Chapter VI: Part 6

There aren't any limitations to "seeing things with my eyes shut"--if the writer can make me see them. A writer I like and enjoy--and I like a good many--can make me see things and people and places quite as though I were there; every detail and color and sound and smell and noise as distinct as though it were before me.

I didn't study solid geometry, but I'm sure it wouldn't have given me as much trouble as plain every-day arithmetic. Nothing could have.

Again it depends on the author. I think that usually my response is more than the exact description of the author.

I think I haven't any stock pictures; perhaps I have for a cowboy.

If images really are formed, I don't resent it. But when a writer tries so hard that he merely spoils the image I've already formed without giving me anything else, I do.

Stories that I write are more vivid to me than the average story I read. But I think that must always be true; it's the thing that makes me feel my limitations most: that people and places can be so vivid and real to me and that I can't make them so vivid and real to other people. Edna Ferber in her _Old Man Minick_ made the old man as real as any one I've ever seen or imagined or written about--but I suppose he is much more real to her--and probably different--than he is to me.

Yes, I've considered these things as "tools of my trade." A story isn't much good unless it's real to the reader, and reality comes through making a person forget it's a story and actually see and hear and feel.

=J. Allan Dunn=: All emotions come to us through the senses. And the sense of sight is the key to memory. As smell is akin to taste, so that one may barely distinguish, I think it is hard to say how the memory of what one sees may stimulate the other senses. I can see plainly many of the characters of other authors, they are as distinct as if I had met them. I recognize them partly by the masonry of our craft. So too I can see the setting if I stop to connect up. But I think it is largely the difference between being able to think in a foreign language when we read it, or to pause--however connectedly--and translate. I can force my reading mind to translate more vividly for me if I want it to. Color I can see best. Vaguely I can taste. Sense of rough or smooth contact, no. Nor of pain. But I can get exhilarated by the pleasure of the characters, depressed by their sorrow, react to bravery, patriotism, sacrifice, sorrow. My lachrymal glands will work, my emotions are on the _qui vive_, but the sense impressions are in the main hazy.

I can see things with my eyes shut without a question. I can conjure up places I have seen or that are well described. I can see color, I can see details, _if I stop to think_. Don't believe I can read and do it nearly as vividly, unless experience of my own is coincident.

I had no trouble with solid geometry. I got my mathematical degree at Oxford.

An author will stimulate me far beyond the exact degree of description.

I try to avoid all stock pictures as I would the plague. I conjure up an individual vision. I endeavor to see plainly every character and every bit of scenery I use. Often the characters and scenes are taken entire from life. It is my general plan to write of no phases of life, no places, that I have not known at first hand.

My imagination is highly stimulated when writing stories that I start upon with special enthusiasm, but the work of a fine craftsman urges me to better effort for myself and gives me enormous satisfaction.

I don't know how far I use such matters as tools of my trade. Certainly the ability to conjure up my scenes and characters is most essential. I am afraid of plagiarism. I acknowledge the reaction to write something in the style or upon the lines of an author I admire and I have to fight it.

=Walter A. Dyer=: In reading I visualize, particularly the setting. Atmosphere in a story always appeals to me. Thus I see the town of Middlemarch as a real place, and Egdon Heath in _The Return of the Native_ is very vivid to me, while the salient points of the characters have faded. I react to sound, taste and smell less readily. Tenseness of dramatic passages I feel physically, but not pain very acutely. Stories by Conrad have left me physically weary as though I had taken part in the action, but not every author affects me in this way.

I believe I visualize color as well as outline, and motion is included, even the passing of wind, in the picture. I always found solid geometry easy. I do not have stock pictures. Probably I am a bit sophisticated and react to the suggestiveness of so-called literary description more than the average.

My mind works much the same way when I am writing. I believe I succeed in getting atmosphere into my stories, but I do not find it has the most telling element in making them salable.

I might add that in reading I am not so much carried away by pure action as by vividness of detail and the dramatic element that is psychological. Beyond that, humor in presentation and color in description appeal to me. Stevenson, for example, and to a large extent Kipling and Hardy, combine these to my liking.

=Walter Prichard Eaton=: I certainly see in imagination, as clearly as in reality, when my mind is concentrated. I couldn't write anything if I didn't see as I wrote. A person without strong visual imagination may be a great philosopher, but he can never enter fiction.

I never studied solid geometry. Plane was the only mathematics I ever could do, though!

I have, as a reader, stock pictures only for stock stories. If a writer can not compel an individual image in me, I throw away his manuscript.

