And he set himself to do it: but it cost him his
life.
He parted with his town house and furniture, delivered over his personal
effects to be held in trust for his creditors, and bound himself to
discharge a certain amount of his liabilities annually. This he did by
undertaking new literary works, some of them of great magnitude, the
execution of which, though they enabled him to discharge a large portion
of his debt, added but little to his reputation. One of his first tasks
was his "Life of Napoleon Buonaparte," in nine volumes, which he wrote,
in the midst of pain, sorrow, and ruin, in about thirteen
months,--receiving for it about fourteen thousand pounds. Even though
struck by paralysis, he went on writing until in about four years he had
discharged about two-thirds of the debt for which he was
responsible,--an achievement probably unparalleled in the history of
letters.
The sacrifices and efforts which he made during the last few years of
his life, even while paralyzed and scarcely able to hold his pen,
exhibit Scott in a truly heroic light. He bore up with unconquerable
spirit to the last. When his doctor expostulated with him against his
excessive brain-work, he replied, "If I were to be idle, I should go
mad: in comparison to this, death is no risk to shrink from." Shortly
before his last fatal attack, when sitting dozing in his chair on the
grass in front of the house at Abbotsford, he suddenly roused himself,
threw off the plaids which covered him, and exclaimed, "This is sad
idleness.
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