which a certain energy and glow of soul is mixed up with it. And here, unless I deceive myself, is the true practical difference between what the English people choose now to call by the Greek name of fancy, and what they prefer to speak of under the Latin name of imagination. Imagination is fancy with ardour of thought, and heat of passion burning through it. Fancy is imagination, playing as the northern light, and glittering without intensity and without warmth. Nay, so absolutely, from my point of view, is this the case, that the very same work of art may appear to one critic fanciful, and to another imaginative, according as they respectively perceive, or overlook, in it the presence of passion. For instance, Mr. Ruskin, in one of those eloquent passages which make us proud of the English language, is giving due honour to his favourite painter Tintoretto. In the course of his panegyric, he presents to us, as the crowning glory of that illustrious artist, his almost superhuman imagination. A picture of Christ crucified is the one upon which, above all others, he delights to dwell. In this the fickleness of the Jews, and indeed the evanescent character of all mere human love, is symbolized by an ass's colt in the background, such a one, we may presume, as the Saviour had ridden upon a few days before, feeding now upon withered palmleaves, the same, no doubt, which had been strewed, in their freshness, across the triumphal path of the accepted Messiah. Now I feel sure that Mr. Ruskin is here perfectly right, but neither can I hesitate to believe, that the mighty Venetian of whom he speaks grew more and more inflamed by an overmastering impulse of sympathy as he brooded over his own work. The divine face of the suffering Mediator, visible only to him, must have pressed in upon his heart and filled it with a living glow of affection. Out of a reaction from this he must have flung upon his canvas, with all the magic power of genius, a fiery scorn and an inspiring hatred against those cowards who had deserted and those miscreants who had betrayed the Son of God. And thus arose, for all time, that which Mr. Ruskin has recorded as the sublimest achievement of imagination, yet accomplished by any painter-poet, among the sons of men. Otherwise, if we suppose the like point introduced by one of colder temperament into a picture on the same subject, as a stroke of art, it might well be considered as too clever, too ingenious, too much under the same conditions of thought as Hogarth's happy incident of the spider's web woven across the poor-box, to be classed with the highest efforts of man's creative intelligence. In a word, I should say definitively that it was fanciful, and not imaginative. I stated, at the opening of this Lecture, that one of the subjects which it might be expedient to discuss was, what are the effects which imagination indulged tends to produce upon the character at large? I have, however, trespassed upon your attention too long already, and must content myself by indicating my belief that the use of the imagination, as a moral element, is to fight against selfishness. This it ought to do, by giving life to an intelligent sympathy with the thoughts and emotions of others; whilst the danger to which it exposes men is, that if they give way to the habit of looking upon the world as a stage, and on all its men and women as merely players,' the heart may grow cold, even whilst the understanding is enlarged. It is obvious, however, that this is a matter which would require, if any justice is to be done to it, a lecture to itself. I shall therefore put it by for the present, and conclude by thanking you for the patience and attention with which you have listened to this somewhat ill-organized discourse. |