THE CONDITIONS OF INSPIRATION
"The greatest Masterpieces in Music will be found to contain
sensuous, emotional, and rational factors, and something beside:
some divine element of life by which they are animated and
inspired"
_W. H. Hadow_
It may be interesting for a little space to consider the conditions
under which Inspiration operates, for, like any other faculty, it is
subject to the control of law. We have already emphasised the
universality of vibration and the call of like to like, but the theme
will bear some further elaboration.
We adventure into the study of sound and its laws and we find that all
sounds are propagated by means of waves. These proceed in circular
fashion, as do the ripples upon the still surface of a lake into which a
stone has been thrown. Further, these waves are of differing rates.
Middle C, on the piano, for instance, is made by waves that reach us at
the rate of about 256 per second. As sound travels roughly at 1,100
feet to the second, it is clear that the wave of this note is something
over four feet from crest to crest. The wave of a note an octave higher
would be double the rate and half the length. In addition to this there
may be big waves and little waves travelling at the same rate, and also
the actual shape of the waves may differ very widely. Thus waves have
points of similarity and yet their infinite variety, as do human beings.
This variety in the shape of the waves results in the difference in
timbre between various tones. Nobody could fail to distinguish between
the sound of a note played on a penny whistle and the same note given
out on a violin or a cornet: yet the actual rate of wave would be the
same in each case. The reason is that no tone is a pure fundamental
tone, there are always super-added a number of other tones, termed the
overtones. These are, to the original tone, exactly what the flavouring
is to the pudding. You have your fundamental tone and you can add your
overtones to taste: you can flavour with the penny whistle, the violin,
or the cornet timbre to suit yourself. But according to the flavouring,
so is the shape of the wave. Isolated fundamental tones are apt to be
colourless and monotonous, like the diapason work on an organ. The
organist is able to flavour his fundamental tone at will, by the stops
he draws to add to it: he has a special supply of "mixtures" which sound
truly dreadful and impossible by themselves, but these in combination
with the fundamental go to the making of a successful timbre. Carrots,
by themselves, are not a Christmas diet, but we understand that they go
to improve the flavour of the festive pudding.
In some such way as this thoughts are tuned, and from the thoughts we
think, the desires we entertain, and the aspirations which fill our
souls, the timbre of our life is determined. No one is fundamentally and
wholly good or bad, we have all of us our overtones, and some of us have
very curious mixtures which go to make us what we are. But just as the
gramophone will take in all the wonderful complexity of sound waves
which are sent out by a whole orchestra of instruments, and will combine
these into one wavy line on the record--a kind of compound wave
containing "all the elements so mixed"--so also it is with ourselves.
All the thought elements are so mixed in us that as we go through life
we vibrate to a note that is unique, compounded as it is of all those
inner thoughts and emotions that are so exclusively our own. To those
who sound the same note, or one that is in harmony, we are akin. We meet
them for the first time, and in a moment we have known them for years,
perhaps always: we play unison or harmony in our sympathetic attunement.
On the other hand, sounding our persistent middle C on our little
journey, perhaps we come up against an equally insistent C sharp:
excellent notes, each of them--yet there promises but doubtful harmony.
Keep to your own key, and be happy.
Whatever note we sing is an invisible, and yet most potent, influence in
our lives. We may deem that our thoughts do not matter overmuch, and
that it is only deeds that count. Heresy and mistake. Thoughts make us
or mar us. Sympathy ensures that we are surrounded and encompassed by
that which we ourselves attract. There is a law of consonance, and we
are responsible for things in a way that but few realise. This note we
sing, this mirror of our personality, this invisible force attracts our
friends: change the note--the personality--and we inevitably alter the
friendships which were determined thereby. This same note selects the
clothes we wear, the things we eat, it chooses the books we read and the
avocations we pursue. It is reflected in the pictures on our walls, and
in the furniture which decorates our rooms. It determines the prospects
which are before us, just as it has attracted the appropriate
difficulties and trials that we have left behind. It marries us, and
eventually it buries us. Sometimes our overtones of desires or greed
inter us long before our lease of life is due to expire. But perhaps
most important of all, it determines and selects the Inspiration we are
able to receive.
Thoughts of every kind beat upon our minds, as the waves lap the
seashore, but we are only able to respond to those that call and awaken
some sympathetic answer within us. The heart that is pure can live in an
ocean of impurity, and yet remain unsullied: but the character with
anger implanted within will find that anger blazing out in echo and
answer to a hundred provocations a day. Hatred means nothing, in
temptation or response, to a heart overflowing with love. Thus this
attunement is at once an avenue for our assault, or our sure shield of
defence, according as its note determines. A low tone is an ever-present
danger, and a high one a permanent safeguard.
Inspiration is therefore only possible to us at our own level, and
unless we are mentally attuned to a high note the inspiration itself
will reach no lofty measure. It is true that a mood of exaltation, of
earnest prayer or aspiration, may enable us to catch a glimpse of the
higher vision, but under these circumstances it is apt to be elusive and
fragmentary. The condition of any permanent influx is that the
attunement should be habitually and continuously lofty. When this
condition is at length reached we are not so very far from that "prayer
without ceasing," which most truly means "the practice of the presence
of God."
