THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSday, JULY 9, 1914. "DEAR OLD SIR WALTER."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16121, 9 July 1914, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSday, JULY 9, 1914. "DEAR OLD SIR WALTER."

It is juet a. hundred years since the publication of "Waverley" inaugurated the most remarkable productive episode in the history of literature. The cult of centenary celebrations may easily be overdone, and in unimportant instances may serve as an excuse for mere futile antiquarianism; but in the case of great men or great works it has its clear uses. For instance, it is reasonable to suppose that the notices of the Waverley centenary will add to the number of Sir Walter Scott's readers, and also send old readers back to the remembered (or. perhaps, half-forgotten) books; and this will be something gained (the claim is not too bold) for humanity. The story of the genesis of "Waverley" was told, with wealth of illustrative comment, in our " Literature" columns on Saturday, and we need not enlarge upon that special subject today. But we want to say a word or two about Sir Walter Scott himself—with the object of winning fresh readers, not only for " Waverley" and the other tales, but for Lockhart's great biography of his father-in-law and for the still greater "Journal." Few men in history—perhaps no man in literary history—are better worth knowing thoroughly than Scott.

0 great and gallant Scott, Truo gentleman, heart, blood, and bono, 1 would it had been my lot To liavc seen thee, and hoard theo, and known.

Thus Tennyson, in the last year of his Ion" life, voicing the wistful desires of countless hearts. On November 6, 1860, there was a discussion at the table of Punch on the theme, " Which great man of the past would one soonest meet'"' Shirley Brooks and others were for Dr Johnson ; but Thackeray—great-hearted Thackeray, whom 'perverse fashion has dubbed a "cynic"—gave his voice to Scott

—"that deaT old Sir Walter.' Tennyson and Thackeray were not thinking of the

novelist or of the poet; they were thinking of the man, as lie is pictured, in his habit as he lived, in the pages of ixjckhart and the " Journal." They were tliinking of one of the kindest, sanest, shrewdest, bravest, most lovable souls that ever breathed—even in Scotland, where the virtues indicated by our epithets are (as all the world knows) wont to flourish. Note Thackeray's use of the word " old." Probably he employed the word just casually ami affectionately—much as even the youngest friends may salute each other as "old boy"—but it gives us our excuse for saying that to our mind Sir Walter is greatest and most compellingly attractive when he is old ; or, at least, when he is no longer young, for he died at sixty-one. Of course, Scott's life should be studied and known as a whole; but (if we are to choose), hotter than his high-spirited, adventurous youth, better than the unclouded triumphant prosperity of his middle age, was the closing train of sorrow, disaster, struggle, endurance, decay, before he was " gone once more on his adventure brave and new." A paradox : for, no doubt, the story of those closing years furnishes a pathetic spectacle ("I don't like the word 'pathetic,'" said our distinguished visitor, Miss Ellen Terry, on Monday night, " but there it is.") But it is also a very noble spectacle; and, looking backward, we are as little disposed to deplore Sir Walter Scott's adversity as to deplore the suffering of the man who dwelt in the land of Uz. To suffering and calamity the world owes Sir Walter's "Journal," as well as the Book of Job—and if the comparison is audacious we are not ashamed of it. In the words of a living poet: — great is the facile conqueror: ut, haply, ho who, wounded sore, Breathless, unhore'd, all covered o'er With blood and sweat, Sinks foil'd, yet fighting evermore,

Is greater yet. The '' Journal'' begins on March 20, 1825, within a few weeks of the ruin of Scott's worldly fortunes, and six months before the death of his wife. Lockhart was only able to make very partial use of it, and the pity is that so many people are contented with reading his extracts (which, by the way, are often most unwarrantably •doctored) instead of studying the entire journal as separately published a-quarter of a century ago. What a superbly and various interesting book it is! —how brave, how inspiriting, even how gay, in spite of the, tale of sorrow and disillusionment ! As a record of arduous labour accomplished by a stricken and breaking man it has no parallel; perhaps no parallel _as an example of stubborn stoicism of the better sort. It has been well said that "there are moments in those last years of his which we can hardly bear to think of, which sting u6 like the remembrance of our own forgotten sorrows, and we are glad to remember that more than eighty healing years hava rolled by since then." What of that entry on May 18, 1826?— "They are arranging the chamber of death; that which was long the apartment of connubial happiness, and of whose arrangements (better than in richer houses) she was so proud. They are treading fast and thick. For weeks you -could have heard a footfall. Oh, my God!" That is a rare note of abandonment, however. Sir Walter does not wear his heart on his sleeve. He is disposed to resent consolation: "I have half a mind to turn sharp round on some of my consolers." True Scotsman as he was, a fairly solid crust covered the wealth of tenderness. He hears that Southey had wept for him, and writes : " It is odd—am I so hard-hearted a man ? I could not have wept for him, though in distress I would have gone any length to serve him. . . . But everyone has

his own mode of expressing interest, and mine is stoical even in bitterest .grief. I hope that I am not the worse for wanting the tenderness that I see others possess, and which is so amiable. I think it does not cool my wish to be of use where I can." No, indeed; dozens of entries in the journal show how generously and delicately he helped others while he was sorely embarrassed in his own affairs. Certainly he possessed wonderful powers of mental recovery, and perhaps the peculiar attraction of* the journal consists in the blending of sorrow and suffering with continued and sometimes even buoyant interest in everyday concerns. He dines with old friends, "and merry men were we." Quite near the end, in 1829, he records a meeting of "The Club": "I was in the chair. . . . We took a fair

but moderate allowance of wine, sung our old songs, and were much refreshed with a hundred old stories, which would have seemed insignificant to any stranger. The most important of these were old college adventures of love and battle." And still (in his own phrase) he wrought and wrought and wrought, steadily reducing the terrible pile of debt; and still, relentlessly though often imperceptibly, body and mind underwent the process of decay. Let us end on a familiar, but never too familiar, note. It, is September 17, 1832, at Abbotsford; he has four days to live. " Lockhart," he said, "I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man—be virtuous—be religious—be a good man. Nothing else will give you anv comfort when vou come to lie here."