when he does not intend it, and his mind is intent on something besides, his thoughts and feelings cannot but make themselves manifest. We do not advise that a man should never read books that imply principles which he thinks to be false or dangerous. We only say that he should be aware of the fact that they are thus diffused; that they give character and tone to large classes of books; and most important of all, that they have no greater authority when insinuated by means of a book, whether it be history or tale, poem or book of travel, than when they are openly or insidiously uttered by the lips of a living

man.

CHAPTER VII.

THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF BOOKS AND READING.

THE READING OF FICTION.

WE are brought insensibly to a subject still more serious-the Moral Influence of Books and Reading. What is the question that presents itself? It cannot be whether books should be read of which the moral influence is evil. No man who seriously believes in right and wrong can give but one answer to this question. But the question is, What books are such? how can they be distinguished, described and classified? how can I be certain that a book which will be hurtful to another, will be injurious to myself? As a general answer to these inquiries, we can give no better rule than the following by Robert Southey: "Would you know whether the tendency of a book is good or evil, examine in what state of mind you lay it down. Has it induced you to suspect that that which you have been accustomed to think unlawful, may after all be innocent, and that that may be harmless, which you hitherto have been taught to think dangerous? Has it tended to make you dissatisfied and impatient under the control of others? and disposed you to relax in that self-government, without which both the laws of God and man tell us there can be no virtue and consequently no happiness? Has it attempted to abate your admiration and reverence for what is great and good, and to diminish in you the love of your country and your fellow-creatures? Has it addressed itself to your pride, your vanity, your selfishness, or any other of your evil propensities? Has it defiled the imag

ination with what is loathsome, and shocked the heart with what is monstrous? Has it disturbed the sense of right and wrong which the Creator has implanted in the human soul? If so-if you are conscious of all or of any of these effects—or if, having escaped from all, you have felt that such were the effects it was intended to produce, throw the book into the fire, young man, though it should have been the gift of a friend! Young lady, away with the whole set, though it should be the prominent furniture of a rosewood book-case !"-The Doctor.

These rules are uncompromising in their severity and strictness, but tolerant in their respect for individual freedom and discretion. They yield nothing to appetite and passion, however insidiously these may be addressed, or however tempting may be the allurements with which genius masks the temptations or palliates the consent to evil. They allow neither paltering nor parley with that which would mislead or offend. They stimulate the moral energies like a fresh and invigorating breeze. But they allow every one to judge for himself what may expose him to harm, and permit no one besides to judge for him or to rejudge his judgments. No larger liberty for the individual can be conceived of than that which these rules allow. With such rules, or rules so phrased, a very large class of critics, are not at all content. They would be more definite. They must name not only the books, but the classes of books which are always and only evil. Some denounce all light literature so-called, with a condemnation that is by no means light in the matter or the manner. Others reject everything that is fictitious, with a saving clause, that saves little or nothing that is worth preserving. Poetry, Novels, and the written Drama, and whatever addresses the imagination are labelled by such mentors as suspected or infected goods.

There is nothing which gives greater pleasure to the

friends of that literature which is really demoralizing, than such wholesale and indiscriminate attacks upon works of the imagination, especially if they are made from the pulpit or in the name of religion. Such persons know, that as they are uttered they are not true, and cannot be successfully defended. They know, moreover, that the rejection of what is false and excessive in them will destroy the good influence of what is true that those who make these attacks will be excluded from the field of literature in dishonor, and leave it free for their own exclusive occupation. The false issue made in the attack gives the amplest opportunity for a false issue in the defence. This issue they thus present: They do not defend the perversion of the imagination, not they! but only its innocent and healthy use; and thus under the name of the liberty of nature, they secure the sphere and influence of literature to the service of licentiousness. The motto prefixed to one of the most shameless poems of the present century, shows conclusively how an unfair attack suggests and justifies a skillful but unfair retort and defence: "Dost think because thou art virtuous that there shall be no more cakes and ale? Yes, and ginger shall be hot in the mouth." After this defence of harmless "cakes and ale," spiced a little, but with nothing hotter than "ginger," what does the writer do, but under this label send out to the world a poisonous and disgusting mixture of arsenic and assafœtida, in a poem, parts of which are fit only to be read or heard in a brothel !

This being but too just an account of the manner in which the question in respect to the moral influence of fictitious and imaginative literature is argued on both sides, it seems desirable that one or two suggestions should be offered towards its right determination.

We assert then first of all, that a book is not of necessity demoralizing, because it is fictitious or imaginative. The

imagination is an endowment from God, and as such is not to be dishonored or depreciated by the sneering or ignorant contempt of man. It is also one of the noblest human powers the power which in some of its aspects is nearest to the divine, and as such is capable of the most exalted uses, and of an influence for good which cannot be computed. Of its products in literature Lord Bacon says: "The use of this feigned history has been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points, wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul. Therefore because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical, because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed providence: because true history representeth actions and events more ordinary and less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth them with more rareness and more unexpected and alternate variation: so it appeareth that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and delectation. And, therefore, it was ever thought to bear some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind, whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things."-On the Advancement of Learning. If Lord Bacon is right then there is nothing in the nature of a work as fictitious which makes it either immoral or of immoral tendency. It is no argument against a book, to say that it is a novel or poem, nor does the fact that it is.a novel or poem show that it is less favorable to morality or even to religion, than to say that it is a collection of homilies or sermons. All appeals and indiscriminate assertions