IMPROVING SIR WALTER SCOTT.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2740, 4 January 1882, Page 2

IMPROVING SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The “ Standard,” noticing the report, that Miss Braddoti is goirig to modernise some of the Wavorley Novels;’ says : Every lover of Sir Walter Scott must necessarily feel his suspicions aroused by such an announcement, and he. will ask himself, With some What contemporary writer of fiction is to be found among us’who is likely to enter sufficiently into the , spirit of. the Novels to be relied upon not to vulgarise them? We know that in the brute creation curious intjnlames- spring dpi and that animals most’ unlike to each other in all their natural wants and and habits of life occasionally form the strongest attachments atyd exhibit; the most uhmistakeable sympathies. It is, therefore, of■ course, possible that a writer of the present day .whose popu larity has been won in a field ofromafafca wide asunder, the : from : that cultivated by Sir Scott may nevertheless, have so much in common,’ with him as to be able to “ edit ” works with adequate taste and discrimination.' We would not go the length of ass Ating that such a rare combination of qualities is totally ‘impossible, !bnt we confess ourselves unable to comprehend 'what, can be meant by subjecting , ~the; ■ Novels .t p the prpeess ,in Siestion, unless it is the extraeUbh o£. e.,several stories from the graver historical elements in which they, are embedded;; and if we can imagine to ourselves the story of Effie D6ans, or Amy Eobsart, or Rebecca, or R6b Roy, or Peveril, or Redgauiitlet separated from thehistpry:.whioh invests them with a dignity of f its. own, :we shajl ; see -how Strong the .chances are-that they, would sink into aTihere selection of horrors gained the modern epithet of “ sensational.” That .the .Waverley Novels should lie converted to such uses would be matter for much regret.. We cannot refrain from entering-' a* protest against” their being “ sum* marised” and condensed as a 'inere business speculation. ' ' ’• ' ■ ■ ■■■ ■ l ■■ ••'