I resent description that is a mass of detail, when my picture is formed at a sentence. Most American magazine writers sin this way. I skip the second half of nearly all their description. The French never sin this way. They select _few_, but the salient details.

Of course one's imagination differs in the acts of reading and creating--_i. e._ the process of employment differs. In reading it is passive and follows a lead, in creating, it is active. That is why it is more fun to create--and why it tires you quicker. The imagination _itself_ is the same in the two processes, but in the second it has a sense of freedom. Artists have _initiative_ of imagination.

I don't know what you mean by considering these matters as tools of your trade. I have had always an interest in psychology, especially the psychology of esthetics. But it never occurred to me that anybody could possibly write creative literature without the ability to reassemble sensory impressions and hold them steadily by the power of the imagination. If I hadn't possessed to some extent this power, I should never have tried to write. The stronger one has it, the more inevitably he becomes an artist.

=E. O. Foster=: Having been a copy reader I am afraid that when I read a story I do not allow my imagination the play it should have and I fear that this probably reacts in my own composition. For me to get the full benefit of a story it must be off the ordinary track, for instance--F. St. Mars' stories of animal life appeal to me. I could see and sense the different animals in their habitat. Talbot Mundy's stuff appeals to me but in a different way. I think it is by association, for I have lived a great deal of my life in foreign countries.

I can not see things with my eyes shut, but if I concentrate my memory will bring back details I can write down. For instance in one of my stories I spoke about an "obscene lizard." This particular lizard, a "Gecko," was perched on top of a broken bamboo a short distance in front of one of our trenches in Manila. He was making the night hideous. I threw a club at him just as he started his "yammer." The club hit the bamboo and he went sailing into the air to land ultimately on the ground. I can feel as plainly to-day as I could then my astonishment when, with the sound of his impact, came the "you-you-y-o-u," with which he always ended his call. You could not page him.

Scenery to me comes back in its color, as do paintings, but a house--even the house in which I was born and reared--does not seem to me to have color.

I have not studied solid geometry, therefore I can not answer this question.

My response is not limited to the exact degree to which the author's description makes vivid, for I frequently find myself trying to add to an author's conception.

I think possibly that when I visualize a church it is possibly the little one in which I first attended divine service, but I have seen so many cowboys and so many soldiers that I imagine each case produces individual vision. I have not been inside many churches lately.

There is a decided difference in the behavior of my imagination when I am reading a story and when I am writing one. Nor have I considered these methods as tools of my trade.

=Arthur O. Friel=: My imagination does not reproduce any of these sense impressions, or pain. If the writer has made these things vivid they register strongly, but I do not actually see, hear and smell them as in real life. Didn't study geometry. Am limited virtually, though not actually, to the writer's portrayal. No stock pictures. Reading vs. writing? Yes. When writing a story I _live_ it. Have not considered these as tools of my trade.

=J. U. Giesy=: Personally in reading a story my imagination reproduces the scene of the author only as tinctured by my own characteristic bent, I suspect. I actually see the characters and settings--I mentally appreciate the sounds, flavors, tastes, smells and tactile impressions described, but wholly in a comparative rather than any other sense. The pain sense in a physical way, I can not say I have ever felt--on a mental plane, as applying to pathos, grief, etc., I have always been keenly responsive. In writing I have at times laughed heartily at some humorous situation or wept at the emotion I sought to convey by the situation and cause for grief expressed.

In "seeing things with my eyes shut" I believe that the pictures take on the mentally pre-recorded tints resulting from past experiences of life. Details with me are exceedingly distinct--a setting or locale is as clearly apprehended as though it for the moment was actually existent in a physical state.

Geometry never troubled me. It probably would now as I haven't tried to demonstrate a theorem for years.

I am very apt to carry on the author's concept along my own lines--or to diverge from it at times to an entirely different result.

I have no stock pictures in the sense you mean. Each setting grows as applying to the story in hand. At the same time there is no doubt that each is in a sense the result of past knowledge of such settings, many of them having come down from childhood, and each being modified for the case in hand to suit.

I read in a more or less passive state, trying to get the meat of the author's thought. I write in a state of tense concentration trying to force my thought on the reader. The processes are very different I think.

I fear I have never thought of this as fully as I have since the question was asked by you. As you know, my writing is an avocation and pleasure--a relaxation from a professional life.

