Moral Pieces, in Prose and Verse/Novel Reading
NOVEL READING.
READING is not only a pleasant recreation, but, under proper regulations, the best employment for our leisure hours. It becomes either salutary, or pernicious, according to the choice we make of our books, and the time we devote to them. It is possible to be dissipated even in reading good books; this however is so seldom the case with those of our age, that it is hardly an evil to be guarded against. But there is a kind of dissipation to which most young people are prone, extremely injurious in a variety of ways. That is the reading of novels, without limit as to number, or discretion in the choice. This is not only a waste of time which can never be recalled, but has the worst possible effects upon the mind, by unfitting it for every other kind of intellectual enjoyment. Youth is the season for the acquisition of knowledge, but whoever is much devoted to a love of works of fiction, will find it impossible to pursue, with any effect, such a course of study, as will enlighten her understanding, strengthen her mind, or amend her heart. On the contrary she will find her mind enervated, her wishes uncertain and contradictory, her temper capricious and whimsical, and her views of life so incorrect and extravagant, that in the world where it must still be her fate to live, she sees nothing but what is offensive, because it is unlike the visionary world she has formed in her own imagination. It is not from the reading of such works that we can expect to acquire that firmness of character, which is necessary for those, who hope to support, with dignity and submission, the sorrows, pains, and infirmities, to which we are all exposed. The precepts found in them are not generally those of wisdom, patience, or sobriety. They are much more apt to excite vanity, and prompt a desire to imitate some unnatural or inconsistent character. It must be acknowledged that these are not the characteristics of all novels; there are some, where feeling and fancy are made the vehicles of an excellent moral lesson, where at the same time that they warm the imagination, they mend the heart, and place the motives for great and good actions, in so strong a point of view, without extravagant, or unreasonable embellishment, as hardly to fail of leaving a good impression. But works of this description bear a small proportion to those which are tinctured with folly and vanity, whose characters, though dazzling, and placed in various attractive attitudes, are utterly unfit for imitation, and the admiration of which can only lead to mischief. Their principal attractions consist of endowments which imply no real merit, and they are usually under the influence of one single passion, wrought to such a pitch of extravagance, as in real life would he completely ridiculous. Reading of this kind is too apt to inspire an excessive love of admiration, and desire to possess personal beauty; and gives us such false notions of the world in which we are to perform our part, that the most respectable occupations, or duties of domestic life, become irksome and tedious.
We must not expect to realize the scenes with which we are so much delighted. This world is a state of trial, we must therefore expect pain; it is a state of probation and calls for the exercise of virtue; of imperfection, and we must look beyond it for purity and felicity. The knowledge of our own hearts is essential to respectability and happiness; the permitting ourselves to indulge in the visionary scenes of romance is unfavourable to self knowledge, and commmonly perfects us in nothing but giddiness and self conceit. If we have occasional recourse to works of fancy for amusement, let us do it but rarely, and select those works with care. At this season of our lives, there is no time to be lost in the acquirement of knowledge; a future opportunity may never be within our power, we should therefore bend our attention to such productions as will, while they convey useful knowledge, strengthen the mind, and mend the heart. And above all, let us prize that volume, which points the way to truth, and which speaks of mansions reserved for the faithful "incorruptible, undefiled, and that cannot fade away."