India 2001 books

Then might I, perchance, hear the productions of the obscure Peter
Pattieson praised by the judicious and admired by the feeling,
engrossing the young and attracting even the old; while the critic
traced their fame up to some name of literary celebrity, and the
question when, and by whom, these tales were written filled up the pause
of conversation in a hundred circles and coteries. This I may never
enjoy during my lifetime; but farther than this, I am certain, my vanity
should never induce me to aspire.
I am too stubborn in habits, and too little polished in manners, to envy
or aspire to the honours assigned to my literary contemporaries. I could
not think a whit more highly of myself were I found worthy to "come in
place as a lion" for a winter in the great metropolis. I could not rise,
turn round, and show all my honours, from the shaggy mane to the tufted
tail, "roar you an't were any nightingale," and so lie down again like a
well-behaved beast of show, and all at the cheap and easy rate of a
cup of coffee and a slice of bread and butter as thin as a wafer.


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