of the great masters since Scott - Hugo, Dumas, Hawthorne, to name
only those in Stevenson's direct line of ancestry - have added new
realms to the domain of romance.

What are the indescribable effects that romance, casting far beyond
problems of character and conduct, seeks to realise? What is the
nature of the great informing, underlying idea that animates a
truly great romance - THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, MONTE CRISTO, LES
MISERABLES, THE SCARLET LETTER, THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE? These
questions can only be answered by de-forming the impression given
by each of these works to present it in the chop-logic language of
philosophy. But an approach to an answer may be made by
illustration.

In his AMERICAN NOTEBOOKS Nathaniel Hawthorne used to jot down
subjects for stories as they struck him. His successive entries
are like the souls of stories awaiting embodiment, which many of
them never received; they bring us very near to the workings of the
mind of a great master. Here are some of them:


'A sketch to be given of a modern reformer, a type of the extreme
doctrines on the subject of slaves, cold water, and the like. He
goes about the streets haranguing most eloquently, and is on the
point of making many converts, when his labours are suddenly
interrupted by the appearance of the keeper of a madhouse whence he
has escaped. Much may be made of this idea.'

'The scene of a story or sketch to be laid within the light of a
street lantern; the time when the lamp is near going out; and the