"
In fact, Sir Walter was like the Magician who can raise spirits that,
once raised, dominate him. Probably this must ever be the case, when an
author's characters are not puppets but real creations. They then have a
will and a way of their own; a free-will which their creator cannot
predetermine and correct. Something like this appears to have been
Scott's own theory of his lack of constructive power. No one was so
assured of its absence, no one criticised it more severely than he did
himself. The Edinburgh Review about this time counselled the "Author of
Waverley" to attempt a drama, doubting only his powers of compression.
Possibly work at a drama might have been of advantage to the genius of
Scott. He was unskilled in selection and rejection, which the drama
especially demands. But he detested the idea of writing for actors, whom
he regarded as ignorant, dull, and conceited. "I shall not fine and renew
a lease of popularity upon the theatre. To write for low, ill-informed,
and conceited actors, whom you must please, for your success is
necessarily at their mercy, I cannot away with," he wrote to Southey.
"Avowedly, I will never write for the stage; if I do, 'call me horse,'"
he remarks to Terry. He wanted "neither the profit nor the shame of it."
"I do not think that the character of the audience in London is such that
one could have the least pleasure in pleasing them.
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