The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 15

Busy in unpacking and repacking. I wrote five pages of _Woodstock_, which work begins

"To appropinque an end."[229]

_March_ 22.--A letter from Lord Downs.h.i.+re's man of business about funds supposed to belong to my wife, or to the estate of my late brother-in-law. The possessor of the secret wants some reward. If any is granted, it should be a percentage on the net sum received, with the condition no cure--no pay. I expect Lady S., and from Anne's last letter hope to find her better than the first antic.i.p.ation led me to dread.

Sent off proofs and copy, and shall indulge a little leisure to-day to collect my ideas and stretch my limbs. I am again far before the press.

_March_ 23.--Lady Scott arrived yesterday to dinner. She was better than I expected, but Anne, poor soul, looked very poorly, and had been much worried with the fatigue and discomfort of the last week. Lady S. takes the digitalis, and, as she thinks, with advantage, though the medicine makes her very sick. Yet, on the whole, things are better than my gloomy apprehensions had antic.i.p.ated.

I wrote to Lockhart and to Lord Downs.h.i.+re's Agent,--G. Handley, Esq., Pentonville, London.

Took a good brus.h.i.+ng walk, but not till I had done a good task.

_March_ 24.--Sent off copy, proofs, etc. J.B. clamorous for a motto.

It is foolish to encourage people to expect mottoes and such-like decoraments. You have no credit for success in finding them, and there is a disgrace in wanting them. It is like being in the habit of showing feats of strength, which you at length gain praise by accomplis.h.i.+ng, while some shame occurs in failure.

_March_ 25.--The end winds out well enough. I have almost finished to-night; indeed I might have done so had I been inclined, but I had a walk in a hurricane of snow for two hours and feel a little tired. Miss Margaret Ferguson came to dinner with us.[230]

_March_ 26.--Here is a disagreeable morning, snowing and hailing, with gleams of bright suns.h.i.+ne between, and all the ground white, and all the air frozen. I don't like this jumbling of weather. It is ungenial, and gives chilblains. Besides, with its whiteness, and its coldness, and its glister, and its discomfort, it resembles that most disagreeable of all things, a vain, cold, empty, beautiful woman, who has neither mind nor heart, but only features like a doll. I do not know what is so like this disagreeable day, when the sun is so bright, and yet so uninfluential, that

"One may gaze upon its beams Till he is starved with cold."

No matter, it will serve as well as another day to finish _Woodstock_.

Walked out to the lake, and coquetted with this disagreeable weather, whereby I catch chilblains in my fingers and cold in my head. Fed the swans.

Finished _Woodstock_, however, _c.u.m tota sequela_ of t.i.tle-page, introduction, etc., and so, as Dame Fortune says in _Quevedo_,

"Go wheel, and may the devil drive thee."[231]

_March_ 27.--Another bright cold day. I answered two modest requests from widow ladies. One, whom I had already a.s.sisted in some law business, on the footing of her having visited my mother, requested me to write to Mr. Peel, saying, on her authority, that her second son, a youth of infinite merit and accomplishment, was fit for any situation in a public office, and that I requested he might be provided accordingly.

Another widowed dame, whose claim is having read _Marmion_ and the _Lady of the Lake_, besides a promise to read all my other works--Gad, it is a rash engagement!--demands that I shall either pay 200 to get her cub into some place or other, or settle him in a seminary of education.

Really this is very much after the fas.h.i.+on of the husbandman of Miguel Turra's requests of Sancho when Governor.[232] "Have you anything else to ask, honest man?" quoth Sancho. But what are the demands of an honest man to those of an honest woman, and she a widow to boot? I do believe your dest.i.tute widow, especially if she hath a charge of children, and one or two fit for patronage, is one of the most impudent animals living.

Went to Galas.h.i.+els and settled the dispute about Sandie's wall.

_March_ 28.--We have now been in solitude for some time--myself nearly totally so, excepting at meals, or on a call as yesterday from Henry and William Scott of Harden. One is tempted to ask himself, knocking at the door of his own heart, Do you love this extreme loneliness? I can answer conscientiously, _I do_. The love of solitude was with me a pa.s.sion of early youth; when in my teens, I used to fly from company to indulge in visions and airy castles of my own, the disposal of ideal wealth, and the exercise of imaginary power. This feeling prevailed even till I was eighteen, when love and ambition awakening with other pa.s.sions threw me more into society, from which I have, however, at times withdrawn myself, and have been always even glad to do so. I have risen from a feast satiated; and unless it be one or two persons of very strong intellect, or whose spirits and good-humour amuse me, I wish neither to see the high, the low, nor the middling cla.s.s of society. This is a feeling without the least tinge of misanthropy, which I always consider as a kind of blasphemy of a shocking description. If G.o.d bears with the very worst of us, we may surely endure each other. If thrown into society, I always have, and always will endeavour to bring pleasure with me, at least to show willingness to please. But for all this "I had rather live alone," and I wish my appointment, so convenient otherwise, did not require my going to Edinburgh. But this must be, and in my little lodging I will be lonely enough.

