The Journal of Sir Walter Scott Part 8

But I find my eyes moistening, and that will not do. I will not yield without a fight for it. It is odd, when I set myself to work _doggedly_, as Dr. Johnson would say, I am exactly the same man that I ever was, neither low-spirited nor _distrait_. In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer; the fountain is awakened from its inmost recesses, as if the spirit of affliction had troubled it in his pa.s.sage.

Poor Mr. Pole the harper sent to offer me 500 or 600, probably his all.[131] There is much good in the world, after all. But I will involve no friend, either rich or poor. My own right hand shall do it--else will I be _done_ in the slang language, and _undone_ in common parlance.

I am glad that, beyond my own family, who are, excepting L.S., young and able to bear sorrow, of which this is the first taste to some of them, most of the hearts are past aching which would have once been inconsolable on this occasion. I do not mean that many will not seriously regret, and some perhaps lament, my misfortunes. But my dear mother, my almost sister, Christy R[utherfor]d,[132] poor Will Erskine--these would have been mourners indeed.

Well--exertion--exertion. O Invention, rouse thyself! May man be kind!

May G.o.d be propitious! The worst is, I never quite know when I am right or wrong; and Ballantyne, who does know in some degree, will fear to tell me. Lockhart would be worth gold just now, but he too would be too diffident to speak broad out. All my hope is in the continued indulgence of the public. I have a funeral-letter to the burial of the Chevalier Yelin, a foreigner of learning and talent, who has died at the Royal Hotel. He wished to be introduced to me, and was to have read a paper before the Royal Society when this introduction was to have taken place.

I was not at the Society that evening, and the poor gentleman was taken ill at the meeting and unable to proceed. He went to his bed and never rose again; and now his funeral will be the first public place I shall appear at. He dead, and I ruined; this is what you call a meeting.[133]

_January_ 23.--Slept ill, not having been abroad these eight days--_splendida bilis_. Then a dead sleep in the morning, and when the awakening comes, a strong feeling how well I could dispense with it for once and for ever. This pa.s.ses away, however, as better and more dutiful thoughts arise in my mind. I know not if my imagination has flagged; probably it has; but at least my powers of labour have not diminished during the last melancholy week. On Monday and Tuesday my exertions were suspended. Since Wednesday inclusive I have written thirty-eight of my close ma.n.u.script pages, of which seventy make a volume of the usual Novel size.

Wrote till twelve A.M., finis.h.i.+ng half of what I call a good day's work--ten pages of print, or rather twelve. Then walked in Princes Street pleasure-grounds with good Samaritan James Skene, the only one among my numerous friends who can properly be termed _amicus curarum mearum,_ others being too busy or too gay, and several being estranged by habit.[134]

The walks have been conducted on the whole with much taste, though Skene has undergone much criticism, the usual reward of public exertions, on account of his plans. It is singular to walk close beneath the grim old Castle, and to think what scenes it must have seen, and how many generations of three score and ten have risen and pa.s.sed away. It is a place to cure one of too much sensation over earthly subjects of mutation. My wife and girl's tongues are chatting in a lively manner in the drawing-room. It does me good to hear them.

_January_ 24.--Constable came yesterday, and saw me for half an hour. He seemed irritable, but kept his temper under command. Was a little shocked when I intimated that I was disposed to regard the present works in progress as my own. I think I saw two things:--(1) That he is desirous to return into the management of his own affairs without Cadell, if he can. (2) That he relies on my connection as the way of helping us out of the slough. Indeed he said he was ruined utterly without my countenance. I certainly will befriend him if I can, but Constable without Cadell is like getting the clock without the pendulum--the one having the ingenuity, the other the caution of the business. I will see my way before making any bargain, and I will help them, I am sure, if I can, without endangering my last cast for freedom.

Worked out my task yesterday. My kind friend Mrs. Coutts has got the cadet-s.h.i.+p for Pringle Shortreed, in which he was peculiarly interested.

I went to the Court for the first time to-day, and, like the man with the large nose, thought everybody was thinking of me and my mishaps.

