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Part IV
Part IV
Surely all this is very beautiful; like a picture of Boccaccio`s; the
ideal of a country life in our time. Why could it not last? Income was not
wanting: Scott`s official permanent income was amply adequate to meet the
expense of all that was valuable in it; nay, of all that was not harassing,
senseless and despicable. Scott had some 2,000l. a-year without writing books
at all. Why should he manufacture and not create, to make more money; and rear
mass on mass for a dwelling to himself, till the pile toppled, sank crashing,
and buried him in its ruins, when he had a safe pleasant dwelling ready of its
own accord? Alas, Scott, with all his health, was infected; sick of the
fearfulest malady, that of Ambition! To such a length had the King`s
baronetcy, the world`s favour and `sixteen parties a day,` brought it with
him. So the inane racket must be kept up, and rise ever higher. So masons
labour, ditchers delve; and there is endless altogether deplorable
correspondence about marble-slabs for tables, wainscoting of rooms, curtains
and the trimmings of curtains, orange-coloured or fawn-coloured: Walter Scott,
one of the gifted of the world, whom his admirers call the most gifted, must
kill himself that he may be a country gentleman, the founder of a race of
Scottish lairds.
It is one of the strangest, most tragical histories ever enacted under
this sun. So poor a passion can lead so strong a man into such mad extremes.
Surely, were not man a fool always, one might say there was something
eminently distracted in this, end as it would, of a Walter Scott writing daily
with the ardour of a steam-engine, that he might make 15,000l. a-year, and buy
upholstery with it. To cover the walls of a stone house in Selkirkshire with
nicknacks, ancient armour and genealogical shields, what can we name it but a
being bit with delirium of a kind? That tract after tract of moorland in the
shire of Selkirk should be joined together on parchment and by ring-fence, and
named after one`s name, - why, it is a shabby small type edition of your
vulgar Napoleons, Alexanders, and conquering heroes, not counted venerable by
any teacher of men! -
`The whole world was not half so wide
To Alexander when he cried
Because he had but one to subdue,
As was a narrow paltry tub to
Diogenes; who ne`er was said,
For aught that ever I could read,
To whine, put finger i` the eye and sob,
Because he had ne`er another tub.`
Not he! And if, `looked at from the Moon, which itself is far from
Infinitude,` Napoleon`s dominions were as small as mine, what, by any chance
of possibility, could Abbotsford landed-property ever have become? As the
Arabs say, there is a black speck, were it no bigger than a bean`s eye, in
every soul; which once set it a-working, will overcloud the whole man into
darkness and quasi-madness, and hurry him balefully into Night!
With respect to the literary character of these Waverley Novels, so
extraordinary in their commercial character, there remains, after so much
reviewing, good and bad, little that it were profitable at present to say.
The great fact about them is, that they were faster written and better paid
for than any other books in the world. It must be granted, moreover, that they
have a worth far surpassing what is usual in such cases; nay, that if
Literature had no task but that of harmlessly amusing indolent languid men,
here was the very perfection of Literature; that a man, here more emphatically
than ever elsewhere, might fling himself back, exclaiming, "Be mine to lie on
this sofa, and read everlasting Novels of Walter Scott!" The composition,
slight as it often is, usually hangs together in some measure, and is a
composition. There is a free flow of narrative, of incident and sentiment; an
easy masterlike coherence throughout, as if it were the free dash of a
master`s hand, `round as the O of Giotto.^13 It is the perfection of
extemporaneous writing. Farthermore, surely he were a blind critic who did not
recognise here a certain genial sunshiny freshness and picturesqueness;
paintings both of scenery and figures, very graceful, brilliant, occasionally
full of grace and glowing brightness blended in the softest composure; in
fact, a deep sincere love of the beautiful in Nature and Man, and the readiest
faculty of expressing this by imagination and by word. No fresher paintings of
Nature can be found than Scott`s; hardly anywhere a wider sympathy with man.
From Davie Deans up to Richard Coeur-de-Lion; from Meg Merrilies to Die Vernon
and Queen Elizabeth! It is the utterance of a man of open soul; of a brave,
large, free-seeing man, who has a true brotherhood with all men. In joyous
picturesqueness and fellow-feeling, freedom of eye and heart; or to say it in
a word, in general healthiness of mind, these Novels prove Scott to have been
amongst the foremost writers.
