Every poetical reader will feel delight in the accuracy with which the details are painted, and the marvellous clearness with which the whole scene is imagined, both in its objective and subjective relations, i.e., both in the objects seen and the emotions they suggest.

What the majority of modern verse writers call “imagery,” is not the product of imagination, but a restless pursuit of comparison, and a lax use of language.  Instead of presenting us with an image of the object, they present us with something which they tell us is like the object—–­which it rarely is.  The thing itself has no clear significance to them, it is only a text for the display of their ingenuity.  If, however, we turn from poetasters to poets, we see great accuracy in depicting the things themselves or their suggestions, so that we may be certain the things presented themselves in the field of the poet’s vision, and were painted because seen.  The images arose with sudden vivacity, or were detained long enough to enable their characters to be seized.  It is this power of detention to which I would call particular notice, because a valuable practical lesson may be learned through a proper estimate of it.  If clear Vision be indispensable to success in Art, all means of securing that clearness should be sought.  Now one means is that of detaining an image long enough before the mind to allow of its being seen in all its characteristics.  The explanation Newton gave of his discovery of the great law, points in this direction; it was by always thinking of the subject, by keeping it constantly before his mind, that he finally saw the truth.  Artists brood over the chaos of their suggestions, and thus shape them into creations.  Try and form a picture in your own mind of your early skating experience.  It may be that the scene only comes back upon you in shifting outlines, you recall the general facts, and some few particulars are vivid, but the greater part of the details vanish again before they can assume decisive shape; they are but half nascent, or die as soon as born:  a wave of recollection washes over the mind, but it quickly retires, leaving no trace behind.  This is the common experience.  Or it may be that the whole scene flashes upon you with peculiar vividness, so that you see, almost as in actual presence, all the leading characteristics of the picture.  Wordsworth may have seen his early days in a succession of vivid flashes, or he may have attained to his distinctness of vision by a steadfast continuity of effort, in which what at first was vague became slowly definite as he gazed.  It is certain that only a very imaginative mind could have seen such details as he has gathered together in the lines describing how he

“Cut across the reflex of a star;
Image that flying still before me gleamed
Upon the glassy plain.”