Mere vividness of expression, such as makes quotable passages,
comes of the complete surrender of self to the impression, whether
spiritual or sensual, of the moment. It is a quality, perhaps, in which
the young poet is richer than the mature, his very inexperience making
him more venturesome in those leaps of language that startle us with
their rashness only to bewitch us the more with the happy ease of their
accomplishment. For this there are no existing laws of rhetoric, for it
is from such felicities that the rhetoricians deduce and codify their
statutes. It is something which cannot be improved upon or cultivated,
for it is immediate and intuitive. But this power of expression is
subsidiary, and goes only a little way toward the making of a great poet.
Imagination, where it is truly creative, is a faculty, and not a quality;
it looks before and after, it gives the form that makes all the parts
work together harmoniously toward a given end, its seat is in the higher
reason, and it is efficient only as a servant of the will. Imagination,
as it is too often misunderstood, is mere fantasy, the image-making
power, common to all who have the gift of dreams, or who can afford to
buy it in a vulgar drug as De Quincey bought it.
Pages:
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258