The Elements of Character by Mary G. Chandler

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The Imagination is often talked of as if it were a useless part of our
being, which should be put down and discouraged as much as possible;
as if the Creator had endowed us with a power we did not need. So
imaginative persons are spoken of with contempt, and here there is more
justice; for, in common parlance, to be imaginative means to have the
Imagination developed out of all proportion with the other powers. This
is, perhaps, quite as bad as to have an insufficiency. What we should
desire is a balance of powers. Imagination should not run away with
Thought and Affection, but neither should it lag behind them. All must
act harmoniously and equally in a symmetrically developed Character.
They are like the three legs of a tripod; and if either is longer or
shorter than the others, or worse still, if no two are alike in length,
the tripod must be an awkward and useless piece of lumber, instead of
the graceful and useful article for which it was intended.

Whatever is to be done, from the discovery of a continent to the making
of a shoe or a loaf, can be done well only by a person of Imagination.
Go to a shoemaker and tell him exactly what you wish for a shoe, and it
is your imagination that gives you the power of telling him so that
he can understand your wishes. Every one can think, "I want a pair of
shoes," but one must have Imagination to know what kind of shoe one
wants, and a clear, distinct Imagination to be able to describe it
intelligibly to another. Suppose you have this, and have told the
shoemaker what you desire. Now, whether the man sends home to you a pair
of misfits, quite different from those you ordered, or a pair just such
as you want, depends in no small degree on his powers of Imagination.
Any man can think enough to fasten materials together into the form of a
shoe, and to make them vary in size according to a regular gradation of
numbers; but this is all he can do unless he exercises his Imagination.
Unless the image of a shoe, as you hold it in your Imagination, was
transferred distinctly to the Imagination of the other, you will look in
vain to find it translated into a material reality. So it is with
your cook. She cannot make a nice loaf of bread, or prepare a dinner
properly, by merely thinking as she works. The idea of a light loaf or
of a well-cooked dinner must be distinctly in her mind, or you will eat
with a disappointed palate.

It is needless to multiply examples here. We have but to look around us
and see them everywhere.

Works of Imagination, of course, come in for their share of opprobium
from those who, instead of striving to regenerate all the universal
characteristics of humanity, would cut off and cast from it all those
traits with which they least sympathize. In spite of their opposition,
the mountain of fiction grows higher and higher every day, and the
multitude throng its pathways to gather that food for the Imagination
that is rarely given it in other compositions. Let the moralist talk
and write against this as he may, it will be of no use, for the mass
of human minds will never take an interest in any book that does not
address itself to the Imagination. From the beginning of the world until
now, no teacher and no writer was ever popular unless he addressed
himself, in part at least, to the Imagination of the world.

When the Father of History read his nine books before the Greeks at the
Olympic Games, and the people hung hour after hour and day after day
upon his words, it was not merely because he glorified their victories
that they listened with delight, but because he told the story with such
vividness that every hearer beheld the on-goings of the tale pictured in
his own Imagination. It was no dull recital of dry facts, the mere bone
and muscle of History that he offered them, but the living story, the
warm blood pulsating through it all, and every nerve instinct with life,
In our own day, if the historian would forget the so-called dignity of
History, which is but another name for lifelessness, and after having
filled his mind with a clear, bright image of what he would relate,
would present his story vividly to the Imagination of the reader, we
should have no more complaints of the dulness of History. Who ever found
Irving or Prescott dull? and yet they are accurate and faithful as the
most stately and oracular. The carping critic may sneer at them because
they are not philosophical and profound; but to have been read with
delight by thousands who would never have reached a second chapter had
they been other than they are, may well satisfy their ambition, and make
them careless of the opinion of the critic. Such writers belong to the
_Republic_ of letters, not to that literary _Oligarchy_ which insists
that books should be written according to certain conventional rules
which have been manufactured in the closet, instead of looking at the
wants of the human mind, and then addressing themselves to those wants.

The class of minds that crave instruction for its own sake must always
be very small; and it is this class alone that will read books in spite
of their lack of imaginative power. Authors have no right to complain
that their wise books lie unread by the multitude, if they persist in
overlooking the nature of the human mind, and addressing themselves
to what they think it ought to be instead of what it really is. They
expatiate admiringly upon the simplicity and vividness of the style
of Herodotus, and upon the classic taste of the Athenian public in
appreciating him; and then, forgetting that the public of our own day
are quick to admire the same traits, turn to their desks and write their
histories as unlike as possible to him whom they have been praising.

