But I must first define, and that within strict horizon, the works of Scott, in which his perfect mind may be known, and his chosen ways understood.
His great works of prose fiction, excepting only the first half-volume of "Waverley," were all written in twelve years, 1814-26 (of his own age forty-three to fifty-five), the actual time employed in their composition being not more than a couple of months out of each year; and during that time only the morning hours and spare minutes during the professional day. "Though the first volume of 'Waverley' was begun long ago, and actually lost for a time, yet the other two were begun and finished between the 4th of June and the 1st of July, during all which I attended my duty in court, and proceeded without loss of time or hindrance of business."[52]
Few of the maxims for the enforcement of which, in "Modern Painters," long ago, I got the general character of a lover of paradox, are more singular, or more sure, than the statement, apparently so encouraging to the idle, that if a great thing can be done at all, it can be done easily. But it is that kind of ease with which a tree blossoms after long years of gathered strength, and all Scott's great writings were the recreations of a mind confirmed in dutiful labor, and rich with organic gathering of boundless resource.
Omitting from our count the two minor and ill-finished sketches of the "Black Dwarf" and "Legend of Montrose," and, for a reason presently to be noticed, the unhappy "St. Ronan's," the memorable romances of Scott are eighteen, falling into three distinct groups, containing six each.
24. The first group is distinguished from the other two by characters of strength and felicity which never more appeared after Scott was struck down by his terrific illness in 1819. It includes "Waverley," "Guy Mannering," "The Antiquary," "Rob Roy," "Old Mortality," and "The Heart of Midlothian."
The composition of these occupied the mornings of his happiest days, between the ages of forty-three and forty-eight. On the 8th of April, 1819 (he was forty-eight on the preceding 15th of August), he began for the first time to dictate—being unable for the exertion of writing—"The Bride of Lammermuir," "the affectionate Laidlaw beseeching him to stop dictating when his audible suffering filled every pause. 'Nay, Willie,' he answered, 'only see that the doors are fast. I would fain keep all the cry as well as all the wool to ourselves; but as for giving over work, that can only be when I am in woolen.'"[53] From this time forward the brightness of joy and sincerity of inevitable humor, which perfected the imagery of the earlier novels, are wholly absent, except in the two short intervals of health unaccountably restored, in which he wrote "Redgauntlet" and "Nigel."
It is strange, but only a part of the general simplicity of Scott's genius, that these revivals of earlier power were unconscious, and that the time of extreme weakness in which he wrote "St. Ronan's Well," was that in which he first asserted his own restoration.
25. It is also a deeply interesting characteristic of his noble nature that he never gains anything by sickness; the whole man breathes or faints as one creature: the ache that stiffens a limb chills his heart, and every pang of his stomach paralyzes the brain. It is not so with inferior minds, in the workings of which it is often impossible to distinguish native from narcotic fancy, and the throbs of conscience from those of indigestion. Whether in exaltation or languor, the colors of mind are always morbid which gleam on the sea for the "Ancient Mariner," and through the casements on "St. Agnes' Eve"; but Scott is at once blinded and stultified by sickness; never has a fit of the cramp without spoiling a chapter, and is perhaps the only author of vivid imagination who never wrote a foolish word but when he was ill.
It remains only to be noticed on this point that any strong natural excitement, affecting the deeper springs of his heart, would at once restore his intellectual powers to their fullness, and that, far towards their sunset: but that the strong will on which he prided himself, though it could trample upon pain, silence grief, and compel industry, never could warm his imagination, or clear the judgment in his darker hours.
I believe that this power of the heart over the intellect is common to all great men: but what the special character of emotion was, that alone could lift Scott above the power of death, I am about to ask the reader, in a little while, to observe with joyful care.