_Influence upon the Mind._--As to the benefits arising from the due use and exercise of this faculty, not much, perhaps, is requisite to be said. It gives vividness to our conceptions, it raises the tone of our entire mental activity, it adds force to our reasoning, casts the light of fancy over the sombre plodding steps of judgment, gilds the recollections of the past, and the anticipations of the future, with a coloring not their own. It lights up the whole horizon of thought, as the sunrise flashes along the mountain tops, and lights up the world. It would be but a dreary world without that light. _Influence on the Orator._--By its aid the orator presents his clear, strong argument in its own simple strength and beauty, or commands those skillful touches, that, by a magic spell, thrill all hearts in unison. There floats before his mind, ever as he proceeds, the _beau ideal_ of what his argument should be; toward this he aspires, and those aspirations make him what he is. No man is eloquent who has not the imagination requisite to form and keep vividly before him such an ideal. _On the Artist._--By its aid the artist breathes into the inanimate marble the breath of life, and it becomes a living soul. By its aid, deaf old Beethoven, at his stringless instrument, calls up the richest harmony of sound, and blind old Milton, in his darkness and desolateness, takes his magician's wand, and lo! there rises before him the vision of that Paradise where man, in his primeval innocence, walked with God. _On other Minds._--Nor is it the poet, the orator, the artist, alone, that derive benefit from the exercise of this faculty, or have occasion to make use of it. It is of inestimable value to us all. It opens for us new worlds, enlarges the sphere of our mental vision, releases us from the bonds and bounds of the actual, and gives us, as a bird let loose, the wide firmament of thought for our domain. It gilds the bald, sullen actualities, and stern realities of life, as the morning reddens the chill, snowy summits of the Alps, till they glow in resplendent beauty. _On the Spectator and Observer._--It is of service, not to him who writes alone, but to him who reads; not to him who speaks alone, but to him who hears; not to the artist alone, but to the _observer_ of art; for neither poet, nor orator, nor artist, can convey the full meaning, the _soul_, the inspiration of his work, to one who has not the imagination to appreciate and feel the beauty, and the power, that lie hidden there. There is just as much meaning in their works, to us, as there is soul in us to receive that meaning. The man of no imagination sees no meaning, no beauty, no power, in the Paradise Lost, the symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart, the Transfiguration of Raphael, the Aurora of Guido, or the master-pieces of Canova and Thorwalsden.