But his temper was no longer what it had
been. He quarrelled with Ballantyne, partly for his depreciatory
criticism of _Count Robert of Paris_, partly for his growing tendency
to a mystic and strait-laced sort of dissent and his increasing
Liberalism. Even Mr. Laidlaw and Scott's children had much to bear.
But he struggled on even to the end, and did not consent to try the
experiment of a voyage and visit to Italy till his immediate work was
done. Well might Lord Chief Baron Shepherd apply to Scott Cicero's
description of some contemporary of his own, who "had borne adversity
wisely, who had not been broken by fortune, and who, amidst the
buffets of fate, had maintained his dignity." There was in Sir Walter,
I think, at least as much of the Stoic as the Christian. But Stoic or
Christian, he was a hero of the old, indomitable type. Even the last
fragments of his imaginative power were all turned to account by that
unconquerable will, amidst the discouragement of friends, and the
still more disheartening doubts of his own mind.
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