I still read a number of Scott's novels over and over again, whereas if I finish anything by Miss Austen I have a feeling that duty performed is a rainbow to the soul.
But other booklovers who are very close kin to me, and whose taste I know to be better than mine, read Miss Austen all the time--and, moreover, they are very kind, and never pity me in too offensive a manner for not reading her myself.
Aside from the masters of literature, there are all kinds of books which one person will find delightful, and which he certainly ought not to surrender just because nobody else is able to find as much in the beloved volume.

There is on our book-shelves a little pre-Victorian novel or tale called "The Semi-Attached Couple." It is told with much humor; it is a story of gentlefolk who are really gentlefolk; and to me it is altogether delightful.

But outside the members of my own family I have never met a human being who had even heard of it, and I don't suppose I ever shall meet one.

I often enjoy a story by some living author so much that I write to tell him so--or to tell her so; and at least half the time I regret my action, because it encourages the writer to believe that the public shares my views, and he then finds that the public doesn't.
Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at Sagamore Hill; but children are better than books.

Sagamore Hill is one of three neighboring houses in which small cousins spent very happy years of childhood.