Abbotsford Quotes

“As we descended the vale of the Gala, he began to gaze about him, and by degrees it was obvious that he was recognising the features of that familiar landscape. Presently he murmered a name or two - 'Gala Water surely - Buckholm - Torwoodlee'. As we rounded the hill at Ladhope, and the outline of the Eildons burst upon him, he became greatly excited, and when turning himself on the couch his eye caught caught at length his own towers, at the distance of a mile, he sprang up with a cry of delight.”
― John Gibson Lockhart, Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott, Vol. 5 of 5

“The open-house hospitality which all commentators note as a feature of Abbotsford began with Charlotte's regime at 50 George Street.

One of the very few facts we know about the Charpentier household in Lyons where she was brought up was that many interesting strangers seem to have dropped in. So to did people drop in on the Scotts in the New Town and at the houses they later kept in the country.”
― John Sutherland, The Life of Walter Scott: A Critical Biography