Eve was able to originate
the idea that it was immodest to go naked; the knowledge came in with
the apple FROM THE OUTSIDE. A man's brain is so constructed that IT CAN
ORIGINATE NOTHING WHATSOEVER. It can only use material obtained OUTSIDE.
It is merely a machine; and it works automatically, not by will-power.
IT HAS NO COMMAND OVER ITSELF, ITS OWNER HAS NO COMMAND OVER IT.

Y.M. Well, never mind Adam: but certainly Shakespeare's creations--

O.M. No, you mean Shakespeare's IMITATIONS. Shakespeare created nothing.
He correctly observed, and he marvelously painted. He exactly portrayed
people whom GOD had created; but he created none himself. Let us spare
him the slander of charging him with trying. Shakespeare could not
create. HE WAS A MACHINE, AND MACHINES DO NOT CREATE.

Y.M. Where WAS his excellence, then?

O.M. In this. He was not a sewing-machine, like you and me; he was a
Gobelin loom. The threads and the colors came into him FROM THE OUTSIDE;
outside influences, suggestions, EXPERIENCES (reading, seeing plays,
playing plays, borrowing ideas, and so on), framed the patterns in
his mind and started up his complex and admirable machinery, and IT
AUTOMATICALLY turned out that pictured and gorgeous fabric which still
compels the astonishment of the world. If Shakespeare had been born and
bred on a barren and unvisited rock in the ocean his mighty intellect
would have had no OUTSIDE MATERIAL to work with, and could have invented
none; and NO OUTSIDE INFLUENCES, teachings, moldings, persuasions,
inspirations, of a valuable sort, and could have invented none; and
so Shakespeare would have produced nothing. In Turkey he would have
produced something--something up to the highest limit of Turkish
influences, associations, and training. In France he would have produced
something better--something up to the highest limit of the French
influences and training. In England he rose to the highest limit
attainable through the OUTSIDE HELPS AFFORDED BY THAT LAND'S IDEALS,
INFLUENCES, AND TRAINING. You and I are but sewing-machines. We must
turn out what we can; we must do our endeavor and care nothing at all
when the unthinking reproach us for not turning out Gobelins.

Y.M. And so we are mere machines! And machines may not boast, nor
feel proud of their performance, nor claim personal merit for it, nor
applause and praise. It is an infamous doctrine.

O.M. It isn't a doctrine, it is merely a fact.

Y.M. I suppose, then, t