St. Ronans Well | Page 4

despises and curses the givers of "handfuls of coals and of rice;" his
first he drew in the witches of "The Bride of Lammermoor." He has
himself indicated his desire to press hard on the vice of gambling, as in
"The Fortunes of Nigel." Ruinous at all times and in every shape,
gambling, in Scott's lifetime, during the Regency, had crippled or
destroyed many an historical Scottish family. With this in his mind he
drew the portrait of Mowbray of St. Ronan's. His picture of duelling is
not more seductive; he himself had lost his friend, Sir Alexander
Boswell, in a duel; on other occasions this institution had brought
discomfort into his life, and though he was ready to fight General
Gourgaud with Napoleon's pistols, he cannot have approved of the
practices of the MacTurks and Bingo Binkses. A maniac, as his
correspondence shows, challenged Sir Walter, insisting that he was
pointed at and ridiculed in the character of MacTurk. (Abbotsford
MSS.) It is interesting to have the picture of contemporary manners
from Scott's hand--Meg Dods remains among his immortal portraits;
but a novel in which the absurd will of fiction and the conventional

Nabob are necessary machinery can never be ranked so high as even
"The Monastery" and "Peveril." In Scotland, however, it was infinitely
more successful than its admirable successor "Redgauntlet."
ANDREW LANG. December 1893.

INTRODUCTION
TO
ST. RONAN'S WELL.
The novel which follows is upon a plan different from any other that
the author has ever written, although it is perhaps the most legitimate
which relates to this kind of light literature.
It is intended, in a word--celebrare domestica facta--to give an
imitation of the shifting manners of our own time, and paint scenes, the
originals of which are daily passing round us, so that a minute's
observation may compare the copies with the originals. It must be
confessed that this style of composition was adopted by the author
rather from the tempting circumstance of its offering some novelty in
his compositions, and avoiding worn-out characters and positions, than
from the hope of rivalling the many formidable competitors who have
already won deserved honours in this department. The ladies, in
particular, gifted by nature with keen powers of observation and light
satire, have been so distinguished by these works of talent, that,
reckoning from the authoress of Evelina to her of Marriage, a catalogue
might be made, including the brilliant and talented names of Edgeworth,
Austin, Charlotte Smith, and others, whose success seems to have
appropriated this province of the novel as exclusively their own. It was
therefore with a sense of temerity that the author intruded upon a
species of composition which had been of late practised with such
distinguished success. This consciousness was lost, however, under the
necessity of seeking for novelty, without which, it was much to be
apprehended, such repeated incursions on his part would nauseate the

long indulgent public at the last.
The scene chosen for the author's little drama of modern life was a
mineral spring, such as are to be found in both divisions of Britain, and
which are supplied with the usual materials for redeeming health, or
driving away care. The invalid often finds relief from his complaints,
less from the healing virtues of the Spa itself, than because his system
of ordinary life undergoes an entire change, in his being removed from
his ledger and account-books--from his legal folios and progresses of
title-deeds--from his counters and shelves,--from whatever else forms
the main source of his constant anxiety at home, destroys his appetite,
mars the custom of his exercise, deranges the digestive powers, and
clogs up the springs of life. Thither, too, comes the saunterer, anxious
to get rid of that wearisome attendant himself, and thither come both
males and females, who, upon a different principle, desire to make
themselves double.
The society of such places is regulated, by their very nature, upon a
scheme much more indulgent than that which rules the world of fashion,
and the narrow circles of rank in the metropolis. The titles of rank, birth,
and fortune, are received at a watering-place without any very strict
investigation, as adequate to the purpose for which they are preferred;
and as the situation infers a certain degree of intimacy and sociability
for the time, so to whatever heights it may have been carried, it is not
understood to imply any duration beyond the length of the season. No
intimacy can be supposed more close for the time, and more transitory
in its endurance, than that which is attached to a watering-place
acquaintance. The novelist, therefore, who fixes upon such a scene for
his tale, endeavours to display a species of society, where the strongest
contrast of humorous characters and manners may be brought to bear
on and