The handmaid did as she was told, looked at the title of the proposed volume, and blushed. She glanced over the few first lines, and her fears were confirmed. She saw that it was one of those trashy works, which were freely allowed to circulate, as St. Justin complained, though grossly immoral, and making light of all virtue; while every Christian writing was suppressed, or as much as possible discountenanced. She put down the book with a calm resolution, and said:
“Do not, my good mistress, ask me to read to you from that book. It is fit neither for me to recite, nor for you to hear.”
Fabiola was astonished. She had never heard, or even thought, of such a thing as restraint put upon her studies. What in our days would be looked upon as unfit for common perusal, formed part of current and fashionable literature. From Horace to Ausonius, all classical writers demonstrate this. And what rule of virtue could have made that reading seem indelicate, which only described by the pen a system of morals, which the pencil and the chisel made hourly familiar to every eye? Fabiola had no higher standard of right and wrong than the system under which she had been educated could give her.
“What possible harm can it do either of us?” she asked, smiling. “I have no doubt there are plenty of foul crimes and wicked actions described in the book; but it will not induce us to commit them. And, in the meantime, it is amusing to read them of others.”
“Would you yourself, for any consideration, do them?”
“Not for the world.”
“Yet, as you hear them read, their image must occupy your mind; as they amuse you, your thoughts must dwell upon them with pleasure.”
“Certainly. What then?”
“That image is foulness, that thought is wickedness.”
“How is that possible? Does not wickedness require an action, to have any existence?”