follows the trains of thought as they arise, stopping them only when unprofitable, but in general allowing them to form and branch naturally until some useful or interesting results occur. Having learned to dream over the subject the thinker must learn not to obtrude his own personal wishes but to follow where the truth leads. He who wishes to express himself is on the wrong track: his aim should be to express beyond himself. In fact the procedure bears an analogy to the mystic way. The sinking of the personality; the retirement for the time-being of the intellect from everything irrelevant; holding the intellect by the will so that it watches, but does not disturb, the natural development of the idea; merging himself into the great sea of life beyond himself in order that he may become one with it: these are the characteristics alike of mystic, seer, and thinker. Hugo said: ‘One must fill oneself with human science. Above all and in spite of all, be a man.’ ‘Do not fear to surcharge yourself with humanity. Ballast your mind with reality and then throw yourself into the sea. The sea is inspiration.’¹⁵²

* The numbers in the text refer to the Bibliography.

Chapter II

The Appearance of Inspiration

‘We are of nature, in nature, by nature, and for nature. Talent, will, genius, are natural phenomena like the lake, the volcano, the mountain, the wind, the star, the cloud.’²⁰³ In these words George Sand makes it clear that the phenomena of creative thought is a natural process. We may add natural in the same way as the experiences of mystics are natural: so rare in their extreme form as to appear supernatural and so common in their lesser manifestations as to pass almost unnoticed. The processes of creative thought which include, in the cases we shall review, inspiration, are best explained in the words of those who possessed the creative faculty in its highest form. The letters of Tchaikovsky are particularly suitable for this purpose as he analyses his own creative process in great detail. From one of these letters addressed to his intimate friend Frau von Meek, we shall draw throughout this chapter. That it should be the letter of a musician does not matter since the main principles of the creative process are the same whatever the subject may be. Tchaikovsky writes: ‘generally speaking, the germ of a future composition comes suddenly and unexpectedly.’³¹⁶ Now the suddenness with which an idea of value makes its appearance is a characteristic not only of musical thought but also of every type of creative mind. For example, Alfred Russel Wallace would be disinclined to work for days and even for weeks, feeling no constraining impulse. He occupied himself with his seeds, by planning a new house or simply with a novel. Then, ‘suddenly whilst in one of his day-dreams, or in a fever (as at Ternate . . .)’ James Marchant tells us that ‘an explanation, a theory, a discovery, the plan of a new book, came to him like a flash of light,’ and with it not only the plan but the material, arguments and illustrations.¹⁹⁷ George Eliot, in a letter to Blackwood of January, 1861, says: ‘I am writing a story which came across my other plans by a sudden inspiration.’⁶³ Vincent van Gogh once said that he had ‘a terrible lucidity at moments, when nature is so glorious in those days I am hardly conscious of myself and the picture comes to me like in a dream.¹¹⁶ Thomas Hardy ‘recalled how, when wandering about the countryside, ideas often came into his head when he had not a scrap of paper upon him. Under such conditions he said that he would pick up large dead leaves, chips of wood left by the woodmen, or pieces of slate, and jot down rapidly upon these unusual materials the ideas which came into his head.’¹⁴⁸

Returning to Tchaikovsky’s letter: he says ‘if the soil is ready that—is to say, if the disposition for work is there—it’ [the germ of a composition] ‘takes root with extraordinary force and rapidity, shoots up through the earth, puts forth branches, leaves, and finally blossoms. I cannot,’ he says, ‘define the creative process in any other way than by this simile. The great difficulty is that the germ must appear at a favourable moment, the rest goes of itself. It would be vain to try to put into words that immeasurable sense of bliss which comes over me directly a new idea awakens in me and begins to assume a definite form. I forget everything and behave like a madman. Everything within me starts pulsing and quivering; hardly have I begun the sketch ere one thought follows another.’³¹⁶

The state of mind that Tchaikovsky is describing is none other than the state of inspiration. The emotion does not necessarily come at once; it may begin gradually: ‘the faint conceptions I have of Poems to come brings the blood frequently into my forehead,’ said Keats.¹⁶⁷ William James refers to ‘fevered states’ when ‘ideas are shooting together’ and he ‘can think of no finite things.’ Scott speaks of the pulse rising as ideas come, and when they flag he says ‘something like a snow haze covers my whole imagination.’²⁸² Or it may come as a tremendous shock to the poet ‘musing deeply,’ as Shelley tells us in the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty:

‘Sudden, they shadow fell on me;

I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!’

Henry Treffry Dunn gives an interesting account of Swin–burne under the influence of inspiration in Rossetti’s studio at Cheyne Walk: ‘It had been a very sultry day, and with the advancing twilight heavy thunder-clouds were rolling up. The door opened and Swinburne entered. He appeared in an abstracted state, and for a few moments sat silent. Soon, something I had said anent his last poem set his thoughts loose. Like the storm that had just broken, so he began in low tones to utter lines of poetry. As the storm increased, he got more and more excited and carried away by the impulse of his thoughts, bursting into a torrent of splendid verse that seemed like some grand air with the distant peals of thunder as an intermittent accompaniment. And still the storm waxed more violent, and the vivid flashes of lightning became more frequent. But Swinburne seemed unconscious of it all, and whilst he paced up and down the room, pouring out bursts of passionate declamation, faint electric sparks played round the wavy masses of his luxuriant hair. I lay on the sofa in a corner of the studio and listened in wonder and with a curious awe, for it appeared to me as though the very figures in the pictures that were on...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface to the First Edition
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the Reprint of the Second Edition
• Contents
• Chapter I: Preparation
• Chapter II: The Appearance of Inspiration
• Chapter III: General Procedure
• Chapter IV: Special Procedure
• Chapter V: Special Procedure [continued]
• Chapter VI: Conclusion
• Appendix: The Birth of a Poem
• Bibliography
• Index of Proper Names