inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer
in him: when he has not attained to this state he is
powerless and unable to utter his oracles. [Footnote:
_Ion_, sec.534.]

And again,

There is a ... kind of madness which is a possession of the
Muses; this enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and
there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric and all other
numbers.... But he who, not being inspired, and having no
touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks
he will get into the temple by the help of art, he, I say,
and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at
all when he enters into rivalry with the madman. [Footnote:
_Phaedrus_, sec. 245.]

Even Aristotle, that sanest of philosophers, so far agrees with Plato as
to say,

Poetry implies either a happy gift of nature, or a strain of
madness. In the one case, a man can take the mold of any
character; in the other he is lifted out of his proper self.
[Footnote: _Poetics_, XVII.]

One must admit that poets nowadays are not always so frank as earlier
ones in describing their state of mind. Now that the lunatic is no
longer placed in the temple, but in the hospital, the popular imputation
of insanity to the poet is not always favorably received. Occasionally
he regards it as only another unjust charge brought against him by a