"[38] He gives
us, however, one reason for his dread of anything like enthusiasm, which
is not conventional;--that it interferes with the submissive and tranquil
mood which is the only true religious mood. Speaking in his diary of a
weakness and fluttering at the heart, from which he had suffered, he says,
"It is an awful sensation, and would have made an enthusiast of me, had I
indulged my imagination on religious subjects. I have been always careful
to place my mind in the most tranquil posture which it can assume, during
my private exercises of devotion."[39] And in this avoidance of indulging
the imagination on religious, or even spiritual subjects, Scott goes far
beyond Shakespeare. I do not think there is a single study in all his
romances of what may be fairly called a pre-eminently spiritual character
as such, though Jeanie Deans approaches nearest to it. The same may be
said of Shakespeare. But Shakespeare, though he has never drawn a
pre-eminently spiritual character, often enough indulged his imagination
while meditating on spiritual themes.
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