The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 19

MAY.

_May_ 1.--I walked to-day to the western corner of the Chiefswood plantation, and marked out a large additional plantation to be drawn along the face of the hill. It cost me some trouble to carry the boundaries out of the eye, for nothing is so paltry as a plantation of almost any extent if its whole extent lies defined to the eye. By availing myself of the undulations of the ground I think I have avoided this for the present; only when seen from the Eildon Hills the cranks and turns of the enclosure will seem fantastic, at least until the trees get high.

This cost Tom and me three or four hours. Lieut.-Colonel Ferguson joined us as we went home, and dined at Abbotsford.

My cousin, Barbara Scott of Raeburn, came here to see Lady S. I think she was shocked with the melancholy change. She insisted upon walking back to Lessudden House, making her walk 16 or 18 miles, and though the carriage was ordered she would not enter it.

_May_ 2.--Yesterday was a splendid May day--to-day seems inclined to be _soft_, as we call it; but _tant mieux_. Yesterday had a tw.a.n.g of frost in it. I must get to work and finish Boaden's _Life of Kemble_, and Kelly's _Reminiscences_,[263] for the _Quarterly_.

I wrote and read for three hours, and then walked, the day being soft and delightful; but alas! all my walks are lonely from the absence of my poor companion. She does not suffer, thank G.o.d, but strength must fail at last. Since Sunday there has been a gradual change--very gradual--but, alas! to the worse. My hopes are almost gone. But I am determined to stand this grief as I have done others.

_May_ 3,--Another fine morning. I answered a letter from Mr. Handley, who has taken the pains to rummage the Chancery Records until he has actually discovered the fund due to Lady Scott's mother, 1200; it seems to have been invested in the estates of a Mr. Owen, as it appears for Madame Charpentier's benefit, but, she dying, the fund was lost sight of and got into Chancery, where I suppose it must have acc.u.mulated, but I cannot say I understand the matter; at a happier moment the news would have given poor Charlotte much pleasure, but now--it is a day too late.

_May_ 4.--On visiting Lady Scott's sick-room this morning I found her suffering, and I doubt if she knew me. Yet, after breakfast, she seemed serene and composed. The worst is, she will not speak out about the symptoms under which she labours. Sad, sad work; I am under the most melancholy apprehension, for what const.i.tution can hold out under these continued and wasting attacks?

My niece, Anne Scott, a prudent, sensible, and kind young woman, arrived to-day, having come down to a.s.sist us in our distress from so far as Cheltenham. This is a great consolation.

_May_ 5.--Haunted by gloomy thoughts; but I corrected proofs from seven to ten, and wrote from half-past ten to one. My old friend Sir Adam called, and took a long walk with me, which was charity. His gaiety rubbed me up a little. I had also a visit from the Laird and Lady of Harden. Henry Scott carries the county without opposition.

_May_ 6.--- The same scene of hopeless (almost) and unavailing anxiety.

Still welcoming me with a smile, and a.s.serting she is better. I fear the disease is too deeply entwined with the principles of life. Yet the increase of good weather, especially if it would turn more genial, might, I think, aid her excellent const.i.tution. Still labouring at this _Review_, without heart or spirits to finish it. I am a tolerable Stoic, but preach to myself in vain.

"Since these things are necessities, Then let us meet them like necessities."[264]

And so we will.

_May_ 7.--Hammered on at the _Review_ till my backbone ached. But I believe it was a nervous affection, for a walk cured it. Sir Adam and the Colonel dined here. So I spent the evening as pleasantly as I well could, considering I am so soon to leave my own house, and go like a stranger to the town of which I have been so long a citizen, and leave my wife lingering, without prospect of recovery, under the charge of two poor girls. _Talia cogit dura necessitas._

_May_ 8.--I went over to the election at Jedburgh. There was a numerous meeting; the Whigs, who did not bring ten men to the meeting, of course took the whole matter under their patronage, which was much of a piece with the Blue Bottle drawing the carriage. I tried to pull up once or twice, but quietly, having no desire to disturb the quiet of the election. To see the difference of modern times! We had a good dinner, and excellent wine; and I had ordered my carriage at half-past seven, almost ashamed to start so soon. Everybody dispersed at so early an hour, however, that when Henry had left the chair, there was no carriage for me, and Peter proved his accuracy by showing me it was but a quarter-past seven. In the days I remember they would have kept it up till day-light; nor do I think poor Don would have left the chair before midnight. Well, there is a medium. Without being a veteran Vice, a grey Iniquity, like Falstaff, I think an occasional jolly bout, if not carried to excess, improved society; men were put into good humour; when the good wine did its good office, the jest, the song, the speech, had double effect; men were happy for the night, and better friends ever after, because they had been so.

_May_ 9.--My new Liverpool neighbour, Mr. Bainbridge, breakfasts here to-day with some of his family. They wish to try the fis.h.i.+ng in Caulds.h.i.+elds Loch, and [there is] promise of a fine soft morning. But the season is too early.

They have had no sport accordingly after trying with Trimmers. Mr.