=George Gilbert=: If the story is good, I live it as I read; if it is without appeal to me enough to compel me to live it, I throw it aside. In regard to seeing "things with your eyes shut," this question evades a square answer, for who can analyze the limitations of his own imagination, when he must use it for the analysis? Who else can do it for him? The imagination, in its workings, is the one power that is inalienable, non-delegateable. Do I "have stock pictures for church, cowboy," etc.? I hope not. Reading vs. writing? No one can tell; certainly I can't. Tools? No; not; none. If an author kept all that in mind, he'd write, not stories, but a text-book on them.

=Kenneth Gilbert=: To a great degree I have spoiled myself as a reader; in other words, I have for years taught myself to be always looking for the mechanics of a story. I ask myself: Why did the author do this? And I am not satisfied until the question is answered. Occasionally, however, I read a story that by its smoothness and charm stirs my admiration and imagination, and I find myself being carried along, reacting the same as the average reader, in just the way the author wished. Then indeed do I hear the sounds described and taste the flavors of the story. Imagination does not reproduce smells very markedly, but the sense of touch is very real. Physical pain is felt; more keenly when sympathies are deeply stirred. A poignant sense of sympathy is the keenest emotion I feel, it seems to me. In addition I would say that clever dialogue in dialect, such as a negro--if he is funny--is most realistic. I can hear the words spoken.

I "see things with my eyes shut," but sketchily, only the high lights being visible, therefore the details, unless I focus my attention on them, are blurred. In colors.

Solid geometry proved far more interesting than arithmetic, which was very distasteful to me.

I have stock pictures, unless the author has troubled to depict objects otherwise. I prefer to see them through his eyes rather than resort to my familiar scenes.

Decidedly there is a difference in the behavior of my imagination when I am writing, as compared to reading, stories. Reading a story never keys me up until I am oblivious to all but my immediate surroundings, while I fairly _live_ a dramatic scene in my own story.

I consider these matters "tools of the trade." For example, I try to test impartially my own description, to see if I have gone far enough, or too far. If I feel that it is graphic enough for the reader to "get" its highlights, his own imagination will supply the rest. (I'm taking Kipling's word for that, and I think it is correct, as I have proved it to my own satisfaction by questioning discerning friends who read my stories.) A sentence which carries imaginative stimuli, and therefore a flavor, is one of my constant aims.

=Louise Closser Hale=: I know that good reading makes good writing, develops style, polishes our sentences and gives us an unconscious measure for us to go by. I know that I have often written down a word and, after writing it, realize that I had no clear idea what that word meant, but upon digging at my dictionary I have found it to be absolutely the word for the definition of my thought. That comes from good reading. How beautiful it is that, like acting, we can learn and enjoy at the same time! Is there any difference in the workings of my imagination when I am reading and when I am writing? Well, I generally read authors who write better than I do and my imagination makes pictures of every situation of their story. But I resent any great description of the characters. I can make my own pictures; and I am impatient when I myself am writing if there seems any compelling necessity for going into the delineation of features and coloring and what they wear. The reader can make my people look just the way he wants to. I don't care--it's enough to be read. I might say more than that. As Kate Douglas Wiggin said once to me, teasingly: "I've bought your last book. I don't suppose you care whether I have read it or not." Perhaps it is just enough to be bought.

=Holworthy Hall=: Unfortunately, when I read a contemporary story I am always seeing the machinery, especially if I know the author personally. If, however, I read the work of an author unknown to me personally or an author no longer living or a so-called "classic," I am much more subject to my own imagination. It is only once in a hundred instances that any writer can make me forget the methods by which he has attempted to produce his effect. When this happens, I know that I have read something genuine. Nevertheless, even if a story is bad and even if the wheels creak, I am very receptive of any appeal to any specific sense, primarily the visual sense.

With "my eyes shut" I have no limitations in color or in detail.

I took honors in solid geometry.

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.

I have no stock pictures. If a picture comes at all, it is a new one.

Naturally one's imagination works more definitely when he is writing than when reading. In order to write at all one must bring his mind into a state of intense activity. But he can read almost passively--often passing over long stretches merely to get to what he hopes is coming.

No, I never have.

=Joseph Mills Hanson=: When I read a story I see everything vividly, provided it interests me; characters, action and setting. I do not hear sounds; merely realize them. Yes, I believe I do taste flavors. Not much doing on smells. Sense of touch also rather somnolent (hope I'm not getting atrophied!). But I _do_ feel actual, physical pain, if it is feelingly depicted.

Often "see things with my eyes shut"; it comes naturally. Things seem in natural colors and distinct.

Thank goodness, I never studied solid geometry. Algebra was bad enough. However, I liked plane geometry better than other mathematics--which isn't saying much.

If I become absorbed in a story, my imagination runs away ahead of the author; though not always, of course, nor often, to his conclusions.

