The missing Goddess and other legends by Minnie B. Theobald

The missing Goddess and other legends by Minnie B. Theobald  

The following allegorical stories came to me quite unsought, for had already taken up a musical career which fully occupied and satisfied me. From early childhood I had devoted myself with energy to music, and the intense concentration for hours a day necessary for the careful practice of a stringed instrument was with me often followed by delightful states of meditation and even exaltation. The great physical exertion was succeeded by a sort of reflex activity within my mind, when ideas would pour through my brain so rapidly that it was well-nigh impossible to fix any of them; and often, after being thrilled with intense emotion, I seemed to attain to states of complete bliss and poise, conscious only of pure abstract rhythm.

On one such occasion, when I felt the reflex activity unusually strong, the idea came to me that I ought to compose. I felt that nothing short of composition could relieve the intensity of the passion which stirred in me. I laid down my violoncello, picked up a pen, but before I had time to find any manuscript music paper my hand seized an old note-book and began to write, not a symphony to stir the musical world, as I had hoped, but words and ideas foreign both to my thoughts and feelings. This so disconcerted me that it was a long time before I again attempted composition. But it proved to be the beginning of a constant flow of writing which was ready to come whenever I put pen to paper.