“Very well, my little Bertha,” said my uncle smiling, “I like to see you exert your mind: but I would alter one part of your definition—I would not confine the imagination to objects of sight only; for though the mind dwells with greater facility on those that have been supplied by that sense, yet it is equally certain that our other perceptive faculties contribute their share also. The least imaginative person must recollect the many pleasing images which have been excited by the fragrance of distant fields, and the melody of unseen birds; and if you will accustom yourself to examine the process of your own imagination, you will find that an ample proportion of the subjects which pass through it are derived from all your senses.”
“But, uncle, do you think that I have such a metaphysical head as to be able to discover what is going on in my imagination? A thought comes, and though it is easy to perceive the immediate circumstance that suggested it, I am sure my giddy mind could not trace it further back than the first step.”
“Whatever be the character of your mind,” he replied, “and whether you choose to observe them or not, those complex operations are habitually going on there; imagination rapidly selects from the materials presented to it by memory, and by its own creative power forms new trains of thoughts to pursue. The fine arts furnish innumerable instances of this process.—But imagination is not a simple effort of the mind:—tell me then, Bertha, if you can, what other intellectual faculties are engaged with it, besides conception, which you have rightly said, only exhibits the simple objects of our former perceptions, and from which we are to make a fresh selection?”
“I believe, uncle, there is first that power which enables us to separate from our conceptions those circumstances which are not wanted for our purpose—the name is——”
“Abstraction. It is one of the most important of our faculties, and is not less necessary to our general conduct in life, than for the most refined intellectual pursuits. It helps us to remove the glare which often dazzles and deceives our moral perceptions; it reduces our complicated ideas to their constituent parts; and it presents us with the means of considering certain qualities of an object apart from the rest; and, therefore, of classing them with others: in short, it is equally subservient to the power of reasoning and to that of imagination. But go on, my dear—what next?”
There was something so encouraging in my uncle’s manner of questioning me, that instead of frightening, it helped me to think. “Perhaps it is that which guides us in putting together the materials which we have been selecting;—or rather of arranging and suiting them to each other;—taste, I think.”
“Right, Bertha; taste adapts and redisposes them in the best manner; and the more or less successfully as the judgment is more or less consulted. Without taste and judgment, the imagination would jumble them all together at random, and would produce nothing but confusion and deformity. Paintings and poems may contain many beauties, and yet may totally fail in giving satisfaction; simply from the parts being ill-assorted—or, in other words, from a deficiency of judgment in their combination.”
“But is there not another quality which is essential in a poet?—I mean, uncle, the power of catching the resemblance of ideas;—that which produces those beautiful allusions that form the ornament of poetry.”
“You mean fancy—the power of quickly perceiving those delicate links, which connect the most remote objects; and which, however slight, are sufficient for poetical analogies. The more sober analogies, which suit the province of science, may be elicited by laborious reflection, or plodding perseverance; but fancy flashes them across the mind of the true poet, and, by a sort of inspiration, furnishes him with an exuberance of materials. But here again, Bertha, he must have recourse to taste and judgment, if he would make an agreeable impression on the minds of others. The ornaments of poetry, you say, are the allusions; but in order to please, the points of similitude must, on the one hand, be so obvious as to excite the immediate sympathy of the reader; and yet, on the other, they must be so disconnected as to display ingenuity by their comparison or contrast, and to surprise with their novelty.
—— Hope and fear, alternate, sway’d his breast,
Like light and shade upon a waving field
Coursing each other, when the flying clouds
Now hide, and now reveal, the sun.