Andrew Lang

“ No man of honour, genius, or spirit, would make the mere love of gain, the chief, far less the only, purpose of his labours. For myself, I am not displeased to find the game a winning one; yet while I pleased the public, I should probably continue it merely for the pleasure of playing; for I have felt as strongly as most folks that love of composition, which is perhaps the strongest of all instincts, driving the author to the pen, the painter to the palette, often without either the chance of fame or the prospect of reward. ”

“ Sir Walter had, in fact, the most fortunate kind of genius—a genius for happiness, which cannot exist without making life more joyous for all within the radius of its influence.
The Scots are, according to old proverbs, a jealous people. The race has no two sons more opposite in their ideals than Walter Scott and John Knox. Yet they had this virtue in common, that neither in the preacher nor the poet does analysis detect a grain of professional jealousy. Scott could, indeed, see the blemishes on the poetry of Southey; nor could the faults of Byron escape him. ”

“ As Molière never had the heart to draw a jealous woman, among all his pictures of men who knew, like himself, the torments of jealousy, so Scott never had the heart to draw a young and beautiful woman who is wicked. This ancient familiar source of poignant interest he passes by, out of his great chivalry. There was nothing to prevent him from writing a romance on the passionate, wretched tale of the once beautiful Ulrica, in Ivanhoe, a fair traitress driven on the winds of revenge, treachery, parricide, and incest. ”

“ Knowledge of Greek poetry would not have induced Scott to write a line in the sense of the melancholy of Greek epic poetry; a noble melancholy, but he will utter none of its inspirations. On the side of precision, exquisite proportion, rich delicacy of language, “loading every reef with gold,” as Keats advised Shelley to do, Scott would have learned nothing from Greece.
His genius was of another bent—
Flow forth, flow unconstrained, my Tale! ”

“ The novels are vécus: the author has, in imagination, lived closely and long with his people, whether of his own day, or of the past, before he laid brush to canvas to execute their portraits. It is in this capacity, as a creator of a vast throng of living people of every grade, and every variety of nature, humour, and temperament, that Scott, among British writers, is least remote from Shakespeare. ”

“ But years went by before the vision ended—the vision of the lady of Rokeby, of Redgauntlet, and of the Lay of the Last Minstrel; “by many names one form.{22}”
It is because he knew passion too well that he is not a poet of passion. There is nothing in Scott like the melancholy or peevish repining of the lovers in Locksley Hall and in Maud. Only in the fugitive farewell caress of Diana Vernon, stooping from her saddle on the darkling moor before she rides into the night, do we feel the heart-throb of Walter Scott. Of love as of human life he knew too much to speak. ”

“ By July 19 he had nearly finished a volume of Ivanhoe, which he expected to complete in September. Such enthusiasm of industry, in such circumstances, is without parallel in literary history. The Bride of Lammermoor is a subject which leaves an author no choice; he must make his novel end badly: he cannot avoid the tragic, and tragedy scarcely suits the genius of Scott. He knew the tale of the mysterious death of Stair’s daughter, from tradition in his family, and, after his illness, he remembered the legend as well as ever: of his own handling of the tale he could remember nothing. ”

“ From that point all was new to most of them, while no romance of the Forty-Five, a theme now so hackneyed, or of Highland life and manners at the date of Sixty Years Since had ever been offered to the world. Indeed the death of the last of the male line of Stuart was almost contemporary with the year in which Scott began his romance, and while there remained a shadowy King over the water, a Jacobite romance might seem a thing in doubtful taste. We cannot, after a century, feel the absolute freshness of impression which the novel made on contemporary readers. ”

“ These pompous discourses in which the speaker often talks of himself in the third person, were in vogue, in novel writing, we do not know why, and they are a stone of stumbling to readers who do not blench when a modern hero mouths fustian in the tone of a demoniac at large. All these unfashionable traits are to be found up and down the Waverley novels, combined with descriptive passages that, to some, are a weariness. ”

“ When we add Ratclifte, the pleasing rogue, the wild singer, Madge Wildfire, the thrilling interest of the Porteous mob, the study of the great Duke of Argyll, the scene with the Queen, the adventures of the road, and the matchless character of Jeanie Deans, with her foil in the pretty wilful Effie, we must acknowledge that, if The Heart of Midlothian is not absolutely the first, alone in place, of the Waverley novels, it is certainly second to none. ”

“ The plot of Woodstock was unconsciously annexed by Thackeray in Esmond. His charming but historically absurd James III is Charles II, laughing and running after every girl, and making love to the sister and mistress of the two good Royalists who protect him. Lockwood and his sweetheart, in Esmond, are Jocelyn and his sweetheart in Woodstock. James III is a more favoured lover than his uncle, and Beatrix outshines all the women of Scott, but Scott’s is the invention of the situation, down to the King’s offer of a duel. ”

“ Dugald is always a perfect joy, even if we be little interested, as we are, in the loves of Annot Lyle and in the second-sighted man with his gloom and his visions. It is difficult to guess what Scott may have originally meant to do with Montrose, the most sympathetic figure in the long pageant of Scottish history. With the romance of his life and character fiction cannot cope: nothing can match his actual history. In Argyll, again, Scott encountered a personage whose psychology was too intricate for his hasty methods. ”

“ THE NOVELS
The heroines, though it seems a paradox to say so, are really more successful than the heroes. In The Heart of Midlothian there is no hero except the heroine, Jeanie Deans, certainly one of the great creations of literature. Scott has made goodness without beauty, without overmastering tragedy, without “wallowing naked in the pathetic,” and without passion, as interesting as Becky Sharp. Who has rivalled this feat? Rose Bradwardine, with her innocent self-betrayed affection, is an elder sister of Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. ”

