Towers resent
the fact that "the Percy deals in salt and hides, the Douglas sells red
herring"? And why does the picturesque tourist, in general, object to
the substitution of naphtha launches for gondolas on the Venetian canals?
Perhaps because the more machinery is interposed between man and the
thing he works on, the more impersonal becomes his relation to nature.

Carlyle, in his somewhat grudging estimate of Scott, declares that "much
of the interest of these novels results from contrasts of costume. The
phraseology, fashion of arms, of dress, of life belonging to one age is
brought suddenly with singular vividness before the eyes of another. A
great effect this; yet by the very nature of it an altogether temporary
one. Consider, brethren, shall not we too one day be antiques and grow
to have as quaint a costume as the rest? . . . Not by slashed breeches,
steeple hats, buff belts, or antiquated speech can romance-heroes
continue to interest us; but simply and solely, in the long run, by being
_men_. Buff belts and all manner of jerkins and costumes are transitory;
man alone is perennial." [38] Carlyle's dissatisfaction with Scott
arises from the fact that he was not a missionary nor a transcendental
philosopher, but simply a teller of stories. Heine was not troubled in
the same way, but he made the identical criticism, "Like the works of
Walter Scott, so also do Fouque's romances of chivalry[40] remind us of
the fantastic tapestries known as Gobelins, whose rich texture and
brilliant colors are more pleasing to our eyes than edifying to our
souls. We behold knightly pageantry, shepherds engaged in festive
sports, hand-to-hand combats, and ancient customs, charmingly
intermingled. It is all very pretty and picturesque, but shallow;
brilliant superficiality. Among the imitators of Fouque, as among the
imitators of Walter Scott, this mannerism of portraying--not the inner
nature of men and things, but merely the outward garb and appearance--was
carried to still greater extremes. This shallow art and frivolous style
is still [1833] in vogue in Germany as well as in England and
France. . . . In lieu of a knowledge of mankind, our recent novelists
evince a profound acquaintance with clothes." [39]

Elsewhere Heine acknowledges a deeper reason for the popularity of the
Scotch novels. "Their theme . . . is the mighty sorrow for the loss of
national peculiarities swallowed up in the universality of the newer