“For myself, I wanted external qualifications for being lucky…” — William Bell Scott

“For myself, I wanted external qualifications for being lucky: introspection was my pleasure and my curse; action was hated by me; I was an absentee, a somnambule, and gave myself much to subjects no one else cared for.”

Describing introspection as both private refuge and burden · Autobiographical Notes, Vol. I, Prologue

William Bell Scott

About William Bell Scott

12 September 1811–22 November 1890

William Bell Scott was born in Edinburgh on 12 September 1811, into a family in which art was both a livelihood and an atmosphere. He was the eldest surviving son of Robert Scott, an engraver of considerable skill and a man of strong intellectual interests, and Ross Bell Scott. The household was not wealthy, but it…

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