SCOTT THE MAN

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1932, Page 13 (Supplement)

SCOTT THE MAN

INFLUENCE IN LITERATURE

(Ry

T.C.L.)

If the oversea visitor has the felicity of visiting the Border country with an enthusiastic Scot as cicerone he will soon notice a dominant characteristic in his guide. It is that, conjoined with his pride in the history Sir Walter Scott painted so vividly, is a knowledge and sympathy with Scott the man that is truly remarkable. A Dickens’ enthusiast remembers the characters he created, but of the writer himself you hear little. In Scotland you will be shown this spot or that building as having been the location of a Scott story, or be told of a certain family having provided the personages from which his heroes or villains were drawn. Your guide will dwell upon the remarkable record of Walter Scott the writer; how he showed that in the highways and bye-ways of great movements the human interest was intense, the effect of national happenings upon the common people as well as upon those to whom history has given greatest publicity, and how personal ambitions, loves and desires could influence political or Church affairs of highest moment. You will be asked to marvel at the genius that wrote 'ballads and poems that will live so long as stories of prowess appeal to (Britons, yet was large-minded enough to recognise Byron’s greater gift for poesy and to turn to prose as the medium of his great gift of story-tell-ing; how that gift re-awa'kened Great Britain to a joy in literature, brought its possessor a baronetcy from a king who varied debauchery with a real and discriminating taste in high art, made Scott the literary lion of London when he was 3'5 years old, and made acquaintance with him an honour sought by the highest and the lowliest alike.. A Scott, lover will tell you all this, and more. He will give good reasons for his belief that at least a third. of the 64 publications which reached wide circulation will claim a place in British literature so long as it shall last, and he will certainly kindle within you an admiration you have never before acknowledged. But when tribute has been paid to genius it is that paid to the memory of a great man that really grips the attention most. Born of forebears for centuries almost continuously “agin the government,” some of them Border knights, some of them Jacobites, one of them even suffered torture for becoming a Quaker, but all of them ready to die for the right of following the demands of clan loyalty, personal leadership or their own desire to do just what they thought right irrespective of the decrees or power of authority. Sir Walter’s grandfather was the first of the family to recognise that the pen might be mightier than the sword and that to mould or administer laws was better than to fight an ever-losing battle. He took up town life and made his son a lawyer in Edinburgh, where the future novelist was born.

iSir Walter’s life began with a disability that would have daunted many. He was lamed in infancy, but refused to allow that limitation to be a handicap in the rough and tumble of boyhood. His first school reports called him an “incorrigible idle imp, famous for climbing rocks, fighting,' and story telling.” This last virtue Scott partly owed to his lameness, for in the hope of curing it he was sent as a child to the country where he absorbed from actual participants the stories of the “4.?,” the bickerings and persecutions in Church, civic, and even national affairs of which he was later to make such wonderful use. Entering his father’s profession his desire to progress therein was checked by his failure to win the lady of his choice. To that disappointment—and it was life-long—some say the urge to write poetry may be traced. At all events it is an interesting speculation whether had the girl who became Lady Forbes married Walter Scott advocacy would 'have claimed the brain that was to make 'Scottish literature famous. The disappointment lasted long, but in the sombre city of Carlisle Scott met the daughter of French refugees from the peril of the Revolution. Her history and her vivacity amid the dour citizens of that community appealed to him. They were married a year later and the union was one of the happiest. Earnings at his profession were meagre. In his first year of practice they amounted to £24. Five years later they had reached £144. But in the meantime Scott- had found his poetry and other writings were marketable. Literature 'became, in his own words, “not a crutch” but a staff upon which he could lean for the provision of an income. For years prosperity and honours seemed to flow his way. He was a’ble to indulge in his fancy for 'being a laird with a country seat,, and a titte and an estate raised him still higher in the ranks of the country gentlefolk. Success does not seem to have spoilt him. . . An English visitor to his home when things were at their brightest speaks of converse with him being “like drinking champagne without being intoxicated; the brilliancy of his fancy, the perfect good breeding, cordiality and extreme simplicity of his manners being a lasting joy.” Indeed, Scott’s history is one long record of hearty friendship. .His servants and his family all idolised, him, and it is a tribute to his large-minded-ness that in a period when personal abuse was a favourite weapon in criticism no petty jealousy ever involved Scott in literary squabbles. It was the fascination of friendship that was to prove his undoing; Most people know how a secret pai tnership with a firm of publishers involved Scott’s personal estate. In a few months he found himself with a liability of £117,000. His marriage settlements and’ legacies to his children would have kept the family from want had. he taken the easy way out by Becoming bankrupt, But the calamity roused all that was noblest in his nect and sense of honour. He told ;■ .editors he would “be their vassal ; ■ life and dig the mine of my imaginan -r to find diamonds—to make good my ■engagements, not to enrich myself. At 5b he'set himself to his heroic struggle. In the next six years he produced 14 new works and edited many reprints of his earlier writings. • As the result of his amazing industry he actually paid off £BO,OOO. It is pleasing to note that most of the creditors of the firm recognised the worth of the man, and were generous. ■But the strain was too great. It was aggravated by the loss of his wife. The “mine” showed signs of petering out and then came the end, not swiftly, but with a gentle clouding of the intellect and a gradual physical collapse. Though he did not die debt-free, as he had

hoped, the copyrights of his -works 15 years after his death were sufficient to free his estate.

Of him it can be truly said, “he died fighting.” The creator of “Rob Roy” and many another doughty chieftain would have desired no prouder epitaph—■ a good fighter and a good friend. It may be those are the chief virtues which keep green the memory of this wonderful, heroic character.. ■ . '