rightly felt and spiritedly written; but the clothes, the books and
the money satisfy the reader's mind like things to eat. We are dealing
here with the old cut-and-dry legitimate interest of treasure trove.
But even treasure trove can be made dull. There are few people who
have not groaned under the plethora of goods that fell to the lot of
the _Swiss Family Robinson_,[26] that dreary family. They found
article after article, creature after creature, from milk kine to
pieces of ordnance, a whole consignment; but no informing taste had
presided over the selection, there was no smack or relish in the
invoice; and these riches left the fancy cold. The box of goods in
Verne's _Mysterious Island_[27] is another case in point: there was no
gusto and no glamour about that; it might have come from a shop. But
the two hundred and seventy-eight Australian sovereigns on board the
_Morning Star_ fell upon me like a surprise that I had expected; whole
vistas of secondary stories, besides the one in hand, radiated forth
from that discovery, as they radiate from a striking particular in
life; and I was made for the moment as happy as a reader has the right
to be.

To come at all at the nature of this quality of romance, we must bear
in mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any art. No art produces
illusion; in the theatre we never forget that we are in the theatre;
and while we read a story, we sit wavering between two minds, now
merely clapping our hands at the merit of the performance, now
condescending to take an active part in fancy with the characters.
This last is the triumph of romantic story-telling: when the reader
consciously plays at being the hero, the scene is a good scene. Now in
character-studies the pleasure that we take is critical; we watch, we
approve, we smile at incongruities, we are moved to sudden heats of
sympathy with courage, suffering or virtue. But the characters are
still themselves, they are not us; the more clearly they are depicted,
the more widely do they stand away from us, the more imperiously do
they thrust us back into our place as a spectator. I cannot identify
myself with Rawdon Crawley or with Eugene de Rastignac,[28] for I have
scarce a hope or fear in common with them. It is not character but
incident that woos us out of our reserve. Something happens as we
desire to have it happen to ourselves; some situation, that we have
long dallied with in fancy, is realised in the story with enticing