Walter Scott - The Man Behind the Books. Walter Scott
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for my books are not come. Would to God I could make it light thoughtless idleness, such as I used to have when the silly smart fancies ran in my brain like the bubbles in a glass of champagne, — as brilliant to my thinking, as intoxicating as evanescent. But the wine is somewhat on the lees. Perhaps it was but indifferent cider after all. Yet I am happy in this place, where everything looks friendly, from old Tom to young Nym. After all, he has little to complain of who has left so many things that like him.
March 14. — All yesterday spent in putting to rights books, and so forth. Not a word written except interlocutors. But this won’t do. I have tow on the rock, and it must be spun off. Let us see our present undertakings. 1. Napoleon. 2. Review Home, Cranbourne Chase, and the Mysteries. 3. Something for that poor faineant Gillies. 4. Essay on Ballad and Song. 5. Something on the modern state of France. These two last for the Prose Works. But they may
“ — do a little more,
And produce a little ore.”
Come, we must up and be doing. There is a rare scud without, which says, “Go spin, you jade, go spin.” I loitered on, and might have answered,
“My spinning-wheel is auld and stiff.”
Smoked a brace of cigars after dinner as a sedative. This is the first time I have smoked these two months. I was afraid the custom would master me. Went to work in the afternoon, and reviewed for Lockhart Mackenzie’s edition of Home’s Works. Proceeded as far as the eighth page.
March 15. — Kept still at the review till two o’clock; not that there is any hurry, but because I should lose my ideas, which are not worth preserving. Went on therefore. I drove over to Huntly Burn with Anne, then walked through the plantations, with Tom’s help to pull me through the snow-wreaths. Returned in a glow of heat and spirits. Corrected proof-sheets in the evening.
March 16. —
“A trifling day we have had here,
Begun with trifle and ended.”
But I hope no otherwise so ended than to meet the rubrick of the ballad, for it is but three o’clock. In the morning I was l’homme qui cherche — everything fell aside, — the very pens absconded, and crept in among a pack of letters and trumpery, where I had the devil’s work finding them. Thus the time before breakfast was idled, or rather fidgeted, away. Afterwards it was rather worse. I had settled to finish the review, when, behold, as I am apt to do at a set task, I jibb’d, and my thoughts would rather have gone with Waterloo. So I dawdled, as the women say, with both, now writing a page or two of the review, now reading a few pages of the Battle of Waterloo by Captain Pringle, a manuscript which is excellently-written. Well, I will find the advantage of it by and by. So now I will try to finish this accursed review, for there is nothing to prevent me, save the untractable character that hates to work on compulsion, whether of individuals or circumstances.
March 17. — I wrought away at the review and nearly finished it. Was interrupted, however, by a note from Ballantyne, demanding copy, which brought me back from Home and Mackenzie to Boney. I had my walk as usual, and worked nevertheless very fairly. Corrected proofs.
March 18. — Took up Boney again. I am now at writing, as I used to be at riding, slow, heavy, and awkward at mounting, but when I did get fixed in my saddle, could screed away with any one. I have got six pages ready for my learned Theban tomorrow morning. William Laidlaw and his brother George dined with me, but I wrote in the evening all the same.
March 19. — Set about my labours, but enter Captain John Ferguson from the Spanish Main, where he has been for three years. The honest tar sat about two hours, and I was heartily glad to see him again. I had a general sketch of his adventures, which we will hear more in detail when we can meet at kail-time. Notwithstanding this interruption I have pushed far into the seventh page. Well done for one day. Twenty days should finish me at this rate, and I read hard too. But allowance must be made for interruptions.
March 20. — To-day worked till twelve o’clock, then went with Anne on a visit of condolence to Mrs. Pringle of Yair and her family. Mr. Pringle was the friend both of my father and grandfather; the acquaintance of our families is at least a century old.
March 21. — Wrote till twelve, then out upon the heights though the day was stormy, and faced the gale bravely. Tom Purdie was not with me. He would have obliged me to keep the sheltered ground. But, I don’t know —
“Even in our ashes live our wonted fires.”
There is a touch of the old spirit in me yet that bids me brave the tempest, — the spirit that, in spite of manifold infirmities, made me a roaring boy in my youth, a desperate climber, a bold rider, a deep drinker, and a stout player at single-stick, of all which valuable qualities there are now but slender remains. I worked hard when I came in, and finished five pages.
March 22. — Yesterday I wrote to James Ballantyne, acquiescing in his urgent request to extend the two last volumes to about 600 each. I believe it will be no more than necessary after all, but makes one feel like a dog in a wheel, always moving and never advancing.
March 23. — When I was a child, and indeed for some years after, my amusement was in supposing to myself a set of persons engaged in various scenes which contrasted them with each other, and I remember to this day the accuracy of my childish imagination. This might be the effect of a natural turn to fictitious narrative, or it might be the cause of it, or there might be an action and reaction, or it does not signify a pin’s head how it is. But with a flash of this remaining spirit, I imagine my mother Duty to be a sort of old task-mistress, like the hag of the merchant Abudah, in the Tales of the Genii — not a hag though, by any means; on the contrary, my old woman wears a rich old-fashioned gown of black silk, with ruffles of triple blonde-lace, and a coif as rich as that of Pearling Jean; a figure and countenance something like Lady D.S.‘s twenty years ago; a clear blue eye, capable of great severity of expression, and conforming in that with a wrinkled brow, of which the ordinary expression is a serious approach to a frown — a cautionary and nervous shake of the head; in her withered hand an ebony staff with a crutch head, — a Tompion gold watch, which annoys all who know her by striking the quarters as regularly as if one wished to hear them. Occasionally she has a small scourge of nettles, which I feel her lay across my fingers at this moment, and so Tace is Latin for a candle. I have 150 pages to write yet.
March 24. — Does Duty not wear a pair of round old-fashioned silver buckles? Buckles she has, but they are square ones. All belonging to Duty is rectangular. Thus can we poor children of imagination play with the ideas we create, like children with soap-bubbles. Pity that we pay for it at other times by starting at our shadows.
“Man but a rush against Othello’s breast.”
The hard work still proceeds, varied only by a short walk.
March 25. — Hard work still, but went to Huntly Burn on foot, and returned in the carriage. Walked well and stoutly — God be praised! — and prepared a whole bundle of proofs and copy for the Blucher to morrow; that damned work will certainly end some time or other. As it drips and dribbles out on the paper, I think of the old drunken Presbyterian under the spout.
March 26. — Despatched packets. Colonel and Captain Ferguson arrived to breakfast. I had previously determined to give myself a day to write letters; and, as I expect John Thomson to dinner, this day will do as well as another. I cannot keep up with the world without shying a letter now and then. It is true the greatest happiness I could think of would be to be rid of the world entirely. Excepting my own family, I have little pleasure in the world, less business in it, and am heartily careless about all its concerns. Mr. Thomson came accordingly — not John Thomson of Duddingston, whom the letter led me to expect, but John Anstruther Thomson of Charlton [Fifeshire], the son-in-law of Lord Ch.-Commissioner.
March 27. — Wrote two leaves this morning, and gave the day after breakfast to my visitor, who is a country gentleman of the best description;