Read Online Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley - Free Book Online

made the difference,’ said Mr Barbecue-Smith solemnly. ‘It came quite suddenly – like a gentle dew from heaven.’ He lifted his hand and let it fall back on to his knee to indicate the descent of the dew. ‘It was one evening. I was writing my first book about the Conduct of Life –
Humble Heroisms
. You may have read it; it has been a comfort – at least I hope and think so – a comfort to many thousands. I was in the middle of the second chapter, and I was stuck. Fatigue, overwork – I had only written a hundred words in the last hour, and I could get no further. I sat bitingthe end of my pen and looking at the electric light, which hung above my table, a little above and in front of me.’ He indicated the position of the lamp with elaborate care. ‘Have you ever looked at a bright light intently for a long time?’ he asked, turning to Denis. Denis didn’t think he had. ‘You can hypnotize yourself that way,’ Mr Barbecue-Smith went on.
    The gong sounded in a terrific crescendo from the hall. Still no sign of the others. Denis was horribly hungry.
    â€˜That’s what happened to me,’ said Mr Barbecue-Smith. ‘I was hypnotized. I lost consciousness like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘When I came to, I found that it was past mid-night, and I had written four thousand words. Four thousand,’ he repeated, opening his mouth very wide on the
ou
of thousand. ‘Inspiration had come to me.’
    â€˜What a very extraordinary thing,’ said Denis.
    â€˜I was afraid of it at first. It didn’t seem to me natural. I didn’t feel, somehow, that it was quite right, quite fair, I might almost say, to produce a literary composition unconsciously. Besides, I was afraid I might have written nonsense.’
    â€˜And had you written nonsense?’ Denis asked.
    â€˜Certainly not,’ Mr Barbecue-Smith replied, with a trace of annoyance. ‘Certainly not. It was admirable. Just a few spelling mistakes and slips, such as there generally are in automatic writing. But the style, the thought – all the essentials were admirable. After that, Inspiration came to me regularly. I wrote the whole of
Humble Heroisms
like that. It was a great success, and so has everything been that I have written since.’ He leaned forward and jabbed at Denis with his finger. ‘That’s my secret,’ he said, ‘and that’s how you could write too, if you tried – without effort, fluently, well.’
    â€˜But how?’ asked Denis, trying not to show how deeply he had been insulted by that final ‘well.’
    â€˜By cultivating your Inspiration, by getting into touch with your Subconscious. Have you ever read my little book,
Pipe-Lines to the Infinite
?’
    Denis had to confess that that was, precisely, one of the few, perhaps the only one, of Mr Barbecue-Smith’s works he had not read.
    â€˜Never mind, never mind,’ said Mr Barbecue-Smith. ‘It’s just a little book about the connection of the Subconscious with the Infinite. Get into touch with the Subconscious andyou are in touch with the Universe. Inspiration, in fact. You follow me?’
    â€˜Perfectly, perfectly,’ said Denis. ‘But don’t you find that the Universe sometimes sends you very irrelevant messages?’
    â€˜I don’t allow it to,’ Mr Barbecue-Smith replied. ‘I canalize it. I bring it down through pipes to work the turbines of my conscious mind.’
    â€˜Like Niagara,’ Denis suggested. Some of Mr Barbecue-Smith’s remarks sounded strangely like quotations – quotations from his own works, no doubt.
    â€˜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.,