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certain odors, while others experience the most delectable sensations by the rise of pleasing olfactory images.
(f) The tactile image, to name no others, is well nigh as potent. Do you shudder at the thought of velvet
rubbed by short-nailed finger tips? Or were you ever "burned" by touching an ice-cold stove? Or, happier
memory, can you still feel the touch of a well-loved absent hand?
Be it remembered that few of these images are present in our minds except in combination--the sight and
sound of the crashing avalanche are one; so are the flash and report of the huntman's gun that came so near
"doing for us."
CHAPTER XXVI 165
Thus, imaging--especially conscious reproductive imagination--will become a valuable part of our mental
processes in proportion as we direct and control it.
2. Productive Imagination
All of the foregoing examples, and doubtless also many of the experiments you yourself may originate, are
merely reproductive. Pleasurable or horrific as these may be, they are far less important than the images
evoked by the productive imagination--though that does not infer a separate faculty.
Recall, again for experiment, some scene whose beginning you once saw enacted on a street corner but passed
by before the dénouement was ready to be disclosed. Recall it all--that far the image is reproductive. But what
followed? Let your fantasy roam at pleasure--the succeeding scenes are productive, for you have more or less
consciously invented the unreal on the basis of the real.
And just here the fictionist, the poet, and the public speaker will see the value of productive imagery. True,
the feet of the idol you build are on the ground, but its head pierces the clouds, it is a son of both earth and
heaven.
One fact it is important to note here: Imagery is a valuable mental asset in proportion as it is controlled by the
higher intellectual power of pure reason. The untutored child of nature thinks largely in images and therefore
attaches to them undue importance. He readily confuses the real with the unreal--to him they are of like value.
But the man of training readily distinguishes the one from the other and evaluates each with some, if not with
perfect, justice.
So we see that unrestrained imaging may produce a rudderless steamer, while the trained faculty is the
graceful sloop, skimming the seas at her skipper's will, her course steadied by the helm of reason and her
lightsome wings catching every air of heaven.
The game of chess, the war-lord's tactical plan, the evolution of a geometrical theorem, the devising of a great
business campaign, the elimination of waste in a factory, the dénouement of a powerful drama, the
overcoming of an economic obstacle, the scheme for a sublime poem, and the convincing siege of an audience
may--nay, indeed must--each be conceived in an image and wrought to reality according to the plans and
specifications laid upon the trestle board by some modern imaginative Hiram. The farmer who would be
content with the seed he possesses would have no harvest. Do not rest satisfied with the ability to recall
images, but cultivate your creative imagination by building "what might be" upon the foundation of "what is."
II. THE USES OF IMAGING IN PUBLIC SPEAKING
By this time you will have already made some general application of these ideas to the art of the platform, but
to several specific uses we must now refer.
1. Imaging in Speech-Preparation
(a) Set the image of your audience before you while you prepare. Disappointment may lurk here, and you
cannot be forearmed for every emergency, but in the main you must meet your audience before you actually
do--image its probable mood and attitude toward the occasion, the theme, and the speaker.
(b) Conceive your speech as a whole while you are preparing its parts, else can you not see--image--how its
parts shall be fitly framed together.
(c) Image the language you will use, so far as written or extemporaneous speech may dictate. The habit of
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