The dramatic instinct has great inspirational value. It carries fancy through life, is the only possible door to romance for many, and furnishes through hero-worship, the strongest possible incentives to keep noble ideals.
The final intent of the dramatic instinct is that it should minister to fullness of life.
We remember how Pollyanna, by finding something glad in every circumstance, succeeded not only in glorifying, but in actually transforming an existence that promised to be cheerless. This is what the dramatic instinct may do for us. Not only does it conjure up illusions in which it is charming to live, but it is so dynamic that it actually tends to change circumstances and helps reshape the world according to our dreams. The stodgy soul without vision squats in the midst of literal realities, but “the dreamer lives forever.”
References[2]
[2] Books recommended in this pamphlet may be secured through the publishers of the pamphlet.
The principal sources for this monograph are as follows:
Studies of Childhood. James Sully.
Contains an excellent chapter upon “The Age of Imagination.”
Child’s Play. Robert Louis Stevenson.
A wonderfully incisive little study of the imaginative play of childhood from his “Virginibus Puerisque.”