Alan S. Oser

Ferdinand Mount, a British writer and Conservative party politician, is a good man with an anecdote. He tells this one from his Oxford days early on in his memoirs, Cold Cream .

His fellow student Calum Robertson, “a large, clumsy boy,” is playing Pindarus, a servant to Cassius, in a production of Julius Caesar. He has little to do and is rarely onstage. But he has his brief moment in Act IV Scene II.

Someone arrives onstage to tell Brutus that Cassius is on his way. “Pindarus is come to do you salutation from his master,” he says. But Calum is not backstage to hear his cue. He is in the bowels of the building, snacking.

The stage is silent. Come, Pindarus, come! Silence.

Then a voice pipes up – the voice of a student named Duff Hart-Davis, playing the part of Lucius, a servant to Brutus.

“He cometh not, my lord,” Hart-Davis ad libs, “but here cometh Cassius instead.”

Whereupon Cassius hastens onstage, a few speeches before Shakespeare intended.

The pronouncement “He cometh not” subsequently becomes a byword at Oxford, serviceable on many occasions.

For me it is serviceable as an example of inspiration – the suddenly occurring idea that seems, instantly, to be overwhelmingly right. In Julius Caesar at Oxford it not only proved itself in an emergency but it also showed that blunders can have lasting positive consequences: Calum’s blunder inspired an immortal contribution to the Oxford vocabulary. He should take some comfort in this.

And Duff Hart-Davis’ reputation at Oxford was made. In later life he justified it. A direct descendant of King William IV (and a fifth cousin, once removed, of Queen Elizabeth II), he is the son of a publisher, Rupert Hart-Davis. He became a naturalist, journalist and author of many books, fiction and nonfiction, including a biography of his godfather, the writer and adventurer Peter Fleming.

So I will assume that in Duff’s case inspiration continued to serve him well. I, in contrast, have found that it has served me poorly or not at all. In the case of this essay, it is serving me not at all. It cometh not, and I know not how to proceed.

The truth is that I wanted to tell Ferdinand Mount’s anecdote. Having told it, I thought, an idea for an essay relevant to it would occur to me. The idea did not, but the title did. First I thought of “Blunder.” But I have more or less used up my blunders in other essays. Then “Inspiration” occurred to me.

No further inspiration having arrived, I will take a break for a day or two to give it time to strike

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Time passing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It striketh not.

I will try again.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . (More time passing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

After two more days, it striketh not still.

What would Mozart have done? Surely inspiration fell upon him frequently, but not always. Yet he didn’t stop composing. And I should not stop essaying. Surely something will occur to me eventually. I used to write a weekly column for The New York Times about real estate in New York City. I had to complete it by Tuesday at noon, although I could make minor repairs until about Wednesday noon. The columns were based on reporting I did during the preceding week, so that I would sit down to write with a stack of paper full of notes at my side on Monday morning.

Over the weekend I would lie in bed wondering with considerable anxiety what the column should say. I knew I would start writing it on Monday morning. I always had. How would I begin? What were my notes telling me? By Sunday night I still couldn’t decide. I would pretend that Tuesday afternoon had already arrived and the column was complete, as there was no doubt it would be by then. What did it say? Lying in bed, I would try to read it. This was not successful.

Yet on Monday morning I would simply start writing and by Tuesday at noon I had finished. Just like Mozart.

Not quite like Mozart, actually. His music was inspired. My columns were not, and it was fortunate that they did not require inspiration. In my case inspiration usually occurs in the middle of the night, in a dream, if it occurs at all. It takes the form of a tune so glorious that it startles me awake. In a spirit close to elation I switch on the bed lamp and take up pencil and paper from the night table, where they have been placed so that I can take advantage of just this situation. I jot down a few primitive music symbols. In the morning I rush to the piano to play the tune.

It is dreadful. How could I have admired that pedestrian, simple-minded tune, even half awake? No one else will be allowed to hear it, that’s for sure. Nor will anyone else be allowed read the rhyming poetry that has come to me when half asleep. They won’t read the poetry I have created when fully awake either, but that is another story. This essay is petering out. It may never see the light of day.

Let me put it aside for a few more days.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Time passing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Inspiration has struck!

I will try to reach Duff Hart-Davis, the Oxford ad libber. I will ask him to comment on the subject of inspiration, he being a proven successful practitioner. I already know from Wikipedia that he became a journalist, naturalist and author. Did inspiration come into play in those achievements?

I manage to reach him through the firm that publishes the writing of Phyllida Barstow, his wife, since the Hart-Davis family website gives no e-mail address for him. And before long an e-mail arrives from him. I quote it in full:

“I fear I can’t help you very much.

“After school I never acted again – thank goodness. Once when I was finishing a factual book about the training of RAF fast-jet pilots, to go with a TV series, and getting rather bored by it, there suddenly came to my head the whole plot of an adventure novel. I wasn’t looking for an idea at the time: it was just there in the middle of the night. I wrote the novel and called it Fire Falcon.

“I don’t know that it fits in anywhere.”

It fits in perfectly.