Imagination

  We all have a general and sufficient idea of imagination, and of its work with our hands and in our hearts: we understand it, I suppose, as the imaging or picturing of new things in our thoughts; and we always show an involuntary respect for this power, wherever we can recognize it, acknowledging it to be a greater power than manipulation, or calculation, or observation, or any other human faculty. For example; if we see an old woman spinning at the fireside, and distributing her thread dexterously from the distaff, we respect her for her manipulation – if we ask her how much she expects to make in a year, and she answers quickly, we respect her for her calculation – if she is watching at the same time that none of her grandchildren fall into the fire, we respect her for her observation – yet for all this she may still be a commonplace old woman enough. But if she is all the time telling her grandchildren a fairy tale out of her head, we praise her for her imagination, and say, she must be a rather remarkable old woman.” John Ruskin.