A Typical Day

Sometimes it’s good just to read Walter Scott’s words again, as they were put together.  The journal entry below shows a typical day for Scott, per the author.  Idyllic, but not without life’s anxieties.  It’s hard to imagine Scott stuck in a modern traffic jam.

April 1 [1826]--_Ex uno die disce omnes._ Rose at seven or sooner, studied,

and wrote till breakfast with Anne, about a quarter before ten. Lady

Scott seldom able to rise till twelve or one. Then I write or study

again till one. At that hour to-day I drove to Huntly Burn, and walked

home by one of the hundred and one pleasing paths which I have made

through the woods I have planted--now chatting with Tom Purdie, who

carries my plaid, and speaks when he pleases, telling long stories of

hits and misses in shooting twenty years back--sometimes chewing the cud

of sweet and bitter fancy--and sometimes attending to the humours of two

curious little terriers of the Dandie Dinmont breed, together with a

noble wolf-hound puppy which Glengarry has given me to replace Maida.

This brings me down to the very moment I do tell--the rest is prophetic.

I will feel sleepy when this book is locked, and perhaps sleep until

Dalgleish brings the dinner summons. Then I will have a chat with Lady

S. and Anne; some broth or soup, a slice of plain meat--and man's chief

business, in Dr. Johnson's estimation, is briefly despatched. Half an

hour with my family, and half an hour's coquetting with a cigar, a

tumbler of weak whisky and water, and a novel perhaps, lead on to tea,

which sometimes consumes another half hour of chat; then write and read

in my own room till ten o'clock at night; a little bread and then a

glass of porter, and to bed.

And this, very rarely varied by a visit from some one, is the tenor of

my daily life--and a very pleasant one indeed, were it not for

apprehensions about Lady S. and poor Johnnie Hugh. The former will, I

think, do well--for the latter--I fear--I fear--