Had a very kind letter from Croker disowning the least idea of personal attack in his answer to _Malachi_.

Reading at intervals a novel called _Granby_; one of that very difficult cla.s.s which aspires to describe the actual current of society, whose colours are so evanescent that it is difficult to fix them on the canvas. It is well written, but over-laboured--too much attempt to put the reader exactly up to the thoughts and sentiments of the parties. The women do this better: Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen have all had their portraits of real society, far superior to anything man, vain man, has produced of the like nature.[233]

_March_ 29.--Worked in the morning. Had two visits from Colonels Russell and Ferguson. Walked from one till half-past four. A fine, flashy, disagreeable day; snow-clouds sweeping past among suns.h.i.+ne, driving down the valley, and whitening the country behind them.

Mr. Gibson came suddenly in after dinner. Brought very indifferent news from Constable's house. It is not now hoped that they will pay above three or four s.h.i.+llings in the pound. Robinson supposed not to be much better.

Mr. G. goes to London immediately, and is to sell _Woodstock_ to Robinson if he can, otherwise to those who will, John Murray, etc. This work may fail, perhaps, though better than some of its predecessors. If so, we must try some new manner. I think I could catch the dogs yet.

A beautiful and perfect lunar rainbow to-night.

_March_ 30.--Mr. Gibson looks unwell, and complains of cold--bitter bad weather for his travelling, and he looks but frail.

These indifferent news he brought me affect me but to a little degree.

It is being too confident to hope to ensure success in the long series of successive struggles which lie before me. But somehow, I do fully entertain the hope of doing a good deal.

_March_ 31.--

"He walked and wrote poor soul, what then?

Why then, he wrote and walked again."

But I am begun _Nap. Bon._ again, which is always a change, because it gives a good deal of reading and research, whereas _Woodstock_ and such like, being extempore from my mother-wit, is a sort of spinning of the brains, of which a man tires. The weather seems milder to-day.

FOOTNOTES:

[198] The full-length picture of Sir Walter (with, the two dogs, Camp and the deerhound) by Raeburn, painted in 1809, was at this time given to Mr. Skene, and remained in his possession till 1831, when it was sent to Abbotsford, where it now hangs.--See Letter, Scott to Skene, under January 16th, 1831.

[199] Spean a wean, _i.e._ wean a child.

[200] Archibald Skirving (1749-1819), well known as a portrait-painter in chalk and crayons in Edinburgh in the early part of this century.

[201] H.W. Williams, a native of Wales, who settled in Edinburgh at the beginning of this century. His _Travels in Italy and Greece_ were published in 1820, and the _Views in Greece_ in 1827. This work was completed in 1829, the year in which he died.

[202] Vols. i. and ii. were published in 1802.

[203] _Kain_ in Scotch law means payment in _kind. Carriages_ in the same phraseology stands for services in driving with horse and cart.

[204] Ballad of _Hardyknute_, slightly altered.--J.G.L.

[205] Sir W. Knighton was Physician and Private Secretary to George IV.

Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 289) says no one had more influence with the King. Sir William died in 1836; his _Memoirs_ were published in 1838, edited by his widow.

[206] Ossian.--J.G.L.

[207] Pastoret: _Le Duc de Guise a Naples, etc., en_ 1647 _et_ 1648.

8vo, 1825; also _Memoires relating his pa.s.sage to Naples and heading the Second Revolt of that people_. Englished, sm. 8vo, 1669.

"The Reviewal then meditated was afterwards published in _Foreign Quarterly Review_, vol. iv. p 355, but not included in the _Misc. Prose Works."_--_Abbotsford Library Catalogue_, p. 36.

[208] W. Shenstone's _Essays_ (1765), p. 115, or _Works_ (1764-69), vol.

iii. p. 49.

I am indebted to Dr. J.A.H. Murray for this reference, which he kindly supplied from the materials for his great English Dictionary on Historical Principles.

[209] _King Henry VIII._, Act v. Sc. 2, slightly altered.--J.G.L.

[210] "Watch the sign to hate."--Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_.

[211] See _Arniston Memoirs_, 8vo, Edin. 1888, for text of Lord Melville's letter and Sir Walter's reply, pp. 315-326.