Walter Scott — Scottish Novelist born on August 15, 1771, died on September 21, 1832

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet with many contemporary readers in Europe, Australia, and North America... (wikipedia)

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.
Look back, and smile on perils past.
What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.
One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above: For love is heaven, and heaven is love.