We do not create a single idea or image. I defy you to create one. Ariosto did not make Astolpho travel to the moon till long after he had heard of the moon, of St. John, and of the Paladins.
We make no images; we only collect and combine them. The extravagances of the "Thousand and One Nights" and the "Fairy Tales" are merely combinations. He who comprises most images in the storehouse of his memory is the person who possesses most imagination.
The difficulty is in not bringing together these images in profusion, without any selection. You might employ a whole day in representing, without any toilsome effort, and almost without any attention, a fine old man with a long beard, clothed in ample drapery, and borne in the midst of a cloud resting on chubby children with beautiful wings attached to their shoulders, or upon an eagle of immense size and grandeur; all the gods and animals surrounding him; golden tripods running to arrive at his council; wheels revolving by their own self-motion, advancing as they revolve; having four faces covered with eyes, ears, tongues, and noses; and between these tripods and wheels an immense multitude of dead resuscitated by the crash of thunder; the celestial spheres dancing and joining in harmonious concert, etc. The lunatic asylum abounds in such imaginations.
We may, in dealing with the subject of imagination distinguish:
1. The imagination which disposes of the events of a poem, romance, tragedy, or comedy, and which attaches the characters and passions to the different personages. This requires the profoundest judgment and the most exquisite knowledge of the human heart; talents absolutely indispensable; but with which, however, nothing has yet been done but merely laying the foundation of the edifice.
2. The imagination which gives to all these personages the eloquence or diction appropriate to their rank, suitable to their station. Here is the great art and difficulty; but even after doing this they have not done enough.
3. The imagination in the expression, by which every word paints an image in the mind without astonishing or overwhelming it; as in Virgil:
.... Remigium alarum.—ÆNEID, vi, 19.
Mærentem abjungens fraterna morte juvencum.
—GEORGICS, iii, 517.
.... Velorum pandimus alas.—ÆNEID, iii, 520.
Pendent circum oscula nati.—GEORGICS, ii, 523.
Immortale jecur tundens fecundaque pœnis
Viscera.—ÆNEID, vi, 598-599.
Et caligantem nigra formidine lucum.
—GEORGICS, iv, 468.
Fata vocant, conditque natantia lumina somnus.
—GEORGICS, iv, 496.
Virgil is full of these picturesque expressions, with which he enriches the Latin language, and which are so difficult to be translated into our European jargons—the crooked and lame offspring of a well-formed and majestic sire, but which, however, have some merit of their own, and have done some tolerably good things in their way.
There is an astonishing imagination, even in the science of mathematics. An inventor must begin with painting correctly in his mind the figure, the machine invented by him, and its properties or effects. We repeat there was far more imagination in the head of Archimedes than in that of Homer.