So the teacher, the preacher, and the
parent labor in vain unless there is clearly imaged in their minds the
end to be attained by education and discipline. It is idle to seek for
means to accomplish anything until there is a distinct image in the mind
of the thing that is to be done. If there be such a thing as an "airy
nothing," it is a thought before Imagination has given it a "local
habitation and a name." When Shakespeare said it was the office of the
poet to carry on this transformation, he announced one of those great
general facts which are equally true of every other human being. It is
in degree, and not in kind, that one man differs from another. In this,
the poet is but the type of what every human being must be, if he would
be anything better than a dead weight in society, incapable of success
in any department of life.
Let no one fold his hands supinely, and say, I have no Imagination; and
therefore, if this doctrine be true, my life must be a failure. You may
possibly have but one talent while your neighbor has ten, but you
are just as responsible for the cultivation and enlargement of your
endowment as your neighbor for his. Had the parable been reversed, and
had he who was endowed with five talents hidden them in the earth while
he who had one doubled his lord's money, the condemnation and the
acceptance would likewise have been reversed. Unless a man be so far
idiotic that he is not an accountable being, we blaspheme the goodness
of God, if we say there is nothing he is capable of doing well.
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