[Footnote 13: Venne a Firenze` (il cortigiano del Papa), `e andato una mattina
in bottega di Giotto, che lavorava, gli chiese un poco di disegno per mandarlo
a sua Santita, Giotto, che garbatissimo era, prese un foglio, ed in quello con
un pennello tinto di rosso, fermato il braccio al fianco per farne compasso, e
girato la mano fece un tondo si pari di sesto e di profilo, che fu a vederlo
una maraviglia. Cio fatto ghignando disse al cortigiano, Eccovi il disegno.`
. . . `Onde il Papa, e molti cortigiani intendenti conobbero percio, quanto
Giotto avanzasse d` eccelenza tutti gli altri pittori del suo tempo.
Divolgatasi poi questa cosa, ne nacque il proverbio, che ancora e in uso dirsi
a gli uomini di grossa pasta: Tu sei piu tondo che l` O di Giotto.` - Vasari,
Vite (Roma, 1759), i. 46.]
Neither in the higher and highest excellence, of drawing character, is he
at any time altogether deficient; though at no time can we call him, in the
best sense, successful. His Bailie Jarvies, Dinmonts, Dalgettys (for their
name is legion), do look and talk like what they give themselves out for; they
are, if not created and made poetically alive, yet deceptively enacted as a
good player might do them. What more is wanted, then? For the reader lying on
a sofa, nothing more; yet for another sort of reader, much. It were a long
chapter to unfold the difference in drawing a character between a Scott, and a
Shakespeare, a Goethe. Yet it is a difference literally immense; they are of
different species; the value of the one is not to be counted in the coin of
the other. We might say in a short word, which means a long matter, that your
Shakespeare fashions his characters from the heart outwards; your Scott
fashions them from the skin inwards, never getting near the heart of them! The
one set become living men and women; the other amount to little more than
mechanical cases, deceptively painted automations. Compare Fenella with
Goethe`s Mignon, which, it was once said, Scott had `done Goethe the honour`
to borrow. He has borrowed what he could of Mignon. The small stature, the
climbing talent, the trickiness, the mechanical case, as we say, he has
borrowed; but the soul of Mignon is left behind. Fenella is an unfavorable
specimen for Scott; but it illustrates in the aggravated state, what is
traceable in all the characters he drew.
To the same purport indeed we are to say that these famed books are
altogether addressed to the every-day mind; that for any other mind there is
next to no nourishment in them. Opinions, emotions, principles, doubts,
beliefs, beyond what the intelligent country gentleman can carry along with
him, are not to be found. It is orderly, customary, it is prudent, decent;
nothing more. One would say, it lay not in Scott to give much more; getting
out of the ordinary range, and attempting the heroic, which is but seldom the
case, he falls almost at once into the rose-pink sentimental, - descries the
Minerva Press from afar, and hastily quits that course; for none better than
he knew it to lead nowhither. On the whole, contrasting Waverley, which was
carefully written, with most of its followers, which were written extempore,
one may regret the extempore method. Something very perfect in its kind might
have come from Scott; nor was it a low kind: nay, who knows how high, with
studious self-concentration, he might have gone; what wealth Nature had
implanted in him, with his circumstances, most unkind while seeming to be
kindest, had never impelled him to unfold?
