CHAPTER III OF IMAGINATION PENETRATIVE not with the THUS far we have been defining that combining operation of the Imagination, which appears to be in a sort § 1. Imaginamechanical, yet takes place in the same inexplic- tion penetrative able modes, whatever be the order of conception is concerned, submitted to it, though I choose to illustrate it combining, but by its dealings with mere matter before taking the apprehendcognizance of any nobler subjects of imagery. We must now examine the dealing of the Imagination with its separate conceptions, and endeavour to understand, not only its principles of selection, but its modes of apprehension with respect to what it selects. ing of things. When Milton's Satan first "rears from off the pool his mighty stature," the image of leviathan before § 2. Milton's suggested not being yet abandoned, the effect on and Dante's the fire-wave is described as of the upheaved description of monster on the ocean-stream. "On each hand the flames flame. Driven backward, slope their pointed spires, and, rolled And then follows a fiercely restless piece of volcanic imagery: "As when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill And leave a singed bottom all involved With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole 1 [Paradise Lost, i. 224.] Yet I think all this is too far detailed, and deals too much with externals: we feel rather the form of the fire-waves than their fury; we walk upon them too securely; and the fuel, sublimation, smoke, and singeing seem to me images only of partial combustion; they vary and extend the conception, but they lower the thermometer. Look back, if you will, and add to the description the glimmering of the livid flames ; the sulphurous hail and red lightning; yet all together, however they overwhelm us with horror, fail of making us thoroughly, unendurably hot. The essence of intense flame has not been given. Now hear Dante: "Feriami 'l Sole in su l' omero destro, Che già raggiando tutto l' Occidente That is a slight touch; he has not gone to Ætna or Pelorus for fuel; but we shall not soon recover from it, he has taken our breath away, and leaves us gasping. No smoke nor cinders there. Pure white, hurtling, formless flame; very fire-crystal, we cannot make spires nor waves of it, nor divide it, nor walk on it; there is no question about singeing soles of feet. It is lambent annihilation. nation seizes always by the innermost point. Such is always the mode in which the highest imagina§ 3. The Imagi- tive faculty seizes its materials. It never stops at crusts or ashes, or outward images of any kind; it ploughs them all aside, and plunges into the very central fiery heart; nothing else will content its spirituality; whatever semblances and various outward shows and phases its subject may possess * go for nothing; it gets within all fence, cuts down to the root, and drinks * Another exemplary course of hissing. [1883.] 1 "The sun Now all the western clime irradiate changed the very vital sap of that it deals with: once therein, it is at liberty to throw up what new shoots it will, so always that the true juice and sap be in them, and to prune and twist them at its pleasure, and bring them to fairer fruit than grew on the old tree; but all this pruning and twisting is work that it likes not, and often does ill; its function and gift are the getting at the root, its nature and dignity depend on its holding things always by the heart. Take its hand from off the beating of that, and it will prophesy no longer; it looks not in the eyes, it judges not by the voice, it describes not by outward features; all that it affirms, judges, or describes, it affirms, from within.* It may seem to the reader that I am incorrect in calling this penetrating possession-taking faculty Imagi- § 4. It acts in nation. Be it so; the name is of little conse- tuitively and quence; the faculty itself, called by what name we without reasonwill, I insist upon as the highest intellectual power ing. of man. There is no reasoning in it; it works not by algebra, nor by integral calculus; it is a piercing pholas-like' mind's tongue, that works and tastes into the very rock heart; no matter what be the subject submitted to it, substance or spirit; all is alike divided asunder, joint and marrow, whatever utmost truth, life, principle it has, laid bare, and that which has no truth, life, nor principle, dissipated into its original smoke at a touch. The whispers at men's ears it lifts into visible angels. Vials that have lain sealed in the deep sea a thousand years it unseals, and brings out of them Genii.2 Every great conception of poet or painter is held and treated by this faculty. Every character that is so much as * The reader will find in the 86th paper of the Guardian some interesting passages confirmatory of the view above given of the Imagination.3 1 [Pholas, a sea-animal of the molluscous kind that makes holes in stone.] 2 The Arabian Nights, ch. ii. (Lane's edition).] 3 [Note first added in ed. 2. Johnson there cites the verses in the Book of Job, beginning "Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder," and says: "Whereas the classical poets chiefly endeavour to paint the outward figure, lineaments and motions; the sacred poet makes all the beauties to flow from an inward principle in the creature he describes."] |