The avenue of inspiration is the subconscious part of the mind, that
part of us which in fact constitutes the greater self. In ordinary life
this department of mind is more or less shielded by the consciousness.
It would retain the permanent impress of every idea it came across, were
it not that the consciousness off-hand and summarily rejects a number of
impressions which might otherwise prove detrimental. One man calls
another a fool, but this one knows very well that he is nothing of the
kind, and so the idea carries very little weight in its record on the
subconscious. On the other hand, if there were no protective mechanism
of this nature, the subconscious might very well accept the statement
and believe that its owner certainly was the fool he had been dubbed.
The effect, therefore, of consciousness is thus to limit and reduce
this sensitiveness and susceptibility of the subconscious part of mind.
As the consciousness passes out of action, as in dream states, brown
studies, and in the induced sleep of hypnosis, this sensitiveness and
activity of the subconscious gradually emerges. The normal sleep, or as
Iamblichus calls it--"The night-time of the body"--is, to continue his
remark, "the day-time of the soul." Thus it is so often in the Bible
stories that we find the phrase--"The Lord--or the Angel of the
Lord--appeared, in a dream." These waves of thought and Inspiration are
continually lapping the margin of our subconscious selves, both by day
and by night, leaving the dream-traces of their impress as the ripple
leaves its marks upon the sand. It is the connection between this
under-mind and the consciousness that is so frequently at fault, so that
we remain unaware of the tidings. Usually the consciousness is kept so
busily engaged that it never has a minute to itself, and so peace,
quiet, and receptivity are unknown. The subconscious tries hard to get
in its modest word occasionally and edgeways, but the consciousness
rarely stops talking: the whole business is one-sided. Plenty of
material goes from the consciousness to the subconscious, but
comparatively little is able to come in the reverse direction.
This, of course, is a distorted method of existing: there should ever be
in the mind a process corresponding to the in-breathing and
out-breathing of the lungs. The active and acquisitive consciousness
procures the mental food: the subconscious stores this up, assimilates
it, and turns it into a kind of inner mentor or conscience which in due
course issues its orders and offers its advice. But just as we are said
to stifle the "still, small voice," so also do we strangle our possible
inventions and discoveries, and so do we cause our inspirations to
remain still-born. This is the price we pay for our mad rush after the
things that do not matter. We have said that no aspirant ever lacks a
teacher, but we would further say that when a person is content to make
use of the subconscious powers he possesses, he will find that the
knowledge and the inspiration he earnestly seeks will be granted him.
"With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of
joy, we see into the heart of things."[10] The acorn is already in the
garden of the mind, we need only to provide the requisite conditions for
growth, and the oak tree will then follow as a matter of course.
[Note 10: Wordsworth.]
Things grow and fashion themselves in this under-mind, as the novelist
and dramatist will testify. The artist finds his picture forming itself
before his inner vision, and so the musician hears his composition. "It
comes," they say: so does the oak. But like the oak it can only come
when conditions allow, and one of the main conditions is that the
consciousness should not rule the roost, and hold sway and dominance to
the exclusion and smothering of the still, small voice. "Be still, and
know."
Many things and conditions clog communication from the under-mind to the
consciousness. The well-being of the body is of the utmost importance: a
clogged and constipated body is no medium for inspiration. High living
kills the genius of inspiration, and masterpieces are more often
produced in the garret than where luxury rules. Success is an even
greater test of true genius than is poverty. A bilious attack will put a
stop to the most perfervid outpourings of genius, and a common cold in
the nose will play havoc with a work of Art. An unstable temperament
will have its moments of exaltation and its hours of despair: this is
sensitiveness uncontrolled. Sensitiveness is indeed the stock-in-trade
of all who work in the temple of Art, but unless it be controlled by
reins of more than ordinary strength it is a very doubtful blessing. We
must ever be able to keep our souls in tune so that they afford no echo
to the undesirable. Indulgence of the body in any form hampers its work
as an instrument of the spirit, while self-discipline (tho' by no means
to the verge of asceticism) increases its sensitiveness, and occasional
quiet periods afford the opportunity for the subconscious treasures to
reveal themselves.
On the mental side, selfishness is one of the most complete and
effectual deadeners of inspiration. The delicate intimations of finer
things can make no impression on a hide-bound mind. As Trine somewhere
puts it--"The man who is always thinking of himself generally looks as
if he were thinking of something disagreeable." The self-centred mind is
a mind closed to other things, and to this extent it is nearly always
unbalanced and distorted. Under these conditions such inspiration as it
may receive is liable to be of an uncouth and bizarre nature. Hatred,
malice, and all uncharitableness tune the mind to very undesirable
levels, and at this level it will come in touch with the whole body of
similar undesirable thought that is circulating around it. It both gives
out and receives. Such a mind is indeed doing active work in the world,
but in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, the individual who sets
himself to work positively and constructively to utilise inspiration, as
it assuredly may be used, is in some degree helping his generation and
becoming a prophet, and maybe a saviour.