What it is most pleasing now to observe in the progress through this dense forest of labour, as it is recorded month after month in the Diary, is the evidence there furnished of Scott’s elasticity of spirits, and of his ready resumption of his old habits of generous sociability, in exact proportion to the success of his exertions. It is as if the immense mass of his debts had stood before him as a huge black rock, and as if, on beholding portion after portion of this rock blasted away by the successive charges of dynamite, large or small, which he was able to insert into its clefts in the shape of successive deposits of new money-earnings,—now, as in the case of his _Life of Napoleon_, a £10,000 or so at once, and again a more moderate sum of £1000 or £2000 only,—he watched each explosion, and each fall of detached slab or block, with a gleeful “Hurrah! the whole big brute will be down at last!” And, as he thus became himself again, Abbotsford became _itself_ again,—its old hospitalities renewed in as frank and gallant a fashion as was consistent with proper economy in the circumstances, and relays of visitors arriving, and sometimes occupying his working-time too inconsiderately, while at other times it was his happiness to scribble on uninterruptedly, through whole mornings or whole rainy days, with no other recreation than a trudge through his plantations, accompanied by his dogs, and leaning on the arm of his faithful Tom Purdie. In Edinburgh the revival of his old habits in the prospect of his retrieved fortunes was much the same. Though he had not now such accommodation for his own hospitalities there as had been afforded by his former house in Castle Street, Edinburgh society could delight in the full possession of him once more after his temporary seclusion and eclipse. At select dinner-parties, or in other evening gatherings, he was present again hardly less often than had been his previous custom,—the life of every such company still by his overflowing good humour and endless stock of anecdotes and good stories; and, through the day, as he limped along Princes Street, on his way to or from the Parliament House, all heads were turned to look at him,—a greater and more popular Sir Walter than ever, now that it was no longer a mere accepted conjecture that he was the author of the Waverley Novels, but the mask had been thrown aside and the secret had been publicly divulged. He records, by the way, in his Diary, that it was a real addition to his comfort when they presented him with a key of the Princes Street Gardens, then a private property of the Princes Street householders, so that he might walk to or from the Parliament House on soft velvet turf, amid quiet green shrubbery, and thus lessen the trouble caused by his stiffened joints and the increasing pain of his lameness. Nor was it within the circuit of Edinburgh only, or at Abbotsford only, that there was restored sunshine round his path.