freedom, a power came to them, which lifted them to performances far better than they could reach at other times; so that a religious poet once told me that "he valued his poems, not because they were his, but because they were not." He thought the angels brought them to him. Jacob Behmen said: "Art has not wrote here, nor was there any time to consider how to set it punctually down according to the right understanding of the letters, but all was ordered according to the direction of the spirit, which often went on haste,--so that the penman's hand, by reason he was not accustomed to it, did often shake. And, though I could have written in a more accurate, fair, and plain manner, the burning fire often forced forward with speed, and the hand and pen must hasten directly after it, for it comes and goes as a sudden shower. In one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more, than if I had been many years together at an university." The depth of the notes which we accidentally sound on the strings of nature is out of all proportion to our taught and ascertained faculty, and might teach us what strangers and novices we are, vagabond in this universe of pure power, to which we have only the smallest key. Herrick said:-- "'Tis not every day that I Fitted am to prophesy; No, but when the spirit fills The fantastic panicles, Full of fire, then I write As the Goddess doth indite. Thus, enraged, my lines are hurled, Like the Sibyl's, through the world: Look how next the holy fire Either slakes, or doth retire; So the fancy cools,--till when That brave spirit comes again." Bonaparte said: "There is no man more pusillanimous than I, when I make a military plan. I magnify all the dangers, and all the possible mischances. I am in an agitation utterly painful. That does not prevent me from appearing quite serene to the persons who surround me. I am like a woman with child, and when my resolution is taken, all is forgot, except whatever can make it succeed." There are, to be sure, certain risks in this presentiment of the decisive perception, as in the use of ether or alcohol. "Great wits to madness nearly are allied; Both serve to make our poverty our pride." Aristotle said: "No great genius was ever without some mixture of madness, nor can anything grand or superior to the voice of common mortals be spoken except by the agitated soul." We might say of these memorable moments of life, that we were in them, not they in us. We found ourselves by happy fortune in an illuminated portion or meteorous zone, and passed out of it again, so aloof was it from any will of ours. "'Tis a principle of war," said Napoleon, "that when you can use the lightning, 'tis better than cannon." How many sources of inspiration can we count? As many as our affinities. But to a practical purpose we may reckon a few of these.