The difference between a good novel and a bad novel.—The world is being flooded with novels, good and bad. They are very popular because they are light reading and appeal to the social nature. Their authors write largely about courtship and marriage. Some of these books are good and some dangerously bad. A good novel is one that is high in literary and moral tone, true to life and gives one a natural and true idea of noble manhood and pure womanhood; of their social relations in courtship, marriage and parentage. A good novel can be read by a girl to her parents or before a company of young people without embarrassment. A bad novel is one that is either highly sensational, intensely romantic, untrue to life, tainted with immorality, or in some way gives one a perverted vision of all the sacred relations of life. A novel that a girl would be ashamed to read before her parents, or a group of friends, belongs to that class of literature that should be tabooed.
The effects of the vicious novel.—If the girl reads the questionable or vicious novels, fancies them, admires their heroes and heroines, and in her mind condones their indiscretions, excuses their sins,—as the author does,—the influence cannot be otherwise than bad. Such novels must give an unnatural tone to her thoughts, feelings and sentiments. Cause and effect are always inseparably related. The outward life is the enfolding of the inner life of feelings, sentiments and emotions. This inner life is affected by what we read. If a girl delights in reading novels that condone, excuse, or advocate a girl receiving caresses, kisses and keeping late hours at night with a beau, she will not likely greet her prince at the marriage altar with the rare queenly gift of unkissed lips. If she delights to read the novels whose heroine was angelic in all things, except in the insignificant item of personal purity, she too will be in danger of lacking that same element of character when she marries, should she be so fortunate as to become a wife. If she delights in reading novels, whose married heroines lived “double lives,” she too, one day may be guilty of imitating the heroines she worshiped.
Novels which are untrue to life, tainted with immorality, certainly account for many girls going astray, many who overtrust their lovers, and many uncongenial marriages and many divorces. The title of a novel usually indicates its contents. Novels with sensational titles or titles suggesting unnatural and immoral thoughts, appealing to the morbid and baser feelings should be avoided.
How to direct and conserve the creative life.—This new life, the sex life of a girl, if rightly retained and directed will give strength, health, beauty and perfection of the body; alertness, strength and brilliancy of every faculty of the mind and power of the soul. The sex life is three-fold in its nature, being related to the physical, mental and soul life.
It is a law of human biology that the direction of this energy is very largely under the direction of the mind. If one desires bodily development and will take regular and systematic physical training, this energy can be built into the muscles giving them the body of an athlete. If one desires intellectual development and will regularly and systematically exercise every faculty of the mind, this energy will be directed to the brain, resulting in intellectual brilliancy. The same law applies with equal force to the development of the feelings, sentiments and emotions of the moral nature. If we take normal physical, mental and moral exercise, this energy will be conserved in the blood, which is the life, and directed so as to produce a perfect development. Sin alone has brought conflict and inharmony into our three-fold nature and prevents perfect happiness and perfect development. This is an appalling fact. We are hereditarily degenerate. God’s grace and the right exercise of the will in relation to perfect self-control are necessary conditions of individual and race improvement. If lascivious thoughts are allowed control of the will, this creative life will be misdirected, the generative system will become abnormal, resulting in sexual weakness and depriving the entire being of the benefits of this energy.
The relation of reading to the disposition of the sex life.—A fondness for reading highly romantic, intensely sensational, untrue and immoral novels is abnormal and lead to a misdirection of this creative life. There is the romantic element in our nature which should be developed, but it should not be over-developed. We should have a balanced development. The degenerate elements in our nature, inherited or acquired, should be suppressed and eliminated. The vicious novel increases the creation of the sex life and at the same time misdirects it. This intensifies our degeneracy.
Reading good literature, facts or fiction, or both, is normal and leads to a natural generation of and distribution of this energy. Girls should read a general line of good literature. The romantic nature is especially active in youth. It is for this reason that the youth is inclined to read only fiction. If in young life we would develop properly, we should choose a general line of reading, embracing some of the standard books of fiction, history, travel, poetry, biography, essays and religion.
Advice concerning books.—Every young person should possess some good books of his own, even if but few. They should read good books. Time is too valuable to be wasted in reading bad or even mediocre books. In this way they keep company with the great men and women of this day and of the past. In this way they become heirs to the intellectual and spiritual wealth of the past and are intimately associated with and related to the mental and spiritual aristocracy of the present. They may not be recognized in their community as belonging to the “upper tens,” but they can keep company with the best men and women of the ages by reading good books.
Just as we have read and talked together about good books and stories in the past, so I trust we shall find it pleasant and profitable to be companionable in our reading in the future. I will be glad to aid you in the selection of such books and magazines as will be pleasant and profitable for you to read in the near future. I will always appreciate the privilege of hearing you read a book that you like, of discussing the merits of a book with you, or of giving you the best advice that I am capable of giving with reference to any book that you may desire to read.