nquiries into Human Faculty," gives the results of a series of
investigations which show that there are great differences among
persons of distinction in various kinds of intellectual work in the
power of recalling to the mind's eye clear and distinct images of what
they have seen. Some, for instance, in thinking of the breakfast
table, could see all the objects--knives, plates, dishes, etc., in the
mental picture as bright as in the actual scene, and in the
appropriate colors; others could recall only very dim or blurred
images of the scene, or none at all; and all stages, from the highest
to the lowest visualizing power, were represented in the letters he
received on the subject.

Sometimes these mental images are as vivid as the actual images, or
even more vivid. Everybody has heard the story of Blake, who, when he
was painting a portrait, only required one sitting, because
subsequently he could see the model as distinctly as if he were
actually sitting in the chair. Mrs. Haweis wrote to Mr. Galton that
all her life she has had at times a waking vision of "a flight of pink
roses floating in a mass from right to left," and that before her
ninth year they were so large and brilliant that she often tried to
touch them; and their scent, she adds, was overpowering.

Much has been written regarding the remarkable feats of Zuckertort and
Blackburn who can play as many as sixteen to twenty games of chess at
once, and blindfolded. Of course the only way they can do this is by
having in the mind a clear picture of each chess-board, with all the
figures arranged in proper order.

Mr. Galton says he has among his notes "many cases of persons mentally
reading off scores when playing the pianoforte, or manuscripts when
they are making speeches;" and he knows a lady, the daughter of an
eminent musician, who often imagines she hears her father's playing.
"The day she told me of it," he says, "the incident had again
occurred. She was sitting in her room with her maid, and she asked the
maid to open the door that she might hear the music better. The moment
the maid got up the music disappeared."

It is obvious that this case, like that of the eminent painter just
referred to, borders closely on the hallucinations of the insane, and
Blake _did_ become insane subsequently. But usually there is nothing
abnormal or pathologic in the power of mentally recalling sights or
sounds, and it would be well if everybody cultivated this power.