How beautiful the abbey may have been we can only guess; but it is still picturesque, though the windows, once filled with wonderful stained glass, are now bare and desolate, and the only incense on its ruined altar is the breath of the wild rose.
PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR, VOL. 1, No. 10, SERIAL No. 10
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.
ABBOTSFORD, SCOTLAND
SCOTLAND
Abbotsford
FOUR
A man who at the age of fifty-five resolves to pay off a bankruptcy debt of six hundred thousand dollars must justly be regarded as a hero. Not many men, weakened in health and used to all the comforts, would attempt to do this—especially when the debt was incurred through no fault of their own, and when the law does not force them to pay. Yet that is what Sir Walter Scott—the “Wizard of the North”—did, and so fiercely did he work at his writing—twelve, fourteen, and sixteen hours a day—that at his death six years later every penny of that colossal and heartbreaking debt had been paid.
The story of Abbotsford, the home of the great poet and novelist, of which he dreamed for years, and which he planned and built himself, is a drama, a tragedy itself. No sooner was the great house finished and the dream of his life complete than the crash of tremendous ruin fell on Scott.