stand for the other method, since their existence implies stories from history and legend that are required to be adjusted to the inventions of the novelist. To say therefore that Scott, in _Ivanhoe_, translated into terms of fiction the piece of historical material, the set of human relationships which in his Introduction he described as being the basis of the novel, is only true in a general way. But this was the principal thing that Scott did; and in it he showed his greatest power, and the historical novel displayed its finest virtue. In the Introduction to _The Monastery_ he makes a similar confession of the key-idea of his novel. The general plan of the story was, to conjoin two characters in that bustling and contentious age, who, thrown into situations which gave them different views on the subject of the reformation, should, with the same sincerity and purity of intention, dedicate themselves, the one to the support of the sinking fabric of the Catholic Church, the other to the establishment of the reformed doctrines. It was supposed that some interesting subjects for narrative might be derived from opposing two such enthusiasts to each other in the path of life, and contrasting the real worth of both with their passions and prejudices. Here again is a set of historical conditions which, even when described in so rough and swift a fashion, are full of implied story. To turn these into a novel necessitates no distortion of great historical events; what the writer does is to hunt out those situations and problems which are implicit in the life of the age and in the described conditions, and which are the kind of issues that make good story. In the same way the very title, _The Cloister and the Hearth_, suggesting as it does a collision of loyalties and a human problem, is a description of something in mediaeval life that cries out to be turned into a tale.