I usually get different pictures for every church or cowboy, or dog or barnyard, or anything else.

There is, I believe, a difference in the conduct of my imagination when reading or writing a story. It acts more slowly, perhaps less logically, when writing; I have to ponder situations a good deal before deciding and going ahead.

Yes, I have thought of them as tools of my trade. The sub-divisions have not occurred to me in that light.

=E. E. Harriman=: In reading a story I see every, smallest detail and if the author is chary of descriptions I fill in unconsciously. One reason why I am at times short on descriptions--I see it so plainly myself that I am liable to forget that others can not. My imagination carries me into a field of action so completely that I am often under a strain that tires me out. I have, in writing a gunfight scene, jumped nearly out of my chair when a neighbor slammed a board down on another one. I am often so affected by pathos of my own composition that I have to pause and assure myself that it is fiction, before I can finish. In reading Payson Terhune's dog story in the last _Ladies' Home Journal_ last night I got so worked up that I wanted to hammer hell out of that speed maniac who killed the dog. I feel, see, hear, smell, anything vividly represented by a good writer.

Seeing in the dark--the colorings are there, to the last gradation. Every detail is clear cut and distinct. I can see things I saw fifty years ago, in just that way. As I think of my dog that died forty-two years ago, I can see the shadings that ran down from his reddish back to his light yellow belly. I can see the color and expression of his eyes and the way he would cock his head on one side when listening to me.

Never studied solid geometry, though I made the drawings in the University of Minnesota. Enjoyed them immensely and took a high mark.

If a writer hints at anything, my mind pictures it instantly. If his description is stopped shy of completion, I finish it.

I have no stock pictures, though my memory is full of scenes. Any style or kind is built up instantly by a phrase or sentence.

I think that there is a marked difference in imaginative vision when writing or reading. In reading I feel that I am looking at a photograph or watching action by others. In writing I feel that I am in the scene--a part of it--helping in the action.

I use these "tools of my trade" daily. Often I start with a man or boy as my central character. Before long he gets into a scrape. At once I become that character and have to live the situation in order to learn what he would or could do to get out of a fix.

=Nevil G. Henshaw=: This is rather hard to answer, but in reading a book or story that I'm genuinely interested in I react far beyond the written page in all the senses you enumerate. I imagine I feel most the emotions of the characters, fear, hate, desire, pain, etc. Also taste hits me hard. Smell not so much. Sound still less. Touch last of all. A scene well done I see perfectly and I delight in the little touches that make real and set off the whole, trifles like a puddle in a road, a rock on a hillside, an odd piece of furniture or ornament in a room.

In writing unless I can see what I'm writing about I can't get it on paper. The picture is perfectly clear to the last detail no matter how fanciful. This applies to any picture I try to conjure up. I see the colors also.

Being a dub at all mathematics, I never studied geometry.

If an author gives me a good hint I can generally go beyond it.

I've no stock pictures, especially in my own work. A place will give me an idea even quicker than a person. But then I've always thought that there was a great deal in that ancient expression "Ain't nature grand."

There is, of course, a big difference though it's hard to explain. Perhaps I can get at it best by saying that writing is work, reading play.

These matters are most certainly tools of the trade, and I use them all I can.

=Joseph Hergesheimer=: My reaction to a story is partly to the fineness of its writing and partly to the depth of its humanity--its pity and understanding. I see no mental pictures--again all this is simply the emotion of recognition. Solid geometry? I have never studied anything. Stock pictures or individual vision? If it isn't the latter it's nothing! Resent too many images? This is not clear. "Behavior of the imagination" escapes me. Tools of trade? This, too, is complicated. I think I am centered on the main thing, and the rest follow subconsciously.

=Robert Hichens=: I can not answer this.

=R. de S. Horn=: I certainly consider these matters as tools of the trade. Perhaps this comes from the peculiar situation I find myself in; _viz._, having to write or do nothing. I had always liked to write; did a lot of it at the Naval Academy and afterward as a side line mostly for the pure fun of it. But when I was smashed up and rendered unfit for most occupations I took to writing with deliberate intent to make it my one profession. Writing is in mind at all times, whatever I do, wherever I go. And with such in view I try to make everything useful and subservient to the end in view.

