In fact, the English writer reflected too much of mediaeval English character, in trying to cover, or to improve upon, the French story, which was the first.

In the French story all is knightly smooth, refined as well as simple and strong.
And where did the mediaeval imagination get its material for the story?
Partly, perhaps, from the story of Joseph in the Bible, partly from the story of Abraham; but the scriptural material is so admirably worked over that the whole thing appears deliciously original.

That was the great art of the Middle Ages--to make old, old things quite new by the magic of spiritual imagination.

Men then lived in a world of dreams.

And that world still attracts us, for the simple reason that happiness chiefly consists in dreams.