Query, if I shall make it so
effective in two volumes as my mother does in her quarter of
an hour's crack by the fireside? But _nil desperandum_. You
shall have a bunch to-morrow or next day--and when the
proofs come in, my pen must and shall step out. By the bye,
I want a supply of pens--and ditto of ink. Adieu for the
present, for I must go over to Toftfield, to give orders
_anent_ the dam and the footpath, and see _item_ as to what
should be done _anent_ steps at the Rhymer's Waterfall,
which I think may be made to turn out a decent bit of a
linn, as would set True Thomas his worth and dignity. Ever
yours,

W. S.

{p.274} It must, I think, be allowed that these careless scraps, when
combined, give a curious picture of the man who was brooding over the
first chapters of The Bride of Lammermoor. One of his visitors of that
month was Mr. R. Cadell, who was of course in all the secrets of the
house of Constable; and observing how his host was harassed with
lion-hunters, and what a number of hours he spent daily in the company
of his work-people, he expressed, during one of their walks, his
wonder that Scott should ever be able to write books at all while in
the country. "I know," he said, "that you contrive to get a few hours
in your own room, and that may do for the mere pen-work; but when is
it that you think?" "Oh," said Scott, "I lie _simmering_ over things
for an hour or so before I get up--and there's the time I am dressing
to overhaul my half-sleeping, half-waking _projet de chapitre_--and
when I get the paper before me, it commonly runs off pretty
easily.--Besides, I often take a doze in the plantations, and while
Tom marks out a dyke or a drain as I have directed, one's fancy may be
running its ain riggs in some other world."

It was in the month following that I first saw Abbotsford. He invited
my friend John Wilson (now Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh)
and myself to visit him for a day or two on our return from an
excursion to Mr. Wilson's beautiful villa on the Lake of Windermere,
but named the particular day (October 8) on which it would be most
convenient for him to receive us; and we discovered on our arrival
that he had fixed it from a good-natured motive. We found him walking
in one of his plantations, at no great distance from the house, with
five or six young people, and his friends Lord Melvil