Bainbridge is a good cut of John Bull--plain, sensible, and downright; the maker of his own fortune, and son of his own works.

_May_ 10.--To-morrow I leave my home. To what scene I may suddenly be recalled, it wrings my heart to think. If she would but be guided by the medical people, and attend rigidly to their orders, something might be hoped, but she is impatient with the protracted suffering, and no wonder. Anne has a severe task to perform, but the a.s.sistance of her cousin is a great comfort. Baron Weber, the great composer, wants me (through Lockhart) to compose something to be set to music by him, and sung by Miss Stephens--as if I cared who set or who sung any lines of mine. I have recommended instead Beaumont and Fletcher's unrivalled song in the _Nice Valour_:

"Hence, all ye vain delights," etc.

[_Edinburgh_],[265] _May_ 11.--

"Der Abschiedstag ist da, Schwer liegt er auf den Herzen--schwer."[266]

Charlotte was unable to take leave of me, being in a sound sleep, after a very indifferent night. Perhaps it was as well. Emotion might have hurt her; and nothing I could have expressed would have been worth the risk. I have foreseen, for two years and more, that this menaced event could not be far distant. I have seen plainly, within the last two months, that recovery was hopeless. And yet to part with the companion of twenty-nine years when so very ill--that I did not, could not foresee.[267] 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 attentions have availed? and Anne has promised close and constant intelligence. I must dine with James Ballantyne to-day _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. I pa.s.sed a pleasant day with honest J.B., which was a great relief from the black dog which would have worried me at home. We were quite alone.

_[Edinburgh,] May_ 12.--Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say with Touchstone, "When I was at home I was in a better place,"[268] and yet this is not by any means to be complained of. Good apartments, the people civil and apparently attentive. No appearance of smoke, and absolute warrandice against my dreaded enemies, bugs. 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. I have two steady servants, a man and woman, and they seem to set out sensibly enough.

Only one lodger in the house, a Mr. Shandy, a clergyman; and despite his name, said to be a quiet one.

_May_ 13.--The projected measure against the Scottish bank-notes has been abandoned, the resistance being general. _Malachi_ might clap his wings upon this, but, alas! domestic anxiety has cut his comb.

I think very lightly in general of praise; it costs men nothing, and is usually only lip-salve. They wish to please, and must suppose that flattery is the ready road to the good will of every professor of literature. Some praise, however, and from some people, does at once delight and strengthen the mind, and I insert in this place the quotation with which Ld. C. Baron Shepherd concluded a letter concerning me to the Chief Commissioner: "_Magna etiam illa laus et admirabilis videri solet tulisse casus sapienter adversos, non fractum esse fortuna, retinuisse in rebus asperis dignitatem._"[269] I record these words, not as meriting the high praise they imply, but to remind me that such an opinion being partially entertained of me by a man of a character so eminent, it becomes me to make my conduct approach as much as possible to the standard at which he rates it.

As I must pay back to Terry some cash in London, 170, together with other matters here, I have borrowed from Mr. Alexander Ballantyne the sum of 500, upon a promissory note for 512, 10s. payable 15th November to him or his order. If G.o.d should call me before that time, I request my son Walter will, in reverence to my memory, see that Mr. Alexander Ballantyne does not suffer for having obliged me in a sort of exigency--he cannot afford it, and G.o.d has given my son the means to repay him.

_May_ 14.--A fair good-morrow to you, Mr. Sun, who are s.h.i.+ning 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 100 from Mr. Ballantyne, which he is now obliged to repay. I am unable to help the poor fellow, being obliged to borrow myself. But I long ago remonstrated against the transaction at all, and gave him 50 out of my pocket to avoid granting the accommodation, but it did no good.

_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 for ever--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 Ba.s.s Rock, sometimes as weak as the wave 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 and embarra.s.sed man, I am 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 masque, 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 circ.u.mstances of sickness and pain. Mine go back to a period of comparative health. If I write long in this way, I shall write down my resolution, which I should rather write up, if I could. I wonder how I shall do with the large portion of thoughts which were hers for thirty years. I suspect they will be hers yet for a long time at least. But I will not blaze cambric and c.r.a.pe in the public eye like a disconsolate widower, that most affected of all characters.

_May_ 17.--- Last night Anne, after conversing with apparent ease, dropped suddenly down as she rose from the supper-table, and lay six or seven minutes as if dead. Clarkson, however, has no fear of these affections.

_May_ 18.--Another day, and a bright one to the external world, again opens on us; the air soft, and the flowers smiling, and the leaves glittering. They cannot refresh her to whom mild weather was a natural enjoyment. 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. She is sentient and conscious of my emotions somewhere--somehow; _where_ we cannot tell; _how_ we cannot tell; yet would I not at this moment renounce the mysterious yet certain hope that I shall see her in a better world, for all that this world can give me. The necessity of this separation,--that necessity which rendered it even a relief,--that and patience must be my comfort. I do not experience those paroxysms of grief which others do on the same occasion. I can exert myself and speak even cheerfully with the poor girls. But alone, or if anything touches me--the choking sensation. I have been to her room: there was no voice in it--no stirring; the pressure of the coffin was visible on the bed, but it had been removed elsewhere; all was neat as she loved it, but all was calm--calm as death. I remembered the last sight of her; she raised herself in bed, and tried to turn her eyes after me, and said, with a sort of smile, "You all have such melancholy faces." They were the last words I ever heard her utter, and I hurried away, for she did not seem quite conscious of what she said. When I returned, immediately [before] departing, she was in a deep sleep. It is deeper now. This was but seven days since.

