"Poetical composition results from two intellectual phenomena, meditation and inspiration. Meditation is a faculty; inspiration is a gift. All men, to a certain degree, can meditate; very few are inspired. Spiritus flat ubi vult [The spirit flows where it wills.]. In meditation, the spirit acts; in inspiration, it obeys; because the first is of men, the second comes from a higher source. He who gave us this power is stronger than we. These two processes of thoughts are intimately linked in the soul of the poet. The poet invites inspiration by meditation, as the prophets raised themselves to ecstasies by prayer. That the muse should reveal herself to him, he must in some sort have passed all his material existence in repose, in silence, and in meditation. He must be isolated from external life, to enjoy in its fullness that inward life, which develops in him a new existence; and it is only when the physical world has utterly vanished from before his eyes, that the ideal world is fully revealed to him. It seems that poetic inspiration has in it something too sublime for the common nature of man. Genius can compass its greater efforts only when the soul is released from the vulgar cares that follow it in life; for thought cannot take its wings till it has laid aside its burden. Thence comes it, doubtless, that inspiration is born only of meditation. Among the Jews, the people whose history is so rich in mysterious symbols when the priest had built the altar, he lighted upon it an earthly flame -- and it was then only that the divine ray descended from Heaven."