But after all, in the loudest blaring and trumpeting of popularity, it is
ever to be held in mind, as a truth remaining true forever, that Literature
has other aims than that of harmlessly amusing indolent languid men: or if
Literature have them not, then Literature is a very poor affair; and something
else must have them, and must accomplish them, with thanks or without thanks;
the thankful or thankless world were not long a world otherwise! Under this
head there is little to be sought or found in the Waverley Novels. Not
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for edification, for building up or
elevating, in any shape! The sick heart will find no healing here, the
darkly-struggling heart no guidance: the Heroic that is in all men no divine
awakening voice. We say, therefore, that they do not found themselves on deep
interests, but on comparatively trivial ones; not on the perennial, perhaps
not even on the lasting. In fact, much of the interest of these Novels
results from what may be called contrasts of costume. The phraseology,
fashion of arms, of dress and life, belonging to one age, is brought suddenly
with singular vividness before the eyes of another. A great effect this; yet
by the very nature of it, an altogether temporary one. Consider, brethren,
shall not we too one day be antiques, and grow to have as quaint a costume
as the rest? The stuffed Dandy, only give him time, will become one of the
wonderfulest mummies. In antiquarian museums, only two centuries hence, the
steeple-hat will hang on the next peg to Franks and Company`s patent,
antiquarians deciding which is uglier: and the Stulz swallow-tail, one may
hope, will seem as incredible as any garment that ever made ridiculous the
respectable back of man. Not by slashed breeches, steeple-hats, buff-belts,
or antiquated speech, can romance-heroes continue to interest us; but simply
and solely, in the long-run, by being men. Buff-belts and all manner of
jerkins and costumes are transitory; man alone is perennial. He that has gone
deeper into this than other men, will be remembered longer than they; he that
has not, not. Tried under this category, Scott, with his clear practical
insight, joyous temper, and other sound faculties, is not to be accounted
little, - among the ordinary circulating-library heroes he might well pass for
a demigod. Not little, yet neither is he great; there were greater, more than
one or two, in his own age: among the great of all ages, one sees no
likelihood of a place for him.
What, then, is the result of these Waverley Romances? Are they to amuse
one generation only? One or more! As many generations as they can; but not all
generations: ah no, when our swallow-tail has become fantastic as trunk-hose,
they will cease to amuse! - Meanwhile, as we can discern, their results have
been several-fold. First of all, and certainly not least of all, have they not
perhaps had this result: that a considerable portion of mankind has hereby
been sated with mere amusement, and set on seeking something better? Amusement
in the way of reading can go no farther, can do nothing better, by the power
of man; and men ask, Is this what it can do? Scott, we reckon, carried several
things to their ultimatum and crisis, so that change became inevitable; a
great service, though an indirect one.
Secondly, however, we may say, these Historical Novels have taught all
men this truth, which looks like a truism, and yet was as good as unknown to
writers of history and others, till so taught: that the bygone ages of the
world were actually filled by living men, not by protocols, state-papers,
controversies and abstractions of men. Not abstractions were they, not
diagrams and theorems; but men, in buff or other coats and breeches, with
colour in their cheeks, with passions in their stomach, and the idioms,
features and vitalities of very men. It is a little word this; inclusive of
great meaning! History will henceforth have to take thought of it. Her faint
hearsays of `philosophy teaching by experience` will have to exchange
themselves everywhere for direct inspection and embodiment: this, and this
only, will be counted experience; and till once experience have got in,
philosophy will reconcile herself to wait at the door. It is a great service,
fertile in consequences, this that Scott has done; a great truth laid open by
him; - correspondent indeed to the substantial nature of the man; to his
solidity and veracity even of imagination, which, with all his lively
discursiveness, was the characteristic of him.
A word here as to the extempore style of writing, which is getting much
celebrated in these days. Scott seems to have been a high proficient in it.
His rapidity was extreme; and the matter produced was excellent, considering
that: the circumstances under which some of his Novels, when he could not
himself write, were dictated, are justly considered wonderful. It is a
valuable faculty this of ready-writing; nay, farther, for Scott`s purpose it
was clearly the only good mode. By much labour he could not have added one
guinea to his copyright; nor could the reader on the sofa have lain a whit
more at ease. It was in all ways necessary that these works should be produced
rapidly; and, round or not, be thrown off like Giotto`s O. But indeed, in all
things, writing or other, which a man engages in, there is the indispensablest
beauty in knowing how to get done. A man frets himself to no purpose; he has
not the sleight of the trade; he is not a craftsman, but an unfortunate borer
and bungler, if he know not when to have done. Perfection is unattainable: no
carpenter ever made a mathematically accurate right-angle in the world; yet
all carpenters know when it is right enough, and do not botch it, and lose
their wages, by making it too right. Too much painstaking speaks disease in
one`s mind, as well as too little. The adroit sound-minded man will endeavour
to spend on each business approximately what of pains it deserves; and with a
conscience void of remorse will dismiss it then. All this in favour of
easy-writing shall be granted, and, if need were, enforced and inculcated.
