past, in shining armor,
singing as he rides. She leaves her magic web and mirror, and looks upon
the real world.

Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

She goes into the world, and there she meets her death. The poem is not
an allegory, but there is no mistaking the thought that generated it. The
mirror and the web are the emblems of Romantic art. The feelings which
stir the heart to action, which spring to meet the occasion or the
object, are contrasted, in the poem, with the more pensive feelings which
are excited by the sight of the object in a mirror, and the suggestions
of color and design which are to be transferred to the embroidery. The
mirror is a true and subtle symbol. When Shakespeare treated the same
problem, he made King Richard II, the most romantically minded of all his
kings, call for a mirror. The thing that it is easiest for a man to see
in a mirror is himself; egotism in its many forms, self-pity,
self-cultivation, self-esteem, dogs Romanticism like its shadow. The
desire to be the spectator of your own life, to see yourself in all kinds
of heroic and pathetic attitudes, is the motive-power of Romantic poetry
in many of its later developments. Yet life must be arrested and
falsified before the desire can be fulfilled. No one has ever seen
himself in a mirror as he is seen by others. He cannot catch himself
looking away, self-forgetful, intent on something outward; yet only when
he is in these attitudes does his true character show itself in his face.
Nor, if he could so see himself, would he be a witness of the truth. The
sensation of drowning, or of leading an assault in war, is very unlike
the sentiment which is aroused in the spectator of either of these
adventures. Romanticism, in its decline, confuses the sentiment with the
sensation, and covets the enjoyment of life on the easy terms of a by-
stander.

These faults and failings of late Romance are far enough removed from the
simple heroism of the death of Roland in the pass of Roncesvalles. Later
Romance is known everywhere by its derivative, secondary, consciously
literary character. Yet it draws sometimes from the original source of
inspiration, and attains, by devious ways, to poetic glories not inferior
to the old.

IMITATION AND FORGERY

Romance is a perennial form of modern literature, and has passed throu