"A man of polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures, that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another does in the possession.

It gives him, indeed, a kind of property in everything he sees, and makes the most rude, uncultivated parts of nature administer to his pleasures; so that he looks upon the world, as it were in another light, and discovers in it a multitude of charms, that conceal themselves from the generality of mankind."

I really enjoy Joseph Addison, considered to be the greatest literary mind of his time. This little piece comes from a chapter on imagination and he just wets my appetite and makes me want to reach out and do more creative things. No question in my mind that the arts, poetry and reading good books are so many tools to help us see deeper into our world and "discover in it a multitude of charms."

Picture from the Internet