Fancy

“ Whatever the learned doctors may say, Fancy is the dearest boon-companion of the human mind, from the first developement of the soul in its infantine shell till the blight of its energies in the shrivelled-up body of old age. ”

“ For fancy, which, as his peculiar prerogative, distinguishes man from all other intellectual beings, is a living and fruitful source of good no less than of evil. Accordingly, in the higher aims of his good instincts, noble inclinations, and true enthusiasms, fancy gives life and stability to his exertions, and arouses and calls to his aid all the energies of mind and intellect. ”

“ Fancy.—"It is the most boundless and restless faculty of the soul; for while the Understanding and the Will are kept, as it were, in libera custodia to their objects of verum et bonum, the Fancy is free from all engagements: it digs without spade, sails without ship, flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed; in a moment striding from the centre to the circumference of the world; by a kind of omnipotency creating and annihilating things in an instant; and things divorced in Nature are married in Fancy as in a lawless place." ”

“ Those conceptions, fabricated by Fancy out of the materials that Fancy deals in, and colored by the rays of a poetic sentiment, wear the same relation to truths, that the prismatic hues of the spray of a fountain in the sunshine bear to the gems which it perhaps outshines. It dazzles and delights, but if we try to apprehend it we become bewildered ”

“ Fancy is superficial and comparatively short-sighted; imagination is penetrative and far-sighted, bringing together things widely sundered, apparently diverse and opposite. Fancy divides, individualizes; imagination compounds, builds, globes. Fancy is not so broad or so keen or so warm or so bounding as imagination; is comparatively tame and cold and quiet. ”

“ Ah, the golden age! the days of the wide unquestioning delight in all things that is the eternal theatre of the childhood of the world—for, thank God, Fancy fills the very gutters of the street-children with faery. There is a world of delight enwrapped about a rag doll—when the world is young. ”

“ Fancy, which sometimes sways so much and is swayed by so little, and which sometimes, again, is so hard to sway, and moves so little when it is swayed; whose ways have a method of their own, but are not as our ways—fancy, lies on the extreme borderland of the realm within which the writs of our thoughts run, and extends into that unseen world wherein they have no jurisdiction. ”

“ His eyes were still bright and clear without symptoms of dissipation. His laughter was good to hear, but, as to his talk, little would bear repetition—slangy badinage, the braggadocio of youth, a gay running fire of obvious retort and innuendo, frolic and flirtations. That Fancy appeared to enjoy it should go without saying. She was not for criticism of her host and entertainer that fine day. She let herself go in the way of gaiety he led and slanged him jest for jest, for Fancy herself had a pert and lively tongue. ”

“ That paints the charms of that delicious theme.
Then hail sweet Fancy's ray! and hail the dream [Pg 51]
That weans the weary soul from guilt and woe!
Careless what others of my choice may deem,
I long, where Love and Fancy lead, to go
And meditate on Heaven; enough of Earth I know."
XL.
"I cannot blame thy choice," the sage replied,
"For soft and smooth are Fancy's flowery ways.
And yet, even there, if left without a guide,
The young adventurer unsafely plays.
Eyes dazzled long by fiction's gaudy rays
In modest truth no light nor beauty find. ”

“ Oh, it was Love had come to me.
"Once I had sworn that Love was true,
Wings were fluttered, and Fancy flew.
"Only by this can a maiden say
If Love or Fancy has passed her way.
"Fancy is fickle, and will not stay,
Love will last for ever and aye. ”

“ And vibrating to what we speak.
We ask too much, we seek too oft,
We know enough, and should no more:
And yet we skim through Fancy’s lore
And look to earth, and not aloft.
A something comes from out the gloom ”

“ I had not yet seen her face—’twas not material: for the drawing was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of the Remise, Fancy had finished the whole head, and pleased herself as much with its fitting her goddess, as if she had dived into the Tiber for it;—but thou art a seduced, and a seducing slut; and albeit thou cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures in the shapes of so many angels of light, ’tis a shame to break with thee. ”

“ Fancy, awakened by the view of the former, instantly gives shape and features to men we have never seen.—We hear them speak, and see them act; the passions are excited, the mind amused; the houses, the rivers, the fields around supplying the absence of the poet and historian, and restoring with new energy the whole scene to the mind. ”

“ Of awe, yet coloured with a secret joy;
For I have breathed in epic and
⁠romance,
Have lived the dreams that thrilled
⁠me as a boy!
How sound the ancient saying is forsooth!
How weak is Fancy's gloss of Fact’s
⁠stern truth! ”

“ A fancy comes to me—that desire can never attain its object—it need never attain it. ”

“ Fancy gives an interest to all her pictures—yes, even when the subject is but a humble cottage; and when we think of human enjoyment—of the pride of strength and the light of beauty—in connection with a few mouldering and nameless bones hidden deep from the sun, there is a sad poetry in the contrast which rarely fails to affect the heart. ”

“ That strange magician, Fancy, who supplies so many corporeal deficiencies and overcomes so many physical obstructions, and mocks at space and time, enables us to pass in the twinkling of an eye over the dreary waste of waters that separates the exile from the scenes and companions of his youth. ”

“ And, last but not least, the faculty of Fancy takes count of the cravings of man's nature for the marvellous, the impossible, and of his higher aspirations for the Ideal, the Perfect: she realises the wild dreams and visions of his generous youth and portrays for him a portion of that "other and better world," with whose expectation he would console his age. ”

“ The one only dwelling on earth that she loves. 301
She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes! William Wordsworth.
Fancy
Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourishèd?
Reply, reply.
It is engender’d in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and Fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies.
Let us all ring Fancy’s knell:
I’ll begin it,—Ding, dong, bell.
Ding, dong, bell. Shakespeare. ”

