We should be ashamed not to show some consideration, even in money matters, for the soldier who has served his country in time of war; and the romancer who has contributed to the entertainment of the race is entitled to a similar indulgence.
He had kept in closer touch with the romancer than any of his other friends had since their graduating days, and he had been from the first a believer in his coming literary renown.
In the shadow of death, the poet and the romancer dwelt on the fame which he cherished as life.
On this single hint the romancer sends him on his aerial journey in this business of love and chivalry.
Whether the poet followed the romancer or the chronicler in his conception of a dramatic character, he at the first step struck into that undeviating track of our humanity amid the accidents of its position.
These appear to have been entirely ignored so far as English chroniclers are concerned until we reach Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the twelfth century, who must be regarded as a romancer rather than a serious historian.
It may be objected also that the romancer has made a capital error in placing the adventure on the mainland, and a minor error in assigning the same position to the chapel.
In Mr. Churchill it found a romancer full of consolation to any who might fear or suspect that the country's history did not quite match its destiny.
Whether he has been writing what was avowedly romance or what was intended to be sober criticism he has been always the romancer first and the critic afterwards.
There, consequently, the romancer may well take his stand, distilling bright new dreams out of ancient beauty.
When Sir Galahad rescues the inmates of the Castle of Maidens by overthrowing their oppressors, the romancer points out that the Castle of Maidens "betokeneth the good souls that were in prison before the incarnation of Jesu Christ.
Hence it is no longer theirs; but the master romancer and the master etcher had much in common.
But did not the history of Paris itself furnish the romancer with these very essential details?
Were I to relate some of the stories recorded of this animal I might get accused, if not of being a romancer myself, at all events of being a too credulous propagator of other people's romances.
I was met in the morning by the khalasi in charge, with a wonderful story of the tiger having rushed at him, but as the man was a romancer I disbelieved him.
It has been very carefully prepared from and according to the evidence; the art of the romancer being held in close subjection to the historical authorities.
He was seated before his door, under the shadows of his paternal oak, once more forgetting the baffled aims and profitless toils of his own youthful ambition, in the fascinating pages of that historical romancer the stout Abbe Vertot.
The present writer need hardly fear to be thought an anti-mediaevalist, but he is very much afraid that an average mediaeval romancer might have thought it necessary to catalogue these other monsters with the aid of a Bestiary.
It was not long before the press-agents of the dumb presager found a romancer willing to undertake the task that Defoe neglected.
And our serious romancer even ventures on a broad joke quite frequently.
The romancer would choose it for his work, as the black eagles chose it for their home.
It was in April and May, 1792, that Puget explored the violet waters of the great inland sea, a work which he seems to have done with the enthusiasm of a romancer as well as of a naval officer.
In the neglected Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish, for example, there is enough wasted material to furnish a modern romancer or dramatist for half a lifetime.
In no other romancer do we find genius of such high order at work in so barren a field.
The modern romancer would have dropped the curtain for the day, to be drawn up again next morning when the trumpets of the heralds called the combatants once more to the field.
It is apropos of Sir Launcelot's hermit above-mentioned that the romancer complains "for in those days it was not with the guise of hermits as it now is in these days.
We have drawn upon theromancer and the historian to illustrate the subject; we have cited ancient documents, and copied contemporary pictures; we will call upon the poet to complete our labour.
In the engraving above is a subject which would hardly have occurred to modern romancer or illustrator.
But considering the deed he attempted, the romancer has seen fit to portray him as a very different person.
Illustration] The romancer is covered with the dust of old books, modern books, great books, and out of them all brings in a condensing hand these pictures of two men whose lives were as large as this continent.
In reality the Abbe Cavelier and his party treated Tonty with greater cruelty than the romancer describes.
And though the story is true, yet it took a romancer to do it.
The humorist or the mere romancer may, but as for the novelist with a true ideal of his mission in life he would better leave creation to nature.
When we compare it with another attempt by a romancer of genius, and set it beside the sticky dulness of The Tanglewood Tales, it looks like a group of real Tanagra figurines placed beside a painted plaster cast.
Nor can these gifts make a great romancer or poet in prose.
