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NOVELS 
 
 A PAPEE 
 
 Read in St. Andrew's HqII, Anfigonish, 
 
 JULY, 1883. 
 
 IN AID OF THE BUILDING FUND FOR 
 THE EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE. 
 
 r- 
 
 BY THE 
 
 J^EV. p.yVl. MaCGREGOR, p.p., pH.p. 
 
 PN 85 
 
 ri2 
 
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 ^-^- HALIFAX : 
 v^ Nova Scotia Piunting Company. 
 1883. 
 
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 National Library Bibliotheque nationale 
 of Canada du Canada 
 
NOVELS: ^ 
 
 A PAPER 
 
 Read in St. Andrew's Hall, Anligonish, 
 
 JULY, 1883. 
 
 IN AID OF THE BUILDING FUND FOR 
 THE EPISCOPAL RESIDENCE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 ReY. dm. yVSACGREGOR, D. P, Ph.D. 
 
 TATVEISTTY CENTS A. COl^Y- 
 
 HALIFAX : 
 
 Nova Scotia Printing Company. 
 1883. 
 

 ^S 
 
NOVELS. 
 
 The earliest literary productions that have rcacheil ns 
 outside the Bible are in the form of poetry, as every student 
 knows. They had come into existence before the art of 
 writing was invented in any other than the hieroglyphic 
 state ; and they liecame a permanent record, simply because 
 they wei-e easily retained in the popular meuiory. Men did 
 not in common life speak in verse, before they spoke in prose; 
 but the thoughts which they expressed in regular meter, took 
 a firmer hold of the remembrance and recollection of hearers, 
 and were thus transmitted with more facility to future 
 genei-ations. A good song, even if never committed to 
 writing, passes from one singer to another, and becomes an 
 heirloom in a community ; while the most eloquent speech 
 ever delivered alTocts only the people who heard the original 
 speaker, and those who read it after it has been written down 
 on paper or pai-chment. Oral tradition fails to reproduce it 
 word for word. The speaker himself can not give it precisely 
 as he gave it before. He can give only the substance. He 
 can tell the same story, but not in the same words. A narra- 
 tion of any actual fact and of its circumstances must, for the 
 same reasons, he couched in different language by the different 
 persons to whom it is successively communicated, unless it be 
 conveyed in words that respond to the requirements of 
 rhythm, verso, and rhyme, which reipiirements may preserve 
 the original diction. Yei'se that is once correctly committed to 
 memory is not always easily adultei'ate.l. It cannot always be 
 varied without grating on the ear — without a violation of 
 harmony or a corruption of the sense. Words cannot easily 
 
4 
 
 be cluingc<l unless equally appropriate ones 1)0 ])nt in their 
 place: and it is difficult, almost inipossible, that such should 
 by haphazard be selected. Any others bear their own con- 
 demnation alon,^^ with them. They are rejecte.l Avhenever 
 they are compared with the orioinal ; and some hearer is sure 
 to have an exact remembrance of the original. 
 
 Poetry, or, more correctly speaking, verse, is, tlierefore, the 
 earliest form of secular narration that we possess. Homer is 
 older than any of the Greek historians. The Scandinavian 
 sagas appeared long hefore the authentic history of the same 
 people. Ossian dates away back from a period anterior to the 
 introduction of Christianity. Ho was currently recited in 
 what is now Scotland and Ireland before the life of St. Patrick 
 was written. 
 
 Now, ancient profane poetry after all is but another name 
 for fiction. It contains the germ of the modern novel, just 
 as certainly as it produced after many generations, the sonnet, 
 or the ode, or the pastoral. It passed through various stages, 
 we admit. It was modeled and transformed in a variety of 
 ways. It was developed at times into hideous shapes, and at 
 tinles it was beautiful. Just as the primitive truths known 
 by our first parents can even yet be traced more or less perfectly 
 in the widely divergent opinions and traditions of all peoples 
 on the earth ; so, too, can the elements that go to constitute the 
 beauties of the earlier poets be found, on close investigation, 
 in a nuKlern novel. They may be tarnished by the surround- 
 ings of their new abode, but they are there still. They may 
 ha^'ve been defaced in a great many instances ; but they have 
 not been destroyed. There is a truth in fiction as in every- 
 thing else ; and though truth may be distorted, misrepresented, 
 twisted out of shape, made to appear like falsehood, and 
 hammered into all sorts of forms and figures, it is truth still, 
 and therefore indestructible. What is true remains in the 
 novel ; it is entirely another question, whether, as a practical 
 question, it may not be so associated and mixed up with what 
 is false and dangerous that it would bo desirable to abolish 
 both together, rather than risk morality by administering 
 poison along with food that is wholesome. 
 
5 
 
 The paraljlo, as wo find it in Oriental nsa<::fo, was p^sslLly 
 the first otl'shoot from poetic narrative. It is simple narra- 
 tion — instructive, condensed wisdom. The Easteins till tliis 
 day make use of it to a far greater extent than we do, — we, the 
 matter-of-fact prosaic people that live in the West. The para- 
 ble auain is fiction. It invents men, cii'ctnnstanccs, results. 
 It usually has a moral, but the moral is not always desii;iUMl to 
 illustrate the same species of truths. The prophet Nathan 
 spoke a parable when he desired to descrilie the enormity of 
 Kiu"- David's heinous transi>ression auainst the laws (jf God and 
 the riu'lits of man. The Saviour uses it to illustrate articles 
 of abstract Faith, so called, as well as to inculcate correct 
 precepts of moral justice. The parable is the ancestor 
 of the novel, one step in lineal consanguinity near(;r to it 
 than is the poesy of Homer or the meter of the Sibylline 
 books. The novels of to-day, therefore, descend from respect- 
 able stock in the ffenealo'i'ical line. Their kindred in the 
 days long past were the only literature in the world. 
 
