Edward Waverley Quotes

“It was soon plain that what crumbs of reason the Bear had not devoured were to be picked up by the Hen; but the confusion which appeared to prevail favoured Edward's resolution to evade the gaily circling glass. The others began to talk thick and at once, each performing his own part in the conversation without the least respect to his neighbour.”
― Walter Scott, Waverley

“The education of our hero, Edward Waverley, was of a nature somewhat desultory. In infancy his health suffered, or was supposed to suffer (which is quite the same thing), by the air of London.”
― Walter Scott, Waverley

“It was near evening when he approached the village of Tully-Veolan, with feelings and sentiments how different from those which attended his first entrance. Then life was so new to him that a dull or disagreeable day was one of the greatest misfortunes which his imagination anticipated, and it seemed to him that his time ought only to be consecrated to elegant or amusing study, and relieved by lively society or youthful frolic. Now, how changed, how saddened, yet how elevated was his character, within the course of a very few months! Danger and misfortune are rapid, though severe teachers. 'A sadder and a wiser man,' he felt, in internal confidence and mental dignity, a compensation for the gay dreams which in his case experience had so rapidly dissolved.”
― Walter Scott, Waverley

“Edward paced on under the painful and yet not altogether embittered feelings which separation and uncertainty produce in the mind of a youthful lover. I am not sure if the ladies understand the full value of the influence of absence, nor do I think it wise to teach it them, lest, like the Clelias and Mandanes of yore, they should resume the humour of sending their lovers into banishment. Distance, in truth, produces in idea the same effect as in real perspective. Objects are softened, and rounded, and rendered doubly graceful; the harsher and more ordinary points of character are mellowed down, and those by which it is remembered are the more striking outlines that mark sublimity, grace, or beauty. There are mists too in the mental as well as the natural horizon,”
― Walter Scott, Waverley

“I am the very child of caprice,' said Waverley to himself”
― Walter Scott, Waverley

“But high and perilous strife is not Waverley's forte. He would never have been his celebrated ancestor Sir Nigel, but only Sir Nigel's eulogist and poet. I will tell you where he will be at home, my dear, and in his place, - in the quiet circle of domestic happiness, lettered indolence, and elegant enjoyments, of Waverley Honour. And he will refit the old library in the most exquisite Gothic taste, and garnish its shelves with the rarest and most valuable volumes; and he will draw plans and landscapes, and write verses, and rear temples, and dig grottoes; - and he will stand in a clear summer night in the colonnade before the hall, and gaze on the deer as they stray in the moonlight, or lie shadowed by the boughs of the huge old fantastic oaks; - and he will repeat verses to his beautiful wife, who will hang on his arm; - and he will be a happy man.”
― Walter Scott, Waverley