Scott returned to Abbotsford to die. "I have seen much," he said on his return, "but nothing like my own house—give me one turn more." One of the last things he uttered, in one of his lucid intervals, was worthy of him. "I have been," he said, "perhaps the most voluminous author of my day, and it IS a comfort to me to think that I have tried to unsettle no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principles, and that I have written nothing which on my deathbed I should wish blotted out." His last injunction to his son-in-law was: "Lockhart, I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be virtuous—be religious—be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here."
The devoted conduct of Lockhart himself was worthy of his great relative. The 'Life of Scott,' which he afterwards wrote, occupied him several years, and was a remarkably successful work. Yet he himself derived no pecuniary advantage from it; handing over the profits of the whole undertaking to Sir Walter's creditors in payment of debts which he was in no way responsible, but influenced entirely by a spirit of honour, of regard for the memory of the illustrious dead.
CHAPTER VII.—DUTY—TRUTHFULNESS.
"I slept, and dreamt that life was Beauty; I woke, and found
that life was Duty."
"Duty! wondrous thought, that workest neither by fond
insinuation, flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by
holding up thy naked law in the soul, and so extorting for
thyself always reverence, if not always obedience; before
whom all appetites are dumb, however secretly they rebel"—
KANT.
"How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will!
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
"Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death;
Unti'd unto the world by care
Of public fame, or private breath.
"This man is freed from servile bands,
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of land;
And having nothing, yet hath all."—WOTTON.
"His nay was nay without recall;
His yea was yea, and powerful all;
He gave his yea with careful heed,
His thoughts and words were well agreed;
His word, his bond and seal."
INSCRIPTION ON BARON STEIN'S TOMB.
DUTY is a thing that is due, and must be paid by every man who would avoid present discredit and eventual moral insolvency. It is an obligation—a debt—which can only be discharged by voluntary effort and resolute action in the affairs of life.
Duty embraces man's whole existence. It begins in the home, where there is the duty which children owe to their parents on the one hand, and the duty which parents owe to their children on the other. There are, in like manner, the respective duties of husbands and wives, of masters and servants; while outside the home there are the duties which men and women owe to each other as friends and neighbours, as employers and employed, as governors and governed.
"Render, therefore," says St. Paul, "to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law,"
Thus duty rounds the whole of life, from our entrance into it until our exit from it—duty to superiors, duty to inferiors, and duty to equals—duty to man, and duty to God. Wherever there is power to use or to direct, there is duty. For we are but as stewards, appointed to employ the means entrusted to us for our own and for others' good.
The abiding sense of duty is the very crown of character. It is the upholding law of man in his highest attitudes. Without it, the individual totters and falls before the first puff of adversity or temptation; whereas, inspired by it, the weakest becomes strong and full of courage. "Duty," says Mrs. Jameson, "is the cement which binds the whole moral edifice together; without which, all power, goodness, intellect, truth, happiness, love itself, can have no permanence; but all the fabric of existence crumbles away from under us, and leaves us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation."