by John Buchan
Let it not be imagined that the decision was easy. For such a man there could be no rougher ford to ride. He had a proud spirit which loved to give and found it hard to take; he had that fundamental trait of the aristocrat that he was of the spending type, always ready to hazard himself and his substance. Now he had to submit to charity and pity and patronage. He, who had been the first citizen of Scotland, was in the same position as a bankrupt tradesman in the Luckenbooths. But this downfall in worldly prestige was the least part of his burden. The highroad of life, which had been so crowded and coloured, was exchanged for an alley which ran drab and monotonous to the grave. Danger, excitement, action were the breath of his being, but now there was for him only unfeatured drudgery. Courage of the moss-trooping sort he had in plenty, but this required a sterner fortitude.
There have been critics of the course he took. Thomas Carlyle, for example, has a curious passage.—”It was a hard trial. He met it proudly, bravely — like a brave, proud man of the world. Perhaps there had been a prouder way still: to have owned honestly that he was unsuccessful, then, all bankrupt, broken, in the world’s goods and repute; and to have turned elsewhere for some refuge. Refuge did lie elsewhere; but it was not Scott’s course, or fashion of mind, to seek it there. To say, Hitherto I have been all in the wrong, and this my fame and pride, now broken, was an empty delusion and spell of accursed witchcraft! It was difficult to flesh and blood! He said, I will retrieve myself, and make my point good yet, or die for it.” It is not easy to see what the critic would be at. The pomps of the world Scott did most whole-heartedly renounce in word and deed; they had never sat very near his heart. He had no wish to restore the resplendent Abbotsford of 1825, and asked only a shelter and a home. What he desired was to retrieve his honour. Carlyle’s passage is merely loose rhetoric. If it means anything, it advocates some kind of theatrical renunciation and retirement, which would have meant that his creditors would not have been paid, and that innocent people would have suffered from the results of his folly. Such a course would have been picturesque from the standpoint of the sentimentalist, but it would have been the shirking of a plain duty, and repugnant to Scott’s manly good sense. He had made a blunder and it was his business to atone for it. Had he robed himself in his literary mantle and retired to a shieling among the hills to meditate on the transience of human glory, there would have been no atonement.
[The secret world]
Scott was aware of the path he had been walking and its dangers, and therefore faced catastrophe with something of the calm of the man who has counted the risks. He had played with fairy gold, but had not thereby lost touch with reality. His fault was that of the gambler, but he was ready to face the consequences. The secret world to which he had so often had recourse had not filmed his eyes, but it had helped perhaps to dull his conscience. As Clarendon wrote of the Marquis of Newcastle, “the articles of action were no sooner over, than he retired to his delightfull Company, Musick.” Scott’s error cannot be excused on the ground of the artistic temperament which is at sea among facts; he understood the situation at least as well as Constable and far better than James Ballantyne. Nevertheless there is something in Lockhart’s plea that this gambling element in him, this aversion to setting his affairs in order, was an inevitable corollary of his genius, and, as a matter of sober history, was largely responsible for his achievements.
Had not that adversity been preceded by the perpetual spur of pecuniary demands, he, who began life with such quick appetites for all its ordinary enjoyments, would never have devoted himself to the rearing of that gigantic monument of genius, labour and power, which his works now constitute. The imagination, which has bequeathed so much to delight and humanize mankind, would have developed few of its miraculous resources except in the embellishment of his own personal existence. The enchanted spring might have sunk into earth with the rod which bade it gush, and left us no living waters. We cannot understand, but we may nevertheless respect even the strangest caprices of the marvellous combination of faculties to which our debt is so weighty. We should try to picture to ourselves what the actual intellectual life must have been of the author of such a series of romances. We should ask ourselves whether, filling and discharging so soberly and gracefully as he did the common functions of social man, it was not, nevertheless, impossible but that he must have passed most of his life in other worlds than ours; and we ought hardly to think it a grievous circumstance that their bright visitors should have left a dazzle sometimes on the eyes which he so gently reopened on our prosaic realities. He had, on the whole, a command over the powers of his mind — I mean that he could control and divert his thoughts and reflections with a readiness, firmness and easy security of sway — beyond what I find it possible to trace in any other artist’s recorded character and history; but he could not habitually fling them into the region of dreams throughout a long series of years, and yet be expected to find a corresponding satisfaction in bending them to the less agreeable considerations which the circumstances of any human being’s practical lot in this world must present in abundance. The training to which he accustomed himself could not leave him as he was when he began. He must pay the penalty, as well as reap the glory, of this lifelong abstraction of reverie, this self-abandonment of Fairyland.