The same repulsive want of Imagination too often characterizes Theology
and Metaphysics, and prevents mankind from receiving the instruction
from works on these topics that they need. In the early days of
man's history, Religion and Philosophy addressed themselves to the
Imagination, and then the people listened to their teachings; but
gradually these heaven-born teachers turned more and more away from
Imagination and towards Thought,--lost themselves in abstractions, dried
up, withered, and changed into Theology and Metaphysics; and then the
people turned wearily away from their words; and were they to blame?
They wanted bread, and only stones were given to them. The multitude
would not have followed the Lord, and listened with admiring wonder
to his instructions, had they not been addressed to the Imagination.
Infinite Wisdom clothed itself in parables, that the people might be
instructed, and the people thronged to hear. The truths of Philosophy
and Religion are of an interest more universal to humanity than the
truths of all other science, for the first is to know one's self, and
the second to know one's God; and yet the majority of teachers cover
them with such a body of technicalities and abstractions, that it is
vain for the mass of mankind to endeavor to penetrate to the soul
within.

If the clergy of the Protestant Church would spend more strength in
illustrating the Infinite Wisdom contained in the parables of the Lord,
and less in amplifying the abstractions of St. Paul, they would gather
around them bands of listeners far more numerous and more devout than
those that now attend their ministrations. It was one of the grand
mistakes of that Church, at its first separation from the Romish, that,
in its terror of the worship of material images, it passed into the
opposite extreme of the worship of abstractions. This is one reason why
Protestantism has made no advance in Europe since the death of the first
Reformers, and why there is so little vital religion among the races by
whom it was adopted.

Much has been done of late to render the natural sciences familiar and
attractive to the popular mind, by lectures and books that bring them
within the comprehension of all: and it is to be hoped, that, beginning
thus with the material parts of the universe, mankind may be gradually
led from matter to mind, from science to religion. The forms of external
things are easily reproduced in the mind as images, and this is why
natural science addresses itself more readily to the mind than any other
branch of learning. When men learn to look within, and perceive that
the things of the mind are as genuine realities as the objects of the
external world, Philosophy will become attractive; and when the preacher
warms Theology into Religion by abandoning the technicalities of
abstractions for the living realities of piety towards God and charity
towards the neighbor, he will rejoice in a listening audience.

The amount and the quality of that which we call originality, creative
power, or genius, is entirely dependent upon the activity, force, and
integrity of the Imagination. Talent belongs to Thought, and works only
with facts and ideas as others have done before. It may be skilful,
sensible, and faithful, but it can walk only in the old, beaten tracks.
It can classify and arrange, but it can never discover or invent. Talent
can understand and admire the mechanical powers; Genius puts them in
harness, and makes them traverse land and sea to do his bidding. Talent
loves to gaze on the fair forms of nature, and depicts them upon canvas
with skill and truth, neither adding to nor subtracting from its model.
Genius seizes upon the hints that nature gives, and without being false
to her, makes use only of that which helps to make up the beautiful, the
sublime, or the terrible; showing the power that is within nature rather
than nature herself. Talent sees life as it is, and so describes it, if
it ventures into the domain of literature. Genius sees life as it is
capable of being, and hence comes poetry and romance, depicting heroes
and heroines, monsters and fiends, types rather than representatives of
the human race. Talent perceives only the actualities of things, Genius
their possibilities. Talent is content with things as they are, while
Genius is ever striving to bring out latent capacities in whatever it
deals with. If true to its higher impulses, Genius is ever striving to
come nearer "the first good, first perfect, and first fair"; if false,
it degrades and deforms everything it touches.

Mankind differ from each other in degree, but not in kind. By his power
of thinking, a man has talent; by his power of imagining, genius.
Quick-wittedness is genius in its lowest form,--genius applied to
material life in its daily ongoings. The power for resource in
emergencies is genius in a higher form. Invention--the putting together
with an adequate purpose two things or ideas that never went together
before--is genius in another form.

