Excerpt from Non Sequitur For a novelist the difl'iculty is fearful. Even in such a masterpiece as Redgauntlet Scott feels the difficulty of going on. How tame and flat, after the glorious adventure of Brokenbum, is Darsie's long ride disguised as a woman! Of maidens disguised as men the world is never weary. Shakespeare alone disguised them seven times over, and who could find it in his heart to say that Shakespeare uses disguise too often? It bored Mary Lamb when she was writing the Tales; she began to think that Shakespeare wanted imagination - or so her brother said; but this Opinion is not generally entertained. For men disguised as maidens, they are cumbersome. In stead of gracing an attire less beautiful than should be theirs by right, they dishonour gar ments to the grace of which they were never born. Their petticoats are too tempestuous; their dis order is not nice. Except with Achilles among the Maidens or with the Prince in The Princess, we come too near burlesque instead of comedy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.