I find that my imagination is quite vivid, and it immediately interests itself in every story I read. I smell smells, see sights, hear sounds, taste tastes and feel emotions provided the author himself has done so and thus has handed them on to me. In other words I quite enter into the atmosphere of the stories I read. More than this, I sometimes find myself seized with a new solution to the story and thinking it out to see if possibly the story wouldn't have been better that way. Generally the pictures I see in my imagination are black and white; silhouettes, you might say, though I still see the colors. The idea is that it is the outlines that strike me most forcibly, sort of like cardboard outlines of mountains, for instance, that show the bold characteristics rather than the tiny details. By focussing I am able to bring out the details better, however, after a bit. But the first impression is usually silhouette-like.

Solid geometry and spherical trigonometry did give me considerably more trouble than the plane branches of mathematics. However by the time I had finished calculus and a few more like that I seemed to have acquired the knack of it.

The author's words frequently set my imagination off in its own and sometimes quite different channels.

I don't believe I have stock pictures. It seems to me that every story should have its own distinctive characters and settings. However I have not written sufficiently to say for certain that I don't use them unconsciously.

I think my imagination works differently when writing than when reading. In the first case I direct it myself and deliberately put it to work in most cases after the story actually begins to take form. But when reading it works purely subconsciously.

=Clyde B. Hough=: The mere printed word does not and never can present the picture in the fulness of its maturity. The best that the printed word can hope to do is to suggest graphically, so graphically that the imagination of the dullest reader will experience no difficulty in rounding out the picture, in clothing it with all the splendor, emotion, etc., that the author has suggested. It is my belief that any author's success will be measured according to the extent that he succeeds in achieving this goal.

When I read other men's stories, or to be accurate I should say when I study other men's stories, I see their characters. I am enthralled by their action which expresses their sensations. My subconscious mind is aware of the tastes, the flavors and the smells or anything else that goes to round out a given setting, but I do not physically experience these things. My imagination does not reproduce the sense of touch, nor does it cause me to feel pain. I account for this by the fact that all the rounding out of the story, as a reader supplying what the author suggests, is left to my subconscious mind, because my conscious mind is solely occupied with studying the story from the craftsman's standpoint. To put the whole matter in a nut shell, I do not read for entertainment, but solely to study the other fellow's craftsmanship in order that I myself may acquire more craft.

Yes, I can "see things with my eyes shut" and the limitations are, allowing for the ratio of imagination, in proportion to the number and variety, or the sum total of all the actual concrete things I have ever seen. These pictures and objects in my mind automatically take on the color that is appropriate to themselves. The details are not distinct unless I make a special effort in concentration. But by an effort of the will I can generally straighten out the kinks.

I have not studied any form of higher mathematics.

I do not think that I elaborate on other men's work in a creative sense, although many stories have started me thinking on certain lines which ultimately rewarded me with a plot germ. But in all such cases I have been extremely alert to avoid allowing any similarity between such a story and the other author's story which fathered the embryo thought.

I do not believe that I have stock pictures for either pirates, preachers or church steeples. I make this statement because I am never surprised at meeting people differently garbed or at seeing things differently shaped from what I have been accustomed to see them.

When I am reading, my imagination works, I believe, just about as much as the suspense, thrill, emotion, etc., recorded in what I'm reading requires--no more than that. But when I'm writing my imagination is brought under the pressure of my will and driven to its uttermost capacity--with the guiding hand of judgment at the reins always of course.

Some of the phases of the writing craft thus far touched upon I have considered and used consciously. Some I have missed automatically.

This laboratory test will be of inestimable worth to any author.

=Emerson Hough=: I have no mental contortions. My mouth never waters. Just see the pictures clear, as nearly as I can tell. Geometry? You are getting too deep. All mathematics troubled me plenty. As to response, I don't savvy this. No, I don't think any writer has stock pictures who has resources of his own. I don't resent; sometimes I don't read. Reading _vs._ writing? I'll say there is! Tools? I never throw fits. I am a very plain, ordinary person.

=A. S. M. Hutchinson=: When reading a story my imagination is entirely and most vividly with the persons of the story. When one of them is about to become the victim of a misunderstanding I find myself simply longing that he will somehow escape it, and this never mind whether the story is good, bad or indifferent.

Limitations depend entirely on the extent to which my interest is aroused.

No, far less trouble from solid geometry.

Response depends entirely on how much the thing described, well or ill, interests me.

Each its own picture.

Not a bit, unless I resent them as images. But suggestion, leaving me to do the rest, is what I most enjoy.

I do not know.

As tools? No.

