ESSAY V


THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED


Genius or originality is, for the most part, _some strong quality in the
mind, answering to and bringing out some new and striking quality in
nature._

Imagination is, more properly, the power of carrying on a given feeling
into other situations, which must be done best according to the hold
which the feeling itself has taken of the mind.[1] In new and unknown
combinations the impression must act by sympathy, and not by rule, but
there can be no sympathy where there is no passion, no original
interest. The personal interest may in some cases oppress and
circumscribe the imaginative faculty, as in the instance of Rousseau:
but in general the strength and consistency of the imagination will be
in proportion to the strength and depth of feeling; and it is rarely
that a man even of lofty genius will be able to do more than carry on
his own feelings and character, or some prominent and ruling passion,
into fictitious and uncommon situations. Milton has by allusion
embodied a great part of his political and personal history in the chief
characters and incidents of _Paradise Lost_. He has, no doubt,
wonderfully adapted and heightened them, but the elements are the same;
you trace the bias and opinions of the man in the creations of the poet.
Shakespear (almost alone) seems to have been a man of genius raised
above the definition of genius. 'Born universal heir to all humanity,'