I. IMAGINATION DEMANDED OF THE READER. "It is the nature of the soul to appropriate all things. . . . I conquer and incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His virtue,-is not that mine? His wit,-if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit."-EMERSON : 66 Compensation." "My respiration rose; I felt a rapid fire colouring my face. . . . I was Eucharis for Telemachus, and Erminia for Tancred; however, during this perfect transformation, I did not yet think that I myself was anything, for anyone. The whole had no connection with myself; I sought for nothing around me; I was them, I saw only the objects which existed for them; it was a dream, without being awakened."-MADAME ROLAND'S description of her first reading of Telemachus and Tasso. THE gods need never trouble themselves to bestow a greater gift upon a favourite child than a powerful and healthy imagination. I use |