Minds differ in the vividness with which they recall the elements of
previous experience, and mentally see the absent objects; they differ
also in the aptitudes for selection, abstraction, and recombination:
the fine selective instinct of the artist, which makes him fasten upon
the details which will most powerfully affect us, without any
disturbance of the harmony of the general impression, does not depend
solely upon the vividness of his memory and the clearness with which
the objects are seen, but depends also upon very complex and peculiar
conditions of sympathy which we call genius. Hence we find one man
remembering a multitude of details, with a memory so vivid that it
almost amounts at times to hallucination, yet without any artistic
power; and we may find men--Blake was one--with an imagination of
unusual activity, who are nevertheless incapable, from deficient
sympathy, of seizing upon those symbols which will most affect us. Our
native susceptibilities and acquired tastes determine which of the many
qualities in an object shall most impress us, and be most clearly
recalled.
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