Dec. 9, 1893. Scott's Letters.
"_All Balzac's novels occupy one shelf. The new edition fifty
volumes long"_
--says Bishop Blougram. But for Scott the student will soon have to
hire a room. The novels and poems alone stretch away into just sixty
volumes in Cadell's edition; and this is only the beginning. At this
very moment two new editions (one of which, at least, is
indispensable) are unfolding their magnificent lengths, and report
says that Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton already project a third, with
introductory essays by Mr. Barrie. Then the Miscellaneous Prose Works
by that untiring hand extend to some twenty-eight or thirty volumes.
And when Scott stops, his biographer and his commentators begin, and
all with like liberal notions of space and time. Nor do they deceive
themselves. We take all they give, and call for more. Three years ago,
and fifty-eight from the date of Scott's death, his Journal was
published; and although Lockhart had drawn upon it for one of the
fullest biographies in the language, the little that Lockhart had left
unused was sufficient to make its publication about the most important
literary event of the year 1890.
And now Mr. David Douglas, the publisher of the "Journal," gives us in
two volumes a selection from the familiar letters preserved at
Abbotsford. The period covered by this correspondence is from 1797,
the year of Sir Walter's marriage, to 1825, when the "Journal"
begins--"covered," however, being too large a word for the first seven
years, which are represented by seven letters only; it is only in 1806
that we start upon something like a consecutive story. Mr. Douglas
speaks modestly of his editorial work. "I have done," he says, "little
more than arrange the correspondence in chronological order, supplying
where necessary a slight thread of continuity by annotation and
illustration." It must be said that Mr. Douglas has done this
exceedingly well. There is always a note where a note is wanted, and
never where information would be superfluous. On the taste and
judgment of his selection one who has not examined the whole mass of
correspondence at Abbotsford can only speak on _a priori_ grounds. But
it is unlikely that the writer of these exemplary footnotes has made
many serious mistakes in compiling his text.
Man's perennial and pathetic curiosity about virtue has no more
striking example than the public eagerness to be acquainted with every
detail of Scott's life. For what, as a mere story, is that life?--a
level narrative of many prosperous years; a sudden financial crash;
and the curtain falls on the struggle of a tired and dying gentleman
to save his honor. Scott was born in 1771 and died in 1832, and all
that is special in his life belongs to the last six years of it. Even
so the materials for the story are of the simplest--enough, perhaps,
under the hand of an artist to furnish forth a tale of the length of
Trollope's _The Warden_. In picturesqueness, in color, in wealth of
episode and +peripeteia+, Scott's career will not compare for a
moment with the career of Coleridge, for instance. Yet who could
endure to read the life of Coleridge in six volumes? De Quincey, in an
essay first published the other day by Dr. Japp, calls the story of
the Coleridges "a perfect romance ... a romance of beauty, of
intellectual power, of misfortune suddenly illuminated from heaven, of
prosperity suddenly overcast by the waywardness of the individual."
But the "romance" has been written twice and thrice, and desperately
dull reading it makes in each case. Is it then an accident that
Coleridge has been unhappy in his biographers, while Lockhart
succeeded once for all, and succeeded so splendidly?
It is surely no accident. Coleridge is an ill man to read about just
as certainly as Scott is a good man to read about; and the secret is
just that Scott had character and Coleridge had not. In writing of the
man of the "graspless hand," the biographer's own hand in time grows
graspless on the pen; and in reading of him our hands too grow
graspless on the page. We pursue the man and come upon group after
group of his friends; and each as we demand "What have you done with
Coleridge?" answers "He was here just now, and we helped him forward a
little way." Our best biographies are all of men and women of
character--and, it may be added, of beautiful character--of Johnson,
Scott, and Charlotte Brontë.
There are certain people whose biographies _ought_ to be long. Who
could learn too much concerning Lamb? And concerning Scott, who will
not agree with Lockhart's remark in the preface to his abridged
edition of 1848:--"I should have been more willing to produce an
enlarged edition; for the interest of Sir Walter's history lies, I
think, peculiarly in its minute details"? You may explore here, and
explore there, and still you find pure gold; for the man was gold
right through.
