What causes us, in imagination, to put elements together in a new way? Let us think first of concrete instances. You read that a ship has gone down on a route by which you have lately travelled; very little imagination is needed to generate the thought “I might have gone down”. What happens here is obvious: the route is associated both with yourself and with shipwreck, and you merely eliminate the middle term. Literary ability is largely an extension of the practice of which the above is a very humble example. Take, say: And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing. I do not pretend to explain all the associations which led Shakespeare to think of these lines, but some few are obvious. “Dusty death” is suggested by Genesis iii. 19: “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”. Having spoken of “lighting fools the way”, it is natural to think of a “candle”, and thence of a “walking shadow” being lighted by the candle along the way. From shadows to players was a well-established association in Shakespeare’s mind; thus in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ he says of players: “The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them”. From a “poor player” to a “tale told by an idiot” is no very difficult transition for a theatre-manager; and “sound and fury” no doubt often formed part of the tales to which he had to listen in spite of their “signifying nothing”. If we knew more about Shakespeare, we could explain more of him in this sort of way. Thus exceptional imaginative gifts appear to depend mainly upon associations that are unusual and have an emotional value owing to the fact that there is a certain uniform emotional tone about them. Many adjectives are suitable to death: in a mood quite different from Macbeth’s, it may be called “noble, puissant and mighty”. A Chancellor of the Exchequer, thinking of the Death Duties, might feel inclined to speak of “lucrative death”; nevertheless he would not, like Vaughan, speak of “dear, beauteous death”. Shakespeare also would not have spoken of death in such terms, for his view of it was pagan; he speaks of “that churl death”. So a man’s verbal associations may afford a key to his emotional reactions, for often what connects two words in his mind is the fact that they rouse similar emotions.