J. B. (James Ballantyne) could not be aware of, and which, if you were aware of, might have influenced your judgment, which had, and yet have, a most powerful effect upon mine.  The deaths of both my father and mother have been preceded by a paralytic shock.  My father survived it for nearly two years—­a melancholy respite, and not to be desired.  I was alarmed with Miss Young’s morning visit, when, as you know, I lost my speech.  The medical people said it was from the stomach, which might be, but while there is a doubt upon a point so alarming, you will not wonder that the subject, or to use Hare’s lingo, the shot, should be a little anxious.”  He relates how he had followed all the strict medical regime prescribed to him with scrupulous regularity, and then begun his work again with as much attention as he could.  “And having taken pains with my story, I find it is not relished, nor indeed tolerated, by those who have no interest in condemning it, but a strong interest in putting even a face” (? force) “upon their consciences.  Was not this, in the circumstances, a damper to an invalid already afraid that the sharp edge might be taken off his intellect, though he was not himself sensible of that?” In fact, no more masterly discussion of the question whether his mind were failing or not, and what he ought to do in the interval of doubt, can be conceived, than these letters give us.  At this time the debt of Ballantyne and Co. had been reduced by repeated dividends—­all the fruits of Scott’s literary work—­more than one half.  On the 17th of December, 1830, the liabilities stood at 54,000_l._, having been reduced 63,000_l._ within five years.  And Sir Walter, encouraged by this great result of his labour, resumed the suspended novel.

But with the beginning of 1831 came new alarms.  On January 5th Sir Walter enters in his diary,—­“Very indifferent, with more awkward feelings than I can well bear up against.  My voice sunk and my head strangely confused.”  Still he struggled on.  On the 31st January he went alone to Edinburgh to sign his will, and stayed at his bookseller’s (Cadell’s) house in Athol Crescent.  A great snow-storm set in which kept him in Edinburgh and in Mr. Cadell’s house till the 9th February.  One day while the snow was still falling heavily, Ballantyne reminded him that a motto was wanting for one of the chapters of Count Robert of Paris.  He went to the window, looked out for a moment, and then wrote,—­

“The storm increases; ’tis no sunny shower,
Foster’d in the moist breast of March or April,
Or such as parched summer cools his lips with. 
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.”