OCR Text |
Show Unimaginative. The Impression h s been general that the Lat n races are peculiarly imaginative. im-aginative. Mr. Marion Crawford holds an opposite view. According to his experience, people of very temperate climates are the reverse of imaginative. imagina-tive. It is only in the extreme north and In the south that this Quality of the mind is highly developed. Crawford asserts that the Italian people have little lit-tle imagination, and cites as proof of this the Italian custom of presenting the story of Bethlehem on Christmas day with figures of various sizes. He thinks the use of these figures to aid the imaginative proves the imagination imagina-tion defective. Fairy' stories and ghost stories are practica ly unknown among the Italians, who are incapable of developing de-veloping for themselves any mental picture, and depend upon story-tellers to draw these pictures for them. To this day it Is a common sight, especially especi-ally in Palermo and throughout Sicily, to see the itinerant story-teller with his back to the wall, surrounded by a great crowd of interested auditors frr whose benefit he recites thrilling tale3 by the hour. It seems then, that in the matter of imagination the modern Italian is like the Roman, who had many fine Qualities, but was deficient in originality. The best that he had was borrowed from the Greeks. Youth's Companion. |