Inspiration (n.) is a feeling felt by poets of a stronger age than ours as an ecstasy, as an immense strain, as a feeling that one is completely out of hand, as a very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and quiverings to the very toes... Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in a tempestuous outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity.
Inspiration (n.) is a myth artists have an interest in: the good artist's imagination produces continually, good and bad, and his judgement rejects, selects, knots together — see Beethoven's notebooks.
Inspiration (n.) is claimed for our ideas, though no one ever thought his stomach divine; artists hardly dare say "it came from me, it was my hand that threw the dice."
Inspiration (n.) is how founders of religions make their value legislation a bearable burden — so that their conscience is not crushed by hearing their "thou shalt" as "I will."
Inspiration (n.) is claimed for thoughts, never for stomachs: no one ever thought his stomach was an alien, perhaps divine stomach — but men in every age have thought their thoughts 'inspired'.