"That was precisely the question I was waiting for," said Mr.
Barbecue-Smith. "You ask me what one should do if one hasn't got
Inspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone has Inspiration.
It's simply a question of getting it to function."
The clock struck eight. There was no sign of any of the other guests;
everybody was always late at Crome. Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on.
"That's my secret," he said. "I give it you freely." (Denis made a
suitably grateful murmur and grimace.) "I'll help you to find your
Inspiration, because I don't like to see a nice, steady young man like you
exhausting his vitality and wasting the best years of his life in a grinding
intellectual labour that could be completely obviated by Inspiration. I did
it myself, so I know what it's like. Up till the time I was thirty-eight I
was a writer like you--a writer without Inspiration. All I wrote I
squeezed out of myself by sheer hard work. Why, in those days I was
never able to do more than six-fifty words an hour, and what's more, I
often didn't sell what I wrote." He sighed. "We artists," he said
parenthetically, "we intellectuals aren't much appreciated here in
England." Denis wondered if there was any method, consistent, of
course, with politeness, by which he could dissociate himself from Mr.
Barbecue-Smith's "we." There was none; and besides, it was too late
now, for Mr. Barbecue-Smith was once more pursuing the tenor of his
discourse.
"At thirty-eight I was a poor, struggling, tired, overworked, unknown
journalist. Now, at fifty..." He paused modestly and made a little
gesture, moving his fat hands outwards, away from one another, and
expanding his fingers as though in demonstration. He was exhibiting
himself. Denis thought of that advertisement of Nestle's milk--the two
cats on the wall, under the moon, one black and thin, the other white, sleek,
and fat. Before Inspiration and after.
"Inspiration has made the difference," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith
solemnly. "It came quite suddenly--like a gentle dew from heaven." He
29
lifted his hand and let it fall back on to his knee to indicate the descent of
the dew. "It was one evening. I was writing my first little book about
the Conduct of Life--'Humble Heroisms'. You may have read it; it has
been a comfort--at least I hope and think so--a comfort to many thousands.
I was in the middle of the second chapter, and I was stuck. Fatigue,
overwork--I had only written a hundred words in the last hour, and I could
get no further. I sat biting the end of my pen and looking at the electric
light, which hung above my table, a little above and in front of me." He
indicated the position of the lamp with elaborate care. "Have you ever
looked at a bright light intently for a long time?" he asked, turning to
Denis. Denis didn't think he had. "You can hypnotise yourself that way,"
Mr. Barbecue-Smith went on.
The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still no sign
of the others. Denis was horribly hungry.
"That's what happened to me," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "I was
hypnotised. I lost consciousness like that." He snapped his fingers.
"When I came to, I found that it was past midnight, and I had written four
thousand words. Four thousand," he repeated, opening his mouth very
wide on the "ou" of thousand. "Inspiration had come to me."
"What a very extraordinary thing," said Denis.
"I was afraid of it at first. It didn't seem to me natural. I didn't feel,
somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I might almost say, to produce
a literary composition unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I might have
written nonsense."
"And had you written nonsense?" Denis asked.
"Certainly not," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace of
annoyance. "Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few spelling
mistakes and slips, such as there generally are in automatic writing. But
the style, the thought--all the essentials were admirable. After that,
Inspiration came to me regularly. I wrote the whole of 'Humble
Heroisms' like that. It was a great success, and so has everything been
that I have written since." He leaned forward and jabbed at Denis with
his finger. "That's my secret," he said, "and that's how you could write
too, if you tried--without effort, fluently, well."
30
"But how?" asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he had been
insulted by that final "well."
"By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch with your
Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book, 'Pipe-Lines to the
Infinite'?"
Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few, perhaps
the only one, of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's works he had not read.
"Never mind, never mind," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "It's just a little
book about the connection of the Subconscious with the Infinite. Get
into touch with the Subconscious and you are in touch with the Universe.
Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?"
"Perfectly, perfectly," said Denis. "But don't you find that the
Universe sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?"
"I don't allow it to," Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. "I canalise it. I
bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind."
"Like Niagara," Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith's
remarks sounded strangely like quotations--quotations from his own works,
no doubt.
"Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it." He leaned
forward, and with a raised forefinger marked his points as he made them,
beating time, as it were, to his discourse. "Before I go off into my trance,
I concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspired about. Let us say I am
writing about the humble heroisms; for ten minutes before I go into the
trance I think of nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers and
sisters, of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind on such
great philosophical truths as the purification and uplifting of the soul by
suffering, and the alchemical transformation of leaden evil into golden
good." (Denis again hung up his little festoon of quotation marks.)
"Then I pop off. Two or three hours later I wake up again, and find that
inspiration has done its work. Thousands of words, comforting, uplifting
words, lie before me. I type them out neatly on my machine and they are
ready for the printer."
"It all sounds wonderfully simple," said Denis.
"It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life are
31
wonderfully simple." (Quotation marks again.) "When I have to do my
aphorisms," Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, "I prelude my trance by
turning over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations or Shakespeare
Calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak; that ensures
that the Universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous rush, but in
aphorismic drops. You see the idea?"
Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket and
pulled out a notebook. "I did a few in the train to-day," he said, turning
over the pages. "Just dropped off into a trance in the corner of my
carriage. I find the train very conducive to good work. Here they are."
He cleared his throat and read:
"The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, and it
is from the Summit that one gets the view."
"The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart."
It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimes
repeated itself.
"Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If I believe
in God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be evil."
Mr. Barbecue-Smith looked up from his notebook. "That last one,"
he said, "is particularly subtle and beautiful, don't you think? Without
Inspiration I could never have hit on that." He re-read the apophthegm
with a slower and more solemn utterance. "Straight from the Infinite," he
commented reflectively, then addressed himself to the next aphorism.
"The flame of a candle gives Light, but it also Burns."
Puzzled wrinkles appeared on Mr. Barbecue-Smith's forehead. "I
don't exactly know what that means," he said. "It's very gnomic. One
could apply it, of course to the Higher Education-- illuminating, but
provoking the Lower Classes to discontent and revolution. Yes, I
suppose that's what it is. But it's gnomic, it's gnomic." He rubbed his
chin thoughtfully. The gong sounded again, clamorously, it seemed
imploringly: dinner was growing cold. It roused Mr. Barbecue-Smith
from meditation. He turned to Denis.
"You understand me now when I advise you to cultivate your
Inspiration. Let your Subconscious work for you; turn on the Niagara of
32
the Infinite."
There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mr. Barbecue-Smith got up,
laid his hand for an instant on Denis's shoulder, and said:
"No more now. Another time. And remember, I rely absolutely on
your discretion in this matter. There are intimate, sacred things that one
doesn't wish to be generally known."
"Of course," said Denis. "I quite understand."
33
CHAPTER VII.
At Crome all the beds were ancient hereditary pieces of furniture.
Huge beds, like four-masted ships, with furled sails of shining coloured
stuff. Beds carved and inlaid, beds painted and gilded. Beds of walnut
and oak, of rare exotic woods. Beds of every date and fashion from the
time of Sir Ferdinando, who built the house, to the time of his namesake in
the late eighteenth century, the last of the family, but all of them grandiose,
magnificent.
The finest of all was now Anne's bed. Sir Julius, son to Sir
Ferdinando, had had it made in Venice against his wife's first lying-in.
Early seicento Venice had expended all its extravagant art in the making of
it. The body of the bed was like a great square sarcophagus. Clustering
roses were carved in high relief on its wooden panels, and luscious putti
wallowed among the roses. On the black ground-work of the panels the
carved reliefs were gilded and burnished. The golden roses twined in
spirals up the four pillar-like posts, and cherubs, seated at the top of each
column, supported a wooden canopy fretted with the same carved flowers.
Anne was reading in bed. Two candles stood on the little table beside
her, in their rich light her face, her bare arm and shoulder took on warm
hues and a sort of peach-like quality of surface. Here and there in the
canopy above her carved golden petals shone brightly among profound
shadows, and the soft light, falling on the sculptured panel of the bed,
broke restlessly among the intricate roses, lingered in a broad caress on the
blown cheeks, the dimpled bellies, the tight, absurd little posteriors of the
sprawling putti.
There was a discreet tap at the door. She looked up. "Come in,
come in." A face, round and childish, within its sleek bell of golden hair,
peered round the opening door. More childish- looking still, a suit of
mauve pyjamas made its entrance.
It was Mary. "I thought I'd just look in for a moment to say goodnight,"
she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Anne closed her book. "That was very sweet of you."
"What are you reading?" She looked at the book. "Rather second
34
rate, isn't it?" The tone in which Mary pronounced the word "secondrate"
implied an almost infinite denigration. She was accustomed in
London to associate only with first-rate people who liked first-rate things,
and she knew that there were very, very few first-rate things in the world,
and that those were mostly French.
"Well, I'm afraid I like it," said Anne. There was nothing more to be
said. The silence that followed was a rather uncomfortable one. Mary
fiddled uneasily with the bottom button of her pyjama jacket. Leaning
back on her mound of heaped-up pillows, Anne waited and wondered what
was coming.
"I'm so awfully afraid of repressions," said Mary at last, bursting
suddenly and surprisingly into speech. She pronounced the words on the
tail-end of an expiring breath, and had to gasp for new air almost before
the phrase was finished.
"What's there to be depressed about?"
"I said repressions, not depressions."
"Oh, repressions; I see," said Anne. "But repressions of what?"
Mary had to explain. "The natural instincts of sex..." she began
didactically. But Anne cut her short.
"Yes, yes. Perfectly. I understand. Repressions! old maids and all
the rest. But what about them?"
"That's just it," said Mary. "I'm afraid of them. It's always
dangerous to repress one's instincts. I'm beginning to detect in myself
symptoms like the ones you read of in the books. I constantly dream that
I'm falling down wells; and sometimes I even dream that I'm climbing up
ladders. It's most disquieting. The symptoms are only too clear."
"Are they?"
"One may become a nymphomaniac of one's not careful. You've no
idea how serious these repressions are if you don't get rid of them in time."
"It sounds too awful," said Anne. "But I don't see that I can do
anything to help you."
"I thought I'd just like to talk it over with you."
