Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart.
Sir Walter Scott to Jane Scott, 23 March 1825
“Abbotsford, March 23, 1825.
“I am afraid you will think me a merciless
correspondent, assailing you with so close a fire of letters; but having a
frank, I thought it as well to send you an epistle, though it can contain
nothing more of interest excepting that we are all well. I can, however, add
more particularly than formerly, that I learn from Mrs
Bayley that Mrs
Jobson’s health is not only good, but her spirits are
remarkably so, so as to give the greatest pleasure to all friends. I can see, I
think, a very good reason for this; for, after the pain of the first separation
from so dear an object, and after having brought her mind to believe that your
present situation presented to you a fair chance for happiness, I can easily
suppose that her maternal anxiety is greatly relieved from fears and
apprehensions which formerly distressed her. Nothing can be more kind and more
handsome than the ![]()
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way in which Mrs
Jobson speaks of Walter,
which I mention, because it gives me sincere pleasure, and will, I am sure,
afford the same to you, or rather much more.
“My troops here are sadly diminished. I have only
Anne to parade for her morning walk,
and to domineer over for going in thin slippers and silk stockings through
dirty paths, and in lace veils through bushes and thorn brakes. I think
Jane sometimes came in for a share
of the lecture on these occasions. So I walk my solitary round—generally
speaking—look after my labourers, and hear them regularly enquire, ‘If I
have heard from the ‘Captain and his Leddy?’ I wish I could answer
them—yes; but have no reason to be impatient. This
is the 23d, and I suppose Walter will be
at Cork this evening to join the 15th, and that you are safe at Edgeworthstown
to spend your first short term of widowhood. I hope the necessary hospitality
to his mess will not occasion his dissipating too much; for, to be a very
strong young man, I know no one with whom what is called hard living agrees so
ill. A happy change in the manners of the times fortunately renders such abuse
of the good creature, wine, much less frequent and less fashionable than it was
in my days and Sir Adam’s.
Drinking is not now the vice of the times, whatever vices and follies they may
have adopted in its stead.
“I had proceeded thus far in my valuable
communication, when, lo! I was alarmed by the entrance of that terrific animal
a two-legged boar—one of the largest size and most tremendous powers. By the
way, I learned, from no less an authority than George Canning, what my own experience has since made good,
that an efficient bore must always have something respectable about him,
otherwise no one would permit him to exercise his occupation. He must be, for
example, a very rich man (which, perhaps, gives the greatest privilege of
all)—or ![]()
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he must be a man
of rank and condition too important to be treated sans ceremonie—or a man of learning (often a dreadful
bore)—or of talents undoubted, or of high pretensions to wisdom and
experience—or a great traveller;—in short, he must have some tangible privilege
to sanction his profession. Without something of this kind, one would treat a
bore as you do a vagrant mendicant, and send him off to the workhouse if he
presumed to annoy you. But when properly qualified, the bore is more like a
beggar with a badge and pass from his parish, which entitles him to disturb you
with his importunity whether you will or no. Now, my bore is a complete
gentleman and an old friend, but, unhappily for those who know him, master of
all Joe Miller’s stories of
sailors and Irishmen, and full of quotations from the classics as hackneyed as
the post-horses of Melrose. There was no remedy; I must either stand his shot
within doors or turn out with him for a long walk, and, for the sake of
elbow-room, I preferred the last. Imagine an old gentleman, who has been
handsome, and has still that sort of pretension which leads him to wear tight
pantaloons and a smart half-boot, neatly adapted to show off his leg; suppose
him as upright and straight as a poker, if the poker’s head had been, by
some accident, bent to one side; add to this, that he is a dogged Whig;
consider that I was writing to Jane, and
desired not to be interrupted by much more entertaining society—Well, I was had, however—fairly caught—and out we sallied, to make
the best we could of each other. I felt a sort of necessity to ask him to
dinner; but the invitation, like Macbeth’s amen, stuck in my
throat. For the first he got the lead, and kept it; but opportunities occur to
an able general, if he knows how to make use of them. In an evil hour for him,
and a happy one for me, he started the topic of our intended railroad; there I ![]()
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was a match for him, having
had, on Tuesday last, a meeting with Harden, the two Torwoodlees,
and the engineer on this subject, so that I had at my finger-end every cut, every lift, every degree of elevation or
depression, every pass in the country, and every possible means of crossing
them. So I kept the whip-hand of him completely, and never permitted him to get
off the railway again to his own ground. In short, so thoroughly did I bore my
bore, that he sickened and gave in, taking a short leave of me. Seeing him in
full retreat, I then ventured to make the civil offer of
a dinner. But the railroad had been breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper to
boot—he hastily excused himself, and left me at a double-quick time, sick of
railroads, I dare say, for six months to come. But I must not forget that I am
perhaps abusing the privilege I have to bore you, being that of your
affectionate papa.
