But it is not in such incidental features alone that the ‘Idylls’ are true to the older Arthurian tradition. Modern in their sentiment and ethics though they may be, Tennyson’s main purpose in them of “shadowing Sense at war with Soul” is not altogether unjustified by the general literary history of the legends. Malory, at any rate, had some such purpose, for Caxton assures us that the _Morte Darthur_ was “written for our doctrine, and for to beware that we fall not to vice nor sin, but to exercise and follow virtue.” “In Malory’s compilation, and in later mediæval romance, the fate of Arthur means the fate of the chivalrous ideal, whose irreconcilable elements were incorporated in him. In the romantic historians the fate of Arthur is the fate of the Christian Britons in conflict with heathenism from without and treason from within. Even in the old myths, his fate, if we may trust Professor Rhys, is the fate of the culture-hero combined with Father Sky, in conflict with the powers of Darkness and the Nether-world. It was by a true inspiration that Tennyson was drawn to the old legends, and reading into them his secret found it to be their own. Accordingly, this identity of feeling with his predecessors kept Tennyson on the track of the story.... Thus the ‘Idylls’ are both truer to the authorities and nearer our own feelings than any other of the adaptations of Arthurian story. Though the adventures are now regarded from a modern point of view, this point of view is in the same spiritual watch-tower from which the framers of the legend looked: but it is the platform at the top, not a loop-hole on the winding stair.”[135] After all, however much the ‘Idylls’ may be cavilled at on the score of their modern sentiment and occasional homiletic strain, their general setting and atmosphere are genuinely romantic and in thorough keeping with the far-off things of which they sing. Tennyson is true enough to his sources in his descriptions of scenery and in his entire survey of the traditional Arthurian country. “It is no land dwelt in by bold bad men we see, when Arthur rides through the mountains and finds the diamonds; when Geraint and Enid go through the green gloom of the wood; when Galahad rides over the black swamp, leaping from bridge to bridge till he sail to the spiritual city; when Lancelot drives through the storm to the enchanted towers of Carbonek seven days across the sea.”[136] In none of the ‘Idylls’ do we perhaps breathe more of the atmosphere of pure romance than in the first and the last. Mystery and magic surround both the coming and the passing of the King; “From the great deep to the great deep he goes.” This “weird rhyme” of Merlin’s comes into Bedivere’s memory as he sees the barge with the three dark Queens bearing Arthur away into the distance “till the hull Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn.”