This is a plausible excuse for those who read only for amusement, and are willing to sacrifice reason, and the enlargement of their minds, to the gaudy phantom of a day; but it can never be satisfactory to the person, who wishes to combine utility with pleasure, and dignity with relaxation.
History improves the understanding, and furnishes a knowledge of human nature and human events, which may be useful as well as ornamental through life. “History,” says the late celebrated Gauganelli, “brings together all ages and all mankind in one point of view. Presenting a charming landscape to the mental eye, it gives colour to the thoughts, soul to the actions, and life to the dead; and brings them upon the stage of the world, as if they were again living; but with this difference, that it is not to flatter, but to judge them.”
The duties and avocations of our sex will not often admit of a close and connected course of reading. Yet a general knowledge of the necessary subjects may undoubtedly be gained even in our leisure hours; provided we bestow them not on works of mere taste and fancy, but on the perusal of books calculated to enrich the understanding with durable acquisitions.
The sincerest wishes for your health and happiness glow in the breast of your affectionate
MATILDA FIELDING.
To Miss MARIA WILLIAMS.
BOSTON.
MY DEAR MARIA,
Since I wrote you last, I have made an agreeable visit to my good friend Sylvia Star. After rambling in the fields and gardens till we were fatigued, we went into her brother’s library. He was in a studious attitude, but gave us a polite reception. We are come, Amintor, said I. Be so kind as to furnish us with some instructive page, which combines entertainment and utility; and while it informs the mind, delights the imagination. I am not happy enough to know your taste respecting books, said he; and therefore, may not make a proper selection. Here, however, is an author highly spoken of by a lady who has lately added to the number of literary publications; handing me Sterne’s Sentimental Journey. I closed and returned the book. You have, indeed, mistaken my taste, said I. Wit, blended with indelicacy, never meets my approbation. While the fancy is allured, and the passions awakened, by this pathetic humourist, the foundations of virtue are insidiously undermined, and modest dignity insensibly betrayed. Well, said he, smilingly, perhaps you are seriously inclined. If so, this volume of sermons may possibly please you. Still less, rejoined I. The serious mind must turn with disgust from the levity which pervades these discourses, and from the indecent flow of mirth and humour, which converts even the sacred writings, and the most solemn subjects of religion, into frolic and buffoonery. Since such is your opinion of this celebrated writer, said he, I will not insult your feelings by offering you his Tristram Shandy. But here is another wit, famous for his “purity.” Yes, said I, if obscene and vulgar ideas, if ill-natured remarks and filthy allusions by purity, Swift undoubtedly bears the palm from all his contemporaries. As far as grammatical correctness and simplicity of language can deserve the epithet, his advocates may enjoy their sentiments unmolested; but in any other sense of the word, he has certainly no claim to “purity.” I conceive his works, notwithstanding, to be much less pernicious in their tendency, than those of Sterne. They are not so enchanting in their nature, nor so subtle in their effects. In the one, the noxious insinuations of licentious wit are concealed under the artful blandishments of sympathetic sensibility; while we at once recoil from the rude assault which is made upon our delicacy, by the roughness and vulgarity of the other.
Choose then, said Amintor, for yourself. I availed myself of his offer, and soon fixed my eyes upon Dr. Belknap’s History of New Hampshire, and American Biography; both of which I have since read with the greatest satisfaction.