He described his own country and his own people with
loving care, and he loved also the melodrama of historical fiction and
supernatural legend. "His romance and antiquarianism," says Ruskin, "his
knighthood and monkery, are all false, and he knows them to be false."
Certainly, _The Heart of Midlothian_ and _The Antiquary_ are better than
_Ivanhoe_. Scott's love for the knighthood and monkery was real, but it
was playful. His heart was with Fielding.
There is nothing inconsistent in the best of the traditions of the two
parties. The Classical school taught simplicity, directness, and modesty
of speech. They are right: it is the way to tell a ghost story. The
Romantic school taught a wider imaginative outlook and a more curious
analysis of the human mind. They also are right: it is the way to
investigate a case in the police courts. Both were cumbered, at times,
with the dead things that they found in the books they loved. All
literature, except the strongest and purest, is cumbered with useless
matter--the conventional epithet, the grandiose phrase, the outworn
classical quotation, the self-conscious apology, the time-honored joke.
But there are only two schools of literature--the good, and the bad. As
for national legend, its growth is the same in all ages. The Greeks told
tales of Achilles, the Romans of Aeneas, the French of Charlemagne, the
British of Arthur. It is a part of the same process, and an expression
of the same humanity.
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