It is said of Henry Ward Beecher, who possesses a strong imagination, that the people would listen with delighted attention if he only described the mode in which a potato grew! He would see a thousand beauties in its budding and blossoming, and paint the picture so vividly as to command universal attention.
The Bible, which is the most popular of all books, is pre-eminently a book of imagination. Nowhere is loftier or more beautiful imagery employed, or wrought into more exquisite forms. A few short and simple words paint pictures that the world looks upon with astonishment from age to age. Paradise Lost, the most sublime imaginative poem in the language of man, drew much of its inspiration from a few passages in Genesis. Job and Isaiah are without rivals in the power of picturing by means of words, sublime objects beyond the grasp of mortal vision.
While illustrations and comparisons flow principally from the reasoning faculties, their beauty and sparkle come from imagination. Without its influence these may explain and simplify, but they have no power to interest the hearer or elevate the tenor of discourse.
How may imagination be cultivated? It is said that “Poets are born, not made,” but the foundation of every other faculty also is in nature, while all are useless, unless improved, and applied. Imagination will increase in vigor and activity by proper use. Its function is to form complete mental images from the detached materials furnished by the senses. It gathers from all sources and mixes and mingles until a picture is produced. The proper way to cultivate it lies in forming abundance of just such pictures and in finishing them with all possible care. Let the orator, on the canvas of the mind, paint in full size and perfect coloring, every part of his speech which relates to material or visible things. Illustrations also can usually be represented in picturesque form. We do not now speak of outward representation, but of viewing all objects in clear distinctness, through the eye of the mind. It is not enough for the speaker, if he would reach the highest success, to gather all the facts he wishes to use, to arrange them in the best order, or even to premeditate the very form of words. Instead of the latter process, he may more profitably strive to embrace all that can be pictured in one mental view. If he can summon before him in the moment of description the very scenes and events about which he is discoursing, and behold them vividly as in a waking dream, it is probable that his auditors will see them in the same manner. A large part of all discourses may thus be made pictorial. In Ivanhoe, one of the characters looks out through a castle window and describes to a wounded knight within the events of the assault which was being made upon the castle. Any person could describe the most stirring scene vividly and well in the moment of witnessing it. A strong imagination enables a speaker or poet to see those things he speaks of almost as accurately and impressively as if passing before his bodily eyes, and often with far more brightness of color. To make the effort to see what we write or read will have a powerful effect in improving the imaginative faculty.
Reading and carefully pondering the works of those who have imagination in high degree will also be helpful. The time devoted to the enjoyment of great poems is not lost to the orator. They give richness and tone to his mind, introduce him into scenes of ideal beauty, and furnish him with many a striking thought and glowing image.
Most of the sciences give as full scope to imagination in its best workings as poetry itself. Astronomy and geology are pre-eminent in this particular. Everything about them is grand. They deal with immense periods of time, vast magnitudes, and sublime histories. Each science requires the formation of mental images and thus gives the advantages we have already pointed out. It is possible for a scientific man to deal exclusively with the shell rather than the substance of science, with its technical names and definitions rather than its grand truths; but in this case the fault is with himself rather than with his subject. The dryness of scientific and even mathematical studies relates only to the preliminary departments. A philosopher once said that success in science and in poetry depended upon the same faculties. He was very nearly right. The poet is a creator who forms new worlds of his own. The greatest of their number thus describes the process by which imagination performs its magic.
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen