It is, however, obviously true that Scott's heroes are mostly created
for the sake of the facility they give in delineating the other
characters, and not the other characters for the sake of the heroes.
They are the imaginative neutral ground, as it were, on which opposing
influences are brought to play; and what Scott best loved to paint was
those who, whether by nature, by inheritance, or by choice, had become
unique and characteristic types of one-sided feeling, not those who
were merely in process of growth, and had not ranged themselves at
all. Mr. Carlyle, who, as I have said before, places Scott's romances
far below their real level, maintains that these great types of his
are drawn from the outside, and not made actually to live. "His Bailie
Jarvies, Dinmonts, Dalgettys (for their name is legion), do look and
talk like what they give themselves out for; they are, if not
_created_ and made poetically alive, yet deceptively _enacted_ as a
good player might do them. What more is wanted, then? For the reader
lying on a sofa, nothing more; yet for another sort of reader much.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168