Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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January 13. — The Fergusons, with my neighbours Mr. Scrope and Mr. Bainbridge and young Hume, eat a haunch of venison from Drummond Castle, and seemed happy. We had music and a little dancing, and enjoyed in others the buoyancy of spirit that we no longer possess ourselves. Yet I do not think the young people of this age so gay as we were. There is a turn for persiflage, a fear of ridicule among them, which stifles the honest emotions of gaiety and lightness of spirit; and people, when they give in the least to the expansion of their natural feelings, are always kept under by the fear of becoming ludicrous. To restrain your feelings and check your enthusiasm in the cause even of pleasure is now a rule among people of fashion, as much as it used to be among philosophers.
January 14. — Well — my holidays are out — and I may count my gains and losses as honest Robinson Crusoe used to balance his accounts of good and evil.
I have not been able, during three weeks, to stir above once or twice from the house. But then I have executed a great deal of work, which would be otherwise unfinished.
Again I have sustained long and sleepless nights and much pain. True; but no one is the worse of the thoughts which arise in the watches of the night; and for pain, the complaint which brought on this rheumatism was not so painful perhaps, but was infinitely more disagreeable and depressing.
Something there has been of dulness in our little reunions of society which did not use to cloud them. But I have seen all my own old and kind friends, with my dear children (Charles alone excepted); and if we did not rejoice with perfect joy, it was overshadowed from the same sense of regret.
Again, this new disorder seems a presage of the advance of age with its infirmities. But age is but the cypress avenue which terminates in the tomb, where the weary are at rest.
I have been putting my things to rights to go off tomorrow. Though I always wonder why it should be so, I feel a dislike to order and to task-work of all kinds — a predominating foible in my disposition. I do not mean that it influences me in morals; for even in youth I had a disgust at gross irregularities of any kind, and such as I ran into were more from compliance with others and a sort of false shame, than any pleasure I sought or found in dissipation. But what I mean is a detestation of precise order in petty matters — in reading or answering letters, in keeping my papers arranged and in order, and so on. Weber, and then Gordon, used to keep my things in some order — now they are verging to utter confusion. And then I have let my cash run ahead since I came from the Continent — I must slump the matter as I can.
[Shandwick Place,] January 15. — Off we came, and despite of rheumatism I got through the journey comfortably. Greeted on my arrival by a number of small accounts whistling like grapeshot; they are of no great avail, and incurred, I see, chiefly during the time of illness. But I believe it will take me some hard work till I pay them, and how to get the time to work? It will be hard purchased if, as I think not unlikely, this bitch of a rheumatism should once more pin me to my chair. Coming through Galashiels, we met the Laird of Torwoodlee, who, on hearing how long I had been confined, asked how I bore it, observing that he had once in his life (Torwoodlee must be between sixty and seventy) been confined for five days to the house, and was like to hang himself. I regret God’s free air as much as any man, but I could amuse myself were it in the Bastile.
January 16. — Went to Court, and returned through a curious atmosphere, half mist, half rain, famous for rheumatic joints. Yet I felt no increase of my plaguey malady, but, on the contrary, am rather better. I had need, otherwise a pair of crutches for life were my prettiest help.
Walter dined with us to-day, Jane remaining with her mother. The good affectionate creatures leave us tomorrow. God send them a quick passage through the Irish Channel! They go to Gort, where Walter’s troop is lying — a long journey for winter days.
January 17. — Another proper day of mist, sleet, and rain, through which I navigated homeward. I imagine the distance to be a mile and a half. It is a good thing to secure as much exercise.
I observed in the papers my old friend Gifford’s funeral. He was a man of rare attainments and many excellent qualities. The translation of Juvenal is one of the best versions ever made of a classical author, and his satire of the Baviad and Maeviad squabashed at one blow a set of coxcombs who might have humbugged the world long enough.
As a commentator he was capital, could he but have suppressed his rancour against those who had preceded him in the task, but a misconstruction or misinterpretation, nay, the misplacing of a comma, was in Gifford’s eyes a crime worthy of the most severe animadversion. The same fault of extreme severity went through his critical labours, and in general he flagellated with so little pity, that people lost their sense of the criminal’s guilt in dislike of the savage pleasure which the executioner seemed to take in inflicting the punishment.
This lack of temper probably arose from indifferent health, for he was very valetudinary, and realised two verses, wherein he says fortune assigned him —
“ — — — One eye not over good,
Two sides that to their cost have stood
A ten years’ hectic cough,
Aches, stitches, all the various ills
That swell the dev’lish doctor’s bills,
And sweep poor mortals off.”
But he might also justly claim, as his gift, the moral qualities expressed in the next fine stanza —
“ — — — A soul
That spurns the crowd’s malign control,
A firm contempt of wrong:
Spirits above afflictions’ power,
And skill to soothe the lingering hour
With no inglorious song.”
January 18. — To go on with my subject — Gifford was a little man, dumpled up together, and so ill-made as to seem almost deformed, but with a singular expression of talent in his countenance. Though so little of an athlete, he nevertheless beat off Dr. Wolcot, when that celebrated person, the most unsparing calumniator of his time, chose to be offended with Gifford for satirising him in his turn. Peter Pindar made a most vehement attack, but Gifford had the best of the affray, and remained, I think, in triumphant possession of the field of action, and of the assailant’s cane. Gifford had one singular custom. He used always to have a duenna of a housekeeper to sit in his study with him while he wrote. This female companion died when I was in London, and his distress was extreme. I afterwards heard he got her place supplied. I believe there was no scandal in all this.
This is another vile day of darkness and rain, with a heavy yellow mist that might become Charing Cross — one of the benefits of our extended city; for that in our atmosphere was unknown till the extent of the buildings below Queen Street. M’Culloch of Ardwell called.
Wrought chiefly on a critique of Mrs. Charlotte Smith’s novels, and proofs.
January 19. — Uncle Adam, vide Inheritance, who retired last year from an official situation at the age of eighty-four, although subject to fits of giddiness, and although carefully watched by his accomplished daughter, is still in the habit of walking by himself if he can by possibility make an escape. The other day, in one of these excursions, he fell against a lamp-post, cut himself much, bled a good deal, and was carried home by two gentlemen. What said old Rugged-and-Tough? Why, that his fall against the post was the luckiest thing could have befallen him, for the bleeding was exactly the remedy for his disorder.
“Lo! stout hearts of men!”
Called on said “uncle,” also on David Hume, Lord Chief-Commissioner, Will Clerk, Mrs. Jobson, and others. My knee made no allowance for my politeness, but has begun to swell again, and to burn like a scorpion’s bite.
January 20. — Scarce slept all night; scarce able to stand or move this morning; almost an absolute fixture.
“A sleepless knight,