“A very few minutes since, I received your kind letter, and answer it in all frankness, and, in Iago’s words, ‘I am hurt, ma’am, but not killed’—nor even kilt. I have made so much by literature, that, even should this loss fall in its whole extent, and we now make preparations for the worst, it will not break, and has not broken my sleep. If I have good luck, I may be as rich again as ever; if not, I shall have still far more than many of the most deserving people in Britain—soldiers, sailors, statesmen, or men of literature.
“I am much obliged to you for your kindness to
Sophia, who has tact, and great
truth of character, I believe. She will wish to take her company, as the
scandal said ladies liked their wine, little and good; and I need not say I
shall be greatly obliged by your conti-
| 222 | LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. |
“Lockhart is, I think, in his own line, and therefore I do not regret his absence, though, in our present arrangement, as my wife and Anne propose to remain all the year round at Abbotsford, I shall be solitary enough in my lodgings. But I always loved being a bear and sucking my paws in solitude, better than being a lion and ramping for the amusement of others; and as I propose to slam the door in the face of all and sundry for these three years to come, and neither eat nor give to eat, I shall come forth bearish enough, should I live, to make another avatar. Seriously, I intend to receive nobody, old and intimate friends excepted, at Abbotsford this season, for it cost me much more in time than otherwise.
“I beg my kindest compliments to Sir Humphry, and tell him Ill Luck, that direful chemist, never put into his crucible a more indissoluble piece of stuff than your affectionate cousin and sincere well-wisher,