=Inez Haynes Irwin=: I would say _yes_ to all these questions. I enjoy fiction intensely. All my life I have been the easy prey of fiction writers. Allowing that sometimes the mind gets fatigued and ceases to register impressions (although I do not remember ever to have had this experience) I would say that I saw, heard, tasted, smelled and felt all the things the author wanted me to see, hear, taste, smell and feel. I do seem in imagination actually to feel physical pain when the author wishes me to do so. Recently while suffering from an attack of grippe I had to stop reading a novel, Dorothy Speare's _Dancers in the Dark_, because the opening chapters described the fatigue of a group of girls who had danced all night. Their fatigue added so much to my weakness that I could not go on with the story. I remember once reading an essay by John Burroughs on _The Apple_. When I had finished it, I had to go out and buy an apple to eat, although ordinarily I don't care for apples.

I am particularly susceptible to color in writing; and I find that I enjoy particularly the work of those writers who have studied art or have been artists. Du Maurier's books were a great joy to me and if Hergesheimer had nothing else to interest me, I think I should read him for the wonderful color arrangements in his descriptions. _Java Head_ is remarkable in this respect. Robert Chambers has some of this color quality too; so, of course, to an extraordinary degree, has Conrad.

The pictures I see in my imagination are always colored as the author directs me to color them.

I do not think details are blurred in my imagined version of the author's picture--except when I have read too hurriedly or skipped.

I have studied arithmetic, algebra, plane geometry and solid geometry. The higher the mathematics the better I liked it. I was exceptionally stupid in arithmetic but I enjoyed plane and solid geometry enormously. It appealed to my imagination.

I am not quite sure that I understand what this question means. Of course highly imaginative writers--especially if they have the great technical gift of connotative writing--can start your imagination with a broken phrase, can keep it working long after their words have stopped. It is as though they left echoes in one's mind. I think H. G. Wells makes this magic in my mind more often than any other writer that I know. Although I am half inclined to say that Henry James--who can also involve me in a maze of obscurity--is his equal if not his superior in this respect.

I am sure that each case produces its individual vision.

I don't remember ever formulating this while reading; but of course I realize that an author may have a too explicit style.

As to reading _vs._ writing. I think not, because it has never occurred to me that there could be any such difference.

In writing description, I always do try to appeal to the five senses of my reader. Perhaps this is so because in the writing courses which I took at Radcliffe College the instructors impressed it on us to do that.

=Will Irwin=: Answering generally the complex questions under the head: In reading writers who are "my men," as Stevenson, Wells, Anatole France, I find myself seeing the scenes in my imagination. The fight in _David Balfour_, the meeting of "Pontius Pilate" and "Laelius Lamia" in _Le Procurateur de Judée_, are to me as though I had witnessed them. I hear the sounds, but I can not say with truth that I taste the flavors or experience the smells. That doubtless is a matter of individual peculiarity. I have almost no sense of smell. On the other hand, I often see the colors most vividly. That again comes from individual peculiarity--I take the greatest delight in color. In a treatise on dreams which I have read recently the author says that dreams are like photographs; that they have no color, only one low tone and white. If that is so, I must be a freak. I am always dreaming in colors--as a few nights ago of seeing a procession in russet brown carrying rose-colored banners. Sometimes my imagination, in reading, reproduces the sense of touch, and occasionally the sense of pain. When I "see things with my eyes shut," I think the image is usually blurred and lacking in detail except for one central figure. But I do usually see such pictures in colors. I perceive what you are driving at in your question about solid geometry. I run true to form. Other mathematics did not interest me. I loathed arithmetic and algebra and I quit trigonometry from absolute boredom. But I was a sharp at geometry, both plane and solid.

I think that the mere concept of an author whom I recognize as one of my men will often set me to imagining things beyond those which he has described. By the same token I am sometimes bored by over-detailed description. I can not say, however, that I have stock pictures for persons and things which come within the limits of my experience. I do, however, for categories of persons and things which I have not seen--as a cavalier, a Zulu chief or a king on his throne. The visual faculty of my mind works in the same manner when I am reading a story as when I am writing one. In both cases I have a succession of color-pictures.

Certainly I use these things as tools of my trade--especially the picture faculty. One analytical passage in Barrett Wendell's treatise on Shakespeare has been very useful to me. He shows that Shakespeare's magic consists largely in creating a succession of haunting pictures in the mind. Since I absorbed that principle I have analyzed other magic styles and found this their secret. I have tried to follow in my poor way. I also try to use the tactile style. As it is a thing generally beyond me, I avoid dragging in the sense of smell. I do use sounds a great deal, however.

