ike an old fool, with
recalling old stories till I was fit for nothing but shedding tears
and repeating verses for the whole night. This is sad work. The very
grave gives up its dead, and time rolls back thirty years to add to my
perplexities. I don't care. I begin to grow case-hardened, and like a
stag turning at bay, my naturally good temper grows fierce and
dangerous. Yet what a romance to tell--and told I fear it will one day
be. And then my three years of dreaming and my two years of wakening
will be chronicled, doubtless. But the dead will feel no
pain.--November 10th. At twelve o'clock I went again to poor Lady Jane
to talk over old stories. I am not clear that it is a right or
healthful indulgence to be ripping up old sores, but it seems to give
her deep-rooted sorrow words, and that is a mental blood-letting. To
me these things are now matter of calm and solemn recollection, never
to be forgotten, yet scarce to be remembered with pain."[8] It was in
1797, after the break-up of his hopes in relation to this attachment,
that Scott wrote the lines _To a Violet_, which Mr. F. T. Palgrave, in
his thoughtful and striking introduction to Scott's poems, rightly
characterizes as one of the most beautiful of those poems. It is,
however, far from one characteristic of Scott, indeed, so different
in style from the best of his other poems, that Mr. Browning might
well have said of Scott, as he once affirmed of himself, that for the
purpose of one particular poem, he "who blows through bronze," had
"breathed through silver,"--had "curbed the liberal hand subservient
proudly,"--and tamed his spirit to a key elsewhere unknown.

"The violet in her greenwood bower,
Where birchen boughs with hazels mingle,
May boast itself the fairest flower
In glen, or copse, or forest dingle.

"Though fair her gems of azure hue,
Beneath the dewdrop's weight reclining,
I've seen an eye of lovelier blue,
More sweet through watery lustre shining.

"The summer sun that dew shall dry,
Ere yet the day be past its morrow;
Nor longer in my false love's eye
Remain'd the tear of parting sorrow."

These lines obviously betray a feeling of resentment, which may or may
not have been justified; but they are perhaps the most delicate
produced by his pen. The pride which was always so notable a feature
in Scott, probably sustained him through the keen, inward pain which
it is very certain from