The Doré Lectures on Mental Science

You have probably stood in front of a painting that did nothing for you, until someone told you what the painter was reaching for. Then the same canvas came alive.

Troward opens his Sunday talks right there. The thought of the author, the impression of the painter, the feeling of the musician: without it the work could never have existed, and without sharing it we cannot receive what the work has to give. To appreciate a thing we must share the mental attitude of its creator.

He states it as a universal rule: “if we do not enter into the Spirit of a thing, it is dead so far as we are concerned.” And when we do enter it, we reproduce in ourselves the same quality of life that called the thing into being.