" "Fanny Price" was one of his prime favourites.'
I close this list of testimonies, this long 'Catena Patrum,' with the
remarkable words of Sir Walter Scott, taken from his diary for March 14,
1826: {149} 'Read again, for the third time at least, Miss Austen's
finely written novel of "Pride and Prejudice." That young lady had a
talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of
ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The
big Bow-Wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite
touch which renders ordinary common-place things and characters
interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied
to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!' The well-worn
condition of Scott's own copy of these works attests that they were much
read in his family. When I visited Abbotsford, a few years after Scott's
death, I was permitted, as an unusual favour, to take one of these
volumes in my hands. One cannot suppress the wish that she had lived to
know what such men thought of her powers, and how gladly they would have
cultivated a personal acquaintance with her.
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