III
A meeting of his creditors was held on 20th January, and his old friend Sir William Forbes was made chairman. Scott’s lawyer, Mr John Gibson, put forward a scheme for a Trust deed, announcing that it was his client’s “earnest desire to use every exertion in his power on behalf of his creditors, and by a diligent employment of his talents and the adoption of a strictly economical mode of life to secure as speedily as possible full payment to all concerned.” The liabilities were stated at the time as £104,081 and the estate available for realization as £48,494. Among Scott’s assets were included his Edinburgh house, his library and furniture, and the value of the life-rent of Abbotsford. The proposal was unanimously accepted. Scott’s spirits rose. He refused the suggestion of certain legal friends that an effort should be made to secure for him a seat on the Bench, on the ground that he had other duties to think of. “I am convinced,” he wrote in the Journal, “that in three years I could do more than in the last ten, but for the mine being, I fear, exhausted. Give me my popularity — an awful postulate! — and all my present difficulties shall be a joke in five years; and it is not lost yet, at least.”
For three weeks there was a hitch. The Bank of Scotland, the second principal creditor, not only laid claim to the unfinished Woodstock and Napoleon on behalf of Constable’s estate, but — what was more serious — insisted that the trustees should take proceedings to reduce the settlement of Abbotsford. To this Scott would in no wise assent, for he considered that his offer to work for his creditors more than compensated for the withdrawal from them of Abbotsford. In the end the Bank of Scotland withdrew its opposition; Scott was given the house and lands of Abbotsford rent-free, and allowed to retain his official incomes as Sheriff and Clerk of Court; a Trust deed was duly signed, with as trustees Mr Gibson, Mr James Jollie and Mr Alexander Monypenny. The deed is in the usual form, except for the absence of a discharge clause, since Scott asked for no discharge; instead it provided that after the payment of all the debts and expenses the Trustees should reconvey to him the residue of the estate. Their first step was to insure his life, so they bought Constable’s policy, continued the two held by the Ballantyne firm, and took out a new one. After that they had to devote themselves to the conduct of the printing business, for it was a year before they got rid of it.
[Malachi Malagrowther]
The banks had on the whole behaved handsomely, and Scott felt that he owed them some return. The recent financial crisis had convinced the Government that the whole banking system needed a drastic revision, so it was proposed to limit the Bank of England to the issue of notes of a value of £5 and upwards, and to take away altogether from the private banks the privilege of a note circulation. This l
atter proposal would be a serious matter for Scotland, where coin was still very scarce, and a disaster for the Scottish banks. On the economic question there was much to be said for the Scottish view, for, though the banking system was gravely in need of reform, the weak point was not the note-issue, which had hitherto worked well. The real motive of the Government was to introduce uniformity in the currency of the three kingdoms, and this roused the sleepless nationalism of the North. The national rather than the economic significance of the proposed change was what moved Scott, and his Letters of Malachi Malagrowther, published in James Ballantyne’s Edinburgh Weekly Journal and issued as a pamphlet by Blackwood, were devoted as much to the patriotic plea of the need for preserving Scotland’s individuality as to the practical utility of the note-issue. “If you unscotch us,” he told Croker, “you will find us damned mischievous Englishmen.” The pamphlet, modelled to some extent on Swift’s Drapier’s Letters, is written with immense gusto and not only is one of the most “literary” pieces of economic writing before Bagehot, but reveals a clear understanding of the commercial world. It created a great stir, and led to the withdrawal of the scheme so far as the Scottish banks were concerned. Scott was acutely aware of the irony of the situation. “Whimsical enough that when I was trying to animate Scotland against the currency bill, John Gibson brought me the Deed of Trust, assigning my whole estate, to be subscribed by me; so that I am turning patriot, and taking charge of the affairs of the country, on the very day I was proclaiming myself incapable of managing my own.”
Malachi made trouble with Scott’s political allies. Lord Melville, who was in charge of Scottish affairs, was furious; Canning attacked him in the House of Commons; Croker was set up by the Government to reply to the pamphlet, which he did with little effect. The Whigs were no better pleased, for they distrusted Scott’s nationalism and objected to their pet topic of economics being handled so light-heartedly. “Poets,” Cockburn wrote primly, “may be excused for being bad political economists. If a nice question of monetary or commercial policy could be settled by jokes, Malachi would be a better economist than Adam Smith. His lamentation over the loss of Scotch sinecures was very injudicious, and did neither him nor such of these things as remained any good. He was mentioned in Parliament by his own friends with less respect than one would ever wish to be shown him.” But for the criticism of friends or opponents Scott cared nothing. “I have, in my odd sans souciance character, a good handful of meal from the grist of the Jolly Miller.” The knowledge that he could still make men listen to him and influence the course of affairs did much to restore his self-respect; the bankrupt had not killed the citizen. “On the whole,” he wrote, “I am glad of this brulzie, as far as I am concerned; people will not dare talk of me as an object of pity — no more ‘poor manning.’ Who asks how many punds Scots the old champion has in his pocket when
He set a bugle to his mouth,
And blew sae loud and shrill,
The trees in greenwood shook thereat,
Sae loud rang ilka hill.”
