Mr. Scott

“ Scott married Miss Agatha R. Fulton, a most estimable lady, who, with their son Howard Scott and daughter Miss Annie Mary Scott, survive him.
In conclusion, the editor thinks it not improper to say that he enjoyed the pleasure of Mr. Scott’s intimate friendship for nearly thirty years, and esteemed him as his best and most intimate friend. And that while his friend was only mortal, and subject to mortal frailities, he had a kind and generous heart; a soul which shrank from even the semblance of meanness, and was the embodiment of every trait which ennobles and elevates humanity. ”

“ So by the tendencies of his mind, by the gravity of his character, by the guides of wisdom, dignity, courage and taste—Mr. Scott planted on high ground and sustained for nearly half a century standards of journalism which must for all time be a pattern for the worthy and rebuke to the vicious. *** For myself whose fortune it was to live long in association with this rare man, to share in many of the influences and in a sense to inherit the inspirations of his life, there seems now a mighty void in the immediate world in which he lived. ”

“ Scott could temporize, but he never made the slightest concession from sinister motives. In an association which gave me the closest possible insight into the processes of his mind in relation to his professional labors, I never once saw or heard the slightest suggestion of the cloven foot. It became oftentimes an office of friendship as well as a matter of duty to point out to Mr. Scott the practical hazards of one line of action or another. He was always openly receptive to suggestions from any source. ”

“ His fifteenth year saw Scott, already a lawyer’s apprentice, in the Highlands, happy in the society of Stewart of Invernahyle, who had fought a sword{19} and target duel with Rob Roy (at Ardsheil, I think) , had been out with the Prince, and supplied the central incidents of Waverley. “The blawing bleezing lairds” were not much to the taste of the elder Mr. Scott, who was unconsciously sitting for his own portrait as the elder Fairford in Redgauntlet, a picture rich in affectionate humour. “The office,” in Edinburgh, swallows up a large proportion of the schoolboys. ”

“ Scott?" asked President Phillips, pushing through the crowd. "How did that happen?"
"I was riding your horse, Prince William, sir, and he was on edge. He spilled me off the drive into the water at that sharp turn a couple of miles up. I had only a snaffle-rein and could not hold him."
"Only a snaffle-rein! Why I would never think of riding that rascal myself without a curb. Hayward," he called to the footman, who was passing, "what kind of carelessness is this?—your sending the Prince to Mr. Scott with only a snaffle-rein? You know very well that brute cannot be controlled without a curb. ”

“ With none of the exhilarations of the conflict with crude conditions, so powerful in their appeal to men, there had still to be suffered the same obstacles plus denial of a thousand tender impulses and a thousand deep ambitions which masculine character may never feel. To the end of his life Mr. Scott remembered—this I have from his son—that when he was fourteen years of age, and just before her death, his mother called him to a private talk and gave him admonitions for the guidance of his life which took form as the very foundation stones of his character. ”

“ However, in those days character and honesty were still appreciated by men who did not imitate them. Mr. Scott rose to eminence in his profession, and enjoyed at one time an extensive practice. Somewhat formal in manner and a rigid Calvinist in religion, he had many little peculiarities of the rural rather than the city Scot. Thus, though very abstemious in his habits, he was fond of sociability and grew very merry over his sober glass of wine. Moderate in politics, he had a natural leaning to constitutional principles, and was jealous of modern encroachments on the royal prerogative. ”

“ TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ., CASTLE STREET.
Gabriel's Road, February 28, 1815.
Mr. Scott,—I think it is great nonsense for two men who are friends at heart, and who ever must be so,—indeed it is not in the nature of things that they can be otherwise,—should be professed enemies.
Mr. Grieve and Mr. Laidlaw, who were very severe on me, and to whom I was obliged to show your letter, have long ago convinced me that I mistook part of it, and that it was not me you held in such contempt, but the opinion of the public. ”

