A Marriage between Tricksters: Literary Heritage in Charles W. Chesnutt's "The Wife of His Youth"

consciousness together to form a connected whole. Creative talent, of whatever grade, is, in the last analysis, only the power of rearrangement— there is nothing new under the sun. I was the more firmly impressed with this thought after I had interviewed half a dozen old women, and a genuine “conjure doctor;” for I discovered that the brilliant touches, due, I had thought, to my own imagination, were after all but dormant ideas, lodged in my childish mind by old Aunt This and old Uncle That, and awaiting only the spur of imagination to bring them again to the surface.