And yet, on the other hand, it shall not less but more strenuously be
inculcated, that in the way of writing, no great thing was ever, or will ever
be done with ease, but with difficulty! Let ready-writers with any faculty in
them lay this to heart. Is it with ease, or not with ease, that a man shall do
his best, in any shape; above all, in this shape justly named of `soul`s
travail,` working in the deep places of thought, embodying the True out of the
Obscure and Possible, environed on all sides with the uncreated False? Not so,
now or at any time. The experience of all men belies it; the nature of things
contradicts it. Virgil and Tacitus, were they ready-writers? The whole
Prophecies of Isaiah are not equal in extent to this cobweb of a Review
Article. Shakespeare, we may fancy, wrote with rapidity; but not till he had
thought with intensity: long and sore had this man thought, as the seeing eye
may discern well, and had dwelt and wrestled amid dark pains and throes, -
though his great soul is silent about all that. It was for him to write
rapidly at fit intervals, being ready to do it. And herein truly lies the
secret of the matter: such swiftness of mere writing, after due energy of
preparation, is doubtless the right method; the hot furnace having long worked
and simmered, let the pure gold flow out at one gush. It was Shakespeare`s
plan; no easy-writer he, or he had never been a Shakespeare. Neither was
Milton one of the mob of gentlemen that write with ease; he did not attain
Shakespeare`s faculty, one perceives, of even writing fast after long
preparation, but struggled while he wrote. Goethe also tells us he `had
nothing sent him in his sleep`; no page of his but he knew well how it came
there. It is reckoned to be the best prose, accordingly, that has been written
by any modern. Schiller, as an unfortunate and unhealthy man, `konnte nie
fertig werden, never could get done`; the noble genius of him struggled not
wisely but too well, and wore his life itself heroically out. Or did Petrarch
write easily? Dante sees himself `growing lean` over his Divine Comedy; in
stern solitary death-wrestle with it, to prevail over it, and do it, if his
uttermost faculty may: hence, too, it is done and prevailed over, and the
fiery life of it endures forevermore among men.
No: creation, one would think, cannot be easy; your Jove has severe
pains, and fire-flames, in the head out of which an armed Pallas is
struggling! As for manufacture, that is a different matter, and may become
easy or not easy, according as it is taken up. Yet of manufacture too, the
general truth is that, given the manufacturer, it will be worthy in direct
proportion to the pains bestowed upon it; and worthless always, or nearly so,
with no pains. Cease, therefore, O ready-writer, to brag openly of thy
rapidity and facility; to thee (if thou be in the manufacturing line) it is a
benefit, an increase of wages; but to me it is sheer loss, worsening of my
pennyworth: why wilt thou brag of it to me? Write easily, by steam if thou
canst contrive it, and canst sell it; but hide it like virtue! "Easy writing,"
said Sheridan, "is sometimes d--d hard reading." Sometimes; and always it is
sure to be rather useless reading, which indeed (to a creature of few years
and much work) may be reckoned the hardest of all.
