Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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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.
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.
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 embarrass 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 snatched 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 embarrass 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 mass of garments, rich, indeed, but cumbrous, 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 one morning at breakfast. This happened never before since I had a house of my own. But I have played Abou Hassan long enough; and if the Caliph came I would turn him back again.
February
February 1. — A most generous letter (though not more so than I expected) from Walter and Jane, offering to interpose with their fortune, etc. God Almighty forbid! that were too unnatural in me to accept, though dutiful and affectionate in them to offer. They talk of India still. With my damaged fortune I cannot help them to remain by exchange, and so forth. He expects, if they go, to go out eldest Captain, when, by staying two or three years, he will get the step of Major. His whole thoughts are with his profession, and I understand that when you quit or exchange, when a regiment goes on distant or disagreeable service, you are not accounted as serious in your profession; God send what is for the best! Remitted Charles a bill for £40 — £35 advance at Christmas makes £75. He must be frugal.
Attended the Court, and saw J.B. and Cadell as I returned. Both very gloomy. Came home to work, etc., about two.
February 2. — An odd visit this morning from Miss Jane Bell of North Shields, whose lawsuit with a Methodist parson of the name of Hill made some noise. The worthy divine had in the basest manner interfered to prevent this lady’s marriage by two anonymous letters, in which he contrived to refer the lover, to whom they were addressed, for further corroboration to himself. The whole imposition makes the subject of a little pamphlet published by Marshall, Newcastle. The lady ventured for redress into the thicket of English law — lost one suit — gained another, with £300 damages, and was ruined. The appearance and person of Miss Bell are prepossessing. She is about thirty years old, a brunette, with regular and pleasing features, marked with melancholy, — an enthusiast in literature, and probably in religion. She had been at Abbotsford to see me, and made her way to me here, in the vain hope that she could get her story worked up into a novel; and certainly the thing is capable of interesting situations. It throws a curious light upon the aristocratic or rather hieratic influence exercised by the Methodist preachers within the connection, as it is called. Admirable food this would be for the Quarterly, or any other reviewers who might desire to feed fat their grudge against these sectarians. But there are two reasons against such a publication. First, it would do the poor sufferer no good. Secondly, it might hurt the Methodistic connection very much, which I for one would not like to injure. They have their faults, and are peculiarly liable to those of hypocrisy, and spiritual ambition, and priestcraft. On the other hand, they do infinite good, carrying religion into classes in society where it would scarce be found to penetrate, did it rely merely upon proof of its doctrines, upon calm reasoning, and upon rational argument. Methodists add a powerful appeal to the feelings and passions; and though I believe this is often exaggerated into absolute enthusiasm, yet I consider upon the whole they do much to keep alive a sense of religion, and the practice of morality necessarily connected with it. It is much to the discredit of the Methodist clergy, that when this calumniator was actually convicted of guilt morally worse than many men are hanged for, they only degraded him from the first to the second class of their preachers, — leaving a man who from mere hatred at Miss Bell’s brother, who was a preacher like himself, had proceeded in such a deep and infamous scheme to ruin the character and destroy the happiness of an innocent person, in possession of the pulpit, and an authorised teacher of others. If they believed him innocent they did too much — if guilty, far too little.
I wrote to my nephew Walter to-day, cautioning him against a little disposition which he has to satire or méchanceté, which may be a great stumblingblock in his course in life. Otherwise I presage well of him. He is lieutenant of engineers, with high character for mathematical science — is acute, very well-mannered, and, I think, good-hearted. He has seen enough of the world too, to regulate his own course through life, better than most lads at his age.
February 3. — This is the first morning since my troubles that I felt at awaking
“I had drunken deep
Of all the blessedness of sleep.”
I made not the slightest pause, nor dreamed a single dream, nor even changed my side. This is a blessing to be grateful for. There is to be a meeting of the creditors to-day, but I care not for the issue. If they drag me into the Court, obtorto collo, instead of going into this scheme of arrangement, they would do themselves a great injury, and, perhaps, eventually do me good, though it would give me much pain. James Ballantyne is severely critical on what he calls imitations of Mrs. Radcliffe in Woodstock. Many will think with him, yet I am of opinion he is quite wrong, or, as friend J. F[errier] says, vrong In the first place, I am to look on the mere fact of another author having treated a subject happily as a bird looks on a potato-bogle which scares it away from a field otherwise as free to its depredations as any one’s else! In 2d place, I have taken a wide difference: my object is not to excite fear of supernatural tilings in my reader, but to show the effect of such fear upon the agents in the story —