So in the present volume every line is of interest because we refer it
to Scott's known character and test it thereby. The result is always
the same; yet the employment does not weary. In themselves the letters
cannot stand, as mere writing, beside the letters of Cowper, or of
Lamb. They are just the common-sense epistles of a man who to his last
day remained too modest to believe in the extent of his own genius.
The letters in this collection which show most acuteness on literary
matters are not Scott's, but Lady Louisa Stuart's, who appreciated
the Novels on their appearance (their faults as well as their merits)
with a judiciousness quite wonderful in a contemporary. Scott's
literary observations (with the exception of one passage where the
attitude of an English gentleman towards literature is stated
thus--"he asks of it that it shall arouse him from his habitual
contempt of what goes on about him") are much less amusing; and his
letters to Joanna Baillie the dullest in the volume, unless it be the
answers which Joanna Baillie sent. Best of all, perhaps, is the
correspondence (scarcely used by Lockhart) between Scott and Lady
Abercorn, with its fitful intervals of warmth and reserve. This alone
would justify Mr. Douglas's volumes. But, indeed, while nothing can be
found now to alter men's conception of Scott, any book about him is
justified, even if it do no more than heap up superfluous testimony to
the beauty of his character.
* * * * *
June 15, 1895. A racial disability.
Since about one-third of the number of my particular friends happen to
be Scotsmen, it has always distressed and annoyed me that, with the
best will in the world, I have never been able to understand on what
principle that perfervid race conducts its enthusiasms. Mine is a
racial disability, of course; and the converse has been noted by no
less a writer than Stevenson, in the story of his journey "Across the
Plains":--
"There were no emigrants direct from Europe--save one German
family and a knot of Cornish miners who kept grimly by
themselves, one reading the New Testament all day long through
steel spectacles, the rest discussing privately the secrets of
their old-world mysterious race. Lady Hester Stanhope believed
she could make something great of the Cornish; for my part I can
make nothing of them at all. A division of races, older and more
original than that of Babel, keeps this dose, esoteric family
apart from neighbouring Englishmen."
The loss on my side, to be sure, would be immensely the greater, were
it not happily certain that I _can_ make something of Scotsmen; can,
and indeed do, make friends of them.
The Cult of Burns.
All the same, this disability weighs me down with a sense of hopeless
obtuseness when I consider the deportment of the average intelligent
Scot at a Burns banquet, or a Burns _conversazione_, or a Burns
festival, or the unveiling of a Burns statue, or the putting up of a
pillar on some spot made famous by Burns. All over the world--and all
under it, too, when their time comes--Scotsmen are preparing
after-dinner speeches about Burns. The great globe swings round out of
the sun into the dark; there is always midnight somewhere; and always
in this shifting region the eye of imagination sees orators
gesticulating over Burns; companies of heated exiles with crossed arms
shouting "Auld Lang Syne"; lesser groups--if haply they be
lesser--reposing under tables, still in honor of Burns. And as the
vast continents sweep "eastering out of the high shadow which reaches
beyond the moon," and as new nations, with _their_ cities and
villages, their mountains and seashores, rise up on the morning-side,
lo! fresh troops, and still fresh troops, and yet again fresh troops,
wend or are carried out of action with the dawn.
Scott and Burns.
None but a churl would wish this enthusiasm abated. But why is it all
lavished on Burns? That is what gravels the Southron. Why Burns? Why
not Sir Walter? Had I the honor to be a fellow-countryman of Scott,
and had I command of the racial tom-tom, it seems to me that I would
tund upon it in honor of that great man until I dropped. To me, a
Southron, Scott is the most imaginative, and at the same time the
justest, writer of our language since Shakespeare died. To say this is
not to suggest that he is comparable with Shakespeare. Scott himself,
sensible as ever, wrote in his _Journal_, "The blockheads talk of my
being like Shakespeare--not fit to tie his brogues." "But it is also
true," said Mr. Swinburne, in his review of the _Journal_, "that if
there were or could be any man whom it would not be a monstrous
absurdity to compare with Shakespeare as a creator of men and inventor
of circumstance, that man could be none other than Scott." Greater
poems than his have been written; and, to my mind, one or two novels
better than his best. But when one considers the huge mass of his work,
and its quality in the mass; the vast range of his genius, and its
command over that range; who shall be compared with him?
