The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1921-06-30
Something to
Think Ab0ut
IMAGINATION
By F. II. WALKER

edsel asked MIN what he was to
paint.
The answer that he made to me-
was so vivid and so strikingly told
that l almost seemed to see upon the
blank canvas the finished work.
But l knew what l saw was only
a dim counterpart Of the thing that
he saw, for in his Imagination the
whole picture was as plain in its
form and as distinct in its colors, in
its then mental existence, as it was
later to be to thousands of admiring
eyes.
This world would be sad and
desolate place without imagination.
Art would falter and science would
dry up and blow away
Imagination is the real mother Of
accomplishment.
If the boy did not vision the man,
did not imagine himself as he will
be when he grows up. all the great
incentives of youth would vanish and
all its endeavor disappear.
Nothing is so exhilarating a spur
to endeavor as the Imagination Of
what will result from effort
1t is the imaginings of what money
will buy for us in necessities, COM
forts and Injuries that keep us keen
ly at its earning and conscientiously
at its saving.
1t is the imagining of what may
be the result that keeps the chemist
in his laboratory through night hours
or the student at his books when ma
ture would send him to bed
Imagination helps US to live and 1t
not infrequently causes Us to die.
felon in an English prison, who
had been sentenced to death, was
made the subject of an experiment
which showed the power of imagined
suffering
He was blindfolded and 1t was ex-
planned to him that in the place of
the usual form of execution he was
to be bled to death.
His arm was barred and across the
large vein on the inside of the elbow
joint was drawn. but without max
ing any wound, the edge of a knife,
Immediately there was caused to flow
down his arm stream of blood
water
Attendants counted his pulse and
carried on a whispered conversation
:about the evidences of failing vital
ity.
Slowly the man grew weaker, his
flesh lost its color, and about the
time that a man would have bled to
death from such a wound actually
inflicted, the prisoner died from pure
imagination.
Half our ills are no more substan-
tfal than was the cut in the prison
:er's arm, but we. like him. suffer
through our imaginations all the pains
Of reality.
Imagination" said Napoleon, "rules
the world"
Imagination ruled Napoleon. He
lived on the vision of himself as
conqueror. of Europe.
He imagined his battles long be-
fore the first gun of conflict sounded,
and though he dwelt on victory he
saw in his imagination Waterloo as
llainly as Marengo or Austerlitz.
Swifter than light the Imagination
travels in an instant of time to the
outermost star of our universe and
returns as quickly as it went
1t defies time and annihilates
space.
1t disregards probability and over
looks all laws
1t has pioneered every progress
that man has made since the world
began and multiplied his happiness
and his ills alike.
1t is one function which man pos
sesses which he does not share with
forms of life lower than himself
There are many animals who give
proof of having the power of
thought, even of reason.
L is llol OlG lIidI HdS CfCi
shown the slightest evidence Of be-
ing able to imagine anything outside
of something it has already expert
enced
Do you cultivate your imagination?
Do you guide it along right and use
full lines and direct 1t into result
getting endeavors?
If you do not you are wasting
power that God bestowed on you
when He said, LET them (man) have
dominion over all the earth"
Imagination will help you to have
that dominion if you use it rightly.
1t will help the weakest thing in
all the earth to have dominion over
you if you use 1t wrongly.
Base your imaginings on truth.
give them a foundation of fact and
they will prove useful and fruitful,
profitable and worth while.