e
unparalleled and most successful exertions he has made, and continues
to make, for them."

That the creditors of Scott would be glad to show their gratitude is
easy to believe when one learns that while Scott was paying pound for
pound the other members of the firm paid their creditors less than
three shillings to the pound. That Scott did his herculean task at
great sacrifice is known. How much of pain and worry he endured is not
so well known. At one time he writes: "After all, I have fagged
through six pages, and made poor Wurmser lay down his sword on the
glacis of Mantua--and my head aches--my eyes ache--my back aches--so
does my breast--and I am sure my heart aches--what can duty want
more?"

XIX

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Walter Savage Landor, whose course of life ran from 1775 to 1864, in
his old age confessed, "I never did a single wise thing in the whole
course of my existence, although I have written many which have been
thought so." This is the exaggeration of an old man who has been
impressed by the frailty of human endeavor. Nevertheless, Landor is a
striking illustration of the artistic temperament. He was impractical.
Landor could not make a good fist. Even when angry, a frame of mind in
which he found himself very frequently, he did not clench his fists
without leaving his thumbs in relaxation--a sure sign, it is said, of
the lack of tenacity of purpose and tact in practical dealings. He
would adjust his spectacles on his forehead, and then, forgetting what
he had done, would overturn everything in his wild search for them.
When he started out on a trip he would take the greatest pains to
remember the key of his portmanteau, and then forget to take the
portmanteau; and then on discovering the absence of the portmanteau he
would launch out into the most vehement denunciation of the
carelessness and depravity of the railroad officials, heaping
objurgations upon them, their fathers, and their grandfathers. Then
after he had exhausted his vocabulary of invective and eased his soul,
the humor of the situation would appeal to him and he would begin to
laugh, quietly at first, and then in louder and louder strains until
his merriment seemed more formidable than his wrath.

When Landor says that he never did a wise thing but has written many,
one is led to think of his marriage. No one wrote about marriage more
seriously than Landor, no one entered upon marriage more recklessly.
"Death itself," he