“I don’t allow it to,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith replied. “I canalise it. I bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind.”
“Like Niagara,” Denis suggested. Some of Mr. Barbecue-Smith’s remarks sounded strangely like quotations—quotations from his own works, no doubt.
“Precisely. Like Niagara. And this is how I do it.” He leaned forward, and with a raised forefinger marked his points as he made them, beating time, as it were, to his discourse. “Before I go off into my trance, I concentrate on the subject I wish to be inspired about. Let us say I am writing about the humble heroisms; for ten minutes before I go into the trance I think of nothing but orphans supporting their little brothers and sisters, of dull work well and patiently done, and I focus my mind on such great philosophical truths as the purification and uplifting of the soul by suffering, and the alchemical transformation of leaden evil into golden good.” (Denis again hung up his little festoon of quotation marks.) “Then I pop off. Two or three hours later I wake up again, and find that inspiration has done its work. Thousands of words, comforting, uplifting words, lie before me. I type them out neatly on my machine and they are ready for the printer.”
“It all sounds wonderfully simple,” said Denis.
“It is. All the great and splendid and divine things of life are wonderfully simple.” (Quotation marks again.) “When I have to do my aphorisms,” Mr. Barbecue-Smith continued, “I prelude my trance by turning over the pages of any Dictionary of Quotations or Shakespeare Calendar that comes to hand. That sets the key, so to speak; that ensures that the Universe shall come flowing in, not in a continuous rush, but in aphorismic drops. You see the idea?”
Denis nodded. Mr. Barbecue-Smith put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a notebook. “I did a few in the train to-day,” he said, turning over the pages. “Just dropped off into a trance in the corner of my carriage. I find the train very conducive to good work. Here they are.” He cleared his throat and read:
“The Mountain Road may be steep, but the air is pure up there, and it is from the Summit that one gets the view.”
“The Things that Really Matter happen in the Heart.”
It was curious, Denis reflected, the way the Infinite sometimes repeated itself.
“Seeing is Believing. Yes, but Believing is also Seeing. If I believe in God, I see God, even in the things that seem to be evil.”