 The parable developed into the allegory which itself fre- 
 quently assumed a versified form, but sometimes contented 
 itself with a less ambitious garb in the process of connuiuiica- 
 tion. It was occasionally mere prose, particularly wdien the 
 subject and treatment were of singular excellence. This 
 goodness was essential to successful circulation and lasting 
 diffusion among the masses, and could allbrd to dispense with 
 the aid of cither verse or rhetoric. The earlier bardic produc- 
 tions can with no more propriety be called poetry in the modern 
 acceptation, than they can be quoted as veracious history ; 
 but they are nearly always meritorious allegory. In this is 
 their great claim to remembrance. They indicate an advance 
 in life from the time of the shorter paralile, and particularly 
 from that of the poetic warsong which, first of all literature, 
 electrified the people, and moulded homogeneous tribes into 
 one nation by exciting their common thirst for military 
 renown. The gradation thence was sometimes interrupted, 
 but always certain, until this day, when thousands of works 
 of fiction are yearly issuing from the English and French 
 
6 
 
 press, and indeed from almost every ])Ook printin;^' ostaMish" 
 nionfc in tlie ^vorld. All tlie histories — jj^ooil, bad and 
 inditlen:nt — that havo appeared in Jlrituin from tlio time of 
 Venerable Bede until the last work on tlie Tudor monarch.s, 
 which has not ycst received an American reprint, could bo 
 counted on the finger ends ; but who could begin to enumerate 
 the novels ? 
 
 This simply means that there is a natinvil demand for 
 works of fiction to-(lay, just as there was a natural fond- 
 ness for parables over two thousand years ago ; and 
 anybody would be perfectly safe in predicting that if the 
 world exist two thousand years longer, the demand will be 
 just as vigorous and unsatiable then as it is at this moment. 
 This demand is not duo to the artificial surroundings and the 
 conventional requirements of modern society ; it may be 
 increased by them, but it could not bo created. They change 
 and pass away altogether. Every incident in what is called 
 civilization is, perhaps, transient ; but works of fiction will be 
 devoured by the public in every emeigency, in every circum- 
 stance, as long as there are men who know how to print and 
 to publish. Wars may change the political map of CJhriston- 
 dom ; nations may fall and others may rise in their place ; 
 forms of government may be abrogated by gory revolutions 
 or less warlike means ; nvAV habits of life and new modes of 
 subsistence may be called into re(|uisition ; the leopard may 
 vary his spots and the Ethiopian modify the color of his 
 countenance ; but it is certain that works of fiction will con- 
 tinue to be sought after and to be perused through every 
 transition. There is no form of literature that will be more 
 enduring in detail ; none in which want of excellence is more 
 readily pardoned ; none again in which fewer works of real 
 merit — compared with the immense nundjcr published — have 
 been produced. There are more really great poets than, there 
 are of great novelists, though the novelists of the world outnum- 
 ber the poets in a ratio above that of one hundred to one. Not 
 Shakspeare alone and Milton or Byron, but Dryden, Burns, 
 Moore, Pope, Cowper, Scott, and a host of others will continue 
 
to be roafl ; wliilo the novelists of tho past rjoneration are 
 almost for<,'ottcn already. OoMsmitirs " Deserted Viiia'^o " i.s 
 better known than his "Vicar of Wakt.'Held ;" thouirh the 
 latter is perhaps tho best novel in tho lan<,aia!,'e, while the 
 former ranks no hi<,dier than a iirst-rato poem of tho second 
 class. Hichardson's novels in his day woro comparatively 
 more popular than were those of Dickens in our own time, 
 and yet they are all l)ut for;^'otten in this generation. People 
 now-a-days grow wearied before they read "Pamela" from 
 bof,d!niing to end, just as less than a century hence, people 
 will weary of " Dombey and Son " or " David Copperlleld." 
 The W(;rkH of Fielding and SmoUet, greater writers, notwith- 
 standing their oecasional coarseness, thaii either Dickens or 
 llicliardson, are almost forgotten already. De Foe, of course, 
 remains, and will ever remain; for children, whether old or 
 young, will not let an old friend liko " Robinson Ciusoe " be 
 ever cast aside ; and yet " llobinson Crusoe," though a work of 
 fiction, is not, in the limited sense in which the word is often 
 applied, a novel. 
 
 What is the inference from these two facts— firstly, that 
 the demand and supply of novels increase from year to year ; 
 and, secondly, that really great novels are scarce — so really 
 great, I mean, as to attract attention through a series of 
 genei-ations ? The inference is, firstly, that the desire for 
 works of iiction is natui-al, otherwise it would not be perma- 
 nent ; and, secondly, that so far, the very best works of 
 fiction possible — I mean, really great Avorks — have not been 
 produced ; otherwise, they too would continue to be re-printed, 
 just as Homer and Dante and Byron and Milton and others 
 continue to be re-issued over and over again from tho press. 
 Any middle-aged man in tho audience can easily verify the 
 latter of these assertions— and has no doubt already verified 
 it — by asking tho booksellers to furnish him with a copy of 
 some novel that was all the '' rage " — to use a vulgarism — 
 when he was young. He will find that the book is already 
 out of print ; and yet it is possible that it ran through half-a- 
 dozen editions, and made a publisher's fortune some thirty 
 years ago. 
 