These are the reflections which occur, somewhat obviously, to the
Southron. As for character, it is enough to say that Scott was one of
the best men who ever walked on this planet; and that Burns was not.
But Scott was not merely good: he was winningly good: of a character
so manly, temperate, courageous that men read his Life, his Journal,
his Letters with a thrill, as they might read of Rorke's Drift or
Chitral. How then are we to account for the undeniable fact that his
countrymen, in public at any rate, wax more enthusiastic over Burns?
Is it that the _homeliness_ of Burns appeals to them as a wandering
race? Is it because, in farthest exile, a line of Burns takes their
hearts straight back to Scotland?--as when Luath the collie, in "The
Twa Dogs," describes the cotters' New Year's Day:--
"That merry day the year begins,
They bar the door on frosty winds;
The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream,
An' sheds a heart-inspirin' steam;
The luntin' pipe an' sneeshin' mill
Are handed round wi' richt guid will;
The cantie auld folks crackin' crouse,
The young anes rantin' through the house,--
My heart has been sae fain to see them,
That I for joy hae barkit wi' them."
That is one reason, no doubt. But there is another, I suspect. With
all his immense range Scott saw deeply into character; but he did not,
I think, see very deeply into feeling. You may extract more of the
_lacrimæ rerum_ from the story of his own life than from all his
published works put together. The pathos of Lammermoor is
taken-for-granted pathos. If you deny this, you will not deny, at any
rate, that the pathos of the last scene of _Lear_ is quite beyond his
scope. Yet this is not more certainly beyond his scope than is the
feeling in many a single line or stanza of Burns'. Verse after verse,
line after line, rise up for quotation--
"Thou'lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate."
Or,
"O pale, pale now, those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed sae fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust
The heart that lo'ed me dearly--
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary."
Or,
"Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted."
Scott left an enormous mass of writing behind him, and almost all of
it is good. Burns left very much less, and among it a surprising
amount of inferior stuff. But such pathos as the above Scott cannot
touch. I can understand the man who holds that these deeps of pathos
should not be probed in literature: and am not sure that I wholly
disagree with him. The question certainly is discutable and worth
discussing. But such pathos, at any rate, is immensely popular: and
perhaps this will account for the hold which Burns retains on the
affections of a race which has a right to be at least thrice as proud
of Scott.
However, if Burns is honored at the feast, Scott is read by the
fireside. Hardly have the rich Dryburgh and Border editions issued
from the press before Messrs. Archibald Constable and Co. are bringing
out their reprint of the famous 48-volume edition of the Novels; and
Mr. Barrie is supposed to be meditating another, with introductory
notes of his own upon each Novel. In my own opinion nothing has ever
beaten, or come near to beat, the 48-volume "Waverley" of 1829; and
Messrs. Constable and Co. were happily inspired when they decided to
make this the basis of their new edition. They have improved upon it
in two respects. The paper is lighter and better. And each novel is
kept within its own covers, whereas in the old editions a volume would
contain the end of one novel and beginning of another. The original
illustrations, by Wilkie, Landseer, Leslie, Stanfield, Bonington, and
the rest, have been retained, in order to make the reprint complete.
But this seems to me a pity; for a number of them were bad to begin
with, and will be worse than ever now, being reproduced (as I
understand) from impressions of the original plates. To do without
illustrations were a counsel of perfection. But now that the novels
have become historical, surely it were better to illustrate them with
authentic portraits of Scott, pictures of scenery, facsimiles of MSS.,
and so on, than with (_e.g._) a worn reproduction of what Mr. F.P.
Stephanoff thought that Flora Mac-Ivor looked like while playing the
harp and introducing a few irregular strains which harmonized well
with the distant waterfall and the soft sigh of the evening breeze in
the rustling leaves of an aspen which overhung the fair
harpress--especially as F.P. Stephanoff does not seem to have known
the difference between an aspen and a birch.
