He was forbearing enough with vices of a different kind; made John
Ballantyne's dissipation the object rather of his jokes than of his
indignation; and not only mourned for him, but really grieved for him
when he died. It is only fair to say, however, that for this
conventional scorn of a weakness rather than a sin, Scott sorrowed
sincerely later in life, and that in sketching the physical cowardice
of Connochar in _The Fair Maid of Perth_, he deliberately made an
attempt to atone for this hardness towards his brother by showing how
frequently the foundation of cowardice may be laid in perfectly
involuntary physical temperament, and pointing out with what noble
elements of disposition it may be combined. But till reflection on
many forms of human character had enlarged Scott's charity, and
perhaps also the range of his speculative ethics, he remained a
conventional moralist, and one, moreover, the type of whose
conventional code was borrowed more from that of honour than from that
of religious principle. There is one curious passage in his diary,
written very near the end of his life, in which Scott even seems to
declare that conventional standards of conduct are better, or at least
safer, than religious standards of conduct.
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