constitution, from her touch;
and, where they admit of modification, it is enough for her purpose if
it be slight, limited, and evanescent. Directly the reverse of these,
are the desires and demands of the Imagination. She recoils from
everything but the plastic, the pliant, and the indefinite. She leaves
it to Fancy to describe Queen Mab as coming,

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman.

Having to speak of stature, she does not tell you that her gigantic
Angel was as tall as Pompey's Pillar; much less that he was twelve
cubits, or twelve hundred cubits high; or that his dimensions equalled
those of Teneriffe or Atlas;--because these, and if they were
a million times as high it would be the same, are bounded: The
expression is, 'His stature reached the sky!' the illimitable
firmament!--When the Imagination frames a comparison, if it does
not strike on the first presentation, a sense of the truth of the
likeness, from the moment that it is perceived, grows--and continues
to grow--upon the mind; the resemblance depending less upon outline
of form and feature, than upon expression and effect; less upon
casual and outstanding, than upon inherent and internal, properties:
moreover, the images invariably modify each other.--The law under
which the processes of Fancy are carried on is as capricious as
the accidents of things, and the effects are surprising, playful,
ludicrous, amusing, tender, or pathetic, as the objects happen to be
appositely produced or fortunately combined. Fancy depends upon
the rapidity and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and
images; trusting that their number, and the felicity with which they
are linked together, will make amends for the want of individual
value: or she prides herself upon the curious subtilty and the
successful elaboration with which she can detect their lurking
affinities. If she can win you over to her purpose, and impart to
you her feelings, she cares not how unstable or transitory may be her
influence, knowing that it will not be out of her power to resume
it upon an apt occasion. But the Imagination is conscious of an
indestructible dominion;--the Soul may fall away from it, not being
able to sustain its grandeur; but, if once felt and acknowledged, by
no act of any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, impaired,
or diminished.--Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile the
temporal part of our nature, Imagination to