" No doubt, too, in
that day of what he himself described as "the silly smart fancies that
ran in my brain like the bubbles in a glass of champagne, as brilliant
to my thinking, as intoxicating, as evanescent," solitude was no real
deprivation to him; and one can easily imagine him marching off on his
solitary way after a dispute with his companions, reciting to himself
old songs or ballads, with that "noticeable but altogether
indescribable play of the upper lip," which Mr. Lockhart thinks
suggested to one of Scott's most intimate friends, on his first
acquaintance with him, the grotesque notion that he had been "a
hautboy-player." This was the first impression formed of Scott by
William Clerk, one of his earliest and life-long friends. It greatly
amused Scott, who not only had never played on any instrument in his
life, but could hardly make shift to join in the chorus of a popular
song without marring its effect; but perhaps the impression suggested
was not so very far astray after all. Looking to the poetic side of
his character, the trumpet certainly would have been the instrument
that would have best symbolized the spirit both of Scott's thought and
of his verses.
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