to an invalid already afraid that the sharp edge might be taken off
his intellect, though he was not himself sensible of that?" In fact,
no more masterly discussion of the question whether his mind were
failing or not, and what he ought to do in the interval of doubt, can
be conceived, than these letters give us. At this time the debt of
Ballantyne and Co. had been reduced by repeated dividends--all the
fruits of Scott's literary work--more than one half. On the 17th of
December, 1830, the liabilities stood at 54,000_l._, having been
reduced 63,000_l._ within five years. And Sir Walter, encouraged by
this great result of his labour, resumed the suspended novel.

But with the beginning of 1831 came new alarms. On January 5th Sir
Walter enters in his diary,--"Very indifferent, with more awkward
feelings than I can well bear up against. My voice sunk and my head
strangely confused." Still he struggled on. On the 31st January he
went alone to Edinburgh to sign his will, and stayed at his
bookseller's (Cadell's) house in Athol Crescent. A great snow-storm
set in which kept him in Edinburgh and in Mr. Cadell's house till the
9th February. One day while the snow was still falling heavily,
Ballantyne reminded him that a motto was wanting for one of the
chapters of _Count Robert of Paris_. He went to the window, looked out
for a moment, and then wrote,--

"The storm increases; 'tis no sunny shower,
Foster'd in the moist breast of March or April,
Or such as parched summer cools his lips with.
Heaven's windows are flung wide; the inmost deeps
Call, in hoarse greeting, one upon another;
On comes the flood, in all its foaming horrors,
And where's the dike shall stop it?

_The Deluge: a Poem._"

Clearly this failing imagination of Sir Walter's was still a great
deal more vivid than that of most men, with brains as sound as it ever
pleased Providence to make them. But his troubles were not yet even
numbered. The "storm increased," and it was, as he said, "no sunny
shower." His lame leg became so painful that he had to get a
mechanical apparatus to relieve him of some of the burden of
supporting it. Then, on the 21st March, he was hissed at Jedburgh, as
I have before said, for his vehement opposition to Reform. In April he
had another stroke of paralysis which he now himself recognized as
one. Still he struggled on at his novel. Under the date of May 6, 7,
8, he makes