Artists
brood over the chaos of their suggestions, and thus shape them into
creations. Try and form a picture in your own mind of your early
skating experience. It may be that the scene only comes back upon you
in shifting outlines, you recall the general facts, and some few
particulars are vivid, but the greater part of the details vanish again
before they can assume decisive shape; they are but half nascent, or
die as soon as born: a wave of recollection washes over the mind, but
it quickly retires, leaving no trace behind. This is the common
experience. Or it may be that the whole scene flashes upon you with
peculiar vividness, so that you see, almost as in actual presence, all
the leading characteristics of the picture. Wordsworth may have seen
his early days in a succession of vivid flashes, or he may have
attained to his distinctness of vision by a steadfast continuity of
effort, in which what at first was vague became slowly definite as he
gazed. It is certain that only a very imaginative mind could have seen
such details as he has gathered together in the lines describing how he
"Cut across the reflex of a star;
Image that flying still before me gleamed
Upon the glassy plain.
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