Desirous of leaving the powers of fancy at liberty to expatiate through the boundless realms of invention, and thence of creating more interesting situations, he wished to conduct the mortal agents of his drama according to the rules of probability; in short, to make them think, speak and act, as it might be supposed mere men and women would do in extraordinary positions.

Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto [Amazon, Bookshop, Internet Archive]

Hermetic quote Walpole The Castle of Otranto powers fancy liberty boundless invention rules probability think speak act extraordinary

Consider also:

  1. “TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP SILENT, are, as we have said elsewhere, the four qabalistic words which correspond to the four letters of the tetragram and to the four hieroglyphic forms of the Sphinx. To know, is the human head; to dare, the claws of the lion; to will, the mighty flanks of the bull; to keep silent, the mystical wings of the eagle. He only maintains his position above other men who does not prostitute the secrets of his intelligence to their commentary and their laughter.”
  2. “‘I am,’ wrote Blake, ‘like others, just equal in invention and execution.'”
  3. “In the hands of the KA is the Staff or Magical Wand which, rightly understood, was a means of transmitting the Royal Power to such of her subjects as she selected to carry out her Will.”
  4. Totalitopia
  5. “Certain parts of the story had moved her and seemed to contain a germ of truth.”