Many were, undoubtedly, and all rather regrettingly; some obviously affected. It is singular to see the difference of men's manner whilst they strive to be kind or civil in their way of addressing me. Some smile as they wish me good-day, as if to say, "Think nothing about it, my lad; it is quite out of our thoughts." Others greeted me with the affected gravity which one sees and despises at a funeral. The best bred--all, I believe, meaning equally well--just shook hands and went on. A foolish puff in the papers, calling on men and G.o.ds to a.s.sist a popular author, who, having choused the public of many thousands, had not the sense to keep wealth when he had it. If I am hard pressed, and measures used against me, I must use all means of legal defence, and subscribe myself bankrupt in a pet.i.tion for sequestration. It is the course I would have advised a client to take, and would have the effect of saving my land, which is secured by my son's contract of marriage. I might save my library, etc., by a.s.sistance of friends, and bid my creditors defiance. But for this I would, in a court of honour, deserve to lose my spurs. No, if they permit me, I will be their va.s.sal for life, and dig in the mine of my imagination to find diamonds (or what may sell for such) to make good my engagements, not to enrich myself.

And this from no reluctance to allow myself to be called the Insolvent, which I probably am, but because I will not put out of the [power] of my creditors the resources, mental or literary, which yet remain to me.

Went to the funeral of Chevalier Yelin, the literary foreigner mentioned on 22d. How many and how various are the ways of affliction! Here is this poor man dying at a distance from home, his proud heart broken, his wife and family anxiously expecting letters, and doomed only to learn they have lost a husband and father for ever. He lies buried on the Calton Hill, near learned and scientific dust--the graves of David Hume and John Playfair being side by side.

_January_ 25.--Anne is ill this morning. May G.o.d help us! If it should prove serious, as I have known it in such cases, where am I to find courage or comfort? A thought has struck me--Can we do nothing for creditors with the goblin drama, called _Fortunes of Devorgoil_? Could it not be added to _Woodstock_ as a fourth volume? Terry refused a gift of it, but he was quite and entirely wrong; it is not good, but it may be made so. Poor Will Erskine liked it much.[135] Gave my wife her 12 allowance. 24 to last till Wednesday fortnight. _January_ 26.--Spoke to J.B. last night about _Devorgoil_, who does not seem to relish the proposal, alleging the comparative failure of _Halidon Hill_. Ay, says Self-Conceit, but he has not read it; and when he does, it is the sort of wild fanciful work betwixt heaven and earth, which men of solid parts do not estimate. Pepys thought Shakespeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_ the most silly play he had ever seen, and Pepys was probably judging on the same grounds with J.B., though presumptuous enough to form conclusions against a very different work from any of mine. How if I send it to Lockhart by and by?

I called to-day at Constable's; both partners seemed secure that Hurst and Robinson were to go on and pay. Strange that they should have stopped. Constable very anxious to have husbanding of the books. I told him the truth that I would be glad to have his a.s.sistance, and that he should have the benefit of the agency, but that he was not to consider past transactions as a rule for selling them in future, since I must needs make the most out of the labours I could: _item_, that I, or whoever might act for me, would of course, after what has happened, look especially to the security. He said if Hurst and Robinson were to go on, bank notes would be laid down. I conceive indeed that they would take _Woodstock_ and _Napoleon_ almost at loss rather than break the connection in the public eye. Sir William Arbuthnot and Mr. Kinnear were very kind. But _cui bono_?[136]

Gibson comes with a joyful face announcing all the creditors had unanimously agreed to a private trust. This is handsome and confidential, and must warm my best efforts to get them out of the sc.r.a.pe. I will not doubt--to doubt is to lose. Sir William Forbes took the chair, and behaved as he has ever done, with the generosity of ancient faith and early friends.h.i.+p. They[137] are deeper concerned than most. In what scenes have Sir William and I not borne share together--desperate, and almost b.l.o.o.d.y affrays, rivalries, deep drinking-matches, and, finally, with the kindest feelings on both sides, somewhat separated by his retiring much within the bosom of his family, and I moving little beyond mine. It is fated our planets should cross though, and that at the periods most interesting for me. Down--down--a hundred thoughts.

Jane Russell drank tea with us.

I hope to sleep better to-night. If I do not I shall get ill, and then I cannot keep my engagements. Is it not odd? I can command my eyes to be awake when toil and weariness sit on my eyelids, but to draw the curtain of oblivion is beyond my power. I remember some of the wild Buccaneers, in their impiety, succeeded pretty well by shutting hatches and burning brimstone and a.s.saftida in making a tolerable imitation of _h.e.l.l_--but the pirates' _heaven_ was a wretched affair. It is one of the worst things about this system of ours, that it is a hundred times more easy to inflict pain than to create pleasure.

_January_ 27.--Slept better and less bilious, owing doubtless to the fatigue of the preceding night, and the more comfortable news. I drew my salaries of various kinds amounting to 300 and upwards and sent, with John Gibson's consent, 200 to pay off things at Abbotsford which must be paid. Wrote Laidlaw with the money, directing him to make all preparations for reduction.[138] Anne ill of rheumatism: I believe caught cold by vexation and exposing herself to bad weather.