=Charles Tenney Jackson=: As to reading a story my imagination goes more to an author's pictures than his plot. I am rather coldly critical about plots and most of them show their ragged spots to me, lapses, improbabilities and negligences. But I like to have the chap show me a setting that seems real. If it's the sea islands, I want their colorful warmth; the Yukon, I want its snows and grim menace to the human actors. People are so much alike that a story does not move me because a writer attempts to show me their differences in different settings. My idea is that human nature reacts exactly the same everywhere. In other words, answering query III if an author gives me a hurricane I want that vivid, smashing, either by description or suggestion, and I don't give a durn who lives through it to rescue the girl. I know to start with that she'll be pulled out. There are certain banal things in either reading or writing fiction that you can't get away from; so I slide past 'em to see how the minor keys can be played.

=Frederick J. Jackson=: When I read a story I live it, that is, if the author has a sureness of touch with his characters and action that is convincing to me. Some authors I can not read at all. I won't read them. It's a waste of time. They don't get over with me. What I consider a perfect story is one in which the author can make me suffer with his characters, laugh with them, play with them, make my eye look through the sights of an aimed rifle, let my finger be on the trigger.

To the things I "see with my eyes shut" there are few limitations, the pictures are colored, real, the details are distinct.

My response is not limited to the degree with which the author describes and makes vivid. A mere hint suffices to draw a really definite picture in my mind. If the author doesn't spoil my own picture with too damned many cloying details I'm better satisfied. I dislike wading through paragraph after paragraph of detailed description, unless an accurate picture is necessary in order to give a complete understanding of certain action or certain moves made by a character.

I carry that dislike for detailed description into my own work. If I use more than one sentence of description I wince. I like to convey a picture, a real picture in as few words as possible. I like to put action into my description, into my picture of a setting.

I never have stock pictures. A village church? Immediately before my mind passes a parade of all the village churches I have ever seen, in villages or movie lots.

My dislike for description applies to characters as well as scenery. A hint here and there, characterization--things that will make each reader furnish the details he likes best. I might have described them in detail--mere words to tell how they appear in my picture. Really now, when you read about characters, doesn't your mind supply a picture of the physical man? A man to your liking, unhampered by clogging, useless words? Didn't characterization do that? If you have a leaning toward dark heroes, you conceive him to be dark. If to your mind a guy with red hair is the real Peruvian gooseberry as the main character, red headed he'll be in your mental picture. Etc., etc.

Is there any difference in behavior of your imagination when you are reading stories and when writing them? I live with my characters both in reading and writing, but _oh!_ what a difference. In writing, I have to work out the problems; in reading, the problems have been worked out by the author. It's traveling with a sled, but one is going up-hill and the other down-grade.

=Mary Johnston=: Impossible to answer this fully. Sometimes there is a high degree of reality, at other times less. Depends upon the amount of energy that is functioning, energy and attention.

Yes, it is possible to see things with your eyes shut. I see them colored, in the round, and at times in motion. Not always in minute detail. Often only a general impression.

No more trouble from solid geometry.

As to response, if you have the concept, you can produce the appropriate phenomena. Individual pictures usually. Sometimes a composite or an idealization.

Prefer things to be suggested rather than minutely described.

Probably a difference as to reading and writing.

They are tools of life--therefore of one's work also.

=John Joseph=: If it is a really _good_ story my imagination reacts to all the emotions and sensations mentioned except "physical pain." Very few stories belong to this class, however.

The author's "pictures" (in good stories) are reproduced in every detail, and distinctly. My mental pictures often go far beyond anything the author has actually described. I have no "stock" pictures; every "cowboy" and "village church" differs from all the others.

There is little difference in "behavior of imagination" whether reading or writing. I think that all these points are valuable to the writer.

=Lloyd Kohler=: In reading a story I am very apt to puzzle out in my own mind the outcome of the story long before the end is reached. Often the author's ending of the story, however, is radically different from what my own imagination had planned. Sometimes I can't overcome the idea that my own solution would have bettered the story; at other times I can easily see that the author's solution was vastly superior to my own.

In writing a story, or planning a story to write, my imagination generally runs--well, we'll say "wild." For instance: I may carefully plan a certain climax--and then find when the story is finally written that the first climax has been substituted for a more fitting one which flew into my mind during the last stages of the writing.

I don't want to commit myself on this question--I can't even agree with myself regarding the different angles of it. But I will say that when reading a story generally I do see in my imagination the characters, action and setting, though perhaps not so clearly as if looking at the actual scene. The vividness of the picture, of course, depends upon the clearness and vividness of the author. It depends also on just how familiar I am with the picture presented by the author.

The pictures described by an author which "I see with my eyes shut" are more in black and white. The details are very apt to be indistinct.

