Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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possible enough for a little while.
February 12. — I wrought hard this morning. Ballantyne blames the Ossianic monotony of my principal characters. Now they are not Ossianic. The language of the Ossianic poetry is highly figurative; that of the knights of chivalry may be monotonous, and probably is, but it cannot be Ossianic. Sooth to say, this species of romance of chivalry is an exhaustible subject. It affords materials for splendid description for once or twice, but they are too unnatural and formal to bear repetition. We must go on with our present work, however, valeat quantum. Mr. Cadell, less critical than J.B., seems pleased. The world will soon decide if I get on at this rate; for I have finished four leaves to-day, notwithstanding my attendance on the Court.
February 13. — Mr. Macintosh Mackay, minister of Laggan, breakfasted with us this morning. This reverend gentleman is completing the Highland Dictionary, and seems very competent for the task. He left in my hands some papers of Cluny Macpherson, concerning the affair of 1745, from which I have extracted an account of the battle of Clifton for Waverley. He has few prejudices (for a Highlander), and is a mild, well-mannered young man. We had much talk on Highland matters.
The Children’s Tales continue in demand. Cadell expects a new edition of 10,000 about next year, which may be £750 or £800 in pouch, besides constituting a fine property.
February 14. — Mr. Edwards, a candidate for the situation of Rector in the Edinburgh Academy, a pleasant, gentlemanlike man, and recommended highly for experience and learning; but he is himself afraid of wanting bodily strength for the work, which requires all the nerve and muscle of Williams. I wish he had been three inches taller, and stout in proportion. I went to Mr. John Russell’s, where there was an Academical party at dinner. Home at nine, a cigar, and to bed.
February 15. — Rose this morning about seven and wrote at the desk till breakfast; finished about a page and a half. I was fagged at Court till near two. Then called on Cadell, and so home, tired enough.
February 16. — There dined with me to-day Tom Thomson, Will Clerk, Mr. Edwards, and my Celtic friend Mr. Mackay of Laggan.
February 17. — A day of hard work, being I think eight pages before dinner. I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking down, that yesterday at dinner-time I was strangely haunted by what I would call the sense of pre-existence, — videlicet, a confused idea that nothing that passed was said for the first time, that the same topics had been discussed, and the same persons had stated the same opinions on the same subjects. It is true there might have been some ground for recollections, considering that three at least of the company were old friends, and kept much company together: that is, Justice-Clerk, [Lord] Abercromby, and I. But the sensation was so strong as to resemble what is called a mirage in the desert, or a calenture on board ship, when lakes are seen in the desert, and silvan landscapes in the sea. It was very distressing yesterday, and brought to my mind the fancies of Bishop Berkeley about an ideal world. There was a vile sense of want of reality in all I did and said. It made me gloomy and out of spirits, though I flatter myself it was not observed. The bodily feeling which most resembles this unpleasing hallucination is the giddy state which follows profuse bleeding, when one feels as if walking on featherbeds and could not find a secure footing. I think the stomach has something to do with it. I drank several glasses of wine, but these only augmented the disorder. I did not find the in vino veritas of the philosophers. Something of this insane feeling remains to-day, but a trifle only.
February 18. — I had other work to do this day. In the morning corrected proofs. After breakfast, made a visit or two, and met Sandie Buchanan, whom it joys me to see. Then despatched all my sheriff processes, save one, which hitches for want of some papers. Lastly, here I am, before dinner, with my journal. I sent all the county money to Andrew Lang. Wrote to Mr. Reynolds too; methinks I will let them have the Tales which Jem Ballantyne and Cadell quarrelled with. I have asked £500 for them — pretty well that. I suppose they will be fools enough to give it me. In troth she’ll no pe cheaper.
February 19. — A day of hard and continued work, the result being eight pages. But then I hardly ever quitted the table save at mealtime. So eight pages of my manuscript may be accounted the maximum of my literary labour. It is equal to forty printed pages of the novels. I had the whole of this day at my own disposal, by the voluntary kindness of Sir Robert Dundas interfering to take up my duty at the Court. The proofs of my Sermons are arrived, but I have had no time, saving to blot out some flummery, which poor Gordon had put into the preface.
February 20. — Another day of labour; but not so hard. I worked from eight till three with little intermission, but only accomplished four pages. Then I went out and made a visit or two, and looked in on Cadell. If I get two pages in the evening I will be satisfied, for volume II. may be concluded with the week, or run over to Sunday at most. Will it tell, this work? I doubt it, but there is no standing still.
A certain Mr. Mackay from Ireland called on me, an active agent, it would seem, about the reform of prisons. He exclaims, justly I have no doubt, about the state of our Lock-up House. For myself, I have some distrust of the fanaticism — even of philanthropy. A good part of it arises in general from mere vanity and love of distinction, gilded over to others and to themselves with some show of benevolent sentiment. The philanthropy of Howard, mingled with his ill-usage of his son, seems to have risen to a pitch of insanity. Yet without such extraordinary men, who call attention to the subject by their own peculiarities, prisons would have remained the same dungeons which they were forty or fifty years ago. I do not see the propriety of making them dandy places of detention. They should be a place of punishment, and that can hardly be if men are lodged better, and fed better, than when they are at large. The separation of ranks is an excellent distinction, and is nominally provided for in all modern prisons. But the size of most of them is inadequate to the great increase of crime, and so the pack is shuffled together again for want of room to keep them separate. There are several prisons constructed on excellent principles, the economy of which becomes deranged so soon as the death takes place of some keen philanthropist who had the business of a whole committee, which, having lost him, remained like a carcass without a head. But I have never seen a plan for keeping in order these resorts of guilt and misery, without presupposing a superintendence of a kind which might perhaps be exercised, could we turn out upon the watch a guard of angels. But, alas! jailors and turnkeys are rather like angels of a different livery, nor do I see how it is possible to render them otherwise. Superintendence is all you can trust to, and superintendence, save in some rare cases, is hard to come by, where it is to be vigilantly and constantly exercised. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? As to reformation, I have no great belief in it, when the ordinary class of culprits, who are vicious from ignorance or habit, are the subjects of the experiment. “A shave from a broken loaf” is thought as little of by the male set of delinquents as by the fair frail. The state of society now leads so much to great accumulations of humanity, that we cannot wonder if it ferment and reek like a compost dunghill. Nature intended that population should be diffused over the soil in proportion to its extent. We have accumulated in huge cities and smothering manufactories the numbers which should be spread over the face of a country; and what wonder that they should be corrupted? We have turned healthful and pleasant brooks into morasses and pestiferous lakes, — what wonder the soil should be unhealthy? A great deal, I think, might be done by executing the punishment of death, without a chance of escape, in all cases to which it should be found properly applicable; of course these occasions being diminished to one out of twenty to which capital punishment is now assigned. Our ancestors brought the country to order by kilting thieves and banditti with strings. So did the French when at Naples, and bandits became for the time unheard of. When once the evil habit is altered — when men are taught a crime of a certain character is connected inseparably with death, the moral habits of a population become altered, and you may in the next age remit the punishment which in this it has been necessary to inflict with stern severity. I think whoever pretends to reform a corrupted nation, or a disorderly regiment, or an ill-ordered ship of war, must begin by severity, and only resort to gentleness when he has acquired the complete mastery by terror — the terror being always attached to the law; and, the impression once made, he can afford to govern with mildness, and lay the iron