There is a distinct difference between reading and writing. The
difference is comparable with attending a well-acted drama and playing
in a keenly contested ballgame. In the case of the former you know
perfectly well the events will sweep along to a logical or at least
ordained conclusion without arousing any very violent feelings in your
own heart; but in the latter case you are taking part in and helping to
shape a drama whose limitations are only roughly cast, and whose events
are actually unknown up to the very moment they happen.
I have never given these things much thought in connection with my own
writing.
=H. C. Bailey=: I should say that while the vividness with which my mind
realizes a story I read varies very greatly, the purely physical
sensations are limited. Horror, for instance, the "blood runs cold"
feeling, I get. I see many scenes clearly and hear some sounds, like the
rattle of the arrows in the _Odyssey_. But I don't remember my mouth
watering over any feast in fiction, though I enjoy them, or actually
smelling physical scents. A general feeling of physical pleasure,
excitement or disgust I know.
My imagination is more interested in the physical facts of the stories I
write than of those I read. I have often found myself cutting out stuff
about the sensations of my characters because it seemed too intimate or
too trivial for outsiders. I certainly see things which are not actual
both when consciously working at them and when I am not. In color and in
action--salient features if I look for them. This applies to both
reading and writing.
If I see an imaginary thing at all it is individual. I have always tried
to give a story a sensuous appeal--I mean to make the story suggest to
the reader what it is suggesting to the physical senses of the
characters.
Solid geometry and all mathematics are a mystery to me.
The artistic quality of an author's work is not always the cause of a
vivid reproduction of his scenes in my mind, though of course it is
potent.