Scott`s productive facility amazed everybody; and set Captain Hall, for
one, upon a very strange method of accounting for it without miracle; - for
which see his Journal, above quoted from. The Captain, on counting line for
line, found that he himself had written in that Journal of his almost as much
as Scott, at odd hours in a given number of days; `and as for the invention,`
says he, `it is known that this costs Scott nothing, but comes to him of its
own accord.` Convenient indeed! - But for us, too, Scott`s rapidity is great,
is a proof and consequence of the solid health of the man, bodily and
spiritual; great, but unmiraculous; not greater than that of many others
besides Captain Hall. Admire it, yet with measure. For observe always, there
are two conditions in work: let me fix the quality, and you shall fix the
quantity! Any man may get through work rapidly who easily satisfies himself
about it. Print the talk of any man, there will be a thick octavo volume
daily; make his writing three times as good as his talk, there will be the
third part of a volume daily, which still is good work. To write with never
such rapidity in a passable manner, is indicative not of a man`s genius, but
of his habits; it will prove his soundness of nervous system, his practicality
of mind, and in fine, that he has the knack of his trade. In the most
flattering view, rapidity will betoken health of mind: much also, perhaps most
of all, will depend on health of body. Doubt it not, a faculty of easy-writing
is attainable by man! The human genius, once fairly set in this direction,
will carry it far. William Cobbett, one of the healthiest of men, was a
greater improviser even than Walter Scott: his writing, considered as to
quality and quantity, of Rural tides, Registers, Grammars, Sermons, Peter
Porcupines, Histories of Reformation, ever-fresh denouncements of Potatoes and
Paper-money, seems to us still more wonderful. Pierre Bayle wrote enormous
folios, one sees not on what motive principle: he flowed-on forever, a mighty
tide of ditchwater; and even died flowing, with the pen in his hand. But
indeed the most unaccountable ready-writer of all is, probably, the common
Editor of a Daily Newspaper. Consider his leading articles; what they treat
of, how passably they are done. Straw that has been thrashed a hundred times
without wheat; ephemeral sound of a sound; such portent of the hour as all men
have seen a hundred times turn out inane: how a man with merely human faculty,
buckles himself nightly with new vigour and interest to this thrashed straw,
nightly thrashes it anew, nightly gets-up new thunder about it; and so goes on
thrashing and thundering for a considerable series of years; this is a fact
remaining still to be accounted for, in human physiology. The vitality of man
is great.
Or shall we say, Scott, among the many things he carried towards their
ultimatum and crisis, carried this of ready-writing too, that so all men might
better see what was in it? It is a valuable consummation. Not without results;
results, at some of which Scott as a Tory politician would have greatly
shuddered. For if once Printing have grown to be as Talk, then Democracy (if
we look into the roots of things) is not a bugbear and probability, but a
certainty, asd event as good as come! `Inevitable seems it me.` But leaving
this, sure enough the triumph of ready-writing appears to be even now;
everywhere the ready-writer is found bragging strangely of his readiness. In a
late translated Don Carlos, one of the most indifferent translations ever done
with any sign of ability, a hitherto unknown individual is found assuring his
reader, `The reader will possibly think it an excuse, when I assure him that
the whole piece was completed within the space of ten weeks, that is to say,
between the sixth of January and the eighteenth of March of this year
(inclusive of a fortnight`s interruption from over-exertion); that I often
translated twenty pages a-day, and that the fifth act was the work of five
days.`^14 O hitherto unknown individual, what is it to me what time it was the
work of, whether five days or five decades of years? The only question is, How
well hast thou done it?
[Footnote 14: Don Carlos, a Dramatic Poem, from the German of Schiller.
Mannheim and London, 1837.]
So, however, it stands: the genius of Extempore irresistibly lording it,
advancing on us like ocean-tides, like Noah`s deluges of ditch-water! The
prospect seems one of the lamentablest. To have all Literature swum away from
us in watery Extempore, and a spiritual time of Noah supervene? That surely is
an awful reflection; worthy of dyspeptic Matthew Bramble in a London fog! Be
of comfort, O splenetic Matthew; it is not Literature they are swimming away;
it is only Book-publishing and Book-selling. Was there not a Literature before
Printing or Faust of Mentz, and yet men wrote extempore? Nay, before Writing
or Cadmus of Thebes, and yet men spoke extempore? Literature is the Thought of
thinking Souls; this, by the blessing of God, can in no generation be swum
away, but remains with us to the end.
Scott`s career, of writing impromptu novels to buy farms with, was not of
a kind to terminate voluntarily, but to accelerate itself more and more; and
one sees not to what wise goal it could, in any case, have led him. Bookseller
Constable`s bankruptcy was not the ruin of Scott; his ruin was, that ambition,
and even false ambition, had laid hold of him; that his way of life was not
wise. Whither could it lead? Where could it stop? New farms there remained
ever to be bought, while new novels could pay for them. More and more success
but gave more and more appetite, more and more audacity. The impromptu writing
must have waxed ever thinner; declined faster and faster into the questionable
category, into the condemnable, into the generally condemned. Already there
existed, in secret, everywhere a considerable opposition party; witnesses of
the Waverley miracles, but unable to believe in them, forced silently to
protest against them. Such opposition party was in the sure case to grow; and
even with the impromptu process ever going on, ever waxing thinner, to draw
the world over to it. Silent protest must at length have come to words; harsh
truths, backed by harsher facts of a world-popularity overwrought and
worn-out, behoved to have been spoken; - such as can be spoken now without
reluctance, when they can pain the brave man`s heart no more. Who knows?
