I observe that it is when I have been intently, and it may be
laboriously, at work, and am somewhat listless or abandoned after it, reposing,
that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty. It is from the
shadow of my toil that I look into light. Thoreau.
The conditions are hard, but equal. Thou shalt leave the world,
and know the muse only. Thou shalt not know any longer the times,
customs, graces, politics, or opinions of men,
but shalt take all from
the muse. God wills also that thou abdicate a manifold and duplex
life, and that thou be content that others speak for thee. Thou must
pass for a fool and a churl for a long season. This is the screen
and sheath in which Pan has protected his well-beloved flower, and thou
shalt be known only to thine own, and they shall console thee with tenderest
love. And this is the reward: that the ideal shall be real to thee,
and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer rain, copious,
but not troublesome, to thy invulnerable essence. Thou shalt have
the whole land for thy park and manor, the sea for thy bath and navigation,
without tax and without envy; the woods and the rivers thou shalt own;
and thou shalt possess that wherein others are only tenants and boarders.
Thou true land-lord! sea-lord! air-lord! Wherever snow falls, or
water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever
the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms
with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space,
wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as
rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou
shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble.
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