But what is more remarkable still, is that after his health
failed he struggled on with little more than half a brain, but a
whole will, to work while it was yet day, though the evening was
dropping fast. _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle Dangerous_ were
really the compositions of a paralytic patient.
It was in September, 1830, that the first of these tales was begun. As
early as the 15th February of that year he had had his first true
paralytic seizure. He had been discharging his duties as clerk of
session as usual, and received in the afternoon a visit from a lady
friend of his, Miss Young, who was submitting to him some manuscript
memoirs of her father, when the stroke came. It was but slight. He
struggled against it with his usual iron power of will, and actually
managed to stagger out of the room where the lady was sitting with
him, into the drawing-room where his daughter was, but there he fell
his full length on the floor. He was cupped, and fully recovered his
speech during the course of the day, but Mr.
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