In short, did it not contain the same illustrations, this edition
would probably excel even that of 1828. As it is, after many
disappointments, we now have a cheap Waverley on what has always been
the best model.
A Protest.
'SIR,--In your 'Literary Causerie' of last week ... the question
is discussed why the name of Burns raises in Scotsmen such
unbounded enthusiasm while that of Scott falls comparatively
flat. This question has puzzled many another Englishman besides
'A.T.Q.C.' And yet the explanation is not far to seek: Burns
appeals to the hearts and feelings of the masses in a way Scott
never does. 'A.T.Q.C.' admits this, and gives quotations in
support. These quotations, however excellent in their way, are
not those that any Scotsman would trust to in support of the
above proposition. A Scotsman would at once appeal to 'Scots wha
hae,' 'Auld Lang Syne,' and 'A man's a man for a' that.' The very
familiarity of these quotations has bred the proverbial contempt.
Think of the soul-inspiring, 'fire-eyed fury' of 'Scots wha hae';
the glad, kind, ever fresh greeting of 'Auld Lang Syne'; the
manly, sturdy independence of 'A man's a man for a' that,' and
who can wonder at the ever-increasing enthusiasm for Burns' name?
Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head and a' that?
The coward slave we pass him by--
We dare be poor for a' that.'
* * * * *
'The rank is but the guinea stamp--
The man's the gowd for a' that.'
"Nor is it in his patriotism, independence, and conviviality
alone that Burns touches every mood of a Scotsman's heart. There
is an enthusiasm of humanity about Burns which you will hardly
find equalled in any other author, and which most certainly does
not exist in Scott.
'Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.'
* * * * *
'Why has man this will and power
To make his fellow mourn?'
"These quotations might be multiplied were it necessary; but I
think enough has been said to explain what puzzles 'A.T.Q.C.' I
have an unbounded admiration of Sir W. Scott--quite as great as
'A.T.Q.C.' Indeed, I think him the greatest of all novelists;
but, as a Scot, somewhat Anglicised by a residence in London of
more than a quarter of a century, I unhesitatingly say that I
would rather be the author of the above three lyrics of Burns'
than I would be the author of all Scott's novels. Certain I am
that if immortality were my aim I should be much surer of it in
the one case than the other. I cannot conceive 'Scots wha hae,'
'Auld Lang Syne,' etc., ever dying. Are there any of Scott's
writings of which the same could be said? I doubt it....
--I am yours, etc., "J.B.
"London, June 18th, 1895."
The hopelessness of the difficulty is amusingly, if rather
distressingly, illustrated by this letter. Here again you have the
best will in the world. Nothing could be kindlier than "J.B.'s" tone.
As a Scot he has every reason to be impatient of stupidity on the
subject of Burns: yet he takes real pains to set me right. Alas! his
explanations leave me more than ever at sea, more desperate than ever
of understanding _what exactly it is_ in Burns that kindles this
peculiar enthusiasm in Scotsmen and drives them to express it in
feasting and oratory.
After casting about for some time, I suggested that Burns--though in
so many respects immeasurably inferior to Scott--frequently wrote with
a depth of feeling which Scott could not command. On second thoughts,
this was wrongly put. Scott may have _possessed_ the feeling, together
with notions of his own, on the propriety of displaying it in his
public writings. Indeed, after reading some of his letters again, I am
sure he did possess it. Hear, for instance, how he speaks of Dalkeith
Palace, in one of his letters to Lady Louisa Stuart:--
"I am delighted my dear little half god-daughter is turning out
beautiful. I was at her christening, poor soul, and took the
oaths as representing I forget whom. That was in the time when
Dalkeith was Dalkeith; how changed alas! I was forced there the
other day by some people who wanted to see the house, and I felt
as if it would have done me a great deal of good to have set my
manhood aside, to get into a corner and cry like a schoolboy.
