But I have still
further to say, that I believe three-fourths of the novels in this day
are baneful and destructive to the last degree. A pure work of fiction
is history and poetry combined. It is a history of things around us,
with the licenses and the assumed names of poetry. The world can never
repay the debt which it owes to such fictitious writers as Hawthorne,
Mackenzie, and Landor and Hunt, and others whose names are familiar to
all. The follies of high life were never better exposed than by Miss
Edgeworth. The memories of the past were never more faithfully embalmed
than in the writings of Walter Scott. Cooper's novels are healthfully
redolent with the breath of the seaweed and the air of the American
forest. Charles Kingsley has smitten the morbidness of the world, and
led a great many to appreciate the poetry of sound health, strong
muscles, and fresh air. Thackeray did a grand work in caricaturing the
pretenders to gentility and high blood. Dickens has built his own
monument in his books, which are an everlasting plea for the poor and
the anathema of injustice. Now, I say books like these, read at right
times and read in right proportion with other books, can not help but be
ennobling and purifying. But, alas! for the loathsome and impure
literature that has come upon this country in the shape of novels like a
freshet overflowing all the banks of decency and common sense. They are
coming from some of the most celebrated publishing houses in the
country.
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