“ But who shall count the sources at which an intense young fancy (when a young fancy is intense) capriciously, absurdly drinks?—so that the effect is, in twenty connections, that of a love-philtre or fear-philtre which fixes for the senses their supreme symbol of the fair or the strange. ”

“ I espied a company of men surrounding a ring, made with stakes and ropes, in which two wretched creatures were stripping off their garments, with the intention to do battle upon one another with their fists. These were gentlemen of the fancy, as it is called; though imagination can paint nothing of a more grossly animal and brutish character, afar from all that is fanciful, than that very class that calls itself of the fancy. ”

“ Fancy is aggregative and associative,—Imagination is creative, motive. As Wordsworth in one of his prefaces beautifully says,—"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, 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 numbers, and the felicity with which they are linked together, will make amends for the want of individual value ”

“ From fancy's forge: gay fancy smiles
at reason plain, and cool;
Fancy, whose curious trade it is
to make the finest fool.
V—taire! long life's the greatest curse
that mortals can receive,
When they imagine the chief end
of living is to live ”

“ The Imagery of Fancy is, like some Paintings, ravishing, and surprizing at a due distance, but approach ’em near, and all the Charms and Beauty vanish, and they appear rough and unpleasant. Hence it is that Men grow uneasie, and their desires pall so soon upon the full enjoyment of their Wishes ”

“ But even these trivial instances of caprice help to suggest that, when the fancy is called upon, the ordinary conditions of straightforward work must be considered at an end. Fancy dictates the terms on which she condescends to appear. ”

“ Fancy a high-souled creature, capable of æsthetics, giving her mind to soup or the right proportion of chutnee for the curry! Fancy, too, a brilliant creature foregoing an evening's conversational glory abroad for the sake of a prosaic husband's more prosaic dinner! ”

“ 'Tis the land of Fancy, and is of that pleasant kind that, when you tire of it—whisk!—you clap the leaves of this book together and 'tis gone, and you are ready for everyday life, with no harm done. ”

“ In poetry and literature, fancy has free play, and they often succeed, sometimes rising to sublime heights; usually in the depiction of the whimsical, the wonderful, the sardonic, the bizarre, the monstrous, or the frankly impossible. They are not architects as much as jugglers of words, and descriptive writing from an acute angle of vision is their forte. ”

“ You may walk round another way, and choose not to see it, and fancy you will have no farther trouble. You may hug to your heart all its sweet cunning ways, and say—after all, what does it matter? it is but a child; it knows no better ”

“ Her face had again grown plaintive.
"Yes, Fancy. Far be it from me to flatter or cajole with the compliments of a five-dollar reading, but as between friends, and with my hand on my heart, I assert that you are beautiful."
"I don't mean that at all," said Fancy. "I want to be pretty. That's what men like—pretty girls. Beautiful women never get anywhere except into the divorce courts. ”

“ In what manner Fancy ambitiously aims at a rivalship with the Imagination, and Imagination stoops to work with the materials of Fancy, might be illustrated from the compositions of all eloquent writers, whether in prose or verse ”

“ For this Reason we find the Poets, who are always addressing themselves to the Imagination, borrowing more of their Epithets from Colours than from any other Topic. As the Fancy delights in every thing that is Great, Strange, or Beautiful, and is still more pleased the more it finds of these Perfections in the same Object, so is it capable of receiving a new Satisfaction by the Assistance of another Sense. ”

“ Hence beautiful allusions, surprising metaphors, and admirable sentiments, are always ready at hand: and while the fancy is full of images, collected from innumerable objects and their different qualities, relations, and habitudes, it can at pleasure dress a common notion in a strange but becoming garb ”

“ She was at the modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called "having a fancy for." It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest will. ”

“ Fancy may for convenience be considered as a distinct faculty, though it is really the lighter, partly superficial, aspect of Imagination. It deals with things not essentially or significantly true, amusing us with striking or pleasing suggestions, such as seeing faces in the clouds, which vanish almost as soon as they are discerned. Both Imagination and Fancy naturally express themselves, often and effectively, through the use of metaphors, similes, and suggestive condensed language. ”

“ He put his hand on her hair and smoothed it affectionately. "Fine, Fancy, fine."
"Oh—I hope it's all right, Frank."
"I don't know, Fancy. You'd hardly recognize me, these days. I'm losing my sense of humor. I'm becoming a prig, I think."
Fancy laughed. "Well, there's plenty of room in that direction. But I don't think she'd mind your being a devil occasionally. Women don't have to be saints to be thoroughbreds. And there's many a saint that would like to take a day off, once in a while!"
"Have you seen Vixley, lately?"
Fancy grew serious. "No. Is he still working the old man?" ”

“ The highest branch of solitary amusement is reading; but even in the choice of books the fancy is first employed; for in reading, the heart is touched, till its feelings are examined by the understanding, and the ripenings of reason regulate the imagination. This is the work of years, and the most important of all employments. ”

“ We may, to our own satisfaction, perhaps, resolve the sternest facts into impalpable fancies; the fact remains, and will [Pg 14] remain when the fancy has faded into its original nothingness or lingers only as a beautiful freak of fancy. ”

“ But if the influence and the operation of the fancy on the external senses be thus indistinct and difficult to be traced, it is far more apparent, as also far greater and more decided, on the inclinations, instincts, and passions which form the second class of the faculties subordinate to the fancy. It can easily be shown how even the simplest instincts of self-preservation, and the gratification of the most natural wants, are in man perceptibly affected by the working of fancy, so as to be manifoldly diversified thereby. ”