, not _in
intenso_. In action, in speculation, _broad_ as he was, he rose
nowhere high; productive without measure as to quantity, in quality he
for the most part transcended but a little way the region of
commonplace.

It has been said, "no man has written as many volumes with so few
sentences that can be quoted." Winged words were not his vocation;
nothing urged him that way: the great mystery of existence was not
great to him; did not drive him into rocky solitudes to wrestle with
it for an answer, to be answered or to perish. He had nothing of the
martyr; into no "dark region to slay monsters for us," did he, either
led or driven, venture down: his conquests were for his own behoof
mainly, conquests over common market labor, and reckonable in good
metallic coin of the realm. The thing he had faith in, except power,
power of what sort soever, and even of the rudest sort, would be
difficult to point out. One sees not that he believed in anything:
nay, he did not even disbelieve; but quietly acquiesced, and made
himself at home in a world of conventionalities: the false, the
semi-false, and the true were alike true in this that they were there,
and had power in their hands more or less. It was well to feel so; and
yet not well! We find it written, "Wo to them that are at ease in
Zion"; but surely it is a double wo to them that are at ease in Babel,
in Domdaniel. On the other hand he wrote many volumes, amusing many
thousands of men. Shall we call this great? It seems to us there
dwells and struggles another sort of spirit in the inward parts of
great men!...

Yet on the other hand, the surliest critic must allow that Scott was a
genuine man, which itself is a great matter. No affectation,
fantasticality, or distortion, dwelt in him; no shadow of cant. Nay,
withal, was he not a right brave and strong man, according to his
kind? What a load of toil, what a measure of felicity, he quietly bore
along with him; with what quiet strength he both worked on this earth,
and enjoyed in it; invincible to evil fortune and to good! A most
composed invincible man; in difficulty and distress, knowing no
discouragement, Samson-like, carrying off on his strong
Samson-shoulders the gates that would imprison him; in danger and
menace, laughing at the whisper of fear. And then, with such a sunny
current of true humor and humanity, a free joyful sympathy with so
many things; what of fire he had, all lying so beautifully _latent_,
as rad