When he dictated to Laidlaw,--for at this time he could hardly write
himself for rheumatism in the hand,--he would frequently pause and
look round him, like a man "mocked with shadows." Then he bestirred
himself with a great effort, rallied his force, and the style again
flowed clear and bright, but not for long. The clouds would gather
again, and the mental blank recur. This soon became visible to his
publishers, who wrote discouragingly of the new novel--to Scott's own
great distress and irritation. The oddest feature in the matter was
that his letters to them were full of the old terseness, and force,
and caustic turns. On business he was as clear and keen as in his best
days. It was only at his highest task, the task of creative work, that
his cunning began to fail him. Here, for instance, are a few sentences
written to Cadell, his publisher, touching this very point--the
discouragement which James Ballantyne had been pouring on the new
novel. Ballantyne, he says, finds fault with the subject, when what he
really should have found fault with was the failing power of the
author:--"James is, with many other kindly critics, perhaps in the
predicament of an honest drunkard, when crop-sick the next morning,
who does not ascribe the malady to the wine he has drunk, but to
having tasted some particular dish at dinner which disagreed with his
stomach.
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