"No! "said he, proudly; "this right hand shall work it all off!" "If we lose everything else," he wrote to a friend, "we will at least keep our honour unblemished." [1517] While his health was already becoming undermined by overwork, he went on "writing like a tiger," as he himself expressed it, until no longer able to wield a pen; and though he paid the penalty of his supreme efforts with his life, he nevertheless saved his honour and his self-respect.
Everybody knows bow Scott threw off 'Woodstock,' the 'Life of Napoleon' [15which he thought would be his death [1518]], articles for the 'Quarterly,' 'Chronicles of the Canongate,' 'Prose Miscellanies,' and 'Tales of a Grandfather'-- all written in the midst of pain, sorrow, and ruin.

The proceeds of those various works went to his creditors.
"I could not have slept sound," he wrote, "as I now can, under the comfortable impression of receiving the thanks of my creditors, and the conscious feeling of discharging my duty as a man of honour and honesty.

I see before me a long, tedious, and dark path, but it leads to stainless reputation.

If I die in the harrows, as is very likely, I shall die with honour.

If I achieve my task, I shall have the thanks of all concerned, and the approbation of my own conscience." [1519] And then followed more articles, memoirs, and even sermons--'The Fair Maid of Perth,' a completely revised edition of his novels, 'Anne of Geierstein,' and more 'Tales of a Grandfather'-- until he was suddenly struck down by paralysis.