“ Not only are the data of the story things of unrelieved gloom, but Scott has chosen to show Fate dealing with a heroine gentle, innocent, and weak. Of all heroes of novels, perhaps only two frankly tell their lady loves that their fathers are not gentlemen! One of these candid wooers is Darcy, in Pride and Prejudice, and Elizabeth causes him to rue his candour. ”

“ We cannot go into a criticism of the historical accuracy of a novel. Old Mortality is not only one of Scott’s most stirring tales, but it contains even an unusual number of his most admirable characters, Cuddie and Mause Headrigg, Gudyill, the Major, Goose Gibbie, Old Milnwood (a true “Laird Nippy”) , the murderer Burly, Bessie Maclure, Jenny Dennison, that unscrupulous coquette, Milnwood’s housekeeper, the fallen Bothwell, the fanatics of every shade, and Claverhouse himself. ”

“ Meanwhile expense on the estate of Abbotsford, and on the acquisition of curios for the collection, went on briskly, Scott paying prices probably too high, and conducting his affairs with the people on his land with a profuse but judicious generosity. He discovered, as others have done, real taste and artistic power amongst the craftsmen in wood and stone in the district, and encouraged it to the best of his power. His gold was not spent in vain, but the need for money grew with every year, and he did not measure his own labour by his failing strength. ”

“ There is little science in writing books so dull that no mortal can read them, and this reef ahead of the modern pedant Scott successfully avoids. He lets “the violet of a legend blow” in periods of the utmost aridity, he “loads every reef,” however granitic, with the gold of every anecdote that reveals the character of individuals or of the time. If a scrap of ballad illustrates his topic, he has that scrap in his wallet. Thus the great Montrose fought for a sacred cause, the wretched Lord Lewis Gordon,{188} an unworthy leader of a clan of soldiers, fought from caprice. ”

“ A poet has seldom been a better prophet.
The plot of Marmion is in one way strangely akin to the plot of Ivanhoe. In both we have a hard-bitten, hard-hearted, and unscrupulous knight, Marmion and the Templar. In both we have a pilgrim guide, who is no pilgrim, but a knight in disguise, returned from exile, with a deep grudge against the Templar, or Marmion (Wilfred, Wilton) . Both sets of partners are rivals in love, at least if Wilfred, as we believe, loved Rebecca. In both we have a tourney between the rivals, in which Marmion and the Templar are defeated by Wilton and Wilfred. ”

“ The heroes and heroines themselves, as a rule, interest their creator, and his readers, but little. What can you make of a jeune premier? He must be brave, modest, handsome, good, and not too clever—an ideal son-in-law, and he must be a true lover. Scott pronounced his earliest hero, Edward Waverley, “a sneaking piece of imbecility.... I am a bad hand at depicting a hero properly so-called.” True, but what kind of hero is Martin Chuzzlewit, or Clive Newcome,{103} and is there any hero at all in Vanity Fair? Tom Jones and Captain Booth take leading parts, but are nothing less than heroic. ”

“ People enjoy a mystery, and Scott enjoyed mystifying them, while his conscience permitted him a latitude in denial warranted by the maxims of Father Holt, S.J., in Esmond. As a loyal citizen might blamelessly say that King Charles was not in the oak tree—His Majesty being private there, and invisible to loyal eyes—so Scott, if pressed, averred that he had no hand in the novels, often adding that, even if he had, he would still deny his authorship.
Casuists may blame or exonerate him (Cardinal Newman discussed the situation) : it is certain that no man is bound to incriminate himself. ”

“ Fortunate indeed was Scott in his mother, who did not spoil him, though he must have been her favourite child. His eldest brother who attained maturity not only fought under the glorious Rodney, but “had a strong talent for literature,” and composed admirable verses. His brother Thomas was credited by Sir Walter with considerable genius, and was put forward by popular rumour as the author of the Waverley novels. His only surviving sister, Anne (died 1801) , “lived in an ideal world, which she had framed to herself by the force of imagination.” ”

“ If all reading mankind had time to read Lockhart’s Life of Scott, a brief volume on Sir Walter would be a thing without excuse. I am informed, however, by the Editor of this Series that the appreciation of Time, in our age, does not permit Lockhart to be universally read. I have therefore tried to compress as much as I may of the essence of Lockhart’s great book into small space, with a few additions from other sources. In such efforts one compiler will present matter for which another cannot find room. ”

“ Even if Scots law would have borne him out, Elibank dared not face the feud of the strongest name on the Border. Thus it is not to be credited that young Harden chose “Muckle Mou’d Meg,” Elibank’s daughter, as an alternative to the gallows. Moreover, the legend, I am informed, recurs in a province of Germany. If so, the tale may be much older than the Harden-Elibank marriage. The contract of that marriage is extant, and is not executed “on the parchment of a drum,” as Lockhart romantically avers. Scott, better than most men, must have known how more than doubtsome is the old legend. ”

“ Unlike Thackeray, Dickens, and possibly Fielding, Scott never drew his hero from himself. In politics they are usually what he was—when he wrote history—they take the middle path, they are in the sober juste milieu. Waverley is only a Jacobite to please his lady; Henry Morton is an extremely moderate constitutional Whig. Nobody can take much interest in Vanbeest Brown, the wandering heir of Guy Mannering, despite his proficiency on the flageolet. When we have a true hero like Montrose, we are scarcely allowed to look on his face and hear his voice. ”