Perhaps it was better ordered to be all otherwise. Otherwise, at any rate, it
was. One day the Constable mountain, which seemed to stand strong like the
other rock mountains, gave suddenly, as the icebergs do, a loud-sounding
crack; suddenly, with huge clangor, shivered itself into ice-dust; and sank,
carrying much along with it. In one day Scott`s high-heaped money-wages
became fairy-money and nonentity; in one day the rich man and lord of land
saw himself penniless, landless, a bankrupt among creditors.
It was a hard trial. He met it proudly, bravely, - like a brave proud man
of the world. Perhaps there had been a prouder way still: to have owned
honestly that he was unsuccessful, then, all bankrupt, broken, in the world`s
goods and repute; and to have turned elsewhither for some refuge. Refuge did
lie elsewhere; but it was not Scott`s course, or fashion of mind, to seek it
there. To say, Hitherto I have been all in the wrong, and this my fame and
pride, now broken, was an empty delusion and spell of accursed witchcraft! It
was difficult for flesh and blood! He said, I will retrieve myself, and make
my point good yet, or die for it. Silently, like a proud strong man, he girt
himself to the Hercules` task of removing rubbish-mountains, since that was
it; of paying large ransoms by what he could still write and sell. In his
declining years, too; misfortune is doubly and trebly unfortunate that befalls
us then. Scott fell to his Hercules` task like a very man, and went on with it
unweariedly; with a noble cheerfulness, while his life-strings were cracking,
he grappled with it, and wrestled with it, years long, in death-grips,
strength to strength; - and it proved the stronger; and his life and heart did
crack and break: the cordage of a most strong heart! Over these last writings
of Scott, his Napoleons, Demonologies, Scotch Histories, and the rest,
criticism, finding still much to wonder at, much to commend, will utter no
word of blame; this one word only, Woe is me! The noble war-horse that once
laughed at the shaking of the spear, how is he doomed to toil himself dead,
dragging ignoble wheels! Scott`s descent was like that of a spent projectile;
rapid, straight down; - perhaps mercifully so. It is a tragedy, as all life
is; one proof more that Fortune stands on a restless globe; that Ambition,
literary, warlike, politic, pecuniary, never yet profited any man.
Our last extract shall be from Volume Sixth; a very tragical one.
Tragical, yet still beautiful; waste Ruin`s havoc borrowing a kind of
sacredness from a yet sterner visitation, that of Death! Scott has withdrawn
into a solitary lodging-house in Edinburgh, to do daily the day`s work there;
and had to leave his wife at Abbotsford in the last stage of disease. He went
away silently; looked silently at the sleeping face he scarcely hoped ever to
see again. We quote from a Diary he had begun to keep in those months, on hint
from Byron`s Ravenna Journal: copious sections of itrender this Sixth Volume
more interesting than any of the former ones:
`Abbotsford, May 11 (1826). - * * It withers my heart to think of it, and
to recollect that I can hardly hope again to seek confidence and counsel from
that ear, to which all might be safely confided. But in her present lethargic
state, what would my attendance have availed? - and Anne has promised close
and constant intelligence. I must dine with James Ballantyne today en famille.
