seems to be that no writer is guided solely by inspiration. Not that he
ever consciously falsifies or modifies the revelation given him in his
moment of inspiration, but the revelation is ever hauntingly incomplete.

The slightest adverse influence may jar upon the harmony between the
poet's soul and the spirit of poetry. The stories of Dante's "certain
men of business," who interrupted his drawing of Beatrice, and of
Coleridge's visitors who broke in upon the writing of _Kubla Khan_,
are notorious. Tennyson, in _The Poet's Mind_, warns all intruders
away from the singer's inspired hour. He tells them,

In your eye there is death;
There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.
* * * * *
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants;
It would fall to the ground if you came in.

But it is not fair always to lay the shattering of the poet's dream to
an intruder. The poet himself cannot account for its departure, so
delicate and evanescent is it. Emerson says,

There are open hours
When the God's will sallies free,
And the dull idiot might see
The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;--
Sudden, at unawares,
Self-moved, fly to the doors,
Nor sword of angels could reveal
What they conceal.