Sir Walter Scott
A wildly successful writer of historical novels, Scott’s finances went awry when he decided to dabble as a publisher. In 1826 his publishing enterprise broke down and Scott was left owing one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to his creditors. He did not run, he did not plead bankruptcy but instead with heroic endeavour worked to pay off every penny, turning out novels at dizzying speed. He died in harness in 1832. A year or two later the debt was fully extinguished.
December 18, 1825. The general knowledge that an author must write for his bread, at least for improving his pittance, degrades him and his productions in the public eye. He falls into the second-rate rank of estimation:
While the harness sore galls, and the spurs his side goad,
The high-mettled racer’s a hack on the road.
It is a bitter thought; but if tears start at it, let them flow. My heart clings to the place I have created – there is scarce a tree on it that does not owe its being to me.
What a life mine has been! – half-educated, almost wholly neglected, or left to myself; stuffing my head with most nonsensical trash, and under-valued by most of my contemporaries for a time; getting forward, and held a bold and clever fellow, contrary to the opinion of all who thought me a mere dreamer; broken-hearted for two years; my heart handsomely pieced again – but the crack will remain till my dying day. Rich and poor four or five times; once on the verge of ruin, yet opened a new source of wealth almost overflowing. Now to be broken in my pitch of pride, and nearly winged (unless good news should come) because London chooses to be in an uproar, and in the tumult of bulls and bears, a poor inoffensive lion like myself is pushed to the wall. But what is to be the end of it? God knows; and so ends the catechism.
Nobody in the end can lose a penny by me – that is one comfort. Men will think pride has had a fall. Let them indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall will make them higher, or seem so at least. I have the satisfaction to recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage to many, and to hope that some at least will forgive my transient wealth on account of the innocence of my intentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor. Sad hearts, too, at Darnick, and in the cottages of Abbotsford. I have half resolved never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with such a diminished crest? – how live a poor indebted man, where I was once the wealthy, the honoured? I was to have gone there on Saturday in joy and prosperity to receive my friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish – but the thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures has moved me more than any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things! I must get them kind masters! There may be yet those who, loving me, may love my dog, because it has been mine. I must end these gloomy forebodings, or I shall lose the tone of mind with which men should meet distress. I find my dogs’ feet on my knees – I hear them whining and seeking me everywhere. This is nonsense, but it is what they would do could they know how things may be. An odd thought strikes me – When I die, will the journal of these days be taken out of the ebony cabinet at Abbotsford, and read with wonder, that the well-seeming Baronet should ever have experienced the risk of such a hitch? – or will it be found in some obscure lodging-house, where the decayed son of Chivalry had hung up his scutcheon, and where one or two old friends will look grave, and whisper to each other, “Poor gentleman” – “a well-meaning man” – “nobody’s enemy but his own” – “thought his parts would never wear out” – “family poorly left” – “pity he took that foolish title.” Who can answer this question?
December 26. My God! what poor creatures we are! After all my fair proposals yesterday, I was seized with a most violent pain in the right kidney and parts adjacent, which forced me instantly to go to bed and send for Clarkson. He came, inquired, and pronounced the complaint to be gravel augmented by bile. I was in great agony till about two o’clock, but awoke with the pain gone. I got up, had a fire in my dressing closet, and had Dalgleish to shave me – two trifles, which I only mention, because they are contrary to my hardy and independent personal habits. But although a man cannot be a hero to his valet, his valet in sickness becomes of great use to him. I cannot expect that the first will be the last visit of this cruel complaint: but “shall we receive good at the hand of God, and not receive evil?”