8 
 
 There lias boon something defective, therefore, in the 
 novels that have so far made their way into piiblic print — 
 Bome element of enduring excellence was wanting in their 
 composition. They fitted into a time and into a period, but 
 were not for all time and all periods. They grew old and 
 were thrown away, just as agriculturists threw away their 
 reaping hooks and scythes, and adopted better machinery, 
 which in its turn will some day be superseded by still more 
 eliective implements of husbandly. When I say that the 
 novels of the past fitted into a time, I do not mean to assert 
 any more than that they possessed these elements which are 
 calculated to acquire ephemeral popularity. They had merits 
 of a certain kind, otherwise they would fall dead flat on the 
 reading public ; but I do not say that they had no demerits. 
 They sold in spite of their demerits, not in consequence of 
 them. No book that is bad in every sense will ever gain 
 acceptance from the public. No error has adherents, merely 
 because it is error, but because there is a substratum of truth 
 underlying it and giving it the appearance of truth itself. A 
 book may be called evil and work evil to its readers; but it 
 does so, because it has not only the appearance of good, but 
 really some good elements in it. When evil is done, it is the 
 result of some passion— anger, avarice, or something else, 
 having been unduly excited ; but the passions are all good in 
 themselves, and only evil in their abuse or excess. So too 
 with books, they can do evil only by appealing to the passions ; 
 but, if moderation be ob;jerved, an appeal to the passions is 
 perfectly good and legitimate. The book, therefore, that 
 works evil, does so by abusing the good which is contained 
 in the book itself. Novels so far have appealed to various 
 passions ; and if these appeals had been made after a judicious 
 fashion, and with the intention of genius, they would have 
 retained their hold of the public mind, just as the songs of 
 Burns, notwithstanding some very visible shortcomings, are 
 as new to-day to the people of Scotland, as they were the 
 day they first appeared in book form. A great work, whether 
 of fact or fiction, never grows old, connot grow old, any more 
 
9 
 
 
 than lire Ccin cecisc to radiate heat, or to ignite the combustible 
 ^vith which it comes into contact. 
 
 So far I have spoken of literary merit and demerit ; but 
 there may be merit and demerit of another and a more 
 important sort. Books which are not purely scientific cainiot 
 but exert a powerful influence. Books addressed solely to the 
 imagination must leave an impression for good or for evil on 
 individuals and on society. Books for which there is a nevcr- 
 failin"- demand must mould character. Men's ideas are modi- 
 fied, perfected, renewed, strengthened, uprooted, entn-ely 
 reformed by them. A skeptic has been known to sit down to 
 read the Sacred Scripture and to rise up a believer after the 
 perusal. "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a work of extraordinary 
 though ephemeral power, has converted many an indifferent 
 citizen into an ardent abolitionist. A short pamphlet has 
 before now shaken the Government of a country. The 
 Encyclopedists hastened the French revolution, and probably 
 made a peaceful reform impossible. 'Oliver Twist" eflected 
 a change in the poor laws of Britain. "Robinson Crusoe" 
 has furnished more seamen to the marine of England than all 
 the wages oifered by merchants to ordinary sailors, or all the 
 bounties offered by Parliament to man the war ships. Burns' 
 writings brought about a greater change in the ecclesiastical 
 discipline of the Scottish church, than the labors of a hundred 
 reverend reformers. One of Carleton's descriptions of a hard- 
 hearted Irish landlord made more landleaguers— that is, of the 
 kind possible at the time— than all the oral speeches of Mr. 
 Parnell and his colleagues. The influence of books is not 
 easily estimated, and is impossible to be overestimated. A 
 sincde volume, such as that of " Jansenius," has created a 
 wider and more lasting discussion than would the etiects of a 
 war of thirty years' standing. 
 
 It is a trite observation and a true, that while novels on 
 some subjects arc generally useless, if not dangerous, the 
 inutility and the danger arise not from the subject, but from 
 the manner in which it is treated, and not unfrequently from 
 the mental constitution of the reader. Every subject 
 
10 
 
 imaginable can be discussed in either proper or improper 
 phraseology ; and sometimes what would be quite harmless, 
 or even instructive and edifying, addressed to one reader, 
 would be productive of the worst consequences if addressed to 
 another. The sacred Scriptures themselves have been used 
 and abused, perhaps more than any other vohimc ; and yet 
 the purpose for which they were designed directly by the Great 
 Author was the regeneration of the human race. " Fools 
 rush in where angels fear to tread " in every relation of life. 
 The same novel has sometimes done much good and unneces- 
 sary evil, according as it fell into the hands of a calm, judicious, 
 mentally well-balanced reader, or into those of a person 
 constituted after a ditFerent fashion. The object of the novel 
 is lai'gely amusement, and it partakes of the character of all 
 amusements and of all rtdaxations from the continuous 
 exercises of rigorous duty. Annisement of some kind is 
 absolutely necessary in this busy world ; but amusements of 
 every kind are liable to criminal excess. They can pass from 
 useful, reasonable pastime and hilarity into vice, license, crime. 
 It were as foolish and unjust to condenni novels and novel 
 reading in every case and in every subject as it w^ould be to 
 denounce reading of any other kind, or games of skill, or 
 athletic exercises. Each novel must be considercl on its own 
 merits, and in relation to the social communities throuoh 
 which it is calculated to circulate, and in relation to the 
 individuals who are about to peruse its pages and to be 
 attracted by the chain of imaginary incidents which it details. 
 There are, however, certain lines of demarcation to lie drawn, 
 and cei'tain classes of novels by well-known writers to lie 
 separated from the mass, not because they too cannotbe vitiated, 
 but because so far any powerful writer has not chosen to 
 produce them in a very erroneous manner. Historical 
 romances, such as are the bulk of Sir Walter Scott's woiks, 
 have not yet been ovcn'mucli almsed in tl.e way of conupting 
 the popular mind. " Waverh^y," " Ivaidioe," " Qiientin 
 Durward," " Peveril of the Peak," "The Fortunes of Nigel." 
 " The Bride of Lammermoor," and" The Heart of Midlothian " 
 
11 
 
 are each a valuable contribution to history as well as to 
 lietion. They are not free from error — what merely human 
 profluction is ? — but they are, perhaps, the best of their kind. 
 They liavc in some particular points given an untruthful 
 portrait of historical personages, but not usually in such a 
 way as to entail prejudices that are hurtful to the progress of 
 society. Every error is not injurious to the same degree ; and 
 even if many a person takes his history of Scotland from Sir 
 \\'alter Scott's fictions, he does not necesf^arily imbibe 
 prejudices thereby that render hiin less useful as a member of 
 our modern conmiunity life. 
 
