Sir Walter Scott | Page 8

novels? Possibly few
Scotsmen are impartial here. As Dr. Johnson said, they are not a fair
people, and when they think of the Waverley Novels they perhaps do
not always see quite clearly. Edinburgh and the Eildon Hills, Aberfoyle

and Stirling, come between their minds and the printed page:--
A mist of memory broods and floats, The Border waters flow, The air
is full of ballad notes Borne out of long ago.
It might be prudent and more critical to take each book on its own
merits in a dry light. But it is not easy to think of a great writer thus
discreetly. Is Balzac often judged accurately and coldly, piece by piece,
here a line and there a line? Are not the best judges those who think of
his whole achievement altogether--the whole amazing world of his
creation--La Comédie Humaine? By the same sort of rule Scott may be
judged, and the whole of his work, his vast industry, and all that made
the fabric of his life, be allowed to tell on the mind of the reader.
I wish this discourse had been more worthy of its theme, and of this
audience, and of this year of heroic memories and lofty hopes. But if,
later in the summer, I should find my way back to Ettrick and Yarrow
and the Eildon Hills, it will be a pleasure to remember there the honour
you have done me in allowing me to speak in Paris, however
unworthily, of the greatness of Sir Walter Scott.

Glasgow: Printed at the University Press by Robert MacLehose and Co.
Ltd.

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