There never was, I fancy, an organization less
susceptible of this order of fears and superstitions than his own.
When a friend jokingly urged him, within a few months of his death,
not to leave Rome on a Friday, as it was a day of bad omen for a
journey, he replied, laughing, "Superstition is very picturesque, and
I make it, at times, stand me in great stead, but I never allow it to
interfere with interest or convenience." Basil Hall reports Scott's
having told him on the last evening of the year 1824, when they were
talking over this subject, that "having once arrived at a country inn,
he was told there was no bed for him. 'No place to lie down at all?'
said he. 'No,' said the people of the house; 'none, except a room in
which there is a corpse lying.' 'Well,' said he, 'did the person die
of any contagious disorder?' 'Oh, no; not at all,' said they. 'Well,
then,' continued he, 'let me have the other bed. So,' said Sir Walter,
'I laid me down, and never had a better night's sleep in my life.'" He
was, indeed, a man of iron nerve, whose truest artistic enjoyment was
in noting the forms of character seen in full daylight by the light of
the most ordinary experience.
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