Theory of Romance 



Indeed, when I contrast my English experience of hos- 

 telries, — when I call to mind those civilised abominations, 

 the tap, the coffee-room, tea and muffins, and mutton chops ; 

 wound up by a simpering chambermaid, a carpeted stair- 

 case, a japan candlestick, and a chintz four-poster, — I cannot 

 but remark a very striking difference between this picture 

 and that. 



And in what does the romantic consist, but in unfami- 

 liarity ? It would be as much a romance to the beggar to 

 be clothed in fine linen, and treated, by some mistake, as a 

 great lord, as for the great lord to dress himself in rags, 

 and try the life of a beggar by way of a change. The only 

 difference is, that one changes for the better, the other for 

 the worse. The advantage in point of romance is clearly 

 all on the side of the beggar. 



This is the reason why heroes of romance are usually 

 born under strong suspicion of illegitimacy, begin as vaga- 

 bonds, and turn out peers of the realm in the third volume. 

 This accounts for the delight snobs take in writing, and the 

 populace in reading, dark and mysterious romances of 

 fashionable life, which fashionable livers, according to their 

 (wax) lights, find neither dark nor mysterious at all. 



Having been delivered of these reflections in the straw, 

 I was falling gradually into that drowsy twilight of reason 

 which intervenes between the setting of the mind's eye and 

 the star-spangled darkness of dreams, when a vivacious discus- 

 sion was opened in the court below, in which the word paja 

 (straw) frequently recurred: pending which I fell asleep, 

 with my revolver under my hand, ready for defence in case 

 of danger. 



I don't know how long I had been asleep, when I was 

 suddenly startled by the bump of a ladder against the wall ; 

 and, opening my eyes, saw the constellation of Cassiopeia 



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