Evening star., 1932-10-30
THE WALTER SCOTT CENTENARY
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN,

| At this season observanceS of the CEN
tenary Of the death of Sir Walter Scott
are in full swing. with many meetings
being held by societies of Scotchmen and
literary societies, and exhibitions OF
Scottoana including first editions. manu-
scripts, related works of art and htera-
ture. 1t all brings to mind, in the midst
of hard times, how at least one man dis
missed his financial difficulties, which
were many, merely by thinking that
they were over.
Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh
August Is, It'll. and died at Abbotsford,
September 81, 100 years ago. Between
those years ran a life so multiplied
through the imagination Of the liver OF
it that it might be said the span OF
this one mans years included a huge
population-for so many of his charac-
ters lived and died with him.
In period when millions of his fell
lows of the English-speaking tradition
are suffering the most severe financial
reverses his personal story has an ap-
peal which vies in interest with his lit
erary one. After one taste of pros
perity, after a hopeful fling at business
affairs Scott entered into a vale of
| financial depression from which he
never, in actuality. emerged Yet, at the
end, his mind, which long had been
overcast with worries, altered under in
ordinate stress, and his last days were
spent in the inaccurate belief that he
had triumphed over depression, paid his
intolerable debts and won through to
solvency. He died without knowing he
still was debtor.
Walter Scott came from line Of bor-
derers. men of the type which has con-
tributed perhaps more to the glamour
of British song and story and history it
| self than any other. His father, Walter
Scott. claimed descent from a long line
of feudal dignitarieS of the border. and
| his mother. too, was of a border family,
daughter of DR.. John Rutherford, pro-
/ fessor Of medicine at the University Of
Edinburgh. The elder Scott was the
/ first of the family to come to town. He
was writer to the signet at the capital
of old Scotland, and this character OF
! lawyer doubtless gave the young Scott
much legal background.
Had Informal Education.
Like Gibbon, Scott was so delicate a
child that it was deemed imprudent to
subject him to the hazards of school
and, as in Gibbons case, merely being
! turned loose to browse in the pastures
Of miscellaneous and untutored reading
proved the making of a great literary
figure. BY the age of 10 he was we'll
versed in the great lore of the border
He learned French to read the old ro-
mances in that tongue and at about IS
mastered Italian in order that he might
read Ariosto and Dante in the original.
/ Like Don Quixote, he devoured every
tale of romance and chivalry on which
he could lay his hands, and, again like
Don Quixote, he became so stepped in
! the lore that he began to live it. not
impractically by dOnning the helmet of
Mambrino and putting fiocks of sheep
to fight, but to profitable purpose by
bringing TO throbbing life a vast COM
pany of romantic folk and by attract
ing to himself and to his country the
attention of a considerable part of the
reading world. Nor did he omit to tilt
at Windmills, on paper and off
/ A fever in infancy had left Scott not
only weakened, but permanently lame
/ yet so high were his spirits that at
length he was able TO enter the high
school. At Is he was apprenticed TO