The constant
abiding of his mind within the well-defined forms of some one or other
of the conditions of outward life and manners, among the scores of
different spheres of human habit, was, no doubt, one of the secrets of
his genius; but it was also its greatest limitation.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 32: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, iv. 171-3.]
[Footnote 33: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, iv. 175-6.]
[Footnote 34: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, iv. 46.]
[Footnote 35: Carlyle's _Miscellaneous Essays_, iv. 174-5.]
CHAPTER XI.
MORALITY AND RELIGION.
The very same causes which limited Scott's humour and irony to the
commoner fields of experience, and prevented him from ever introducing
into his stories characters of the highest type of moral
thoughtfulness, gave to his own morality and religion, which were, I
think, true to the core so far as they went, a shade of distinct
conventionality. It is no doubt quite true, as he himself tells us,
that he took more interest in his mercenaries and moss-troopers,
outlaws, gipsies, and beggars, than he did in the fine ladies and
gentlemen under a cloud whom he adopted as heroines and heroes.
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