“ They are very clannish, marry much among themselves, and are proud of their descent. Two young ladies, daughters of Mr. Scott's, dined with us—they were both Mrs. Scotts, having married brothers—the husband of one was lost in the unfortunate Doris. They were pleasant, intelligent women, and exceedingly obliging. Old Mr. Scott seems a good country gentleman. He is negotiating an exchange with Lord Dundas, which will give him the Castle of Scalloway and two or three neighboring islands: the rest of the archipelago (seven, I think, in number) are already his own. ”

“ Such boys ought not to be shielded."
"Mr. Scott, I had an awful time over that last night," answered the boy, earnestly. "I wanted to pay them fellers for this job--you better b'lieve I did, but," he shook his head slowly, "I can't do it. You see, sir, I ain't Tode no more--I'm Theodore, now."
There was a look on the homely, boyish face that forbade further discussion of the matter, and, after a moment's silence, Mr. Scott said in a different tone, "Well, my boy, when are you going home? Nan and the baby want to see you." ”

“ Scott enjoyed the friendship of the literati of Newark, Delaware, and was one of a large number of poetical writers who contributed to the columns of the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, with several of whom he enjoyed a personal acquaintance, and with several others of whom he carried on a literary correspondence for several years.
Mr. Scott, though not a voluminous writer, was the author of a considerable number of poems, all of which were of a highly intellectual character.
The Forced Alliance.
Can earthly commerce hush the music of the heart, and shut the door of memory on a friend? ”

“ Scott senior had a client who came regularly every evening at a certain hour to the house, and remained in the Writer's private room usually till long after the family had gone to bed. The little mystery of the unknown visitor excited Mrs. Scott's curiosity, and her husband's vague statements increased it. One night, therefore, though she knew it was against her husband's desire, she entered the room with a salver in her hand, and offered the gentlemen a dish of tea. Mr. Scott very coldly refused it, but the stranger bowed and accepted a cup. ”

“ Voysey, and after dinner we went over to Upper Norwood, and I was introduced to one of the most remarkable men I have ever met. At that time Mr. Scott was an old man, with beautiful white hair, and eyes like those of a hawk gleaming from under shaggy eyebrows; he had been a man of magnificent physique, and though his frame was then enfeebled, the splendid lion-like head kept its impressive strength and beauty, and told of a unique personality. Of Scotch descent and wellborn, Thomas Scott had, as a boy, been a page at the French Court ”

“ Mr. Scott sat with us an hour or two, and repeated a part of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. When he was gone our hostess came to see if we wanted anything, and to wish us good-night. On all occasions her manners were governed by the same spirit: there was no withdrawing one's attention from her. ”

“ After having heard of his inflexible adherence to the cause of virtue in his youth, and his regular attendance on the ordinances of religion in after-life, we will not be surprised to be told that he bore a sacred regard for the Sabbath, nor at the following anecdote illustrative of it. An opulent farmer of East Lothian had employed Mr. Scott as his agent, in a cause depending before the Court of Session. ”

“ Scott, while the bard (about one o'clock:) mounted his pony, and accompanied by Mr. Terry the comedian, his own son Walter, and our young relative George Kinloch, sallied forth for a long morning's ride in spite of wind and rain. In the evening Mr. Terry commonly read some scenes from a play, to which Mr. Scott listened with delight, though every word must have been quite familiar to him, as he occasionally took a part in the dialogue impromptu; at other times he recited old and awesome ballads from memory, the very names of which I have forgot. ”

“ Scott began the career of public service which ended with his death in 1910. Mr. Scott's part in the Indian War was that of a volunteer soldier in the ranks, and it is of record that he endured the hardships and hazards of the campaign with the cheerful hardihood which marked every other phase of his life, public and private. In 1856, at the age of eighteen, we find Mr. Scott a laborer for wages in the Willamette Valley, dividing his small earnings between contributions in aid of his family and a small hoard for purposes of education. ”

“ Mr. Scott got another contract on the Dumfries line, so I was to go back to Slamannan, but Mrs. Scott said she would be going through for a trip and I could go with her. Before the time came for us to go a friend of Mr. Scott's came on a visit from Grangemouth, near Falkirk. She was [Pg 21] about to be married to a gentleman living at the railway terminus at Dalmellington. This was her second husband, although she was quite young. She and Mrs. Scott thought I would do nicely for her little maid. She had a little boy, whom she hoped to have with her. Mrs. Scott knew my home troubles. ”