I cannot help it; but would rather be at home and alone. However, I can go out
too. I will not yield to the barren sense of hopelessness which struggles to
invade me.`
`Edinburgh, - Mrs. Brown`s lodgings, North St. David Street - May 12. -
I passed a pleasant day with kind J. B., which was a great relief from the
black dog, which would have worried me at home. He was quite alone.`
`Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say with Touchstone, "When I was at
home I was in a better place"; I must, when there is occasion, draw to my own
Bailie Nicol Jarvie`s consolation - "One cannot carry the comforts of the
Saut-Market about with one." Were I at ease in mind, I think the body is very
well cared for. Only one other lodger in the house, a Mr. Shandy, - a
clergyman, and, despite his name, said to be a quiet one.`
`May 14. - A fair good-morrow to you, Mr. Sun, who are shining so
brightly on these dull walls. Methinks you look as if you were looking as
bright on the banks of the Tweed; but look where you will, Sir Sun, you look
upon sorrow and suffering. - Hogg was here yesterday, in danger, from having
obtained an accommodation of 100l. from James Ballantyne, which he is now
obliged to repay. I am unable to help the poor fellow, being obliged to borrow
myself.`
`May 15. - Received the melancholy intelligence that all is over at
Abbotsford.`
`Abbotsford, May 16. - She died at nine in the morning, after being very
ill for two days - easy at last. I arrived here late last night. Anne is worn
out, and has had hysterics, which returned on my arrival. Her broken accents
were like those of a child, the language as well as the tones broken, but in
the most gentle voice of submission. "Poor mamma - never return again - gone
forever - a better place." Then, when she came to herself, she spoke with
sense, freedom and strength of mind, till her weakness returned. It would have
been inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger - what was it then to the father
and the husband? For myself, I scarce know how I feel; sometimes as firm as
the Bass Rock, sometimes as weak as the water that breaks on it. I am as alert
at thinking and deciding as I ever was in my life. Yet, when I contrast what
this place now is, with what it has been not long since, I think my heart will
break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my family - all but poor Anne; an
impoverished, an embarrassed man, deprived of the sharer of my thoughts and
counsels, who could always talk-down my sense of the calamitous apprehensions
which break the heart that must bear them alone. - Even her foibles were of
service to me, by giving me things to think of beyond my weary
self-reflections.
`I have seen her. The figure I beheld is, and is not, my Charlotte - my
thirty-years companion. There is the same symmetry of form, though those limbs
are rigid which were once so gracefully elastic - but that yellow mask, with
pinched features, which seems to mock life rather than emulate it, can it be
the face that was once so full of lively expression? I will not look on it
again. Anne thinks her little changed, because the latest idea she had formed
of her mother is as she appeared under circumstances of extreme pain. Mine go
back to a period of comparative ease. If I write long in this way, I shall
write-down my resolution, which I should rather write-up, if I could.`
May 18. - * * Cerements of lead and of wood already hold her; cold earth
must have her soon. But it is not my Charlotte, it is not the bride of my
youth, the mother of my children, that will be laid among the ruins of
Dryburgh, which we have so often visited in gaiety and pastime. No, no.`
`May 22. - * * Well, I am not apt to shrink from that which is my duty,
merely because it is painful; but I wish this funeral-day over. A kind of
cloud of stupidity hangs about me, as if all were unreal that men seem to be
doing and talking.`
`May 26. - * * Were an enemy coming upon my house, would I not do my best
to fight, although oppressed in spirits; and shall a similar despondency
prevent me from mental exertion? It shall not, by Heaven!`
`Edinburgh, May 30. - Returned to town last night with Charles. This
morning resume ordinary habits of rising early, working in the morning, and
attending the Court. I finished correcting the proofs for the Quarterly; it is
but a flimsy article, but then the circumstances were most untoward. - This
has been a melancholy day - most melancholy. I am afraid poor Charles found me
weeping. I do not know what other folks feel, but with me the hysterical
passion that impels tears is a terrible violence - a sort of throttling
sensation - then succeeded by a state of dreaming stupidity, in which I ask if
my poor Charlotte can actually be dead.`^15
[Footnote 15: Vol. vi. pp. 297-307.]
This is beautiful as well as tragical. Other scenes, in that Seventh
Volume, must come, which will have no beauty, but be tragical only. It is
better that we are to end here.
And so the curtain falls; and the strong Walter Scott is with us no more.
A possession from him does remain; widely scattered; yet attainable; not
inconsiderable. It can be said of him, When he departed, he took a Man`s life
along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that
eighteenth century of Time. Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy
honesty, sagacity and goodness, when we saw it latterly on the Edinburgh
streets, was all worn with care, the joy all fled from it; - ploughed deep
with labour and sorrow. We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again.
Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell.
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