 The average reader believes llichard III., who was neither 
 much l)etter nor much worse as a man and a king than 
 any other of tlu.^ IMantagenets, to bo a monster of iniquity, 
 solely because Shakespeare so <lescribes him. We cannot 
 help believing that Macbeth was a tyrant of the darkest 
 dye for the same reason ; and yet Macbeth, if fairly and 
 impartially judgetl in the light of true history, was one 
 of Scotland's greatest monarchs. We eir in estimating the 
 character of these two rules ; we err because Shakespeare 
 chose to paint them as villains ; and he painted them so 
 eiiectually that we cannot rub out the impression he has 
 made, even after our reason tells us that it is unjust. Cool- 
 minded historians, Linganl, Hume, Robertson, with a full 
 knowledge of facts before their eyes, perfectly conversant 
 with every record that reflects light on the reigns of the two 
 kings alluded to, could not altogether free themselves from the 
 etlects of the imaginary character drawn by the gieat dramatist. 
 Scott in his "Tales of a Grandfather," which he designed to be 
 a-i then tic, allows himself to l)e entirely led away from the 
 accuiacy of facts of which he was intellectually cognizant, and 
 he wrote down not the iMacbeth who ruled Scotland with a 
 firm, vigorous, just, and even successful hand, but the other 
 invented and imaginary Macbeth whom Shakespeare created 
 to heighten the interest of a diamatic tragedy. This not only 
 serves to show how fiction may sometimes supplant truth ; 
 but it shows further that some fictions, even having reference 
 to history, and giving a false version of historical events, and 
 
12 
 
 a tlistorted cliaractor of historical personages, may pass into 
 currency without any injury wliatever to succeeding genera- 
 tions. It is (in our day) of no practical importance wliatevcr 
 whether Richard III. was a tyrant or not. He lias passed 
 away. There is no institution to-day in the world which 
 professes to reduce his principles into practice. Ho ceases to 
 exert any iniiuencc on modern thought. Ho might Ije a pure 
 creation of the poets for all wo caro now. ]3ut it is not so 
 with all the actors in the past. Some of them, though long 
 departed out of this world, still live and breathe and inspire 
 others into action Ijy the hooks they left behind, or by the 
 systems they devised, or by the institutions they established. 
 They are living among us to-day with moio vitality and more 
 energy than when they were clothed with llesli and blood. 
 If we misrepresent them, wo belie our neighbor ; wo cast 
 unjust aspersions on our fellow-men ; wo introduce discordant 
 elements into discussion ; wo distm-b the conventional 
 amenities of social existence ; we become obstructive, turbulent, 
 inharmonious; instead of building up we level down. The 
 historical novel, like Bulwer's " Last Days of Pompeii," may 
 refer to a past which is no longer represented in social customs 
 or political constitutions, or systems of religious belief. It 
 may be correct or incorrect in its descriptions, but whether 
 the one or the other, it cannot, if it avoid sonsualistic scenes 
 and details, be productive of any evil, Avhilo it may be 
 productive of much benetit. It may improve the reader in 
 every way by opening up larger views of life, inspiring higher 
 ideas of dutv, exciting nobler aspirations after attainable good. 
 Such novels' I would recommend to the public generally as I 
 would any other useful reading matter. 
 
 On the other hand, the historical novel may so desciibe the 
 past as to unjustly refioct and misrepresent the present; it 
 may have unfair references to men and things that yet remain 
 among us unchanged from what they were a tliousand years 
 ago; it may create an injurious prejudice against the most 
 meritorious of people to-day l>y identifying them with a 
 caricature of similar people centuries ago ; it may ostensibly 
 
13 
 
 deal with by-gono events, while it really strikes a blow under 
 the belt at the noicdibor who lives next door. It ]m\< done so 
 in some instances. Tn this case, of course, the liistoiical 
 novel is simply a mean nntrntb, a delusion, a lie, and the 
 publisher and tlie reader aio alike retaihn's and hearers of 
 nnauthenticatcd scandal. The ears have to he closed against 
 it, as ao-ainst any other unfounded rumor which circnlatfs in 
 violation of the law: "Thou shalt not bear falsn witness." 
 A homeopathic dose is too mucli of tliis conuiiodity. 
 
 Allow me here to remark emphatically that tlu'i'e is a vul^'ar 
 prejudice in favor of believing what is pi'inted in a hook, 'i'he 
 time was, I believe, when people actually believed everything 
 they saw in a )iewspa])er. Verily, this Avas faith greater than 
 any found in Israel. Men generally have grown wiser since. 
 Experience has taught them; but still there are persons who 
 swallow the stories they read about electric oil. These persons 
 are not fools : experience teaches fools, but experience does 
 not teach them. They are beyond its power. They swear by 
 what is written in a book. Th^y are grown-up children — 
 verv uood, estimable children I have no doubt, but children 
 still, with grown-up people's garments over their jiersons. 
 You cannot reason with them : they have read a liook. 
 Whv thev imaoine or seem to imagine that tlie author of a 
 book is providentially rendered infallible is not easily under- 
 stood. I simply allude to the fact, and I allude to it at all 
 simply because I wish to point out the inference that thence 
 derives in the subject I am speaking about. These people, — 
 and they form a larger class of the population than or,o is 
 ready to adnnt at tiist sight,— have to be treated as children 
 are treated. Tf you put the wrong kind of historical novel in 
 their hands, you act as if you placed sw(!et poison where 
 children can reach it. You corrupt their minds perhaps for- 
 ever. 
 
