“You have long ere this heard from honest James that he accedes to your proposal of
becoming one of your sureties. I did not think it right in the first instance
either to encourage or deter him from taking this step, but sent him the whole
correspondence upon the subject, that he might judge for himself, and I fancy
he con-
| LETTERS TO TERRY. | 27 |
“There is an idea among some of your acquaintance,
which I partly acquiesce in, that you are in general somewhat of a
procrastinator. I believe I have noticed the same thing myself; but then I
consider it the habit of one accustomed to alternations of severe exertion and
great indolence; and I have no doubt that it will give place to the necessity
of following out a regular, stated, and daily business—where every hour brings
its own peculiar duties, and you feel yourself like the mail-coach compelled to
be in to time. I know such routine always cures me of
the habit of indolence, which, on other occasions, I give way to as much as any
man. This objection to the success which all agree is in your own power, I have
heard coupled with another, which is also founded on close observation of your
character, and connected with an excellent point of it; it is, that you will be
too desirous to do things perfectly well—to consider the petite economie necessary to a very
extensive undertaking. This, however, is easily guarded against. I remember
Mrs John Kemble telling me how much
she had saved by degrading some unfortunate figurantes into paper veils and
ruffles. I think it was a round sum, and without going such lengths, I fear
severer economy than one would like to practise is essential to making a
theatre profitable. Now, I have mentioned the only two personal circumstances
which induce envy to lift her voice against your prospects. I think it right
you should know them, for there is something to be considered in both
particulars; I would not mention them till the affair was finished, because I
would not have you think I was sheltering myself under such apologies. That the
perils rising out of them are not formidable in my eyes, I have sufficiently
shown; and I think it right to mention them
| 28 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
