of revelation in the sense that something becomes suddenly visible and
audible with indescribable certainty and accuracy, which profoundly
convulses and upsets one--describes simply the matter of fact. One hears--
one does not seek; one takes--one does not ask who gives: a thought
suddenly flashes up like lightning, it comes with necessity,
unhesitatingly--I have never had any choice in the matter. There is an
ecstasy such that the immense strain of it is sometimes relaxed by a flood
of tears, along with which one's steps either rush or involuntarily lag,
alternately. There is the feeling that one is completely out of hand, with
the very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and
quiverings to the very toes;--there is a depth of happiness in which the
painfullest and gloomiest do not operate as antitheses, but as conditioned,
as demanded in the sense of necessary shades of colour in such an overflow
of light. There is an instinct for rhythmic relations which embraces wide
areas of forms (length, the need of a wide-embracing rhythm, is almost the
measure of the force of an inspiration, a sort of counterpart to its
pressure and tension). Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in a
tempestuous outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity.
The involuntariness of the figures and similes is the most remarkable
thing; one loses all perception of what constitutes the figure and what
constitutes the simile; everything seems to present itself as the readiest,
the correctest and the simplest means of expression. It actually seems, to
use one of Zarathustra's own phrases, as if all things came unto one, and
would fain be similes: 'Here do all things come caressingly to thy talk
and flatter thee, for they want to ride upon thy back. On every simile
dost thou here ride to every truth. Here fly open unto thee all being's
words and word-cabinets; here all being wanteth to become words, here all
becoming wanteth to learn of thee how to talk.' This is MY experience of
inspiration. I do not doubt but that one would have to go back thousands
of years in order to find some one who could say to me: It is mine