January 22nd. I feel neither dishonoured nor broken down by the bad – now really bad – news I have received. I have walked my last on the domains I have planted – sate the last time in the halls I have built. But death would have taken them from me if misfortune had spared them. My poor people whom I loved so well! – There is just another die to turn up against me in this run of ill-luck; i.e. if I should break my magic wand in the fall from this elephant, and lose my popularity with my fortune. Then Woodstock and “Bony” may both go to the paper-maker, and I may take to smoking cigars and drinking grog, or turn devotee, and intoxicate the brain another way. In prospect of absolute ruin, I wonder if they would let me leave the Court of Session. I would like, methinks, to go abroad,
And lay my bones far from the Tweed.
But I find my eyes moistening, and that will not do. I will not yield without a fight for it. It is odd, when I set myself to work doggedly, as Dr Johnson would say, I am exactly the same man as I ever was – neither low-spirited nor distrait. In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer; the fountain is awakened from its inmost recesses, as if the spirit of affliction had troubled it in his passage.
Poor Mr Pole the harper [who taught Scott’s daughters] sent to offer me £500 or £600, probably his all. There is much good in the world, after all.
January 23. Slept ill, not having been abroad these eight days – splendida bilis. Then a dead sleep in the morning, and when the awakening comes, a strong feeling how well I could dispense with it for once and for ever. This passes away, however, as better and more dutiful thoughts arise in my mind. I know not if my imagination has flagged – probably it has; but at least my powers of labour have not diminished during the last melancholy week. On Monday and Tuesday my exertions were suspended. Since Wednesday inclusive, I have written thirty-eight of my close MS. pages, of which seventy make a volume of the usual Novel size.
January 24. I went to the Court for the first time today, and, like the man with the large nose, thought everybody was thinking of me and my mishaps. Many were, undoubtedly, and all rather regrettingly; some obviously affected. It is singular to see the difference of men’s manner whilst they strive to be kind or civil in their way of addressing me. Some smiled as they wished me good-day, as if to say, “Think nothing about it, my lad; it is quite out of our thoughts.” Others greeted me with the usual affected gravity which one sees and despises at a funeral. The best-bred – all, I believe, meaning equally well – just shook hands and went on. A foolish puff in the papers, calling on men and gods to assist a popular author, who having choused the public of many thousands, had not the sense to keep wealth when he had it. If I am hard pressed, and measures used against me, I must use all means of legal defence, and subscribe myself bankrupt in a petition for sequestration. It is the course one should, at any rate, have advised a client to take. But for this I would, in a Court of Honour, deserve to lose my spurs. No, – if they permit me, I will be their vassal for life, and dig in the mine of my imagination to find diamonds (or what may sell for such) to make good my engagements, not to enrich myself. And this from no reluctance to be called the Insolvent, which I probably am, but because I will not put out of the power of my creditors the resources, mental or literary, which yet remain to me.
May 26. Dull, drooping, cheerless, has this day been. I cared not carrying my own gloom to the girls, and so sate in my own room, dawdling with old papers, which awakened as many stings as if they had been the nest of fifty scorpions. Then the solitude seemed so absolute – my poor Charlotte* would have been in the room half a score of times to see if the fire burned, and to ask a hundred kind questions. Well, that is over – and if it cannot be forgotten, must be remembered with patience.
Christmas, 1827. My reflections in entering my own gate today were of a very different and more pleasing cast than those with which I left this place about six weeks ago. I was then in doubt whether I should fly my country, or become avowedly bankrupt, and surrender up my library and household furniture, with the liferent of my estate, to sale. A man of the world will say I had better done so. No doubt had I taken this course at once, I might have employed the money I have made since the insolvency of Constable and Robinson’s houses in compounding my debts. But I could not have slept sound, as I now can under the comfortable impression of receiving the thanks of my creditors, and the conscious feeling of discharging my duty as a man of honour and honesty. I see before me a long, tedious, and dark path, but it leads to stainless reputation. If I die in the harrows, as is very likely, I shall die with honour; if I achieve my task, I shall have the thanks of all concerned, and the approbation of my own conscience. And so, I think, I can fairly face the return of Christmas-Day.
* His wife, who died earlier in the month.