[404] Sir Walter had written to Morritt on his retirement from the Court
of Session, and his old friend responded in the following cordial
letter:--
"_November, 1830_.
"MY DEAR SCOTT,--... I am sorry to read what you tell me of your
lameness, but legs are not so obedient to many of us at our age as they
were twenty years ago, _non immunes ab illis malis sumus_, as the
learned Partridge and Lilly's Grammar tells us. I find mine swell, and
am forced to bandage, and should not exert them with impunity in walking
as I used to do, either in long walks or in rough ground. I am glad,
however, you have escaped from the Court of Session, even at the risk of
sometimes feeling the want you allude to of winter society. You think
you shall tire of solitude in these months: and in spite of books and
the love of them, I have discovered by experience the possibility of
such a feeling; but can we not in some degree remedy this? Why should we
both be within two days' march of each other and not sometimes together,
as of old? How I have enjoyed in your house the _summum bonum_ of Sir
Wm. Temple's philosophy, 'something which is not Home and yet with the
liberty of Home, which is not Solitude, and yet hath the ease of
Solitude, and which is only found in the house of an old friend.' Our
summer months are well provided with summer friends. You have plenty and
to spare of sightseers, Lions, and their hunters, and I have travellers,
moor-shooters, etc., in equal abundance, but now when the country is
abandoned, and Walter is leaving you, how I wish you would bring dear
Anne and partake for a while our little circle here--we stir not till
Christmas--if before that time such a pleasure could be attainable.
Well, then, for auld lang syne, will you not, now that the Session has
no claim on you, combine our forces against the possibility of _ennui_.
If you will do this, I will positively, and in good faith, hold myself
in readiness to do as much by you in the next November, and in every
alternate November, nor shall the month ever pass without bringing us
together. Do not tell me, as Wm. Rose would not fail to do if I gave him
so good an opportunity, that my proposal would be a greater bore than
the solitude it destroyed. It shall be no such thing, but only the
trouble of a journey. I feel too, as I grow older, the _vis inertiæ_,
and fancy that locomotion is more difficult, but let us abjure the
doctrine, for it baulks much pleasure. Pray--pray as the children
say--come to us, think of it first as not impossible, then weigh fairly
the objections, and if they resolve themselves into mere aversion to
change, overcome them by an assurance that the very change will give
value to the resumption of your home avocations. If I plead thus
strongly, perhaps it is because I feel the advantage to myself. Time has
made gaps in the list of old friends as in yours; young ones, though
very cheering and useful, are not, and cannot be, the same. I enjoy them
too when present, but in absence I regret the others. What remains but
to make the most of those we have still left when both body and mind
permit us [to enjoy] them. I have books; also a room that shall [be your
own], and a [pony] off which I can shoot, which I will engage shall
neither tumble himself or allow you to tumble in any excursion on which
you may venture. Dear Anne will find and make my womenkind as happy as
you will make me, and we have only to beg you to stay long and be most
cordially welcome. ... Adieu, dear Scott. I fear you will not come for
all I can say. I could almost lose a tooth or a finger (if it were
necessary) to find myself mistaken. Come, and come soon; stay long; be
assured of welcome.
"All unite in this and in love to you and Anne, with your assured
friend,