 Now, if th(^ historical novel, and it is as a rule the least 
 noxious of all prose fictions, must be treated in this way: if you 
 must be guarded in making the selection of the book and of the 
 reader; if the dose, even for the strong, should be administered 
 
14 
 
 on homeopathic pi'inciplo.s ; I loavo yoursolves to <lraw the 
 conchision thnt Lcacs on iiovd icadinn^ indiscriinately. As T 
 said Im'Toic, tho mo,),] novel is a Itoon, a /^ift, a n-odsend ; but it 
 must li(> (jood lirrorc it is woriliy o[' (•oninitMidatioii ; and at 
 tlio same time tho novel oF evil tendency, tlie injudicious 
 dioico even of an otherwise passabl(! puldieation, is simply a 
 crime. It is neitlier ment.d food nor mental medicine. It is 
 venom to the blood and poison to the appetite. It comes Avith 
 an arid blast and creates a'pestdiouse. It devastates as it 
 difluses, and })asses like tho angel of death m-er tho hordes of 
 enemies that encamped around the Hebrevr capital. 
 
 Nearly akin is tho romance of chivalry, though older in 
 the order of time and loss fascinating, particularly to modern 
 society, in attraction. It conies nndway Ix.'tween the pure 
 legend of fable land and the historical novel. Wo learn from 
 "Don (^hiixote" that it was fai- from innocuous in its own 
 day, though perfectly liannless in ours. It is ditiicult for ns, 
 wlio have grown up under a dillerent system of civilization, 
 to understand how a work like " Amadis de (Janl '" coukl ever 
 liave found readers. .It is a recital of the incredible. It has 
 no verisimilitude, no plausibility. The events are impossible. 
 Its lieroes are not men, nor its heroines women. They do not 
 belong to earth. We never meet them anywhere, and if we 
 detect a touch of hiunan nature here and there, it is so trans- 
 foinied by the preternatural that it has lost neai'lv all its 
 earthly characteristics. The })ersonages are ghouls, giants or 
 uenii. The noblest character is larojelv a ma'deian. One 
 time all these were believed in, not alone by the populace but 
 also l)y tho leai'ned ; l)nt that time has passed awav, never 
 probably to return ; and we nnist not forget that if it was a 
 period of great crimes, it also was reddent of heroic virtues. 
 The romance, like the modern novel, did not always i'ovm 
 society as much as it imlieatod its character. It is therefore 
 useful, not directly, but indirectly, as from it we gain a view 
 very correct and perfect, as far as it goes, of the literary and 
 social condition of the reading populace. History, as usually 
 written, merely gives us a description of public events ; 
 

 15 
 
 cun-ent poetry and iiction of tho tiino "ive us an insiorht into 
 the miiKls of tlio actors. They lie fartlu-r back than history, 
 and make it iiitelli^-ililo. 'I'hcy sliow diivctly how certain 
 etiects ihnvt'd from (•(.rtnin causes in a specilied century, and 
 how in tlio sncceedin^f century tlie same causes, owin^,^ to tho 
 changes ell'ected in p()))ular sentiment in tho meantime, 
 necessarily produced eliecls of an entirtdy ditieront, and 
 perhaps of a contradictory kind. For tins reason tliey help 
 to show lunv far an historical event may ha a ])recedent useful 
 to repeat, or advisable to avoitl. They teach a valuable lesson 
 to fai'-seeing statesmen, but the lesson is frequently lost Avhen 
 they are connnitted to the critical judgment, such as it is, of 
 thu average citizen. The romance of the " Gay Troubadour," 
 taken at its best as it aitpears witlnn the lines in the pages of 
 Froissart, falls dead Hat on lli»! reading ])nblicof the nineteenth 
 century, but is a ndne of valualile wealth to the few men in a 
 country Avho si;e deeper than the outside. The descriptions of 
 tho '• Knights of King Arthur's lluund Taldo "' are as devoid 
 of popular indueiice and not nearly as readable as tho 
 '' Arabian Night's Entertainments," but they belong to a far 
 lugher order of thought. There is a moral in tho former, 
 which is not in the latter, Imt it is liuried so deep down 
 among conventional debris of every kind that one tires before 
 jirosecuting the search to a successful discover\-. 
 
 A\ hen 1 say that tlieie is a moral I do not Y^y any means 
 wish to convey the thought that every other work of fiction 
 should have a moral, under pain of inutility. This would bo 
 untrue. Books pi'odueed solely for the pui-pose of inculcating 
 a moral — as the word is usually und(;rstood — are generally 
 failures. Novels jvirticularly, pjrepared for tho pur[)oso, are 
 usually very transient in their grasp of the world of letters. 
 They may be highly successful as an attempt to destroy a 
 pernicious civic ov d.imestic system— an unjust fiscal law, a 
 state of slav(,'ry, an niimiitous poor law scheme ; but they 
 always fail to inci.lratt! a. system of ethics. They may 
 illustrate the operaticjn of a baneful code of legislation, or even 
 of a religious creed, but they can never sup})ly the i)lace of 
 the Ten Coniinandments. Tliey cannot add force to a scriptural 
 
16 
 
 belief ; tlicy cannot add weight to an evangelical dis({uisition ; 
 tliev cannot teach morality, though they can help to show the 
 bcuflieial con.se([uences of a moral life to jiersonal character. 
 They may be of assistance or they may he tlisastrous, but they 
 do not immediately attect l)eli';'f. They ijifhionce, they even 
 originate, action, but they do so through the passions, not 
 thnjiigh the intellect. But the medi.oval romance meets no 
 ix'spon.se in the modern imagination, hence it is inert, it fails 
 to find publishers for the million, and is read only by the few 
 Avho read for instruction's sake and not for the anmsement 
 that Ijeguiles the tedium of the hour. 
 
