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We might go on forming other classifications and adducing other specimens to illustrate the power of L. E. L.'s imagination, especially in that form of it which philosophers so much value, when its operations correspond with its name, and become an actual imaging forth, or picturing of its intended representations. It is to such manifestation of her genius that Miss Landon is indebted for the prevalent opinion which has attached to herself all the varied modifications of feeling that are to be found in her poems, and which supposes herself to be the chief subject of her writings.
The mental powers requisite for describing any emotions as intellectual creations, are perfectly distinct from the moral susceptibilities which they call into action when received as vital feelings and as governing principles. The same truth is, of course, general in its application; for, unless we admit this obvious fact, what absurd inferences may be deduced from similar premises, what unfounded hypotheses to which reality would refuse its demonstration!
"In considering the author and his works as one, a sufficient distinction is not drawn between the ideal and the real; the last is only given by being passed through the crucible of the first. He does not give the events of his life, but the deductions that have been drawn from events. It is not that he has been placed in the circumstances that he paints, but a quick intuition born of quick feeling, and that power of observation which is the first requisite in a poet, enable him to bestow actual life on his breathing pictures." *[1]
In conversation L. E. L. would often playfully sketch ideal scenes and situations, filling them with
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- ↑ * Ethel Churchill, vol. ii.
