With his natural love for the beautiful, the terrible depression of spirits he suffered from his dreary surroundings was inevitable.

The interest great men took in him, when they awoke to his genius, came too late for his safety and encouragement.

In a glass of whisky he found, at last, the rest and cheer he never knew when sober.

Poverty and ignorance are the parents of intemperance, and that vice will never be suppressed until the burdens of life are equally shared by all.
We saw Melrose by moonlight, spent several hours at Abbotsford, and lingered in the little sanctum sanctorum where Scott wrote his immortal works.

It was so small that he could reach the bookshelves on every side.