 I have alluded to it here to show two facts, — the one that 
 novels are not read for instruction's sake, the other that 
 novels vary with the habits of the people. Were these facts 
 otherwise, the mediiyval romance woidd be sought foi' with 
 as much avidity to day as it was in tlie tifteenth century; for, 
 considered on its literary merits alone, many of its specimens 
 are certainly far superior to the three volumed substitutes 
 which one meets in (svery private library that contains any 
 book other than a IVlaiuial for l^raver and a Biljlc. Indeed, von 
 find novels where you tind neither a Prayer Book nor a Bible ; 
 and in some places they are supplanting both the one and the 
 other. You lind novels where you look in vain for a scientific 
 worl<, or even for a newspaper. Everybody, speaking roughly, 
 reads novels : few read Instory ; and fewer still read science. 
 This cannot be a healthy fact, but it is a fact still, and an 
 apparentl}' unalterable fact at that. It cannot be 'pouh- 
 poohed out of existence. It can only l)c niodilied and con- 
 trolled. Xovel reading can be directed, but it cannot bo 
 abolished. No censorship of the press, that is possible or ever 
 will be possible, can put an end to the publication of novels, 
 for it cannot put an end to the demand for such reading 
 matter; and a demand so universal and persistent will create 
 a supply in spite of all the legislation of governments and the 
 thundering of pulpits. 
 
 Somewhat allied to the romance <:»f chivalry, and supplying 
 its place with the juvenile population of our day, is the 
 ordinary dime novel, which relates to the western America 
 
17 
 
 wilds, or to the dangers of the deep and tho glory to bo 
 M'ou thereon Ly tho bold adventurer. Pii'ates, buccaneers, 
 marine discoverers, rejiioto islands \vith hidden recesses 
 unknown to the ordinary navigator, dangerous yet possible 
 passages through tortuous channels atnid archipelagoes very 
 ditiei'cntly descriljed in our school text-books, are chiefly 
 the material out of which the thread of the narrative is 
 drawn. The lone wilderness, the al)original red man, super- 
 human feats of dexterity and endui-anco alternate with 
 the perils of ocean, and furnish the staple of which the 
 web of the storv is woven. This sort of fiction in its more 
 perfect, or rather its less imperfect shape, conies before us in 
 the works of Fenimore Cooper, and rise almost to respectability 
 in the volumes to which the writer owes the share of general 
 po})vdarity which he retained for over a quarter of a century, 
 though it is fast disappearing in more recent times. 
 
 But it is to productions intended for juvenile readers, and 
 by them regarded with much favor, that attention should 
 particularly be devoted. Those intended for older readers 
 have had their season of favor, and will not likely ever regain 
 the ground they have lost. Even if they do, no more injurious 
 consequences will usually follow than the mere loss of time 
 which will be taken by their perusal from better employment. 
 They were not calculated by incident, by character, by diction, 
 to excite moi'c than a passing emotion — a shadow that appears 
 for a moment to darken the landscape and then passes away 
 for evermore. 
 
 Different, however, is the boys' dime novel — not in this that 
 its effects are lasting, for they generally are not ; and the expe- 
 rience and sense that come with increasing years will almost 
 invariabl}^ destroy any fascination it exerts or any interest it 
 elicits. But youth is the springtime of life, as the hackneyed 
 truism has it, and time lost then from severer studies can never 
 be easily replaced. It is not only a blank, but it is a l>lank 
 that ought to be sown with profitable seed at the proper season. 
 There is no harvest if there has been no previous cultivation. 
 The soil lies without tillage even if it produce no fruit, or is not 
 deteriorated otherwise in value. The dime novel is thrown 
 
18 
 
 away as the 1)oy advances to manhood, it attracts no lonu^or ; 
 its t'flocts in this sense weie very transient inil(M'd, and wo 
 mi,L;lit suppose tliat tlie disadvanta^'e -was not of much 
 importance, hecanso it cured itself. Therein lies tlie mistake. 
 The evil positively effected in the boy's character is indctjcl 
 small, hut the benefits it deprived him of are of vnluo 
 immense. Before makin;L^ his acquaintance with real life 
 his mind has been filled with useless unrealities. While he 
 ought to be storing his mind with knowledge that avouM 
 be serviceable in after life to himself and others, he was 
 at best only squandering time. His mind was full 
 of adventurous projects, while it ought to l)e devoted to 
 arithmetic, to grammar, to catechism. The adventurous 
 projects vanish into thin air as soon as he mixes with the 
 sterner realities of life, but the evil does not end there. The 
 knowledge he should have gained is wanting, and he frequently 
 has an up-hill task all his life to gain, in the few leisui'o 
 moments left him from other avocationS; that amount of school 
 learning, so called, the acquisition of which, when he had 
 the opportunity, the dime novel rendered distasteful. 
 
 Is'othing should be taught in childhood and youth which 
 succeeding experience will not verify and strengthen. It is 
 lost labor at the least, and sometimes it is a worse calamity 
 than that. Exaggerated ideas of good itself, and of duty, and 
 of religion are perhaps even more dangerous than exaggerated 
 pictures of purely secular action. The tract which always 
 tells of naughty children that went-a-fishing on Sundays and 
 came to grief in consequence, by some visitation of heaveidy 
 punishment, that we do not find consistent with the ordinary 
 course of providential escapes this side the grave, may be 
 worse in its way than the story of the brave pirate who 
 protected the weak, while he made the strong walk the plank 
 from the ship's deck to eternity. Boys grow to be men, and 
 as they grow they discover that visible punishment does not 
 in this world always follow the evil-doer. They find, in fact, 
 that the contrary is the general rule. They see iniquity 
 thriving around them ; scheming of questionable honesty quite 
 successful ; Sunday-breakers as prosperous in business during 
 
19 
 
 the wock as oLscrvants. This is as contrary to the tfacliings 
 of tlic iiijiulicious teaching of tlieir earlier days as is actual 
 life to thu piratical deeds of the dime novel ; and as men 
 throw away the novel for ever, so too men are apt not 
 alone to repudiate the facts narrated in the religious ti'act but 
 also tlio higher and holier principles of religion which tho 
 tract was intended to inculcate. 
 
 The reli'dous novel, tiiereforo, has to bo iudj^cd with as 
 much care, and treated with as much rigor as any other novel 
 •whatever. When published expressly for Sunday-school 
 children it has to be selected with accurate discrimination. It 
 may seeni to do good just for the present ; but if it l)e an 
 exaggeration, if it be inconsistent witli older experience, if it 
 tend to proiluce Puritanism, it contains a germ that niay 
 subsequently bud into inditlerentism. 
 
