at
the action seems almost to be the result of natural environment. Perhaps
the most striking illustration of this harmony between scene and incident
is found in _Old Mortality_, where Morton approaches the cave of the old
Covenanter, and where the spiritual terror inspired by the fanatic's
struggle with imaginary fiends is paralleled by the physical terror of a
gulf and a roaring flood spanned by a slippery tree trunk. A second
illustration of the same harmony of scene and incident is found in the
meeting of the arms and ideals of the East and West, when the two champions
fight in the burning desert, and then eat bread together in the cool shade
of the oasis, as described in the opening chapter of _The Talisman_. A
third illustration is found in that fascinating love scene, where Ivanhoe
lies wounded, raging at his helplessness, while the gentle Rebecca
alternately hides and reveals her love as she describes the terrific
assault on the castle, which goes on beneath her window. His thoughts are
all on the fight; hers on the man she loves; and both are natural, and both
are exactly what we expect under the circumstances. These are but striking
examples of the fact that, in all his work, Scott tries to preserve perfect
harmony between the scene and the action.

(4) Scott's chief claim to greatness lies in the fact that he was the first
novelist to recreate the past; that he changed our whole conception of
history by making it to be, not a record of dry facts, but a stage on which
living men and women played their parts. Carlyle's criticism is here most
pertinent: "These historical novels have taught this truth ... unknown to
writers of history: that the bygone ages of the world were actually filled
by living men, not by protocols, state papers, controversies, and
abstractions of men." Not only the pages of history, but all the hills and
vales of his beloved Scotland are filled with living characters,--lords and
ladies, soldiers, pirates, gypsies, preachers, schoolmasters, clansmen,
bailiffs, dependents,--all Scotland is here before our eyes, in the reality
of life itself. It is astonishing, with his large numbers of characters,
that Scott never repeats himself. Naturally he is most at home in Scotland,
and with humble people. Scott's own romantic interest in feudalism caused
him to make his lords altogether too lordly; his aristocratic maidens are
usually bloodless, conventional, exasperating creatures, who talk like
books