Legal Activities
- Family Life, 1806-1808
In 1806 Scott
obtained a permanent post which relieved him of anxiety for the future.
He was appointed Clerk of the Court of Session. This is the supreme court
of Scotland, for Scotland to this day has her own fine legal system quite
different from that of England. This post now became his 'crutch' as he
said, and literature could be his 'staff'. His work in the court gave him
a wonderful viewpoint to study that large and varied section of humanity
which goes to law. All this was put to good use in his later writings.
He made many
trips up and down Scotland, visited London and met there most of the great
people in literature and politics, and was presented at Court. The Peninsular
War and the Scots soldiers fighting there stirred his imagination and he
longed to go there. But he had to be content with writing patriotic prose
and militant verse. From 1804 till he bought Abbotsford in 1811 he spent
more than six months each year at Ashiestiel and there came many friends
and neighbours to enjoy his great hospitality. His next-door neighbour,
a devout Presbyterian, used to come on Sundays for Scott's readings from
the English prayer book. Such was the man, drawing all men to himself by
his goodness. As a host he was a famous story-teller, full of wild fun,
and Hogg, no mean critic, admits he never heard him tell the same story
twice.
Scott was now
(1812) in his early forties, strong in body, unshaken in health, with a
great zest for work and play. He now began to rise at five, lit his own
fire if one were needed and was at his desk at six, his dog at his feet.
He worked till between nine and ten and thus in his own words had 'broken
the neck of the day's work'. When it was wet he worked longer, so as to
budget for picnics, etc., when the family started after breakfast at ten.
He answered every letter by return and kept his papers and books in perfect
order. On Sunday he read prayers to his household and to any neighbours
who cared to come. If fine the family would picnic. If wet he told them
Bible stories. What a lovely husband and father he must have been; we are
reminded of what Burns tells us of his own father:
The tender
father, and the gen'rous friend:
The pitying
heart that felt for human woe,
The dauntless
heart that fear'd no human pride:
The friend
of man - to vice alone a foe.
His fourth
and last child, Charles, was born in 1805. As soon as the children could
move about, they became his companions and were allowed to run in and out
of his study as they pleased. Thus they easily and early acquired that
sense of being 'wanted', which as modern educational psychology stresses
is perhaps the greatest asset in the physical, mental and moral development
of the young. He also taught them to be brave and not to fuss. Later in
his heroic effort to pay off debts he could have rightly refused to pay,
he showed by the example of his own fortitude what he, by words and deeds,
had inculcated in his children when they were young. The talk was rarely
of books. His daughter, Sophia, was once asked what she thought of The
Lady of the Lake, her father's famous Highland story in verse. She answered:
'Oh, I have not read it. Papa says there's nothing so bad for young people
as reading bad poetry'.' Her father laughed heartily when he heard this:
'Out of the mouths of babes and infants.' Fortunate children of fortunate
parents.
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