DREAMING AND POETIC INVENTION. 733 
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to agreement. When rapt from his actual surroundings in some imagina- 
sive vision the senses of the novelist are not muffled as when he sleeps and 
dreams. One writer can indeed do imaginative work when people are 
balking in the same room ; but then Mrs. Somerville could carry on scien- 
sific work under the same circumstances, and in each case this seems to 
show merely a special power of withdrawing the attention from the sen- 
sible world, and not a torpidity of the senses as in sleep. 
With respect to the precise degree of vividness ascribable to the artistic 
imagery, there is a general agreement that this is high. The common way 
of describing it is by saying that the scenes, persons, etc., are distinctly 
seen. When, however, we probe this kind of answer more deeply, we find 
that it stands for very different types of experience. Thus, one of my 
correspondents is careful to say that the degree of vividness of his imagina- 
tion is comparable with that of vivid recollections, and another tells me 
that the images are nearly as vivid” as dreams, While, however, some 
shus distinetly put the products of artistic imagination below dream Images, 
others reverse the order. Thus a distinguished American novelist informs 
me that he sees things when writing much more clearly than when dream- 
ing. An equally eminent English novelist adds the interesting fact that 
in his case some time, about six weeks, has to elapse after the characters 
and history have been decided upon before the former begin to be really 
alive, and to move and talk of their own will. But by that time, he adds, 
“the pictures are too real to resemble dreams and visions at all.” 
In one or two instances it is distinctly told me that the images tend 
bo project themselves on the actual visible scene. Thus, one well-known 
lady novelist writes: “I have seen the persons in a story of mine crossing 
the room, but they are more like the figures in a magic lantern than any- 
‘hing else.” Another eminent novelist writes : «In i magining scenes I see 
hem enacted. I do not find it necessary to close the eyes, but can make 
them quite distinct én front of the actual scene.” 
On the closely connected point of vividness of presentation like dispari- 
ies of testimony occur. And here I cannot do better than begin by quot- 
ing from the letter of the eminent German novelist, Dr. Paul Heyse, who 
sindly allows me to use his name. “The images of my poetic creations 
the writes] have never the character of visions, but I imagine them in pure 
outlines [ Umrissen], with Jull consciousness that I myself am produc- 
ing them in my mind. As, however, Ihave drawn a good deal, T see them 
with the greatest clearness, and so am all the more the foe to illustrations, 
since the artist never brings my own forms before the eye.” This testi- 
mony does not, however, agree altogether with that of others. What cer- 
iain writers specially emphasize is the feeling that the imagined scene or 
action is given fo them and not consciously produced by their minds. For 
example, one well-known lady writer says : “I have often seen a face in a 
cab or train, and I invent a story to it ; or, rather, gradually the story