Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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allows me to charge my estate. At Whitsunday and Martinmas I will have enough to pay up the incumbrance of £3000 due to old Moss’s daughter, and £5000 to Misses Ferguson, in whole or part. This will enable us to dispense in a great measure with bank assistance, and sleep in spite of thunder. I do not know whether it is this business which makes me a little bilious, or rather the want of exercise during the season of late, and change of the weather to too much heat. Thank God, my circumstances are good, — upon a fair balance which I have made, certainly not less than £40,000 or nearly £50,000 above the world. But the sun and moon shall dance on the green ere carelessness, or hope of gain, or facility of getting cash, shall make me go too deep again, were it but for the disquiet of the thing. Dined: Lady Scott and Anne quietly.
December 15. — R.P. G[illies] came sicut mos est at five o’clock to make me confidant of the extremities of his distress. It is clear all he has to do is to make the best agreement he can with his creditors. I remember many years since the poor fellow told me he thought there was something interesting in having difficulties. Poor lad, he will have enough of them now. He talks about writing translations for the booksellers from the German to the amount of five or six hundred pounds, but this is like a man proposing to run a whole day at top speed. Yet, if he had good subjects, R.P.G. is one of the best translators I know, and something must be done for him certainly, though, I fear, it will be necessary to go to the bottom of the ulcer; palliatives won’t do. He is terribly imprudent, yet a worthy and benevolent creature — a great bore withal. Dined alone with family. I am determined not to stand mine host to all Scotland and England as I have done. This shall be a saving, since it must be a borrowing, year. We heard from Sophia; they are got safe to town; but as Johnnie had a little bag of meal with him, to make his porridge on the road, the whole innyard assembled to see the operation. Junor, his maid, was of opinion that England was an “awfu’ country to make parritch in.” God bless the poor baby, and restore his perfect health!
December 16. — R.P.G. and his friend Robert Wilson came — the former at five, as usual — the latter at three, as appointed. R[obert] W[ilson] frankly said that R.P.G.‘s case was quite desperate, that he was insolvent, and that any attempt to save him at present would be just so much cash thrown away. God knows, at this moment I have none to throw away uselessly. For poor Gillies there was a melancholy mixture of pathos and affectation in his statement, which really affected me; while it told me that it would be useless to help him to money on such very empty plans. I endeavoured to persuade him to make a virtue of necessity, resign all to his creditors, and begin the world on a new leaf. I offered him Chiefswood for a temporary retirement. Lady Scott thinks I was wrong, and nobody could less desire such a neighbour, all his affectations being caviare to me. But then the wife and children! Went again to the Solicitor on a wrong night, being asked for tomorrow. Lady Scott undertakes to keep my engagements recorded in future. Sed quis custodiet ipsam custodem?
December 17. — Dined with the Solicitor — Lord Chief-Baron — Sir William Boothby, nephew of old Sir Brooke, the dandy poet, etc. Annoyed with anxious presentiments, which the night’s post must dispel or confirm — all in London as bad as possible.
December 18. — Ballantyne called on me this morning. Venit illa suprema dies. My extremity is come. Cadell has received letters from London which all but positively announce the failure of Hurst and Robinson, so that Constable & Co. must follow, and I must go with poor James Ballantyne for company. I suppose it will involve my all. But if they leave me £500, I can still make it £1000 or £1200 a year. And if they take my salaries of £1300 and £300, they cannot but give me something out of them. I have been rash in anticipating funds to buy land, but then I made from £5000 to £10,000 a year, and land was my temptation. I think nobody can lose a penny — that is one comfort. Men will think pride has had a fall. Let them indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall makes them higher, or seems so at least. I have the satisfaction to recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage to many, and that some at least will forgive my transient wealth on account of the innocence of my intentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor. This news will make sad hearts at Darnick, and in the cottages of Abbotsford, which I do not nourish the least hope of preserving. It has been my Delilah, and so I have often termed it; and now the recollection of the extensive woods I planted, and the walks I have formed, from which strangers must derive both the pleasure and profit, will excite feelings likely to sober my gayest moments. I have half resolved never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with such a diminished crest? How live a poor indebted man where I was once the wealthy, the honoured? My children are provided; thank God for that. I was to have gone there on Saturday in joy and prosperity to receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish — but the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more than any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I must get them kind masters; there may be yet those who loving me may love my dog because it has been mine. I must end this, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men should meet distress.
I find my dogs’ feet on my knees. I hear them whining and seeking me everywhere — this is nonsense, but it is what they would do could they know how things are. Poor Will Laidlaw! poor Tom Purdie! this will be news to wring your heart, and many a poor fellow’s besides to whom my prosperity was daily bread.
Ballantyne behaves like himself, and sinks his own ruin in contemplating mine. I tried to enrich him indeed, and now all — all is gone. He will have the “Journal” still, that is a comfort, for sure they cannot find a better Editor. They — alas! who will they be — the unbekannten Obern who are to dispose of my all as they will? Some hard-eyed banker; some of those men of millions whom I described. Cadell showed more kind and personal feeling to me than I thought he had possessed. He says there are some properties of works that will revert to me, the copy-money not being paid, but it cannot be any very great matter, I should think.
Another person did not afford me all the sympathy I expected, perhaps because I seemed to need little support, yet that is not her nature, which is generous and kind. She thinks I have been imprudent, trusting men so far. Perhaps so — but what could I do? I must sell my books to some one, and these folks gave me the largest price; if they had kept their ground I could have brought myself round fast enough by the plan of 14th December. I now view matters at the very worst, and suppose that my all must go to supply the deficiencies of Constable. I fear it must be so. His connections with Hurst and Robinson have been so intimate that they must be largely involved. This is the worst of the concern; our own is comparatively plain sailing.
Poor Gillies called yesterday to tell me he was in extremity. God knows I had every cause to have returned him the same answer. I must think his situation worse than mine, as through his incoherent, miserable tale, I could see that he had exhausted each access to credit, and yet fondly imagines that, bereft of all his accustomed indulgences, he can work with a literary zeal unknown to his happier days. I hope he may labour enough to gain the mere support of his family. For myself, the magic wand of the Unknown is shivered in his grasp. He must henceforth be termed the Too-well-known. The feast of fancy is over with the feeling of independence. I can no longer have the delight of waking in the morning with bright ideas in my mind, haste to commit them to paper, and count them monthly, as the means of planting such groves, and purchasing such wastes; replacing my dreams of fiction by other prospective visions of walks by
“Fountain heads, and pathless groves
Places which pale passion loves.”
Footnote to page 44 in the original MS.: — ”Turn back to page 41 and 42. I turned the page accidentally, and the partner of a bankrupt concern ought not to waste two leaves of paper.”
This cannot be; but I may work substantial husbandry, work history, and such concerns. They will not be received with the same enthusiasm; at least I much doubt the general knowledge that an author must write for his bread, at least for improving his pittance, degrades him and his productions in the public eye. He falls into the secondrate rank of estimation:
“While the harness sore galls, and the spurs his sides goad,
The high-mettled racer’s a hack on the road.”
It is a bitter