Note Back to Main Text — Chapter XXXVII

While these volumes were in progress, Scott found time to make an excursion into Perthshire and Dumbartonshire, for the sake of showing the scenery, made famous in The Lady of the Lake and Waverley, to his wife's old friends, Miss Dumergue and Mrs. Sarah Nicolson,[40] who had never before been in Scotland. The account which he gives of these ladies' visit at Abbotsford, and this little tour, in a letter to Mr. Morritt, shows the "Black Hussar of Literature" in his gentler and more habitual mood.