Heaven's windows are flung wide; the inmost deeps
Call, in hoarse greeting, one upon another;
On comes the flood, in all its foaming horrors,
And where's the dike shall stop it?
_The Deluge: a Poem._"
Clearly this failing imagination of Sir Walter's was still a great
deal more vivid than that of most men, with brains as sound as it ever
pleased Providence to make them. But his troubles were not yet even
numbered. The "storm increased," and it was, as he said, "no sunny
shower." His lame leg became so painful that he had to get a
mechanical apparatus to relieve him of some of the burden of
supporting it. Then, on the 21st March, he was hissed at Jedburgh, as
I have before said, for his vehement opposition to Reform. In April he
had another stroke of paralysis which he now himself recognized as
one. Still he struggled on at his novel. Under the date of May 6, 7,
8, he makes this entry in his diary:--"Here is a precious job. I have
a formal remonstrance from those critical people, Ballantyne and
Cadell, against the last volume of _Count Robert_, which is within a
sheet of being finished.
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