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The Lady of the Lake

The Lady of the Lake

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Chapter 1 No.1

Word Count: 2149    |    Released on: 01/12/2017

d rider and good fighter, and more than one of these petty chieftains, half-shepherd and half-robber, who made

of the clan to abandon country life and take up a sedentary profession, was Scott's father, who settled in Edinburgh as Writer to the Signet, a position corresponding in Scotland to that of attorney or solicitor in England. The character of this father, stern, scrupulous, Calvinistic, with a high sense of ceremonial dignity and a punctilious regard for the honorable conventions of life, uni

be sent on a long visit to his grandfather's farm at Sandyknowe; and here, lying among the sheep on the windy downs, playing about the romantic ruins of Smailholm Tower,[1] scampering through the heather on a tiny Shetland pony, or listening to stories of the thrilling past told by the old women of the farm, he drank in sensations which strengthened both the hardiness and the romanticism of his nature. A story is told of his being found in the fields during a thunder storm, clapping his hands at each flash of lightning, and shouting "Bonny! Bonny!"-a bit of infantile intrepidity which make

e sole purpose of knowing at first hand the fascinating cycles of old French romance; a little later he mastered Italian in order to read Dante and Ariosto, and to his schoolmaster's indignation stoutly championed the claim of the latter poet to superiority over Homer; a little later he acquired Spanish and read Don Quixote in the original. With such efforts, however, considerable as they were for a boy who passionately loved a "bicker" in the streets and who was famed among his comrades for bravery in climbing the perilous "kittle nine stanes" on Castle Rock, he was not content. Nothing more conclusively shows the genuineness of Scott's romantic feeling than his willingness to undergo severe mental drudgery in pursuit of knowledge concerning the old storied days which had enthralled his imagination. It was no moonshine sentimentality which kept him ho

ung advocates, he turned to his friend, William Clark, who had been called with him, and whispered, mimicking the Highland lasses who used to stand at the Cross of Edinburgh to be hired for the harvest: "We've stood here an hour by the Tron, hinny, and deil a ane has speered[2] our price." Though Scott never made a legal reputation, either as pleader at the bar or as an authority upon legal history and principles, it cannot be doubted that his experience in the Edinburgh courts was of immense benefit to him. In the first place, his study of the Scotch statutes, statutes which had taken form very gradually under the pressure of chan

an old ballad over the fire, or a group of hardy dalesmen to welcome them with stories and carousal-these were blithe adventurous days such as could not fail to ripen Scott's already ardent nature, and store his memory with genial knowledge. The account of Dandie Dinmont given by Mr. Shortreed may be taken as a picture, only too true in some of its touches, of Scott in these youthful escapades: "Eh me, ... sic an endless fund of humor and drollery as he had then wi' him. Never ten yards but we were either laughing or roaring and singing. Wherever we stopped how brawlie he suited himsel' to everybody! He aye did as the lave did; never made himsel' the great man or took ony airs in the company. I've seen him in a' moods in these jaunts, grave and gay, daft and serious, sober and drunk-(this, however, even in our wildest rambles, was but rare)-but drunk or sober, he was aye the gentleman. He looked excessively heavy and stupid when he was fou, but he was never out o' gude humor." After this, we are not surpr

ton lover carries off his bride to a wedding in the land of death. Mr. Hutton remarks upon the curiousness of the fact that a piece of "raw supernaturalism" like this should have appealed so strongly to a mind as healthy and sane as Scott's. So it was, howe

along the la

lash! alon

s red, the sp

hing peb

ude horrors which German romanticism had just ceased to revel in. Lewis was engaged in compiling a book of supernatural stories and poems under the title of Tales of Wonder, and asked Scott to contribute. Scott wrote for this book three long ballads-"Glenfinlas," "Cadyow Castle," and "T

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1 Chapter 1 No.12 Chapter 2 No.23 Chapter 3 No.34 Chapter 4 No.45 Chapter 5 SCOTT'S PLACE IN THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT6 Chapter 6 No.67 Chapter 7 No.78 Chapter 8 No.89 Chapter 9 No.910 Chapter 10 No.1011 Chapter 11 No.1112 Chapter 12 No.1213 Chapter 13 No.1314 Chapter 14 No.1415 Chapter 15 No.1516 Chapter 16 No.1617 Chapter 17 No.1718 Chapter 18 No.1819 Chapter 19 No.1920 Chapter 20 No.2021 Chapter 21 No.2122 Chapter 22 No.2223 Chapter 23 No.2324 Chapter 24 No.2425 Chapter 25 No.2526 Chapter 26 No.2627 Chapter 27 No.2728 Chapter 28 No.2829 Chapter 29 No.2930 Chapter 30 No.3031 Chapter 31 No.3132 Chapter 32 No.3233 Chapter 33 No.3334 Chapter 34 No.3435 Chapter 35 No.3536 Chapter 36 SONG37 Chapter 37 No.3738 Chapter 38 No.3839 Chapter 39 No.3940 Chapter 40 No.4041 Chapter 41 SONG 4142 Chapter 42 No.4243 Chapter 43 No.4344 Chapter 44 No.4445 Chapter 45 No.4546 Chapter 46 No.4647 Chapter 47 No.4748 Chapter 48 No.4849 Chapter 49 No.4950 Chapter 50 No.5051 Chapter 51 No.5152 Chapter 52 No.5253 Chapter 53 No.5354 Chapter 54 No.5455 Chapter 55 No.5556 Chapter 56 No.5657 Chapter 57 No.5758 Chapter 58 BOAT SONG59 Chapter 59 No.5960 Chapter 60 No.6061 Chapter 61 No.6162 Chapter 62 No.6263 Chapter 63 No.6364 Chapter 64 No.6465 Chapter 65 No.6566 Chapter 66 No.6667 Chapter 67 No.6768 Chapter 68 No.6869 Chapter 69 No.6970 Chapter 70 No.7071 Chapter 71 No.7172 Chapter 72 No.7273 Chapter 73 No.7374 Chapter 74 No.7475 Chapter 75 No.7576 Chapter 76 No.7677 Chapter 77 No.7778 Chapter 78 No.7879 Chapter 79 No.7980 Chapter 80 No.8081 Chapter 81 No.8182 Chapter 82 No.8283 Chapter 83 No.8384 Chapter 84 No.8485 Chapter 85 No.8586 Chapter 86 No.8687 Chapter 87 No.8788 Chapter 88 No.8889 Chapter 89 No.8990 Chapter 90 No.9091 Chapter 91 CORONACH92 Chapter 92 No.9293 Chapter 93 No.9394 Chapter 94 No.9495 Chapter 95 No.9596 Chapter 96 No.9697 Chapter 97 No.9798 Chapter 98 SONG 9899 Chapter 99 No.99100 Chapter 100 No.100