 If I speak of it here, I speak in connection with the 
 abuses it may occasion. Far l)o it from mo to undervalue its 
 advantages, when it is properly composed and judiciously 
 introduced to general practice. It may be excessive in the 
 manner it estimates religious observances ; and errors come 
 by excess as well as by defect. It, too, is an appeal to the 
 imagination rather than to the reason ; and a])peals to the 
 imagination are peculiarly liable to abuse. A good cause alone 
 is not sufHcient, though it is necessary to justify such appeals. 
 There nuist be solid, enduring, obvious truth and fact under- 
 lying them, or they are not only transient in producing good 
 results, but also there may be a subsecpient reaction, which 
 will bring very permanent bad ones in its train. 
 
 Are we, therefore, to denounce all novels ? Are we there- 
 fore never to read one ? Does it follow from that, because 
 novels are usually dangerous, therefore, we should not read 
 them at all ? It does not. Everything dangerous is not to 
 be avoided simply because it is dangerous. There is danger 
 in going to sea, danger in mining under the earth, danger in 
 the use of tirearms, danger more or less in everything we do; 
 and yet we do it, and sometimes it is our duty to fear danger 
 and not to avoid it. Men whose position in life makes it 
 opportune to sometimes instruct others must read some 
 
20 
 
 novf'ls, or tlioy cannot fulfil thoir duties well. Men who mix 
 much in society must read novels, or they will find themsolvcs 
 actiiMlly unable to enter into f^eneral convei'satlon on many 
 suhjccts. If I had not read a j,M'eat many novels mysulF, and 
 if I had not watched closely their ett'ects on othei'.'-', j)articu- 
 larly on tlu! younj^ ; if I had not exanuned with some caro 
 into the difi'crent kinds and dillerent results produc(Ml, I 
 would not this nii,dit undertake to speak on the suhject. And 
 I n(nv say, as the fruit of experience which is not short, and 
 of investii,'ation which was not liurried, that while I yield tone 
 man, in dcnouncin^f the injudicious or hui'tful novel, I would 
 just as freely reconunend the Vjetter kinds. Were all the 
 works of 'J'hackoray or of Dickens in the hands of every 
 reader in my hearing — that is of this entire audience — I 
 would ap[)r()vo rather than find fault wiih the circumstance. 
 There are other works also, from the comic serial up to the 
 highest prose .pic, which receive all the commendation T can 
 give them ; for while they are perfectly innocuous as far as 
 the minds of the readers are concerned, they serve at the 
 same time to cheer a lonesome hour, to afford legitimate 
 relaxation fiom an overburden of work, to add to the stores of 
 such knowledge as one is the better of having acquired, and 
 as affords wholesome food for reflection every mnsive moment 
 of one's life afterwards. 
 
 AVhat is called the "society novel" is the best known, the 
 most frequently published, and by odds the most widely cir- 
 culated of all works of fiction. It embraces the very best 
 and the very worst of its kind. It sometimes rises almost to 
 genius, (and there is no reason but lack of ability in the 
 author, that it should not do so always) ; and it sometimes 
 descends to the veriest trash. The sultject is human nature, and 
 is tliereforo practically inexhaustible. It aims at delineating 
 character, as one meets it in the world. Now as two persons 
 were never formed perfectly alike in disposition any more than 
 in the features of the face, it will be seen that in views of life, the 
 novelist's theme are virtually infinite in number and variety. 
 
 History narrates actual events ; Romance narrates proba- 
 ble, possible events. In the abstract, therefore, there is no 
 
21 
 
 reason why the novel slioiihl l)e l.ss instructive or less useful 
 than tlio history. Truth in actual fact is the ohject of one ; 
 truth in the very siniilitude of fact is the ohject of the other. 
 One is real life ; the other is painted hut possil.le life. .lust, 
 therefore, as a painting' may he more; valuahle than the ohject 
 painted, and thouy;h the scene depicted may never havo 
 occurred exactly as depicted, so too may a novel Ijc valuable, 
 even more valuahle than actual fact. 
 
 However, all truth is nut always to bo told. We are 
 forbidden to tell falsehood at any time, or undei' any ])retext 
 whatever, even should the world he destroyed. Yet it docs 
 not tln^nco follow tliat we must describe every event that 
 happens in all its details. 'J'here are truths which it is 
 dan^'erous for children to know; there are facts which it is 
 judicious to conceal at times from the adult. The fault of 
 the novid frequently lics, not exaculy in telling a falsehood, 
 but precisely in telling a trutli that ought not to be discussed 
 in public, or read indiscriminately hy every member of tho 
 connnunity. Recent Parisian works of fiction— not excepting 
 those of Victor Hugo— sin hideously in this respect. I'hey 
 have contributed in a very marked manner to demorali/.o a 
 certain class of the population. Remember, it is the inferior 
 work of fiction, as a rule, that is the instrument of evil ; and 
 the more inferior it is, the more it is perused by its victims. 
 Herein lies an evil very diflicult to he dealt with. The ball- 
 room and the theatre furnish examples similar in more 
 respects than one. When they are respectable and patronize<l by 
 good people, I do not know that any ill results follow% I believe 
 not. The most virtuous and careful people in the land are 
 fre(iuenters ; members of the most exact families in the pro- 
 prieties of life are the patrons. I should simply slander, were 
 I to make a universal accusation. But at the same time, 
 when they degenerate they become dangerous in proportion 
 to the degeneracy. The classes that then frequent them are 
 deaf to admonition, and laugh at warning. So, too, with the 
 " society novel," which is evil. It is usually perused by parties 
 wdu) are not amenable to advice. It is read by persons who 
 may promise to select better reading, but who will not observe 
 

 22 
 
 that promise. It becomes a standing evil, against which all 
 that can be done is to warn the public — the strong minded 
 and the weak minded alike. The aid of legislation should be 
 evoked, as it is in effect practised against the professedly 
 obscene literature which is said to be circulating in some 
 quarters. All novels that describe matters — however truth- 
 fully — that are not fit subjects of indiscriminate reading, do 
 harm in the end — just as much harm, perhaps more than the 
 Reports of the Divorce cases, which some pandering newsj)aper 
 publishers have lately begun to furnish to their readers, ft is a 
 sad conunentary on our boasted civilization, that such news- 
 papers are paying a dividend to their proprietors; it proves that 
 the press has corrupted as w^ell as instructed the public mind. 
 
