Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart..Robert Cadell, Edinburgh. John Murray and Whittaker and Company, London., 1837 |
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Abbotsford Adam Ferguson affairs affectionate amused Anne beautiful believe breakfast Byron Cadell called Castle character Chiefswood Colin Mackenzie Constable Constable's Court Court of Session Coutts dear Diary Dined dinner doubt Dublin Duke duty Edgeworthstown Edinburgh eyes fancy fear feelings fortune gave genius gentleman give hand happy heart honour hope hour Ireland Irish James Ballantyne Jane January John Killarney kind labour Lady Scott late letter literary Lochore Lockhart London look Lord Melville Malachi matter melancholy mind Moore morning Napoleon never novel old friend opinion painful party perhaps person pleasure poor received Rokeby Park ruin Scotland Scottish seems Sir Walter Scott Skene society sort spirits suppose sure talent talk thing thought tion to-day to-morrow told Tom Purdie walk Waverley Waverley Novels Whigs whole wish Woodstock write wrote yesterday young
Popular passages
Page 292 - My wits begin to turn. Come on, my boy : how dost, my boy ? art cold ? I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow ? The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel. Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart That's sorry yet for thee.
Page 75 - There is a stone there, that whoever kisses, Oh ! he never misses to grow eloquent. 'Tis he may clamber to a lady's chamber, Or become a member of parliament : A clever spouter he'll sure turn out, or An out-and-outer, "to be let alone...
Page 321 - I am sensible that if there be anything good about my poetry or prose either, it is a hurried frankness of composition, which pleases soldiers, sailors, and young people of bold and active disposition.
Page 371 - Doeg, though without knowing how or why, Made still a blundering kind of melody; Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin. Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in...
Page 60 - I have read books enough, and observed and conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly cultivated minds, too, in my time ; but I assure you I have heard higher sentiments from the lips of poor, uneducated men and women, when exerting the spirit of severe, yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their simple thoughts as to circumstances in the lot of friends and neighbors, than I ever yet met with out of the pages of the Bible.
Page 196 - I have walked my last on the domains I have planted — sate the last time in the halls I have built. But death would have taken them from me if misfortune had spared them.
Page 264 - I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow Strain I can do myself like any now going ; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me.
Page 165 - I was to have gone there on Saturday in joy and prosperity to receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish — but the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more than any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I must get them kind masters ! There may be yet those who loving me, may love my dog, because it has been mine. I must end these gloomy forebodings, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men should meet distress. I feel my...
Page 212 - This was the man, quaint, capricious, and playful, with all his immense genius. He wrote from impulse, never from effort; and therefore I have always reckoned Burns and Byron the most genuine poetical geniuses of my time, and half a century before me. We have, however, many men of high poetical talent, but none, I think, of that ever-gushing and perennial fountain of natural water.
Page 325 - I wonder often how Tom Campbell, with so much real genius, has not maintained a greater figure in the public eye than he has done of late. The Magazine* seems to have paralyzed him. The author, not only of the Pleasures of Hope, but of Hohcnlinden, Lochiel, &c., should have been at the very top of the tree.