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, for I have scarce a hope or fear in common
with them. It is not character but incident that wooes 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 and appropriate details. Then we forget the
characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in
our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only,
do we say we have been reading a romance. It is not only pleasurable
things that we imagine in our day-dreams; there are lights in which we
are willing to contemplate even the idea of our own death; ways in which
it seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded, or calumniated.
It is thus possible to construct a story, even of tragic import, in
which every incident, detail, and trick of circumstance shall be welcome
to the reader's thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man what play is to
the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his
life; and when the game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in it
with all his heart, when it pleases him with every turn, when he loves
to recall it and dwells upon its recollection with entire delight,
fiction is called romance.

Walter Scott is out and away the king of the romantics. "The Lady of the
Lake" has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyond the inherent fitness
and desirability of the tale. It is just such a story as a man would
make up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, through
just such scenes