“How nicely we could manage without the said
railroad, now the great hobby of our Teviotdale lairds, if we could by any
process of conjuration waft to Abbotsford some of the coal and lime from
Lochore—though, if I were to wish for such impossibilities, I would rather
desire Prince Houssein’s tapestry in
the Arabian Nights to bring Walter and
Jane to us now and then, than I
would wish for ‘Fife and all the lands about
it.’*
“By the by, Jane, after all, though she looks so demure, is a very sly
girl, and keeps her accomplishments to herself. You would not talk with me
about planting and laying out ground; and yet, from what you had been doing at
Lochore, I see what a pretty turn you have for these matters. I wish you were
here to advise me about the little pond which we passed, where, if you
remember, there is a new cottage built. I intend to
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plant it with aquatic trees, willows,
alders, poplars, and so forth—and put trouts and perches into the water—and
have a preserve of wild-ducks on the pond, with Canadian geese and some other
water-fowl. I am to get some eggs from Lord
Traquair of a curious species of half-reclaimed wild-ducks,
which abound near his solitary old chateau, and no where else in Scotland that
I know of; and I can get the Canadian geese, curious painted animals, that look
as if they had flown out of a figured Chinese paper, from Mr Murray of Broughton. The foolish folks,
when I was absent, chose to improve on my plan by making an island in the pond,
which is exactly the size and shape of a Stilton cheese. It will be useful,
however, for the fowl to breed in.
“Mamma drove out
your pony and carriage to-day. She was (twenty years ago), the best lady-whip in Edinburgh, and was delighted to find that
she retained her dexterity. I hope she will continue to exercise the rein and
whip now and then, as her health is much improved by moderate exercise.
“Adieu, my dear Jane. Mamma and Anne join in the kindest love and best wishes.
I please myself with the idea that I shall have heard you are well and happy
long before this reaches you.—Believe me always your affectionate father,
“I hope you will take my good example, and write
without caring or thinking either what you have got to say, or in what
words you say it.”
Thomas Blacklock (1721-1791)
Blind Scottish poet and clergyman; early in life his cause was taken up by David Hume and
Joseph Spence; later in life he befriended Robert Burns and Walter Scott. His life was
written by Henry Mackenzie.
George Canning (1770-1827)
Tory statesman; he was foreign minister (1807-1809) and prime minister (1827); a
supporter of Greek independence and Catholic emancipation.
Sir Adam Ferguson (1771-1855)
Son of the philosopher and classmate and friend of Sir Walter Scott; he served in the
Peninsular Campaign under Wellington, afterwards living on his estate in
Dumfriesshire.
Rachel Jobson [née Stewart] (1775-1863)
The daughter of John Stewart; in 1799 she married the Dundee merchant William Jobson
(1760-1822); her daughter Jane married Sir Walter Scott's eldest son, Walter.
Josias Miller (1684-1738)
English comic actor whose name was posthumously appropriated to the oft-reprinted
Joe Miller's Jests (1739), a work edited by one John Mottley.
Alexander Murray of Broughton (1789-1845)
Scottish politician; educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, he was a Whig M.P. for
Kirkcudbright (1838-1845).
James Pringle of Torwoodlee (d. 1840)
The friend and neighbor of Walter Scott; he was educated at Cambridge and Leyden,
succeeded his uncle as laird in 1780, and was vice-lieutenant of Selkirkshire.
Anne Scott (1803-1833)
Walter Scott's younger daughter who cared for him in his old age and died
unmarried.
Lady Jane Scott [née Jobson] (1801 c.-1877)
The daughter of William Jobson of Lochore; in 1825 she married Sir Walter Scott's eldest
son, Walter.
Sir Walter Scott, second baronet (1801-1847)
The elder son and heir of Sir Walter Scott; he was cornet in the 18th Hussars (1816),
captain (1825), lieut.-col. (1839). In the words of Maria Edgeworth, he was
“excessively shy, very handsome, not at all literary.”
Charles Stewart, seventh earl of Traquair (1744 c.-1827)
The son of the sixth earl (d.1779); in 1773 he married Mary Ravenscroft, daughter of
George Ravenscroft. He was an acquaintance of Sir Walter Scott.