Every bit of furniture, now looking old and paltry, had some
story and recollections about it, and the deserted gallery, which
I have seen so happily filled, seemed waste and desolate like
Moore's
'Banquet hall deserted,
Whose flowers are dead,
Whose odours fled,
And all but I departed.'
But it avails not either sighing or moralising; to have known the
good and the great, the wise and the witty, is still, on the
whole, a pleasing reflection, though saddened by the thought that
their voices are silent and their halls empty."
Yes, indeed, Scott possessed deep feelings, though he did not exhibit
them to the public.
Now Burns does exhibit his deep feelings, as I demonstrated by
quotations. And I suggested that it is just his strength of emotion,
his command of pathos and readiness to employ it, by which Burns
appeals to the mass of his countrymen. On this point "J.B." expressly
agrees with me; but--he will have nothing to do with my quotations!
"However excellent in their way" these quotations may be, they "are
not those that any Scotsman would trust to in support of the above
proposition"; the above proposition being that "Burns appeals to the
hearts and feelings of the masses in a way that Scott never does."
You see, I have concluded rightly; but on wrong evidence. Let us see,
then, what evidence a Scotsman will call to prove that Burns is a
writer of deep feeling. "A Scotsman," says "J.B." "would at once
appeal to "Scots wha hae," "Auld Lang Syne," and "A man's a man for a'
that." ... Think of the soul-inspiring, 'fire-eyed fury' of 'Scots wha
hae'; the glad, kind, ever fresh greeting of 'Auld Lang Syne'; the
manly, sturdy independence of 'A man's a man for a' that,' and who can
wonder at the ever-increasing enthusiasm for Burns' name?... I would
rather," says "J.B.," "be the author of the above three lyrics than I
would be the author of all Scott's novels."
Here, then, is the point at which I give up my attempts, and admit my
stupidity to be incurable. I grant "J.B." his "Auld Lang Syne." I
grant the poignancy of--
"We twa hae paidl't i' the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine:
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin auld lang syne."
I see poetry and deep feeling in this. I can see exquisite poetry and
deep feeling in "Mary Morison"--
"Yestreen when to the trembling string,
The dance ga'ed thro' the lighted ha',
To thee my fancy took its wing,
I sat, but neither heard nor saw:
Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,
And yor the toast a' the town,
I sigh'd and said amang them a'
'Ye are na Mary Morison.'"
I see exquisite poetry and deep feeling in the Lament for the Earl of
Glencairn--
"The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!"
But--it is only honest to speak one's opinion and to hope, if it be
wrong, for a better mind--I do _not_ find poetry of any high order
either in "Scots wha hae" or "A man's a man for a' that." The former
seems to me to be very fine rant--inspired rant, if you will--hovering
on the borders of poetry. The latter, to be frank, strikes me as
rather poor rant, neither inspired nor even quite genuine, and in no
proper sense poetry at all. And "J.B." simply bewilders my Southron
intelligence when he quotes it as an instance of deeply emotional
song.
"Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
His riband, star and a' that.
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a' that."
The proper attitude, I should imagine, for a man "of independent mind"
in these circumstances--assuming for the moment that ribands and stars
_are_ bestowed on imbeciles--would be a quiet disdain. The above
stanza reminds me rather of ill-bred barking. People of assured
self-respect do not call other people "birkies" and "coofs," or "look
and _laugh_ at a' that"--at least, not so loudly. Compare these
verses of Burns with Samuel Daniel's "Epistle to the Countess of
Cumberland," and you will find a higher manner altogether--
"He that of such a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong,
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind
Of vanity and malice pierce to wrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same;
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of men survey?
"And with how free an eye doth he look down
Upon these lower regions of turmoil?" ...
As a piece of thought, "A man's a man for a' that" unites the two
defects of obviousness and inaccuracy. As for the deep feeling, I
hardly see where it comes in--unless it be a feeling of wounded and
blatant but militant self-esteem. As for the _poetry_--well, "J.B."
had rather have written it than have written one-third of Scott's
novels. Let us take him at less than his word: he would rather have
written "A man's a man for a' that" than "Ivanhoe," "Redgauntlet," and
"The Heart of Midlothian."
_Ma sonties!_