Generally I am offended by a wealth of description and detail which
prevents me from independent thinking; I much prefer to receive a vivid
suggestion and to be allowed to ferment it myself.
As a reader I have no "stock pictures." I put it up to the author to
show me what he has; if he fails to convince me, I walk out. I decline
to substitute my own conceptions for those which he impliedly guaranteed
to provide me.
Next question answered already--above.
Obviously, after what I have already said, there is all the difference
in the world between the state of my imagination when I read and when I
write.
Never. If I had, I should be too self-conscious to write.
=Richard Matthews Hallet=: The trend of the questions on imagination
seems to be to discover what type of imagination mine is, auditory,
visual or motor. These I believe are the psychological divisions. I
think mine is auditory. I get things I hear better than things I see. A
word or two may mean more to me than a whole landscape. Words collect
values round themselves in some queer way and they provide you with an
imaginary world not so sharp as the real one--that is my case at
least--but to which my emotional reaction is vastly keener. I wonder if
the imaginations of most writing men are not chiefly auditory, with a
good infusion of the motor type where there is a knack of swift flowing
narrative. Certainly the chief preoccupation of the writer is with words
and not things. Does he have the same grasp of detail as the
practical-minded man? I doubt it, even where his writing is all made up
of detail. He husbands the details he does grasp, that is all. They are
precious and astonishing to him for the very reason that he is weak on
that side. Lafcadio Hearn's writing is a gorgeous mass of color and of
sensuous appreciation; yet the man was half blind, I believe. His sight
was certainly defective. This may have helped him. Beethoven's
symphonies were none the worse for their composer being deaf. Obstacles
may be the very things that compel genius to extend itself.
Mathematics hits me on my blind side entirely.
I do not resent having images formed for me, I demand it. I dislike
sketchy writing. I'm not speaking of the enormous suggestiveness which
words of course have in themselves, but of a habit of leaving the reader
to fill in the picture. If most stories were of the _Lady or the Tiger_
type, they would fall flat, in my opinion. A story, to ring the bull's
eye, should be self-contained.
As to behavior of my imagination when reading and when writing, it
differs as the behavior of a man loafing differs from that of a man
slaving under the lash. This is a large difference. I don't write
easily; not apparently because I like it. And yet any other job would
certainly suit me less. So where are we?
=William H. Hamby=: It all depends on the writer. If he has seen what he
is describing and does it interestingly and convincingly I see it too.
If he doesn't--I skip to the next story. I do not bring up in my mind
sounds described in a story nearly so vividly as I do tastes or smell.
The description of an odor comes very vividly to me. I do not feel
physical pain as I read of it--with the exception of cold or fatigue. I
have a very vivid sense of touch and any mention of coldness, smoothness
or the like is felt as I read.
I see things with my eyes shut and I often see them in colors. At times
they are misty and again I see the picture in very vivid details.
Solid geometry was very easy for me. I started in solid geometry before
I had studied plane geometry and demonstrated every proposition in the
text.
I usually see most vividly that which is merely suggested or very
briefly described. A detailed description kills the picture with me.