SCOTT'S OWN STORY
Walter Scott was born August 15th, 1771, in a house belonging to his
father at the head of the College Wynd in Edinburgh, Scotland. The
family was well-to-do and happily situated. But when he was eighteen
months old, the little lad had a serious illness which left him a
cripple. Every effort was made to cure his lameness. He was sent to
live with his grand-parents on the farm at Sandy Knowe, but while he
gained strength, he was slow in learning to walk and his left leg
remained shrunken. He grew up tall and strong, unusually good
looking and attractive. When he was a man he thought nothing of
walking thirty miles in a day. Apparently, his lameness had no
influence upon his character, except that it helped to make him
considerate. His biographer says that he was always tender to those
who had any bodily misfortune.
Edinburgh is a beautiful city. Those who belong to it love their
romantic town with devotion. But it was fortunate for Walter Scott,
and for us also, that he spent some of his early years on a farm.
What he saw and learned at that time influenced all his future life.
A story is told that when he was three years old, and unable to help
himself, because he was so lame, he was left alone {29} in the open
air at some distance from the farmhouse, as his aunt often wisely
left him. A thunder storm came up and when they hastened to the
little fellow they found him lying on his back, clapping his hands at
each flash of lightning, and crying out, "Bonny! bonny!" There was
never anything lacking in Walter Scott's happy courage, or in his
tranquil enjoyment of the beauties he saw in nature or read about in
books.
His aunt used to read aloud to him. Like some other boys one has
known, he played out by himself the battles described as he imagined
they might have been fought. He was fascinated by old tales, old
ballads and by history. From his early manhood he had a passion for
all kinds of antiquarian research. When he was a lad he was sent to
Edinburgh High School, a famous school, and here after school hours
and during recess he became known to the other boys as a wonderful
adept at relating stories. His audiences were closely attentive and
delighted. He says of himself in a short fragment of autobiography
that he was not a dunce, "but an incorrigibly idle imp". Perhaps his
chief pursuit was reading. Some of the books he read were Ossian,
which is compact of Highland myth and story, Spenser, an exquisite
English poet, many novelists and other Poets, and the great
collection of ballads known as Percy's _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_.
These are all manly books, and stir the reader's blood and
imagination, as Sir Philip Sidney said, like the sound of a trumpet.
After Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University, where boys went
at that time when {30} they were very young, Scott became a lawyer.
The study of Scots law was to him an unending source of interest.
But when he was a young lawyer without much to do, he was in the
habit of telling romances to other young lawyers like himself who
were waiting for clients. As the boys at school used to be
fascinated, so the young lawyers later came under the same spell.
We have by this time the origins of Scott's great work, a natural and
unconquerable genius for writing and romance, love for romantic
Edinburgh and all Scotland, the farm at Sandy Knowe, ballads, tales
and history, Scots law, old customs, the characters and the people
whom he knew and loved.
He began by translating songs from other languages, then by editing
and publishing old ballads and songs belonging to his own country,
what is called minstrelsy, the songs of wandering poets. His first
book, _Minstrelsy of the Border_, was published very early in the
nineteenth century. He married, in 1797, Miss Charpentier, the
daughter of a refugee from the French Revolution. They lived in a
cottage at Lasswade, six miles from Edinburgh. Later, their home was
at Ashestiel, also in the country, an old house on the south bank of
the Tweed. His own first writing, a poetical story, _The Lay of the
Last Minstrel_, was published in 1805. He held during his life
various law offices under the Crown, beginning as Sheriff Depute,
then Sheriff, and later a Clerk of the Court of Session. Although he
wrote many books he made a point of keeping other employment, so
writing might be, as he said, not a bad crutch, but {31} a good
staff. But by 1805, it was plain that literature was to be his main
occupation.
Scott had a singularly affectionate nature, which in itself is almost
sufficient to make a happy life. With his first fee as a lawyer, he
bought a silver taper stand for his mother's desk. Lockhart writes
of him, "No man cared less about popular admiration and applause; but
for the least chill on the affection of any near and dear to him he
had the sensitiveness of a maiden." We find as we learn to know
people that powers of affection and love for those who belong to them
are marks of the finest natures.