Admitting that men differ from each other, not in kind, but in degree,
the question arises, Are all men capable of an equal degree of
development? This may best be answered by comparison. All men are alike
in the general conformation of their bodies; all have the same number of
physical organs, designed for the same purposes. The relative power of
these organs is, however, very different in different individuals.
One has a fine muscular frame, and delights in exercises of physical
strength, while effort of the brain is a weariness to him. Another has
a finely developed brain, and delights in intellectual labor, while his
strength of muscle is hardly sufficient for the absolute needs of life.
One has the digestion of an ostrich, while another lives only by painful
abstinence; and so on with indefinite variety. We know that much may
be done by well-directed effort to overcome the weaknesses and
imperfections of the body; but still there is a limit to this, and all
men cannot be strong and healthy alike. So it is with the powers of the
mind. All men have the same number of powers,--this constitutes their
humanity; but the relative force of their development varies in each
individual. We know that a determined will works wonders in overcoming
the defects of the body, and it can do more in overcoming the defects
of the mind, because the spiritual body of man is far more docile
and flexible to the will than the natural body; but there must be
limitations here likewise: still, progress is eternal, and no man can
tell beforehand of how much he is capable.

In cultivating the powers of the mind, the first step is to admit
distinctly to one's self the fact of human responsibility; to feel that
we are stewards to whom the Lord has intrusted certain talents, and that
we are responsible to him for the use we make of them. Indolence will
perhaps tell us that we are of very little consequence, and that it
is not worth while for us to trouble ourselves about developing our
understandings; that it is vanity in us to suppose that we can be of
much use in the world; that we have but little leisure, and may as well
amuse ourselves with books and society; for we need recreation, wearied
as we are with the cares of life. Let us answer each of these excuses by
itself; and first, we are of so little consequence. If the tempter
take this form to slacken your efforts, tell him you are one of God's
children, and therefore, by your birthright, of eternal consequence;
that he who is faithful in the least things thereby proves his capacity
for being faithful in much, and that by showing your willingness to
serve the Lord in the small things of life, you are fitting yourself for
serving him in large things, if not in this world, yet in the world to
come. Moreover, is not every one of the highest consequence to himself;
and is not the least of human beings as much interested to save his own
soul as the greatest? Then, as to use in this world, you are responsible
to the fullest extent of your abilities for the influence you exert in
your sphere as entirely as is the greatest of human beings in his. No
one is so small that he brings no influence to bear upon the social
circle; no one so insignificant that he does not exert an influence,
even by the expression of his countenance, though he may speak no word.
Where can we find a circle that is not shadowed, as by a cloud, if one
countenance appears within it darkened by sullenness, ill-humor, or
discontent? Where one that is not warmed and cheered, as by a sunbeam,
if one enters it whose features glow with good-humor, contentment, and
satisfaction? Then does not the command to love our neighbor make us
even responsible for the expressions our faces wear? In relation to the
plea for recreation and amusement, it can readily be shown how these may
be made subservient to a true and high cultivation of the understanding.
While few are slow to admit our accountability in all that relates to
the cultivation of the Affections, many seem to suppose, that in what
relates to the Understanding we may, without wrong, follow our own
inclinations. This opinion comes from a false estimate of the nature
and uses of the Understanding. If considered as a mere receptacle for
Latin and Greek, Mathematics and Metaphysics, Science and Literature, we
may, without moral turpitude or virtue, abstractly considered, follow
our own inclinations; but the Understanding will all the time be growing
either stronger or weaker, wiser or more foolish, whether we study them
or whether we let them alone. This action of the Understanding cannot go
on without influencing the Affections. The one is as much the gift of
God as the other, and each alike demands a healthful nutriment. An
Understanding whose attributes are ignorance and folly can never promote
a healthful growth of the Affections.

It has been already said that the Understanding of a great majority of
human beings can be reached only through its imaginative side. Every one
who is accustomed to children knows that this is universally true of
them. Tell a child an abstract truth, and it falls dead upon his ear;
but illustrate the same truth in a little story, and he is quick to
estimate its justice. This continues true of most persons during their
whole lives, so that it is vain to attempt touching their minds in any
other way than by presenting them with some image illustrating the truth
inculcated. Those who are capable of receiving an abstract truth without
such an image are frequently so from the fact that the moment such a
truth is presented to their Understanding, their Imagination is prompt
to furnish the corresponding image. Unless this is done either by the
speaker or the listener, the truth is apt to be only a useless piece of
lumber stored away in the thoughts. The whole secret of the fascinating
power of the novelist lies in his telling us of all that is most
interesting to humanity, and presenting everything to the mind in
images.

