“Dear Lockhart,—Your letter is very kind and friendly; thanks to you for it.
“We are not much richer, even in money, by our good
mother’s death, which has made
us poorer in so many other ways: a small peculium, once hers, is now ours, and might in case of
extremity keep the hawks out of a poor author’s eyes (which is a blessing
too); but henceforth, as heretofore, our only sure revenue must be the great
one which Tullius speaks of by the name
Parcimonia—meaning
abstinence, rigorous abnegation—Scotch thrift, in a word! Not so bad a
vectigal after all. Really
the Scotch are a meritorious people. They make wholesome pottage by boiling
oatmeal in water; savoury soup of a singed sheep’s head. They teach a
poor man to understand that he is verily to live on bread and water, or even to
die for want of bread and water, rather than beg, and be another’s
bondsman. They say, with their rigorous stoicism, and Calvinism, which is
hyper-stoicism: ‘Suffer, abstain;’ thou art there to abstain
and endure! Honour to them, poor fellows. It is really the lesson which destiny
itself
| SERVITUDE | 237 |
“We growl much about bookseller-servitude; worse than Algerine—and yet at bottom we are but a foolish folk. Consider you, for example, how many of your good things you would perhaps never have taken the trouble to write at all had there been no such servitude! Servitude is a blessing and a great liberty, the greatest that could be given a man! So the shrewd little De Stael, on reconsidering and computing it, found that the place, of all places ever known to her, she had enjoyed the most freedom in, was the Bastille. As to me, I have dragged this ugly millstone Poverty at my heels, spurning it and cursing it often enough, ever since I was a man; yet there it tagged and lumbered on; and at length I was obliged to ask myself, Had they cut it for thee, sent thee soaring like a foolish tumbler-pigeon, like a mad Byron! Thank the millstone, thou fool; it is thy ballast, and keeps the centre of gravity right! In short, we are a foolish people, born fools—and it were wise, perhaps, at present, to go and smoke a pipe in silence under the stars.
“The mountain-tops are aglow like so many volcanoes:
it is poor tarry shepherds burning their heather, to let the grass have a
chance. Sirius is glancing blue-bright like a spirit—a comrade of
| 238 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
“These last days, the rustics and factors driven out of my way, have been altogether like a kind of Sabbath to me—different enough from Agnew’s. Unhappily they are now to end: in the beginning of next week come packers, carpenters; on the Thursday it all ends in an uproar of auctioneers, &c.; I before that am far off, never to return hither. Back to your whirlpool, I suppose, in some few days more. Adieu, dear Lockhart; many good nights.—Yours very truly,
