" He writes to Mr. Morritt
with a proud indifference, clearly to some extent simulated:--"My
womenkind will be the greater sufferers, yet even they look cheerily
forward; and, for myself, the blowing off of my hat on a stormy day
has given me more uneasiness."[53] To Lady Davy he writes truly
enough:--"I beg my humblest compliments to Sir Humphrey, and tell him,
Ill Luck, that direful chemist, never put into his crucible a more
indissoluble piece of stuff than your affectionate cousin and sincere
well-wisher, Walter Scott."[54] When his _Letters of Malachi
Malagrowther_ came out he writes:--"I am glad of this bruilzie, as far
as I am concerned; people will not dare talk of me as an object of
pity--no more 'poor-manning.' Who asks how many punds Scots the old
champion had in his pocket when
'He set a bugle to his mouth,
And blew so loud and shrill,
The trees in greenwood shook thereat,
Sae loud rang every hill.'
This sounds conceited enough, yet is not far from truth."[55] His dread
of pity is just the same when his wife dies:--"Will it be better," he
writes, "when left to my own feelings, I see the whole world pipe and
dance around me? I think it will.
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