"
And he adds candidly enough: "In all these tenets there was no real
conviction on my part, arising out of acquaintance with the views or
principles of either party.... I took up politics at that period, as King
Charles II. did his religion, from an idea that the Cavalier creed was the
more gentlemanlike persuasion of the two." And the uniformly amicable
character of these controversies between the young people, itself shows
how much more they were controversies of the imagination than of faith. I
doubt whether Scott's _convictions_ on the issues of the Past were ever
very much more decided than they were during his boyhood; though
undoubtedly he learned to understand much more profoundly what was really
held by the ablest men on both sides of these disputed issues. The
result, however, was, I think, that while he entered better and better
into both sides as life went on, he never adopted either with any
earnestness of conviction, being content to admit, even to himself, that
while his feelings leaned in one direction, his reason pointed decidedly
in the other; and holding that it was hardly needful to identify himself
positively with either.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38