Nearly seven years earlier, on the 7th December,
1825, he had in his diary taken a survey of his own health in relation
to the age reached by his father and other members of his family, and
had stated as the result of his considerations, "Square the odds and
good night, Sir Walter, about sixty. I care not if I leave my name
unstained and my family property settled. _Sat est vixisse._" Thus he
lived just a year--but a year of gradual death--beyond his own
calculation.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 59: Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, ix. 63.]
[Footnote 60: _The Antiquary_, chap. x.]
CHAPTER XVII.
THE END OF THE STRUGGLE.
Sir Walter certainly left his "name unstained," unless the serious
mistakes natural to a sanguine temperament such as his, are to be
counted as stains upon his name; and if they are, where among the sons
of men would you find many unstained names as noble as his with such a
stain upon it? He was not only sensitively honourable in motive, but,
when he found what evil his sanguine temper had worked, he used his
gigantic powers to repair it, as Samson used his great strength to
repair the mischief he had inadvertently done to Israel.
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