To an observant eye
such men reveal their native endowments. Even in conversation they
spontaneously throw themselves into the characters they speak of. They
mimic, often quite unconsciously the speech and gesture of the person.
They dramatise when they narrate. Other men with little of this
faculty, but with only so much of it as will enable them to imitate the
tones and gestures of some admired actor, are misled by their vanity
into the belief that they also are actors, that they also could move an
audience as their original moves it.
In Literature we see a few original writers, and a crowd of imitators:
men of special aptitudes, and men who mistake their power of repeating
with slight variation what others have done, for a power of creating
anew. The imitator sees that it is easy to do that which has already
been done. He intends to improve on it; to add from his own stores
something which the originator could not give; to lend it the lustre of
a richer mind; to make this situation more impressive, and that
character more natural. He is vividly impressed with the imperfections
of the original.
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