Most persons have so many duties to perform, that they have little time
for voluntary employment, and then they want recreation, which, if they
read, they say they can gain only through works of Imagination. There is
nothing to object to in this, if such works be well selected and read
wisely. There are many bad ways of reading novels; but there are two
to be especially avoided; firstly, vitiating the Affections by reading
impure novels; and secondly, weakening the powers of the Understanding
by glancing through novels merely for the sake of the story. To
read novels of doubtful or bad morality is as likely to corrupt the
Affections as to associate with low and wicked companions. There is an
abundant supply of pure and noble compositions of this sort on which the
Imagination may feed without fear. If it morbidly craves the licentious
pictures that come from the pen of such writers as Ainsworth or George
Sand, its longings should be resisted as steadfastly as those which
incline us to the gaming table or other scenes of licentious indulgence.
On the other hand, the danger to the Understanding from skimming novels
is far too much overlooked. It is not recreation, but dissipation, not
a renewal, but a destruction, of the powers to read in this way. If you
would be benefited by what you read, learn to read critically. Look at
the characters, and see if they be natural and well drawn; observe the
morality, and see if it be true or false; examine the style, and see if
it be good or bad, graceful or awkward, distinct or vague. Novel-writing
is one of the fine arts, and by looking upon it as such, you may
cultivate your taste and discrimination to an extent you little dream
of.

Imagination is the marriage of Thought and Affection, and the Fine Arts
are its first-born children, and represent humanity in all its phases
more fully and truly than any other department of art or science. What
we know as the useful arts, which are born of man's love for physical
ease and pleasure, are of comparatively modern date; but history
goes not back to the time when the mind of man first took delight in
fashioning and admiring the products of the fine arts. Many suppose them
God-given and coeval with the birth of man. Music, painting, sculpture,
poetry, and romance are the five departments of the fine arts. When
these are studied and loved merely for amusement, they are of little or
no use; if they are made vehicles for filling the mind with impure and
evil images, they are shocking abuses; but if they subserve pure and
holy purposes, elevating the soul towards all that is beautiful and
good, they are true Apostles of the Word. Their ministrations are almost
if not quite universal. It would be hard to find a human being whose
soul is not stirred by one or other of them.

Comparatively few persons have it in their power to enjoy the delight
and the refining influence that are derived from the highest exhibitions
of skill in those departments of the fine arts that address themselves
to the eye and the ear; but poetry and romance, the most intellectual
and the most varied of them all, are accessible to every one. As those
blessings that are far off and difficult to be attained are usually
those which are most highly prized, we often find persons sighing for
the culture to be obtained from music, painting, and sculpture, and
overlooking or undervaluing the higher culture to be derived from poetry
and romance. The best gifts of Heaven are always those which are most
universal. Let any one read the plays of Shakespeare, the poems of
Milton, and the novels of Scott carefully and critically as he would
study a gallery of pictures, and he will find his taste refined and
elevated as much as it could be by a visit to the Vatican. The genius of
these authors is to the full as high and noble and original as that of
Raphael, Angelo, or Titian. The means of culture are not far-fetched and
dear-bought. They lie around us everywhere, and to make use of them is a
luxurious recreation of the mind. What mother, wearied and worn by the
cares of maternity, what laborer, exhausted with toil, what student,
faint with striving for fame, but would be refreshed and renewed for
the warfare of life by forgetting it all for a little while in the
realms of the ideal world?

The common, vulgar misuse of novel-reading by the silly, the
empty-headed, and the corrupt, should not blind us to its benefits.
There are those who in music, painting, and sculpture find only
nutriment for sensuality and impurity. Shall we, therefore, deny to all,
and banish from the world the refining ministrations of beauty in form
and color and sweet sounds? As justly may we wage war upon the wayside
flowers because the children are now and then tardy at school from
stopping to gather them. The Creator could never have strown beauty
broadcast upon the face of the earth if it had no use. The very
abundance of this nutriment offered to our love of beauty is evidence
of its value; the very fact that we can abuse this love so fearfully is
proof of its capacity for elevated usefulness.