They are arranging the chamber of death; that which was long the apartment of connubial happiness, and of whose arrangements (better than in richer houses) she was so proud. They are treading fast and thick.

For weeks you could have heard a foot-fall. Oh, my G.o.d!

_May_ 19.--Anne, poor love, is ill with her exertions and agitation--cannot walk--and is still hysterical, though less so. I advised flesh-brush and tepid bath, which I think will bring her about.

We speak freely of her whom we have lost, and mix her name with our ordinary conversation. This is the rule of nature. All primitive people speak of their dead, and I think virtuously and wisely. The idea of blotting the names of those who are gone out of the language and familiar discourse of those to whom they were dearest is one of the rules of ultra-civilisation which, in so many instances, strangle natural feeling by way of avoiding a painful sensation. The Highlanders speak of their dead children as freely as of their living, and mention how poor Colin or Robert would have acted in such or such a situation.

It is a generous and manly tone of feeling; and, so far as it may be adopted without affectation or contradicting the general habits of society, I reckon on observing it.

_May_ 20.--To-night, I trust, will bring Charles or Lockhart, or both; at least I must hear from them. A letter from Violet [Lockhart] gave us the painful intelligence that she had not mentioned to Sophia the dangerous state in which her mother was. Most kindly meant, but certainly not so well judged. I have always thought that truth, even when painful, is a great duty on such occasions, and it is seldom that concealment is justifiable.

Sophia's baby was christened on Sunday, 14th May, at Brighton, by the name of Walter Scott.[270] May G.o.d give him life and health to wear it with credit to himself and those belonging to him. Melancholy to think that the next morning after this ceremony deprived him of so near a relation. Sent Mr. Curle 11 to remit Mrs. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, for books--I thought I had paid the poor woman before.

_May_ 21.--Our sad preparations for to-morrow continue. A letter from Lockhart; doubtful if Sophia's health or his own state of business will let him be here. If things permit he comes to-night. From Charles not a word; but I think I may expect him. I wish to-morrow were over; not that I fear it, for my nerves are pretty good, but it will be a day of many recollections.

_May_ 22.--Charles arrived last night, much affected of course. Anne had a return of her fainting-fits on seeing him, and again upon seeing Mr.

Ramsay, the gentleman who performs the service.[271] I heard him do so with the utmost propriety for my late friend, Lady Alvanley,[272] the arrangement of whose funeral devolved upon me. How little I could guess when, where, and with respect to whom I should next hear those solemn words. Well, I am not apt to shrink from that which is my duty, merely because it is painful; but I wish this day over. A kind of cloud of stupidity hangs about me, as if all were unreal that men seem to be doing and talking about.

_May_ 23.--About an hour before the mournful ceremony of yesterday, Walter arrived, having travelled express from Ireland on receiving the news. He was much affected, poor fellow, and no wonder. Poor Charlotte nursed him, and perhaps for that reason she was ever partial to him. The whole scene floats as a sort of dream before me--the beautiful day, the grey ruins covered and hidden among clouds of foliage and flourish, where the grave, even in the lap of beauty, lay lurking and gaped for its prey. Then the grave looks, the hasty important bustle of men with spades and mattocks--the train of carriages--the coffin containing the creature that was so long the dearest on earth to me, and whom I was to consign to the very spot which in pleasure-parties we so frequently visited. It seems still as if this could not be really so. But it is so--and duty to G.o.d and to my children must teach me patience.

Poor Anne has had longer fits since our arrival from Dryburgh than before, but yesterday was the crisis. She desired to hear prayers read by Mr. Ramsay, who performed the duty in a most solemn manner. But her strength could not carry it through. She fainted before the service was concluded.[273]

_May_ 24.--Slept wretchedly, or rather waked wretchedly, all night, and was very sick and bilious in consequence, and scarce able to hold up my head with pain. A walk, however, with my sons did me a great deal of good; indeed their society is the greatest support the world can afford me. Their ideas of everything are so just and honourable, kind towards their sisters, and affectionate to me, that I must be grateful to G.o.d for sparing them to me, and continue to battle with the world for their sakes, if not for my own.

_May_ 25.--I had sound sleep to-night, and waked with little or nothing of the strange, dreamy feeling which made me for some days feel like one bewildered in a country where mist or snow has disguised those features of the landscape which are best known to him.

Walter leaves me to-day; he seems disposed to take interest in country affairs, which will be an immense resource, supposing him to tire of the army in a few years. Charles, he and I, went up to Ashestiel to call upon the Misses Russell, who have kindly promised to see Anne on Tuesday. This evening Walter left us, being anxious to return to his wife as well as to his regiment. We expect he will be here early in autumn, with his household.