The inspirations of genius come from a failure of attention to life,
which, all paradoxically, brings vision--the power to see life
clearly and "see it whole." Consciousness, unconditioned by time,
"in a beautiful strong dream," awakens to the perception of a world
that is timeless. It brings thence some immortelle whose power of
survival establishes the authenticity of the inspiration. However
local and personal any masterpiece may be, it escapes by some potent
magic all geographical and temporal categories, and appears always
new-born from a sphere in which such categories do not exist.
No writer was more of his period than Shakespeare, yet how
contemporary he seems to each succeeding generation. Leonardo, in a
perfect portrait, showed forth the face of a subtle, sensuous, and
mocking spirit, against a background of wild rocks. It represents
not alone the soul-phase of the later Renaissance, but of every
individual and of every civilization which on life's dangerous and
orgiastic substratum has reared a mere garden of delight. Living
hearts throb to the music penned by the dead hand of Mozart and of
Beethoven; the clownings of Aristophanes arouse laughter in our
music halls; Euripides is as subtle and world-weary as any modern;
the philosophies of Parminides and Heraclitus are recrudescent in that
of Bergson; and Plato discusses higher space under a different name.