He has spirit enough, this
"sneaking piece of imbecility," as he shows in his quarrel with Fergus,
on the march to Derby. Waverley, that creature of romance, considered as
a lover, is really not romantic enough. He loved Rose because she loved
him,--which is confessed to be unheroic behaviour. Scott, in "Waverley,"
certainly does not linger over love-scenes. With Mr. Ruskin, we may say:
"Let it not be thought for an instant that the slight and sometimes
scornful glance with which Scott passes over scenes, which a novelist of
our own day would have analyzed with the airs of a philosopher, and
painted with the curiosity of a gossip, indicates any absence in his
heart of sympathy with the great and sacred elements of personal
happiness." But his mind entertained other themes of interest, "loyalty,
patriotism, piety." On the other hand, it is necessary to differ from Mr.
Ruskin when he says that Scott "never knew 'l'amor che move 'l sol e l'
altre stelle.'" He whose heart was "broken for two years," and retained
the crack till his dying day, he who, when old and tired, and near his
death, was yet moved by the memory of the name which thirty years before
he had cut in Runic characters on the turf at the Castle-gate of St.
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