personage--but he _eats and drinks like other
people_!"

{p.283} I may, however, take this opportunity of observing, that
nothing could have been more absurdly unfounded than the statement
which I have seen repeated in various sketches of his Life and
Manners, that he habitually abstained from conversation on literary
topics. In point of fact, there were no topics on which he talked more
openly or more earnestly; but he, when in society, lived and talked
for the persons with whom he found himself surrounded, and if he did
not always choose to enlarge upon the subjects which his companions
for the time suggested, it was simply because he thought or fancied
that these had selected, out of deference or flattery, subjects about
which they really cared little more than they knew. I have already
repeated, over and again, my conviction that Scott considered
literature, _per se_, as a thing of far inferior importance to the
high concerns of political or practical life; but it would be too
ridiculous to question that literature nevertheless engrossed, at all
times and seasons, the greater part of his own interest and
reflection: nor can it be doubted that his general preference of the
society of men engaged in the active business of the world, rather
than that of, so-called, literary people, was grounded substantially
on his feeling that literature, worthy of the name, was more likely to
be fed and nourished by the converse of the former than by that of the
latter class.

Before breakfast was over, the post-bag arrived, and its contents were
so numerous, that Lord Melville asked Scott what election was on
hand--not doubting that there must be some very particular reason for
such a shoal of letters. He answered that it was much the same most
days, and added, "though no one has kinder friends in the franking
line, and though Freeling and Croker especially are always ready to
stretch the point of privilege in my favor, I am nevertheless a fair
contributor to the revenue, for I think my bill for letters seldom
comes under L150 a year; and as to coach-parcels, they {p.284} are a
perfect ruination." He then told with high merriment a disaster that
had lately befallen him. "One morning last spring," he said, "I opened
a huge lump of a despatch, without looking how it was addressed, never
doubting that it had travelled under some omnipotent frank like the
First Lord of the Admiralty's, when, lo and behold, the contents
proved to be a