網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

1. SCOTT. 2 DRYBURGH ABBEY. 3. ABBOTSFORD. 4 MELROSE ABBEY

[blocks in formation]

THE

Central Literary Magazine.

It must be borne in mind that this Magazine is neutral in Politics and Religion; its pages are open to a free expression of all shades of opinion without leaning to any.

No. 8.

OCTOBER, 1882.

IDEALS.

VOL. V.

ANKIND has been supposed to be differentiated from the lower animals by the possession of Intellect and Imagination. Modern research, however, proves that many animals possess both these qualities in varying degrees. It is evident that they possess Memory, and inasmuch as memory can only work through the imagination, the proof of the existence of the former faculty involves the presence of the latter. The gift of Imagination amongst men is, however, perhaps more unequally distributed than any other of the higher faculties, for whilst, as before stated, the exercise of memory involves its presence, and consequently proves its possession by every sane man, none the less is its existence in a highly developed degree extremely rare. In many respects, indeed, it is the highest, whilst in some it is the most dangerous of gifts. In its most exalted form, if not actual Inspiration, it is

certainly akin to it.

Our greatest poets, though not necessarily great thinkers, have yet given voice to that which mankind recognizes as the highest truth, whilst evidences of the attainment of even prophetic truth through the imagination are not rare.

Dr. Sebastian Evans, in a lecture delivered to the Central Literary Association, some years ago, pointed out how some of the principal mechanical discoveries of the present century were foreseen and foretold by Spenser. Twenty years before the publication of Darwin's origin of species startled the world by the announcement of the doctrine of Evolution, Emerson had stated and re-stated the theory in various forms in his earlier works. His motto to the Essay on Nature is as follows:

"A subtle chain of countless rings
The next unto the farthest brings.
The eye reads omens where it goes,
And speaks all languages the rose.
And striving to be man, the worm

Mounts through all the spires of form."

This was no lucky guess of a moment; it was his habitual vision. In the Ode to Bacchus, he asks for "wine which music is," that "drinking this," he

"Shall hear far chaos talk with me,

Kings unborn shall walk with me;
And the poor grass shall plot and plan,
What it will do when it is man."

Other poems, "Wood-Notes," "Monadnock," "The Song of Nature,' &c., contain distinct statements of this doctrine.

The dangers attending an unbalanced over-development of the imagination, are instanced in the life of many a poet. The exaltation which enabled him to conceive and write the words which we now so treasure, often sadly unfitted him for the res angusta domi. Whilst star-gazing, it is proverbial that we are apt to stumble over meaner objects at our feet. The loss which we suffer, however, from the nondevelopment of this faculty, is far greater than any possible danger from the other extreme, and tends to dwarf our whole nature. We all realize though we cannot explain the feeling of comparative sordidness which attaches to the utterly unimaginative and commonplace man. Wordsworth's description of Peter Bell, of whom he says

"A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."

is so often quoted because it brings before us, in a word, a difference which we all feel, but cannot readily describe or account for.

One of the first and commonest developments of the imagination, and one too which is of the greatest moment to mankind, is the power it gives us of idealizing. In childhood we idealize the grown-up world around us, and write vivid pictures on our memory which last long after we have been disillusionized by greater experience. In youth, the glorious dream of Love often idealizes its object so completely, that the contrast between the way that object affects the lover and the ordinary mortals around him has given rise to the proverb that "Love is blind." middle age, we idealize our children, and in old age, we idealize" the good old times when we were young." Now although we may incon

In

« 上一頁繼續 »