Reading good works of Imagination in the thoughtful way that has been
described will be very likely to rouse an action in the mind that will
make it crave something more solid; and all should learn, if possible,
to love instructive books. The brain that is overtasked by muscular
labor--for the nervous energy of the brain is exhausted by physical
effort as well as by mental--is the only one that is excusable for
refreshing itself only with images from the ideal world. There are
Sabbaths of rest to all sometimes, when opportunity may be found to gain
something of a more nutritious quality; when, through biography we may
learn to know some good and great character that will ever after stand
in the mind an image of excellence to cheer us on our way, and make us
feel with joy that there is power in us to do likewise; or perhaps some
book of science that will enlarge our ideas of the wisdom and goodness
of the Creator of us all. It should ever be remembered, that those
whose minds are empty of images of goodness and truth are, almost of
necessity, constantly becoming more and more full of images of evil and
falsehood. Jealousy, envy, discontent, and love of scandal, are among
the earliest products of an idle, empty mind. We are not, however,
dependent upon, books for the means of cultivating the Imagination.
There is a training of this power within itself, a morality of
Imagination, that daily life compels us to observe if we would be
practical, moral beings.

The first requisites in a healthy, well-developed Imagination are truth
and distinctness. To those who deem Imagination but another name for
fiction and falsehood, it may seem a contradiction in terms to talk of a
true Imagination; but it is not so. Works of fiction charm us always in
proportion as they seem true, and it is the morbid Imagination only that
delights in falsehood. We sometimes see persons who, without apparent
intention of falsehood, seem incapable of speaking the truth. If they
relate a circumstance that has passed under their own observation, or
describe anything that they have seen, they add here and diminish there,
distort this and give a new color to that, in such a manner that the
hearer receives an impression of nothing as it really is. If there seem
to be no malicious or evil design in all this, such persons are commonly
called very imaginative; they should be called persons of unregulated,
unprincipled Imaginations. They do not bring Imagination under the sway
of conscience, and their power of appreciating the truth will grow less
and less until Imagination becomes a living lie.

Visionary persons form another class of those who do not regulate
Imagination by the laws of him who is truth itself. With these,
Imagination is as false in relation to that which is to come, as with
the last described in relation to that which has already been. In their
plans of life they reason from fancy instead of from fact, and their
Imaginations are filled with fantastic visions of things impossible,
instead of the clear, bright images of that, which may rationally be
expected to come to pass. Such persons perpetually wasting their powers
by trying to do so many things that they can do nothing well, or by
striving to do some one thing that is impossible; thus rendering
themselves comparatively useless in society, and often even mischievous.
To avoid this error, it is needful to go back perpetually to Thought in
order to obtain a solid foundation for Imagination to build upon. As
Imagination passes to and fro between Thought and Affection, it must
remember that it is a messenger from one to the other, and must not
invent tales on the way, and so deceive Affection into acts of folly.
The facts of the message must be precisely such as Thought gave them,
while their costume may be such as Imagination would have it. Thus the
Affections will be roused to action in proportion as the eloquence of
the Imagination is more or less intense, When it speaks in "words that
burn," if it speak from itself, it will rouse the Affections to wild
fanaticism; but if it speak from Thought, it will waken enthusiasm in
the heart, such as shall bear it steadfastly onward in the path of duty,
"without haste and without rest." Distinctness of Imagination may be
cultivated by carefully observing things we wish to remember, and
then calling up their forms before the mind's eye, and endeavoring to
describe them just as they are, in words, by writing, or by drawing;
and then reexamining to see where we have erred, and correcting our
mistakes. If this be done from a genuine love of truth, the Imagination
will soon become accurate and trustworthy. In reading, strive to bring
what is read before the mind's eye, and so impress it upon the memory
in images. This process quickens the power of memory, and enables it to
retain much more than it otherwise could. If the writer be imaginative,
it is easily done; but if not, we must strive to make up for his
deficiencies by our own efforts. Reading history and travels,
constant reference to maps and pictures fixes facts upon the memory
simply by transferring them to the Imagination. Memory is not a faculty
by itself. What we only think about we remember feebly; what we image in
our minds we remember much more strongly; what we love we never forget
while we continue to love it.

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