when the untoward news reached him, “thus to lose all the labour of a lifetime, and to be made a poor man at last.  But if God grant me health and strength for a few years longer, I have no doubt that I shall redeem it all.”  Everybody thought him a ruined man, and he almost felt himself to be so.  But his courage never gave way.  When his creditors proposed to him a composition, his sense of honour forbade his listening to them.  “No, gentlemen,” he replied; “Time and I against any two.”  Though the debts had been contracted by others, he had made himself legally responsible for them; and, strong in his principle of integrity, he determined, if he could, to pay them off to the last farthing.  And he set himself to do it:  but it cost him his life.

He parted with his town house and furniture, delivered over his personal effects to be held in trust for his creditors, and bound himself to discharge a certain amount of his liabilities annually.  This he did by undertaking new literary works, some of them of great magnitude, the execution of which, though they enabled him to discharge a large portion of his debt, added but little to his reputation.  One of his first tasks was his “Life of Napoleon Buonaparte,” in nine volumes, which he wrote, in the midst of pain, sorrow, and ruin, in about thirteen months,—­receiving for it about fourteen thousand pounds.  Even though struck by paralysis, he went on writing until in about four years he had discharged about two-thirds of the debt for which he was responsible,—­an achievement probably unparalleled in the history of letters.

The sacrifices and efforts which he made during the last few years of his life, even while paralyzed and scarcely able to hold his pen, exhibit Scott in a truly heroic light.  He bore up with unconquerable spirit to the last.  When his doctor expostulated with him against his excessive brain-work, he replied, “If I were to be idle, I should go mad:  in comparison to this, death is no risk to shrink from.”  Shortly before his last fatal attack, when sitting dozing in his chair on the grass in front of the house at Abbotsford, he suddenly roused himself, threw off the plaids which covered him, and exclaimed, “This is sad idleness.  Take me to my own room, and fetch the keys of my desk.”  They wheeled him into his study, and put pens and paper before him.  But he could not grasp the pen; he could not write; and the tears rolled down his cheeks.  His spirit was not conquered, but his bodily powers were exhausted and shattered; and when at length he died, he fell asleep—­like a child.

Scott felt, what every sensitive nature must feel, that poverty is a much lighter burden to bear than debt.  There is nothing ignominious about poverty.  It may even serve as a healthy stimulus to great spirits.  “Under gold mountains and thrones,” said Jean Paul, “lie buried many spiritual giants.”  Richter even held that poverty was to be welcomed, so that it came not too late in life.  And doubtless Scott’s burden was all the heavier to bear, because it came upon him in his declining years.