Arabella, who had for some time listened with a wish to interrupt him, now took advantage of a short pause. I cannot imagine, sir, said she, that you intend to deceive me, and therefore I am inclined to believe that you are yourself mistaken, and that your application to learning has hindered you from that acquaintance with the world in which these authors excelled. I have not long conversed in public, yet I have found that life is subject to many accidents. Do you count my late escape for nothing? Is it to be numbered among daily and cursory transactions, that a woman flies from a ravisher into a rapid stream?
You must not, madam, said the doctor, urge as an argument the fact which is at present the subject of dispute.
Arabella blushing at the absurdity she had been guilty of, and not attempting any subterfuge or excuse, the doctor found himself at liberty to proceed:
You must not imagine, madam, continued he, that I intend to arrogate any superiority, when I observe that your ladyship must suffer me to decide, in some measure authoritatively, whether life is truly described in those books; the likeness of a picture can only be determined by a knowledge of the original. You have yet had little opportunity of knowing the ways of mankind, which cannot be learned but from experience, and of which the highest understanding, and the lowest, must enter the world in equal ignorance. I have lived long in a public character, and have thought it my duty to study those whom I have undertaken to admonish or instruct. I have never been so rich as to affright men into disguise and concealment, nor so poor as to be kept at a distance too great for accurate observation. I therefore presume to tell your ladyship, with great confidence, that your writers have instituted a world of their own, and that nothing is more different from a human being, than heroes or heroines.
I am afraid, sir, said Arabella, that the difference is not in favour of the present world.
That, madam, answered he, your own penetration will enable you to judge when it shall have made you equally acquainted with both: I have no desire to determine a question, the solution of which will give so little pleasure to purity and benevolence.
The silence of a man who loves to praise is a censure sufficiently severe, said the lady. May it never happen that you should be unwilling to mention the name of Arabella. I hope wherever corruption prevails in the world, to live in it with virtue; or, if I find myself too much endangered, to retire from it with innocence. But if you can say so little in commendation of mankind, how will you prove these histories to be vicious, which, if they do not describe real life, give us an idea of a better race of beings than now inhabit the world.
It is of little importance, madam, replied the doctor, to decide whether in the real or fictitious life most wickedness is to be found. Books ought to supply an antidote to example, and if we retire to a contemplation of crimes, and continue in our closets to inflame our passions, at what time must we rectify our words, or purify our hearts? The immediate tendency of these books, which your ladyship must allow me to mention with some severity, is to give new fire to the passions of revenge and love; two passions which, even without such powerful auxiliaries, it is one of the severest labours of reason and piety to suppress, and which yet must be suppressed if we hope to be approved in the sight of the only Being, whose approbation can make us happy. I am afraid your ladyship will think me too serious.
I have already learned too much from you, said Arabella, to presume to instruct you, yet suffer me to caution you never to dishonour your sacred office by the lowliness of apologies.
Then let me again observe, resumed he, that these books soften the heart to love, and harden it to murder. That they teach women to exact vengeance, and men to execute it; teach women to expect not only worship, but the dreadful worship of human sacrifices. Every page of these volumes is filled with such extravagance of praise, and expressions of obedience, as one human being ought not to hear from another; or with accounts of battles, in which thousands are slaughtered for no other purpose than to gain a smile from the haughty beauty, who sits a calm spectatress of the ruin and desolation, bloodshed and misery, incited by herself.