Plane geometry was exceedingly easy for me, but with another restless spirit I put to sea, consequently I can't say how I would have fared with the solid variety.

My response is not necessarily limited to the exact degree to which the author describes. It depends on how familiar I am with that which the author attempts to make vivid. The very thought of some things would set me to producing as vividly, perhaps, even more vividly, than the author himself. On the other hand, if the description were unfamiliar the response would likely be limited.

I don't believe that I have stock pictures for anything. If I have, some bit of description is bound to stick to me that will allow the thing to be individualized. Two cowboys are no more apt to be alike than two business men.

=Harold Lamb=: Yes, the imagination reproduces the story-world completely. Although not so fully with sounds as with sight, touch, smell. Perhaps the fact that I am nearly half deaf may have something to do with this.

About sensations it is hard to find the right word. Of course reading of a slashed finger does not give a resultant pain in any finger. It may give, however, a vivid mental image of pain in _some finger_. This is apt to be more annoying and enduring than a thumb actually cut by a knife.

The strength of the imagery is, logically, in proportion to the skill of the writer in creating his story-world. Reading Knut Hamsun's _Hunger_ caused a more active mind distress than _Les Miserables_. _Les Miserables_ was worse (that is, stronger) than _Quo Vadis_. By this last I do not mean to raise the standard of Scandinavia over Poland. Knut Hamsun's tale was fashioned to reproduce the imagery of hunger completely, and it was marvelously done. As compared with the actual sensation it was more painful. I mean retrospectfully painful. At certain times I have been rather hungry. But a full meal always banished the distress. No after-impress of pain remained. But, walking the streets of Copenhagen in the person of Knut Hamsun's young man, I never had any satisfaction from gorging after starving. He--I--always threw up.

So with other sensations. But the most vivid sensations received from the printed word are those that have been experienced in life. Such as pain from frostbite, suffocation under water, drowsiness.

As to limitations of imagination, I do not know of any. Images are distinct. Colored as in the story. When color is lacking, I seem to supply it. Brown, green, gray are always present. (An artist explains that these are the neutral tints.) White, blue and red come into place as described, but less often volunteer. Black, yellow and purple almost never volunteer and when the printed word summons are sketched hastily.

Poor in all mathematics, least deficient in plane and solid geometry.

Seem to reproduce more in imagination than the author sets forth and have always thought that most readers did likewise. I find that continually I am snubbed back by a fresh word as to setting in the course of a story.

No stock pictures.

As to reading _vs._ writing, the cart before the horse, and behind.

Tools of trade? I have not puzzled about the psychology of a reader.

=Sinclair Lewis=: My imagination reproduces thus occasionally. In colors, details distinct. Less trouble with solid geometry. A mere concept will set me to reproducing just as vividly. No stock pictures. Do not resent abundant images. Imagination is more active in writing than in reading.

=Hapsburg Liebe=: If a story really interests me, I feel everything, see everything, clearly. Reading of a man on a desert makes me thirsty. Writing of the same thing makes me thirsty. I cuss, cry and fight with the hero.

I did not study geometry. Never could study anything much.

If I read "He found himself in a dense woodland," my imagination makes the rest; I see pines, oaks, etc., as well as the woods. I think most other readers are like this; that's why they don't like detail.

Unless I'm careful, I have stock pictures for such things as logging-camps, etc. Often I catch myself and make myself see it differently, make the creek run the other way, and so on--and it's harder than you'd think. The last camp I worked in (there was a sawmill in connection) is always coming back to me, and I've had a devil of a time putting a thicket of laurel where the mill stood. This sounds crazy, but I'm trying to answer your questions.

There is little, if any, difference in my behavior when reading stories and writing them. I get "all het up" in either case, if there's any reason for it.

"Tools of the trade?" I forget everything like that when at work, I regret to say, though sometimes I take pains to see how some real author has got his effects.

=Romaine H. Lowdermilk=: I actually imagine--envisage--everything that goes on. If the writer has told it at all clearly I see and hear everything. I smell or taste nothing--my imagination does not go so far. I feel no pain nor sense of touch except in very familiar things like bitter cold, tropical heat, ropes, gun-shot in the leg and the like. The scenes I see are all in "black and white" much like the illustrations in magazines, or rather more like a memory of an actual happening. I see bright sunlights and deep shades, but seldom see colors even though the heroine wears a yellow waist. The main details are distinct, the rest merely passing impressions. Sometimes an especially vivid story brings out a lasting remembrance and I have it as almost an actual happening.

Solid geometry gave me no more trouble than any of my mathematics, but, at that, it is a terrible arraignment to numbers.