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Tom Brown's School Days: Scottish

The explanation lay in Scott's ability to concentrate. He knew what he wanted to say and spent little time hunting for phrases or polishing his sentences. There is a familiar anecdote of a visitor to Edinburgh, dining with convivial friends and looking out of a window at a hand which went back and forth, back and forth, across sheets of paper. "It never stops," said his host. "It is the same every night." The visitor suggested that it was perhaps a diligent clerk. "No, boys," his friend replied, "I well know whose hand it is--'tis Walter Scott's."

Sometimes Scott was so racked by pain that he could not write. "The Bride of Lammermoor" and "Ivanhoe" were dictated while the author was suffering so intensely from cramps that between sentences he screamed aloud in agony. But when he was begged to stop and rest he answered, "Nay, Willie, only see that the doors are fast."

WAVERLEY By SIR WALTER SCOTT Condensation by HENRY T. SCHNITTKIND, PH.D.