hy more
impressive than the stoical extracts from Scott's diary which note the
descent of this blow. Here is the anticipation of the previous day:
"Edinburgh, January 16th.--Came through cold roads to as cold news. Hurst
and Robinson have suffered a bill to come back upon Constable, which, I
suppose, infers the ruin of both houses. We shall soon see. Dined with
the Skenes." And here is the record itself: "January 17th.--James
Ballantyne this morning, good honest fellow, with a visage as black as the
crook. He hopes no salvation; has, indeed, taken measures to stop. It is
hard, after having fought such a battle. I have apologized for not
attending the Royal Society Club, who have a _gaudeamus_ on this day, and
seemed to count much on my being the praeses. My old acquaintance Miss
Elizabeth Clerk, sister of Willie, died suddenly. I cannot choose but wish
it had been Sir W. S., and yet the feeling is unmanly. I have Anne, my
wife, and Charles to look after. I felt rather sneaking as I came home
from the Parliament-house--felt as if I were liable _monstrari digito_ in
no very pleasant way. But this must be borne _cum coeteris_; and, thank
God, however uncomfortable, I do not feel despondent."[51] On the
following day, the 18th January, the day after the blow, he records a bad
night, a wish that the next two days were over, but that "the worst _is_
over," and on the same day he set about making notes for the _magnum
opus_, as he called it--the complete edition of all the novels, with a new
introduction and notes. On the 19th January, two days after the failure,
he calmly resumed the composition of _Woodstock_--the novel on which he
was then engaged--and completed, he says, "about twenty printed pages of
it;" to which he adds that he had "a painful scene after dinner and
another after supper, endeavouring to convince these poor creatures" [his
wife and daughter] "that they must not look for miracles, but consider the
misfortune as certain, and only to be lessened by patience and labour." On
the 21st January, after a number of business details, he quotes from Job,
"Naked we entered the world and naked we leave it; blessed be the name of
the Lord." On the 22nd he says, "I feel neither dishonoured nor broken
down by the bad, now truly bad, news I have received. I have walked my
last in the domains I have planted--sat the last time in the halls I have
built. But death would have taken them from me, if misfortune had spared
them. My