The Celtic Society present me with the most splendid broadsword I ever saw; a beautiful piece of art, and a most n.o.ble weapon. Honourable Mr.

Stuart (second son of the Earl of Moray), General Graham Stirling, and MacDougal, attended as a committee to present it. This was very kind of my friends the Celts, with whom I have had so many merry meetings. It will be a rare legacy to Walter;--for myself, good lack! it is like Lady Dowager Don's prize in a lottery of hardware; she--a venerable lady who always wore a haunch-hoop, silk neglige, and triple ruffles at the elbow--having the luck to gain a pair of silver spurs and a whip to correspond.

_January_ 28.--Ballantyne and Cadell wish that Mr. Alex. Cowan should be Constable's Trustee instead of J.B.'s. Gibson is determined to hold by Cowan. I will not interfere, although I think Cowan's services might do us more good as Constable's Trustee than as our own, but I will not begin with thwarting the managers of my affairs, or even exerting strong influence; it is not fair. These last four or five days I have wrought little; to-day I set on the steam and ply my paddles.

_January_ 29.--The proofs of vol. i.[139] came so thick in yesterday that much was not done. But I began to be hard at work to-day, and must not _gurnalise_ much.

Mr. Jollie, who is to be my trustee, in conjunction with Gibson, came to see me:--a, pleasant and good-humoured man, and has high reputation as a man of business. I told him, and I will keep my word, that he would at least have no trouble by my interfering and thwarting their management, which is the not unfrequent case of trusters and trustees.[140]

Constable's business seems unintelligible. No man thought the house worth less than 150,000. Constable told me when he was making his will that he was worth 80,000. Great profits on almost all the adventures.

No bad speculations--yet neither stock nor debt to show: Constable might have eaten up his share; but Cadell was very frugal. No doubt trading almost entirely on accommodation is dreadfully expensive.[141]

_January_ 30.--_False delicacy_. Mr. Gibson, Mr. Cowan, Mr. J.B., were with me last night to talk over important matters, and suggest an individual for a certain highly confidential situation. I was led to mention a person of whom I knew nothing but that he was an honest and intelligent man. All seemed to acquiesce, and agreed to move the thing to the party concerned this morning, and so Mr. G. and Mr. C. left me, when J.B. let out that it was their unanimous opinion that we should be in great trouble were the individual appointed, from faults of temper, etc., which would make it difficult to get on with him. With a hearty curse I hurried J.B. to let them know that I had no partiality for the man whatever, and only named him because he had been proposed for a similar situation elsewhere. This is provoking enough, that they would let me embarra.s.s my affairs with a bad man (an unfit one, I mean) rather than contradict me. I dare say great men are often used so.

I laboured freely yesterday. The stream rose fast--if clearly, is another question; but there is bulk for it, at least--about thirty printed pages.

"And now again, boys, to the oar."

_January_ 31.--There being nothing in the roll to-day, I stay at home from the Court, and add another day's perfect labour to _Woodstock_, which is worth five days of s.n.a.t.c.hed intervals, when the current of thought and invention is broken in upon, and the mind shaken and diverted from its purpose by a succession of petty interruptions. I have now no pecuniary provisions to embarra.s.s me, and I think, now the shock of the discovery is past and over, I am much better off on the whole; I am as if I had shaken off from my shoulders a great ma.s.s of garments, rich, indeed, but c.u.mbrous, and always more a burden than a comfort. I am free of an hundred petty public duties imposed on me as a man of consideration--of the expense of a great hospitality--and, what is better, of the great waste of time connected with it. I have known, in my day, all kinds of society, and can pretty well estimate how much or how little one loses by retiring from all but that which is very intimate. I sleep and eat, and work as I was wont; and if I could see those about me as indifferent to the loss of rank as I am, I should be completely happy. As it is, Time must salve that sore, and to Time I trust it.

Since the 14th of this month no guest has broken bread in my house save G.H. Gordon[142] one morning at breakfast. This happened never before since I had a house of my own. But I have played Abou Ha.s.san long enough; and if the Caliph came I would turn him back again.

FOOTNOTES:

[107] The parsimonious yet liberal London merchant, whose miserly habits gave Arbuthnot the materials of the story. See Professor Brown's _Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, vol i. p. 244, and Martin Scriblerns, cap. xii., Pope, vol. iv. p. 54, Edin. 1776.

[108] This plantation now covers the remains of an old Roman road from the Great Camp on the Eildon Hills to the ford below Scott's house.--J.G.L.

[109] The residence for several years of Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart.

[110] When settling his estate on his eldest son, Sir Walter had retained the power of burdening it with 10,000 for behoof of his younger children; he now raised the sum for the a.s.sistance of the struggling firms.--J.G.L. See Dec. 14, 1825.

[111] William Scrope, author of _Days of Deer Stalking_, roy. 8vo, 1839; and _Days and Nights of Salmon Fis.h.i.+ng_, roy. 8vo, 1843; died in his 81st year in 1852. Mr. Lockhart says of this enthusiastic sportsman that at this time "he had a lease of Lord Somerville's pavilion opposite Melrose, and lived on terms of affectionate intimacy with Sir Walter Scott."

[112] Mr. George Ticknor of Boston. He saw much of Scott and his family in the spring of 1819 in Edinburgh and at Abbotsford; and was again in Scotland in 1838. Both visits are well described in his journals, published in Boston in 1876.

Mrs. Lockhart was of opinion that Leslie's portrait of her father was the best extant, "and nothing equals it except Chantrey's bust."--Ticknor's _Life_, vol. i. p. 107.

Leslie himself thought Chantrey's was the best of all the portraits.

"The gentle turn of the head, inclined a little forward and down, and the lurking humour in the eye and about the mouth, are Scott's own."--_Autobiographical Recollections of Leslie_, edited by Taylor, vol. i. p. 118.

[113] ... sedet, eternumque sedebit Infelix Theseus ... VIRGIL.--J.G.L.

[114] In a letter of this date to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Thomas Scott, Sir Walter says:--"Poor aunt Curle died like a Roman, or rather like one of the Sandy-Knowe bairns, the most stoical race I ever knew. She turned every one out of the room, and drew her last breath alone. So did my uncle, Captain Robert Scott, and several others of that family."--J.G.L.

[115] See letter addressed by C.J. Mathews to his mother, in which he says, "I took particular notice of everything in the room (Sir Walter's sanctum), and _if he had left me there, should certainly have read all his notes_." _Memoirs_, edited by d.i.c.kens, 2 vols., London, 1879, vol.

i. p. 284.

[116] _Merchant's Tale_, lines 9706-8, slightly altered.

[117] 2 _King Henry IV_., Act iv. Sc. 2.--J.G.L.

[118] "I had long been in the habit of pa.s.sing the Christmas with Sir Walter in the country, when he had great pleasure in a.s.sembling what he called 'a fireside party,' where he was always disposed to indulge in the free and unrestrained outpouring of his cheerful and convivial disposition. Upon one of these occasions the Comedian Mathews and his son were at Abbotsford, and most entertaining they were, giving us a full display of all their varied powers in scenic representations, narrations, songs, ventriloquism, and frolic of every description, as well as a string of most amusing anecdote, connected with the professional adventures of the elder, and the travels of the son, who seemed as much a genius as his father. He has never appeared on the stage, although abundantly fit to distinguish himself in that department, but has taken to the profession of architecture.

Notwithstanding that the snow lay pretty deep on the ground, Sir Walter, old Mathews, and myself set out with the deerhounds and terriers to have a large range through the woods and high grounds; and a most amusing excursion it was, from the difficulties which Mathews, unused to that sort of scrambling, had to encounter, being also somewhat lame from an accident he had met with in being thrown out of a gig,--the good-humoured manner with which each of my two lame companions strove to get over the bad pa.s.ses, their jokes upon it, alternately shouting for my a.s.sistance to help them through, and with all the liveliness of their conversation, as every anecdote which one told was in emulation tried to be outdone by the other by some incident equally if not more entertaining,--and it may be well supposed that the healthful exercise of a walk of this description disposed every one to enjoy the festivity which was to close the day."--_Mr. Skene's Reminiscences_.

[119] See Moore's _Life of Sheridan_, vol. i. p. 191. This work was published late in 1825.--J.G.L.

[120] Burns's _Vision_.--J.G.L.

[121] Lindsay's _Chronicles of Scotland_ 2 vols. Edin. 1814, pp. 246-7.

[122] Mr. Skene in his _Reminiscences_ says:--"The family had been at Abbotsford, and it had long been their practice the day they came to town to take a family dinner at my house, which had accordingly been complied with upon the present occasion, and I never had seen Sir Walter in better spirits or more agreeable. The fatal intimation of his bankruptcy, however, awaited him at home, and next morning early I was surprised by a verbal message to come to him as soon as I had got up.