 Of course, I am alluding in these remarks to a very low 
 class of novel — common enoufjh in recent French litei'ature — 
 but fortunately, I believe, almost unheard of, outside of a few 
 largo cities, anywhere else. Nor do I mean professedly 
 imMioral or prurient works of fiction; for of these I do not 
 intend to speak at all ; — there is no sort of excuse for them, no 
 criticism, no treatment but burning ; — but I do mean " society 
 novels" of anv kind which devote themselves lariielv to an 
 account of such intrigues as end in a suit for conjugal sepai-ation. 
 The works of Charles Reade, which I see in somewhat wider 
 circulation, hover about the borders of the species which I 
 would here denounce. It is not alone such books as one would 
 be ashamed to read in public, — these, in fact, by their very 
 coarseness may be comparatively haimless. — that are to be 
 banisht}d, but all those whose perusal is simply calculated to 
 fill the mind with exaggerated, or false, or sensual ideas of the 
 solid duties of life. 
 
 It may be asked why the average " society novel " comes 
 under general condemnation. It is no answer to say that it 
 tends to incapacitate the reader from performing, as one 
 ought, the various useful labors which one's own good and the 
 interests of the community exact, for the question really is v:hy 
 it does so tend. There is no direct contradiction between the 
 reading of novels and the acquirement of the other knowledge 
 necessary to one's situation. This is theoretically true, and 
 
 

 23 
 
 yet it is not less true that there is a very marked antagonism 
 in actual practice. Our most important duties have reference 
 to religion r.nd morality. What has a novel to do with faith ? 
 At ihst sight it does not seem to have any connection, but yet 
 the connection is really intimate, and as unfavorable as it is 
 intimate. There are two elements which go to weaken faith, 
 and the same may be said of any other subject that has 
 reference to our psychological state. We can interpose some 
 opaque object between our eye and the beacon light which 
 shows us our path of duty, and if we do we lose sight of the 
 beacon and walk into the pit before us. Or we may wilfully 
 shut our eyes and travel on in the dark to encounter disaster. 
 The novel docs not act this way, it does not come directly 
 across the range of our vision, or it does not directly weigh 
 down the eyelids. But it also obcures the eye and makes it 
 dim. The beacon looms up before us, but looms up as if in a 
 mist. The object of vision does not disaj^pear altogether, it is 
 represented as if in a mirage. The very power of the visual 
 organ is thus modified for the worse. We fail to see the 
 articles of faith as ^yc saw them before, for the faculty has 
 become unfitted for healthy exercise in the requisite direction. 
 It is, as it were, diseased. Impressions are not made vividly 
 and do not present themselves with force. They are languid 
 and affect us in a laniiuishintif way. Hence, the avera^fe novel 
 hasalmost the same consequences on faith thatdirect skepticism 
 or incredulity would have ; and hence, too, it has these 
 consequences on our other ideas of right and of wrong all 
 through the ethical code. 
 
 When I speak of faith, of course I speak only by way of 
 illustration, for whatever weakens faith weakens other 
 virtues also, and makes the stern duties of life distasteful 
 and difficult. It does so in the same way and for the same 
 reason. Hence, again, you will argue that the proper way to 
 judge of any novel is not exactly to determine whether in its 
 pages you can find any single paragraph which taken by itself 
 is false, but whether, after a perusal of the whole book, one is 
 better fitted, more courageous, more willing, more happy to 
 undertake and jierform the various labors which arc incumbent 
 on one's situation in domestic or civic society. 
 
24 
 
 Novels, again, like all other writings, are to a considerable 
 extent autobiographical. The author reveals his own dispo- 
 sition when he delineates his heroes. Shakespeare is perhaps 
 alone in the world of letters from whose productions we can 
 deduce no knowledge of the authoi''s personal character. He 
 seems to have had no predominant passion. Other writers of 
 fiction are not possessed of the power of concealiug themselves. 
 Hence their peculiarities of personal disposition and tempera- 
 ment, as well as their mannerisms of diction pervade all their 
 works ; hence,again,it is often easy to decide the merits of novels 
 with considerable accuracy, by applying the maxims whicli vou 
 find by experience to be true of one work to other works by the 
 same author, even before these others arc read. I do not mean 
 that you can have a full, perfect knowledge of a book witliout 
 reading it carefully twice, or at least once, but I mean that of 
 novels which are danr^erous and oujjht to be avoided, even if 
 one such be known to be the production of any specified 
 author, you may feel certain that the remainder of his works 
 labors under the same blemish. He describes himself in the 
 book that justly deserves censure ; and it is simply because he 
 does so describe himself that it does deserve censure ; therefore 
 his other works also will be censureable because in them too he 
 will be describing himself. An historian may be impaitial 
 in one volume and partial in another, because the different 
 authorities he follows mislead him ; but tlie novelist who 
 evolves his entire production from within his own mind is 
 injudicious in all if he is faulty in any. Hence, again, works 
 like those of Charles Reade, and even of Ouida, (I do not 
 give the real name,) ought all to go overboard togetlier. 
 They are attractive, fascinating to some temperaments, 
 seemingly innocent, written even in the professed interests of 
 a high standard of morality, but they never did any good to 
 the reader. They may not have done positive harm that you 
 could lay your finger on, but they have blunted the moral 
 sensibilities none the less. While it may be necessary that 
 men of liberal education should read, they should never 'o 
 seen in youthful hands. 
 
^