Random" was and remains delightful. I don't remember having
Sterne in the school library, no doubt because the works of that
divine were not considered decent for young people. Ah! not
against thy genius, O father of Uncle Toby and Trim, would I say
a word in disrespect. But I am thankful to live in times when
men no longer have the temptation to write so as to call blushes
on women's cheeks, and would shame to whisper wicked allusions to
honest boys. Then, above all, we had Walter Scott, the kindly,
the generous, the pure -- the companion of what countless
delightful hours; the purveyor of how much happiness; the
friend whom we recall as the constant benefactor of our youth!
How well I remember the type and the brownish paper of the old
duodecimo "Tales of My Landlord!" I have never dared to read the
"Pirate," and the "Bride of Lammermoor," or "Kenilworth," from
that day to this, because the finale is unhappy, and people die,
and are murdered at the end. But "Ivanhoe," and "Quentin
Durward"! Oh! for a half-holiday, and a quiet corner, and one of
those books again! Those books, and perhaps those eyes with
which we read them; and, it may be, the brains behind the eyes!
It may be the tart was good; but how fresh the appetite was! If
the gods would give me the desire of my heart, I should be able
to write a story which boys would relish for the next few dozen
of centuries. The boy-critic loves the story: grown up, he
loves the author who wrote the story. Hence the kindly tie is
established between writer and reader, and lasts pretty nearly
for life. I meet people now who don't care of Walter Scott, or
the "Arabian Nights"; I am sorry for them, unless they in their
time have found their romancer -- their charming Scheherazade.
By the way, Walter, when you are writing, tell me who is the
favourite novelist in the fourth form now? Have you got anything