He had not expected to find so much taste for elegant literature in an old village deacon.
"What are your favorites among his writings, Deacon?
I suppose you have your particular likings, as the rest of us have." The Deacon was flattered by the question.

"Well," he answered, "I can hardly tell you.

I like pretty much everything Scott ever wrote.
Sometimes I think it is one thing, and sometimes another.

Great on Paul's Epistles,--don't you think so ?" The honest fact was, that Clement remembered very little about "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk,"-- a book of Sir Walter's less famous than many of his others; but he signified his polite assent to the Deacon's statement, rather wondering at his choice of a favorite, and smiling at his queer way of talking about the Letters as Epistles.
"I am afraid Scott is not so much read now-a-days as he once was, and as he ought to be," said Mr.Clement: "Such character, such nature and so much grace." "That's it,--that's it, young man," the Deacon broke in,--"Natur' and Grace,--Natur' and Grace.

Nobody ever knew better what those two words meant than Scott did, and I'm very glad to see--you've chosen such good wholesome reading.