“ Scott is very powerful man,” he assented. “We all very much love Mr. Scott. The president, he love Mr. Scott, too, but the judges were not sympathetic to Mr. Scott, so Mr. Scott asked our president to give them a warning, and Senor Rojas—he is the warning.”
“When will he get out?” I asked.
The commandant held up the glass in the sunlight from the open air-port, and gazed admiringly at the bubbles.
“Who can tell,” he said. “Any day when Mr. Scott wishes. Maybe, never. Senor Rojas is an old man. Old, and he has much rheumatics. ”

“ Remember me to the lads of the Literary, those of the club in particular. I wrote Irving. Remember my most respectful compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Clerk and family, particularly James; when you write, let me know how he did when you heard of him. Imitate me in writing a long letter, but not in being long in writing it. Direct to me at Miss Scott's, Garden, Kelso. My letters lie there for me, as it saves their being sent down to Rosebank. The carrier puts up at the Grassmarket, and goes away on Wednesday forenoon. Yours,
Walter Scott. ”

“ A pavement of black and white diced marble is found in the vestibule, every square of which is bruised to pieces, and the whole strewed with the details of a dairy. The dining-room, a large apartment15 with a richly ornamented stucco roof, is now used as the farmer’s kitchen. Other parts of the house, still bearing the arms and initials of Walter Scott, Earl of Tarras, great-grandfather of the late Mr Scott of Harden, and of his second wife, Helen Hepburn, are sunk in a scarcely less proportion. ”

“ Competent as his judgment was with respect to his own work as well as to the work of others, it was nevertheless Mr. Scott's practice to read over his prepared articles to his assistants. "Trying it on the dog" was his familiar phrase for this form of experimentation. He always invited criticism though I do not recall many instances in which any of us were wise enough to help him unless it were at the point of restraint. ”

“ He was then, and had for many years been, minister of a Presbyterian chapel at Wooler, in Northumberland, to which situation he had retired on losing his benefice at Montrose, in consequence of the Sabbatarian scruples alluded to in Scott's Autobiography.
"In 1782," says Mr. Mitchell, "I became a tutor in Mr. Walter Scott's family. He was a Writer to the Signet in George's (p. 092) Square, Edinburgh. Mr. Scott was a fine-looking man, then a little past the meridian of life, of dignified, yet agreeable manners. His business was extensive. ”

“ After breakfast, while Scott, no doubt, wrote a chapter of Rob Roy, Mr. Irving, under young Charles's guidance, saw Melrose Abbey, and Johnnie Bower the elder, whose son long since inherited his office as showman of the ruins, and all his enthusiasm about them and their poet. The senior on this occasion was loud in his praises of the affability of Scott. "He'll come here sometimes," said he, "with great folks in his company, and the first I'll know of it is hearing his voice calling out Johnnie!—Johnnie Bower!—and when I go out I'm sure to be greeted with a joke or a pleasant word. ”

“ You tell Pitt what I say.”
“Very well, I will. I suppose the account Bevere gave to his mother and Mr. Brandon—that he had been living lately with you—was all a fable?”
Scott nodded complaisantly, striding along at the pace of a steam-engine. “Just so. He couldn’t bring them down upon him here, you know.”
I did not exactly know. And thoughts, as the saying runs, are free.
“So he hit upon the fable, as you call it, of saying he had shared my lodgings,” continued Scott. “Necessity is a rare incentive to invention.” ”

“ Just in front of the house, Scott met Willie Mead with a loaf of bread which he was bringing home from a neighboring bakery. His eye lighted up with pleasure when he saw Scott.
"Do you live here, Willie?" asked Scott.
"Yes, we live on the fourth floor."
"I have brought a gentleman with me who may be able to help your mother. We will follow you upstairs."
"You may not like to climb so high, sir," said the cash boy, turning to Mr. Lawton.
"I think I can stand it for once," rejoined Seth Lawton. "I am a little more scant of breath than when I was a young man, but I am still good for a climb." ”