"
Sir Walter Scott was a man who was honest to the core of his
nature and his strenuous and determined efforts to pay his debts,
or rather the debts of the firm with which he had become involved,
has always appeared to us one of the grandest things in biography.
When his publisher and printer broke down, ruin seemed to stare
him in the face. There was no want of sympathy for him in his
great misfortune, and friends came forward who offered to raise
money enough to enable him to arrange with his creditors. "No!
"said he, proudly; "this right hand shall work it all off!" "If
we lose everything else," he wrote to a friend, "we will at least
keep our honour unblemished." (17) While his health was already
becoming undermined by overwork, he went on "writing like a
tiger," as he himself expressed it, until no longer able to wield
a pen; and though he paid the penalty of his supreme efforts with
his life, he nevertheless saved his honour and his self-respect.
Everybody knows bow Scott threw off 'Woodstock,' the 'Life of
Napoleon' (which he thought would be his death (18)), articles for
the 'Quarterly,' 'Chronicles of the Canongate,' 'Prose
Miscellanies,' and 'Tales of a Grandfather'--all written in the
midst of pain, sorrow, and ruin. The proceeds of those various
works went to his creditors. "I could not have slept sound," he
wrote, "as I now can, under the comfortable impression of
receiving the thanks of my creditors, and the conscious feeling of
discharging my duty as a man of honour and honesty.
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