Page:Stories as a mode of thinking.djvu/13



Previous Studies have abundantly illustrated how thoughts and speculations can be embodied in concrete personages and stories. Western Romance and Hindoo Mythology have been drawn upon. Quite a different region of speculation (chiefly of Arabic origin, but naturalized in Europe during the age of Romance) is embodied in Elemental Beings, of which a very original and suggestive presentation has been made in one of the Waverley Novels.


 * On account of the diversity of paging in different editions, the References below are to the chapters, and paragraphs in a chapter. A new paragraph is counted wherever (in prose) there is an indented line. Quotations of verse are considered part of the prose paragraphs to which they belong.

Sir Walter Scott's Monastery is a Story of the Reformation, located in the Halidome of a Scotch Monastery: as a result, we get a group of contrasts maintained or developed throughout the action, directly or indirectly springing out of the main conception. Directly:

Indirectly :

Above all, forming the main psychological interest:

But over and above the main conception, two very special and peculiar elements are woven into the action: a supernatural being of the Fairy order, and a courtier of the age of Euphuism.