Scott was considerate of the feelings of everyone, and he was greatly
loved. He made much money by his writings, first by his romantic
verse which took the world by storm, and later by the long series of
great novels, which were published at first anonymously, and only
acknowledged by Scott as his own with reluctance years after he began
publishing them. With his love for beautiful scenery, for Scotland,
and for everything belonging to dignified and delightful ways of
living, it was natural that Scott, from the result of his labours,
should buy an estate and build on it a castle called Abbotsford.
Here he lived with his family, dealing bountifully and kindly with
many dependents and followers. He had tender care for all his
neighbours, gentle and simple, as the old phrase runs. Scott valued
what he had because it gave him the power to be good to other people.
"Sir Walter speaks to every man as if they were blood relations" was
the description given of his manner by one of the men who worked {32}
on his estate to an inquirer. Tom Purdie, a personal attendant, had
been a salmon poacher, and was one of Scott's great friends.
It is difficult to give a sufficiently convincing picture of his
happy, beneficient, affectionate life, spent in beautiful
surroundings, in friendliness and family joys, and yet at the same
time do justice to Scott's incessant toil. He worked unstintedly,
and he loved his work. He was so popular and famous, it seemed all
he had to do was to sit down and write a novel and the world would
ring with its fame. But Scott was at work generally before six
o'clock in the morning. He was a man of remarkable industry as well
as of unusual gifts. Yet, those who knew him, noticed first and
valued most his kindness and simplicity.
There are two books in which we can find details of the character and
the life of Scott. These are _The Life of Sir Walter Scott_, written
by his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, and Scott's _Journal_, written by
himself, and meant only for his own reading.
He was a man of great reasonableness and common sense. Lord
Cockburn, a distinguished lawyer, who was a friend, said that in his
opinion Walter Scott's sense was a still more wonderful thing than
his genius. He did not care to talk much about his writing, but
rather of what he had done or seen. There was so little made of
Scott's writing in his home, either by himself or anyone else, that
his children did not know much about it. Someone asked Sophia, his
eldest daughter, how she liked one of his books. Her answer was that
she had not read it. Walter, the eldest boy, came {33} home from
school one day, plainly showing signs of having been in a fight, and
said that the other boys had called him a "lassie". One of the boys
had said something about _The Lady of the Lake_, and he was unaware
that there was a book of that name written by his father. These
incidents are related to show how simple and natural were Scott's
ideas of himself and his work. He was a rapid, even at times a
careless, writer, but he was incontestably a great writer. He was,
however, greater as a man.
No one can read his life without being charmed by Scott's love for
his dogs. Cats, too, were favourites in the family circle. All the
domestic creatures were as fond of Scott as he was of them. You will
find in Lockhart's _Life_, chapter nine, a description by Washington
Irving, the American author, of a visit to Abbotsford, and of Scott
and his dogs. It is, perhaps, as vivid a picture as has ever been
drawn of Scott.
During the last years of his life, Scott undertook the payment of a
heavy debt. He had been partner in a publishing enterprise which was
conducted with far too little reasonable caution in entering upon
undertakings and expenditure. Although Scott was not an active
partner, and unfortunately had not informed himself about the firm's
transactions, he was liable for the full amount of the debt. He
refused to become a bankrupt and set himself the enormous task of
paying every creditor in full. This last labour of his life is a
heroic story. Friends, some of them unknown friends, offered him
money. His sense of honour was so high that he would allow no
mitigation {34} of his task. He laboured single-handed and paid back
large sums to his creditors. The final payments were arranged only
after his death. He had cut down his way of living at Abbotsford.
He allowed himself little rest and no luxury. Any boy who reads this
story will learn from it something of the nature of business and of
what is wise and right in business dealings. He will learn to love
too, as we all may, Sir Walter's radiant sense of the beauty of
honour.
We discover at last the true reason why the characters in Scott's
novels are great. It is because he is himself great and noble, with
such a nobility that in all likelihood the world will keep him always
as one of its heroes. His last words to his son-in-law, Lockhart,
"My dear, be a good man", come into the minds of many people every
now and then as they live their daily lives and bring them help and
encouragement. We read Scott's novels because they tell thrilling
and romantic stories; and we read them again for their nobility,
high-mindedness, dignity and beauty.
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