And so there is a double set of relations to be considered in any study of the subject, arising out of the double character of the subject. On one side the historical novel may be regarded simply as a novel with a particular kind of background; a story set, say, in the Middle Ages, just as a novel of modern times might find its setting in some far country. But if this were the whole truth of the matter there would be no point in giving it a special study. A fairy-tale is not merely an ordinary kind of story set in fairy-land, but becomes a different kind of story by being placed there; in the same way, although in a sense every novel tends to become in time a historical novel, and there will come a day when “Sonia” will be useful to the historian for a certain kind of information, yet a true “historical novel” is one that is historical in its intention and not simply by accident, one that comes from a mind steeped in the past. Such a novel will have a special kind of appeal. When a composer picks up a piece of poetry and puts it to music he weaves a web of invention around the words and amplifies them with something that belongs to an art different from their own; in doing so he will probably alter the swing of the poem and create rhythms of his own, and in the music that he makes the original music of the words themselves will almost certainly be destroyed; even when he is trying to interpret the poem he may be changing its very character, making a breezy thing desolate, or converting a majestic hymn into a joyful anthem, and, unawares, he may be doing everything that would send the poet crazy, and make men of letters indignant. The final result may not be good as poetry, may indeed be a good piece of poetry spoilt in the very things that make it good, the character of the original words having been altered in a hundred subtle ways. Standing alone it may not even be a good piece of music exactly. But it may be what it sets out to be--a good piece of work in a form neither poetry nor music, but a combination of the two, a new creation, something with an appeal of its own. That is to say, it may be a good piece of song, that justifies itself when it comes from the voice of the singer.