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Magical Imagination "your earthly frame may indeed be sailing upon the main, but your iongings linger yet over the mightiest portal," someone said, speaking out of the distant past. But that is precisely what one means by inspiration, the mental process that defies analysis. Literary thinking emphatically is magical, beyond analysis. Silent, lost in thought, you mentally move back a thousand years; and, with a mere twitch in your face you direct your gaze to objects ten thousand miles away. The tinkle of pearls and jade pieces is heard and vanishe&. as your versify; the majesty ofwinds and clouds is spread out and then swept away when you do bat an unexpected eyelid. Such are the powers ofthe imagination. When the imagination rises to a high pitch the mind becomes actively engaged with nature. The mind dwells in one's breast, and its lock and,key are controlled by one's will and moral operative forces. The things of nature travel up along one's eyes and ears and their hinge and gear are worked by language. When hinge and gear function smoothly things have no means to conceal themselvas, but when lock and key fail to function the mind is tempted to hide itself. Thus when poetry is to be made mentally - as if on a potter's wheelthe state to attain is silent emptiness, in which the body is purged, the spirit made pure like snow. You should of course have already acquired your learning like treasure, reasoned with reason to enrich your potentials, examined human experience to discover exhaustively all that it reflects, and tamed the shapes of things for the better managemennt of language. Then with the perfect assurance of the master butcher can you apply to the literary execution the carpenter's 102 I The Book ofLiterary Design inking-line, and with unrivalled craftsmanship sink the knife in the images of meaning. These are the first requirements to attend to in the mastery ofwriting, the main considerations in planning an individual work. When the imaginaton is fired a thousand paths, ten thousand possibilities sprout up, and rules become empty abstractions, and carving is carving of the invisible. You climb the hill and your feelings take up the space of the hill; you look at the sea and your emotions pervade the sea; and your talents, whether you have many or only a few, will join with the winds and clouds and drive forth in a team. Often, when you pick up a pen, the promise is several times greater than the performance, and the end product is barely a half ofwhat you planned. Why so? The reason is that mental somersaults can quite easily be original whereas earth-bound language is inescapably restricted in resources. Artistic intentions are given by thought and the final verbal construct is determined by those intentions. Thought, artistic intention and verbal construct can be so closely related that they seem indistinguishable; but then they can also be a thousand miles apart. What is there in our heart we sometimes make the mistake oflooking for beyond the boundaries ofthe civilized world; the commonplace that is always at hand is believed to be concealed by mountains and seas. The truth is that in cultivating the literary skills according to the dictates of the heart there is no need to toil and painstakingly plan; in writing it is quite unnecessary to tax your mind. With what speed a writer writes is a matter of individual endowment, although how long it takes a work to be completed depends as well upon its formal scope. Sima Xiangru sucked his brush until its hair rotted, Yang Xiong ceased writing, dozed, and woke up dazed by a nightmare, Huan Tan made himself ill concentrating, Wang Chong used up his energy contemplating, Zhang Heng devoted ten years of his life to the study of two capitals, Zuo Si spent a decade lavishing care on three. These compositions were indeed lengthy, but the authors in question were also slow. By contrast Prince Huainan wrote a descriptive piece on the Li Sao well within a morning, Mei Gao completed afu as soon as it was comissioned, Cao Zhi composed, not with the mind, but with the mouth, Wang Can took up the brush and put down what seemed to have been put together the night before, Ruan Yu drafted a letter on horseback, Mi Heng dashed down a memorial over a meal. Some of these pieces were short but nonetheless they were...

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