IV
[Return to Abbotsford]
On 15th March Scott left Castle Street, which had been his Edinburgh home for twenty-eight years, with the words of Macrimmon’s lament on his lips, “Cha til mi tulidh — I return no more.” At Abbotsford he found a changed establishment. Willie Laidlaw was no more at Kaeside; Tom Purdie was no longer farm-bailiff since there was nothing to farm, and had become personal attendant; one old labourer, Willie Straiten, had taken to his bed at the news of his master’s misfortunes, and had never risen again. But there was a tumult of dogs to welcome him, and, as he made his familiar rounds amid the March snow-showers, he hugged to his heart the thought that his home was still his own. He had won peace of mind, whatever the burden of the future, for he knew the worst. There was even a pleasure in economizing — in keeping to his official salary and paying out of it to his wife her modest housekeeping allowance, and in looking for butter for his bread to an occasional magazine article. There was comfort, too, in the solitude after the bustle in which he had lived, for he felt less able for company. For long he had been constantly tired and had got into the habit of drowsing in Court; he had been sleepless of nights, too, had been tormented by rheumatism and indigestion, and had lately been suffering from an alarming fluttering of the heart. He could resume his old unflagging habits of work, but he had little margin left for other things, so he courted solitude.
The love of solitude was with me a passion of early youth; when in my teens I used to fly from company to indulge in visions and airy castles of my own, the disposal of ideal wealth and the exercise of imaginary power. The feeling prevailed even till I was eighteen, when love and ambition awakening with other passions threw me more into society, from which I have, however, at times withdrawn myself, and have been always glad to do so. I have risen from the feast satisfied.... This is a feeling without the least tinge of misanthropy which I always consider as a kind of blasphemy of a shocking description. If God bears with the very worst of us we may surely endure each other. If thrown into society I always have, and always will endeavour to bring pleasure with me, at least to show willingness to please. But for all this I had rather live alone, and I wish my appointment, so convenient otherwise, did not require my going to Edinburgh. But this must be, and in my little lodging I will be lonely enough.
His routine of life was much what it had always been. By seven he was at his desk, and, having finished Woodstock, he forthwith began the Chronicles of the Canongate. In the afternoon he walked with Tom Purdie and the wolf-hound puppy which Glengarry had given him in Maida’s place, “chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy.” It was mainly bitter, for to the downfall of his worldly fortunes there was added a gnawing anxiety about those he loved best. The news from London was bad, and the Lockharts’ boy was visibly losing strength. The frail bright child had twined himself round Scott’s heart more than any of his own more robust offspring, and, since he could no longer visit him at Chiefswood, he tortured himself with memories. “The poor dear love had so often a slow fever that, when it pressed its little lips to mine, I always foreboded to my own heart what all I fear are now aware of.” In April Laidlaw lost an infant, and Scott watched its funeral with a quickened sense of man’s mortality. The Journal contains reflections new to one who had hitherto bustled gallantly through the world.
I saw the poor child’s funeral from a distance. Ah, that distance! What a magician for conjuring up scenes of joy and sorrow, smoothing all asperities, reconciling all incongruities, veiling all abnormalities, softening every coarseness, doubling every effect by the influence of the imagination. A Scottish wedding should be seen at a distance; the gay band of the dancers just distinguished amid the elderly group of the spectators, the glass held high, and the distant cheers as it is swallowed should be only a sketch, not a finished Dutch picture, when it becomes brutal and boorish. Scotch psalmody, too, should be heard at a distance. The grunt and the snuffle and the whine and the scream should be all blended in the deep and distant sound which, rising and falling like the Eolian harp, may have some title to be called the praise of our Maker. Even so the distant funeral, the few mourners on horseback with their plaids wrapped around them — the father heading the procession as they enter the river, and pointing out the ford by which his darling is to be carried on the last long road — not one of the subordinate figures in discord with the general tone of the incident — seeming just accessories and no more — this is affecting.
[Lady Scott’s death]
But presently came death unsoftened by distance. His wife had joined him at Abbotsford, with Anne a pale ghost from long nursing. She was suffering from asthma and dropsy, and the Edinburgh doctors gave little hope. Scott left Abbotsford on 11th May to resume his Court work, and she was too ill to say good-bye. He took up his quarters in shabby, bug-infested lodgings in North St David Street, observing with Touchstone, “When I was at home I was in a better place.” Four days later he had news th
at his wife was dead. It was his first great intimate bereavement, and for the moment it had a shattering effect on a spirit worn down with toils and cares. He could not sleep, and his children found him weeping. If his wife had been a stranger to his innermost world she had shared most loyally in his normal life, had been his counsellor and the repository of all his plans, had watched solicitously over his health, and had been a brave, mirthful and kindly companion. He had come during the years to feel for her that close affection which springs from long comradeship. All his happiest memories were linked with her presence, and her very foibles were endeared in the recollection. Small wonder that he felt himself naked and stripped, for here he had lost more than fortune. He tells his Journal that his heart must break.
I have seen her. The figure I beheld is, and is not, my Charlotte — my thirty years’ companion. There is the same symmetry of form, though those limbs were rigid which were once so gracefully elastic — but that yellow masque, with pinched features, which seems to mock life rather than emulate it, can it be the face that was once so full of lively expression? I will not look on it again.... If I write long in this way, I shall write down my resolution, which I should rather write up, if I could. I wonder how I shall do with the larger portion of thoughts which were hers for thirty years. I expect they will be hers yet for a long time at least....